The one point in the game where I felt the walk to the boss was too long is the soul master. Even with the shortcut I had to look up, the walk there just takes too long
the mantis lords bench is a bit too far as well IMO, but the soul master one is terrible! its the narrow corridors full of the teleporting guys that makes it suck for me
It doesn't help that the mantis lords and the soul master are the main bosses the few of the first areas in the game because then newcomers could get discouraged from continuing to play
@@jackyoung1229 yeah at least the mantis lord one had options on how to get down, and it was clear if you were careful you could get down unharmed. In my first run-through on the soul master, I legit thought I was doing something wrong I was taking so much damage walking their, even with soul chests at the end. but its a tiny scar on an amazing game(though id remove the watcher knights now that I think about it)
For the bosses, benches, and backtracking bit, there are quite a few bosses that are hell to trek back towards. Soul Master, Hive Knight, and the Traitor Lord.
Yeah and it's not like any of them take a super long time either.... But the entire boss design is largely based on pattern recognition, you are going to die multiple times on your first time with a boss, so backtracking 1-2 min 10 or so times suddenly add up quite a lot in such a boss heavy game. It usually never actually adds any difficulty at all but adds a lot of tedium in the long term
I love that last one "I should have spent more money" (more or less quote.) Buddy saw the effort in the game and thought the developers were under selling themselves.
more like the buddy saw the effort that went in this game and the extremely cheap price and decided to repay by lowering the game average score with his rewiew
4:40 I also find hornet's contact damage annoying. She's not hard to beat, but at the start it was really annoying to get killed by her casually walking into you instead of an actual attack.
@@airy214 yh i just started 2nd run after not playing for a few years and got spiked by the horn hit box while she was crouching. I forgot how charming hornet is for a little bug thing that mainly just grunts.
I'm not sure if this counts, but there's a "background" boss in one of the silksong trailers, meaning the boss kinda just loses a hitbox and usually only the hands and some other various weapons are what you fight.
Though her bossfight's design is completely centered around contact damage. Her jumping actually is an attack, there's a small telegraph for it I'm pretty sure.
hive knight, traitor lord, and soul master are all far enough from the nearest benches to be frustrating. for soul master, this is even worse if you don't find the shortcut in the elevator to shade soul. but I agree that most bosses are only 1-2 rooms away from a bench
I died to traitor lord so many times, I can do that platforming section in my sleep. It's not that bad. I actually think Mantis Lords is worse, even if it's not as far.
@@Crazy_Diamond_75 It depends on when you fight Mantis Lords, many get the Wall Climb, open the lever and don't realize the floor opened, and then they head to the city of tears. I personally on my first play through did that, and by the time I faced them had two nail upgrades, which made them easy.
@@CheddahSlammer ah, yeah, that would make it easier. If you're not very good at 2D platformers like I was and go straight for them after mantis claws, the gauntlet of enemies can be very difficult.
@@Crazy_Diamond_75 My first time playing Hollow Knight, it took me forever to beat Traitor Lord, so much so I eventually had to use teleport so I wouldn't have to keep going through that.
hive knight and traitor lord yes, soul master not really, every single room in soul sanctum has a short cut. so the bench and soul master is about 3-4 rooms apart or something like that
The thing is, even if the review doesn't say much of value, the negative/positive recommendation is good for the game. It helps show what a general audience feels rather than steam critics.
Until you realize that three quarters of the bad reviews are just those dumb good reviews that they marked as bad. I wish people would give games the ratings they deserve instead of trying to be witty but just being a headache. All jokes aside, I completely agree.
Acudit If anything all it does is show how bad the community is. They refuse to acknowledge any fair opinions about the game they dislike and tell people not to even look at them
i'd say "joke reviews" do more harm than good in steam , also steam review system is quite bad, having a thousands of "bad reviews" because someone decided to negative bomb review a game because some stupid reason is one the reason not everybody should be allowed to leave reviews on steam
They have an actual point on back tracking the boss, sometimes it's just too much, I would loved an option where it actually teleport me in front of the boss room everytime I die
@@hirahiro2331 the issue with your point is that it's completely up in the air at what stage of the game players will get dreamgate i personally didn't get dreamgate until i beat every non-dream boss in the game not that it's a bad thing, but with metroidvania level design you need to consider that some players might not have the teleport spell before you add a mile long trek to the boss
@goldcat2002 that's true. I discovered dream gate by accident (I didn't know where I was going furst run, so I found and fought a lot of dreambosses to waste time). From that's POV, it would be convenient for a closer bench or a shortcut for some of sort.
@@hirahiro2331 Also dream gate uses a limited resource that some players (like me) will refuse to use because they think it's valuable and needed for that bug in the graveyard (forgot the name)'s quest.
I don't think that is something wrong when people criticize something like the backtracking. Is true that is a characteristic of metroidvanias, but not everyone knows what a metroidvania is. I assure you there are thousands of people whose first metroidvania was Hollow Knight due to its popularity and all the good reviews. I'm sure a lot of people decide to buy the game and try it out but they just get bored or annoyed by the concept or the backtracking or its difficulty and decide to drop it and leave their feedback, so it may help other people that come from a similar background and won't enjoy it as much as the average HK player. If they aren't being rude towards the developers or the fans, and they are just giving their opinion regarding their experience with a game, I don't think is necessary to call them out in a way that the reviewer may feel like a rude person.
Hollow knight was my first metroidvania, and at first i thought it was just some adventure game and went in blind, didn't even make it to false knight, i just wasnt accustomed. Now i finished the game multiple times + pantheons and its in my top 5 best game
That was actually exactly my position. I thought metriod vanias means, that you get to play with rocket launcher, plasma rifles and cool mechs in a 2d setting💀
Hollow knight was also my first metro. And I have to say. It will be the reason I try another one of these games. I dont honestly feel like its back tracking at all. Its almost like minecraft in that sense. You are exploring the world. And sometimes you have to go back to the iron ore with the stone pick you just got. I suppose some may call that back tracking. And I do know this is a weird example. I just love this game lol. The world is great.(even if the map is painful sometimes)
Backtracking is definitely worse in Hollow Knight than something like Super Metroid because there really aren't that many mobility upgrades to make retracing your steps more interesting, the map in HK is much bigger, the different regions are less visually distinct making it a bit harder to get your bearings, and the map/navigation tools in HK are garbo (to be blunt). It's a valid criticism from veterans or newcomers tbh.
every time I hear the raindrop that fell to the sky at the end of these videos it brings me back to the countless times that I have wasted over 10 minutes in siren's call because "no way haha funny legendary item no waaaaay", but that doesn't mean that the raindrop that fell to the sky isn't one of my favourite soundtracks ever composed.
@@Salmonwithfeet Every time I hear any of his faux-guitar synth solos, I just regress to "nononono! Get away from me! You hit like a truck and there's three of you!"
Honestly I agree with the "respawn is too far away from the boss" complain. In this game or in ANY Souls like, when you die you just want to try again, I'll never understand why devs don't give us a retry option when we die. Walking back to the boss room isn't fun, isn't challenging, it's just a waste of time. The good thing is that the dream nail portals completely fix this problem, but players shouldn't have to wait until midgame for that
I agree here. Even though I understand putting benches everywhere would dilute the value of finding benches and it wouldn't make sense, sometimes I just want to retry to fight a boss. If you're a new player and you die to the same boss over and over it's going to feel frustrating because you just keep doing the same thing, over and over when the only thing you want to do is fight a boss.
I got the dream nail late in game, I went and killed another dream warrior just to be able to use the dream nail portal to be able to teleport right outside the boss room for Traitor Lord from the stag point in Queens Garden. Though part of the issue for me is that my controller seems to be dying on me so I need to fix that, since it keeps injuring me.
@@Mokomis_ huh im currently playing hk i finished greepath fungal wastes citys storerooms deepnest and i got dreamnail right crystal heart is this supposed to be late game or sum 💀
I think that nosk was intentionally designed for you to take more of a reactive approach to it because nosk is the predator trying to hunt you down, not the other way around
The Nosk fight is designed for the player to be the pray; designing that fight so that chasing the boss is hard just makes sense. Never had problems chasing Nosk because I never chased Nosk. Plus the place where he might stop is the same spot, and you could figure that out and predict when he might do it consistently.
Yeah, I was so confused as to why he was complaining about one of the telegraphed attacks, like if you just assume that every time he runs past you he’ll stop in the center then you’ll never overextend against him.
@@Kittywittygamer Nosk isn’t actually a terrible boss, in fact, I’d rate it in the middle of all the bosses in Hollow Knight, not quite at the level of the great fights, but not as bad as the worst ones.
@@thatotherandrew_ the bosses I put below Nosk: Grey Prince Zote Uumuu Vengefly King Gruz Mother Flukmarm God tamer (has very basic attacks and only need to kill the beast to win) Brooding Mawlek Massive Moss Charger
the thing about the bench locations is also similar to how hard it can be to move. mantis lords might be the best example where even though you're very close, a new player may consistently find it hard to get all the way back, especially on max health
Mantis lords are not necessarily required to beat the game though. Plus, if a player struggles enough with them to ask more knowledgeable players or look for tips they'll get the 2 extra lifeblood from the top left of the arena and if that's not enough they can just ignore them for now and come back later with a stronger nail and better charms.
I didnt ahve much problem with the mantis lords bench on my first playthrough, i just skipped all the enemies and hit some to get my health back up. i beat them in like 4 tries or sum
the bench issue I can understand, on my first playthrough of the game I got unbelievably upset about having to walk back to soul master 1000000 times where the closest bench is in an entirely different named location.
One genuine design problem that I feel is the worst part of the contact damage is that sometimes you're punished for actually staggering some bosses. There are multiple cases but the most egregious to me are the titular hollow knight, where he often hits you by stumbling over if you're hitting the from the front and even worse was zote, which You're just guaranteed to get hit if you happen to pogo him and he decides to stagger, or when you're pogoing him and he randomly falls over, making your pogo fail. Those 2 made me stop trying to beat the pantheons and were far more frustrating than NKG
dude their stagger a few times for fight, in the worst case you could take 2 damage to these, but it’s definitely not enough to give up doing pantheons, you can just use a better strat on pure vessel and just not pogo zote at all
Just get better? You have enough time to react to Zote falling over, this is coming from a switch player. And I’ve been punished once for staggering and it was a glitch in pure vessel.
@@matheuscabral9618 Actually some people have shown that on the switch its harder to short jump compared to other platforms. When you press the button it tend to hold longer then it does.
It's one of those cases where hardcore players think that using the mechanics the game provides is considered cheating. Like when Souls players berated those that dared to use spirits in Elden Ring instead of just brute force. The devs put that there for a reason. And I'll use if I want to.
@@brian0057 it's not that they consider compass cheating, it's that they have already memorized the map, and they don't need it. After replaying the game a second time I didn't have to look at the map more than 5 times without the compass.
About the save point and boss thing, in literally any Metroidvania that understand the genre has a save point less than 5 seconds away from the boss arena. I timed getting from the nearest bench to Traitor Lord and it took me 2 minutes to get there. That’s 24 times longer than any other Metroidvania I’ve played
when he said "It wasn't just some difficulty modifer that makes the enemy deal three times the damage for no reason." my mind jumped to grey prince zote
Contact damage is the sole reason I had to stop using Sharp Shadow, despite loving the charm. The smaller bosses would just get staggered and knocked back to where my dash ends, either damaging me or outright killing another radiant attempt. And don't get me started on times when bosses did a jump and fell on me cause it got staggered by a spell. If I have one wish for Silksong, is that contact damage is better handled.
@@Pyrodiac I find that Sharp Shadow makes you dash too far... it isn't that much of a problem for most areas in the game but when you're fighting the final bosses in the pantheons or just fighting bosses like Radiance on Radiant difficulty, every time I think "People recommend Sharp Shadow for this?"
3:58 I disagree with this, an attack that is accurately predictable 100% of the time shouldn’t be telegraphed. Nosk always stops in the middle of the room so to doge the goop attack all the player has to do is not be in the center of the room when nosk dashes over the platform. The only issue with the attack not being telegraphed is that it is harder to do the boss first try if you’ve never seen it before, but I think that learning process of failing, learning and trying again is an important part of hollow knights experience.
Yes. The stuff he said about the boss not telegraphing when he will run across the floor didn't really make sense. The telegraph is when stops using any of his attacks. After getting hit a few times, you probably learn that.
