Although Hollow Knight is also a metroidvania, which are usually kind of the opposite of that design philosophy, hinging a lot more on farming bullshit and resetting to savepoints. I understand Hollow Knight leaned more towards the soulslike QoL stuff, though? I’ve never played it though; I don’t like metroidvanias in general and every time I’ve seen someone playing Hollow Knight it has not looked particularly appealing.

I’ve always enjoyed Metroidvanias, and it’s definitely that aspect of it and not the Soulslike aspect that appeals to me. Barring a few nasty surprises, I’ve been able to maintain a reasonable power level for the challenges I’m faced with despite never really grinding for cash. Only reason I tried to use the Fragile Greed charm is because I’m the kind of guy who immediately wants to buy every powerup he sees.

Outside of the Fragile Charms, Hollow Knight’s system is actually quite forgiving. If you die, you don’t lose any progress, though you do lose whatever money you were carrying and your capacity for storing soul energy (used for healing and certain special attacks) is reduced. You get your stuff back by going to the spot where you died and killing your ghost, which doesn’t put up much of a fight. The “you have to kill your ghost” mechanic is slightly annoying, but it’s well within the bounds of what I’m willing to tolerate for an otherwise excellent game.