Hollow Knight

I always felt Crystal Peaks was more midgame.

Yup. Especially since you get an important movement pickup there.

I didn't go there until I needed to get Crystal Heart.

Although you can explore it pretty early on or pretty late, just depends on you.

I was the guy whom fought the Mantis Lords at a really low level which made them much harder to beat (I didn't find the City of Tears yet).

I then tossed myself into Deepnest like an idiot and died constantly until I gave up and came back later with better upgrades.

I think my reaction to Deepnest was 'aaaaaaa' and going somewhere else for a while.

The Sewers were worse for me. The enemies their are so goddamned disgusting.

Edited by Wispy on Dec 15th 2018 at 3:46:06 AM

What's the matter, can't handle a little bit of loud, echoing slurping and sucking sounds with manic screeching thrown in?

(Don't worry, neither can I.)

Its not just that. The enemies are parasitic flukes which to me are nastier than any spider or centipede out their.

Like I am scared of centipedes but I'd take them over parasites anyday.

Then good news! Deepnest has plenty of parasitic spiders to satisfy everyone!

Parasitic worms are still worse.

Never really liked worms

Wait, you think Crystal Peak is too lategame but recommend going to Deepnest instead? Crystal Peak seems like the logical next step after City of Tears for me. The entrance is really telegraphed so that you're sure to remember it after beating Soul Master, and it's a much more inviting place than Deepneest, or Royal Waterways, which are the only areas you would have access to at that point. It also leads you to Resting Grounds and the Dream Nail.

Edited by Druplesnubb on Dec 15th 2018 at 3:37:50 PM

Yeah, Crystal Peak can’t be fully explored, but what can be explored is rewarding.

Crystal Peak is absolutely one of better places to go after Soul Master. You can't access Isma's Tear without Crystal Heart anyway, and it leads to an even better upgrade of Monarch Wings past the Broken Vessel.

Granted, once you get the Mantis Claw the game opens up substantially, and there's a lot of places to go to with it.

Update: I've destroyed all three Dreamers. I've explored most of the places you guys mentioned already, of course (I have over 20 hours in this game and have only had it for like 4 days what i am doing with my life lol).

Probably the biggest stumbling block for me was the Watcher Knights. I ended up finding about the Flukenest charm when I googled for solutions to beat them, and that combined with the Shaman charm (the one that boosts your spells' power) and grubsong finally allowed me to beat them, but I died several times before then. That whole fight is absurd honestly, even if you cut down the chandelier it's too hectic to keep dodging two knights at once.

So I assume now I have to go to the Black Egg Temple, but I'm trying to clear out the rest of the map and visit some areas I initially left unexplored first. So far, my favorite area has probably been the Soul Sanctum; I dig the aesthetic and the music hit me instantly. The Soul Master wasn't that great of a boss though.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Dec 15th 2018 at 5:25:59 AM

Yeah, I hated the Watcher Knights.

Little spoiler for you if you want. Otherwise, do what you will.

There are multiple endings to the game, as I'm sure you know. IF you beat the game now, based on what you've described, you get the worst ending. If you want a better ending, enhance the Dream Nail and then go and explore the Queen's Gardens until you find the White Queen. Once you've done both of those, head down to the Ancient Basin and complete the White Palace level, found by Dream Nailing the corpse near the stag station, and then head down to the Abyss and upgrade your Kingsoul to the Voidheart. THEN go and fight the Black Egg boss. Your different endings come based on whether or not you dream nail said boss at a moment of weakness.

Keep in mind that you can always come back to your save file and do more; progressing with the final endgame upgrades does lock out the first ending.

- yeah, the endings can become permanently missable, depending on what you do with the ending requirements and DLC.

So I've been playing this game again.

The White Palace is terrible lol, why would team cherry do this to me

I had to go find the Hive to get the Hiveblood charm to make it less awful, but even with that I am not enjoying my time here at all

Yeah, Hiveblood is a great help there. As long as you're patient you're generally good to practice.

If you want my recommendation, look up a no-damage or speedrun video on Youtube. The one I used involved a few lucky or close misses, but it's also a great way to see new tricks or get a preview for the next part.

Hang in there, though. As long as you're doing it for the challenge and not the reward, your time won't be wasted.

Edited by RedSavant on Feb 4th 2019 at 10:38:59 AM

Yeah I've been looking up some speedrun clears of the place, and it dawned on me that I keep forgetting you can pogo off the sawblades :v

It's not really a trick that comes up a lot in the main game, to be fair. You can also pogo off the saws that go up and down the walls, I think, but you really have to go super fast if they're going upwards. May not be possible if they're going up.

OH MY GOD I DID IT

MY SUFFERING IS OVER

...there's still the Path of Pain but tbh fuck that. I'm just going to beat Radiance and Grimm and leave it at that I think.

The Path of Pain is fiiiine. It only took me like an hour!

Of constant trying.

But when you get it, it feels good!

Holy shit you did it in less than an hour? My first attempt took me like six hours or something and I found the original White Palace to be really easy.

It was more like two or so. Definitely not under an hour, and that's with a reference video. I ended up having to basically laser focus and I had to put the game down for the day afterward because it nearly burned me out, but I didn't want to stop in the middle for fear of losing whatever groove I'd built up.

I forgot how long it took me to do The White Palace and the original Radiance boss.

You guys are more patient then me as I don't think I'd ever last through Path of Pain or through all of the Godmaster stuff