While I agree with that statement, calling Nosk stopping in the middle of the room "accurately predictable 100% of the time" is a bit of a stretch, since he doesn't stop in the same exact spot consistently (and he could also just not stop)
We know there is a much more relevant contender for that critique... It's actually really good to stretch your nail so you can have a bit more time to react
8:25 bees. I refuse to go back there. Ever again. The trek through like 4 rooms of bees just to get to the boss is infuriating. its like the bosses first stage is actually just getting to the boss, except even worse, because in my opinion the boss actually is really easy, so the bosses SECOND stage is getting to the boss, and THEN you get to fight the first stage. Maybe I missed a bench or something but I have trauma of that place I swear.
The actual complaint for me is going in blind. I played blind my first playthrough, and it would take me hours just to figure out where I’m supposed to go. For the reviews where they say you don’t get stronger, guarantee they’re playing blind, and it really is hard to find upgrades if you don’t already know where they ate
yes tbf im playing blind and i havent found the i-frame dodge yet or the superdash, i think i know what areas they are in but because of the unilinear travel and the fact im always debating "which boss/which area to go to first" i still am missing some thing i think would of been way useful if i was able to find them earlier
So, the boss that is the furthest away from any bench is the hive knight, and considering that he is in the hive, i don't think any of these people have explored that far, so they're just complaining that the bench isn't RIGHT next to the boss smh Edit: the soulmaster is pretty frustrating getting back to so that's maybe the problem Edit 2: yeah, traitor lord is also a long ways away from any bench. Edit 3: (I can't believe, I'm still adding to this comment) It has been some time since I last played Hollow Knight, but I distinctly remember the walk to Hive Knight from the hive bench being really tedious, especially considering all the bees n' shit.
I was so so angry to find in a video that one shortcut between the bench room (where Cornifer had been) and the lift because I'd already beaten most of the game including Soul Tyrant.
Boss runbacks were never good short or long is still a waste of time , it's big part of the reason why I hated the older dark souls games with their bullshit enemies
7:55 you can still somewhat 'label' the markers by colour. For me blue was areas that I didn't/couldn't explore, yellow was something that I missed (like a soul fragment), black was bosses and red was kinda a place holder. Didn't had enough of one colour? Use red. Or at the beginning I mark it as places I couldn't go to
Personally I never marked bosses during the game, boss that I found, It was a dead one, trying indefinitely until victory. Mawlek was my second boss because of that, and I honestly don't know if I'm proud of that or I should feel really stupid for putting more effort than necessary into various bosses
my first time playing i was already spoiled on what all the upgrades were, so i tried to mark them accordingly. the problems came when i started to forget which pin meant what, and i also ran out of pins kinda fast so i used the wrong color, and by the end i just checked every pin whenever i felt like i could go somewhere new. and i STILL missed stuff lol
I never really used the markers but I’m glad to see fellow players that have found some use out of them. The game is incredible in every way and I’m glad people are able to take advantage of certain features that I may not have used as much.
I think it's important to remember that not all gamers can commit to 10-hour days of gaming. It sounds to me like a gamer who plays maybe 4 total hours per week, so they aren't able to put in the kind of time that Hollow Knight requires. If you play it a few hours and walk away for a week, you kind of forget what you were doing and the game doesn't really tell you what to do next.
I 100% disagree the map is bad, it shows you rooms you have yet to go into, (apart from the very small exception of the love key room), and the markers give you enough for anything else
Yeah i love the map, the different colors and markers, also important things look spottable on the map, like black egg temple. I didn't need to use the charm that shows my location on the map because it was good. I think that if you just have a really bad sense of direction, its bad, but that isnt the map being bad.
@@showd6229 personally, I didn't use the markers because I didn't know where to put them, most of the important locations were either: easy to spot or had symbols around them
I can see how some of the walks can feel long if you don't know where the shortcuts are, because in a lot of cases it would be a long walk, but if you just explore a little bit you'll find an optional bench or a shortcut. Exception being soul master and arguably dung defender, I remember REALLY hating the trek back on those two, especially soul master since the shortcuts just don't do enough
i'd assume these people that misses benches near a boss, or miss a shortcut are ones that rather play a game that handholds the player the game doesn't explicit tell you to explore and get rewarded for exploring, so just rush from boss to boss like it's a speedrun it's probably the same or similar problem with people not liking the backtracking peronally to me, the map wasn't so terrible because at some point the backtracking and exploring made me have my own mental map of the game's map it's just like driving to a certain place daily, like commuting to work. soon enough you'll be able to drive there without looking at the map and this also apply to the enemy attack patterns and general design, first time is confusing but every attempt makes it easier the hardest boss for me was the watcher knights, i was early enough in the game that i was still kind of shit at combat and i didn't have much upgrades took me about 14 tries, i was having trouble with the multiple bosses attacking at the same time and their attacks which can cover a lot of space plus i had to endure for a while as i played it safe (about a nail swing every 7s or so) i did look up about the boss and how i could destroy 1 of them before the fight, but i decided that i'd want the full fight now, watcher knights are pretty easy although it's been a while since i touched the game. i doubt i'll have that much trouble against watcher knights
dung defender is pretty far but he’s so easy that it’s not really an issue. I am currently on my first playthrough and I only died a couple times to him
I find Hollow Knight to be stupidly fun, and also tough. Although, once you learn a bosses patterns, it's much easier, because of practice. Hollow Knight gets easier as you learn the game, something most gamers don't seem to do, like, at all. I struggled with the Mantis Lords for quite a while, but only until I decided to step back from the "gotta kill this boss no matter what" mindset to: "well, if I actually pay attention to the attack patterns, I can easily dodge most attacks, and even heal myself during one!" I love Hollow Knight, its art style, its gameplay and that difficulty that relies on players learning the game.
your point is invalid because of how many people love dark souls lmao people DO learn the games they play, i think you're just generalizing these reviews as a stand in for the gaming community as a whole
@@goldcat2002 I completely understand your point. However I did specify that it’s only the majority of people who don’t bother to learn the games they play. Dark Souls is a great example, as you can only succeed by learning. Thanks for your feedback!
I actually didn't get lost at all while i played hollow knight..... Probably because i would try to find a map like crazy. But i would never use the compass. And i never will since i already went through everywhere without it. But i did like explore literally everywhere
Love this game, and appreciate the increased difficulty, especially after beating Ori and the Blind forest. However, I completely disagree about the benches and bosses. I almost quit the game about a 3rd of the way through because I became so frustrated with the amount of time spent backtracking to the bosses. While it certainly isn’t ten minutes, it is often several minutes in length, especially for some bosses like the mantis lords, the traitor lord, and the soul master. Metroidvania bosses, and this is no exception are all about finding patterns, and the best way to find those patterns is to try lots of things over and over again. However, when the game actively prevents this by making you perform several minutes of worthless platforming just to try again, they aren’t raising the difficulty, they are just preventing a good feedback loop.
i agree with you except for the mantis lords, in that part i just lost one or two hp on the way then just healed myself for the fight and it didnt take more than a minute and a half. however soul master was a pain, especially because of the soul mages or whatever that teleport 5 kilometers away every time you get close to them.
The point in backtracking is that you risk losing all your geo getting back. It’s definitely frustrating but it's fair, it’s like the game punishes you for being bad at it, and requires you to get better. It took me 3 tries to beat soul master and it wasn’t even that bad. Plus, most of the bosses don't need you to go back long distances, and the bench is relatively close. Also, by backtracking through the same route, you get better at platforming and become more efficient. Godhome offers that experience you’re talking about, spawning right next to the boss after you fail. Honestly, for new players, it's just a skill issue.
@@kash4307 mean the reason why the mechanic of losing geo exists is to add some weight to dying. If you're running around with a lot of money, you're risking losing it. But bosses are supposed to be bigger challenges that you learn to get better at. Punishing the player for that seems pointless to me, they're already a gateway to progression, it just adds frustration when you can't get to the thing that killed you in the first place. It's also annoying if your shade spawns in the boss room which usually doesn't happen but it happens for some bosses I'm pretty sure.
@@infinity_gamer.1385 You can devolve any issue with difficulty to "git gud". It's subjective ultimately. It's like one of two gripes I have with an otherwise almost perfect game.
"I cannot think of a single boss fight in the game where there isn't a bench relatively close" Hiveknight. Not because the bench is SUPER far away, but because the enemies in between you and the boss are more difficult to avoid than the boss itself.
One thing to note about the whole difficulty spike complaint is playstyle. I actually did experience a difficulty spike near the end, because I played the game like a tank. I would take a lot of hits, but heal a lot. So when I hit late game stuff where bosses started dealing two damage per hit and don't give you much opportunity to heal, that was a huge difficulty spike for me. Now you can say I played the game wrong and wasn't supposed to do things how I did, but the thing is, the game let's you play that way, and it's pretty effective... up until it isn't. So yes, there actually can be a difficulty spike depending on how you play the game. (There's also the platforming difficulty spike that is the White Palace.)
Because using their brain is hard, or they're afraid of taking risks. Hearing the map maker, and getting to him are two separate things. And there's a good chance a new player will die on the way to him.
@@tiacool7978 I'm betting on the first option, people don't use their brains, on my first playthrough the map was like a blessing and conifer's like humming was the chanting for it, without those maps I would have been so lost
I’m a one of the people who just got lost and stopped playing. I remember beating some bosses and then just getting completely lost and searching where to go for like 4 hours. I have beaten Elden Ring,metroid and I’m really good at going back for some goodies in games. I think the problem is in the map and there is not enough story that hints you how to progress. In Elden Ring you can understand what is your next boss even from items description but in hollow knight you kinda don’t get any story at all until you progress to mid-late game
i'm kinda confused when people say they dont know where to go. the map tells you when theres somewhere you haven't gone, so why not try to reach that area? and if you can't figure it out, try a different unexplored area. the only reason i can think of is that people didn't notice it. can you give some insight?
@@maple... the problem is that i checked alot of places but maybe i missed the one i needed the most.Because i couldnt see it on the map i just got lost.And also the game kinda didnt told me that i need to find a new location so i was searching everything.I was thinking "fuck i think i didnt find the item i need somewhere on the map". Also playing it on the small switch screen made it a lil bit harder
@@Prosto-Ban ohhh, small switch screen would not help i think. and for a metroidvania, the game is pretty linear until you get to the city of tears, so that makes sense
As a hardcore fan of the metroidvania genre, I've been devouring this game for the past 2 weeks and absolutely love it. I ONLY have TWO gripes with the game: 1) When people complain about excessive backtracking (and that only really matters when going for 100~112% IMO) I can ABSOLUTELY see their point. That happens because in Hollow Knight you don't have ANY way at all to go FAST (and I mean really fast). In SOTN you have: wolf, bat, gravity boots, jump kicks... In Metroid titles you have: speed booster, shining spark (and the games are WAAAY shorter than Hollow Knight) In Bloodstained you have: good teleports and the accelerator Etc Now in Hollow Knight we have what...? The Super Dash/Crystal Heart? That's more like a tool to get you from point A to point B in specific areas/situations. You can't just use it all the time because the maps are usually either not that open or full of platforms (or both - unless you're a speedrunner and knows all the optimal points to super dash from). And it's very limited: it only kills really MINOR enemies and stops on contact. It's a not a tool made for maneuverability. And the dreamgate is not that great, too. They should have designed it better, I think. And because of that stag stations do feel spaced out from one another. There should be anywhere between 30 to 50% more stag stations to balance that out OR better movement options, since the game has so much extra content. But given different/better movement options would change the game DRASTICALLY, more stag stations and/or a better dreamgate system would be a simple fix IMO. 2) The other gripe is the fact that geo spreads around like crazy and there isn't any good reason for that. I'd say 1/3 of your geo gets lost in a casual playthrough. I realize there's a charm that tries to remediate that, but imagine having to sacrifice a notch just for that. To think that was a game design decision baffles me, tbh. Although VERY annoying, it doesn't affect the overall experience that much. Now, the lack of movement options/stag stations really bothers me. Having said all that, it doesn't make Hollow Knight worth of a negative review by any means. It is still amazing in every other aspect and is in my top 3 metroidvania games.
I think the best solution for the backtracking thing is just to add a few more benches in important spots. Waterways, Wastes, Hive, Gardens and Deepnest could all use a couple more benches spaced out. There's a bench right next to Mantis Lords, one of a newbie's main roadblocks, but you only get it AFTER the boss. That could shoo off new players from an amazing game (number 2 of all time imo), and is easily fixable too. I think the Stag Stations and Tram are fine, apart from it maybe being good to add one in Waterways and Fungal proper. They're mostly where you need them to be.
