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If you were a fan of Metroidvania games, then
2010 was a very difficult year.
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On the one side, we got Metroid: Other M - a
game that paid lip service to exploration
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and isolation, but was way more interested
in action-packed fights, cringe-worthy cutscenes,
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and excessive handholding.
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And on the other side, after six cracking
Castlevania adventures on handhelds, we got
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Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - a knockabout
brawler that took most of its inspiration
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from God of War, and had only the lightest
hint of exploration.
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It looked like the Metroidvania was dead.
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Except, it really wasn’t.
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Because while Nintendo and Konami were about
to drop off for a decade-long slumber with
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their respective franchises, other developers
- especially smaller indie studios - were
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starting to try their hand at the Metroidvania
formula.
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Cave Story, Aquaria, and Shadow Complex were
early attempts to follow that recipe of locked
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doors, new abilities, grid-like map systems,
and secret items.
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And since then we’ve seen games as varied
as Strider, Axiom Verge, the Shantae
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games, Toki Tori 2, Guacamelee, Headlander,
and Ori and the Blind Forest.
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But none of these games would quite prepare
us for one that was released in 2017.
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This is a masterpiece, with crunchy combat
against imaginative boss monsters, crushing
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Dark Souls-esque difficulty spikes, a deep
well of lore that would launch several YouTube
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careers, and - most important of all - an
elegantly designed, interconnected world that
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is just a joy to get lost in.
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So this is Boss Keys, and today - join me on
a deep dive into the world design of
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Hollow Knight.
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Hollow Knight takes place in the sprawling
kingdom of Hallownest.
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The game begins in Dirtmouth: a fading town
with a few shops and visiting adventurers.
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Beneath that lies the Forgotten Crossroads,
which - as the name might suggest - connects
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up to many areas in the game, including the
leafy suburbs of Greenpath, the deadly mines
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of Crystal Peak, the acidic Fog Canyon, and
the noxious caverns of the Fungal Wastes.
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In the very depths of Hallownest you’ll
find the pitch-black labyrinth of Deepnest,
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and the mysterious Ancient Basin.
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While in the furthest corners you’ll discover
the graveyard, called the Resting Grounds,
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the Howling Cliffs, and the lush greenhouse
of the Queen’s Gardens.
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And at the kingdom’s edge you’ll find
the, uh, Kingdom’s Edge - which also connects
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to The Hive.
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All of these areas surround the enormous capital
of Hallownest: the endlessly-drenched City
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of Tears, and its Royal Waterways sewer system.
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Together, these 15 different zones create
a jigsaw of neatly fitting puzzles pieces.
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Now, each area is visibly distinct.
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There’s no confusing the pink gems of Crystal
Peak with the leafy green walls of Greenpath,
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or the candlelit blue walls of the Forgotten
Crossroads, or the muted greys of the Ancient
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Basin.
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It’s especially helpful that the colour
of each area matches the colours on the map.
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This all makes it easy to keep these areas
separately catalogued in your brain box, enormously
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helping with navigation and spatial reasoning.
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But you’ll also find gameplay differences
in each zone, which keeps them fresh and varied.
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That includes bouncing on trampoline shrooms
in the Fungal Wastes, dodging laser beams
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in the Crystal Peak, and peering through the
darkness in Deepnest.
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Some areas, like the Kingdom’s Edge, are
vertical in nature - while others, like the
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Royal Waterways, are stretched out highways.
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And there are also unique enemies in each
zone - like exploding bugs in Greenpath, kamikaze
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jellyfish in Fog Canyon, icky spiders in Deepnest,
and cute bee-lets in The Hive - which makes
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every zone feel brand new.
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When we first drop into Hallownest, we’re
not exactly given any real goal or direction.
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This first cutscene shows a lone wanderer
- the mysterious Knight - just kinda rocking
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up to the kingdom and jumping on in.
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But we are given some vague hints about where
to go.
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The Elderbug in Dirtmouth tells us to head
on down.
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And this sign in the west end of the Forgotten
Crossroads points towards “the city at this
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kingdom’s heart” - a place where “all
wishes shall be granted, all truths revealed”,
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apparently.
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Sounds like a good place to check out, if
only it wasn’t guarded by an invincible
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armour-plated beetle.
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Something Hollow Knight does well is to hint
at upcoming areas with one room that shares
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that zone’s visual identity - like the rooms
in the Forgotten Crossroads that have leaves
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from Greenpath, or gems from Crystal Peak.
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This is a great way of teasing future content
- and lodging that place in the player’s
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brain as somewhere worth returning to.
