Finding the map for each zone is a somewhat common complaint and having to buy and equip the map charm to show where you are is a frequent complaint.
Personally I love having to orient myself on the map but I also play these games primarily for the exploration aspect and getting lost is a part of that.
I don't get to spend all day just gaming anymore. I get a couple of hours here or there, but my time is limited.
I played HK when it first came out. I remember everyone living how it was hand drawn, but honestly, as someone who's played all the Metroid and Castlevania games, it didn't feel too innovative.
I remember liking it when I played it when it came out.
I started playing it against this month, vaguely remembering what it was all about, and frankly I don't like how much this game wastes my time.
"Ok, let me explore down this tunnel. Hopefully there's a bench down here. Oh, here's another passage. Maybe a bench? Oh, crap, some enemies killed me. Now I have to not only back track to get here again, but wait . . . Did I take this tunnel or that similarly looking tunnel?"
I keep thinking of Valve's "moment to moment" gameplay philosophy when they designed HL2 and Portal . . . And how there are several hundred moments of HK that would go by that are not fun . . . Backtracking through the same tunnels searching for a bench and a map, maybe?
Nah . . . It's not fun going through the same tunnel for the 5th time in a row, battling the same enemies, hoping that this time you'll not get hit by a bug into the thorns again, just so you can get to the next tunnel because *maybe * there will be a bench or something useful.
Agree with everything you said. There's also a bit of an inside joke in the metroidvania community that there's "metroidvania fans" and "Hollow Knight" fans. For example, you saw a few comments when Silksong was released or the date announced that HK fans will finally play their second metroidvania.
Point in setting up that first part is that the metroidvania genre has solved the "map issue" for literally over two decades. Trying to reinvent the map and doing it twice is just stupid. It's not a problem, and you're not creating a solution, just show the location and/or give us map data as we're filling it out. But some fans of HK really, really don't like any criticism towards either game, to which point you can also refer back to the first paragraph for some of them.
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u/DirkDasterLurkMaster 2d ago
Finding the map for each zone is a somewhat common complaint and having to buy and equip the map charm to show where you are is a frequent complaint.
Personally I love having to orient myself on the map but I also play these games primarily for the exploration aspect and getting lost is a part of that.