Hollow Knight, the Empty Beauty - Lakitu's Sachet
So what is the sense of writing an episode of this column based on Hollow Knight? Nothing but reaffirming its excellence. Before Silksong arrives, we want to make sure that anyone of you might be interested gets in touch with this game in some way; we specified anyone "who might be interested" because Hollow Knight, as excellent as it is, is definitely not a title suitable for anyone. It requires skill and reflexes, perseverance and tenacity, because the killings are severely punitive, and oblige you to repeat sections of the game, even quite long. The atmosphere is gloomy, and rarely grants openings to feelings that cannot be framed in a dying, condemned context - although ironic touches are not lacking.
The story, full of subtleties and connections that are concealed, it is almost totally entrusted to the exploration of the folklore of Nidosacro, the setting of the game: you have to listen to the inhabitants, and to read the inscriptions. Above all, it is a metroidvania where you lose, where many different routes are possible at the same time, where the developer, rather than take you by the hand, throws immediately to the inside of a cave. You'll know it all, but it is right to specify it for any exceptions: the word "metroidvania" is a portmanteau between Metroid and Castlevania, and indicates a kind of adventure with elements of action (very unspecific), and, invariably, based on (almost always) a single large map, in which it is natural to get lost, and it is mandatory to unlock new powers, access to trails otherwise closed, a new ray that stimulate continuously the curiosity of the player.
Team Cherry
Perhaps there is no area of the planet in colour, and ideally, in a more distant Nidosacro to the one where it was processed: Adelaide, the capital of South Australia. It all began a few years ago, when Ari Gibson and William Pellen participating in a game jam (a competition in which you have to create a game within a time limit, very narrow): more precisely, it is the Ludum dare 2013. The two here give life to a game called Hungry Knight, that a knight, ancestor of the Knight of the Hollow Knight, kills insects, to feed (and survive); to tell the truth, is not particularly appreciated. Although not convince the judges, inspires, and motivates the two creators, who decide to go underwater in that buchetta as soon as formed, and follow the insectoid white rabbit: would have deepened the idea of the characters-the insect, knight , and would have created a "kingdom deep and ancient" (and, we add, dark).Metroid is an inspiration to elaborate the complexity of the game world, while Mega Man X, to serve as a guide in the modeling of the control system: a little acceleration, inertia basically non-existent. It is probably the reason why those who start Hollow Knight looking for a platform remains rather disappointed; its control system, the way in which it is used, and the satisfaction of touch that it generates, it is however something extraordinary, that can not leave indifferent. The childhood of Gibson is marked by Faxanadu (NES), the Pellen from Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (NES, of course): they want to create something that joint and sublime at the core of exploration of the first with the unpredictability, and the action of the second. Critical, in the success of the project, the graphic talent of Ari Gibson, who designs hand-Nidosacro and its inhabitants, and - not content - to animate them as well: his work is extraordinary, perfect in the vision of the whole, in the voluntary limitations, stylistic, and even in the implementation.
No one explicitly mentions it, but it seems to us clear that even Dark Souls was a decisive influence: in the level design, in game design (fighting hard with the enemies) and also in the atmosphere of the game, as well as in the narrative based, as it says in the forum's thematic, on the discovery of the "lore". November 2014 Hollow Knight arrives on Kickstarter ; the two to complete the project, asking for $ 35,000 australian, and in a short time receive the 57,000, from 2.158 different lenders. It is enough to expand the team and hire David Kazi (technical director), and Christopher Larkin , author of the extraordinary music, and the evocative sounds of the work.
later, he would join Jack Wins , programmer, that still makes, along with Gibson and Pellen, the group called Team Cherry .
Hollow Knight
it is Not easy to explain in a few words why Hollow Knight is so beautiful, so call in aid the definitions of Miyamoto, who in a long interview with Satoru Iwata said that, when things are done as they should, a game that "resonates". All of this has to do with the mystique of the japanese master, who has an approach that is almost shamanic the video game and its virtues, but can be useful as a concept: in Hollow Knight, the developers had very clear the ultimate goal, and for this they have tried to reach it and pointing it, with awareness and talent, from every juncture.From the world designed, with four to six levels of parallax, the silhoutte dark (made of solid black, Hollow Knight is full of nero full, total, almost a china comics), characters in the foreground on the spot , without shade of any kind, unlike the seabed, finely colored, and the lighting effects to make everything more dynamic and alive. The music and perhaps even more the sound effects, the sounds of the insects friends and enemies, the hand, sometimes miraculous, sometimes grotesque, of some of them. The first time you enter the City of Tears, the rain, the discovery of the boundary and the limits of Nidosacro , the huge gap between that area and all those experienced previously, with the approach of an urban context. The level design is maze-like and always ready to surprise: the areas of the Hollow Knight are connected in a fluid manner, and intricate, it feels like the inside of a complex hydraulic system (and to a certain point, actually, it really is). The sense of wonder that emerges in the discovery of each new area, the feeling of curiosity for what is to come, the fear of not knowing how to deal with the challenge of the dispersion, and the constant search of the voice of the cartographer, the scribe canticchiante, the only one capable of tending. The writing is minimal and mysterious, the narrative in-game data from the level design, as the fall into the Abyss, the violent tint of black, the discovery of the origins of the Knight.
But most importantly, the harmony touch of the game, the perfect fusion between the hands, the protagonist and the environment: Hollow Knight, even in the most difficult moments (literally), you always have maximum control over the movements. In a certain sense is the opposite of Red Dead Redemption 2, the umpteenth demonstration that there is no single path to greatness: Hollow Knight has been developed by five different people, Red Dead Redemption 2 from over 2,000. In the second - voluntarily - control on the character is simple, a little direct, do not "camouflage"; in the first there is a total communion between the buttons and the movement. Wiggling in the air with the Spine is exciting and adrenalico.
The Team Cherry , a sort of Master Cherry digital, took this tree trunk, talking to you has caught a glimpse of the insects, as well as the mask, the horned knight; he started intagliarlo, the full of china and Metroid, Dark Souls and the darkness, and at the end, get only five, came out Hollow Knight, the Knight, Vacantly. It is a masterpiece .
