I beat Hollow Knight

(Major spoilers for Hollow Knight below.)

Hey, remember when I said this on Sunday?

"Fighting the Hollow Knight and getting the first ending is doable but I don't really want to do it, knowing that I have the skill to actually defeat the Radiance. I just don't have time, so I'm probably going to spend the next half a week collecting doodads. I don't like resuming playthroughs after a long absence, so realistically, I won't ever beat the game on this save file."

So that was a fucking lie.

What happened?

As per usual with this game recently, I underestimated my skill.

I figured I wouldn't be going for the easy ending anyway, so I decided to get as far as I could. I went out to Kingdom's Edge and beat Hornet again (yay Silksong!) and got the King's Brand. I did that in my initial playthrough, too, and went down to the Abyss to get the ever-useful Shade Cloak and Abyss Shriek abilities.

I've actually gotten to the Traitor Lord boss fight before. I don't know if I've ever beaten it; I could swear I have, but I got the achievement for the first time after killing it, so maybe I've just watched so many mossbag videos that the lines between other peoples' playthroughs and my own have started to blur.

Regardless, I did actually beat him this time. He's pretty tough, doing two masks of damage, but with the help of the Dreamgate ability, I was able to get through him after several attempts. Whew.

The second half of the Kingsoul charm you need for the true ending can be found in the White Palace. For the first time, I decided to take on some of the dream bosses - harder variants of the regular bosses in the game. You need to beat at least some to get the 1800 Essence required to reach the White Palace, so I killed Lost Kin and White Defender, on top of several of the Warrior Dreams scattered across Hallownest.

The White Palace was painful . For whatever reason, the Pale King decided to fill the place with spikes and buzzsaws, and it's an immense platforming gauntlet that kicked my ass, but did not completely stop me. After a couple hours, I was able to get through, and find the Pale King himself, sitting dead upon his throne. Afterwards, I got Kingsoul and headed down into the Abyss to turn it into the Void Heart charm required for the true ending.

That triggered a brief cutscene, explaining a lot of the lore about who you are and who the Hollow Knight is. I've seen this cutscene before through YouTube videos, since I never expected to be able to get this far, but it was pretty surreal to see the real thing.

After that, it was time to face the final boss.

Big Evil Moth

The true final boss of Hollow Knight is the Radiance, an ancient moth god and the source of the Infection that is the central plot point of the entire game. (The reason enemies attack you is generally because they're infected!) The Radiance is currently contained within the Hollow Knight, the fake final boss, so to get to her fight, you need to fight the Hollow Knight almost to the end of the fight every time , until Hornet (of Silksong fame) pins it down and allows you to dream nail it.

The Radiance is a really, really hard fight. Similar to the Traitor Lord, she deals two masks of damage with each attack, making it so you can only tank half as many hits before needing to heal, and healing from that damage takes twice as long. I spent several hours grinding attempts with the Shaman Stone, Spell Twister, Quick Slash, and Longnail charms, with no success - today I switched to Quick Focus, Deep Focus, and Shaman Stone, and got it on my second try. YMMV, my problem was I kept getting hit in Phase 4, so the extra healing helped me a ton.

I think the Radiance fight is the hardest thing I've ever pulled off in a video game. I'm not usually one for difficult video games, as outlined in my previous blog post about HK , so this fight really tested my limits. Until I actually beat her, I wasn't sure I'd be able to pull it off before Silksong releases tomorrow (!!!).

She's got several attacks, often with multiple at play in the arena at the same time, so you've really got to dodge things perfectly. The gameplay trick that helped me beat her is actually patience; instead of going to her to attack, it's more important to focus on dodging attacks and then get in an attack or two when you're able. Sure, it might take a little longer, and you have to dodge less attacks if you kill her quicker, but if you keep getting hit, you're just going to die and never beat her at all.

I will say that the orb attack she does is exceptionally hard to dodge. It becomes even more brutal when combined with the wall of light or wall of swords attacks, since those require precisely timed dashes which might put you right in the path of the orbs. If there was one thing I could rebalance throughout the entire game, it'd probably be that attack, though eventually it is possible to learn to dodge it most of the time.

What an experience, though. Team Cherry clearly knows this boss is exceptionally difficult, so they made it one hell of a spectacle to pull off. I won't spoil the details but it felt worth it for sure. I don't think I've ever felt more accomplished in beating a boss.

Takeaways

I think a really big, understated mechanic of Hollow Knight is to take things slow. Most enemies and bosses can be fought without damage if you have patience and don't try to be too aggressive. That applies to both damage and heals; in some aspects, Hollow Knight is almost a rhythm game, where each battle is a dance of sorts, dodging through attacks and sneaking in hits and heals when the opportunity presents itself. You don't get that opportunity; it has to come to you, and you have to recognize it.

I'd say the main life takeaway of this whole experience is similar to my previous takeaways from Hollow Knight - have confidence in yourself, and don't let preconceived notions of your perceived skill prevent you from at least trying . If you never try something, you won't get better at it, and if you take that opportunity, that leap of faith, who knows - you might end up more skilled than you expect.

The final takeaway: SILKSONG TOMORROW. I can't believe how close it is! I've been excited for it since I first played Hollow Knight in 2021. Team Cherry crafted a masterpiece in the first game already, and I can't wait to see what their next take on this world feels like; if it's as much of an improvement on the first game as it seems, then we might have something extremely special on our hands.