What's the /v/ consensus on Hollow Knight? Personally I'm

>>385490625
It was alright.

It didn't copy anything of note from Dark Souls apart from maybe the understated story, Dark Souls didn't remotely invent currency retrieval. And even then, Hollow Knight's shadow spawns are where you can actually fight it, so it's not like Shovel Knight's shit take.

My biggest complaint is that the movement/general upgrade and lack of alt weapons is rote as fuck. Something you've seen a billion times before. They should've pushed it way farther.

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>>385490625
>it has copied elements from Dark Souls without understanding why they exist
Dollars to donuts most of what you'd think up to defend this wouldn't be things originated by Dark Souls.

What did it copy from Dark Souls?

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Hey guys remember when Dark Souls literally invented literally everything under the literal sun?

>>385491253
the dark souls of persona games .. jesus fuck

>>385490821
I feel like Dark Souls is what popularized it though. There's also the obscurantist story, which actually goes a step beyond Dark Souls in my opinion. I had no clue what the character is even trying to do for the entire game.
>>385491253
>>385491460
Remember Pooh Souls?

>>385490865
Not OP, but the whole "Defeat these four guys who sealed away a dude to prolong a currently dying age--by the way, you're the chosen vessel to either take his place or end the cycle" handed to you in peicemeal segments from characters and item descriptions in a dying world is
well
exactly the first dark souls.

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>>385490625
It's ok.

>Music/Sounds
Music's decent and fits the mood and atmosphere, but nothing's memorable enough to listen to outside the game. Sound effects are pretty solid overall.

>Narrative
Decent. Good atmosphere and likable characters, though the overall plot is a little too disconnected from the gameplay to really draw you in outside of a few select boss fights. The plot itself is pretty by the numbers, to not give away too much.

>Art
Ok. Stylistically, it's like the flipside of an Edmund McMillen game. Where his games have cute characters and worlds that ultimately come across as gross, Hollow Knight has gross characters and worlds that ultimately come across as cute. It's not exactly original, but the art throughout the game is consistent, animations are fluid, and outlines are generally distinct to prevent any confusion.

>Gameplay
Kind of a mixed bag but it's still decent, though not exactly inventive in anyway.
Good controls
Solidly designed bosses
Standard ability progression
Ok level design
Meh customization
Poor mapping system

Overall, it's a decent game that doesn't really do anything new or even extraordinarily well, but it does most things more than competently and has a certain level of polish that other metroidvanias lack. It's major issue is that if you've ever played any other metroidvania, it'll feel as if you've played this game already. If it had even better level design, a not shitty mapping system, or anything really "unique", I'd probably recommend it to everybody but not call it a must play.

As is, it's a 6-7/10, and I'd really only recommend it to people who really want more metroidvanias after they've already played the staples.

OP, I think it's a fun game with far better presentation than most indie trash. The art and music quality is fairly high for what it is. This is where a lot of people stop and just go "Oh, great game" because it's what they see and hear and their experience isn't much deeper than that.

The enemy variety as well as build options once the game opens up was surprising. I was also not expecting the game to be as long as it was.

That said, there's tons of minor issues with the gameplay and certain element of the game's design that are annoying. It's hard to tell when you're sequence-breaking or if you legitimately can't get to some points, and the backtracking can be tedious, even for a metroidvania.

All in all, it's solid, but the actual gameplay lacks luster and the few great bits don't outshine the garbage.

>>385491959
>Defeat these four guys who sealed away a dude
Gwyn went to the kiln on his own. You only fight the lords because they have the souls necessary for the lordvessel, a bar set by Gwyn & Frampt or Frampt & Gwyndolin. The witches were too busy being demons or lamenting the fall of Izalith to care about anything, Nito never cared about anything but killing the dragons, and the 6 kings were too busy jerking each other off to care about anything.

>>385492489
You only fight the dreamers because they have the souls necessary for the egg, a bar set to meet the Hollow Knight.

The whole "This lord sacrificed himself to prolong a doomed age for his people, by the way, defeat some lords that were his contemporaries so you can get to him" schtick is exactly the same. You get the same reverence for these characters, with whole zones built for them, etc.

Is it me or is there a noticeable input delay when jumping? There's no delay when I attack with the nail, just jumping.

>>385492681
You don't even fight them though. It's more like they're tired of being Dreamers and know that the Radiance should be destroyed so they just give you what you want and send you along on your merry way.

>>385492489
You can nitpick individual character relationships, but the overall plot is very similar in both presentation and structure.

I wouldn't call it a shameless ripoff, but if you've played the one, you'll definitely draw parallels to the other.

A lot of people called Nioh a Dark Souls Clone when it's not nearly as similar in terms of plot structure and design.

