It pains me deeply to recommend against this game.

But there's one thing I have no qualms with - the art direction is stunning, as is to be expected from a Team Cherry game. It really does feel like an interactive painting at times and you can really tell that's where most of their effort went.

Keyword: Most of their effort.

Act 1 is great.Aside from some teething issues (and one particularly savage beastfly whose difficulty feels thematically inconsistent), it feels good learning to use Hornet's kit to deal with what bosses throw at you in a 1v1. This even extends to some Act 2 bosses (Cogwork Dancers is one of my favourites, despite not being a 1v1).

But this is where my praise ends. See, instead of giving us a good variety of those aforementioned 1v1s (and we will be focusing on those, as the game's basic enemies are hardly enough to write about on their own), Team Cherry instead decided that the best way to make bosses difficult was by... prepending a gauntlet to the boss or allowing them to summon ads instead of fleshing out their moveset. Even on the main path, sometimes you'll find a room that looks like it would make for a great boss arena only for it to simply throw about 10 waves of enemies at you in lieu of a well-made encounter.

So, late into my playthrough, I realized something. It felt like this aspect of the game - the simple boss movesets - were an attempt to cut costs and pump the brakes on an already overambitious project, and that their solution for these simple boss movesets was to disguise it with a facade of difficulty by layering on enemy gauntlets and ad spam. The end result pales in comparison to most fights in the original Hollow Knight (yes, even the Watcher Knights).

Now, given that there are a handful of great boss fights in this game, would I recommend the game? Unfortunately, no. I don't believe it's worth diving face-first into mud hoping to find a nugget of gold.

Alternate media recommendations: The original Hollow Knight, Castlevania Symphony of the Night.

It pains me deeply to recommend against this game. But there's one thing I have no qualms with - the art direction is stunning, as is to be expected from a Team Cherry game. It really does feel like an interactive painting at times and you can really tell that's where most of their effort went. Keyword: Most of their effort. Act 1 is great.Aside from some teething issues (and one particularly savage beastfly whose difficulty feels thematically inconsistent), it feels good learning to use Hornet's kit to deal with what bosses throw at you in a 1v1. This even extends to some Act 2 bosses (Cogwork Dancers is one of my favourites, despite not being a 1v1). But this is where my praise ends. See, instead of giving us a good variety of those aforementioned 1v1s (and we will be focusing on those, as the game's basic enemies are hardly enough to write about on their own), Team Cherry instead decided that the best way to make bosses difficult was by... prepending a gauntlet to the boss or allowing them to summon ads instead of fleshing out their moveset. Even on the main path, sometimes you'll find a room that looks like it would make for a great boss arena only for it to simply throw about 10 waves of enemies at you in lieu of a well-made encounter. So, late into my playthrough, I realized something. It felt like this aspect of the game - the simple boss movesets - were an attempt to cut costs and pump the brakes on an already overambitious project, and that their solution for these simple boss movesets was to disguise it with a facade of difficulty by layering on enemy gauntlets and ad spam. The end result pales in comparison to most fights in the original Hollow Knight (yes, even the Watcher Knights). Now, given that there are a handful of great boss fights in this game, would I recommend the game? Unfortunately, no. I don't believe it's worth diving face-first into mud hoping to find a nugget of gold. Alternate media recommendations: The original Hollow Knight, Castlevania Symphony of the Night.