I thought that rather than playing a new game (when I’m trying to explore and not really think to hard about what’s making the experience good or bad), that I’d re-play a game I know well for this task. Hollow Knight was the first real digital game I ever played. I was immediately drawn in by the visuals and the musical score. As a non-gamer, those more traditional elements of entertainment made it feel more accessible even though once the gameplay began it soon became apparent that the nature of the metroidvania Souls-like game genre Hollow Knight belongs to was very challenging. I was frustrated by the difficult platforming sections and the repetitive nature of dying often in boss challenges and having to find my way back to them again from the last save point. What kept me going was the feeling I had when I discovered a new environment on the map, or a new secret. In this re-play, what I want to know more about is: how do my choices affect how I experience the map, why some of the challenges are so ‘challenging’, and which moments still feel revelatory in the 2nd playthrough and why.

The opening sequence:

I forgot how long the intro cinematic is for Hollow Knight. The game doesn’t have a lot of cut-scenes or cinematics where the game takes back control from you which I like because it doesn’t break the connection you have to the player character. After the longer cinematic intro, you are introduced to the first environment on the map which is a short intro to the exploration, enemy bug encounters and treasure hunting that make up most of the gameplay interactions. I already like it - I like wandering around through the tunnels. There’s something about the network of linear tunnels and platforms that is somehow striking a balance between controlling player choices and also allowing enough meaningful choices that you feel sufficiently autonomous. I’m choosing in this part to explore, when I could also by-pass this section to the first main part of the map. I remember last time I was worried about doing something wrong so I didn’t explore, I just went straight into the main gameplay. There’s not much here, but I do find a charm and get my first game money (called geo), and realize something about the health resource. Charms, health and geo are important resources. They are not particularly scarce at first but they are increasingly difficult to manage as gameplay proceeds. Health (here conceptualized as soul) and geo can both be gained by killing enemy bugs which I first encounter here.

I continue along the linear path to an opening in the wall. The character takes a stomach-flipping plummet to the bottom of a cliff. You have no choice but to fall and it’s still a bit shocking even though I knew it was coming. I think it has something to do with the gravity with which you hit the ground. You are a very small creature character but you have a lot of density and land heavily whenever you fall. I forgot about that.

I keep walking to the right and end up in the first important part of the map, ‘Dirtmouth’. Here, you see your first bench. Benches are sprinkled throughout the map and provide a place to rest and regenerate lives. Lives are another resource that are scarce and useful (Fullerton, 2014). They get less scarce as you keep playing but for now, I only have 5. Benches are also save points and places for the map to get filled in. I sit here and get my first life regeneration and indication of the map feature (it doesn’t get filled in - I need to add the pen to my inventory first). I can also view my inventory of charms and other items, and load up my charms onto charm notches (another scarce resource that limit how many charms I can use at once). I hop off the bench and keep heading right. I can see that there will be buildings to enter eventually, but for now they are shut.

I find a hole in the ground that looks like an old well. I hop down and land with another resounding thunk. I cant get over the sensation of landing. The sound effect and way the screen shudders when you land are really realistic. Now, I’m in the next map area, ‘Forgotten Crossroads’. This is really where I learn that this game is a platformer as well as focusing on exploration and combat. I move left now and jump from stone block to stone block until the playfield opens up into a chamber with tiers of metal ledges. The enemy bugs crawl around and some fly. I should either avoid them or kill them as a leap from ledge to ledge. I know I keep saying this. But the sound effects are so good. I don’t think I realized that before. This platforming section isn’t so hard. I easily navigate around and realize there are a few routes to the left of the chamber that I can’t pass through yet. I can only go to the bottom. I do and hear a humming from below.

I follow the sound and meet Cornifer the Mapmaker for the first time. I have to exchange my geo for a map of the area. If I don’t have enough geo, I need to go pass through the chamber again since each time I kill an enemy bug I gain both more geo and more soul. I have enough geo and exchange it for my first map. Cornifer tells me that his wife has set up a shop in Dirtmouth for useful things and that I should visit. I go back up and get the pen for the map. Then, I decide to keep going so I can open up more of the playfield and get more geo.