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In the centre of the Forgotten Crossroads
is a big ol’ boss called the False Knight
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- and behind him is our first power-up: the
Vengeful Spirit, which is a sort of Hadouken-style
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blast.
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In the tutorial for this new ability we use
it to defeat another armour-plated beetle,
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reminding us to return to that corridor, and
make progress to Greenpath.
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This is a Metroidvania after all - so expect
to find locks and keys.
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Here, in Greenpath, we meet Hornet: who keeps dashing
just out of view - and acts like a carrot-on-a-stick
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to lure us over to the west side of the area.
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There, we’ll summarily dispatch Hornet - hopefully,
she’s pretty tough - and get the second
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upgrade: the Mothwing Cloak.
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This lets us dash in mid-air, granting access
to the Fungal Wastes.
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We’re still being teased by that city - thanks
to literal signposts that point the way down.
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And Hornet does her little carrot-on-a-stick
routine once again, as she darts towards the
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city’s entrance.
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Not that you can follow her, mind you, due
to the bridge being down.
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So instead, we enter the Mantis Village, and
find the next power-up: the Mantis Claw.
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This allows us to scale up walls and is the
perfect ability to get us past that bridge
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and - finally - into the City of Tears.
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So, at this point, Hollow Knight seems quite
linear.
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We’re following a standard sequence of upgrades
and boss fights, and following a critical
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path through Hallownest.
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But if the game’s developers were leading
us to the city by the hand - if only quite
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subtly, with vague clues and in-world signposts
- then this is the point where they let go.
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At the centre of the city, we’ll meet Hornet
once again - and she’ll tell us to visit
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"the grave in ash", but there’s no indication
of where that is.
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And while the fountain actually puts a marker
on our map for the first time in the game
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- it’s for the Black Egg Temple back in
the Forgotten Crossroads, which is somewhere
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we’ve already been, and that thing’s locked
up tight.
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So the question is - where to next?
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Let me back up a bit.
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If we look at the map of Hallownest, and reveal
how much of the world we can explore at each
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point in the game, we can see that our initial
reach is limited to just Dirtmouth and the
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Forgotten Crossroads.
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After we get the Vengeful Spirit, we can go
a smidge further, into Greenpath and the Fog Canyon.
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And the Mothwing Cloak reveals a tiny bit
more for us to see still,
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letting us into the Fungal Wastes.
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But as soon as we have the Mantis Claw, the
map is massively unveiled to us - we can go
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to the City of Tears, of course, and - provided
we’ve found a Simple Key - the Royal Waterways.
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We can pop up to the Howling Cliffs, descend
into Deepnest, or check out the Ancient Basin.
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We can even reach the Resting Grounds.
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And if we discover the Tram Pass in Deepnest,
we can also visit the Kingdom’s Edge.
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And this was definitely a deliberate choice
by the game’s developers.
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I spoke to Ari Gibson and William Pellen from
Team Cherry over email, who told me this:
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“we started with a basic, linear progression
of item acquirement, with the idea that we
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would allow that progression to break apart,
branch out and wind around itself as the world
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grew.”
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So while our journey has been quite constrained
up until now, there’s suddenly a bunch of
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different things we can do all at once.
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We can go fight the Dung Defender in the Royal
Waterways, which lets us flip a mysterious switch.
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Or we could challenge the Mantis Lords, to
open up access to Deepnest.
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Or we could go fight the Soul Master in the
City of Tears, and get his handy Desolate
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Dive ability.
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That lets us into the Crystal Peak, and allows
us to pick up the Crystal Heart: a sort of
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bonkers jet-powered super dash, which opens
up a lot more areas.
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That includes a place in the Ancient Basin
where we fight the Broken Vessel and get the
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double jumpin’ Monarch Wings.
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And also an area in the Royal Waterways, where
- provided we hit that switch earlier - we
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can pick up Isma’s Tear, which lets us splash
about in acid water.
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So, by opening up the world in such a dramatic
fashion, Team Cherry doesn’t actually need
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to lead you by the hand anymore.
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Because if there are loads of different things
to find all over the map - the player will
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likely stumble upon something important, no
matter which direction they take.
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Now, I should say that after entering the
City of Tears, the developers ideally want
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you to go fight the Soul Master and get the
Desolate Dive ability.
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They even slam the city’s gates shut behind
you - and the only way back through is to
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smash through this floor with - you guessed
it - the Desolate Dive.
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This is a classic Metroidvania trick of locking
the door behind the player, so they don’t
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back out without finding the necessary goodies.
