Ok my thoughts on Hollow Knight after my playthrough:
I went in hearing how hard this game could be and that there were multiple endings.
I picked up the soul shot pretty quickly, but when the progression icons of the dreamers appeared I became a bit hesitant. My belief was that the endings could be determined by which dreamer you fight first, so I opted to begin exploring and mull over my choices before taking on the Progression Bosses (and also I grinded Geo to clean out Iselda's shop before exploring).
I'll be honest, after that point the game became much of a blur. It wasn't as difficult as I expected, most bosses only took 3 or 4 (or less) attempts to get through. I didn't feel particularly challenged until I got to the Trial of the Fool, and now I'm currently bashing my head against Nightmare King Grimm and The Grey Prince Zote Round 5. I was sorta expecting that difficulty to be spread throughout the game instead of being pretty exclusive to optional fights.
However what I thought it lacked in challenge, it completely made up for with the sheer size of the map. I was completely blindsided with how large it actually was (I ended missing the entire Hive area and accidentally skipping the Isma's tear upgrade on my Blind portion of my playthrough). The feeling of navigating an unfamiliar place while praying for a bench, a shortcut, or even just the few scattered pages of Cornifer was one of my favorite parts of this game. And on the opposite end of that, once the map was fully filled out it felt good to be able to remove the compass charm and no longer feel lost.
The game oozes great atmosphere and charm and I'm really surprised it took me so long to pick it up. (although I'm still pretty salty that I picked up the Voidheart before getting my first ending).