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S2 Ep103: Hollow Knight
78 Plays6 years ago
MID-GAME SPOILERS: Hollow Knight
Join Dave and Jake as they take a break from playing hollow knights and instead play Hollow Knight in this week's long anticipated episode!
Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
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Join Dave and Jake as they take a break from playing hollow knights and instead play Hollow Knight in this week's long anticipated episode!
Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Co-host's Day
00:01:06
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake. I'm joined by my co-host, as always, Dave. How's it going, Dave? Terrible. Yeah. Sorry to hear that.
00:01:20
Speaker
Rough day. But I mean, the evening always makes it better because I'm not working. I got to talk about great stuff with a good friend. But for now, I'll be recording the podcast. So close. So close. We get you to admit your true emotions one of these days.
Non-emotional Games with Silent Protagonists
00:01:41
Speaker
And that day was last week when we talked about emotions in games.
00:01:44
Speaker
Um, but right now we're not covering an emotional game at all. I don't think really, it's just really nothing. You know, it's pretty devoid of sensation. When would say finally another game with a silent protagonist. Hell yeah. Um, it's not really that at all though. It's got a lot of feels I would say for me playing through it.
Experiences with Hollow Knight
00:02:11
Speaker
It's got a lot of things. Before we get into the important info stuff that we always forget to share, I have to ask, because I know you were holding off this game for a while, in the same way that I did for a while, but once I played it, I was like, oh, I'm glad I fucking did. Did you feel the same way?
00:02:30
Speaker
I mean, sort of. I can't claim that entirely because I played, I checked and I played like 40 minutes in my first attempt. And then I was just like, ah, not feeling platformers. I think I probably had another game on the burner at the time I was playing. I can't remember what that game was now though.
00:02:48
Speaker
But in either case, I didn't give this one a fair shake until this this playthrough. Now, yeah, I mean, I regret waiting on it as long as I did. It's really good in a genre that I don't normally particularly like. What game is that, Jake?
Team Cherry and Hollow Knight's Success
00:03:06
Speaker
Holocanite. Ah, Holocaniget, yes, yes. Oh, man. Yeah, we have to have a Monty Python episode one of these days. Where we do Monty Python bits? Yeah. But very few people would get in this country. Probably. Yeah.
00:03:27
Speaker
I don't know. But yeah, Hollow Knight. It's a freaking game. All right, let's bang off some stats. Sure. Developer, Team Cherry, they haven't done anything else as far as I know. So anytime that happens where a developer is like, hey, we're going to make
00:03:43
Speaker
something awesome out the gate. It really helps solidify them in the game industry. When you have an awesome title, people are like, this is good.
Hollow Knight on Nintendo Switch
00:03:52
Speaker
And it's good on many, many levels, some of which we will get into. Right. We'll talk about the levels a little bit. Yeah. Team Cherry came out in 2017. I think it was on most major consoles. I don't know if PC was exactly the same time, but I think it was.
00:04:14
Speaker
I know within the last year or so it got added to Switch as well. Oh, yeah. Oh, this would actually be really good on Switch. I could totally see that. I could see it being one of the few games I'd be willing to play with like freehand Switch modes, SwitchCon, Joy-Cons. There you go, yeah.
Platforming Mechanics and Challenges
00:04:32
Speaker
Joy, the forehead cons. Depression cons? No, that's not right.
00:04:37
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I don't really use the Joy-Cons for like anything. I'd probably still use a controller or something, but attached to the console, I think the Joy-Con would be fine for this. I mean, I played like with a 360 controller, which is like, I still think it's basically the standard for PC use, but I can see that like modern controllers are slightly better, slightly more responsive. I really like the feel of the PS4 controller, for instance.
00:05:07
Speaker
I just can't really use it on PC and expect it to work with everything. Yeah, but it's good with controllers because it's a nice tight platformer. And by that, I mean, if you look at older arcade games in the sense of platformers, a lot of times when you're moving and jumping, it's not responsive because they're kind of designed for arcade cabinets. And once you commit it to an action, you're kind of stuck doing that. Yeah, but.
00:05:34
Speaker
Since you have... When we talk about Mega Man X, I always talk about this. When you have that much
Metroidvania Genre and Backtracking
00:05:40
Speaker
degree of control in a game, it really allows you to do so much more so they can challenge you so much more because every action is your own. You can't ever say like, but the game, no, these are all of your inputs. It's directly responsive.
