Glad you enjoyed the review!

I also played a few hours of Dark Souls 2, but its background storytelling seemed to be weaker and I fell out of the game much faster. Like I said in the review, I don’t object to the Souls games being the way they are and I think they’re very good at what they do. There’s just enough about them that I don’t like that I’ve decided they’re not for me.

My objection to getting the shade back is mostly a philosophical one, though, in that it’s a mechanic based around the idea of punishing the player for failure, but in a game like Hollow Knight failure is baked into the core loop. It’s highly unlikely that you’ll kill a boss first time unless you’re massively overequipped; the intended path is that you die a few times to learn the attack sequences. And if that’s the case, why punish the player for, in effect, playing the game the way it’s supposed to be played?

I do think that Hollow Knight is, in some ways, harder than Dark Souls. Certainly harder than Dark Souls 3, which has refined its combat to the point that it’s honestly just fun, and liberally sprinkled bonfires all around. But your shade really shouldn’t be that much of a problem, and if it gets stuck in some awful place you don’t think you can get back to, go give a Rancid Egg to the merchant at the base of the cliffs east of Dirtmouth. She (?) will summon your shade to that spot for you.

Hollow Knight may be similar – but I’m unsure. I’ve played it for a few hours and put it aside. Perhaps I’ll have to go back and give it another shot.

Thanks for your thorough review. I really enjoyed it!

Anyway, for once you’re reviewing the game I’ve already completed. It exhausted it similar to the way Dark Souls does. I didn’t go for the real ending because of that. I’ve probably even finished it mostly cause my wife liked it while acknowledging that this is a hellish gauntlet she herself would not touch. I don’t like bugs and I did not expect the game to stick to its theme so faithfully. Also it *heavily* borrows a lot from Dark Souls in its themes and the way the story is presented. You say you haven’t played DS so much so it’s funny how you like one of its stronger sides.

The difficulty in non-linearity is certainly there. I’ve encountered Watcher Knights far, far earlier than I was supposed to and suffered greatly. I’ve beaten Grey Prince Zot before I beat Watcher Knights but he was not as infuriating because I didn’t have to spend couple of minutes to get to him through couple of enemies. But it was mostly fine. This game has a very direct control scheme, you feel connected with the character which didn’t happen to me in similar games like Ori or even Castlevania where there’s some inertia to the character movement. Heal ability is indeed a very good addition. It helps you understand how different builds work with different bosses: for some you benefit from faster heal cast, with some it’s still not fast enough and you have to look for other ways. So it was OK in gameplay terms, even if the biggest reason people love it is atmosphere, music and such.

Dream bosses are cancer though.