>>385491959
I feel like most of this was more of an excuse of why we had the metroid like boss system.
>hey kill the big bads and you get to the biggest bads
>there is even a statue that updates with the kills just like metroid!

I can see why people compare it to Dark Souls, but you have to give Hollow Knight credit that it isn't a cheap ripoff like Salt and Sanctuary.

>>385492681
Allant, Gwyn, and Vendrick were all based on the forest king from KF4.

>>385492897
>Point out blatant nonsense involving major boss motivation and plot
>nitpick
And I guess everyone's just going to ignore that there were 4 archdemons that you were supposed to fight before false Allant.

It was pretty nice but I wish they had did more with the dream nail stuff.
Getting the inner monologue of each character is nice but I wish more that 3 bosses could be rematched in the dream as their "true" forms.
I also wish the hollow knight had a dream form for when he goes in, like he actually is the shadow/ghost form when he is in the dream.

>>385493859
Man I gotta get through King's Field/Shadow Tower/Eternal Ring.

Sold most of my crystal flasks in KF2 before getting to the Necromancer so maybe I'm just too retarded.

>>385493978
>It was pretty nice but I wish they had did more with the dream nail stuff.

They are tho, the first content pack adds Dream Nail travel.

In terms of Metroidvania gameplay, a lot of the power ups you collect don't really reward the exploration required. I rarely used the Up + B or Down + B in combat or most of the sword arts aside from the single charge attack. The black dash was good, though. I thought the game was pretty good, though. The game lulled in the middle for me but picked up after the 2nd hornet fight.

>>385494121
Yes but that's a decent amount of time after most people have finished playing and aren't going to go back for two bosses and a few world locations.
The more interesting content will be the Hornet Expansion and how they add to the combat/story with it.

>>385494015
I know your pain, they're a chore to get through. Be prepared for Eternal Ring to be awful and also make sure to find the Mr. Spooky Skeleton room in KF4, IIRC earlier games had it too but I'm pretty sure it wasn't as good.

Also it's kind of funny to find messages scribbled on walls blaming everything on the "Dark People."

>>385493859
>FROMSoft keeps remaking their own game, you know!

...so?
FROMSoft didn't make this game.
I'm saying that it's disappointing how much of this game's plot identity is simply borrowing from the FROMSoft model without contributing much new or interesting.

>>385490625
>copied elements from Dark Souls
>elements
>s
>plural
Only thing of Dark Souls I've seen in Hollow Knight is your stuff being left near where you died so you can reclaim it.
And to be honest, that's fun mechanic that is pretty easy to shove many games and if it fits, no shame in having it.

>>385494015
Shadow Tower is god awful.
The best part of that game is the broken multiplayer monster arena.

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>>385490625
I liked it, but nobody cares about that, so here's my laundry list of pedantic nitpicking
>the beginning (before you have dash/walljump) is way too slow
>map system is unintuitive for no good reason
>charm slots are too limited
>money becomes useless quickly
>tiny bit too long and drawn out

>>385494465
I hardly used the Down + B, but the Up + B is literally one of the best attacks in the game and absolutely hoses several of the more difficult boss encounters as well as flying enemies that can be hard to hit.

>>385492161
Can you elaborate on how the map system is shitty to you?

>>385494713
>Muh Dark Souls becomes muh FROMsoft model
>FROM is now the first dev to hide the big bad behind slightly less big bads
>4 bosses leading to the big bad is new & original because Majora's Mask only exists in my imagination

>>385490625
one of my top games of all time
the whole game, from the setting to the music to the gameplay, just clicked with me.

>>385495380
Fun fact - you don't actually fight the three less big bads

>>385494713
>lol you fight bosses in Hollow Knight therefore it has Dark Souls elements

>>385493405
You don't even fight the dreamers which was a huge letdown for me. You'd think there would be a fucking scary ass boss in the giant nest in Deepnest. Nope, jack shit.

>>385495536
Which only makes it sound less like Souls.

>>385496005
All you can come up with is just asspulls anyway.

>>385496005
That was my point. Hollow Knight uses souls narrative elements, but uses them exceptionally well - I don't know any other game that did souls narrative that good

>>385494840
Oh, yeah, I played it for a half hour and that hit-detection is pretty bad. Having to basically hump enemy legs. Not great.

Still, you know, may as well get through all of them. Substandard mechanical execution doesn't make me burst into flame.

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>>385496067
>Direct comparison of similar things from other games
>Asspulls

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>>385490625
>What's the /v/ consensus on Hollow Knight?
Not super amazing, but overall very solid, looking forward to the DLC.

>>385495821
There were enough bosses in between to make up for it, but it was still a letdown. The game's not perfect by any means but it's still a great game and one of the best this year for sure. I just wish they did a bit more, like add more weapons to change things up a bit. They could manage it with the charm system if they had to - like, .a one-slot charm that turns your sword into an axe that has longer reach and more damage, but a slower swing and recovery time, or a whip with lower damage but even longer range and shorter attack/recovery time.

