Hollow Knight: Second Time, Still Magical

I am replaying Hollow Knight again so I can enjoy the beautiful and complex world created by Team Cherry. Travelling through each different region gives you so many unique experiences. Every place has its secrets, boss fights, charms, lore and NPCs.

One of the memorable boss is the Soul Master that is found in the Soul Sanctum, he was tough during my first playthrough and took a few tries before getting to it. But this time he seemed much more easier, maybe just because I was expecting him to be tough?

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There are tougher versions of normal bosses they are usually their dream versions and since this time I came to the Soul Sanctum after acquiring the Dream nail, I tried this tougher version of the boss.

He has similar attack patterns with some small changes, but less time to react to those, and deals double the amount of damage to us. Since I had only 5 mask shards and no nail upgrades, it proved to be very challenging. But later in the game, once you have some upgrades and the second jump ability with the shade cloak, it becomes a lot easier.

The arena is the same, with just different lighting. I like the dream version of it better.

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It was time to get the monarch wings then. That one is guarded by another interesting boss, the Broken Vessel. I like this boss just because of the unpredictable jumps it can have. I had one more mask shard, but still it wasn't that easy. It took me one retry just because I forgot most of its attack patterns.

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Love the music of this as well.

Broken Vessel theme & music by Christopher Larkin

It is found in the Ancient Basin, and this region is one of the most important sections of the entire game. One of my favourite sections of the entire place is the Abyss found just under this Ancient Basin. Anyways, once I defeated this Broken vessel who managed to escape the Abyss but got killed and now got infected, it was a clear path to the monarch wings. A very important ability that lets us double jump and unlock a lot of parts of the Hallownest for our knight.

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It was time to get the King's Brand and hop into the deep, dark Abyss. To get the King's Brand, we had to fight Hornet again as a final challenge, so she knows we are worthy of it. I love Hornet fights, the second one more so. She has some cool attacks, and I hope some of those are in the Silksong as well.

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The last time it took me like 40 hours to reach this point, and this time it took me like 8 hours just because I knew where to go and look for the most important items and abilities. The first time you experience the game is nothing like that, you just want to soak in all the beauty, look for those hidden rooms and breakable walls in every corner, find and read every lore tablet trying to get the meaning of each of them and just spend countless hours grinding for geos in the first section of the map where the rewards are really bad lol.

Also, learning to fight each boss and their unique moves takes some time, but once you know it, they are easy to deal with and progress. For a game with these cute bugs and vibrant graphics, it has a lot of bosses, each requiring some practice and figuring out the best combination of charms and moves.

Once I got the King's Brand, I didn't go directly to the Abyss and decided to stop at the Colosseum just to make some extra geos. You get 1000 each time you clear the first one, and that first one is easy enough and takes like 10 minutes only.

Another place where you can get some easy money is by rescuing little grubs. Grubfather will give you for each rescued grub, mostly in Geo but sometimes in more valuable items like a charm or Pale Ore.

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Since Pale Ore helps you upgrade your Nail, I decided to look for all of them before continuing my journey. One is placed on the feet of the Radiance statue over the Crystal Peaks. You don't have to even fight any bosses to get it, and I had all the abilities to reach there.

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I looked at the time played, and it was just under 10 hours and not a lot is left to get to the easier ending. Sure, I still have to get to the Dreamers, but they are not that hard. Once you have all the movement abilities, it becomes easy. There are still some mandatory boss fights which might take another 4-5 hours (including the Hollow Knight), and get the easy ending. But I am going for the 112% completion this time, and I have no clue how I will clear some of the Pantheon levels and DLC bosses.

Until next time...