Still No Silksong, So Hollow Knight It Is
Hello and welcome back to my blog!
A highly anticipated game for this year is Hollow Knight: Silksong. After years of waiting, it seems like 2025 will be the year for the game release, but we are in the fifth month of the year, and there is still no release date. Things can get delayed. Everyone has been waiting for it to come out for years now. I couldn't wait any longer and decided to play Hollow Knight again.
This time, I will try to complete the game, a full 112% completion with the true ending and beating all the bosses in the pantheons. This endgame has an insane difficulty spike compared to the early and midgame. That was the reason I stopped at around 101% with many bosses left. It is time to replay it from scratch, and this time I will be trying to unlock all the hidden things in the game, even if I have to look up some guides for it. I don't usually like to look up things from the internet while playing a game, but this game is so complex with hidden rooms and secret lore all around the map, it is easier to miss some.
Team Cherry, the developers of Hollow Knight, created a beautiful masterpiece. I am playing it on a better monitor this time, and it looks even more beautiful than I remember from the last time.
I knew where to go straight away, so I went and defeated the False Knight, got the first ability, the vengeful spirit, so I can go towards the Green Path. There we find our first big boss fight. This must be the place where all the casual gamers might leave the game, lol. It isn't too hard, Hornet fight, but it tests your resolve for sure.
This fight gives us the Mothwing Cloak, which gives us the ability to dash. Super useful for the rest of the game and you simply cannot explore most of the game without this ability.
Greenpath is one of the most beautiful regions on the map as well and connected to a lot of different places as well. Love the music here too. The entire OST is a thing of beauty.
NPCs here have unique characteristics to them, and you start feeling for them, learning their stories, spending time with them in secluded corners of the Hallownest and understanding more of their lore bit by bit. Many of them have cryptic dialogues which start making more sense as you reach the end of your run. One of the reasons I wanted to play it again is to understand them better this time. One of my favourites is Quirrel, who we find in multiple locations and becomes an important character in the story too.
I went straight for the next ability, the Mantis claw, which gives us wall jump. This unlocks major chunks of the world. And Mantis village, the place it is found, has cool aesthetics and cryptic messages. These bugs seem to ward off corruption and have honor and dignity.
This section also has the Mantis Lords boss fight. Getting through this fight feels like a well-choreographed dance between our knight and the mantis lords. The boss fight in my first playthrough made me fall in love with the game. It was challenging at first, but once you learn all the moves and practice a bit, it all fell in place perfectly, making it one of the most satisfying boss fights for me in the entire game, a game where there are many boss fights.
Once you defeat them, they won't harm you anymore, and the entire Mantis village becomes an easy area. You get the 'Mark of Pride' charm here, which increases the length of your nail by a lot. This can be used with some other charm combination for some pretty satisfying builds. So, this area is pretty rewarding.
You get access to the Deepnest, which is one of the most hated areas of the game. Just because of the darkness and annoying bugs, traps and spikes everywhere. A challenging section. I didn't even have the Lumafly lantern at this point. But I still decided to go and take the Tram Pass from here. That is going to unlock some more sections for us. But soon, I had to backtrack to the starting village in Dirtmouth and collect more geos to get the Lumafly lantern.
We saved the young lady from the depths of the Fungal Waste; she became a fan of us and even writes poetry about us haha. And if you sit next to her on the bench on the Dirtmouth her face starts turning red. She might have a crush on us, her saviour, I guess.
The amount of progress I made in a few hours of this run is amazing. It must have taken me 5x more time to reach this place or even get the same number of abilities. My first playthrough (defeating the Hollow Knight only) took me about 60 hours or so, and I think this will take me about 15 hours or even less for the same thing. I am enjoying it a lot, and until Silksong comes (I hope it launches this year), I should be completing everything in the game. Going to be tough towards the end, but I will push through.
Thanks for reading.
- All the content is mine unless otherwise stated.
- Screenshots are from the game Hollow Knight.
I think I started playing the original Hollow Knight twice but if didn't hook me initially. I'm quite sure that I would love it if I pulled through a bit more though but 60 hours is also such a time commitment. I guess this is one of those games I would get into in case I had a steamdeck.
Nice to see you enjoying it!
I love a good 20-30 hour game but I am glad this takes a bit longer if you are going blind without any guides or anything just because it is incredibly well done... the parts of the map connect to each other beautifully, it has to be the best metroidvania, without a doubt.
absolutely. I would say that at least half of the entire map isn't even at all necessary to completing the game but people are really missing out if they just skip all of this. There are so many wonderful hidden optional things in this game. The white temple with all of the buzzsaws for example, was wildly difficult but so satisfying once you complete it.
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This was such a great read. I tried Ori before and loved the atmosphere. Now, reading your post reminded me of that same emotional depth and exploration. Hollow Knight feels even richer in lore.
I played one of the Ori games, it was nice but not as deep as HK in many aspects. But both are beautiful games.
Very good post and I understand that feeling of playing the sequel of this great game... I am also doing the same with another game called “Nine Sols”,😎 it is the same essence as hollow knight, I recommend it and I will talk about it soon. And if you are going to do the true ending it will cost you a little bit... but it is really worth that ending, I recommend that when you have the most patience and get all the tools and skills possible, I had to have too much patience with that hehehehe greetings! 😃
Yeah, the true ending is going to take a lot of patience.
I had Hollow Knight gifted to me awhile back but I havent even started playing it yet. I am entranced by the very cute and beautiful artwork in the game but I'm worried being a below average skilled gamer I would be the person to only sit there and fail and probably rage out of my mind. Any advice for us underskilled gamers wanting to try a beautiful game such as this one with the skill being a bit more than we can chew?
I think there is a stereotype for this game being too hard and not for all gamers. It is not, once in a while there will be some bosses who require a few retries but other than that it is not hard. (It gets a little hard towards the end, very tuff if you want to do all the optional things at the end, but you don't need to)
Trust me, if my girlfriend can play it, anyone can haha. (don't tell her that lol)
It is one of the best games I have ever played!
I agree with this sentiment. Some of the bosses are very tough, but chances are you just need to pay better attention to their "tells" and learn where you need to be when they do that. There were about 3 bosses that I found truly difficult but once I figured out their patterns, it really changed everything.
I'm still waiting for the sequel
I wish I had these kinds of skills to get the right assets
Hollow Knight really is a masterpiece, and seeing you aim for that full 112% sounds cool. I loved reading your reflections, especially about the NPCs. Good luck with the Pantheons later on.
Paththeons are going to take a lot of my time... on my last run, I gave up on them just because of the difficulty. Maybe this time I will show more resolve.
I don't think I would have it in me to complete the full game. Don't you have to first carry that delicate plant to the other side of the map without taking any damage? That alone would count me out of the 112%.
I am actually kind of happy that Silksong is being delayed. Team Cherry has a sterling reputation of quality and I would rather wait than have a game released that isn't ready. The question is though - is it even possible for them to one-up Hollow Knight? Talk about a tough mission to accomplish!