Hollow Knight

This is great! Maybe the first Switch game outside of Zelda that I feel like I've really connecting with. But even just finding the coin for the quill and compass seems pretty hard!

It gets easier, gradually. But you know what? I've accumulated so many power-ups and charms and abilities, improved my nail three times, and still I have yet to encounter anything that made me feel overpowered. Even the simplest enemies can take you down if you don't pay attention, and some of the simpler enemies suddenly get more difficult as you progress in the game. Nothing is easy, just easier.

I take it back: the Dream Shield charm, plus or minus a couple of others, has really helped me steamroll the last few bosses, even bosses that had given me a lot of trouble before (like Watcher Knights and Hive Knight). I don't know if it counts as overpowered, because I am terrible and need the help, but a few of those charms (plus extra life, etc.) have really made a big difference, at least added to my growing experience.

Another thing: I had made good progress but ran up against a figurative wall and needed to get a hint online. Not only had I totally forgotten about a boss I'd put off, even if I had beat said boss I literally would have had no idea what to do next. I would have just dashed around indefinitely. I don't know if that's because I missed a clue, or didn't understand, or what, but the game's dedication to ambiguity and elliptical mythology would have gotten me nowhere without some concrete direction. How some of these (you?) serious gamers figure all this shit out is beyond me.

Made it to Greenpath! Loving this. Hands hurt.

Wonderful music too.

feels like the jump button has a lag. Or has different timing than most other games.

Jump is fine for me! But finding it a little awkward attacking baddies on the diagonal (although maybe it's meant to be)

I think there's a problem with my controller when not directly connected. or maybe I am just bad.

jumping is really crisp for me. sounds like a controller issue

Like I said, I'm generally not very good at these games, and not being a game ninja it takes me longer than many to get a hang of things, but I've been cruising along at a pretty steady clip here so I assume the controls are pretty solid. My theory is that lots of 8-bit styled platformers, whether something challenging like Shovel Knight or punishing like Celeste, the style of the art lends themselves to very precise control movement, down to the pixel. But Hollow Knight (like Steamworld) is so beautifully stylized/designed/drawn that while it can be challenging it feels a little less pixel-precise. There are a couple places with very tough platform moves and attacks, but it all feels very graceful to me, not at all mechanical. That said, I've yet to be able to master the nail bounce in Hollow Knight, and I think that is the downside of its art style; when there's something specific and mechanical you have to do, doing something based almost on intuition and instinct rather than robotic precision is a bit more trouble. I dunno. I wonder how I'd do at something like Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze.

I feel like I'm in the home stretch of this game by the way, certainly the final 20% or so, though I get the impression there's an advanced mode or something you need to beat to really finish it.

I have three weeks before I go back to work when I thought I'd have a crack at finishing Middlemarch finally, but, uh, Hollow Knight

All right I started playing this and beat the first boss…it’s good

This game is so good that sometimes I can't even tell if I'm even fighting a boss.

Curious to see how Dark Souls hits you Josh. I haven’t played HK yet (have it on the Switch tho, wanna get thru Zelda first), but a lot of things you’re talking about sound very much DS inspired.

I got it all figured out. Hollow Knight, then finish Doom, then Dark Souls. I can tell you right now that Hollow Knight is at times cute, and funny, and always nice to look at, even when it is really dark. Dark Souls is all gloom all the time isn't it?

um, well, there's a certain humor that can potentially be found in dying a lot, if you look at it from one perspective. but yeah, not too cheerful. but it does an excellent job of setting a distinct and memorable mood

Yeah it’s super gloom for the most part but there’s comedy to be had through getting wrecked like Karl said. Also unexpected lols from certain enemies.

Meant more the unexplained, esoteric nature of it. Also it’s supposed difficulty, but sounds like you’re managing it pretty well in HK.

Man, this Hornet is really really really really hard for a second level Boss

Yeah I'm not much farther than you are and I had trouble with Hornet too - all I can say is just be patient, keep your distance, get in a hit or two when you can but just try to avoid her hits and wear her down

I am super stuck on Hornet too. As much as I appreciate not having to fight bosses again if you'd rather just peace out and do something else (and it's cool you can get your shade back without initiating the boss fight), I wish you could just hit "try again" rather than spending a couple minutes after every regen filling up with soul and heading back to their lair.

The Switch is the first videogame system I've played since the PS2, and the deterioration in my skills is never more evident than when I mess up and die fighting Hornet because my hands are sweaty lol. This game is extremely pretty and fun though, and I look forward to maybe getting to see at least one more area.

Hornet is pretty tough. Mantis Lords are super tough. Watcher Knights were hard. I'm trying to remember a few more. None has been totally maddening yet, except maybe Hive boss for me, mostly because I would get my ass kicked on my way there by enemies, so I'd arrive in a weakened state.

