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Ganepark32

Hollow Knight

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I've managed to get pretty far in it without too much trouble since beating the Mantis Lords but the bloody Watcher Nights have put a halt to my progress. I can take out maybe two or three or them but just end up running out of health before I can do too much damage to them. Decided to go elsewhere for the time being and search out other areas I couldn't reach before getting the double jump but I know it won't be long before I have to go back to try and defeat them again. 

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24 minutes ago, killthenet said:

I've managed to get pretty far in it without too much trouble since beating the Mantis Lords but the bloody Watcher Nights have put a halt to my progress. I can take out maybe two or three or them but just end up running out of health before I can do too much damage to them. Decided to go elsewhere for the time being and search out other areas I couldn't reach before getting the double jump but I know it won't be long before I have to go back to try and defeat them again. 

They were, by far, the toughest boss for me in the game. Did you find the secret passage around their boss room? That'll help a bit. I spent ages picking the right charms, also the downward slash is good with them. But yeah, the only boss I thought was unfair. The usual trick of learning to evade their moves is tough when you have so many at once. Try and get the first two down as quickly as possible, or the rest of the fight will be almost impossible.

Edited by Ronnie

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Sure, they are hard but not very hard. I found that shooting at them, storming to the opposite end of them and jump above them using downward slash helped a lot. I don't remember which charms I had equipped, though.

I think I was done with them within 45 minutes. There were other bosses that I spent twice the time on.

Also, I learned this afterwards, there is a secret room above them that lets you drop a chandelier on one of them, taking it out.

Edited by MindFreak

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Are those those rolling bosses where there are 6 of them? They were annoying. I think it's one the few bosses, maybe even the first, where I actually started to use my projectiles.

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1 hour ago, Sméagol said:

Are those those rolling bosses where there are 6 of them? They were annoying. I think it's one the few bosses, maybe even the first, where I actually started to use my projectiles.

Yes, those. 

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My first attempts this afternoon were pretty appalling, I barely managed to get two or three or them down and kept changing up my charms to find the best combination so didn't really have a consistent crack at it until tonight. I explored for a little while and found some pale ore so I upgraded my nail, then I ventured back to the City of Tears and experimented with my charms again, I settled on a combination that gave me more invincibility frames and allowed me to heal quicker. I took advantage of the chandelier (thanks for the tip guys!) and it took me probably about 20 minutes of serious attempts to finally defeat them. The sense of achievement for making it through tough boss battles is straight up Dark Souls, I've still got one more dreamer to awaken but have already put upwards of 20 hours into the game - it's probably too long but I've really enjoyed the majority of it so can't really complain.

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My play time finished on about 50 hours for 98% completion, that's when I beat the final boss, so if anything 20 hours isn't much. Glad you finally beat them, I took a few seconds to calm down after I had. Others may have found it straightforward but for me it was easily the toughest boss in the game.

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2 hours ago, Ronnie said:

My play time finished on about 50 hours for 98% completion, that's when I beat the final boss, so if anything 20 hours isn't much. Glad you finally beat them, I took a few seconds to calm down after I had. Others may have found it straightforward but for me it was easily the toughest boss in the game.

Ha, that makes me feel a bit better then - I checked my playtime after I made the post last night and its up around 34 hours, not 20 so I've played it even more than I had thought! In my exploration last night I found a couple of the optional dreamer variations of previous bosses and decided to take them on, got my butt absolutely wiped though so will probably leave it a little while before I try and take them on again. I really should move onto others games when I've finished the story on this but I feel compelled to try and do everything. 

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I defeated the Hollow Knight last night so now I'm just cleaning up the little odds and ends before I take on some of the optional bosses I missed. I thought the ending was a bit underwhelming, the boss battle felt challenging enough but the cutscene at the end felt a bit flat to me. 

I want to try and find all of the imprisoned grubs I missed but I don't really fancy just going into every room and listening out for them, is there an easier way to find them?