I agree with a couple points here. Contact damage is extremely frustrating, I wish it was enemy specific (ie: if they have spikes they hurt you if you touch them or an enemy is doing a charge/dash attack). Although not a frequent issue there was a couple bosses throughout the game where I couldn’t be bothered traveling back to the boss and called it quits for the night. When I die and have learned the bosses new patterns the last thing I want to do is refight old enemies on the slog back (yes I know it’s a metroidvania). The last one is we paid too little, indie devs if you make an incredible game at least make me pay $20. Hollow knight, Gungeon, and stardew are an absolute bargain even at full price
contact damage in this game made mark of pride a must have for me lol blasphemous (another metroidvania) had contact damage on regular enemies, but not bosses, which i actually think is much more fair
I really appreciated the music you put in this video. I only heard and recognized both Risk of Rain games, Hollow Knight itself and Rain World, but still, Thank You!
My only gripe with this game was the same one you had with Noel but with many o other bosses such as Broken Vessel and Hornet Sentinel, both of these bosses jump around a very large amount just for getting around the map but colliding with them hurts you and since it isn’t technically an attack it’s not telegraphed and hurts you more times then not
another point to contact damage, mantis lords shrink the arena with spikes, fine whatever BUT they can then spawn in on either side to sweep the ground. the sweep is telegraphed but on my first playthrough i died a few times to the mantis lords just sorta spawning in on the left and right side untelegraphed.
The sweeping of the ground attack is what they try to get you to realize means you should stay around the center and not the edges because not only will that mean you’re not at risk of getting hit into the spike pits, you’re also always given time to react to each attack. So imo it’s not really bad at all and pretty well designed for you to think about between deaths.
The idea behind it (if I'm to guess) is to make the player identify hazardous areas. Just like Nosk's dead stop, the sweep attack of the Mantis Lords happens not only always in the same way (well, same two ways) but on the same locations as well. Nosk can only stop in the center of the arena; the Lords can only spawn next to the edges of the platform. Because of this, the game expects that the player doesn't *need* having these things telegraphed: if you learn which spots within the arena are hazardous, you can keep yourself from getting hit by no-telegraph attacks by not entering the danger zone in the first place. Markoth is admittedly a bastard in this regard as well. In his case, stopping dead in his tracks can be anticipated based on the timing, not his location.
Never played it, but I must say that it's usually courtesy of the developer/map designer to have a checkpoint right next to the boss. Otherwise you might risk the player dying multiple times in the path to the boss regardless of how far it is just to retry the boss fight, and that gets in the way of learning how to fight the boss.
Most Dark Souls games have even started doing this and I have to admit it's a nice change, and this is coming from someone who doesn't mind most of the boss runs in DS1
@@machinegirl03 Y'know,those path are easy,but fucking long. I beated bosses in 2~3 attempts amd didn't had this kind of difficulties in bosses themselves or backtracking. But hearing for someone took a 30 attempts i was like "Yo... That means he backtracked route to the boss over and OVER again" And i can't blame this guy hating this game when he got to soul master and traitor after beating the game. (He said,he didn't liked this game) Game just feels slow,i sometimes wandered in hours to find something,get everywhere untill i finded main items. Its not that bad,but it has a bitter taste....
@@ellagage1256 You are mental bro. The rng insta death boss that is bed of chaos and its 7 minute run back almost broke me first time I played the game. Respect
@@slycooper2bandofthieves116 Cope. Having the checkpoint far away is insulting to the players time. I dont have all day to sit around playing video games, so it would be nice if I didnt have to spend an hour just walking back to the arena if I die a lot.
the contact damage thing is the most annoying thing existent in this game. the most damage i take to any boss is when they FUCKING WALK INTO ME IN A COMPLETELY POLITE AND NORMAL WALKING SPEED THAT MAKES NO SENSE. maybe its to imply its an enemy that attacks you if you get too close or is full of spikes, but ive already been damaged AND DIED out of stunnning the boss and it falling over me. if they at least made a very small animation for contact damage, for exemple hornet pushing you away with the needle when you touch her, id think its kinda justifyied, but stunned bosses having body damage is infuriatingly stupid. edit: i think nosk is kinda okay because its a rushing spider like monster. i think its not so absurd to have to move more carefully fighting something like that
contact damage was annoying to me at first, until i learn to be mindful of "distance" and see how far/close i am most comfortable with my playstyle then i rarely take contact damage and when i do, it was because i neglected my poisitioning and try to get a bit more damage in
@@lifegrain6092 thats what i should do. (it just happens that not by choice my playstyle consists of recklessly getting the most damage possible the quickest possible. i kinda lack the patience. i ended up being a natural for speedruns tho.)
@@buh3746 as you can see in the video, you can go really aggressive and fast once you've learn all the ins and outs of a boss/the game but the first few tries, taking damage is a lesson and something to reflect upon and death is a short break to put new information in mind before putting it to practice
@@buh3746 funnily enough, distance is also very important in real life combat haha and i usually stay real far from anything that wants to hurt me, i'm just a coward that survives
The one area that i think the bench complaint is valid is in soul sanctum. With how piss annoying the enemies there are,and the like 5 rooms of hell you have to walk through to get there,it was very frustrating on my first play through trying to get back to soul master.
I think the only real time waster I experienced was that one false stag room (below kings storeroom?) where you could slip under the wall and go to the kingdoms edge, the game just kinda doesn’t do enough to make that room significant, coupled with the sheer awe I had of experiencing city of tears with its amazing soundtrack and openness, and the fact that I was desperate to find a stag station for a much needed checkpoint, i went into that room briefly skimmed and just left. I had to search a tutorial just to find out you have to swim under a absolutely missable entryway, usually there’ll be some sort of path leading off to somewhere unknown on your map, showing a place to go but this room is literally just a dead end on the map
Wait, isn't Nosk's explosion of infection at the end of the move set? Sprint across the room, sprint back to center, infection explosion? My sense of direction and memory in general aren't the greatest, but I love how the game demands the player remember where they haven't gone: most areas are visually distinct enough to stand out. I was going to say both benches near Mantis Lords are kind of far, but they're just a little tough to get through the area. Someone said the bench closest to Soul Master is pretty far, which it is--until you find the stupid shortcut after you've already beaten him. And then there's Traitor Lord, but by then you should have Dream Gate so it's not too terrible. The base game is challenging, but absolutely beatable for a casual player like me. My first playthrough is at 107% with Grimm Troupe banishment. NKG, colo 3, the Pantheons, and Radiance have all proven very difficult, but my inability to instantly beat these things is not the fault of the game. Hornet told me how to do it, I need to practice more
The only bench that could be considered “far away” from a boss IMO is the Queens Garden one for the Traitor Lord, you know, in the 2nd to last section of the game….
Interesting that you went to Queens Gardens as the second to last area, I myself went there pretty early as there is very few regions that are locked up, in fact the gardens are right after greenpath which is the second area you unlock so I’m now really confused why you say it’s the second to last area…
@@SkylarTheFurry Not as unrealistic as you might think. I recently played the game and my order of discovery was the following: Dirtmouth -> Crossroads -> Greenpath -> Fungal Wastes/Fog Canyon -> Mantis Village -> Deepnest -> City of Tears -> Cliffs -> Resting Grounds -> Soul Sanctum -> Crystal Peak -> Basin -> Hive -> Waterways -> Kingdom's Edge -> White Palace -> Queen's Gardens -> Abyss tl;dr The Gardens are unreachable until you get the acid-swimming ability, which is found in the waterways, which can be explored quite late.
But you are totally able to get the Dream Gate before exploring the queen's garden. So you can place a mark right below the battle arena. That's what I did in my first playthrough
I slightly agree with players that backtracking is annoying, (the enemies aren’t) especially When you stay in a loop of getting far then dying, I’m pretty persistent and had whole hour long loops where I would keep on dying with minimal progress. Also am I underprepared? I have one extra soul container, one extra mask, coiled nail and few charms (less than a quarter). I am at the point where I would fight the second hornet so I can get the kings seal. Sorry for the paragraph.
The one defining thing that I use to decide if someone will dislike Hollow Knight is how they respond to being lost. The game is "about" being lost and then finding you way and the map is laid out to get you turned around and create that "I'm really lost" sensation. If this is something that is going to make someone uncomfortable or upset, they are going to hate the game. As for the other complaints people had: In older patches, there wasn't a stag in the basin and you didn't have dream gate. Any review written before then might have a better complaint about too much walking. The bench for fighting the mantis lords is deliberately far away to discourage repeated challenges or grinding. You are supposed to come back when you are stronger and confident. The walk back to hive knight is also pretty bad because he wasn't originally there. But people really wanted them to add a boss to that area. So he got added, but if you don't drop a dream gate and then die, it's a long walk.
I want to love this game so much, and I do for the most part. For me the worst thing is just having no clue where you are supposed to be going. I love the boss fights, and wish I didn't have to like walk around aimlessly for 4 hours before maybe finding one. Oh I found a new ability, guess I will go back to EVERY area and see if this new ability does anything.
The bench complaint makes sense! I HATED backtracking to (for example) Markoth, Mantis Lords, and Soul Master. One of my favorite bosses was Broken Vessel, as there was a shortcut you could use to just go from the bench to the boss AFTER you dealt with all the enemies for the first time. Another example would be Hornet, with the bench being very close to both the arena and 2 shortcuts to unlock.
i once had a friend that left a negative review in hk that was basically "its too hard and has too much backtracking, just not the game for me" he had played for about 7 hours
to the point adressed at 9:05 i think that's due to the case that each area has a multitude of ways to get into it and a lot of the areas could be accessed in a multitude of different ways not just 1 (a mojirity not all though) boss keys i think did an amazing video of why that's the case
I love this game but so many people just get frustrated cuz they don't learn from each death and think that the game is too hard but really they just didn't understand how to beat the boss they are stuck on
by the time i reach soul master i literally forget everything from my previous fight with him because i had to walk so much. learning stuff this way is not ineffective... like yeah, i will get that sweet muscle memory to beat him. after 2 days of trying 🙂
I think the game was called rogue legacy 2, but it had an accessibility feature to remove contact damage, unless the enemy had touching as their attack only enemies could damage, and it also had a difficulty slider, and it literally gave a warning that the contact thing made it way easier. 😅 I liked upping up the difficulty slider and removing the contact just to the point where I could get to about how far I made it before made the combat a lot more enjoyable, sometimes I wish hollow knight had a option like that.
I think boss battles are so fun in this game because the controls are very rigid. What I mean by that is your character will do exactly what you want him to do. If you are going right and you suddenly want to go left, the knight will immediately go left without sliding on two or three meters like in mario games.
@@bofa722 but das de whole point, its part of the game. but if its making it to the point where it feels unplayable, then yeh it can kind of ruin the game
If you chase nosk trying to hit him, you’ll likely run into him. Theres no Telegraph because that’s the point. You learn from that and play it safe so you can time your attacks. The difficult thing with Markoth is the combination of no floor and random nails that can appear offscreen so you don’t realize you’re jumping in a wrong direction until too late. Not to mention that chasing him around makes it that much harder. Typically,I go into that boss fight in P5 with enough soul so I can fill my meter up by his 2nd phase and just end him with vengeful spirit attacks.
honestly the only "bad" thing about hollow knight i can think of is that your first play can be really desmotivating if its the first time u play an actual combat game (like me, i only played pokemon and animal crossing prior hollow knight). if the music and art werent so amazingly good, i prob shouldnt have bought it, but im having a really good time and taking it slow. currently on a break, but im stuck in the soul experiments. (english is not my first language, so i apologise if this was a bit hard to read)
But that's not the game's fault, there are games are made for players with a bit of experience. Otherwise we would have only easy games in the industry
The one part of a review I agree with a bit would be not having any indications on what to do next. When you first start the game or even on your first play through it can be a pain to find anything at all. Once you learn the map sure, it was easier to finally progress in a fun manageable way, but not everyone wants to play it more than once or continue a game where they went hours with no progress. Im glad I found out how the game has you progress because I love it now and like finding my way to something I had no clue about, but I did almost stop playing completely at first since I had to search every random nook and cranny to get to the next area. Again, now that I found how to progress easier I love the game and it is definitely in my top 10, but an example of almost quitting was in my first run through. I didn't find green path for a while since I had went basically every other direction first (bad luck maybe) and didn't know about the compass and mapping. Another time was the city of tears since I couldn't find map boi or a way there and back so i just went in circles for hours.