I took an hour and like eight tries to beat the soul master today. After taking an hour and like twelve tries to even open up the way to his room. I haven’t played a game tuned to this kind of difficulty since Viewtiful Joe I think. (Which I never beat.) Celeste B-sides are harder but the deaths are much less of a punishment so they don’t key me up as much.

I think - and I could be wrong - that as you go along money/geo becomes less important, so losing that cash (and the time spent accumulating it) isn't as soul destroying. Plus, there's that dude you can unlock up in Dirthmouth who will restore your soul for a rotten egg, which is a) funny and b) a relief. I do like the spikes in difficulty, though. It keeps me engaged. I thought every single second of "Celeste" was tough, which eventually turned me off.

I really hate this game and love it

I'm definitely really close to (I think) the (first) final boss, and I only know that because once again I more or less did everything I thought I was supposed to be doing and literally had no idea what to do next and had to look it up.

can someone come to my house and do hornet please

iirc just take your time and heal when you get the chance. I want to say there are times she gets tired and you are tempted to attack, but sometimes you just got to take one for the team and heal instead.

if you think hornet is hard just wait for hornet v.2

yeah i never got past hornet the game wasn't hooking me enough to persevere

Hornet was harder for me the first time around. All the time it took to get to Hornet v.2 plus all the upgrades I'd made made it less of a challenge the second time around. Then again, I had a lot of trouble fighting what some consider easier bosses, like Mantis Lords and Hive Knight. Right now started working on (first) final boss and have no idea how hard it will be. But hard enough so far!

Man, some of the art as you wrap up the first phase is gorgeous. And now that I know what my percentage is - 78% - I know how much more of the game there is for me to explore even after I "beat" it.

Rob OTM upthread, I wish I could just hit "fight again" instead of having to go through the five minute kill shade/gather energy rigmarole after every death. It's so frustrating when the shade hits you too!

That said the Green level music is so good, it's gotta be one of the best computer game themes I've heard

I think the music is pretty impressive across the board. I read somewhere that that is one of the few things the tiny team outsourced and spent money on.

Holy shit! Beat the (first) final boss, who was surprisingly fun and not too bad, though man, the match gets super dark and the twist when it's over is ... also super dark. I know there's more to the game, but I have no idea what to expect. Man, what a ton of fun this has been so far.

I managed to beat Hornet a couple days after I posted. There are various bits of good advice on fighting her out there, but one thing I saw helped more than I expected: turn the sound down. I love the music and sound design on this game, but they seem designed to mess with you in this fight, and Hornet's yelps (which are random afaict) are actively distracting since you need to register her moves visually to react well.

In the meantime, I looked up what the postgame White Palace "real" ending game is like, and yeah, no thanks. At least not now. One of the reasons I liked Hollow Knight is that it was not Super Meat Boy or Celeste.

Heh, every once in a while I read something about Hollow Knight and there are references to bosses and battles and challenges I somehow totally missed, despite "completing" the game. Totally nuts, the amount of content in here.

yesterday I bumbled my way out of the logjam I was in w/r/t knowing where to go next, and in the process encountered at two bosses I suspect are optional (one definitely is).

Then I found the part of the map where the enemy bugs all have little cravats and waistcoats

I was unpleasantly stuck again and then I glanced at a walkthrough which suggested I go left and lo and behold, progress.

video games have conditioned us all to go right

Ok I started this and it's pretty great. Just past the False Knight and the area where you get your first spell.

It does feel overwhelmingly massive, even the first area seems huge. And where Dark Souls gives you a bonfire after each boss, here you have to run back to a warp spot, so you're even more tempted to explore a little further instead (and then wind up deep in a new section with tons of currency on the line).

Some travel times stay long, some get shorter. Eventually you get some skills that significantly speed things up, but by then (imo) some aspects of the game get a little tougher, so it sort of balances out.

It wasn't even that long, I just never want to take the time to go back to home base areas even though it's the logical thing to do.

Also the choice not to show boss health bars adds some tension, but also makes it easier not to get greedy near the end.

"A world of insects and heroes" hits my twee heartstrings so hard! And a sidescrolling platformer would be a great change of pace from all these open-worldish 3D games I've been playing lately.

The lack of boss bars was (in this game and others) a little off-putting to me, because there were times I got really frustrated when I died not knowing if I was even remotely close. Definitely forces you to think through strategies and/or adjust expectations.

Beat the hornet lady on the second try! Now I guess I need to backtrack through everything to find the newly accessible places, huh. As you do.

Jealous

Seething, actually

(I’m still stuck there. Playing mario odyssey instead.)

Reportedly Team Cherry quietly changed the "Silksong" domain, which means 6 more weeks of winter.

