this post was submitted on 07 May 2025
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Don't make dying harder than it has to. I really hate the mechanic in Hollow Knight where you had to go back to the place you died and battle your shade. It's extremely punishing and unfun (for me). Compare that with Ori where, when you die, there is no extra penalty and the reload is almost instant, so you immediately get to go again. It keeps me in the flow.
For that same reason, bosses should only have a grand entrance, cut scene, etc once. When I die and go again I want to immediately fight him, I don't want to have to sit through the same scene 30 times just because I suck. Not even if it's just 5 seconds long. So, second time make sure the boss is spawned and waiting.
Counter to this: Don't cater to noobs.
Hollow Knight is one of the GOATs because it's hard, but extremely fair. Learn the patterns, and any boss can be beaten hitless; explore properly, and any boss can be returned to rematch -- after a death -- from a bench in 1 to 2 screens (late game even has a teleport ability!).
There's plenty of moments in hollow night where it can be way more than just 3 screens. Especially when you're exploring places for the first time and doing know where the next bench will be (I felt like there was no way near enough benches too).
It's what made me eventually drop the game. I didn't find it hard, I just could not be arsed. Felt like a waste of time when I've got so many other games bI could be playing instead of playing the same 10-15 minutes of gameplay over and over again.
I love metroidvanias too. One of my favourite genres.
Name them. I'd be happy to counter.
I mean it happened to me a few times when exploring. I don't know the names of the places. It was still kinda early on. I think the last place I tried to enter was the mushroom place? And i kept dying in there then had to travel what felt like half of a full zone to get back there because i had yet to find a bench in there.
Well, it's part of the gameplay that you have to come back to. The benches are an important part of the difficulty, just like permanent death is part of the genre.
I've not seen permadeath be something inherent to metroidvanias.
Also I understand that the benches are part of the difficulty but I also feel like it's slightly inflated because of the annoyance of doing so.
When I die in such games, all I can think about is the time I just wasted or am about to waste. No matter how good a game is, my life on this earth is too short and there are other games of the same quality or higher that I can play that will respect my time much better.