Managed to beat the Soul Bastard after a million tries, got the ability, and was looking forward to bust those floors I had seen here and there. However, I can't get out of the Soul Sanctum/boss area. Have gone around about 5 times now, killing a horde of the respawning fish things, found the secret area and busted through the shaky floors here (3-4 of them).

I did come across the corpse of the boss, and hit the dream nail on him because he was shimmering with those effects, thinking maybe I'd get some dialogue. That got me into a dream sequence of sorts, with a much worse version of him called the Soul Tyrant. Naturally I died in seconds. The whole screen is even more nuked than normal in this game.

As a last resort I tried to quit and load the save again, hoping I'd be back at the bench. But no. I just respawn next to the boss. I've hit what switches I've seen around the place, but can't get out. Don't have the compass on me either, since it wasn't needed in a boss fight. So I can't really see where I am, but it's a fairly small place.

Any ideas what is wrong? If I need to beat the soul tyrant first, I may as well put the game aside. That ain't happening if I try another million times.

Image attached of where I spawn.



EDIT: Watch for SPOILERS throughout this thread. It kinda took on a life of its own.

At the left side of the bossroom you can jump up and leave the boss room to the left side. After that, go 1 glass bottom down (not two), go to the left through the floor down (may be you have to break through). You will fall in a mass grave where a lot of slimes will spawn. Leave it to the upper right corner, and don't forget to activate the lever. Now you will go under the boss room to the right. Follow the path to the known area.

Btw, it is definitive easier to kill these bosses with more charms like sharp shaddow and a upgraded nail.

Thanks. I had busted all the floors and went around the place for half an hour, probably killing 100s of those respawning 'things'. What I had missed was to go high enough in that shaft after getting to the bottom pit somewhere. The exit was just further up that shaft (I went left too early) and then to the right.

Now I'm scratching my head again about where to go, as I'm not too keen on dying a thousand times to the Mantis lords again (and redoing that painfully long travel to them).

Hmm, Sharp Shadow. Don't think I have that charm, but I have upgraded the nail twice (last was with a pale ore). However, it sure helped that I happened to discover that lady that sold charms, and more importantly, notches in the Crossroads. Up until then I had been playing with only four notches, which doesn't give you much room for playing around, seeing as the compass is necessary when exploring.

Very good game, but my god it can be frustrating at times..... :-(

Don't let the game discourage you. It will become easier to travel around with time. More mask shards, skills, charms, but also map knowledge will help. Sharp Shaddow is not the first priority to get. I would advise just leaving some bosses out for now and collecting what you can. You can get a lot of things without the bosses and you can try them when ever you feel ready.

My suggested order for skills would be (most with bossfights):
- Moth Cloak
- Luma Fly Lantern
- Mantis Claw
- Desolate Dive
- Isma's Tear
- Crystal Heart
- Monarch Wings
- Shadow Cloak

For the amulets I would search in the following order (not conclusively)
- Grubsong (search for grubs)
- Steady Body (nice if you don't have Isma's Tear yet to be immune to acid)
- Longnail
- Dreamshield
- Quick Slash
- Quick Focus
- Sharp Shadow
- Mark of Pride (Mantis Lords)

This list is for a type of player that does not cast often. In my humble opinion, the spells stun you for too long, so you run the risk of getting hit and not being able to regenerate afterwards.

Good luck, skill, fun and patience

Thanks, but that is easier said than done ;) Sometimes I end up playing with slouched shoulders and feeling like total and utter shit, because the game breaks my soul from all the deaths, tracking back, absurd platforming stuff (I seriously hate Queen's Garden), or simply falling down half a mile from the game failing to register a jump. Put it all together and it can definitely become too much. Especially boss fights.

Don't have all the equipment you list there (good to keep in the back of my mind tho), but recently got the double-jump ability (monarch wings I think they were called) and the Quick slash charm. The latter sounds very good, and the former has helped with the mentioned "falling down" issue.

I seem to be running out of areas to explore, by far the most fun in the game, because I got the achievement for buying all maps and don't see much on the map. A bunch of bosses left that basically ruin me. Would be far less frustrating if we didn't have to travel for sometimes 5 minutes to try again.

Think I was pretty close against Elder Hu (?), that kept nuking the screen with something, but it's really hard to time it all with so much happening. Eventually gave up on a warrior grave in Deepnest too. And the second Crystal Guardian was SICK too. The bastard did two-skull damage each time. Even with the charm that gave two 'blue' skulls, I can survive 3 hits, which is nothing when the whole screen is nuked with effects almost constantly. Hopefully I was close one or two times, but hard to know with no health bar or anything. White Spire (?) easily defeated me too. And I saw a spoiler somewhere that we have to fight 5-6 of the buggers at the same time. I just got two before dying. Yikes!!!

Deepnest was wonderful tho! Such an exciting area to explore. New enemies, scary music and background effects.

Maybe the least impossible boss right now is the Mantis Lords, so I can probably try them again. Very long travel there between tries, but at least I have some more charms/notches now, so maybe I stand more of a chance.