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But something you should know about the world
design of Hallownest is that there’s always
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more than one way to go.
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For example - remember when I said you need
to fight the Mantis Lords to gain access to
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Deepnest?
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Well, not necessarily - because if you find
this semi-secret path in the Fungal Wastes,
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you can get to Deepnest from there and bypass
that boss fight altogether - providing two
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routes to the same place.
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Also, you can get to east side of the City
of Tears through the Royal Waterways.
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Or by taking a lift down from the Resting
Grounds.
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Or by taking the tram from Deepnest to the
Ancient Basin, and climbing back up to the
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city from there.
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Or you could even come in via the Kingdom’s
Edge.
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That’s four routes to the same place.
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The Crystal Peak is another key area for this.
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For starters, there are multiple routes through
this zone when getting to the Crystal Heart,
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allowing us to skip this Crystal Guardian
boss fight altogether if we so wish.
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And there’s two routes into the mine itself.
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Before, I mentioned using the Desolate Dive
to smash through this floor - but there’s
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also this pitch-black and seemingly inaccessible
room in the Forgotten Crossroads.
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Come back with the Lumafly Lantern from the
shop in Dirtmouth, though, and you’ll be
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able to see that there’s actually a gate
in that room.
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Once unlocked, you’ll get access to the
Crystal Peak.
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And if you’ve got the Mantis Claw, you can
even hop up and get the Crystal Heart, meaning
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you can bypass the Soul Master and his Desolate
Dive pick-up altogether, if you so wish.
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The explorable area following the Mantis Claw
actually looks like this, then.
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In fact, because you can reach this dark room
at the very start of the game, you can theoretically
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enter the Crystal Peak before getting the
game’s very first power-up: the Vengeful Spirit.
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Though, at 1,800 Geo, the lamp is rather expensive
and will be hard to save up for at this very early
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stage in the adventure.
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It’s an interesting example of a what we
might call a “soft lock”, though: a route
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through a game that isn’t physically inaccessible
to the player, but will turn most adventurers
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away at this early stage because they’re
not yet strong enough, don’t have enough
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knowledge, or - in this case - don’t have
enough cash.
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So while the door to the City of Tears does
shut tight behind you, there’s plenty of creative
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ways out of the city that don’t require
the Desolate Dive ability.
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Providing multiple routes through the game
certainly allows you to pick your own path
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during the adventure - which is perfect for
second playthroughs, speed-runs, low percentage
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challenges - and most importantly of all - a
feeling of legitimate agency.
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Because - similar to games like Dark Souls
and the very first Metroid and Zelda games
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- the route through the game is dictated by
your own curiosity and sense of adventure.
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But this is also a wonderful way to stop the
player from getting stuck.
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Like: think about the Grapple Hook in Super
Metroid.
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It can be used to access loads of places around
Zebes but most of them just lead to inessential
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upgrades like the Wave Beam and Energy Tanks
- so let’s call these optional locks.
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Only one Grapple Hook point actually allows
further progress through the game, towards
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the Wrecked Ship - so we might call that a
critical lock.
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And so while you’re certainly going to get
loads of cool goodies to upgrade Samus, it
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does mean that if you can’t find that one
single critical lock, you’re going to be
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stuck.
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In Hollow Knight, though, things are a bit
different.
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Like, after getting the Mothwing Cloak from
Hornet in Greenpath, there are loads of places
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to use it.
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Some lead to handy pick ups.
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But also, you can dash up here in the Fog
Canyon’s Queen Station, and dash up here
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in the bottom of the Forgotten Crossroads
- and both lead you to the Fungal Wastes,
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and continue your adventure towards the Mantis
Village.
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Having two critical locks instead of one dramatically
increases your chances of making progress
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through the game.
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Because whether you remember some past blocked-off
area and decide to backtrack to it with your
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new power-up, or you just continue adventuring
onwards and hope to stumble upon the next
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part of the game - you’re much more likely
to make progress if there’s more than one
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critical lock to find.
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This is a technique that’s used to great
effect in the Resting Grounds.
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Some players will drop down into the area
from this chasm in the Crystal Peak.
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But others might, instead, find the Tram Pass
in Deepnest and ride a train car from the
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Forgotten Crossroads over to the Resting Grounds.
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They might take a lift up from the east end
of the City of Tears, and reach the Resting
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Grounds from underneath.
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Or they might get to that same entranceway,
but by using the Crystal Dash to get to the
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Blue Lake.
