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In retrospect, after reading the comments, I think I did a pretty bad job explaining my overall thoughts on the boss fights in hollow knight. Without spoiling the video, I think my problem with the bosses was how easy they were for me. Majority of the ones I did took me 2 tries max. The only exceptions was "Hornet" and "Watcher Knights", which took me around 8/5 tries respectively. The majority of bosses I fought were like 3 attack moves on repeat. This made it seem like it was very trivial and dampened my experience compared to a game like dark souls. In darks souls, since bosses would take me a significantly longer, it felt like it was so much satisfying to finally learn and adapt and then finally conquer the boss. I didn't feel this at all in Hollow Knight except for the "Watcher Knights" and it ended up being my favorite boss. I know bosses are about learning the patterns of them and dodging all of their stuff, thats the point of a boss but I hope the above explanation at least helps explain my thought process. I do realize that I did not fully beat hollow knight. There is so much more to the game. I only did 55% of it and then beat the "Hollow Knight". My point of this video was to just go through my experience of this game. I did feel like the bosses were the worst part of it. I am sure there is some sweet bosses I missed and maybe Ill go back and try them if I get the time. I dont want to anger the community of Hollow Knight, I wanted to make a video of a game that deserved it. I hope you can enjoy the video.
I don’t think that the bosses done in the ending that you did were meant to be difficult, it’s really just the pantheon bosses that are meant to be very hard.
Mr Rarran we all appreciate you giving hollow knight another go, honestly you were literally too good of a gamer compared to most people who truly struggled with many of the bosses, and you never got that sense of accomplishment that most of us got when you FINALLY beat that boss. I hope you come back and finish the other bosses as they are much harder and MUCH more nuanced, but I'm happy you at least stuck to the end when you for a while didn't want to.
"Every boss fight has been learn the moves and then dodge" Have you played like exactly 2 games ever? Boss fights can have more going on or be different to what you described.
Couldn't find search results for: "Boss fights where you forget the moves and run into the attacks." perhaps it is a little too specific.🤷♂@@achannel6324
@@M4x_P0w3r Zelda, Metal Gear Solid, Shadow of the colossus, these games feature bosses that are different from the watch pattern, dodge, retaliate formula. Claiming all bosses in games is, watch pattern, dodge and attack, is what I disagree with. Which is what OP said "Every boss fight has been learn the moves and then dodge, that describes literally every video game" Rarrans criticism was "The majority of bosses I fought were like 3 attack moves on repeat." Rarran wanted more variety in boss attacks, based on Pinned comment he left.
@@achannel6324 I don't know what Zelda you played, but the vast majority have that pattern: learn pattern, dodge, hit weak point, rinse and repeat. Sometimes you can take the inititiative, but others you legit only have to wait until they leave themselves in a vulnerable state. Metal Gear Solid: Run around, dodge bullets, attack back. Shadow of the Colossus, you run up to the titans, climb them up, resist their attempts to throw you off, stab the weak point, repeat until they die. It's a variation since the environment is the enemy itself, but when you boil down to it it's the same. Notice how two of the examples you gave are of very large sagas of videogames. If you are willing to discuss individual games or even bosses, then I can be more concrete too. And true, HK bosses do tend to have only a few attacks, but they build those battles around being either very fast, very tanky, trying to overwhelm you through numbers/limit your effective combat space in the arena, or in the case of the harder fights, all of those at once plus a much more wide arsenal.
Rarran: Damn the game is so easy, i feel like all the bosses are just simple pattern recognition Also Rarran: Skips every single challenging and innovative fight and platforming section.
@@menderbug1 well obviously the special fights in the pantheons like nkg, Pure vessel and the mantis lord v2 fights but also fight like watcher knights, a lot of the dream warriors, hornet 2, radiance did something completely new at least in the scope of hollowknight and a few others that sadly werent as memorable which is why I cant tell you them rn. Depending on what your definition of innovative is all of those could be lame. But if you think bosses that have specific patterns that you need to learn are boring then darksouls should also be boring to you.