>>385490625

It's probably one of my favorite Metroidvanias, including Metroid games.

While I think the genre is some decent fun and exploration, HK was one of the first ones where I was actually interested in the setting. It's just much more engaging when you're really learning about a place and what's going on, and crossing paths with other characters on their own journeys.

I'm sure there's some Metroidvania fans who would despise this kind of opinion, but an interesting setting makes exploring the world more fun than more movement options ever could.

Deceives you into thinking it's hard when in reality you can stomp ass when you learn the patterns after a few tries. Enemies end up just a hindrance since there's nothing to them. Tons of backtracking and walking between said tedious enemies that doesn't add difficulty, just boredom and artificially increases playtime. When you get upgrades and charms it ruins what challenge there was and going through it without them would just be a boring grind. I enjoyed the 40 hours I got out of it though.

>>385495380
Oh, I'm not saying that the GAMEPLAY structure of 'defeat lesser major bosses (in any order) so you can unlock the way to the final boss' is unique to the FROMSoft model or even that's the only thing being ripped off here. Stop moving goalposts.

I'm saying the the PLOT, in terms of STRUCTURE and PRESENTATION are very similar to DARK SOULS.

However, fags like
>>385495593
will over-simplify my statement and/or completely misrepresent it. Dunno why.

>>385491959
>"Defeat these four guys
You don't even defeat them, they break their seals once you ask them.

>you're the chosen vessel to either take his place or end the cycle
There is no cycle in HK.

>>385494925

Both of them are some of the most powerful moves in the game for certain, a caster build with Up+B destroys radiance.

Down+B gives you literal seconds of invulnerability, and makes any enemy utterly pathetic to fight.

>>385497019
There's definitely a cycle.
>king created a seal to hold the infection back
>seal fails
>hollow knight takes the infection into himself to keep it sealed again
>eventually, seal fails again
>you can either do as the last knight did and seal the infection inside yourself, fail, or destroy the infection at its source

>>385497307
None of the other hollows seem to have made it out of the pit. The second one solves the problem at it's root in the true ending.
Doesn't really qualify for a cycle.

>>385497771
Strike that, I'm retarded. One of the bosses is literally another hollow that made it out and there's multiple corpses identical to you.
I have no idea how that slipped my mind.

>>385497881
Along with the tutorial stones being set up so only the hollows can read them on their way back into Dirtmouth or whatever.

>>385497771
And in Dark Souls 1, it's not a fucking cycle yet either by the same fucking definition, because Gwyn is the first 'seal' that keeps the flame going.

God damn, sometimes I wonder if niggers on this board are all this dense when it comes to shit they don't understand/agree with.

>>385496881
What goalposts am I moving Anon? If you think I'm not addressing your point maybe go a little deeper than muh FROMsoft model and muh Dark Souls.

>>385497964
Yeah, then Chosen Undead links the fire and everything restarts. It's a cycle.

>>385498102
Just like how the player's Vessel takes in the Infection and everything restarts. It's a cycle.

>>385498208
Cycle is a very important concept in a soulslike narrative

>>385497996
I was always talking about the plot's structure and presentation borrowing heavily from Dark Souls.

You started arguing that other FROMSOFT games have similar structures, and then that other games have similar basic gameplay elements.

I'm not talking about basically gameplay constructions like "You defeat enemies and get rewards" or "You have to beat some minibosses before getting access to a final boss."

I'm talking about the plot.

>>385498274
Cycle is a huge part of Hollow Knight. Literally the entire plotline with Hornet has her wondering how you'll handle things in this cycle.

>>385498274
Not in Demon's Souls, Bloodborne, Dark Souls 1 or any of the King's Field.

It's only Dark 2 and 3 that pushed that to justify sequels to a closed narrative.

>>385492851
I thought the Watcher didn't want to end the dream.

>>385498436
Yes, because Hollow Knight uses soulslike narrative techniques.

>>385498631
>Dark Souls 1
>No cycle

It's the fucking beginning of the cycle, my man

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>>385497964

>And in Dark Souls 1, it's not a fucking cycle yet either by the same fucking definition, because Gwyn is the first 'seal' that keeps the flame going.

True, but with Gwyn the fire would inevitably fade again. There's no solution to the problem that doesn't require someone to gather up a bunch of souls to keep the fire going. If Dark Souls ended with the Chosen Undead somehow making the fire last forever, I wouldn't call it a cycle.

In Hollow Knight, you either;
A) Completely obliterate the problem, preventing a cycle from starting.
B) Seal the problem away, potentially forever. The Queen suggests that the original HK is flawed because it was an imperfect vessel, rather than vessels just needing to be replaced after a certain amount of time. If you are indeed a "perfect" vessel, then you could hold it forever, also ending the cycle before it could begin.