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That’s four completely different paths to
the same area - using all sorts of different
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abilities and routes.
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And it can be accessed from the very start
of the game, if you take that route through
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the pitch-black room I discussed earlier.
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But this is all for a reason.
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The Resting Grounds is actually the “grave
in ash” that Hornet spoke of back in the
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City of Tears, and it’s one of the most
important areas in the game because it finally
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gives us an actual goal - we need to take
this Dream Nail and use it to wake up three
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sleeping sentries: Herrah the Beast, Lurien
the Watcher, and Monomon the Teacher.
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So by having all sorts of different ways into
the Resting Grounds, Team Cherry can be sure
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that players will almost certainly get there
eventually - but they don’t have to be led
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by the hand using signposts, directions, or
map markers.
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Instead, you just get that wonderful feeling
of “accidentally” stumbling upon something
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really important.
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Team Cherry says it tried to avoid using too
much signposting because it would be “to
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the detriment of many players who, through
initially being lost, find their own ways
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and begin to learn the layout of the kingdom
on a much more personal level”.
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There is one exception to that, though: when
you look at this statue in the Resting Ground,
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the dreamer’s masks are drawn onto your
map, marking the location of these characters.
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And normally, I’d be kind of against this
sort of overt and gamey direction.
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However, this turns out to be less of a bunch
of nagging waypoint markers and more of a
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gentle reminder of what your overall goal
actually is.
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Because, your map is likely so uncharted that these
masks are just floating in an unhelpful sea
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of black, and you almost certainly don’t
have all the abilities to actually reach these
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dreamers yet.
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Herrah, for example, is hidden away in her
den in the furthest corner of Deepnest.
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You’ll need the Mantis Claw to get in there,
and the Lumafly Lantern to actually see what
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you’re doing.
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Lurien is high atop his spire, overlooking
the City of Tears, and can’t be reached
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without the Monarch Wings.
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And you’ll need to defeat the Watcher Knights
at his door.
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And Monomon’s kipping in her archive in
the Fog Canyon, which is blocked off unless
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you have Isma’s Tear.
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You’re also going to have to dispatch the
rather familiar looking boss, Uumuu.
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So while the masks on your map might point
out the final destinations, they don’t tell
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you anything about the many stops you’ll
need to make along the way.
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There’s one final way that Team Cherry allows
you to dictate your own path through the game,
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and that’s by allowing, encouraging, and
even designing in tricks that allow you to
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get past obstacles without the necessary upgrades.
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Similar to tricks like the wall jump in Super Metroid.
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So you can use the kickback blast of the Vengeful
Spirit to propel yourself to areas that would
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normally require the Mothwing Cloak.
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You can use the Crystal Heart to bypass bits
that need Isma’s Tear.
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And most disruptive of all, you can bounce
off background decorations and flying enemies
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with the nail to give you an extra lift - and
render the Monarch Wings technically optional.
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Now that’s what I call exploiting a bug!
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Team Cherry told me that “we knew players
would be able to sequence break using the
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nail bounce technique, and we absolutely wanted
them to be able to do so.
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Watching players discover new routes is a
huge joy for us and is a really empowering
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moment for a player.”
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“We even placed certain enemies and objects
to allow some shortcuts” - though, they
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admit that “the Hollow Knight community
has uncovered many more skips that we’d
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never considered ourselves”.
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One spot in the Kingdom’s Edge had to be
fixed in a patch, as it was possible to get
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yourself stuck if you managed to access it
before acquiring the Monarch Wings.
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With all three dreamers awake, we can now
finally enter the Black Egg Temple in the
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Forgotten Crossroads, fight the, ahem, final
boss: Hollow Knight, and ahem, finish the game.
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Now while I normally like to use graphs to
explain the structure of Metroidvania games
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on Boss Keys, it’s not really possible with
Hollow Knight.
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So much stuff can be be skipped, or done in
different ways, or reached from different
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directions, that creating a single, monolithic
chart for the game’s structure is just not
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possible.
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I can show you one route through the game,
though, which at least reveals the general
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shape of things.
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Essentially, a linear corridor of upgrades
and boss fights, which dramatically fans out
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to a wide open matrix of non-linear possibilities.
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Including the ability to pick up game-changing
abilities simultaneously - which is something
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you don’t usually see in Metroidvanias,
because they often dictate a more set-in-stone
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sequence of getting one item after another.
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But Team Cherry says “we wanted players
to feel like their journey through the kingdom
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was their own, and part of that was removing
barriers or opening paths to allow acquiring
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items or powers ‘out of order’.”