THANK YOU! Someone said it…I never understood why some streamers die the a couple times, and then when they FINALLY beat the boss they’re like “gAMEs eAsY”…here’s my question for that…If you claim it’s so easy THEN HOWD U DIE SO MUCH?????
Another thing too, I've yet to hear anyone else complain about hk's boss difficulty (besides being too hard), so this is either an extremely individual issue, or he's not telling the full story
I’m going to be honest, I don’t understand the “you fight all the bosses the same way, learn their patterns and then kill them.” Argument. That’s almost every game where there is combat, especially dark souls, since you had brought that up.
Yeah I'd love to hear how he thinks its different from something like elden ring or dark souls with the learn patterns-->Beat boss-->Explore and find new boss-->... gameplay loop
@@tomekk.1889the main argument is that boss pattern are in the early game way too long and repetitive. For exemple the 3 mantises had the exact same pattern. Fighting it for 3 minutes each is a chore. Hollow knight is an incredible game, but the early game bosses sucks. Take cup head as an example, bosses don’t feels long cause they have more variation in pattern, more phases and more mechanics from the get go. That and the lack and health bar can make the fight really unfun
I don't get it either... I think that the dark souls bosses are harder on average, which means that they are faster + more unpredictable? Hollow Knight does start out slower due to the lack of movement, so I'm thinking that the bosses that are designed for no shade dash / descending dark / monarch wings / etc are probably boring for him, too bad Rarran didn't get to try Grimm, NKG, or PV! I think his problem may have been connected to how they took a while (probably due to not using spells and having a weak nail level) so the patterns became SUPER repetitive? But yeah the "learning patterns" criticism doesn't make much sense out of context, I'm guessing he was just trying to express how it felt long + repetitive
I feel like there's something about Hollow Knight that makes it one of those 'Try it -> quit -> try it again -> love it' type of games. I tried it once and got stuck not knowing where to go somewhere in greenpath. Quit, then picked it up from scratch months later and it became one of my favorite indie games of all time. I have a few friends who followed more or less the same pattern. People might overhype it (like they do most games) but I think it absolutely has earned the awards and much of the praise it gets.
Yeah, same here. I installed it a couple years ago, got lost a couple times and just told myself it's meh and forgot about it. A year later I saw something about it again and decided to try again. And now I've played through it twice or thrice and I've got like 300 hours. Really interesting phenomenon.
The best part of most fights in Hollow Knight imo is not winning the first time (like Soulsborne fights), but getting them down WELL. Playing aggressively, never stop hitting while dodging everything. Like most new players, you seem to have played super safe, which might contribute to the 'snoozefest' shit talking The game even has a Permadeath mode and some Speedrun Achievements because thats kinda the point. 90% of bosses are not hard to beat, but can be challenging to do clean and fast. If youre interested I recommend the speedrun achivements a lot. Theyre totally doable to a skilled casual with some effort
@@bananacorn4375I think rattan was playing very defensively he rarely even hit the bosses that's why mantis Lords took so long you have to be a bit more agressive
I think my issue is that the boss fights being called bad because they're about memorizing attacks and then just dodging them is... that's exactly how Dark Souls is other than having build variety. I don't understand how one can be good and the other can be bad when the only real difference is one's 2d and one's 3d.
The reason hollow knight is bad is that the attacks are so simple to memorize, you do it first try. You get hit once or twice and then you heal and beat the boss first try. You miss half the visuals and the entire music cause one try is never enough to enjoy a fight. In dark souls it takes multiple tries to memorize the attacks of a boss and that makes the attacks unique and challenging. Through trial and error you get to like the boss, enjoy the music and feel accomplishment for beating it in the end. Hollow Knight bosses have nothing like that. I understand the creators wanted everyone to beat the game easily and enjoy it but unfortunately it's too easy for people that learn fairly fast.
@@shscreamHK has a bunch of stuff that many players will never be able to finish. If you think the worst aspect of the game is that it’s too easy, you’re either just incredible at games and everything must be boring for you, or you haven’t seen the insane crap at the end and don’t know what you’re talking about.
@@shscream if you beat the pantheons, nkg, pure vessel, radiance or absrad on your first try getting hit once or twice you're the best gamer to ever live.