Reflection:

I’ll end here for now, having learned so many gameplay basics in the first 10-15 minutes of gameplay. So far it’s clear that resources are more important than I initially realized. I remember hoarding geo and trying to keep 100% of my soul in my previous game but I definitely didn’t see how the game set up these systems or ‘rules’ of the world from the very beginning. Like scaffolding a lesson! I also think that the re-think of health as soul stands out to me both as a resource and as a narrative device since this is a dead world and I’m a kind of solid-bone-masked-ghost-shadow thing. It’s perfect! I also realized that charms are also resources (inventory) and I’m already blown away at the amount of design it must have taken to think through how each charm changes the gameplay, how each charm interacts with the other charms loaded simultaneously, and how different charm combinations can help in certain challenges. I know this in the very beginning of the game having received one charm so far, and seeing once I sat on the first bench, how many empty charm slots I have to fill.

Finally, the graphics, animation and visual effects, and sound effects/ score are as amazing as I remember. Maybe better because I’m paying more attention. Also, and as an aside, I realized something important in this second playthrough. I played this very safe the first time, following in a line where I thought I was supposed to go. I was new to gaming and I think I thought that games were more like life. There are moments where I was really anxious that I’d made an incorrect choice that it would prevent me from playing the game until the end. I didn’t understand that games like this are usually built not to be so zero-sum. There’s a way around, back, or through the game that makes it impossible to get permanently stuck or dead-ended. That is a profound shift in my mindset in this second game.

Picking up where I left off yesterday, I am now remembering some of the more annoying features of the game. The map is so big, and as I wander through the environment I can see areas I can’t get to yet because I’m lacking the power-up abilities to wall climb and double jump. It means I’ll need to traverse through these areas of the map again, maybe even more than one additional time, in order to access all of the areas on the map. Because enemies (standard ones, not bosses) regenerate after you leave an area, the repeated traversing means killing and re-killing the same enemies over again. Yes, that increases my soul, but I really hate going back and forth over the same area so often.

Moving on, I’m not going to write everything about each boss I encounter since the first few are kind of practice bosses. The False Knight and the Gruz Mother are the first two bosses and if played patiently, are easily defeated. The real highlights of this session are the new area I opened up, ‘Greenpath’ and the first meaningful boss both in terms of combat mechanics and narrative called, ‘Hornet’. Now, I remember Hornet very well from my first time through the game and I have been eagerly awaiting this boss fight. Why? Because last time I played, I nearly gave up at this stage because I couldn’t get past her. I am so excited to see if it’s easier now that I know more about gameplay generally, how to use my controller, and whether a second defeat of this boss will still feel satisfying.

Hornet (Lite)

I die on the first playthrough with Hornet. Typical. In Hollow Knight, when you die you wake up on the last bench that you sat on, then you need to locate your soul shadow and kill that in order to re-gain your geo and full soul capacity. I like this feature because it means you don’t automatically lose your geo resource if you die. I haven’t paid much attention to the Hollow Knight mechanics before so now I want to note down what I think makes Hornet such a difficult boss to defeat.

Hornet has four attacks: She can dash across the playfield (not the whole way - around 75% of the way), she can toss her needle weapon across the playfield (again around 75% of the way), she can dash diagonally, and she can lash out very quickly in the air creating a lethal halo of needle slashes around her. If you can dodge her dashes and throws, you have some time to heal up. You collect soul every time you hit her. You can also heal in between her phases. She gets faster after each phase and I think I ultimately counted four phases (but I was focusing so it could have been three). I died in the third phase at first because I got stuck in a loop of hits. I find that if I get hit once because I was too slow, I’ll continue to get hit because I’m a step behind Hornet. She is still so, so fun to play against. I love her sound effects and the level of challenge she poses. I defeat her the second time I fight against her, earning me a dash ability. Did it feel good? Yup.

Just briefly, the area where I found Hornet, Greenpath, offers a really special experience, too. The area is a stark contrast from Forgotten Crossroads. It is verdant and green, full of leaves and flowers. However, the leaves and flowers offer places for enemies to hide, and often, at the bottom of the playfield there are acid waters where you die in a dramatic sizzle if you fall in. Since the area has a load of platforming, I do tend to fall in every now and then, which is irritating after the first few times because it takes a second to dissolve and die completely. The best part of this area of the map is the musical score. It sincerely reflects the environment design so well and is really calming. I’m going to keep playing and then in my next entry I’ll compare my first attempts at Hornet to when I encounter her again later in the game, where she is vastly more ferocious and has new abiltities.