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Of course, this graph has a million different
permutations.
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You can skip the Mantis Lords and the Crystal
Guardian with careful navigation of the map,
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get the Dream Nail much earlier in the game,
reach the Crystal Heart without the Desolate
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Dive, and so on.
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But beyond that, there’s so much more that
this graph doesn’t even begin to cover.
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For starters, while I’ve already talked
about the bosses that are standing between
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you and the game’s credits - there’s also
bunch of completely hidden bosses that have
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no impact on the structure of the game whatsoever.
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There’s the Brooding Mawlek, who’s in
a hard-to-reach room in the Forgotten Crossroads.
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The Collector, who can’t be found unless
you get the Love Key from the Queen’s Gardens.
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The Enraged Guardian, who’s hiding in a
secret room above the other Guardian’s boss area.
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The Flukemarm, who can only be found if you
use the Desolate Dive in the Royal Waterways.
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And Nosk, in Deepnest, who can only be reached
with either the Crystal Heart or the Monarch
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Wings.
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There’s also the Hive Knight in, I'll let you guess,
but he’s exclusive to the Lifeblood DLC.
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And there are more bosses beyond these.
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At the Kingdom’s Edge, you’ll find the
Colosseum of Fools - which is a non-stop combat
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gauntlet, with a handful of unique bosses.
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And the seven Warrior Dreams, who are ghostly
spirits that are are guarding their gravesites,
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and can be challenged to a dual after you
acquire the Dream Nail.
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And dream variants of the Broken Vessel, False
Knight, and Soul Master bosses - which are
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like super hard remixes of those fights.
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Two more come in the Hidden Dreams DLC, as
well.
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Ultimately, it is quite incredible to stumble
down some random hallway, and not just uncover
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a handy item or whatever: but an entirely
unique boss fight that some players might
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never see.
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Team Cherry says it doesn’t worry too much
about whether everyone will find the content
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it makes.
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“Just having it there, out of sight from
most players makes the world more truly alive,”
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the developer explains - “much of it exists
to convey a sense that there’s always something
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else waiting in the unexplored recesses of
the world - fearsome enemies, strange characters,
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new areas, powerful items etc.”
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“And [it] creates a very special experience
for those few that do make the discovery.”
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So depending on how you categorise things,
and whether or not you include the Lifeblood
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and Hidden Dreams DLC, there are more than
30 bosses in the world of Hollow Knight, but
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you might only fight about 10 to 15 of them
during your adventure.
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It’s crazy.
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An absolute butt load of extra bosses and
remixes are added in the other two DLC packs:
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The Grimm Troupe and Godmaster, but they’re
not relevant to the normal exploration of
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Hallownest, and so I won’t be discussing
them in this video.
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What’s the point of going after these non-essential
bosses, then?
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Other than the fact that you don’t actually
know which bosses are necessary to beat the
-
game, of course.
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Well, it’s all about 'dem goodies.
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The world of Hollow Knight is jam packed with
stuff to find - sometimes hidden behind bosses,
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sometimes behind secret walls, sometimes behind
those optional locks, sometimes as expensive
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items in shops, sometimes just found off the
beaten track.
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You’ve got your usual upgrades: 16 Mask
Shards act like the heart pieces in Zelda:
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so find four of them and you’ll be able to
take an extra hit in combat.
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The 9 Vessel Fragments are kinda similar:
find three of these and you’ll boost your
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available mana for powerful spells and recharging
your health.
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There are also special moves, like the Great
Slash, Dash Slash, and Cyclone Slash.
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Soul upgrades like the Abyss Shriek and Descending
Dark.
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And you can boost the power of your Nail if
you find Pale Ore.
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And then there are the charms.
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These collectable badges give you all sorts
of handy abilities like quicker recovery on
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your spells, no knock-back when fighting enemies,
and so on.
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Every one is uniquely interesting to equip
and they even synergise for more abilities
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- but are limited to the number of charm notches
you have.
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And yes, you can find charm notches as well.
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All of these items are well worth finding
because Hollow Knight is definitely not an
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easy game.
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In fact, it’s brutally difficult at times,
has the same find-your-corpse-when-you-die
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mechanic as Dark Souls, and some of the bosses
just do not mess around.
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That makes getting more health, or a charm
that can help you in combat, or a boost to
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your nail’s strength, or a more powerful
spell a genuinely worthwhile thing to find.
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Defeating some hidden boss doesn’t feel
like a waste of time because it didn’t let
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you make any progress - the reward is usually
useful (or, at least, interesting) enough
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to make your efforts feel worthwhile.