@@christopherlundgren1700 I love HK, and completely disagree. HK does not push difficulty. No boss forces you to use shadow cloak. No boss makes you use double jump. No boss requires you to use charms to help deal with whatever they do. No boss makes you use a spell. HK is an accessible metroidvania, and there are lots of 2D metroidvanias (especially made after HK's amazing success) that are substantially harder, for people who are looking for that kind of experience. I found HK extremely easy, and that's including p5 gauntlet, absolute radiance, etc. There's literally nothing wrong with that, I think the atmosphere, sound effects, polish, and overall good movement system is more than enough to make it a great game for me
"Game bad because bosses not annoying enough" is certainly an opinion you're allowed to have, but HK's main point isn't the boss fights anyways. They are an aspect and there are more challenging bosses later down the line if you stick with it, but there's so much to appreciate about the game and discounting the sum for a part feels like selling it short.
I mean the main point kind of is the bosses, the bosses are what make the game great. The combat and the amazing bosses and pantheons are what make hollow knight a great game, apart from the first playthrough's story and stuff, but the bosses are definitely a huge factor.
@@Spellweaver5 not really, there wouldn't be much to look forward to and there would be nothing to grind towards when u are done the game. Also what is "no?", are u asking me no? Then why the fuck are u using a question mark
@@hen618 the bosses are good but the exploration is really the key. The exploration is out of this world and is a much stronger selling point than the bosses. It always felt like everything about the game was great but the main focus of the whole game was exploration. The exploration is what makes it great. It’s why people spend hours and hours. It’s because they can’t stop exploring. The exploration is the key part of that gameplay loop. Constantly exploring every nook and cranny of hollownest is rewarded more than anything else and that’s why it’s the most key part. Most abilities are found from exploring. There are far more items, abilities, health buffs, and mana buffs found purely from exploration than there are from bosses and geo combined
Interesting that you say the boss fights are the worst part of Hollow Knight when people that aren't even big fans of the game praise it for it's boss fights. Not saying you're not allowed to have an opinion just interesting that you have the opposite opinion of a lot of people. Most people love The Mantis Lords and hate The Watcher Knights for being tedious.
I think it’s because he kinda breezed through most of the bosses whereas most people have more of a challenge with them, which makes them regard them more highly. Also he hasn’t fought NKG, Pure Vessel, AbsRad, or Sisters of Battle which are arguably the best bosses
@@rk13567 Yes, I think that he understood and beat each boss too fast to enjoy it, when he struggled (with failed champion and watcher knights) he enjoyed the boss, but he didn't struggle with most of the bosses that he did, mostly because he basically ignored side content and went to try and beat the game, and the required bosses aren't the hardest bosses
@@devilsblade2543 I think, one of the issues is that he only really played the easy version of the bosses. I had a similar experience to him, I fought soul master and thought it was ok, then by chance I went back straight after and found the hard-mode version and fought it straight away. It took me quite a few tries but I found it much more fun. Similar with the mantis lords. They felt a bit tedious to fight when I fought just the two of them, because you get downtime between their moves. But, when you get to fight all three at once it feels amazing.
@@rk13567 I think most people absolutely love the mantis lords because of Sisters of Battle (Me included), or because of the bow they give you once defeated and all mantis become friendly
@@devilsblade2543 I don't think he enjoyed them because he struggled with the bosses, I think it was because those bosses took him out of his comfort zone, he had to play more agressively and dodge more since these 2 are always jumping on you, he couldn't play safe like he did with the other bosses, it's like that doom eternal system when you kill an enemy with a glory kill it drops life and ammo, this system forces the player to not play safe, take risks and go in the fun zone for these types of games, which was exacly what those bosses did, they forced him in the fun zone of hollow knight by never leaving his tail during the fight this is something many of the most liked bosses by the comunity do like NKG and Radiance
Watching Rarren do the bosses in a way that takes him twice as long was maybe the first time I wanted to backseat game in so long. Also not ever showing things about characters when they’re a big part of the game is a choice
The strongest aspect of the game is the exploration and atmosphere but some people are just so dull in their feelings, they can't just enjoy it no matter what they do. If you cannot enjoy these aspects of the game, you'll only look at the mechanics of the game which are usually very simple. Similar to how musicians appreciate and go crazy when there is an intricate and impressive part on a song playing but other people just drool and look with empty eyes saying "so that's it?". I've been drawing for years and every time a new scene loads in hollow knight i stop and appreciate the amazing art direction and quality of the game, you just overlook every detail and focus on the bosses. If you want hard bosses this game has plenty in the endgame content. Edit: Also realized you are basically using soul as healing only which means your playstyle is "hit with nail > heal when low > repeat" this is fine for most things but it feels extremely boring playing like this. This is like playing titanfall 2 without wallrunning and double jumps. Base game is easy as it should be, but if you want harder content, that's in the game, you just didn't look for it, you might enjoy the bosses there.