First, I’ll talk a bit about my gameplay choices so far and why I made them over other options offered by the mechanics. Then, I’ll compare my first experience with Hornet to my second.

The first time I played through the whole game, I followed a walkthrough document (one by ign.com). I didn’t know how to navigate the map, I didn’t want to get stuck, and I didn’t understand that if I got stuck, I’d still be able to play. So I did the safe thing and proceeded with a guide. I was disappointed with this strategy at the end though because nothing was a surprise. This time, I’m playing without a guide. Yes, I’ve played it before but I don’t remember where anything is really, or in what sequence items are found or bosses are defeated (it’s been 2 years). Therefore, I have been treating this experience like pure exploration. I’m slowly winding my way through the map rather than systematically getting what I need to win.

This approach has led to some challenges. I am slower to get through boss fights and I still don’t have all of my health capacity or charms. It has also led to some amazing discoveries. The secrets are really secrets. I’m genuinely surprised when I find them. I’ve also found new ways to access some parts of the map. I’m paying way more attention to the environment and finding little subtleties connecting area themes and discrepancies that might mean a secret. It is so much more satisfying and rich. I’m also spending more time with the NPCs. You don’t really have to do that to move forward in the game, and I definitely didn’t the first time. My favorite NPC is Quirrel. He has very thoughtful things to say and you meet him a few times throughout the map.

Onto the Hornet Sentinel. I’m going to confess that I played a lot of the game without writing in the journal, mainly because I have been preparing for the Field Notes assignment and so I wanted to focus my analysis here on one specific boss fight for my third entry. I have opened seven new areas of the map (this place is massive), and two new key abilities - the wall climb and the double jump. I also have three new charms that I’ll be using in my second Hornet fight. I want to emphasize that I haven’t looked any of this up, and I can’t remember Hornet’s new abilities in her second iteration so I’m not stacking my charms in my favor in advance. I’m using the same set up I used in my last few boss encounters. The charms I have equipped are the quick focus for faster healing, grubsong for increased soul when hitting enemies, and my mark of pride which extends the reach of my nail. There is a way to play with magic spells powered up in charms but I’m choosing not to play that way because I wanted to improve my combat with the nail, not use magic.

Hornet (Sentinel):

Hornet’s new abilities in this more advanced fight are only apparent in the second phase of the fight. The first phase is the same as when you encounter her in Greenpath. In the second phase, she parries my character’s nail strikes so my hits deal no damage when she parries. I die early in the second phase because I tried blitz attacking her after a parry and I was punished by a vicious nail attack from Hornet that I didn’t expect. The strategy throughout all of this game’s bosses has so far been to be patient. Learn the pattern then wait for opportunities to attack. I try again and I get further into the second phase. Hornet speeds up and adds this spike covered web in the playfield that makes it hard to maneuver around. I get pinned in a corner and die again. Third time’s a charm right? Okay, I try again and this time I down pogo with my nail off of the spike obstacles and Hornet herself which seems to get around her parry. This is so much fun. I’m flying all over the screen and bouncing from spike cluster to spike cluster. I die once more before defeating Hornet.

But wait! The experience is not done. There is a dialogue with Hornet and then I go below the fight playfield and toward what I think is the end of this part of the map. I see a giant claw and pick up my reward: The King’s Brand. I pick it up (I totally forgot about this part), and the claw thing (which is maybe meant to be a shell?) shakes dramatically and crushes me as I try to leave. I am saved by Hornet and laid back in the safe area of Kingdom’s Edge. I think this whole thing is well-designed. The idea of defeating the same boss twice is a good one and makes the second win feel meaningful as you’ve established a certain rapport with the character. It’s a mechanic that is repeated in the game. You can battle with the same bosses in the dream world of the game and in Godhome at the end of the game but I remember just being annoyed by those combat experiences because there was no more environment to explore or platforming to overcome. They felt a bit cheap. I think the mechanic really only works with Hornet because you develop a relationship with her in your encounters.

So, here ends my comparison of these Hornet fights. I liked focusing my diary like this. it was fun to analyze the mechanics more deeply.