I remember i played it for a little bit, got lost on the crossroads, then didnt play it for like a year, then i saw it again, gave it a second try, and now its my favourite game
Actually, Elderbug in Dirtmouth will tell you about different places in the game as you progress if you talk to him. If he suddenly has new dialogue when you talk to him, it's either because of an event or because the game is hinting you on where to go next.
A CZcamsr called Daniel San made a video helping with the climb phase, he said that you should time your jumps with the laser beam. I suggest watching some of his videos for general tips.
I think the point of forgetting what unlocks go where is really true, doing a mostly blind run with help when I got stuck it took me a long time far past when I got dive to do crystal peak, because I forgot that was what I needed to get there, I especially think the game has a really hard time signaling when the dream nail is applicable in specific circumstances that would help you, most especially the memory in the abyss being accessible by dream nail with no indication, maybe I just have a pea for a brain but I had to check the wiki to see what I had to do to start the sequence.
One thing about contact damage I want to say: dream warrior bosses. Galien and Markoth are really annoying because they sometimes just go right next to you while you’re dodging the *actual* attack.
I think I disagree with you in your assertion at 5:55. The range of movement is the foundation for exploration and combat. you literally have to master the jumping in some capacity in order to fully utilize the knights combats ability.
Well sure, but that doesn't make the game a platformer. The level of expertise you need in the movement is much, much higher in a game like Celeste. Because in Celeste, the movement IS the game. In Hollow Knight movement is of course important, but it's not the only thing you need to master, and the game doesn't treat it as such
I honestly wouldn't mind playing a hollow knight mod that allows Celestes movement. They're both good games in there own right but imagine what they could do together
I think Hollow Knight and many other games aesthetics draw in a crowd of people who are just looking for cute little fun games to play in their down time. They don’t go in expecting Dark Souls level difficulty as they would usually avoid that kind of thing but the aesthetics blinded them to the genre title of Souls-Like. Basically Hollow Knight casted a wide net and captured some fish who didn’t want to be caught.
And even for those who like metroidvanias, this difficulty can be jarring, since those games aren't typically very hard, but focus more on exploration. Metroid Dread had fairly difficult bosses, but it also acknowledged that not everyone likes the challenge, so it has a casual mode.
I actually have a complaint with hollow knight, and that's that the game is slightly TOO big. Now to be clear I'm well aware this is not a common issue to have with games lol, but for me I don't have much time to play video games so I like games that I can experience all the main story of in only a couple sittings. Having all the side stuff you can do is fine, but simply just following along with what the game tells you to do, and beating the game, it takes quite a long time. I like more bite sized games, personally. Before people get mad again I'm aware this isn't usually considered a bad thing, it's just something I'd probably prefer differently. That's probably my only complaint with the game, and that would be a positive in most people's eyes.
I think having to take time with this game over several sittings is a good thing, especially if, like me, you're not very good at 2D platforming or Metroidvania games. It was like having an hour or two a day (or every few days) of practice, and I noticed myself getting noticeably better. That was very rewarding.
@@Crazy_Diamond_75 Like I said, I'm aware most people say the longer the better, I just personally like medium sized games because they are a lot easier to be able to actually finish (I don't have time to play huge games)
I love Hollow Knight personally, but that last guy did have a point on difficulty, especially if we're taking only a single playthrough or part of a single playthrough into account as the first time is rough. I'm also not the greatest player and the "Good" builds usually don't end up working as well for me as they do other people from what I've noticed. I can't beat NKG so I always banish, I always have to cheese Enraged Guardian and Traitor Lord, and for Radiance I have to do a damage tank build with full soul coming in to beat it. Albeit I think the backtracking point added there is a little null and that it's only really the two damage bosses that are a problem in difficulty and the uh... Pantheons... But Pantheons are optional so it's fine.
7:18 I can actually imagine myself making a complaint like that. During my first playthrough I was very confused and lost on what I should do. I thought my main objective was to open the mysterious door to the right in dirtmouth, which, obviously no it isn’t.then i tried getting all grubs for grubfather, which.. no it wasn’t my main objective. But I actually like how mysterious Hollow Knight starts and is. It’s extremely mysterious and it doesn’t take away suspension of disbelief, because there’s no health bar for enemies, so it never really felt like I was playing a “video game” and I was actually in the game.
I’m still in my first playthrough, so the only moment I wished for a bench closer to the boss (for now) is when fighting the Soul Master (the mini mages are a pain in the butt to fight, even worse than the boss itself)
The only thing I disliked about Hollow Knight was how long THK took to beat for rematching the Radiance on my first playthrough. I was using a spell build and didn’t have my nail maxed, and THK took maybe 3-5 minutes. In general I think Traitor Lord takes to long to go to (you should have dreamgate then though) and Soul Master takes a bit too long (very easy boss though).
would have been nice to be able to teleport between benches. A lot of back tracking in this game, a bit is ok, but it's really way too much and it's mostly because you can't move fast enough between areas
I feel like bench teleportation wouldn't be good for the pacing of the game and the events unlocked at each milestone, and would actually make it WAY harder for a first time player to find secrets and keep track of progress in areas, but maybe being available after you beat The Hollow Knight for the first time wouldn't have been a problem?
The only nitpick i have about hollow knight is just that you cant see the bosses health bar. Id prefer it if it would have it cuz then id knkw how i close i would be to focus up lets say
I’ve only played like 5 hours and have been taking a break from it since I just can’t find a way to progress. I just walk around the forgotten crossroads and green path not know where to go.
I never thought about the backtracking to bosses thing until now since it was easy enough to do it in under a minute once you have the path in your head. I was like "ok, it's not frustrating, but it's valid enough. Checkpoints should be close to the bosses, so let's check how many bad positioned checkpoints are in the game". I immediately remembered dung defender and nothing else. Then I remembered flukemarm. "Easy boss, but still a boss. That's 2 on the list". Then I remembered hive knight. That's 3. But oh, there's also the watcher knights, it's 4. Then I remembered soul master and I was like "ok, not in every boss and not 10 minutes, but dude has a point"
Wait hang on, Dung Defender and Watchers have benches like two, three rooms over. Easy paths to go through, too. Hive Knight and Soul Master are a fair point, though. Traitor Lord is a wee bit far for my tastes (also I suck at platforming), but you really should have Dreamgate by then.
For the issue with benches being too far away, the only example I can think of is traitor lord and the stag bench. Although, after like 3 attempts the platforming is fairly easy. Also DREAMGATE EXISTS
Personally i don't mind a game making you backtrack once or twice through an area, i love reacing an area, barely making it, getting a weapon upgrade, spells, charms, etc, and also just improving, and reaching the place that gave you trouble do absolutely decimate it. You can actually feel your progress, both in game and personal
My personal biggest issue with this incredible game is that the deaths -are- can feel very punishing, especially to a newer player who is still learning the moveset that the boss uses. More notably, sometimes there just aren’t enough benches to save at, and so you get situations like the Mantis Lords where the walk to get back to the fight after each death is way too long unless you are decently good at the game and know various things about the boss already. During walks like these, I tend to take a bit of damage that can range anywhere from negligible to “I’m already about to die and I haven’t even started the boss fight yet” and that is so infuriating, even if it is more so a skill issue than a game issue. Other than that, for the most part, the game is great! I’ve had a lot of fun playing it and have spent several hours just playing this game despite these frustrations-because the game is generally good. And, there are some moments where benches are put in very convenient places, such as Hornet’s boss arena being less than a minute’s walk from a bench. All of this is being said by someone who dies often and is still attempting to get better at dodging and dealing with various enemies, so take that in mind.
About benches next to bossfights... I had to try the Mantis Lords so many times. (funnily enough 2nd time they were no problem) a bench nearer to them would have been appreciated...
The one point in the game where I felt the walk to the boss was too long is the soul master. Even with the shortcut I had to look up, the walk there just takes too long
Yeah it took me more tries getting to soul master than it took to actually beat him
the mantis lords bench is a bit too far as well IMO, but the soul master one is terrible! its the narrow corridors full of the teleporting guys that makes it suck for me
It doesn't help that the mantis lords and the soul master are the main bosses the few of the first areas in the game because then newcomers could get discouraged from continuing to play
@@jackyoung1229 yeah at least the mantis lord one had options on how to get down, and it was clear if you were careful you could get down unharmed. In my first run-through on the soul master, I legit thought I was doing something wrong I was taking so much damage walking their, even with soul chests at the end. but its a tiny scar on an amazing game(though id remove the watcher knights now that I think about it)
Who loses to Soul Master?
For the bosses, benches, and backtracking bit, there are quite a few bosses that are hell to trek back towards.
Soul Master, Hive Knight, and the Traitor Lord.
Yeah and it's not like any of them take a super long time either.... But the entire boss design is largely based on pattern recognition, you are going to die multiple times on your first time with a boss, so backtracking 1-2 min 10 or so times suddenly add up quite a lot in such a boss heavy game. It usually never actually adds any difficulty at all but adds a lot of tedium in the long term
@@Mewmew-lv5iv yeah, 100%
@@Mewmew-lv5iv That just teaches you to learn the patterns.
Yes and when you need like two hours for a boss this is a lot of time wasted on backtracking
@@lightninja4795 you know what does that better? Actually spending time fighting the boss
I love that last one "I should have spent more money" (more or less quote.) Buddy saw the effort in the game and thought the developers were under selling themselves.
i legit bought the game 4 times for different accounts and consoles and still feel like i could've spent more lol
more like the buddy saw the effort that went in this game and the extremely cheap price and decided to repay by lowering the game average score with his rewiew
If this game costs the same as a AAA game, I would still buy it
silksong is probably gonna be costing 938484938955973 dollars if team cherry follows through with that review on making it not be there for solksoong
Hollow knight really is a 50 dollar game being sold for 16 dollars
4:40 I also find hornet's contact damage annoying. She's not hard to beat, but at the start it was really annoying to get killed by her casually walking into you instead of an actual attack.
i keep jumping on her head but after a while i found it funny cus it looked like i was getting impaled on her horns
@@airy214 yh i just started 2nd run after not playing for a few years and got spiked by the horn hit box while she was crouching. I forgot how charming hornet is for a little bug thing that mainly just grunts.
just treat her movement as attacks, wait for her to stop, attack, or wtv
I'm not sure if this counts, but there's a "background" boss in one of the silksong trailers, meaning the boss kinda just loses a hitbox and usually only the hands and some other various weapons are what you fight.
Though her bossfight's design is completely centered around contact damage. Her jumping actually is an attack, there's a small telegraph for it I'm pretty sure.
hive knight, traitor lord, and soul master are all far enough from the nearest benches to be frustrating. for soul master, this is even worse if you don't find the shortcut in the elevator to shade soul. but I agree that most bosses are only 1-2 rooms away from a bench
I died to traitor lord so many times, I can do that platforming section in my sleep. It's not that bad. I actually think Mantis Lords is worse, even if it's not as far.
@@Crazy_Diamond_75 It depends on when you fight Mantis Lords, many get the Wall Climb, open the lever and don't realize the floor opened, and then they head to the city of tears. I personally on my first play through did that, and by the time I faced them had two nail upgrades, which made them easy.
@@CheddahSlammer ah, yeah, that would make it easier. If you're not very good at 2D platformers like I was and go straight for them after mantis claws, the gauntlet of enemies can be very difficult.
@@Crazy_Diamond_75 My first time playing Hollow Knight, it took me forever to beat Traitor Lord, so much so I eventually had to use teleport so I wouldn't have to keep going through that.
hive knight and traitor lord yes, soul master not really, every single room in soul sanctum has a short cut. so the bench and soul master is about 3-4 rooms apart or something like that
The thing is, even if the review doesn't say much of value, the negative/positive recommendation is good for the game. It helps show what a general audience feels rather than steam critics.
Good point
Until you realize that three quarters of the bad reviews are just those dumb good reviews that they marked as bad. I wish people would give games the ratings they deserve instead of trying to be witty but just being a headache. All jokes aside, I completely agree.
