I think the run back is fun for some people and I think the game should deliver the best version they can for those people. For me, it’s just not fun. The reward is smaller than the frustration it causes.
- 0 Posts
- 3 Comments
It took Silksong coming out for me to identify why I wasn’t a fan of Hollow Knight, and it’s touched on in this video.
It’s the runback.
The Dark Souls series of games have the same “problem”, and it’s why I don’t enjoy them either.
I’m a huge fan of Celeste, Super Meat Boy, the Ori series. When I fail at these games, I’m right back in the action.
I’m not against having to learn boss patterns, I really enjoyed Cuphead because after I’ve failed I’m right back in the action.
And while it’s an easier game by comparison, Shovel Knight was a fun game. The checkpoints were plentifully and I could increase the difficulty by destroying them.
But when I played Hollow Knight I reached a point where I was just running to the boss and dying. Then again. And again. And again. I wasn’t getting better. And the time it took to get back just took too long and wasn’t fun. It wasn’t a rage quit. I was having fun at one point… But then the game wore me down and eventually it wasn’t.
I don’t think the game needs to change. Although I think adding difficultly modifiers would be a good idea. I played through Metroid Dread on normal difficulty and after beating it was having so much fun I immediately played it again on Hard difficulty. If there were a mode with more checkpoints in Hollow Knight and Silksong I might give them a shot.
Logistically it would be hard to have Kimmel on The Daily Show this evening. Kimmel is in LA and Jon is in New York. Obviously a video call is possible. Obviously flights exist. It would be wild if it happened, but it’s not likely.