Yet I keep seeing knobs on reddit and suchlike cesspools saying this or that boss fight is "super easy", which is downright wrong, and makes people seeking help feel even worse. This game is listed on numerous "Hardest PC games" articles for good reasons. It is NOT easy...

Hollow Knight ist not easy no matter what all these kids say to sound cool. I had many moments in the game thinking, thats so frustrating but remember, a game allso has to have callenges.

Mantis Lords was one of the latest I tried. It took me many tries, even with sharp shaddow. Others like "lost kin" I faild hours by hour, got sharp shaddow, more mask shards, may be I had more skill then and defeated him. Same with the hornet second fight.
For the "white defender" I had a long, long time for these 4 fights. My absolutely most hated fight was the "traitor lord". He has so much live, so unforgiving fast and in a area so full of spikes to get to him. I still did not manage to beat the "little fool" challenge in the arena or the "grimm" but hey may be at a diffent time.

My arcade skills are not the best I have to admit, I am not able to remember more then two may be three answermoves. Especially not with a lot of key combinations. Pressing down using desolate drive before avoiding a hit is a absolutely no go. Shame on me. So what, then I will beat them the simple way. Make a slash, go away wait the answer, jump or move away, make a slash, go away... and it works!

These bosses have one clue, they are all made by the same design. They making a bunch of moves you have to avoid. There is no need to do heroic moves, mostly it is enough to stand somwhere near the middle jumping before they want to hit you so the hit aims above you, hits below you, or move some inches to the left or right. Some of them needs some special skills to avoid them like sharp shaddow or just wait until they calm down their rage in a corner with crystal heart active but for the most it is the position where you stand that makes the diffrence.
Try to find a answermove for every boss hit. May be you fail the fight, after a while you will answer all these hits without thinking about it.

You could beat "broken vessel" and "soul master", then you are good enough for most others. Trust me, it's a combination of missing game elements (charms, skills, mask shards) and practice.

Thank you for the encouragement. It doesn't please me to throw it away unfinished, but I get so frustrated and quite frankly angry from dying over and over and over again, without seeming to stand a chance in hell. I did manage to beat Broken Vessel and Soul Master, but both times it felt lucky tbh. And the Soul Vessel I kinda brute forced by using the charm that makes you invulnerable after damage a little longer.

Currently I have 7 skulls and 7 notches (or was it 8?). Hard to fit in quick slash, but I used it in the last attempts against Elder Hu. I don't know how much is possible to get, but this probably isn't on the short side either, and yet I'm feeling so powerless in all these fights. It's often just coincidence whether you die or live. Millisecond timing. If you happened to jump at the wrong time and a boss throws fire from the sky or whatever where you are mid-jump, there is nothing you can really do about it. Same if you happen to strike at the boss at that moment. Or if you are trying to heal, or have just healed and are frozen on the spot. I got the pattern pretty solidly down against Elder Hu for example, and managed to mostly escape the screen nuking, but it's such a tight timing to dash away. Sooner or later you're going to miss once or twice. He must have a ton of health too, because I really hit him a lot of times, and have the nail upgraded three times now, which means that a lot of enemies are one-hit killed.

Ultimately the fights simply seem very unfair, and you have to try again and again until you are lucky and manage to kill them. It would be much less of an issue if we could try again right away, so in my view, the biggest problem is the pointlessly long walks between each try rather than the difficulty itself (though they are crazy hard to be sure!!).

Tried Hornet a handful of times too yesterday. Think she staggered once so I got some hits in, but it becomes harder and harder because she started putting up obstacles during the fight. But in a way she is easier to deal with that a bunch of the others, because her moves are kinda set in stone. Many others appear to act quite randomly.

Really wish there was a mod that gave us benches close to the bosses, so it was possible to try without wasting so much time (and health!) wading through enemies and spike challenges.


Earlier on I was quite excited about playing Silksong whenever it comes out, but now I think it would be a bad idea to buy it. In some ways it could be even more challenging, because Hornet there is quicker, which will mean enemies are quicker too. It's already pretty darn bad here. But like I said, I loved a lot about the game, just not all these "impossible" bosses. Really think they took it at least one step to far there. Though the map/resting system doesn't help.

Of course it's possible I dive back in, because it doesn't sit well with my perfectionist mind to leave without finishing the game, but most likely it will lead to more frustrating and that probably isn't a good state to be in. Was nice to beat the Dung Defender and the Flukey spitter on the first attempt, but other than that it's been death after death throughout.


As a little aside, have you played the game several times, and how is it to play from the beginning again when you roughly know the map, so exploration isn't as fun or rewarding?

Tried again, but this game is completely fucking evil. Queen's Garden can suck my dick. Got very far over to the left. Jumped down a hole because I only had one skull left. Yet the death throwing cocksucker still got me through the hole. Fuck this shit.

Uninstalled and deleted. Enough is enough.

That seems like a rather harsh response. Unless you're low on disk space, why uninstall and delete it? Maybe, some time down the road, you might feel like playing this game a gain.