Acudit If anything all it does is show how bad the community is. They refuse to acknowledge any fair opinions about the game they dislike and tell people not to even look at them
@@Espartanica I see your point, but I don't know of a single game that doesn't have people doing that in the steam ratings.
i'd say "joke reviews" do more harm than good in steam , also steam review system is quite bad, having a thousands of "bad reviews" because someone decided to negative bomb review a game because some stupid reason is one the reason not everybody should be allowed to leave reviews on steam
They have an actual point on back tracking the boss, sometimes it's just too much, I would loved an option where it actually teleport me in front of the boss room everytime I die
There is. Dreamgate.
That’s what I used for Hive Knight and Traitor lord.
@@hirahiro2331 the issue with your point is that it's completely up in the air at what stage of the game players will get dreamgate
i personally didn't get dreamgate until i beat every non-dream boss in the game
not that it's a bad thing, but with metroidvania level design you need to consider that some players might not have the teleport spell before you add a mile long trek to the boss
@goldcat2002 that's true. I discovered dream gate by accident (I didn't know where I was going furst run, so I found and fought a lot of dreambosses to waste time). From that's POV, it would be convenient for a closer bench or a shortcut for some of sort.
@@hirahiro2331 Also dream gate uses a limited resource that some players (like me) will refuse to use because they think it's valuable and needed for that bug in the graveyard (forgot the name)'s quest.
I don't think that is something wrong when people criticize something like the backtracking. Is true that is a characteristic of metroidvanias, but not everyone knows what a metroidvania is. I assure you there are thousands of people whose first metroidvania was Hollow Knight due to its popularity and all the good reviews. I'm sure a lot of people decide to buy the game and try it out but they just get bored or annoyed by the concept or the backtracking or its difficulty and decide to drop it and leave their feedback, so it may help other people that come from a similar background and won't enjoy it as much as the average HK player.
If they aren't being rude towards the developers or the fans, and they are just giving their opinion regarding their experience with a game, I don't think is necessary to call them out in a way that the reviewer may feel like a rude person.
Hollow knight was my first metroidvania, and at first i thought it was just some adventure game and went in blind, didn't even make it to false knight, i just wasnt accustomed. Now i finished the game multiple times + pantheons and its in my top 5 best game
That was actually exactly my position. I thought metriod vanias means, that you get to play with rocket launcher, plasma rifles and cool mechs in a 2d setting💀
@figonkus4223 Cannot forget about the vampires, cursed armors, grim reapers, and morning stars!
Hollow knight was also my first metro. And I have to say. It will be the reason I try another one of these games. I dont honestly feel like its back tracking at all. Its almost like minecraft in that sense. You are exploring the world. And sometimes you have to go back to the iron ore with the stone pick you just got. I suppose some may call that back tracking. And I do know this is a weird example. I just love this game lol. The world is great.(even if the map is painful sometimes)
Backtracking is definitely worse in Hollow Knight than something like Super Metroid because there really aren't that many mobility upgrades to make retracing your steps more interesting, the map in HK is much bigger, the different regions are less visually distinct making it a bit harder to get your bearings, and the map/navigation tools in HK are garbo (to be blunt). It's a valid criticism from veterans or newcomers tbh.
The only backtracking to a boss that was absolutely painful to do was traitor lord.
well you can place a dream gate there to make it shorter
and hive knight
@@-_Alyssia_- You can fight Hive Knight when you already have Dream Gate...
@@MamRadVlaky yes
hive night
Celeste and Hollow Knight... two examples of why we should never stop doing game jams!
Also, all hail Chris Christodoulou!
every time I hear the raindrop that fell to the sky at the end of these videos it brings me back to the countless times that I have wasted over 10 minutes in siren's call because "no way haha funny legendary item no waaaaay", but that doesn't mean that the raindrop that fell to the sky isn't one of my favourite soundtracks ever composed.
@@Salmonwithfeet Every time I hear any of his faux-guitar synth solos, I just regress to "nononono! Get away from me! You hit like a truck and there's three of you!"
Gosh his name is famous.
And that's understandable. His music's great.
Also Baba Is You... That game is great
Celeshit
Honestly I agree with the "respawn is too far away from the boss" complain. In this game or in ANY Souls like, when you die you just want to try again, I'll never understand why devs don't give us a retry option when we die. Walking back to the boss room isn't fun, isn't challenging, it's just a waste of time. The good thing is that the dream nail portals completely fix this problem, but players shouldn't have to wait until midgame for that
I agree here. Even though I understand putting benches everywhere would dilute the value of finding benches and it wouldn't make sense, sometimes I just want to retry to fight a boss. If you're a new player and you die to the same boss over and over it's going to feel frustrating because you just keep doing the same thing, over and over when the only thing you want to do is fight a boss.
I got the dream nail late in game, I went and killed another dream warrior just to be able to use the dream nail portal to be able to teleport right outside the boss room for Traitor Lord from the stag point in Queens Garden. Though part of the issue for me is that my controller seems to be dying on me so I need to fix that, since it keeps injuring me.
@@Mokomis_ huh im currently playing hk i finished greepath fungal wastes citys storerooms deepnest and i got dreamnail right crystal heart is this supposed to be late game or sum 💀
@@breadman4710 No, you can do the game in whatever order you like.
@@strangevol5264 oh thx i was worried btw peak game ngl
I think that nosk was intentionally designed for you to take more of a reactive approach to it because nosk is the predator trying to hunt you down, not the other way around
The Nosk fight is designed for the player to be the pray; designing that fight so that chasing the boss is hard just makes sense. Never had problems chasing Nosk because I never chased Nosk. Plus the place where he might stop is the same spot, and you could figure that out and predict when he might do it consistently.
Yeah, I was so confused as to why he was complaining about one of the telegraphed attacks, like if you just assume that every time he runs past you he’ll stop in the center then you’ll never overextend against him.
Still a terrible boss either way.
@@Kittywittygamer Nosk isn’t actually a terrible boss, in fact, I’d rate it in the middle of all the bosses in Hollow Knight, not quite at the level of the great fights, but not as bad as the worst ones.
@@stevencampbell348 Which ones are the worst in your book then?
@@thatotherandrew_ the bosses I put below Nosk:
Grey Prince Zote
Uumuu
Vengefly King
Gruz Mother
Flukmarm
God tamer (has very basic attacks and only need to kill the beast to win)
Brooding Mawlek
Massive Moss Charger
the thing about the bench locations is also similar to how hard it can be to move. mantis lords might be the best example where even though you're very close, a new player may consistently find it hard to get all the way back, especially on max health
Mantis lords are not necessarily required to beat the game though. Plus, if a player struggles enough with them to ask more knowledgeable players or look for tips they'll get the 2 extra lifeblood from the top left of the arena and if that's not enough they can just ignore them for now and come back later with a stronger nail and better charms.
Hive knight is also probably the farthest, but that’s dlc so I can’t be too hard on it.
@@toph3938 probably, but you likely have dreamgate by then and can place it close to the arena
@@toph3938 Queens garden was probably the worst for me
I didnt ahve much problem with the mantis lords bench on my first playthrough, i just skipped all the enemies and hit some to get my health back up. i beat them in like 4 tries or sum
the bench issue I can understand, on my first playthrough of the game I got unbelievably upset about having to walk back to soul master 1000000 times where the closest bench is in an entirely different named location.
Just beat him first try then mate
8:20 traitor lord
The bench is across like half of the damn queens gardens
On top of having you risk dying along the way, not because of enemies, but the damn parkour.
One genuine design problem that I feel is the worst part of the contact damage is that sometimes you're punished for actually staggering some bosses. There are multiple cases but the most egregious to me are the titular hollow knight, where he often hits you by stumbling over if you're hitting the from the front and even worse was zote, which You're just guaranteed to get hit if you happen to pogo him and he decides to stagger, or when you're pogoing him and he randomly falls over, making your pogo fail. Those 2 made me stop trying to beat the pantheons and were far more frustrating than NKG
Just use your double jump if pogoing fails lol
dude their stagger a few times for fight, in the worst case you could take 2 damage to these, but it’s definitely not enough to give up doing pantheons, you can just use a better strat on pure vessel and just not pogo zote at all
Just get better? You have enough time to react to Zote falling over, this is coming from a switch player. And I’ve been punished once for staggering and it was a glitch in pure vessel.
@@tinycrisp4455 bro switch doesn’t make it harder
@@matheuscabral9618 Actually some people have shown that on the switch its harder to short jump compared to other platforms. When you press the button it tend to hold longer then it does.
Agree with all of this but the map. If you are getting lost, than just swallow your pride and use the compass.
Why would you need to swallow your pride? just use it the entire game.
It's one of those cases where hardcore players think that using the mechanics the game provides is considered cheating.
Like when Souls players berated those that dared to use spirits in Elden Ring instead of just brute force.
The devs put that there for a reason. And I'll use if I want to.
@@brian0057 it's not that they consider compass cheating, it's that they have already memorized the map, and they don't need it. After replaying the game a second time I didn't have to look at the map more than 5 times without the compass.
I only take off the compass for boss fights
Agreed, I just used compass 24/7 until I completely knew the area.
About the save point and boss thing, in literally any Metroidvania that understand the genre has a save point less than 5 seconds away from the boss arena. I timed getting from the nearest bench to Traitor Lord and it took me 2 minutes to get there. That’s 24 times longer than any other Metroidvania I’ve played
when he said "It wasn't just some difficulty modifer that makes the enemy deal three times the damage for no reason." my mind jumped to grey prince zote
Okay but that's not the base boss, the base boss does 2 damage max, that's just optional challenge for the player
Contact damage is the sole reason I had to stop using Sharp Shadow, despite loving the charm. The smaller bosses would just get staggered and knocked back to where my dash ends, either damaging me or outright killing another radiant attempt. And don't get me started on times when bosses did a jump and fell on me cause it got staggered by a spell.
If I have one wish for Silksong, is that contact damage is better handled.
Quite frankly contact damage is part of the reason I DO use Sharp Shadow.
@@Pyrodiac I find that Sharp Shadow makes you dash too far... it isn't that much of a problem for most areas in the game but when you're fighting the final bosses in the pantheons or just fighting bosses like Radiance on Radiant difficulty, every time I think "People recommend Sharp Shadow for this?"
Try Grey Prince Zote with sharp shadow only; I’m sure you’ll love it 😀
@@rockyboi1961 You think I haven't? I've lost count how many radiant an pantheon runs that cost me casue he fell where my dash ended.
I had that problem back when I tried using sharp shadow for pure vessel. It's kind of what made me stop use this charm at all.
3:58 I disagree with this, an attack that is accurately predictable 100% of the time shouldn’t be telegraphed. Nosk always stops in the middle of the room so to doge the goop attack all the player has to do is not be in the center of the room when nosk dashes over the platform. The only issue with the attack not being telegraphed is that it is harder to do the boss first try if you’ve never seen it before, but I think that learning process of failing, learning and trying again is an important part of hollow knights experience.
Yes. The stuff he said about the boss not telegraphing when he will run across the floor didn't really make sense. The telegraph is when stops using any of his attacks. After getting hit a few times, you probably learn that.
While I agree with that statement, calling Nosk stopping in the middle of the room "accurately predictable 100% of the time" is a bit of a stretch, since he doesn't stop in the same exact spot consistently (and he could also just not stop)
We know there is a much more relevant contender for that critique...
It's actually really good to stretch your nail so you can have a bit more time to react
i think you mean telegraphed instead of choreographed.
wait so am i the only one who found nosk extremely hard (prolly the hardest)?
8:25 bees. I refuse to go back there. Ever again. The trek through like 4 rooms of bees just to get to the boss is infuriating. its like the bosses first stage is actually just getting to the boss, except even worse, because in my opinion the boss actually is really easy, so the bosses SECOND stage is getting to the boss, and THEN you get to fight the first stage. Maybe I missed a bench or something but I have trauma of that place I swear.
The actual complaint for me is going in blind. I played blind my first playthrough, and it would take me hours just to figure out where I’m supposed to go. For the reviews where they say you don’t get stronger, guarantee they’re playing blind, and it really is hard to find upgrades if you don’t already know where they ate
They ate
yes tbf im playing blind and i havent found the i-frame dodge yet or the superdash, i think i know what areas they are in but because of the unilinear travel and the fact im always debating "which boss/which area to go to first" i still am missing some thing i think would of been way useful if i was able to find them earlier
@@chucklesdeclown8819 im playing blind and i just randomly explored until i found the thing i needed
So, the boss that is the furthest away from any bench is the hive knight, and considering that he is in the hive, i don't think any of these people have explored that far, so they're just complaining that the bench isn't RIGHT next to the boss smh
Edit: the soulmaster is pretty frustrating getting back to so that's maybe the problem
Edit 2: yeah, traitor lord is also a long ways away from any bench.
