Anything but Hollow

I've been "playing" Hollow Knight for about three months now. In truth I was only actively playing it for a few weeks back in July -- and while those few weeks were quite good, since then I've lacked the courage to come back to it.

Hollow Knight is both difficult and frustrating, but not in the same way as Ori and the Blind Forest. Ori was frustrating to play due to slippery controls and poor checkpointing (... often a consequence of manually placing those checkpoints), and those frustrating fundamentals made it difficult to progress in the game.

Hollow Knight, on the other hand, has difficult action gameplay - a pure challenge of defeating enemies while avoiding their attacks - and as that difficulty ramps up, I start to get frustrated at my lack of progress.

Does that make sense? The difference is subtle, but important: in Ori, the (I would say) flaws in its gameplay made it hard for me to truly enjoy the bigger picture; while in Hollow Knight, my lack of skill results in me being unable to see the bigger picture.

For the most part, my failings in Hollow Knight are my own fault. (Though I will levy some criticism at the long distances between save points and a few boss fights.) While the Knight does gather stronger equipment and more powerful abilities through map exploration, this game places a much heavier emphasis on skill building than, say, Bloodstained. Just having more health isn't enough to withstand later enemies' attacks; I need to get better at dodging and blocking them.

And what I'm afraid of is that I may already have hit the ceiling of my skills. The amount of deaths I'm racking up in The Hive, not just in its boss fight but on my way to the boss, is intimidatingly large. These giant angry bees are no joke.

Yet I still "want" to try again, because the world of Hollow Knight is gorgeous and awe-inspiring to explore. I'm not all that motivated by the story - I think it's a little too cryptic, in that I haven't found a reason to care about the dreamers or whatever - but to me, the reward for getting better at this game is being able to discover more of its crazy-stylish map and uncover more of its slyly-hidden secrets.

I just hope I can git gud enough to see the rest of it.

Progress: stuck in the Hive.