Hungry Knight & Characterizing Ghost
Y’know, it’s interesting, as far into Hollow Knight as I am, and having been aware of Hungry Knight for some time, I haven’t checked it out before very recently. Upon rectifying that, there’s really something interesting in how much of the game is recognizable from this bare bones, two-minute little thing. Obviously there’s a grandiosity and complexity of story that Hollow Knight possesses that Hungry Knight simply couldn’t be of the scale of, but as a sort of primal eggshell the rest of the game hatched out of, it’s very interesting.
The three guardians that are hunted in Hungry Knight are simply boss enemies; they are not given backstory, and hunting them is basically an unambiguously good action. It’s interesting how this progressed to the execution of the Dreamers in Hollow Knight- but what I find illuminating about the Hungry Knight’s journey to its ‘proper’ game sequel is that at its most bare bones, Hungry Knight is a story about Ghost- our Ghost, as we recognize them- who is hailed by Mister Mushroom as the same being, even though he’s sort of breaking the fourth wall to do so and thus Hungry Knight is not in-universe canonical to Ghost’s history- hunting three beings, in order to save the life of a being like themselves.
With many of the major beats of Hollow Knight following an extended, more elaborate imagining of Hungry Knight’s simplistic two-minute plot, I think this characterizes Ghost’s perspective and motives for returning to the kingdom interestingly.
Another related area of interest to me is that Ghost is very finished compared to everything else in this game that received intense reimagining. Their mainstays remain nail attacks and dashing; the hunger system is a clear predecessor of soul- in essence, Ghost as they are in HK does “hunger” and need to “feed” themselves- it’s just that the timing of such is dependent on the damage they take, rather than time.
However- Ghost also, in Hungry Knight, talks. Not to any NPCs in the game world, because they have no one to speak to- but directly to the player.
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