Edit 3: (I can't believe, I'm still adding to this comment)
It has been some time since I last played Hollow Knight, but I distinctly remember the walk to Hive Knight from the hive bench being really tedious, especially considering all the bees n' shit.
I was so so angry to find in a video that one shortcut between the bench room (where Cornifer had been) and the lift because I'd already beaten most of the game including Soul Tyrant.
Trader lord?
@@astrumleaf If you haven't gotten the dream gate by that point, definitely
Boss runbacks were never good short or long is still a waste of time , it's big part of the reason why I hated the older dark souls games with their bullshit enemies
@@lordofcinder8884 boss runbacks are part of the challenge tho.
7:55 you can still somewhat 'label' the markers by colour. For me blue was areas that I didn't/couldn't explore, yellow was something that I missed (like a soul fragment), black was bosses and red was kinda a place holder. Didn't had enough of one colour? Use red. Or at the beginning I mark it as places I couldn't go to
Personally I never marked bosses during the game, boss that I found, It was a dead one, trying indefinitely until victory. Mawlek was my second boss because of that, and I honestly don't know if I'm proud of that or I should feel really stupid for putting more effort than necessary into various bosses
my first time playing i was already spoiled on what all the upgrades were, so i tried to mark them accordingly. the problems came when i started to forget which pin meant what, and i also ran out of pins kinda fast so i used the wrong color, and by the end i just checked every pin whenever i felt like i could go somewhere new. and i STILL missed stuff lol
I never really used the markers but I’m glad to see fellow players that have found some use out of them. The game is incredible in every way and I’m glad people are able to take advantage of certain features that I may not have used as much.
@@alguienqueescribe1761 i just got hollow knight a week ago and have been playing the same way. mawlek was also my 2nd boss
Yeah that what i did just each color/symbol repesent something
this is the only game I wish I could completely forget just to experience it anew
I raise you Portal and Portal 2
@@HumanoidDerplingI raise you Celeste
I think it's important to remember that not all gamers can commit to 10-hour days of gaming. It sounds to me like a gamer who plays maybe 4 total hours per week, so they aren't able to put in the kind of time that Hollow Knight requires. If you play it a few hours and walk away for a week, you kind of forget what you were doing and the game doesn't really tell you what to do next.
I 100% disagree the map is bad, it shows you rooms you have yet to go into, (apart from the very small exception of the love key room), and the markers give you enough for anything else
Yeah i love the map, the different colors and markers, also important things look spottable on the map, like black egg temple. I didn't need to use the charm that shows my location on the map because it was good. I think that if you just have a really bad sense of direction, its bad, but that isnt the map being bad.
Quite honestly I didn't have to use the markers and I never really did.
@@Pyrodiac cool, i wish I was that good
@@showd6229 its not really about being good because we cant change our sense of direction
@@showd6229 personally, I didn't use the markers because I didn't know where to put them, most of the important locations were either: easy to spot or had symbols around them
I can see how some of the walks can feel long if you don't know where the shortcuts are, because in a lot of cases it would be a long walk, but if you just explore a little bit you'll find an optional bench or a shortcut. Exception being soul master and arguably dung defender, I remember REALLY hating the trek back on those two, especially soul master since the shortcuts just don't do enough
i'd assume these people that misses benches near a boss, or miss a shortcut are ones that rather play a game that handholds the player
the game doesn't explicit tell you to explore and get rewarded for exploring, so just rush from boss to boss like it's a speedrun
it's probably the same or similar problem with people not liking the backtracking
peronally to me, the map wasn't so terrible because at some point the backtracking and exploring made me have my own mental map of the game's map
it's just like driving to a certain place daily, like commuting to work. soon enough you'll be able to drive there without looking at the map
and this also apply to the enemy attack patterns and general design, first time is confusing but every attempt makes it easier
the hardest boss for me was the watcher knights, i was early enough in the game that i was still kind of shit at combat and i didn't have much upgrades
took me about 14 tries, i was having trouble with the multiple bosses attacking at the same time and their attacks which can cover a lot of space plus i had to endure for a while as i played it safe (about a nail swing every 7s or so)
i did look up about the boss and how i could destroy 1 of them before the fight, but i decided that i'd want the full fight
now, watcher knights are pretty easy although it's been a while since i touched the game. i doubt i'll have that much trouble against watcher knights
The walk back to the only bench in Waterways after losing White Defender is the reason I always equip Sprintmaster
Who the fucks die on dung defender lmao
dung defender is pretty far but he’s so easy that it’s not really an issue. I am currently on my first playthrough and I only died a couple times to him
i beat soul master and dung defender first try, i had a lot of problems with getting to and beating flukemarm
I find Hollow Knight to be stupidly fun, and also tough. Although, once you learn a bosses patterns, it's much easier, because of practice. Hollow Knight gets easier as you learn the game, something most gamers don't seem to do, like, at all. I struggled with the Mantis Lords for quite a while, but only until I decided to step back from the "gotta kill this boss no matter what" mindset to: "well, if I actually pay attention to the attack patterns, I can easily dodge most attacks, and even heal myself during one!" I love Hollow Knight, its art style, its gameplay and that difficulty that relies on players learning the game.
yep, the good ol' classic trial and error technique.
it works every time (well, except when one's too stubborn to learn)
your point is invalid because of how many people love dark souls lmao
people DO learn the games they play, i think you're just generalizing these reviews as a stand in for the gaming community as a whole
I made cloth kill him for me
@@goldcat2002 I completely understand your point. However I did specify that it’s only the majority of people who don’t bother to learn the games they play. Dark Souls is a great example, as you can only succeed by learning. Thanks for your feedback!
I absolutely LOVED hollow knight's maps. The fact that it's so easy to get lost is a plus to me
Yeah wayward compass is really good charm
Getting lost in this kind of games is part of the fun.
I actually didn't get lost at all while i played hollow knight..... Probably because i would try to find a map like crazy. But i would never use the compass. And i never will since i already went through everywhere without it. But i did like explore literally everywhere
Love this game, and appreciate the increased difficulty, especially after beating Ori and the Blind forest. However, I completely disagree about the benches and bosses. I almost quit the game about a 3rd of the way through because I became so frustrated with the amount of time spent backtracking to the bosses. While it certainly isn’t ten minutes, it is often several minutes in length, especially for some bosses like the mantis lords, the traitor lord, and the soul master. Metroidvania bosses, and this is no exception are all about finding patterns, and the best way to find those patterns is to try lots of things over and over again. However, when the game actively prevents this by making you perform several minutes of worthless platforming just to try again, they aren’t raising the difficulty, they are just preventing a good feedback loop.
i agree with you except for the mantis lords, in that part i just lost one or two hp on the way then just healed myself for the fight and it didnt take more than a minute and a half. however soul master was a pain, especially because of the soul mages or whatever that teleport 5 kilometers away every time you get close to them.
The point in backtracking is that you risk losing all your geo getting back. It’s definitely frustrating but it's fair, it’s like the game punishes you for being bad at it, and requires you to get better. It took me 3 tries to beat soul master and it wasn’t even that bad. Plus, most of the bosses don't need you to go back long distances, and the bench is relatively close. Also, by backtracking through the same route, you get better at platforming and become more efficient. Godhome offers that experience you’re talking about, spawning right next to the boss after you fail. Honestly, for new players, it's just a skill issue.
@@kash4307 mean the reason why the mechanic of losing geo exists is to add some weight to dying.
If you're running around with a lot of money, you're risking losing it. But bosses are supposed to be bigger challenges that you learn to get better at.
Punishing the player for that seems pointless to me, they're already a gateway to progression, it just adds frustration when you can't get to the thing that killed you in the first place. It's also annoying if your shade spawns in the boss room which usually doesn't happen but it happens for some bosses I'm pretty sure.
@@NoMustang273 skill issue if i do say so myself, do as hornet says and git gud
@@infinity_gamer.1385 You can devolve any issue with difficulty to "git gud".
It's subjective ultimately. It's like one of two gripes I have with an otherwise almost perfect game.
Loved the review saying "The game is too good for how much it costs" 🤣
"I cannot think of a single boss fight in the game where there isn't a bench relatively close"
Hiveknight. Not because the bench is SUPER far away, but because the enemies in between you and the boss are more difficult to avoid than the boss itself.
One thing to note about the whole difficulty spike complaint is playstyle. I actually did experience a difficulty spike near the end, because I played the game like a tank. I would take a lot of hits, but heal a lot. So when I hit late game stuff where bosses started dealing two damage per hit and don't give you much opportunity to heal, that was a huge difficulty spike for me. Now you can say I played the game wrong and wasn't supposed to do things how I did, but the thing is, the game let's you play that way, and it's pretty effective... up until it isn't. So yes, there actually can be a difficulty spike depending on how you play the game. (There's also the platforming difficulty spike that is the White Palace.)
i agree. quick heal+spore shroom is just too good tho
The map is so good. It actually respects my intelligence. It’s one my favorite things about hollow knight.
Agreed, the map isn't dogshit u can literally see areas that cut off abruptly on it
FR the map is amazing, why are people complaining about things that aren't a problem 😭😭😭
Because using their brain is hard, or they're afraid of taking risks. Hearing the map maker, and getting to him are two separate things. And there's a good chance a new player will die on the way to him.
@@tiacool7978 I'm betting on the first option, people don't use their brains, on my first playthrough the map was like a blessing and conifer's like humming was the chanting for it, without those maps I would have been so lost
I'm trash at maps and directions and with the compass didn't really have problems with the map
I’m a one of the people who just got lost and stopped playing. I remember beating some bosses and then just getting completely lost and searching where to go for like 4 hours. I have beaten Elden Ring,metroid and I’m really good at going back for some goodies in games. I think the problem is in the map and there is not enough story that hints you how to progress. In Elden Ring you can understand what is your next boss even from items description but in hollow knight you kinda don’t get any story at all until you progress to mid-late game
i'm kinda confused when people say they dont know where to go. the map tells you when theres somewhere you haven't gone, so why not try to reach that area? and if you can't figure it out, try a different unexplored area. the only reason i can think of is that people didn't notice it. can you give some insight?
@@maple... the problem is that i checked alot of places but maybe i missed the one i needed the most.Because i couldnt see it on the map i just got lost.And also the game kinda didnt told me that i need to find a new location so i was searching everything.I was thinking "fuck i think i didnt find the item i need somewhere on the map". Also playing it on the small switch screen made it a lil bit harder
@@Prosto-Ban ohhh, small switch screen would not help i think. and for a metroidvania, the game is pretty linear until you get to the city of tears, so that makes sense
As a hardcore fan of the metroidvania genre, I've been devouring this game for the past 2 weeks and absolutely love it. I ONLY have TWO gripes with the game:
1) When people complain about excessive backtracking (and that only really matters when going for 100~112% IMO) I can ABSOLUTELY see their point. That happens because in Hollow Knight you don't have ANY way at all to go FAST (and I mean really fast).
In SOTN you have: wolf, bat, gravity boots, jump kicks...
In Metroid titles you have: speed booster, shining spark (and the games are WAAAY shorter than Hollow Knight)
In Bloodstained you have: good teleports and the accelerator
Etc
Now in Hollow Knight we have what...? The Super Dash/Crystal Heart? That's more like a tool to get you from point A to point B in specific areas/situations. You can't just use it all the time because the maps are usually either not that open or full of platforms (or both - unless you're a speedrunner and knows all the optimal points to super dash from). And it's very limited: it only kills really MINOR enemies and stops on contact. It's a not a tool made for maneuverability.
And the dreamgate is not that great, too. They should have designed it better, I think.
And because of that stag stations do feel spaced out from one another. There should be anywhere between 30 to 50% more stag stations to balance that out OR better movement options, since the game has so much extra content.
But given different/better movement options would change the game DRASTICALLY, more stag stations and/or a better dreamgate system would be a simple fix IMO.
2) The other gripe is the fact that geo spreads around like crazy and there isn't any good reason for that. I'd say 1/3 of your geo gets lost in a casual playthrough.
I realize there's a charm that tries to remediate that, but imagine having to sacrifice a notch just for that. To think that was a game design decision baffles me, tbh.
Although VERY annoying, it doesn't affect the overall experience that much. Now, the lack of movement options/stag stations really bothers me.
