Hollow Knight

Genre: Metroidvania

Players: 1

The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

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Review:

Hollow Knight is a Metroidvania set in a dark, mood-soaked world that’s sorta’ like what you might expect if you crossed the works of Hayao Miyazaki with the works of Tim Burton.

The game’s presentation is one of the real stars here, with beautiful hand-animated graphics and a wonderfully orchestrated soundtrack, and with a variety of interesting characters to interact with, this game makes exploring the strange world you find yourself in a truly engrossing experience.

The gameplay itself is pretty compelling too. There seem to be countless secrets and things to explore hidden throughout the game, and beyond pointing you to your next major destination, the game doesn’t hold your hand through any of it, and you’ll often find yourself exploring some path and discovering something completely new and interesting, and likely wonder to yourself what purpose it serves or what you should do there.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the game’s difficulty, as well – this game is hard, and while there are all sorts of ways to customize your character to give you more health, increase your attack range, or do any number of other things to assist you on your journey, many of these take place in shops that will probably make you feel like you have to grind to get what you need, which is frustrating.

However, this issue aside, this is an excellent Metroidvania with a fantastic presentation. If you’re a fan of the genre, this game is a no-brainer for you.

tl;dr – Hollow Knight is a Metroidvania with an absolutely beautiful moody presentation, tons of secrets and things to find, and a punishing difficulty. It’s not without its flaws, but if you like the genre, it’s well worth your time.

Grade: A-

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The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

Hollow Knight – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition

Genre: Metroidvania

Players: 1

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Review:

Given that this game’s sequel, Hollow Knight: Silksong, took a full eight years to develop, one could be forgiven for thinking that after the announcement of a Nintendo Switch 2 Edition of the original Hollow Knight in January 2026, it may take a bit of time before we saw this upgraded port come to fruition. Surprisingly, the opposite proved to be true when the game was shadow dropped during a Nintendo partner Direct in February 2026, a mere month later, and in the form of a free Nintendo Switch 2 Edition upgrade, no less.

Much like Silksong’s Nintendo Switch 2 Edition, the Nintendo Switch 2 release of Hollow Knight promises two different display modes, each improving the game’s visuals in different ways. On Nintendo Switch, Hollow Knight plays at 60FPS framerates with 1080p resolution in docked mode and 720p resolution in handheld mode. But on Nintendo Switch 2, the default setting increases the resolution to the maximum 4K in docked mode and 1080p in handheld mode, while an alternate setting for docked mode can instead raise the framerates to 120FPS.

I’ll start by saying that in the latter of these modes, even though the resolution is the same on paper, the game’s visuals are still noticeably cleaner on Nintendo Switch 2. I can only guess that this is due to the use of higher-quality assets in the Nintendo Switch 2 version of the game, but the result is that both display modes look noticeably cleaner, and the default 4K mode especially so.

However, I will argue that if you have a TV screen capable of 120FPS, that is absolutely the way to go – this game is already gorgeous, but it looks so delectably silky-smooth at 120FPS that I can’t imagine ever wanting to play it any other way if you have the option. And I’ll note, I’m the sort of person who can’t always detect the difference between 60FPS and 120FPS, but here it is very noticeable, and wow is it appreciated.

And just to make this release even sweeter, we also see a slight improvement to loading times too – on Nintendo Switch, this game takes 23 seconds to load to the title screen, and 7 seconds to load a game save. On Nintendo Switch 2, those times are reduced to 17 and 4.

To be sure, I stand by my opinion that Hollow Knight, while an excellent Metroidvania, is also extremely overrated. However, even with that being the case I still absolutely applaud the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition of the game for being a wonderful improvement on the excellent visuals of the Nintendo Switch release, and if you already have that version I wholeheartedly recommend you to give this game another look, because Hollow Knight has never looked this good.

tl;dr – Hollow Knight is a Metroidvania with an absolutely beautiful moody presentation, tons of secrets and things to find, and a punishing difficulty. It’s not without its flaws, but if you like the genre, it’s well worth your time. And on Nintendo Switch 2, the resolution and framerate are noticeably better, making for an overall more satisfying experience.

Grade: A-

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