Personally. I think alot of it when it came to bosses. Its less of an actual boss battle and more of a dance. There are some bosses that if you know their routine, you can effortlessly kill them. My favorite being the mantis village. It doesnt feel like a battle. It felt like I was dancing, nail meeting steel. If you ever do godhood. The sisters of battle is amazing as it really does become a blade dance. Every boss is like that and thats what I like about it
I noticed that you utilized very little spells during the combat, which removes the risk reward system that focus has: do you use spells to deal more damage or do you save it for heals when you get hit. Using spells speeds up the fights and promotes the player to be more aggressive against the bosses, since more sword hits give you back the focus you used on spells. Glad you still enjoyed the game as a whole, even if some fights felt too monotonous :]
He basically only used it for heals and then said the fights were boring and repetitive… no shit if you do the exact same thing every rotation of swinging your sword for pitiful poking damage
@@AvocadoTheBugCatbut that's what people don't get about games. If you want me to use spells, MAKE ME DO IT. Why didn't any of the 45+ hollow knight bossfights have a shield or armor that needed a spell to be dispelled. Why did they make 45+ bossfights able to be beaten only with the sword. I beat every boss first and second try without using any spells cause it was never needed. My mindset was always "alright I ll use sword until it's too tough and a boss moves so much a spell is needed" but it never happened. 45 whole bossfights ended second try with the sword. You should make it needed as a creator for the player to use spells, not expect him to start spamming spells at first try against a new boss...
@@shscream Well, you don't have to use spells if you don't want to. But if I give you a box full of toys, you pick up only the racecar and then you complain about how it's boring when you refuse to interact with any of the other options available to you to give you variety, then it's entirely on you.
@@shscreamThat’s a good idea that some games have; yet, in other games -including the ones similar to Dark Souls- they provide you with multiple items and magic that give you a sense of liberty and style. You may choose to not use them at all or you may want to use them, which makes the fights more interesting. That’s why it is weird that someone says a game has a boring and repetitive combat system when they only use the standard attacks, which is what we’re noticing here, for instance.
Nah, other options exist like letting you react to attacks instead of learning patterns, using puzzles, use new/newly applied mechanics, make use of the enviroment, ...
Not just that, a definition that I think is more fitting is that bosses are a bigger challenge for the player to overcome most of the times as a stronger enemy, games like darkest dungeon have bosses but they don't fall in the learn what they do and pass skill checks
But hollow knight moves are so easy that you learn during first try and beat it first try, that's the issue. It has nothing surprising. The ground doesn't break in any of the 45 bossfights, no surprise extra bosses appear, no curse effect that instakills you happens, no darkness or lights out effect happens in any of the fights. Like imagine nosk making everything dark for a while, but nope. So it's so easy you learn every boss' moves after getting hit twice so you just heal and beat it first try. It's not exciting.
@@shscream There are two fights where the ground literally breaks, and another where parts of the ground becomes spikes. Surpirse extra boss appearance also is something that happens in Pantheon 1 and 5. "No curse effect that instakills you": thank god, because that would be horrible game design.
