Hollow Knight is all-time top 5 for me.

I know a bunch of people in these forums have lamented the lack of hollow Knight attention on this website but I'm gonna add to their voices because they're right. This is unequivocally the best metroidvania I've ever played. It is so damn good that it blows Ori out of the water. And Ori was my game of they year for 2015. Please, someone on the GB staff play through this game so it's at least some part of the conversation during game of the year. (Rory's complaints about the map are easily addressed by an item that you get within the first hour, btw)

Yeah it would be cool to have someone on staff who was seriously voting for this game to be GOTY. From the Quick Look it seems Alex was really digging the games style and atmosphere, but I think his general lack of interest in metroidvanias prevented him from playing through it. I was surprised to hear Dan not getting into it considering his love for metroidvania games. To be fair though it has a pretty slow start.

I finished 100% very recently after 40 something hours. I'm thinking about going back for the speedrun achievements. I don't even care about achievements, I just want a reason to play some more despite it already being my most played normal game in a long time. Really hoping for more platforming DLC at some point. The biggest thing holding me back from replaying the game is actually having to go back to starting movement only for a bit. I'm hoping when they drop the final DLC they do a Hollow Knight Definitive Edition or something and get a big market resurgence, though the DLCs are free so it sort of doesn't make sense to do that.

Why play Hollow Knight when you can keep playing PUBG over and over again. Not to sound too bitter, people should play what they enjoy, but it's so perplexing that so many great games have come out recently and the one the staff gravitated towards the most is a Day Z offshoot.

Does it really matter if they didn't vibe with it that much? You can't force people to appreciate something. Just enjoy and spread the good word of mouth yourself, if you are so inclined. I know I will pick this up at some point.

I loved the game...at first but the lack of an easier way to get to the hub and spend my 'souls' just knocked the wind out my sails. Also didnt like the map system at all, even though it was done in a cool looking way. Too much back tracking for me i guess, i don't think the dark souls currency type thing was done well in this game. I dont know maybe i will try and get back to it again.

@tortoise: Well a byproduct of having the staff speak to the merits of a game during the GOTY discussion is that they act as a megaphone for the game. Having the guys play something on a UPF or talk about it at GOTY gets more ears, than a simple forum post ever could.

It isn't unique to Giant Bomb, this game hasn't gotten the attention it deserves since it came out. Sometimes that just happens, no matter how amazing a game is, could be the greatest game ever created, doesn't matter. If something isn't being marketed or given a platform to really get peoples attention, it slips under the rug unnoticed.

Sometimes things just don't gel with a mess audience either. I really enjoyed that small game Deadlight but each time it's brought up on the Bombcast everyone is extremely down about it and I have no idea why because it is a very striking game at times and has some pretty good gameplay - opinions and all that I guess.

I too would put this in my top 5. It's quite nearly flawless, but I think Dan bounced off it right away and Alex played enough to do a quick look and not much more. If two editors don't click with a game it's just not going to get a ton of coverage on the site. A shame to be certain, especially after so many on the site went gaga for Axiom Verge, but I understand it. There are too many 2D platformers and I'm sure they all have their fans.

I also feel like they're putting out more content than ever before. So while I love Hollow Knight and would love to see more love for it here, let's not blame one really captivating game for lack of content on one single other game.

@crazybagman: I'm not blaming it as much as I'm honestly stunned by how mesmerized they are by it to the point where they've made it into a weekly feature when in the past pleas for a similar type of show with other beloved games on this website had gone completely unanswered. Of course like I said, let people play what they want - GB is in part the site that it is today because, sometimes for better sometimes for worse, they've largely followed their own path without giving in to pressure on what type of content to put out.

Bought it, keep meaning to get deeper into it. I'm currently dabbling in Mad Max. Lol.

@humanity said:

Yeeeaaaa.. I'm thinking PUBG is going to be this years Mario Maker in GOTY discussion for me. I get that Battle Royale is a neat concept, I was into PUBG for like a week, played a little with my friend and then moved on. I've seen all this Twitch footage of King of the Kill before so the idea of it wasn't anything special or new to me. Feel like there are much more interesting games out there that should be getting played in prep for GOTY. Or.. do some other weekly show that is more interesting (jeff mentioned thinking about going back and playing RTS campaigns.. PERFECT idea)

Anywaaaay.. website doesn't revolve around me so I just don't watch the stuff I don't care for.

@seikenfreak: Same here. As someone that used to consume all GB content the second it got released it's a bit of a bummer that lately I've been skipping entire shows and skimming through others like UPF, but like you said, it's not just about me and I see plenty of people in the comments showing love so there are fans. All I have to do is simply not watch it, so no big deal, not everything is made for everyone.

Is there a Switch release date yet? I'm looking forward to playing it at some point, but I want all indie games on the Switch now.

I'm waiting for the Switch version as well. It's a game I'd love to play on the go.

Ok now you've got my attention. Ori was really special.

I've resolved to wait for the Switch release before I pick it up. Super psyched to get around to it!

I've played a lot of Metroidvanias and I'd have to agree. It's one of my all-time favorite platformers, at the very least.

I didn't find it that great.

I only played a few hours of it, but nothing about it in that few hours seemed exceptional. I do plan on playing more of it, but I don't feel particularly compelled to. How does it blow Ori out of the water? Storywise, that's as simple as writing something without a stupid ending and an overly sentimental beginning and middle, but if we're talking about how well the game controls or how well the levels are laid out, I don't believe you.