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I do want to say one thing about the corpse
run mechanic, though: this is one way that
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Hollow Knight sadly discourages exploration
through its design.
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When you die in, say, Zelda 1 - it’s easy
to say “you know what?
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Screw that area, I’m going to look somewhere
else”.
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When you die in Hollow Knight, though, you
drop a shadowy clone of yourself - who hangs
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on to all your money and limits your mana
amount to half.
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This tempts you to return to the place you
just died - sometimes over and over and over again
-
- regardless of the many other interesting
places you could explore,
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or different routes you could take.
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These extra bosses and endless special items
also make you feel like there’s something
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to find around every corner.
-
No matter where you explore, there will be
something to find.
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Sometimes it’s not even relevant to the
gameplay at all - it’s just story stuff
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that adds to the rich and immersive atmosphere
of the game.
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My personal favourite take on this is the way certain
characters seem to be off on their own little
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adventures.
-
Bugs like Cloth, Quirrel, and Tiso, keep popping
up all over the place - each commenting on
-
their status and location.
-
It makes the world feel alive, and less like
the game revolves entirely around the player.
-
These bugs are off doing their own thing,
with our without you.
-
One bug who definitely does need you, though,
is Zote.
-
This arrogant dude can be found in the mandibles
of a Vengefly King in Greenpath - and it’s
-
up to you if you save him.
-
Same goes for when he’s later found stuck
in spider webs in Deepnest.
-
If you save him both times, he’ll appear
as a boss - of sorts - in the Colosseum of
-
Fools, and then in Bretta’s house in Dirtmouth.
-
But if you miss him in Greenpath or Deepnest, or simply
choose not to save him - well, that’s it.
-
That whole quest will just not happen - and once
again, proves that Team Cherry doesn’t care
-
if you see their work, because it makes it
all the sweeter for those who do witness the
-
full story.
-
The game is actually packed with little quests
like this, such as a mission to save the Grubfather’s
-
children, a promise to fill out of a journal
of every enemy in Hallownest, a tricky quest
-
to carry a delicate flower across the map,
and a personal favourite: the way a secret
-
stag station opens up when you unlock all
the other stations.
-
All of these help flesh out Hollow Knight’s
rich narrative, and add memorable character
-
moments.
-
The world itself tells stories, too.
-
My favourite example of this is the Blue Lake,
which is positioned above the City
-
of Tears, and explains why the city is constantly
raining.
-
Amazing.
-
Let’s talk about actually getting around
Hallownest.
-
So we’ve already discussed the multiple
entry points between areas in the game.
-
In fact, every single zone, except for The
Hive, is connected to at least two other places
-
in Hallownest, through lifts, passageways,
tram stations, and secret routes.
-
Team Cherry says “It was always intentional
to give players different ways to travel to
-
and through (and sometimes around) areas.”
-
Some of these were planned ahead of time,
but others were added when the opportunity
-
presented itself - “For instance, when Deepnest
grew tall enough that the top of it was brushing
-
against the bottom of the Queen’s Gardens,
we added a connection between them.”
-
“If we can add a connection between adjacent
areas, and it makes sense in the world, and
-
it doesn’t cause players to get stuck somewhere,
then we do it”.
-
But when playing the game, many of these routes
start out as only going one way.
-
So it’s initially impossible to get from
Dirtmouth to Crystal Peak.
-
But after getting the Crystal Heart, you can
zoom along here and open up a lift between
-
the town and the peak.
-
It’s one of those wonderful “aha” moments
you get in such elegantly designed wrap-around
-
worlds, like taking that first elevator back
to Firelink Shrine in Dark Souls.
-
What this means is that Hollow Knight’s
developers can initially restrict your access
-
to certain places - to create a semblance
of order and sequence to the game’s items.
-
Like how you need the tram pass to get to
Kingdom’s Edge.
-
But then by opening up new routes from the
other side, like this path through to a lift
-
shaft in the City of Tears, the game’s world
becomes far easier to navigate.
-
Team Cherry does this in micro-form, too.
-
Take the Forgotten Crossroads, where this
locked gate blocks off easy access to the
-
boss.
-
Instead, you’re forced to go all the way
around the zone, taking in every room and
-
challenge along the way.
-
However, once you unlock that gate it becomes
permanently open - giving you easy passageway
-
through the crossroads.
-
This is a clever way of ensuring that the
first time a player enters a zone, they are
-
forced to tackle difficult challenges and
set-ups.