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55 minutes ago, killthenet said:

I defeated the Hollow Knight last night so now I'm just cleaning up the little odds and ends before I take on some of the optional bosses I missed. I thought the ending was a bit underwhelming, the boss battle felt challenging enough but the cutscene at the end felt a bit flat to me. 

I want to try and find all of the imprisoned grubs I missed but I don't really fancy just going into every room and listening out for them, is there an easier way to find them?

Did you fight the Hollow Knight alone or did you go to the dream version afterwards? 

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Ooh, didn't even occur to me there'd be a dream version. I just assumed (considering the last cutscene) that it worked like BOTW and the game world doesn't change after you beat the final boss. I'll go back to the temple the next time I play the game.

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3 hours ago, killthenet said:

Ooh, didn't even occur to me there'd be a dream version. I just assumed (considering the last cutscene) that it worked like BOTW and the game world doesn't change after you beat the final boss. I'll go back to the temple the next time I play the game.

There is no dream version and the game does work like BOTW. 

From the sound of things you didn’t get the true ending though, there’s a fair bit more you have to accomplish before you get to the actual final boss. That ending is a bit more satisfying. I would have been pretty disappointed if I’d only seen the cutscene you did. 

I can give you hints about how to get get the ball rolling true ending wise if you’d like. Or just look it up if you want. Lol

Edited by Ronnie

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I'm not too bothered about looking things up now I've fully explored every area, I found the last of the grubs earlier after looking up easier ways to find them and discovering the grub map existed. I'm basically just going around collecting anything I missed and beating any bosses I found too tough or just didn't find. I'm probably going to work my way through the trials at the Colosseum of Fools next to upgrade my nail then look into how to get to the true ending. 

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It's been a bit of a slog at times getting towards the true ending but I've done all the prerequisit tasks to open it up and had a couple of quick attempts at it before I went out today. It definitely seems pretty tough (and the fact you have to fight the Hollow Knight again to reach it is a bit annoying) but it doesn't seem as difficult a task as some of the others seemed when I first encountered them. 

Once I get home I'll go to the Colosseum of Fools and do the second trial as I only need the one piece of pale ore to fully upgrade my nail, I think I'd like to get the rest of the charms too but might leave them until after I've defeated the final boss. I've mostly enjoyed my time with the game but I found the process of awakening the Dreamnail pretty tedious at times and the fight with the Traitor Lord probably took me the longest out of any of them to beat which had me cursing the game at times. It's definitely too long a game, especially if you want to properly complete it, but the world feels suitably fleshed out where something like Steamworld Dig 2 felt like half a game. With Hollow Knight you can get the jist of the game if you just put a few hours in but if you find you enjoy it there's plenty to explore and discover. 

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34 minutes ago, killthenet said:

It's been a bit of a slog at times getting towards the true ending but I've done all the prerequisit tasks to open it up and had a couple of quick attempts at it before I went out today. It definitely seems pretty tough (and the fact you have to fight the Hollow Knight again to reach it is a bit annoying) but it doesn't seem as difficult a task as some of the others seemed when I first encountered them. 

Once I get home I'll go to the Colosseum of Fools and do the second trial as I only need the one piece of pale ore to fully upgrade my nail, I think I'd like to get the rest of the charms too but might leave them until after I've defeated the final boss. I've mostly enjoyed my time with the game but I found the process of awakening the Dreamnail pretty tedious at times and the fight with the Traitor Lord probably took me the longest out of any of them to beat which had me cursing the game at times. It's definitely too long a game, especially if you want to properly complete it, but the world feels suitably fleshed out where something like Steamworld Dig 2 felt like half a game. With Hollow Knight you can get the jist of the game if you just put a few hours in but if you find you enjoy it there's plenty to explore and discover. 