The title and thumbnail are clickbait, watch the last minute of the video. He thinks HK is excellent now And tbf League itself is pretty good, it’s the community that’s terrible
I think Rarran's main issue with bosses comes down to his playstyle. For myself personally, I'm impatient and always try to rush a boss, no matter how many times I have fought it. Rarran on the other hand never made an attempt to hit enemies multiple times in a cycle and would go completely on the defensive until a move with an obvious opening was used. I think Rarran would actually love fighting the bosses if he was to force himself to beat them in shorter time and is maybe something the devs should have considered enforcing as it does seem pretty boring fighting most of the bosses when you are as patient as Rarran is in the video.
Rarran's playstyle for Hollow Knight is probably the best playstyle for gamers who have never played a difficult game before ever. I don't just mean Hollow Knight. ( Insert difficult game here ) and this hypothetical person has never played it
I mean, yeah, boss fights would get pretty boring if you play them like a turn based game. Analyze the pattern and it gets easy. Just like how Ultrakill P-1/P-2 bosses get easy after you learn what their deal is. Don't play Hollow Knight like dark souls. There's never a "your turn, my turn" situation in HK, you can always hit them. Well, that's how _I_ play HK. That's what I find fun about HK's bosses. Although they're fairly easy if you take your time, they don't make you wait to attack. That speed is what's fun.
My man out here using Baldur's Shell in the year of our lord 2023. This is often the complaint of players who dont use all their tools, In fights that are "monotonous" you neglect to use the spells and movement capabilities that make the fight A) easier and B) faster.
"the bosses are too easy" "The majority of bosses I fought were like 3 attack moves on repeat" MARKOTH ON RADIANT, PURE VESSEL, ABSOLUTE RADIANCE, NIGHTMARE KING GRIMM,
Paraphrasing but "once you know the bosses attack patterns all you need is execution". What do you even mean, I dare you to tell me a single action game that dosent work that way.
It's interesting how different people find different things dificult. I had way more problems with hollow knight than I had with the souls games, and that's not even just talking about the hard bosses you didn't do.
Waaaaaait a minute did that guy only do the easy boss fights and easy challeneges which is the 55% of the game and he assumed the game is easy ? He didnt even fucking do path of pain any dream boss fight not even a fucking pantheon. The 55% that he is talking about is for the casual ppayers that want to just finish the game with average difficulty the rest 45% is for gamers that want to take it to the next level
The base game is meant to be easier and accessible and if players want more they should/will seek out the harder content like the dlc which might be hard to find on your own but it's 100% worth it even going for the game's true ending is a nicer challenge but it's not dark souls so i wouldn't really expect a dark souls experience from anything but the dlc bosses since this is a metroidvania where combat and such is usually not the top focus but if you wanted a harder metroidvania ive heard blasphemous is great but not sure yt would like it without censoring? Great video and glad you clarified your wording in the comments
Hey Rarran love your Hearthstone content and was thrilled to see you cover this game! I usually don't leave comments but as a fellow Souls enjoyer think you would really benefit from doing some of the harder optional bosses to counteract your disappointment with the fights. I had a similar reaction when playing through but was blown away by the difficulty and experience of the more challenging hidden fights (especially nightmare king Grimm). Please Please Please cover that fight I would love to see your attempts and thoughts on it. Thanks, keep up the good work!
A lot of people are going to say you are wrong. Because you are. But thank you for sharing your opinion because it’s valuable and as a developer myself I think it will lead to better games. Don’t let the haters get you! And Thank you!
@@BombaJeadI watched the beginning and I saw mean comments so I wanted to throw in some positivity. Having finished it I stand by what I said although I could have worded it differently. +the part about being wrong was always meant to be taken as a joke. Lol
Yes the boss fights you did were pretty easy. I think if you would go for 100% you would encounter more challenging bosses which also help you embrace the combat system :)
@@johanandersson9208 ikr, I have beaten like almost every boss radiant but I can't beat the 5th pantheon, by the time I reach Absolute radiance I only have like 3 hp left
@@sebatsionEEEthe first time I beat p5 I use an aggressive built until pure vessel, then I changed my charm with quick slash, shape of unn, deep focus and a charm that you want to be able to cure in almost every radiance attack. Try this strat a few times against absolute radiance and it should be free. (btw when you reach absolute radiance you get healed)
I don’t think criticism on the bosses is fair when you haven’t fought the deliberate harder ones. Most of the harder bosses is post game content it’s put there to literary test your skill with new bosses and boss rushes ect.
