After beating Animal Well earlier this may I decided to come back to my hollow knight playthrough i started years ago and finish it up, as it had been one of the longest games that had been on my backlog; being on there for at least 3-4 years.

Hollow knight is a really well made game but it has a few flaws that hold it back from being one of my personal favorites. My main issue with the game is less a direct thing, but mainly just the entire jelly fish area. I hated going through the area as it's purpose is to get players experienced with not having access to a map to a specific area for the majority of the game, as while it is the 3rd area you go to, you're only meant to go to the first 2 rooms to get to the queen station, so you can then go to the mushroom area which is the actual proper 3rd level of the game, as the rest of the area is meant to be returned to much later in the game, at around the 2 thirds-3 quarter mark of its runtime. I hated fighting the enemies in this area as the big jellyfish could easily kill you if you're not careful, and I found its gimmick to be really annoying and iffy. It's definitely what I feel like is the least polished area of this game and the part of the game I dread replaying the most.

However outside of that, this game has some of the most fun and well made levels and bosses I've experienced in a game. I've played a fair few of games similar to hollow knight in its approach to difficulty (that being challenging but fun gameplay that rewards player skill and perseverance), but one common problem with a lot of these games is that they choose to hone in and focus on either level or boss design, leaving the other aside as a second thought. For example: DMC 1 and Demon's Souls both put a heavy emphasis on their environments, but are lacking a lot in the boss department (with some exceptions of course, but not the rule). Comparatively, DS3, DMC3, and MGR:R have a heavy emphasis on making great and memorable boss encounters, but subsequently lack quality in their areas and environments (again with some exceptions, but in DS3's case especially the areas in the first half of that game suck ass to traverse through). However there are exceptions to this rule, resulting in some of my favorite games of all time, that being Elden Ring, and my tied favorite game of all time with TOTK, Dark Souls 1. Hollow knight manages to fit into this rule along with these phenomenal games, and the 9/10 rating I'm giving the game is frankly because while I did get AN ending to this game, my time with it is far from over. Compared to my 270+ hours in DS1 and my 170+ in Elden Ring, I only have a measly 26 hours in Hollow Knight as of writing this review. When I go back to this game to explore more of the endings, (and maybe do the really hard boss rush mode if I feel like it), along with the countless replays I can already see myself doing with this game, I am far from over with my time in it, and I can very easily see this game become one of my personal favorites of all time. However for the time being, it will just be among some of the great games I finally got around to beating this year.

Very excited for silk song now that I finally beat this game

While DS3 has undeniably some of the best bosses in the entire series, with particular highlights being in the late game and DLCs of this game, This game is held back by 3 main things:
1) the atmosphere. This might be the most depressing game I've ever played (maybe except for inside) because the colour pallete is just beige, grey and dark green. It's so dull and while I definitely feel like that was the goal, there is just so much colour in many other of the souls games like DS1, DS2, Elden Ring, and I'd even say DmS. Playing the early game of this game for more than an hour makes me want to kill myself because of how muted it is, and it greatly hinders the replay value I get from this game.
2) The areas. HOLY SHIT THEY SUCK. In the entire game I think maybe 4-5 of the areas are at the very least bearable. And half of them are in the ringed city DLC. DS3 is probably the opposite of DS1, as most of the games quality is in the second half of the game rather than the first, but at least in DS1 there was SOME stuff in the second half that made it fun to trek through (Dukes archives is a fun area with a cool gimmick, Nito is a cool boss, Four kings can be fun, and I actually like the Centipede Demon). But outside of High wall and MAYBE Undead settlement on a good day, playing through the early game areas of DS3 is just ass. They are sooooooo fucking linear in design and not really many branching off points to go and mess around with, like in DS1 with the darkroot garden and the valley of drakes which lets you do some funky shit out of order.
3) the enemies. The bosses in DS3 are really fucking awesome dont get me wrong, but FIGHTING ENEMIES SUCKS. I feel like everyone ESPECIALLY in Lotheric castle is soooo beafy and has needlessly hard movesets to learn, making them just pains in the ass as I try to get to each boss. I tried to do an int build on one of my subsequent playthroughs but genuinely couldn't get past some of the enemies and had to respec into dex to finish up the game.

Overall while DS3 definitely cuts back on a lot of the jank of the older games, it loses a lot of the charm from those older games that I really appreciated, and also makes fighting through everything that isn't a boss hard and annoying.

In conclusion DS1 better xD

(also fuck the trophy list)