With that said, this game could have benefited from an assist mode. Removing the penalty for dying (at least the geo penalty, maybe fragile charms should still break) and the option to respawn from the room you died in (like how Alwa's Awakening/Legacy handle their assist modes) would certainly help, for example. I happened to play this game right after playing some Celeste, and the games differ drastically in their handling of death (Celeste, while difficult, is extremely forgiving; when you die, you instantly respawn at the start of the room). I have not, but I often replay games. The advantage of roughly knowing the map is that, since you know where things are, you can choose to get things in a specific order. You can, for example, choose to do easier parts of the game first in order to make the harder parts easier (or you could do the reverse, of course, but save that for when you're good at the game). You can try doing various tricks; my favorite one (though I haven't tried it myself) allows you early access to a certain shop by pogoing off a shade (meaning you actually have to die to pull this off).

By the way, I really wish games wouldn't overwrite your save without your consent; this is the most significant issue I have with Hollow Knight, and is the reason I ended up not getting Blasphemous when it was on sale after the Bloodstained crossover was introduced.

(By the way, Bloodstained is definitely easier, as is Timespinner; both those games are basically Igavinias (even though he wasn't involved with Timespinner), which is a different branch of Metroidvania than the one that Hollow Knight falls in.)

Incidentally, I am planning on getting Silksong with the soundtrack when it comes out. (I may have actually derived more enjoyment from the execellent soundtrack than from the game itself.)

I think there *might* be a hidden bench close to Hornet 2.

Some other bosses have secrets around them that can make them easier. For example:
* For the Mantis Lords, there's a place just past the boss where you can get some blue health (and doesn't require defeating them, as they only attack if you challenge them.
* That one boss fight where you have to kill 6 of them? With the help of a secret passage, you can reduce that number to 5.
* Even the very first boss can be partially skipped. You may need the reward later (to enter the City of Tears from the main entrance), but until then, you can actually leave the arena after the first phase.

Perhaps. But I wanted to remove the temptation to be a bullheaded prick and start it up again (only to once again get frustrated and angry). I still have the installation files, but the game itself and the saves have been deleted.

Trying to analyse why (and this is hardly new theories, judging from what I have found online), the game is simply unfair. It wasted my time by having to wade back through a bunch of enemies and/or platforming sections each time I die. Quite a few times I died in a (mini-)boss room, and ended up having to fight both my self (shadow) and the boss, because it was impossible to get the shadow first. Meaning, I typically 'start' the boss fight with not-full health.

-The map system is quite frankly terrible. You go in blind until you happen to stumble upon the cartographer, which is sometimes placed in a backwards corner somewhere, or behind impenetrable blockades (until you get the ability)
-Way too few benches/checkpoints, especially near bosses (see above)
-Some of the platforming is extremely unforgiving. It's either 100% perfection, or you perish. Queen's Garden is like that, and it's freakin' long! Same in Deepnest, where I also eventually gave up (once again a long walk to the area)
-A great many bosses are nuking the screen and moving very fast. It's practically impossible to react to what they do. You have to know the pattern, AND be lucky. If they happen to nuke the screen while you are mid-nailswing at them, well, you're boned. Same with healing, which nails you to the spot for half an eternity (even when I abort it).

There are certainly good aspects with the game, but overall I found this impossible to finish. I don't have the time nor patience for dying (and backtracking) a million times.
-Music: it's fantastic and really sets the mood. That goes for all areas in the game
-Atmosphere: sort of a "black box" term, but the art, music, level design and so on is really good, so it's easy to get sucked in by the game
-Except for jumping, the controls feel slick and reactive. Once you get some upgrades, especially dash, it's possible to dart around the map fairly quickly and sometimes avoid enemies (like those bomb throwing plants in the Wastes area, iirc)
-The map is huge. That means ample room for exploration, discovering new areas, new secrets, new items. This was by far the most fun in the game for me.
-Combat is surprisingly deep. Against normal enemies it is mostly fine. It doesn't feel unfair. You can dash away, jump over them, sidestep and deal with enemies in many different ways. Bosses is different, however, where the game feels unfair rather than simply "challenging" or "difficult".

I gave it 3 of 5 stars in the review thing on the store page. Perhaps that is a little harsh to some, but that is my view (after having calmed down, heh). It has some very nice upsides, but the downsides more than weigh up for quite a few of them. And ultimately it prevented me from finishing the game, which is an extremely rare thing, as I am a completionist.

Since much of the above is pretty common from what I have come across in some articles or threads here and there (including from professional reviewers (altho I generally don't trust that tbh)), I hope Team Cherry take that bulk of criticism on board for the follow up, and fix some of these mistakes. Right now I won't be interested in buying that game, but if they make some adjustments, perhaps I can be swayed. Will watch for news and early user reviews.
Yeah, I found that one, which was fairly close to the fight, so not a big issue there. The first Hornet fight was also somewhat close to a bench. The problem is much bigger elsewhere. The Mantis Lords for example. A bench actually is close to them, but only after you defeat them... which is akin to wiping spit off my face tbh :-|