Rarran literally missed the whole point of every boss that ever existed they are meant to have some pattern the player can learn to overcome thus kill the boss.
I find it really weird you say you just learn the pattern and avoid it, like yes thats every game ever. Elden ring and dark souls are the same. There are bad boses in the game like the spirit warriors but it feels a bit wrong to go the 3rd boss in the game is lacking in complexity. Like yeah, its the 3rd boss.
I think his frustration is he took 5 times longer to beat each boss because he only went for 1 hit every opportunity instead of as many as he can manage
Its such a crazy take that the bosses are too easy, never heard anyone say that. He just has a lot of patience, confidence, and isnt greedy. This opinion is pretty weird to me, made for an interesting video
Ain't no way, my guy is saying the bosses are easy, I honestly can't wait till he encounters pure vessel and absolute radiance 💀 (Note: I'm not trying to hate him or anything, i just want him to try doing pantheon to see how truly hard the game can really be.)
I really hope you continue you play through past the first ending. There is so much more to see, so many better bosses and challenges, a very deep lore
Technically, you played like a textbook. Just stay out of reach and hit whenever they're close, which guarantees the win and it's a respectable playstyle. But when the playstyle you use is boring even when it gives you the win, you switch it up. Start using more spells, start dodging the attacks while remaining close rather than always being out, start swinging faster and reducing fight time, using the environment more. That's why the charm system is in place, for many different players. There are a ton of aggressive options to unlock to accommodate that playstyle, as such as defensive and passive options. You picked the one that guarantees wins with minimal effort, which is good if you enjoy that, but you clearly didn't-- Take more risks to lower the overall time on the boss, be a little bit more greedy, fight against yourself. And true, for someone that's really passive in fighting and only goes in for the story rather than completion, there is pretty much no reason to be more aggressive. However, you do miss a lot of the fun if passiveness is not the style.
I understand why you want to branch out from hearthstone and generally want to support you in doing so because you're a funny guy. that being said, I don't think the way to go about it is click baiting with hot takes on beloved franchises. especially if the hot take is so contrived that you need to clarify the one critique you have in the comments even though you repeated that same critique a dozen times throughout the video. idk what the right way is bc the RU-vid algorithm is cooked but this ain't it imo
@Rarran As a souls enthousiast i have to say i really enjoyed hollow knight. Did you do everything? Because the dream bosses are kinda challenging and the true ending pure vessel is though and the parcours...i mean there are a lot of secrets in this game and the game doesn't wan't you to find them. It's easy to beat the game once but not so much to complete it. Loved the video maybe you can give Blasphemous also a shot but i think that's also going to be an easy one for you.
i think HK's difficulty is a good balance. the mandatory stuff isn't too difficult, especially if you get upgrades and optimize your build. as a new player to the genre, i got stuck for 3 days on Hornet, but returning for a second playthrough i killed her first try, although i broke a sweat. with 150+ hours, i can beat her and her more difficult variant hitless consistently. same patern with White Palace pretty much. on the other hand, you can just ignore upgrades and not even equip charms, since the game doesn't scale like your typical RPG, especially since enemy damage remains mostly between 1 and 2 per hit. there's also a ton of optionnal engame content, mostly for boss fights but also a platforming section. learning boss movement to beat them once is one thing, learning how to beat them hitless, or multiple bosses in a row, is another entirely. that being said, it's a specific kind of enjoyement, and if you don't love the pattern recognition it's just not your cup of tea.
