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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   2975 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for September 5, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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This development does not surprise me in the least, given how the tail end of my playtime in Hollow Knight was mostly just a continuous escalation of challenge for the sake of challenge. I liked the game for what it was up to a point, especially for the exploration, but the exclusive focus on high-end skill checks in the boss rush or extreme platforming sequences at the end had me check out.

I had the same experience of HK. The game was all roses until I maxed out my knight. Then, suddenly, to reach the ending I apparently had play a masocore platformer and a bullet hell game? Why? I checked out and watched the ending cutscene online.

Honestly, I didn't hold this against Hollow Knight. But it seems Team Cherry wanted to make a sequel to the part of their game I actually didn't like. Shame.

I only just stumbled across this post, but I feel like this deserves correction. The Path of Pain and Absolute Radiance are both very optional, intentionally brutal content. The canonical good ending only requires you to defeat normal Radiance (after fighting the Hollow Knight), which is a bit tricky but nothing compared to what you linked. It sounds like you checked some guides, misinterpreted them, then gave up prematurely?

No, I agree with @popocatepetl. AFAIK getting the good ending requires doing a bunch of ‘optional’ bosses to power up the dream nail, then going through super-meat-boy style platforming in the White Palace to get the Void Heart, then fighting two difficult bosses in a row.

I beat the ‘final’ boss, felt kind of good about it, looked the game up online and got told about all the other bullshit I was meant to do and gave up.

I liked HW for the metroidvania exploration, but Team Cherry seems far more invested in super-hard bosses and platforming.

But it seems Team Cherry wanted to make a sequel to the part of their game I actually didn't like. Shame.

Agree completely. I don’t think they realised that this wasn’t what appealed to many players.

From the wiki: "Behind a breakable wall on your left is the entrance to the Path of Pain - an optional and particularly hard area. Note that beating this area isn't required for the true ending."

Yes, you do have to do some platforming in the White Palace. But you do not even have to find, let alone complete, the insane secret section that's showcased in the linked video.

Sorry, I expressed myself poorly. You are factually correct that the Path of Pain and Absolute Radiance are optional.

I agree with the previous poster in the sense that you have to fight some pretty bullet-hellish bosses and do some pretty gnarly platforming to get the chance to fight ordinary Radiance, and that I noped out on hearing this.

Fair enough! It's definitely a hard game.

There are three major endings in the game, ranked from earliest/easiest to hardest. I'll spoil them just in case.

  1. You kill the three dreamers and then the Hollow Knight. Doable with mid-level upgrades, but might feel hard at that point. You probably won't have discovered the entire map.
  2. You awaken the Dream Nail, requiring defeating some combination of easy-ish Warrior Dreams and harder versions of existing bosses, then collect the Void Heart (the only obstacle of note is the aforementioned platforming section), then kill Hollow Knight followed by Radiance. At that point, if you've been exploring you should have enough upgrades that Hollow Knight is barely a challenge, especially since you're fully healed on entering the Radiance fight anyway. This is the "canon" ending that Silksong takes over from.
  3. You find and kill every boss in the game, then complete a boss rush where you fight all of them in a row, with a few opportunities to get a full heal, capstoned by a stronger Radiance. This is pretty much the 100% completionist ending and is not for regular players. Solksong does not have this kind of challenge implemented as of now.

I find it strange to complain about platforming in favor of metroidvania exploration, because as far as I remember there are more than a few exploration rewards in HK that are locked behind platforming.

In my experience Silksong is quite heavy not on hard bosses but hard "gauntlets", i.e. the multiple waves of enemies arenas. But those can be trivialized by tool spam if you haven't been zeroing out your shard stash all the time.

Silksong does not have this kind of challenge implemented as of now.

Yeah, Hollow Knight also didn't have the Pantheons (boss rush) until the DLC came out. And while the first four (much much much easier) Pantheons contribute to the final 112% completion percentage, the fifth one with that ending does not. It really is intended to be optional content. (There IS an achievement for it, though.)

I haven't finished all Silksong's extra content yet, but I found the bosses to be tough but fair - especially if you count this as a soulslike, which IMHO is a genre rife with badly-designed overtuned bosses. I would cite Nine Sols, another recent metroidvania, as an example of how NOT to do it.

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