00:05:56
Speaker
I felt adequately challenged through significant portions of this game. There was very few questions about whether I was challenged or not. Yeah, it's a Metroidvania type game, at least according to the Steam tags, which I would agree with in this case, right?
00:06:16
Speaker
What is a Metroidvania?
Map System and Exploration Strategies
00:06:19
Speaker
So my understanding, without consulting the definition, because why would I start being right now? Like, is the... Leave Dafroids pros. Metroidvania is a platformer that has you kind of go back and forth, retrieving key like items or abilities to unlock other areas.
00:06:42
Speaker
I think that's, well, from what I know of GDQ. That's how Metroid worked. No, that's correct. Try the chicks out.
00:06:51
Speaker
So that's my interpretation of it. And this definitely falls into that category in my head, but you mentioned how there was a lot of different rooms for, there was a lot of room for inputs or like different abilities and things like that. And I feel like it really evolves that space compared to anything I've played. You've played more platformers than I have, so maybe there's some more similar games you could think of.
00:07:14
Speaker
I ain't got anything. From a lot of the platformers I've played, I think Sundered was one recently, also Great at Remembering the Names of Things, but the Spanish Catholic one,
00:07:32
Speaker
Oh, yeah, yeah, I know what you're talking about. It was it's not it's not vanished or something else. It was like a single word, right? Probably varnished, varnished. We'll call it varnished. Right. But yeah, those still have upgrades and map progression in a sense where you might say like, oh, hey, I need to double jump here or a dash where they kind of just put like an obstacle to come back to. Right. You're kind of getting familiar with the area and exploring. It keeps getting bigger and bigger.
00:08:03
Speaker
But I want to say none do it as well. Blasphemous is the name of the game I think you're looking for. No, my statement was not Blasphemous.
Lore and Fast Travel in Gameplay
00:08:15
Speaker
The Spanish, the Spanish Inquisition. Blasphemous is still a solid title. But yeah, very much going through this game, you start off with a fairly
00:08:27
Speaker
of the map and you know, you're going underground a little bit. When you see the map, you're like, okay, cool. And then as you explore, you're like, okay, I think I've found pretty much everything. And at the end of the game, you're like, where, where are they fitting these? Yeah, no, it's gigantic. The map is actually gigantic. Thankfully you have like a fast travel system that kicks in pretty early. Um,
00:08:53
Speaker
Which is nice. It's also lore crammed in there. It's not just incidental. It's not like you can now travel via the power of the Lordvessel because we QA'd the game and people couldn't make it through without the ability to travel.
Game Start and NPC Interaction
00:09:13
Speaker
It's pretty much necessary because the game is absolutely gigantic and fairly
00:09:21
Speaker
Stacked to like areas are built on top of each other. There'll be different exits and entrances to various areas Yeah, some of those things were kind of like pipes you into hey, are you trying to get from here you have to go to here yeah, I
00:09:38
Speaker
Doesn't let you in that way. The very start, which I think is like probably a good move, you know, until people know how the game is played should probably give them. Even if there's multiple ways you can kind of go, you have to drop down the well, I think, and dirt mouth. Yeah. To to really progress.
00:10:01
Speaker
And I think that's a good idea. You know, later I was kind of overwhelmed by how many options I had to explore and options I didn't even know I had for exploring. Yeah. So when you start out, you kind of just are thrown into this world. And then after a short bit, you kind of enter this small town, which seems to be like one old guy in a bench.
00:10:29
Speaker
And there's not really anything else. But he kind of tells you that like, hey, a lot of people have gone down to explore the mines, but like a lot of people who go down there don't necessarily come back. They kind of lose their way and lose their minds. So you go down there. Right naturally. And as you explore, you encounter Conifer, the map maker. So he's just kind of going throughout the game.
00:10:54
Speaker
and mapping out areas. So he can give you
Combat Mechanics and Healing
00:10:57
Speaker
a map for an area if you find him. That will kind of give you the rough outline of the map. But you don't actually have the map colored in with certain pieces until you get another key item to kind of fill in your map when you sit down on benches, which are your save points.
00:11:14
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot of buy your game features. Conifer also hums, doesn't he? Like anywhere he is or it's humming, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, he has like a little ditty he does and there's pieces of paper that kind of lead to where he is. Yeah, it's a really useful and cool mechanic because anytime I was in a new area, like your map is completely unusable. It's just like location not mapped whenever you try to bring it up.