The thing is right, u played the game wrong, especially when it came to the bosses. Yeah they repeat the same moves but the order in which they do isn't the same and u also did in fact not even try to pogo the bosses, u also barely used spells. When it came to the bosses u were waaay to passive and that detracts from the fun. Ur supposed to be more agressive and fast because for example the mantis lords took you like 30 minutes to beat in 2 tries which is absolutely ridiculous
Who going to tell him that beating the Hollow Knight isn’t beating the game? lol He basically kept the world in stasis, he hasn’t saved it. Ending 1 is the easy ending lol Ending 2/3 is the real ending, 3 being good ending, 2 being a failed attempt. Ending 4/5 are hard and very hard
I can totally see where you are coming from with your "bosses were too easy" thing. For people good at games that have experience with darksouls they often follow a principle that is not the best way to handle bosses in HK. If you stand back when you first meet a boss, barely attacking and trying to first learn all its attacks without actually trying then hollowknight doesnt have the best experience, there are a few bosses where you can still have fun even if you know the patterns but HK is about learning the patterns and then learning weakpoints. You found bosses boring because you would rarely take damage and go with a very slow approach. See what the boss can do --> identify the easiest times to attack --> attack then and only then until boss is dead --> one try took 3 minutes and was super boring. For me (I had problems when starting but now bosses are ez af) I had a lot of fun trying to get a hit every chance I get, even if it is risky. It speeds up the bossfights, makes it more intense by taking more but also doing more damage and you have to think about your own position every time a boss does something, instead of the boring routine (boss does attack --> i dodge attack where i am --> I go to boss and hit it) in order to get the most damage. If you combine this principle when you start out then your first fights can still be fun and if you have played the game for a while, trying harder bosses with this mindset can make it fun again. Hollowknight isnt like darksouls, bosses are often relatively close and not nearly as hard. Try to experiment more instead of min-maxing and making sure you beat it in as few attemps as possible. I dont know if you will ever play HK again but if you do, try this technique and see if it works for you.
28:12 you're saying that, in a game about vessels that are completely hollow and emotionless? You are literally just saying "This game is bad because most aspects are good and the boss fights are boss fights. Learning movements and dodging" From what i've seen in the video, you did the literal bare minimum. You got one mask shard and did the colosseum. You didn't even do the radiance or anything Why are the knight's arms white in the thumbnail? The game is easy. But the later stuff is really goddamn tough. Saying the boss fights are 3 attack moves on repeat is like saying "This game is playable and that's bad!" Yeah of course it's about learning the small attack pattern and dodging it, that's every single boss fight in a video game. Learn attack, dodge attack. That includes dark souls, in fact comparing this game to dark souls is clear bias. Your criticisms apply to dark souls too. Dark souls is "Learn attack, dodge attack" but hollow knight is bad for using that formula? Almost everything else you said was positive, which implies that you wanted to dislike the game but did like it and decided to stand by that statement.
difficulty complaints are fair. Hollow Knight has a midgame problem where, because the world is so open, the devs really had no idea how much health, melee damage, ranged damage, or movement upgrades the player would have when reaching any given boss. Particularly when it comes to dodging attacks, having double jump & shadow dash or not is such a huge difference to how threatening bosses can be and you can have those upgrades before fighting most bosses, yet none could be designed assuming you did because you might not. It's a painful trade off - worth it for the sense or real exploration, but it does come at the cost of most bosses not being threatening to experienced gamers until the very late or post-game. Some of those late/post game bosses are worth the wait, though, imo.
I don't know if you ever went back to do the true ending & dlc stuff, but I think you'd find some of the added boss fights once the game knows you have the full moveset to be better.
Glad you liked it. I do recommend going for the TRUE final boss and doing the Grim troupe DLC but perhaps not on stream cause I think it kinda ruins the experience for you.
I might not agree with most negative points said Rarran did point out a problem experienced by many players that quit the game , playing safe in hollow knight is really boring and the game doesn't really push out out of that, of course you have the soul system being the only way to gain health, but it's not enough since you can just do a hit here, another one there and be safe
for someone who preferred exploring to fighting bosses he had to have skipped majority of it with how few upgrades he had by the time he got the bad ending
I can appreciate the attempt to like it and even agree with the simplicity of bosses unless we're talking way late game, if the late game was the whole game then hollowknight would seriously deserve every cent of praise.. the radiance will probably stay as one of the coolest bosses I've ever seen.