Been revisiting this in anticipation of whenever Silksong decides to appear. About 15 hours in, just finished Deepnest & Herrah. Is it an unpopular opinion to say this game is maybe *too* big? On my first playthrough, I clocked close to 40 hours and never even finished it, because I just burned out after a while. It makes me wonder if Silksong is going to be even more sprawling, and IDK if I have the stamina for that.

Also I learned recently that there is now a fan-made full voice acting mod, which I just do not understand at all. The gibberish voices are already perfect! I can *kinda* get it from an accessibility standpoint, but from an aesthetic standpoint...meh

I burned out too, the thought of all the Metroidvania backtracking began to feel like a chore. But I really loved the look and feel, and the boss fights, so I'm kinda hoping Silksong will be a tighter experience? Although after all this time I suppose they're going to want to deliver something really big.

i finally got access to the white palace, once i clear this, i think i'm finally ready to fight the knight.

i am def sympathetic to the "too big" feeling, but i have a tendency to completely bury myself in games, so the bigger the better imo. i've clocked close to 100 hours, ready to stop just in time for zelda to take over my life.

Hey gang, just a quick update about Silksong.

We had planned to release in the 1st half of 2023, but development is still continuing. We're excited by how the game is shaping up, and it's gotten quite big, so we want to take the time to make the game as good as we can.

Expect…

— Matthew Griffin (@griffinmatta) May 10, 2023

*gang gets sad*

Ok I'm psyching myself up to get back into this. Curious if it will be possible to get back in the swing of things on my old save, given that I have no memory of anything.

That's sort of a weird waking nightmare I have, that I will be mostly through a challenging game and then get distracted by something else, and by the time I get back to it I have forgotten how to do anything.

Haha. Ok, it took a few bumbling deaths and accidentally selling something for a few hundred currency units and dying again, but I'm back in! Apparently I'm at the Royal Waterway, and I've found two bosses there.

Lol, yesterday I beat the infamous Dung Defender, then in the next area I threw all of my money in a fountain just before running into the map seller and the paid bench unlock for the area. I guess I thought it might function like a bank? That one is really on me.

i love the dung defender

I'm fully committed now, but I've seldom had less idea where I'm supposed to go in a video game.

I've got the super dash and the double jump so now we're fully ready to wander.

I accessed the 'dream nail' version of one of the bosses (Broken Vessel/Lost Kin) for the first time, did you all do those? Is it worth it? I like the boss battles but I'm not especially compelled to repeat them, but maybe it's something you do later on when you're fully powered up?

It's been too long to remember the details, but I don't recall a clear incentive to do all the dream nail battles. But I didn't do all the post-game/deep endgame stuff, either, so maybe it has something to do with that?

Lol, yesterday I beat the infamous Dung Defender, then in the next area I threw all of my money in a fountain just before running into the map seller and the paid bench unlock for the area. I guess I thought it might function like a bank? That one is really on me.

― Random Restaurateur (Jordan), Thursday, May 11, 2023 3:08 PM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

If put 3000 geo in it gives you a vessel fragment, which I only discovered after looking at a guide and trying to figure out how I'd missed so many upgrades

I'm currently playing on the Switch which I'm convinced has some control issues over the PC version, I've played both now and I don't think it's just me. It just feels like something is slightly off and they aren't tight enough to pull off certain moves with confidence every time. I find I'm constantly ending up diving straight into the ground when I should be going left/right, and it feels the game only randomly decides when you've successfully pulled off a downstrike or not leading to some sections just being absolute misery. Trying to obtain the vessel fragment in Deepnest is the worst so far, total hell.

Supposedly there's been some movement on the Silksong front. Has there ever been a game that missed an entire console generation between announcement and release?

duke nukem forever was announced in 1997 and released in 2011. and wow was it worth the wait!!!!

Def the Chinese Democracy of games. That Bethesda game that came out last year was under dev for at least 10 years, but apparently only announced 5 years before it came out.

When did half life 3 come out again?

When it finally drops, I'll be curious what the story was that drove development to take so long. I don't care if they're a small studio, the first game took a small handful of people only 3-4 years to create. 7+ years is a long time for this genre, even if a solo developer was putting it together. I'd be willing to bet the pandemic and lockdown had a huge negative impact.

Though perhaps it will be like 2-3 times the size of the first game; an Elden Ring style expansion over DS3?

I assume they calculated their days-cash-on-hand and decided to blow up the scope

Delays are understandable, but I wonder what accounts for Team Cherry's near complete radio silence?

They don’t owe you shit is what

For sure. That's why they don't *have* to do it. But they do have a web presence - twitter, facebook, youtube, website - just not one that's updated. At this point I'm honestly more worried for the team than anxious for a new game.

You think this team of three people who made bank with their first game are struggling to keep the lights on?

No, I was thinking more mentally/emotionally.

Yeah true... I imagine they won't be rushing into Hollow Knight 3 after this one drops.