-
Things like tricky platforming sections, or
areas with tough enemies, or brutal gauntlets
-
against waves of foes.
-
But once you’ve proven you can do it once,
you’ll be able to skip this stuff during
-
revisits to the zone - massively reducing
the boring bits of backtracking.
-
There’s only a few times where Team Cherry
breaks this rule.
-
At some point in the game, the Forgotten Crossroads
gets taken over by these malicious orange
-
bubbles and becomes The Infected Crossroads
- complete with new, harder enemy types.
-
Now, I do love this: it makes the world feel
changeable, like time is not standing still
-
during your adventure.
-
And it makes one of the earliest parts of
the game - which has started to become a cakewalk
-
with your newfound skills and abilities - a
new source of challenge.
-
But it also blocks off a couple routes through
the zone, making it just slightly more annoying
-
to navigate. Grr.
-
I should definitely also mention the Stag
network.
-
Similar to the fast travel points in Castlevania:
Symphony of the Night, these stag stations
-
are dotted around Hallownest and provide easy
access between some of the zones.
-
With a map the size of Hallownest, I think
these fast travel points are a fine addition
-
- it would be horribly tedious to get about
without them.
-
And besides, with two stag stations in the
City of Tears, only nine of the fifteen areas
-
have stations, so there’s not enough to
just let you teleport all over the place.
-
You’ll still need to know your way around,
and carefully plot your journey out on your map.
-
Oh, the map!
-
Gosh, how has it taken this long to talk about
one of Hollow Knight’s most interesting
-
features: its mapping system.
-
So, when you first start the game you
won’t have a map of the world at all.
-
But then you’ll come across this cheeky
chap: Cornifer.
-
He’s a cartographer who will sell you his
sketchy, incomplete maps of each zone in the
-
game - these kind of work like the map stations
in Super Metroid, which hint at places you
-
can explore and interesting areas you should
check out.
-
The map for the Forgotten Crossroads, for
example, has a drawing of a big scary monster
-
head, which points you in the direction of
the game’s first boss.
-
Back up in Dirtmouth, you can buy a quill
which then turns the map into a more traditional
-
auto-mapping system.
-
But with a couple twists: one is that the
map only fills in when you sit down on a bench
-
to rest.
-
And the other is that in order to see your
position on the map, you need to buy and equip
-
a compass charm - handy, but maybe it would
be better to use that slot for something else?
-
A decision you can make.
-
The way a game chooses to reveal its world
on a map can completely change your experience
-
with exploring that world.
-
Classic adventures like Zelda and Metroid
didn’t have maps - likely due to technical
-
limitations, but it created this real sense
of mystery and unchartedness, and forced you
-
to make your own map, either in your head
or on paper.
-
The Souls games would revisit this idea much
later, forcing you to forge a map of places like Lordran
-
or Yharnham in your bonce.
-
But a good, clear map is handy, too.
-
It’s nice to plot out routes you want to
take, it can help you figure out where you
-
have and have not yet explored, and it’s
great for scooping up items and secrets.
-
Hollow Knight gives you the best of both worlds.
-
When you first enter a zone, your map
is completely blank - you’re stumbling in
-
the dark, and you have no idea about the size
and scope of the place you’re in.
-
It makes new places feel scary and dangerous.
-
Then, when you get the sketchy map from Cornifer,
you get a slightly better idea of where to
-
go - and some hints at places you might want
to check out.
-
And then once you sit in a bench, you get
the full map.
-
You can see more clearly how the world is
laid out, plan routes through Hallownest,
-
and if you’re feeling a bit stuck - scan
the map for paths you’ve yet to venture down.
-
So, if you thought the final cutscene in Hollow
Knight was a bit anticlimactic - you’d be right.
-
Like many Metroidvanias before it, Hollow
Knight has a bad ending - and a whole lot
-
of gameplay to go if you want to get the true,
good ending.
-
Here’s the basic run down: you need to hop
up here in the Kingdom’s Edge, fight Hornet
-
for the second time, and enter the Cast-Off
Shell.
-
Inside is the King’s Brand, which can be
used in the Ancient Basin to open up a big
-
ol’ door and grant access to The Abyss.
-
Inside is the Shade Cloak, which finally lets
you bypass a recurring obstacle in the game:
-
these black geysers of toxic goop.
-
By the way, you can use the shade cloak to
get to the teacher’s archive from a different
-
direction and wake Monomon without fighting
the Dung Defender or getting Isma’s Tear.
-
Cheeky!
-
Anyway, one black geyser blocks a new boss
fight: the Traitor Lord.