To the Giantbomb crew, if nothing exceptional happens in the first few hours, they probably move on because they have so much to go through. The art style and animation is immediately exceptional, sure, but it also seems like a style that would appeal to Alex more than anyone else and he mentioned somewhere recently that Metroidvanias weren't really his thing. Playerunknown's Battlegrounds has been mentioned a few times in this thread and that game is immediately exceptional, especially if you've never paid attention to the previous ARMA mods that made that game possible. It's also a pretty good vehicle for entertainment, whereas Hollow Knight is kinda something you have to play yourself. Unless they want to do a Let's Play of it, I don't see how they could really incorporate Hollow Knight anymore than they already have.

I tried it for 15 minutes and solely because I'm a peasant and played it on an old Mac, I couldn't play it due to some major framerate issues. I'm sure the game is quite good, I just need a system that can run Hollow Knight properly.

I really like Hollow Knight but personally I don't think it "blows Ori out of the water". What I think it excels at though is presenting a much more interesting world full of different NPCs, some of which have backstories you can uncover throughout the game, and a sense of mystery when it comes to exploring the world. There are secrets and side quests you can find in Hollow Knight that are not just as simple as "let me open up my map and look at what sections I have not yet fully explored".

Also worth noting is that Hollow Knight is a 30-40+ hour game. It's not a 7+ hour game like Ori. It's going to be a slower start but really there is a lot more to the game than you see in the first few hours.

Hollow Knight needs to come out on consoles, don't understand why it isn't. Well, beyond what a small developing team (I suppose) can do, to be fair.

I bought it, and intend to play it. But right now I am playing, uhm...another game. And I already feel bad because I haven't gotten back to Prey, though there is a reason of sorts there, concerning the plot. Prey did too good of a job putting me in a bind, story-wise.

While I haven't technically fully finished the game yet - i.e. 98% completion without beating the true final boss and the third trial - and I've only played a handful of metroidvanias before it, Hollow Knight certainly would earn a right to garner more attention wherever it may find its intended audience that is more than likely to enjoy the game's atmospheric world, brilliant audiovisual design, tight gameplay, with some sympathetic characters thrown into the mix as well. Well, at least I did and am happy to have caught the bug for a few long days couple of weeks ago. The main story remains unclear to me even at this point, but the journey itself was or rather has been well worth the time (ca. 34 hours).

I think there's been too many really long big budge titles, so a really long indie metroidvania seems like exactly the kind of thing the staff would not want to touch. That and PUGB is one of those trains that comes out of nowhere and wreck everything. Hey, at least it'll still be cool to like Hollow Knight for a long time to come, while people will be bitching about all the things wrong with PUGB come this time next year.

Hollow Knight is currently sitting just outside of my top 5 for this year. I had a similar issue with Hollow Knight that I had with Axiom Verge where my obsessiveness got in the way of better enjoying the game. Every time I got a new traversal ability, I'd try it in as many places as possible instead of going to the likely entrance to the next area. Thus I spent a lot of time traversing the world and neither game has an ideal fast travel system - Hollow Knight's is fine (and I've heard in recent patches it's gotten more robust) but when I'm frustrated and just want to be in the next area, I want a little more. Axiom Verge was a much worse offender of this issue, albeit a very personal one.

That minor gripe wouldn't be enough to knock a game I very much enjoyed down my personal ranks. The much graver issue was constant missed inputs. Supposedly the reason for my jump or attack not registering was having V-Sync turned on - which I unfortunately found out after I had completed the game. But in a game where the main hook is precision action platforming, having anything settings-wise that causes completely dropped inputs is pretty inexcusable. I liked HK's style and the charm system, but didn't care about the story much - I'm knowingly being reductive here, but it's very Souls-like/Soulsian. So I needed the controls to be perfect, always. And they weren't.

I wish I had investigated the issue earlier, that's on me. Perhaps I would have relished my time with the game more if I had. But I can't trick my mind or memory to excise those control issues I had. Even with them, in a relatively strong year, it'll still likely fight for the back end of my top 10 list. (As OC and others have been comparing it to Ori, my baseline enjoyment for Hollow Knight was a bit better, but the highs of Ori were much higher than anything I experienced in Hollow Knight.)

So funny coincidence that I see this post today. I bought Hollow Knight during the summer sale and for some reason I was under the impression this was more of a platformer than a brawler (or whatever you'd call it). I thought the platforming was terrible and the enemies were too easy. But then yesterday I spent a lot more time playing it and realized its way more of a brawler than a platformer, the platforms are more a means to an end, and that the controls are designed more for the fighting than for the platforming. It all started to come together more and was enjoyable once I contextualized it more.

If we're comparing it to Ori then I'd have to go Ori. But Ori is more of the type of game that I thought Hollow Knight was going to be. Ori is a REALLY good platformer with less emphasis on the combat. Whereas Hollow Knight is a platformer with less emphasis on the platforming.

I'm still amazed that so many people passed by Hollow Knight. That game is incredible and most of the complaints I've seen are completely irrelevant after the first 5 hours or so. I played through Ori immediately after and I think Hollow Knight is a better game in every way. I blew through Ori on hard, 100% in 12 hours and was shocked when it suddenly ended after the third dungeon. The most intricate secret in Ori is the most basic in Hollow Knight. I check YouTube every few weeks and people are still discovering hidden areas in Hollow Knight 6 months later. I also thought the story in Ori was nonsense and the combat was awful. You can kill every enemy in 3 hits with the slam move which has insane range. I did think the movement in Ori was very fluid and felt really good but then the game ends and it never reaches the same kind of challenge than the White Palace.

It's on my to play list but I might wait for when I get the switch.

Oh damn, I assumed it was on consoles without even looking it up, that explains a lot. I hope they're working on that because it's a perfect controller game as well.