Having said all that, it doesn't make Hollow Knight worth of a negative review by any means. It is still amazing in every other aspect and is in my top 3 metroidvania games.
I think the best solution for the backtracking thing is just to add a few more benches in important spots. Waterways, Wastes, Hive, Gardens and Deepnest could all use a couple more benches spaced out. There's a bench right next to Mantis Lords, one of a newbie's main roadblocks, but you only get it AFTER the boss. That could shoo off new players from an amazing game (number 2 of all time imo), and is easily fixable too.
I think the Stag Stations and Tram are fine, apart from it maybe being good to add one in Waterways and Fungal proper. They're mostly where you need them to be.
@@thuong3818c Dreamgate isn't good cause you can go through the whole game not knowing it exist. What happened to me at least.
I agree with a couple points here. Contact damage is extremely frustrating, I wish it was enemy specific (ie: if they have spikes they hurt you if you touch them or an enemy is doing a charge/dash attack). Although not a frequent issue there was a couple bosses throughout the game where I couldn’t be bothered traveling back to the boss and called it quits for the night. When I die and have learned the bosses new patterns the last thing I want to do is refight old enemies on the slog back (yes I know it’s a metroidvania). The last one is we paid too little, indie devs if you make an incredible game at least make me pay $20. Hollow knight, Gungeon, and stardew are an absolute bargain even at full price
contact damage in this game made mark of pride a must have for me lol
blasphemous (another metroidvania) had contact damage on regular enemies, but not bosses, which i actually think is much more fair
The only problem I have with hollow knight is that it wasn't as difficult as the community makes it seem, at least for me.
fr i was expecting to take like 100 hours to beat the game but i beat it in like 30 on my first playthrough
@@exquisicy5429 ok but did you fight every boss in the game
idk pure vessel was pretty hard in pantheon 4
same nkg
@@shopen6 40 hours and i got 112%
I don't know where I've found you, but your channel is an underrated gem IMO. You've earned yourself a sub! 😁
I like the simple map. Helps me remember where I am. and it helps me find places I haven't explored.
7:30 "You can't remember the entire map"
me: hold my beer
another thing about contact damage,
why does dream warriors have it?
Your videos are the best free entertainment I've had in a while, much appreciated, bless you.
I really appreciated the music you put in this video. I only heard and recognized both Risk of Rain games, Hollow Knight itself and Rain World, but still, Thank You!
My only gripe with this game was the same one you had with Noel but with many o other bosses such as Broken Vessel and Hornet Sentinel, both of these bosses jump around a very large amount just for getting around the map but colliding with them hurts you and since it isn’t technically an attack it’s not telegraphed and hurts you more times then not
Hollow knight isn’t a perfect game and it does have flaws, but I have never seen a negative review that actually pointed any of these out before
you are it’s biggest flaw
@@matheuscabral9618 Thanks
another point to contact damage,
mantis lords shrink the arena with spikes, fine whatever BUT they can then spawn in on either side to sweep the ground. the sweep is telegraphed but on my first playthrough i died a few times to the mantis lords just sorta spawning in on the left and right side untelegraphed.
The sweeping of the ground attack is what they try to get you to realize means you should stay around the center and not the edges because not only will that mean you’re not at risk of getting hit into the spike pits, you’re also always given time to react to each attack. So imo it’s not really bad at all and pretty well designed for you to think about between deaths.
The idea behind it (if I'm to guess) is to make the player identify hazardous areas. Just like Nosk's dead stop, the sweep attack of the Mantis Lords happens not only always in the same way (well, same two ways) but on the same locations as well. Nosk can only stop in the center of the arena; the Lords can only spawn next to the edges of the platform.
Because of this, the game expects that the player doesn't *need* having these things telegraphed: if you learn which spots within the arena are hazardous, you can keep yourself from getting hit by no-telegraph attacks by not entering the danger zone in the first place.
Markoth is admittedly a bastard in this regard as well. In his case, stopping dead in his tracks can be anticipated based on the timing, not his location.
Ou the RoR2 outro gave me goosebumps, I was not expecting that. Love the content
Never played it, but I must say that it's usually courtesy of the developer/map designer to have a checkpoint right next to the boss. Otherwise you might risk the player dying multiple times in the path to the boss regardless of how far it is just to retry the boss fight, and that gets in the way of learning how to fight the boss.
Most Dark Souls games have even started doing this and I have to admit it's a nice change, and this is coming from someone who doesn't mind most of the boss runs in DS1
@@machinegirl03 Y'know,those path are easy,but fucking long. I beated bosses in 2~3 attempts amd didn't had this kind of difficulties in bosses themselves or backtracking. But hearing for someone took a 30 attempts i was like "Yo... That means he backtracked route to the boss over and OVER again" And i can't blame this guy hating this game when he got to soul master and traitor after beating the game. (He said,he didn't liked this game)
Game just feels slow,i sometimes wandered in hours to find something,get everywhere untill i finded main items.
Its not that bad,but it has a bitter taste....
They wanted people to give up on bosses and come back later when they were stronger. Having the checkpoint far away incentivizes exploration.
@@ellagage1256 You are mental bro. The rng insta death boss that is bed of chaos and its 7 minute run back almost broke me first time I played the game. Respect
@@slycooper2bandofthieves116 Cope. Having the checkpoint far away is insulting to the players time. I dont have all day to sit around playing video games, so it would be nice if I didnt have to spend an hour just walking back to the arena if I die a lot.
the contact damage thing is the most annoying thing existent in this game. the most damage i take to any boss is when they FUCKING WALK INTO ME IN A COMPLETELY POLITE AND NORMAL WALKING SPEED THAT MAKES NO SENSE. maybe its to imply its an enemy that attacks you if you get too close or is full of spikes, but ive already been damaged AND DIED out of stunnning the boss and it falling over me. if they at least made a very small animation for contact damage, for exemple hornet pushing you away with the needle when you touch her, id think its kinda justifyied, but stunned bosses having body damage is infuriatingly stupid.
edit: i think nosk is kinda okay because its a rushing spider like monster. i think its not so absurd to have to move more carefully fighting something like that
contact damage was annoying to me at first, until i learn to be mindful of "distance" and see how far/close i am most comfortable with my playstyle then i rarely take contact damage and when i do, it was because i neglected my poisitioning and try to get a bit more damage in
@@lifegrain6092 thats what i should do.
(it just happens that not by choice my playstyle consists of recklessly getting the most damage possible the quickest possible. i kinda lack the patience. i ended up being a natural for speedruns tho.)
@@buh3746 as you can see in the video, you can go really aggressive and fast once you've learn all the ins and outs of a boss/the game
but the first few tries, taking damage is a lesson and something to reflect upon and death is a short break to put new information in mind before putting it to practice
@@buh3746 funnily enough, distance is also very important in real life combat haha
and i usually stay real far from anything that wants to hurt me, i'm just a coward that survives
@@lifegrain6092 i think cowardy is to hit grimm during the bow so unless you do that youre clear
(jokes aside very true both messages)
The one area that i think the bench complaint is valid is in soul sanctum. With how piss annoying the enemies there are,and the like 5 rooms of hell you have to walk through to get there,it was very frustrating on my first play through trying to get back to soul master.
i AGREE the teleporting enemies are so dang annoying..
4:10 Nosk himself is quite literally an attack.
I think the only real time waster I experienced was that one false stag room (below kings storeroom?) where you could slip under the wall and go to the kingdoms edge, the game just kinda doesn’t do enough to make that room significant, coupled with the sheer awe I had of experiencing city of tears with its amazing soundtrack and openness, and the fact that I was desperate to find a stag station for a much needed checkpoint, i went into that room briefly skimmed and just left. I had to search a tutorial just to find out you have to swim under a absolutely missable entryway, usually there’ll be some sort of path leading off to somewhere unknown on your map, showing a place to go but this room is literally just a dead end on the map
Wait, isn't Nosk's explosion of infection at the end of the move set? Sprint across the room, sprint back to center, infection explosion?
My sense of direction and memory in general aren't the greatest, but I love how the game demands the player remember where they haven't gone: most areas are visually distinct enough to stand out.
I was going to say both benches near Mantis Lords are kind of far, but they're just a little tough to get through the area. Someone said the bench closest to Soul Master is pretty far, which it is--until you find the stupid shortcut after you've already beaten him. And then there's Traitor Lord, but by then you should have Dream Gate so it's not too terrible.
The base game is challenging, but absolutely beatable for a casual player like me. My first playthrough is at 107% with Grimm Troupe banishment. NKG, colo 3, the Pantheons, and Radiance have all proven very difficult, but my inability to instantly beat these things is not the fault of the game. Hornet told me how to do it, I need to practice more
im with u. im at 108% rn
The only bench that could be considered “far away” from a boss IMO is the Queens Garden one for the Traitor Lord, you know, in the 2nd to last section of the game….
Interesting that you went to Queens Gardens as the second to last area, I myself went there pretty early as there is very few regions that are locked up, in fact the gardens are right after greenpath which is the second area you unlock so I’m now really confused why you say it’s the second to last area…
@@SkylarTheFurry isn’t there a shade gate preventing entry to queen’s gardens?
@@SkylarTheFurry Not as unrealistic as you might think. I recently played the game and my order of discovery was the following:
Dirtmouth -> Crossroads -> Greenpath -> Fungal Wastes/Fog Canyon -> Mantis Village -> Deepnest -> City of Tears -> Cliffs -> Resting Grounds -> Soul Sanctum -> Crystal Peak -> Basin -> Hive -> Waterways -> Kingdom's Edge -> White Palace -> Queen's Gardens -> Abyss
tl;dr The Gardens are unreachable until you get the acid-swimming ability, which is found in the waterways, which can be explored quite late.
But you are totally able to get the Dream Gate before exploring the queen's garden.
So you can place a mark right below the battle arena.
That's what I did in my first playthrough
@@trots4940 If you know that the Dreamgate exists, you can get it, sure. If you don't, you just throw yourself at the fight until you win, like me lol
I slightly agree with players that backtracking is annoying, (the enemies aren’t) especially When you stay in a loop of getting far then dying, I’m pretty persistent and had whole hour long loops where I would keep on dying with minimal progress. Also am I underprepared? I have one extra soul container, one extra mask, coiled nail and few charms (less than a quarter). I am at the point where I would fight the second hornet so I can get the kings seal. Sorry for the paragraph.
The one defining thing that I use to decide if someone will dislike Hollow Knight is how they respond to being lost. The game is "about" being lost and then finding you way and the map is laid out to get you turned around and create that "I'm really lost" sensation. If this is something that is going to make someone uncomfortable or upset, they are going to hate the game.
As for the other complaints people had:
In older patches, there wasn't a stag in the basin and you didn't have dream gate. Any review written before then might have a better complaint about too much walking.
The bench for fighting the mantis lords is deliberately far away to discourage repeated challenges or grinding. You are supposed to come back when you are stronger and confident.
The walk back to hive knight is also pretty bad because he wasn't originally there. But people really wanted them to add a boss to that area. So he got added, but if you don't drop a dream gate and then die, it's a long walk.
10:18 ''It wasn't just some difficulty modifier that makes the enemy do 3x the damage'' *cough* Grey Prince Zote *cough*
im also curious if there were any negative reviews that had (what you consider to be) genuine criticism
I actually really enjoyed the map. I thought it felt more engaging to look around an compare the area you’re in to what’s on the map.
I want to love this game so much, and I do for the most part. For me the worst thing is just having no clue where you are supposed to be going. I love the boss fights, and wish I didn't have to like walk around aimlessly for 4 hours before maybe finding one. Oh I found a new ability, guess I will go back to EVERY area and see if this new ability does anything.
The bench complaint makes sense! I HATED backtracking to (for example) Markoth, Mantis Lords, and Soul Master. One of my favorite bosses was Broken Vessel, as there was a shortcut you could use to just go from the bench to the boss AFTER you dealt with all the enemies for the first time. Another example would be Hornet, with the bench being very close to both the arena and 2 shortcuts to unlock.