It's also possible that you're not a perfect vessel, in which case you would eventually need a replacement. But if you are, then everything just kind of happens once, not much a cycle.
Pale King shows up, bugs forget about the old light, Radiance doesn't like this and begins plaguing people's dreams and eventually their bodies, King makes a vessel to seal it away but the kingdom dies anyway, then you show up and either destroy the radiance or seal it.

The fact that there were many vessels (Like the one Hornet stands near in the first fight, or the Broken Vessel) just means that you're not the first to try to replace the Hollow Knight. But the act itself of replacing him isn't necessarily a cycle.

>>385498892
Not true. The next Chosen Undead replaces Gwyn and cycle continues.
Not in the dark lord ending, though, but sequels tell us that the canon ending of DS1 is Link The Fire ending

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>>385498357
>I was always talking about the plot's structure
>defeat these 4 guys who sealed away a dude
Again, that's not the plot of Dark Souls 1. Also the whole lost kingdom overrun with dangerous creatures and guarded by the undead remains of its former inhabitants thing had been done to death by 2000.

>>385498892
You actually forgot a possibility:
>Sealed Siblings
You need to awaken the Dreamer(s) to open the door and if the Dreamer is inside the Vessel, you can't open it under any circumstance unless the Dreamer dies. And if you're a damaged Vessel, that means the Radiance would win.

>>385498708
Dark Souls 1 implied that the cycle was inherently unsustainable. The first cycle had gwyn's soul satiate the Lord vessel. The second cycle had you kill the 4 strongest dudes in the world to recreate the strength gwyn's soul had in his prime. How many people do you have to kill in the next cycle? And in the next? Eventually you'd either have to kill an unfeasable number of weaklings or you'd run out of souls, which this world treats like a limited resource since this was before DS2 introduced reincarnation bullshit.

>>385498708
In the words of a comic book guy, "Statistically, one murder doesn't equal a trend."

Or in this case, one instance isn't a cycle. It's a story. A good one. Certainly not some half-baked plotpoint to justify sequels ad infinitum.

>>385499043
>>385499062
>Dark Souls 1 implied that the cycle was inherently unsustainable
Exactly. Flame will begin to fade again. And other people will have to kill the Chosen Undead, to rekindle the flame with their own power. Like in DS3. And in DS3 flame is almost dead - not even your character, who slain gods, can link it. It is the ending. DS1 had open ending, suitable for sequels.

Though, Firekeeper's Eyes ending implies that small embers still burn, so we will see DS4 like in 5 years or something.

>>385499034
That implies vessel isn't complete. The act of obtaining the void soul seems to complete the "flaw" the queen talks about and Hornet seems to be hinted at being at biological analog to the vessels void birth. This seems to mean that sealing the two away ends the radiance leaving the two both infected. Hornet without the void soul may go mad like the hollow knight and attack the ghost or kill herself opening the egg to release the Ghost, still infected but totally in control.

>>385498976

Right, the nature of the problem in DS1 makes it a cycle because it has no permanent solution; even if you keep the fire burning, it will eventually fade away. I'm saying that HK, unlike DaS, presents multiple potential permanent solutions to the problem. Killing the Radiance stops the infection, and if you are a perfect vessel then you can seal it forever.

I think you could argue that in HK you might not be taking part in a cycle, since the events of this cycle have yet to loop even once, and you can permanently stop it before they do.

>>385499582
Which means we might get a new game from these at least semi-talented dipshits instead of derivative sequels.

Yay.

>>385499582
As far as I understood the story - bad endings mean that the cycle will contintue, and our player character will became the next hollow knight. But in true ending the source of infection will die and the cycle will end.

>>385499330
>in control
That sounds like part of a plot of some anime or something where the main character has a demon that they can never let out inside of them.

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>>385491253
>the dark souls of fantasy rpgs

W-wouldnt that be dark souls?

>>385501596
Dark Souls isn't even an rpg lmao

So I'm going for the true ending and just got the last dreamer, do I go to white palace first or the hollow knight?

>>385501596
Dark Souls is Dark Souls of Dark Souls.

>>385501687
White Palace

>mfw my laptop is too shit for playing the game
>mfw my laptop gpu and cpu can-t be changed
FUCKING SHINYFAGS!

>>385501629
Splain

>>385501909
It's a dungeon crawler with no story whatsoever

>>385501736
To be fair, if both your CPU and GPU need to be changed you might as well get a new laptop anyway.

The only way that Hollow Knight's plot would be a cycle is if they twisted it to justify making a derivative sequel. But they're not Fromsoft so I don't think we have to worry about that happening.