damn i hope he does grimm and the true ending, also suprising he found the bosses to be repetitive or tedious when a lotta people love the bosses for being unique
It starts off pretty slow but picks up eventually. Still, the gameplay gives you enough challenge to keep you engaged. You’re going to die and retry a lot
While the boss fights are not everything that HK is about, I think it is important to see what they represent to every possible player. This game is the very first that I got my sister to truly play, before that she had only ever seen the world of gaming through candy crush and among us. For her, every boss represented a challenge, and every single one she managed to surpass through trail and error. Every boss represented something different and new for my sister to learn. I personally struggled with the Mantis Lords through a dozen or so tries before beating them, and blitzed through every other encounter except the Watcher Knights, somewhat like you. Ithink this is where Team Cherry really nailed the balancing and underlying philosophy of their game: this game is accessible to everyone, and there are things for everyone to enjoy and find a challenge in. Want a more difficult game? Play steel soul. Want more difficult bosses? Fight them in the gauntlet in godhome. Want a niche, ambiented and endearing experience? Play the game going in blind, regardless of skill level. Not every game can be as difficult as a souls game, and I think we can all agree when I say that not every game should be, the experience could be more taxing than enjoyable. For what it is worth, I will agree that many bosses could have had more attacks, or slightly different behaviours. However, considering their difficulty as a sign of lacklustre design, especially when they are already visually impressive (disregarding other factors) is something I would call misguided at best. I very much enjoyed your playthrough, and would be thrilled to watch you do a run looking for secrets. There are some really heartfelt and touching segments to this game that should in my opinion not be skipped. Cheers!
Favorite youtuber plays favorite game. Works with me. I personally think hollow knight is a 10/10 and you said yourself you only scratched the surface. If you played it again, i think youd enjoy the other bosses :)
I love this game, I didn't have trouble with the bosses but you should try Pure Vessel, Nightmare King Grimm and Absolute Radiance, the 3 hardest bosses and two of these forces me to pull out a guide all try the path of pain, its prettt fun and challenging and there is a surprise at the end, also if you want a hard as shit 2d game play Grime.
I do hope you'll go and play more of the game, it was fun to watch you play and struggle your way through. I always enjoy watching someone enjoy the journey like I did.
To be honest, the criticism of the bosses is valid. They aren't really designed to be some unbeatable grind, but rather a part of the world. Yes, they have pretty simple attack patterns and don't have a wide variety of attacks. But that's mainly because they are bugs. The reason why the watcher knights was a more difficult boss is the randomness. It becomes less of a pattern to dodge but mixed timing and simple attacks. There is a reason why it is usually stated as one of the more difficult bosses(in comparison to progression in the game). Hornet 2 was harder because she moved quickly, and is supposed to be more similar to the main character. Personally don't really like souls-likes, and this is more of a metroidvania developed for the environment and lore. (also there is so much more to the game to explore, including 2 specific bosses that would probably be more fun/grindy)
There are bosses that are significantly more challenging but are optional than the standard run done in the video. That said yes they are still fundamentally learn move pattern, dodge, smack or spell, rinse and repeat. This is a 10/10 game for me because the bosses are still challenging for someone who is not a routine gamer (for me at least) and the exploration, ambience, music, pacing, abilities, story and gameplay loop are flawless. Cool video, I’ll definitely be subbing to the channel and hopefully if you decide to pick up the game again and run some of the harder content you may get the boss challenge you’re looking for. Thanks!
I think you did a very good job of portraying your thoughts and I am glad you enjoyed this game, you deserved that. I am one of these people who love Hollow Knight and I really liked your video. Stay strong king!
The real hard bosses are in the post end game/ true Ending with things like the Radiance, true radiance and dream bosses. The mainline bosses are there to act as a challenge for less experienced players for whom it might be the first metroidvania
rarran played like 50% of the game, he should go to godhome to see all the bosses hes missed and then figure out how to play more of the game instead of speedrunning it while playing like youre dampening in WoW arena or playing stall in pokemon
I have absolutely no hate for Rarran, or this take. I disagree, but that's all. That said this is the kinda video that makes me wish dislikes were still public information as a curiosity.
