(I tweeted this yesterday but wanted to save these thoughts somewhere more permanent. I'd may write at more length as I keep playing.)
So it seems like everybody else already knows it's good, but I started Hollow Knight this weekend and am delighted by its poetry, mood, and action. I thought I didn't want to play another exploratory platform game. I was wrong! I just met an antique collector in a glass-walled, rain-painted, hidden-deep city, and my heart swelled with so much quiet affection I had to step away to savor it.
Earlier this week I played a couple hours of Super Metroid, remembering my first experience with it two decades ago and wondering if it was possible to expand on that energy in new and interesting ways. Hollow Knight has absolutely done it in just a few hours. And a great deal beyond that. I don't mean to diminish it by simply insisting on the comparison to Metroid. It's a pretty remarkable synthesis of many lineages, which welcomes comparison but exceeds reduction. I'm honestly floored by it.