In my opinion, there are two major ways to rate something in this context, which are by how much they advance the genre and by how good the end product is in isolation.
If we consider them by advancing the genre (and I believe this is the better way to evaluate games as art), there is a natural bias toward earlier games, where everything from SOTN to even the original Metroid have serious claims even though they don’t hold up great because they nonetheless represented huge advancements. In this category, Dread has very little that it can say for itself and Hollow Knight’s best claim is that it is easily, easily the best take on “navigation at any scale and how that relates to progression” seen in a metroidvania in a long time and maybe the best ever, and this dimension specifically has been mostly lost to modern metroidvanias that aren’t Hollow Knight and I would argue is really the most central element of the genre. On that basis, I think it’s kind of a headache to evaluate because you need to be very aware of the history of things, but Hollow Knight still has a pretty high rank and is clearly above Dread. It’s not top 3 but it might be top 5. It’s safe to say top 10.
If we consider it purely in terms of end product in isolation (the much more treat-brained measurement, but still worth looking at), where the original Metroid is basically in the dumpster because it just fucking sucks to play and its innovations were (mostly) taken up by all subsequent games in the genre and sometimes even improved upon, there is a massive bias toward more recent games and accordingly, Dread does rank pretty high, and I’ll just grant you that Dread is probably top 5. This is, however, also Hollow Knight’s stronger category, because while I personally really love the navigation/progression aspect that I mentioned before (where even HK demake microgrames are fucking better metroidvanias than most normal metroidvanias!), that is only one facet of its success, and the main element of its success is its ability to synthesize many different features, approaches, and trends in a highly cohesive way to make a game that is both very interesting and very fun to play. In this category, Hollow Knight is unquestionably top 5 (along with Dread, and I have no strong opinion about how they compare to each other here).
I’m fully just writing all of this because I’m procrastinating, but also because I don’t get to talk about this subject as much as I like to.
I dont even know if dread is top 5 tbh. its a good game, but it feels so rail-roady and linear. the game needlessly prevents backtracking and most of the ways to obtain items early have such convoluted methods that most players would never figure them out.
comparatively hollow knight just gives you all the tools required to explore 55% percent of the map after the first hour and a half of gameplay, and reaching a new area early is as simple as breaking a couple hidden walls. it has a great sense of freedom
I was kind of trying to be generous with that part because I don’t care to argue to the contrary, but I agree with you. I just thought other aspects were more salient and it’s not like Dread is such an awful game that giving it good status warps the discussion, it’s just that it is a struggle to make it interesting, as you note.
The part that I would emphasize, which you know of course but deserves to be said, is that you can just openly access many branching paths and different tools can often be used to address the same obstacle rather than putting everything behind “blue key for the blue door, red key for the red door” gating like worse metroidvanias use as a structural crutch. There are still hard blocks (mostly requiring crystal dash or shade cloak) that are either overly difficult (crystal) or impossible (shade) to overcome without specific tools, but generally the game is very open and allows for at least two or three solutions accessible even to a very casual player. It’s a dying art to actually have routing like that in a casual game’s playthrough, despite the fact that people never stop talking about it in reference to Dark Souls (especially with the master key).
In my opinion, there are two major ways to rate something in this context, which are by how much they advance the genre and by how good the end product is in isolation.
If we consider them by advancing the genre (and I believe this is the better way to evaluate games as art), there is a natural bias toward earlier games, where everything from SOTN to even the original Metroid have serious claims even though they don’t hold up great because they nonetheless represented huge advancements. In this category, Dread has very little that it can say for itself and Hollow Knight’s best claim is that it is easily, easily the best take on “navigation at any scale and how that relates to progression” seen in a metroidvania in a long time and maybe the best ever, and this dimension specifically has been mostly lost to modern metroidvanias that aren’t Hollow Knight and I would argue is really the most central element of the genre. On that basis, I think it’s kind of a headache to evaluate because you need to be very aware of the history of things, but Hollow Knight still has a pretty high rank and is clearly above Dread. It’s not top 3 but it might be top 5. It’s safe to say top 10.
If we consider it purely in terms of end product in isolation (the much more treat-brained measurement, but still worth looking at), where the original Metroid is basically in the dumpster because it just fucking sucks to play and its innovations were (mostly) taken up by all subsequent games in the genre and sometimes even improved upon, there is a massive bias toward more recent games and accordingly, Dread does rank pretty high, and I’ll just grant you that Dread is probably top 5. This is, however, also Hollow Knight’s stronger category, because while I personally really love the navigation/progression aspect that I mentioned before (where even HK demake microgrames are fucking better metroidvanias than most normal metroidvanias!), that is only one facet of its success, and the main element of its success is its ability to synthesize many different features, approaches, and trends in a highly cohesive way to make a game that is both very interesting and very fun to play. In this category, Hollow Knight is unquestionably top 5 (along with Dread, and I have no strong opinion about how they compare to each other here).
I’m fully just writing all of this because I’m procrastinating, but also because I don’t get to talk about this subject as much as I like to.
I dont even know if dread is top 5 tbh. its a good game, but it feels so rail-roady and linear. the game needlessly prevents backtracking and most of the ways to obtain items early have such convoluted methods that most players would never figure them out.
comparatively hollow knight just gives you all the tools required to explore 55% percent of the map after the first hour and a half of gameplay, and reaching a new area early is as simple as breaking a couple hidden walls. it has a great sense of freedom
I was kind of trying to be generous with that part because I don’t care to argue to the contrary, but I agree with you. I just thought other aspects were more salient and it’s not like Dread is such an awful game that giving it good status warps the discussion, it’s just that it is a struggle to make it interesting, as you note.
The part that I would emphasize, which you know of course but deserves to be said, is that you can just openly access many branching paths and different tools can often be used to address the same obstacle rather than putting everything behind “blue key for the blue door, red key for the red door” gating like worse metroidvanias use as a structural crutch. There are still hard blocks (mostly requiring crystal dash or shade cloak) that are either overly difficult (crystal) or impossible (shade) to overcome without specific tools, but generally the game is very open and allows for at least two or three solutions accessible even to a very casual player. It’s a dying art to actually have routing like that in a casual game’s playthrough, despite the fact that people never stop talking about it in reference to Dark Souls (especially with the master key).