The Traitor Lord was easily in my top 3 more challenging bosses, so you're not the only one. Him and the Watcher Knights made me want to throw my controller through the tv. Setting a warp point to just before the boss room helps though. True ending boss isn't as hard as I first thought tbh, once you fully upgrade your Nail and maybe using the quick strike (or whatever it's called) charm. Oh and use Abyss shriek plenty lol. The patterns aren't actually that tough to dodge after some practise, but one screw up tends to chain react and lead to plenty more. Also there's a fair amount of healing windows between his attacks if you look for them, so I wouldn't recommend those blue heart charms that stop you healing.

As for length of the game, I think most people fully completed it in about 50 hours which I think is a good time for a Metroidvania, but you can easily skip half of the content and finish it in half the time at most.

Once you've finished the game, can I recommend this youtube page if you're interested. Loads of quality Hollow Knight content in terms of lore and storyline. It made me appreciate the game even more. https://www.youtube.com/user/rustymolboxer

Edited by Ronnie
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I just defeated The Radiance, definitely a more satisfying ending but it was a lot tougher than I first expected. I didn't realise the fight had so many phases, I'd like to know exactly how many attempts I had at it - must have been over 20. It took me a while to figure out which charms to go with, in the end I went with the Shaman Stone, Lifeblood Core, Unbreakable Strength and Stalwart Shell. It was definitely pretty annoying having to fight the Hollow Knight again every single time, I was almost at the point of tearing my hair out but once I relaxed and watched the patterns it ended up being alright. My playtime is considerable, I've clocked in 73 hours according to the in-game timer and I'm at 97% completion, I'll probably pick up the last of the charms but can't see myself collecting all of the vessel and mask fragments - I think I only need one mask fragment but the task you need to complete to get it (carrying a flower from one side of the map to the other without getting damaged and without using stagways) is infuriating and I don't see any work around for it so will likely leave that. 

Playing this has been a much bigger time investment than I expected, I thought it would take me about a week to be done with it but its almost 3 weeks since I started playing and I'm only just thinking about putting it down. Will be pretty relieved to get started on some other (much shorter) games.

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Unfortunately the physical version has been cancelled, it seems like it was too much of an undertaking for Team Cherry which is a shame as it would have been nice to own a proper copy of this gem.

It's likely that Limited Run or Super Rare will partner with them in future but a proper retail release seems to be off the table 

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Does it require much extra work? Can't you just hand the publisher a USB with the game on and tell them to whop it in a disk, cheers mate, done.

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Limited Run Games or Super Rare Games better pick this up for a physical release, otherwise... it's just money left on the table.

I was holding out for the physical release as well.

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Yeah, this is one game I'm guaranteed to doubledip for physical. There are other games I haven't bought yet because I already have them digital, and priopritize new games, like Sonic Mania and Wonderboy. But THIS game. I want it. Twice.

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13 hours ago, bob said:

Does it require much extra work? Can't you just hand the publisher a USB with the game on and tell them to whop it in a disk, cheers mate, done.

I thought that as well.

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It's sold incredibly well since releasing on console so you'd think someone would be willing to invest some money into a physical release but maybe the publisher that was planning to release it underestimated the costs involved. Team Cherry have probably made a tonne of money from its success but they're a pretty small outfit so wouldn't be willing to reinvest their earnings without knowing there was the demand enough to earn it back.

Hopefully if Limited Run release it they open up pre-orders to scope out the demand for it, would hate for it to be as limited as some of their releases are. 

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Soooo, Hollow Knight is now 9€ on the PSN store.

People here seem to like it. What makes it so special?

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5 minutes ago, drahkon said:

Soooo, Hollow Knight is now 9€ on the PSN store.

People here seem to like it. What makes it so special?

It's a very tightly knitted together Metroidvania with some really great combat and high difficulty - but it's fair. The world is also very cleverly put together with just enough tidbits about it here and there. Furthermore, it's meaty, I spent 40-50 hours on the main story and never got bored of it, just looking around and trying to figure out how to do stuff. It's just truly a remarkable game - but it starts a bit slow and only really picks up after 5-8 hours, I think. 

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