Guessed by @Darashiva
The game that finally dethroned Super Metroid as the king of the genre it created, 23 years later. And deservedly so.
Hollow Knight was the first Metroidvania that took me longer than 10 or so hours to finish. I used to believe the genre had shorter games by necessity, that they would inevitably get stale or boring if they went on for too long. Then I played this, a game that took me well over 40 hours to finish, and it only kept getting better and better and better.
It actually even starts a bit slow, I'm not sure I would've gotten into it if I didn't conveniently get a cold that made this the perfect game to play on the Switch while I stayed in bed all day. By the time the cold was gone, I was totally caught up in it and closing in on what I thought was going to be the halfway point of the journey - it was more like the end of the tutorial. After that, it just keeps finding new ways to surprise you, to expand on its world, and on its lore, it goes deeper and deeper seemingly to no end, but eventually it does end and it's an incredible ending too. It's got very little in the way of cutscenes or dialogue, but it has a great narrative owing much to how well it does visual storytelling. Honestly, living in this world was an unforgettable experience and one that continued to amaze even several playthroughs in.
And if all goes well, it won't be the only Hollow Knight game on the list come this time next year.
