Hello all! Recently I had posted a thread about my experience with finally playing Castlevania - Sypmhony Of The Night (here).

A few nice fellows over there suggested that I try Hollow Knight. I had bought this game since 2017 but never got to playing it, until I installed it a few days ago. So here goes...

In general I like the whole setting, the colours, the atmosphere, the controls, the charm system. Also the world map seems to be huge (of course I haven't revealed even half of it - I think).

My main problem is with the bosses (well, to be more precise, with the checkpoints related to bosses). I've managed to beat a few of them but now I'm really stuck. OK, I know I'm supposed to learn their patterns and act accordingly, but still they beat the hell out of me before I even react to anything :)

While I generally don't mind a few retries until I "master" a boss sequence, what I do mind is having to travel for some time from the last checkpoint to the boss room again. I mean, there aren't any benches close to the boss rooms and it's kind of discouraging having to travel some distance, in the meantime fighting a few enemies, tackling some tricky platforming sections, just to finally reach the boss, retry and get beaten again in no time.

I want to play this game because everything else is very well-made, but I'm about to quit it just because of the above situation. Am I missing something?

Honestly, it was too hard for me. I don't play to be challenged. I play to be entertained and to relax. So I dropped it after a while.

Nah, I like it when the game fights back. Hollow Knight is challenging, but I mostly felt it was perfectly fair and well designed with its difficulty. There's some completely optional challenges that were actually difficult and I never felt like finishing the path of pain (or whatever it's called), but since they are optional I don't really mind. The main game is, for me, at a nice sweet spot for difficulty: hard but fair. No game gets difficulty 100% right, and people want different things from games, so your mileage may vary, but I love Hollow Knight and plan on getting the sequel also (not in small part because Hornet is awesome).
That being said, if you aren't having any fun after an honest try, just drop it. Suffering for video games is not worth it.

I had the same problem with it, and with Dark Souls as well. I don't know if I would describe those particular mechanics as hard though, I just find them tedious/annoying and discouraging, like you. A waste of my time. I didn't even play as long as you though, I think I already quit on the first boss. It's just a pet peeve of mine. I don't really enjoy boss battles anyway, but I will give it some effort to try and overcome these obstacles if I can jump right back into the action. Being set back that much and having to repeat everything before the boss is just too much to bear for me though, on top of it all. I get frustrated and bored with that easily.

XD

Honestly, though, if the timer in the game is precise then I'm way past the time it took me to beat Super Metroid or Symphony of the Night, while in Hollow Knight I'm still a newbie bug! Hell, I can't even grind properly because the Fragile Greed charm keeps breaking all the time! True, I really wanted to like this game (especially since people praise it in the metroidvania genre) but I'm starting to feel like just wasting time while a huge backlog stares back at me and my free time is rather limited.

You can watch some youtube videos to see how to beat a particular boss. Also check the charm recommendations for them. You will need reflexes like a snake on Speed to beat the hardest bosses.
If nothing helps, just cheat your way through the boss and afterwards play without cheats.

That distance from bench to boss room is designed so you could collect some mp before retying boss fight, so make good use of that

Also, if you find a boss too hard, my suggestion is to sacrifice one or two fight not attacking at all just run around and to see its pattern. There's also another important thing you need to figure out of your enemy pattern. Which moves of his that you can use to heal yourself. Sometimes boss just hit somewhere close so if you're far away you can heal safely. Sometimes boss would lax a bit and that's your chance.

The hardest parts of Hollow Knight are optional. Everything else you can make a lot easier for yourself by upgrading your nail, health and soul capacity and having the right charm combos - you can look up the latter if you need to. If you find yourself truly stuck, go explore somewhere else because an area or boss being accessible doesn't mean you need to beat it straight away (for example: Mantis Lords). You'll get a better feel for the mechanics as you play and the exploration is a much larger of your playtime than strictly the boss battles.

I absolutely loathe such poor placement of checkpoints in games. It doesn't add anything to the difficulty, it doesn't make the game more challenging, it's just the game wasting my damn time, which I have no patience for anymore. If I already beat a part of the game I shouldn't have to repeat it because a different part of the game killed me.

It's also why I completely fail to see the appeal of roguelike permadeath. I recently played the demo of crying suns, and I really liked it, but the knowledge that playing the full game as soon as I die I'll have to do the whole thing over killed all my enthusiasm for it.

I could do that, of course, but I don't like cheating (or being guided 100%) because it kind of kills my sense of accomplishment. True, but in many occasions the effect was the opposite: I ended up reaching the boss with less MP than before :)
And I also did what you mentioned, tried to study the boss patterns but still I had to go through a lot of trouble to return and... study more. It would be nice if there was some kind of indication as to where I should explore next. Not a linear path (I hated that in games like Owlboy), but some way to know if I am in a manageable area or if I should grind / upgrade some more before getting here.

Did you play Bloodstained, by the way? If you liked Symphony of The Night, you'll love Bloodstained, I'm sure.

Spot on. There's a huge difference between challenging vs tedious. Also, this kind of "design" (I believe the Dark Souls popularized it?) requires lots of investment in terms of time and free time does not come plenty these days (nor do I intend to spend it all on a game).

The only game where I could cope with permadeath was Binding of Isaac. Yes, you can lose at any time and have to start all over, but it makes the game interesting because in the meantime you can unlock tons of stuff.
Unfortunately no, did not get the chance yet (it is prioritized on my wishlist though). I hope it's not as hard as Hollow Knight :)

Damn you, path of pain!!

The NPCs you encounter will usually point you the right way for overall progress, which is reaching the capital in the beginning, such as the one with the mask. After you get you're only limited by what movement upgrades you have and where you want to go next. Most areas can be reached in multiple ways, with some routes being harder than others. It can be a bit confusing at first because of how big the map is, but if it helps you really can't go wrong whatever direction you pick.

Also, don't worry too much about grinding. You'll get plenty of geo as you explore as long you don't lose your shade too often. The essentials are the first couple of map upgrades, quest items and stat upgrades, especially the nail. The rest you can do at your leisure. The world is also huge, so using the map markers to remind yourself of a point of interst, like a locked door, will help keep things from getting confusing.