-
And the prize for beating him is the White
Fragment. Sweet.
-
Now, there’s a character called Seer in
the Resting Grounds who will give you goodies
-
in exchange for Essence, which is gained by
defeating the Warrior Dream bosses, the dream
-
variant bosses, using the dream nail on ghosts,
and collecting Essence spawned from whispering
-
roots.
-
If you gather 1800 of this stuff, Seer will
upgrade your Dream Nail to the Awakened Dream Nail.
-
Now if you use this on a corpse in the Ancient
Basin you get to go to the White Palace: a
-
nightmare hellscape void of misery that’s
as hard as anything in Super Meat Boy or Celeste
-
but, like, without the super sharp platforming
controls of either game.
-
God damn this bit is quite annoying.
-
At the end though is another White Fragment.
-
Stick them together and you’ve got the Kingsoul.
-
And then return to the Abyss and you’ll
turn that into the Void Heart.
-
Finally, return to Hollow Knight and use the
Dream Nail on that dude to enter his brain
-
and fight the actual proper last boss: Radiance.
-
Who is very hard and makes me want to cry.
-
But I did it. After like a million goes.
-
I’m quite amazed just how much content there
is in this secretive end game.
-
It took me about 20 hours to get to the credits
for the first time - and then another 10 to
-
get to the proper ending.
-
Testament, I guess, to how Team Cherry is
happy to let players just miss huge swathes
-
of content.
-
Now, personally, this bit didn’t quite work
for me.
-
I felt finished and satisfied with the game
after dispatching Hollow Knight for the first time.
-
And when I discovered that there was a lot
more to do, I didn’t really have the drive
-
to carry on and seek out yet more secrets.
-
Especially because I had no idea where to
go.
-
And the game doesn’t keep up that tradition
of offering two routes into key places so
-
if you miss this jump in the Kingdom’s Edge,
you won’t get very far.
-
Basically, I just followed a walkthrough to
get to the true final ending.
-
Bit of a let down.
-
So, that is Hollow Knight.
-
The game helps lure you into the world of
Hallownest with cryptic clues and the guiding
-
hand of linear level design - but then throws
open the gates to the kingdom and lets you
-
explore as you wish.
-
And by letting you access so much content
simultaneously, and by providing multiple
-
routes and methods to get through the game,
Hollow Knight almost never falls into the
-
trap that Metroidvanias can find themselves
in: of having you scour the map for that one
-
single place you need to go, to make any progress.
-
Instead, Hollow Knight just lets you get on
with exploring - with the promise that there
-
will be something worth finding around every
corner.
-
A fascinating new zone, a bizarre one-off
enemy, a chunk of cryptic world-building,
-
a genuinely helpful item, a game-changing
upgrade, or a terrifying boss monster.
-
This is quite different to other Metroidvanias,
mind you - it misses that puzzle-like aspect
-
of slowly unravelling at a knot that binds
the world together, one lock at a time.
-
But the feeling this game gives is perhaps even better
- just pure, unadulterated wonder and immersion
-
in a world that never stops surprising.
-
Team Cherry told me that “we try to let
the player loose in a wild world, not push
-
them explicitly one way, and reward them for
choosing their own path.”
-
“That approach is based on mutual trust
and respect between us and the player.
-
We know these are smart, dedicated people
and we’re confident that, through observation,
-
tenacity and skill, they’ll deal with the
challenges the world presents and ultimately
-
gain mastery over it.
-
It’s that mastery, in exploration, in combat
and in understanding the story of the world
-
that we hope creates a memorable experience.”
-
It certainly did for me, and to say I’m
excited for the game’s sequel, Hollow Knight:
-
Silksong, would be a massive understatement.
-
And that is a wrap on Boss Keys.
-
In the last 20 episodes I’ve looked at every
major Zelda game, almost every Metroid game,
-
Castlevania Symphony of the Night, Dark Souls,
and now Hollow Knight.
-
The series is not gone forever, of course
- I’ll be back when huge new games like
-
Metroid Prime 4, Hollow Knight Silksong, and
Breath of the Wild 2 are released.
-
And yes, I do still plan to do that wrap-up
episode on Zelda dungeon design.
-
One day, promise.
-
But I always planned for Hollow Knight to
be the final destination for this series.
-
It’s one of my favourite games and I think
it might be the best Metroidvania ever made.
-
So it’s good to go out on such a high.
-
Thank you so much for watching, and
cheers to my Patrons for supporting this show.
-
I’ll see you next mission.