Swell.
The rumor is that it’s supposed to be a standalone sub-game, but we’ll see very soon.
A full-blown sequel rather than a dlc, which includes the following:
- Discover a whole new kingdom! Explore coral forests, mossy grottos, gilded cities and misted moors as you ascend to the shining citadel at the top of the world.
- Engage in lethal acrobatic action! Wield a whole new suite of nimble moves as you dance between foes in deadly, beautiful combat.
- Craft powerful tools! Master an ever-expanding arsenal of weapons, traps and mechanisms to confound your enemies and explore new heights.
- Solve shocking quests! Hunt down rare beasts, unearth ancient mysteries and search for lost treasures to fulfil the wishes of the downtrodden and restore the kingdom’s hope. Prepare for the unexpected!
- Face over 150 all-new foes! Beasts and hunters, assassins and kings, monsters and knights – defeat them all with bravery and skill!
- Experience a stunning orchestral score! Hollow Knight’s award-winning composer, Christopher Larkin, returns to bring melancholy melodies, symphonic strings and heart-thumping, soul strumming boss themes to the adventure.
- Challenge Silk Soul mode! Once you conquer the game, test your skills in an all-new mode that spins the game into a unique, challenging experience.
Team Cherry released a 20 minute video discussing their plans, and a blog post where they reveal that they’ve sold nearly 3 million copies of the first game!
My main gripe with the original (which I loved) was that the combat was pretty flat and didn’t expand too much. This seems to have fixed that in a big way, tying combat and traversal in a more integrated flow.
I’m going to be all over this.
The combat does look more interesting, but the video made me realize I’m not ready for more Hollow Knight. I assume release is a year away so I have time.
My fear is that they captured lighting with the original and it’s going to be hard to keep it fresh. I’m mostly curious to see what the map structure/secret stuff is going to look like. They can’t just rehash the first game and expect it to feel as fresh. I hope they rethink that as they seem to have rethought the combat.
I finally started this, and reading comments that the combat stays pretty same-y throughout is giving me pause. I’m already a little bored with the sameness of the midboss/boss combat (at City of Tears / Soul Sanctum). I feel like I don’t have enough useful combat verbs, and the enemy behaviors aren’t that varied.
Comparing to Dark Souls, it kind of reminds me of the reduction of degrees of freedom from 3D to 2D in, say, X-com to Steamworld Heist. Gravity just changes the mechanics.
Also, I might just be cross because I hate the teleporting mage dudes.
How many charms have you picked up?
There are some interesting bosses, but most of them are samey and combat verbs are indeed limited (charms slightly change some verbs, but do not add). The most interesting bosses add traversal or multiple enemies at the same time. But the best combat happens in the hardest levels of the arena. They were more inventive there (even if using a more limited vocabulary) than in the boss fights.
I think the game shines despite of all this, but combat is the low point imho. It feels great but is has not as much breadth as the other aspects of the game.
4 or 5? The only one I’ve seen so far that seems like it might be combat useful is the Dashmaster, which might make dash-escapes more useful. I haven’t really played with that though.
I’ve found 3 shops in addition to the mapmaker, so maybe I should go back and look over the charms available there again.
I’ve kept plugging away at this, and I appear to be at the end game (ish, I haven’t gotten the void heart, so I’m not at the real end, but I’m at the nominal end). However, I appear to be done with it, since I dont think I’m going to be able to beat it.
According to the wikis, I will need to hit the final boss something like 60 times to kill him. I think I’m just not good enough at this game for that, and it sounds kind of boring to practice until I am. Alternatively, I can laboriously 100% the game to unlock the last nail upgrade, and lower that to around 50.
I don’t actually know how many hp bosses tend to have in metroidvanias (and I’ve played a lot of them), but almost all the bosses in this have felt excessively hp-sponge-y. Either that or the approach to the bosses from the save points feels particularly punitive here.
I’ve had this on the back burner on Switch for a couple of months now, and just “finished” it up with what I assume is the worst ending. I wound up at 77% completion with 27 hours on the clock. Thoroughly enjoyed it overall.
I’ve avoided looking at any guides or spoilers, and don’t want to pull out a checklist or try for 100% completion (no faster way to suck all the joy out of games for me), but is there anything optional but so good that I should absolutely make a point of seeking it out before shelving the game?
Here are the things I know I haven’t done:
- Four boss fights that I repeatedly died on. Not sure if any of them unlock further areas. (Lost Kin, Hornet rematch in Kingdom’s Edge, third Colosseum fight, and Zote’s dream.)
- Never found a way to open those black energy barriers.
- Currently at 1100 dream energy, and the next upgrade is at 1200.
- Never found a way to do anything with the white knight at the Palace Grounds.
- A smattering of remaining grubs I could track down, but have held off hoping to find another shop or something to spend extra money on rather than carrying it around indefinitely and possibly losing it. I’ve bought out every shop I’ve found.
You certainly have not done the White Palace, which is a pretty big chunk of gameplay quite unlike anything else in the game. I do think the true ending in this is worth going for.
From your list, you want to beat Hornet and then eventually bring essence to 1800 (which probably requires beating some dream bosses, yes). But the boss I mention is what’s blocking your progress.
Doing those two things should suggest you how to proceed. There are a couple more steps, but doing this and what it unlocks will take quite a while.
Perfect, thanks!
I did eventually beat the Hollow Knight, but I haven’t attempted the dream bosses, because I tried what I assume is the easiest one (False Knight), and didn’t feel any particular compulsion to master the combat system to that degree.
False Knight is one of the harder ones, if not the hardest.
Empty Vessel and the mage one are easier. I don’t remember what the others are.
I finally gave up on this - only 6-7 hours in, mind you - but found the save game and boss mechanics an infuriating time sink. I think that means I won’t enjoy Dark Souls, right? Shame, the rest of the game was really beautiful/enjoyable.
I’m playing finally this game. I’m enjoying it, with some reserves. 12,5 hours played, I think I explored 6 regions, and have two more opened. The truth is, the game drinks a bit too much of its own koolaid and sometimes it’s a bother not having a map of an area, or having to use one equipment point for basic stuff like seeing your position on the map, or having to cross one region and a half to go back to the nearest quick travel point, or having back to the last death to recover souls. Sometimes it feels like busy work, not like something interesting to do.
Oh, and I hate how you can’t write stuff in the map, so I have to check every unexplored part every time I gain a new movement ability, because I can’t remember what type of hindrance was in each.
The setting, the atmosphere, it’s superb, of course, but that’s not news at this point. The plaltforming itself is also very solid.
Now, after all that, I have to talk of the difficulty. Thanks god it isn’t as high as Dark Souls, at least for now (It’s still possible I give up in the game in the last 1/3 if there is a ramp up in difficulty). Right now it’s manageable. Some bosses I had to try 6-7 times but I could beat them. What I hate is the far away checkpoint system, I hate having to repeat the same 18 rooms that are between the closest bench and the boss where I’m dying. In the end I just modified the difficulty of the game to just ease up with the repetition.
In that respect, thanks god for PC gaming, because I could edit my save and just gave me one extra health pip. So instead of having 6 pips (I have one upgrade right now), I have 7. Someone could call it cheating, I prefer to calling it implementing missing difficulty options.
I stopped playing because of the need to cross areas to save the game and quick travel. If it had at least save anywhere I doubt I’d have stopped playing. I might get back to it eventually.
I wish there was an easier mode.
I forget what boss I ended up getting stuck on and rage quitting. I think I was up near Crystal Peak.