Recent reviews by DigDog

100% recommend, nostalgia factor with a fun new twist. One of those "whoops suddenly 3 hours have passed" kind of games.

Addicting gameplay loop, intriguing story. Best $8 I've spent in a while.

Doesn't do anything new and exciting but what's there is polished and lots of fun.

This is a good game. Good, not great. Cute graphics, great music, the first half of it is freaking fantastic, had a great time.

Sadly it falls apart a bit in the second half, once the difficulty ramps up the game also got incredibly tedious. Levels too long, checkpoints too far apart, controls not tight enough for what is being expected from the player, and every time you die you get to redo the bits you already know to get back to the part you died on for another attempt.

The player is being punished for losing by having to repeat parts of the level they've already played and recollect all items they collected between the last checkpoint and their place of death. After the second or third death that gets old really quickly. Not an issue with the shorter early levels but they get way too long towards the end of the game, exacerbating this issue, especially if you're trying to get all the gems. The bosses and bonus levels have the same issue, if you die in the last 10% you now get to redo several minutes worth of stuff you've already seen. Tedious and grindy, could have been tightened up a bit.

All that being said I still think this is a cute game and worth playing if you've got that platformer itch.

A short but very unique game, I would recommend this to anyone who is looking for something different

If you thought Hollow Knight was too long and difficult, this game is for you. It's a lovely little 10-20 hour romp that doesn't overstay its welcome and has just the right amount of difficulty where you can beat a boss in one or two tries if you pay attention. The traversal mechanics are fun and the game gets better and better the more abilities you unlock. Story was a bit too obscure for my taste and I would have enjoyed a better fast travel mechanic but those are just small complaints in an overall good game.

8/10, time well spent.

This is one of the best platformers I've ever played.

Stop reading this and buy the game.

Is Hollow Knight a good game? Yes, sort of. Would I recommend it? No, there are way better Metroidvanias out there. I finished it out of spite, 112% and Absolute Radiance.

This game has all the right pieces to make it a great game, but a lot of small design decisions just ruin the overall picture. To put it short: this game doesn't value the player's time. It starts out strong but gets really awful down the line. It overstays its welcome, it should have been half the size.

The map is too big for its own good, it gets very samey after a while. Traversal becomes a chore eventually, and while backtracking is a core component of Metroidvanias (I've played quite a few over the years) the way you execute it is important, and one big thing this game misses is making traversal easier and faster over time. Even with all abilities unlocked it's still a slog getting from point A to B. Each area is fun the first time you go through it but gets old really fast on revisit, and you revisit a lot. It's also too non-linear for the size and design of the map, and having to retrieve your corpse after dying has never been a good idea and never will be. Some people would say "the game doesn't hold your hand", I call it "the game is wasting my time".

The graphics are great, the audio is fine, the combat is fun, but the exploration is designed terribly and kills the game for me. A more condensed map and/or better traversal options / fast travel would have kept this game from becoming a chore in the second half.

I usually like these kinds of games but the checkpoint system ruined this one for me. You can't make a game whose core gameplay loop is based on trial and error and then have a mandatory 10+ second walking session between retries. This would have been a fantastic game if the respawn points were right outside the room you died in instead of three screens away.

I love the art style and the unique combat mechanics but with the way respawns are handled I simply cannot recommend this game.

One of the best idle games out there, and it gets huge bonus points for actually having an end.

10/10 thoroughly enjoyed my time with it