7:00 the map is terrible in detail but its really easy to use if you know how to use maps
i once had a friend that left a negative review in hk that was basically "its too hard and has too much backtracking, just not the game for me"
he had played for about 7 hours
It’s pretty impressive how Htwo can turn a video of reading negative reviews to turning this video into a review on of itself
to the point adressed at 9:05 i think that's due to the case that each area has a multitude of ways to get into it and a lot of the areas could be accessed in a multitude of different ways not just 1 (a mojirity not all though) boss keys i think did an amazing video of why that's the case
I love this game but so many people just get frustrated cuz they don't learn from each death and think that the game is too hard but really they just didn't understand how to beat the boss they are stuck on
When I died to a boss it was almost always for the same reason; I was being lazy and trying to cut corners 😅
@@MockiN6j4y yea but when you cut corners and he kills you beacuse of that then you learn how to cut corners the way he doesn't kill you
by the time i reach soul master i literally forget everything from my previous fight with him because i had to walk so much. learning stuff this way is not ineffective... like yeah, i will get that sweet muscle memory to beat him. after 2 days of trying 🙂
@@maziksizik5601it's not that hard to learn attack patterns. First you should just understand what the telegraph stands for the attack he is gonna do
@@maziksizik5601 also backtracking to soul master takes like 1 min its not that long
Ok so the Wheelchair review got me good xD
That is the best review i have ever heard about this game!!!
I think the game was called rogue legacy 2, but it had an accessibility feature to remove contact damage, unless the enemy had touching as their attack only enemies could damage, and it also had a difficulty slider, and it literally gave a warning that the contact thing made it way easier. 😅 I liked upping up the difficulty slider and removing the contact just to the point where I could get to about how far I made it before made the combat a lot more enjoyable, sometimes I wish hollow knight had a option like that.
I think boss battles are so fun in this game because the controls are very rigid. What I mean by that is your character will do exactly what you want him to do. If you are going right and you suddenly want to go left, the knight will immediately go left without sliding on two or three meters like in mario games.
but theres nothing wrong with the sliding thing, you just need to adjust thats all
@@playversetv3877except in some games it is extremely annoying and feels more like you're fighting the controls instead of the enemies
@@bofa722 but das de whole point, its part of the game. but if its making it to the point where it feels unplayable, then yeh it can kind of ruin the game
If you chase nosk trying to hit him, you’ll likely run into him. Theres no Telegraph because that’s the point. You learn from that and play it safe so you can time your attacks.
The difficult thing with Markoth is the combination of no floor and random nails that can appear offscreen so you don’t realize you’re jumping in a wrong direction until too late. Not to mention that chasing him around makes it that much harder. Typically,I go into that boss fight in P5 with enough soul so I can fill my meter up by his 2nd phase and just end him with vengeful spirit attacks.
honestly the only "bad" thing about hollow knight i can think of is that your first play can be really desmotivating if its the first time u play an actual combat game (like me, i only played pokemon and animal crossing prior hollow knight).
if the music and art werent so amazingly good, i prob shouldnt have bought it, but im having a really good time and taking it slow. currently on a break, but im stuck in the soul experiments.
(english is not my first language, so i apologise if this was a bit hard to read)
But that's not the game's fault, there are games are made for players with a bit of experience.
Otherwise we would have only easy games in the industry
Honestly Hollow Knight really is a fantastic game, probably my favorite game of all time or damn near close too it.
The one part of a review I agree with a bit would be not having any indications on what to do next. When you first start the game or even on your first play through it can be a pain to find anything at all. Once you learn the map sure, it was easier to finally progress in a fun manageable way, but not everyone wants to play it more than once or continue a game where they went hours with no progress. Im glad I found out how the game has you progress because I love it now and like finding my way to something I had no clue about, but I did almost stop playing completely at first since I had to search every random nook and cranny to get to the next area.
Again, now that I found how to progress easier I love the game and it is definitely in my top 10, but an example of almost quitting was in my first run through. I didn't find green path for a while since I had went basically every other direction first (bad luck maybe) and didn't know about the compass and mapping. Another time was the city of tears since I couldn't find map boi or a way there and back so i just went in circles for hours.
elderbug (the bug in dirtmouth) does give directions in early game!
I remember i played it for a little bit, got lost on the crossroads, then didnt play it for like a year, then i saw it again, gave it a second try, and now its my favourite game
Actually, Elderbug in Dirtmouth will tell you about different places in the game as you progress if you talk to him. If he suddenly has new dialogue when you talk to him, it's either because of an event or because the game is hinting you on where to go next.
Hollowknights such a good game and I’ve almost beat p5 I just need to get better at the climb phase of and rad
A CZcamsr called Daniel San made a video helping with the climb phase, he said that you should time your jumps with the laser beam. I suggest watching some of his videos for general tips.
I would probably have already beat p5 but markoth exists :(
I think the point of forgetting what unlocks go where is really true, doing a mostly blind run with help when I got stuck it took me a long time far past when I got dive to do crystal peak, because I forgot that was what I needed to get there, I especially think the game has a really hard time signaling when the dream nail is applicable in specific circumstances that would help you, most especially the memory in the abyss being accessible by dream nail with no indication, maybe I just have a pea for a brain but I had to check the wiki to see what I had to do to start the sequence.
One thing about contact damage I want to say: dream warrior bosses. Galien and Markoth are really annoying because they sometimes just go right next to you while you’re dodging the *actual* attack.
I think I disagree with you in your assertion at 5:55.
The range of movement is the foundation for exploration and combat. you literally have to master the jumping in some capacity in order to fully utilize the knights combats ability.
Well sure, but that doesn't make the game a platformer. The level of expertise you need in the movement is much, much higher in a game like Celeste. Because in Celeste, the movement IS the game. In Hollow Knight movement is of course important, but it's not the only thing you need to master, and the game doesn't treat it as such
@@htwo1 pogo.....
I honestly wouldn't mind playing a hollow knight mod that allows Celestes movement. They're both good games in there own right but imagine what they could do together
I think Hollow Knight and many other games aesthetics draw in a crowd of people who are just looking for cute little fun games to play in their down time. They don’t go in expecting Dark Souls level difficulty as they would usually avoid that kind of thing but the aesthetics blinded them to the genre title of Souls-Like. Basically Hollow Knight casted a wide net and captured some fish who didn’t want to be caught.
And even for those who like metroidvanias, this difficulty can be jarring, since those games aren't typically very hard, but focus more on exploration. Metroid Dread had fairly difficult bosses, but it also acknowledged that not everyone likes the challenge, so it has a casual mode.
i like that you talk about hollow knight and in the background i could hear risk of rain 1 music
I actually have a complaint with hollow knight, and that's that the game is slightly TOO big. Now to be clear I'm well aware this is not a common issue to have with games lol, but for me I don't have much time to play video games so I like games that I can experience all the main story of in only a couple sittings. Having all the side stuff you can do is fine, but simply just following along with what the game tells you to do, and beating the game, it takes quite a long time. I like more bite sized games, personally.
Before people get mad again I'm aware this isn't usually considered a bad thing, it's just something I'd probably prefer differently.
That's probably my only complaint with the game, and that would be a positive in most people's eyes.
I think having to take time with this game over several sittings is a good thing, especially if, like me, you're not very good at 2D platforming or Metroidvania games. It was like having an hour or two a day (or every few days) of practice, and I noticed myself getting noticeably better. That was very rewarding.
@@Crazy_Diamond_75 Like I said, I'm aware most people say the longer the better, I just personally like medium sized games because they are a lot easier to be able to actually finish (I don't have time to play huge games)
I love Hollow Knight personally, but that last guy did have a point on difficulty, especially if we're taking only a single playthrough or part of a single playthrough into account as the first time is rough.
I'm also not the greatest player and the "Good" builds usually don't end up working as well for me as they do other people from what I've noticed. I can't beat NKG so I always banish, I always have to cheese Enraged Guardian and Traitor Lord, and for Radiance I have to do a damage tank build with full soul coming in to beat it. Albeit I think the backtracking point added there is a little null and that it's only really the two damage bosses that are a problem in difficulty and the uh... Pantheons... But Pantheons are optional so it's fine.
I’m sensing a skill issue
i cant even beat radiance........
@@thesoooosh7219 I'm sensing someone who doesn't have anyone who loves them and thinking video games are a substitute for that here.
@@AlastorNahIdWinRadioDemon I’m sensing I hurt your precious little feelings 😭😭😭😂
7:18 I can actually imagine myself making a complaint like that. During my first playthrough I was very confused and lost on what I should do. I thought my main objective was to open the mysterious door to the right in dirtmouth, which, obviously no it isn’t.then i tried getting all grubs for grubfather, which.. no it wasn’t my main objective.
But I actually like how mysterious Hollow Knight starts and is. It’s extremely mysterious and it doesn’t take away suspension of disbelief, because there’s no health bar for enemies, so it never really felt like I was playing a “video game” and I was actually in the game.
I’m still in my first playthrough, so the only moment I wished for a bench closer to the boss (for now) is when fighting the Soul Master (the mini mages are a pain in the butt to fight, even worse than the boss itself)
The only thing I disliked about Hollow Knight was how long THK took to beat for rematching the Radiance on my first playthrough. I was using a spell build and didn’t have my nail maxed, and THK took maybe 3-5 minutes. In general I think Traitor Lord takes to long to go to (you should have dreamgate then though) and Soul Master takes a bit too long (very easy boss though).
would have been nice to be able to teleport between benches. A lot of back tracking in this game, a bit is ok, but it's really way too much and it's mostly because you can't move fast enough between areas
(ahem, stag stations and tramways exist for a reason, but okay)
I feel like bench teleportation wouldn't be good for the pacing of the game and the events unlocked at each milestone, and would actually make it WAY harder for a first time player to find secrets and keep track of progress in areas, but maybe being available after you beat The Hollow Knight for the first time wouldn't have been a problem?
The only nitpick i have about hollow knight is just that you cant see the bosses health bar. Id prefer it if it would have it cuz then id knkw how i close i would be to focus up lets say
I’ve only played like 5 hours and have been taking a break from it since I just can’t find a way to progress. I just walk around the forgotten crossroads and green path not know where to go.
I never thought about the backtracking to bosses thing until now since it was easy enough to do it in under a minute once you have the path in your head. I was like "ok, it's not frustrating, but it's valid enough. Checkpoints should be close to the bosses, so let's check how many bad positioned checkpoints are in the game". I immediately remembered dung defender and nothing else. Then I remembered flukemarm. "Easy boss, but still a boss. That's 2 on the list". Then I remembered hive knight. That's 3. But oh, there's also the watcher knights, it's 4. Then I remembered soul master and I was like "ok, not in every boss and not 10 minutes, but dude has a point"
Wait hang on, Dung Defender and Watchers have benches like two, three rooms over. Easy paths to go through, too.
Hive Knight and Soul Master are a fair point, though. Traitor Lord is a wee bit far for my tastes (also I suck at platforming), but you really should have Dreamgate by then.
For the issue with benches being too far away, the only example I can think of is traitor lord and the stag bench. Although, after like 3 attempts the platforming is fairly easy. Also DREAMGATE EXISTS
I didn't have dreamgate for Traitor Lords or Soul Master. Didn't even know it existed
8:06 Jedi FO and Survivor did this well in that they showed you what you have the abilities to access, if they have been accessed and where they are.
Personally i don't mind a game making you backtrack once or twice through an area, i love reacing an area, barely making it, getting a weapon upgrade, spells, charms, etc, and also just improving, and reaching the place that gave you trouble do absolutely decimate it. You can actually feel your progress, both in game and personal
10:45 OMG!!!!1!1!!1! SILKSONG NEWSSSSSS HE WITH TEAM CHERRY HE KNOWS THE PRICE OF SLIKSONG
My personal biggest issue with this incredible game is that the deaths -are- can feel very punishing, especially to a newer player who is still learning the moveset that the boss uses. More notably, sometimes there just aren’t enough benches to save at, and so you get situations like the Mantis Lords where the walk to get back to the fight after each death is way too long unless you are decently good at the game and know various things about the boss already. During walks like these, I tend to take a bit of damage that can range anywhere from negligible to “I’m already about to die and I haven’t even started the boss fight yet” and that is so infuriating, even if it is more so a skill issue than a game issue. Other than that, for the most part, the game is great! I’ve had a lot of fun playing it and have spent several hours just playing this game despite these frustrations-because the game is generally good. And, there are some moments where benches are put in very convenient places, such as Hornet’s boss arena being less than a minute’s walk from a bench. All of this is being said by someone who dies often and is still attempting to get better at dodging and dealing with various enemies, so take that in mind.
Exactly and amazing video man :)
About benches next to bossfights... I had to try the Mantis Lords so many times. (funnily enough 2nd time they were no problem) a bench nearer to them would have been appreciated...