Hollow Knight

Great game. The lore is also incredible, especially when you finally piece together why [spoiler] the final boss stabbed himself, as he's actually trying to help you [/spoiler]. The soundtrack is amazing. The sealed vessel OST is the only thing that kept me sane during the path of pain. The only downside is that the credits are unskippable.

I hadn't played any metroidvania before, and was looking for a fun 2d platforming experience. Obviously Hollow Knight was the one to try. So far, really liking it! Sharp, quick gameplay, but slow enough you don't have to go super fast either, really good balance. Art style, music, and sound design is awesome. As you can see have only played for 6 hours so a lot can change, but I assume it'll only be for the better (get more abilities, more exploration, etc.) so feel confident leaving a review now. Highly recommend! The ONLY gripe I have so far, and this is probably just because of being completely new to the genre, is the backtracking you have to do. Lots of different paths to take, so you do have to go down one, and oftentimes it eventually ends and then you have to backtrack to the junction and go down the next path. It's not unrewarding though, you still get stuff from going down every path, and I'm getting used to how it works now. Update after finishing the main story: THIS GAME WAS SO FUN LMAO! Like seriously, perfect amount of being challenging enough without being a rage-fest, you get more and more game mechanics as you progress which are all awesome, and just generally such a good game and the story was even pretty good, plus the exploration did actually start growing on me a lot more than I thought it would.

Nothing.. NOTHING will give me the same feeling as descending down the elevator into city of tears for the first time. The slow build up with the music progressively building up, the meeting with quirrel on the bench as you watch the rain fall. All building up to descending the elevator to the outside and the main chorus starts to play. 10 out of 10 I'm a little disappointed i wont get something like that ever again, but i am glad this game gave me such a unique feeling. Truly a masterpiece. P.S Marrisa has the most peak vocals imaginable.