00:11:40
Speaker
Um, so it was just like hoping and praying. I could find a page so I could start tracking that down. Um, and I bought like, I think the first things I spent money on, which is geo on this game, right? Is, um, the, uh, the, the map marker, I think you were talking about. And then there's, um, a compass, I think is the other. Yeah. Compass is one of the charms you can get. Yeah.
00:12:07
Speaker
which will actually show your location on the map when without that and you could remove it at any time.
00:12:13
Speaker
you're free to just, you know, compare what you see with what you think is on the map and, you know, do your best. But I'm lazy. I use the compass for most of the game. I usually leave it on for like early playthroughs because I'm like, I don't remember where I am at all. And I think I'm going the right way. Then I look at the map and like, no, something's off here. I'll try and keep it on.
00:12:37
Speaker
But what's cool is like when you're at the bench, you can swap out charms. So maybe you're like, hey, this is exploration or farming gear because technically charms are your only customization throughout the whole game. Yeah. Because
00:12:54
Speaker
You're kind of just a little bug guy and you have not even a sword, you have a nail, which you just kind of like do, you kind of throw it out with
Enemy Patterns and Player Adaptation
00:13:03
Speaker
like these small slashes, very quick, precise attacks. And that's it.
00:13:09
Speaker
And early on in the game, I was like, I don't know if I'm going to like this combat so much because it seems kind of rudimentary and not my thing. But then as you go, you're like, oh, this is actually just very tight and precise and you appreciate it so much more. You don't need the theatrics of like this giant overhand shit. You're just like stab, stab, stab, dodge.
00:13:34
Speaker
Yeah, it's a precision platformer where a lot of the abilities you also get feed into it. So it's like first boss, I think, and the mechanic is basically, are you going to run at him? Because if you just run at him, that's basically the one thing that kills you. And it's like, attack, pull back, attack, pull back, attack, pull back. All right, you're good. That's it. You figured it out. Good job.
00:14:01
Speaker
Um, but the first time I played, I actually remember I died to him cause I was like really impatient. Like I'm going to run at him. Uh, and this time I was like, I remember this guy killing me. So I'm going to play it a little more patient. And I think I beat him on either the first or second try. Um, cause patience is very useful in games where bosses have mechanics. Yeah. So another great thing about like the bosses in this game is they're all designs you have.
00:14:32
Speaker
Not insane, like all of the patterns you can pick up and learn.
Combat Techniques and Enemy Behavior
00:14:37
Speaker
Also, they'll have like kind of attack phases and then they'll have what I call healing windows. Yeah. So if you time things right and position yourself correctly, you can actually heal. So every time you are hitting enemies and dealing damage, you have a little meter that goes up, which is your soul.
00:14:56
Speaker
And then you can consume the soul by holding B, where you kind of just suck it into your body, and then you heal up. Yeah. It's a really cool mechanic, actually. It's like a two-stage vampirism, basically, is what it is. Because you have to be landing hits, but in another game where you have spilt lifesteal or something like that, that's all you have to worry about to heal. In this, you have to land hits, and then you have to find a save time.
00:15:24
Speaker
where you can actually execute that focus to heal yourself. And it's nice because enemies respawn not immediately after you kill them or even when you switch. If you go back to an area, yeah. Yeah. I think it's based off of how far away you went or what other enemies you've killed recently. But in general, they respawn. So if you're struggling in an area and you're really low on life,
00:15:49
Speaker
You might be able to pop back a little bit, hit some guys, grab some soul, focus up. The game's actually fairly generous with how much life you can get back while exploring. Like considerably more than your like traditional sort of like, I put this in quotes, difficult platformer. It's the fixed encounters or just personal mistakes that really put you at risk of death.
00:16:20
Speaker
Yeah, but I feel like you learn from those quickly. Like if you're making a mistake like falling into acid or spikes, you're like, oh, let me not do that. That's usually the big thing. Or if you don't yet know, let's say a basic non-boss enemy's attack pattern, you get punished by it, you're like, OK. You get hit by it by a couple of times, you go heal. But then when you see that enemy again, you're less likely to get punished by it. Yeah, you know their attacks.
00:16:48
Speaker
There's one enemy that I just a perfect example of that for me is they fly around and they have like lances or spears and brava brava. Yeah.
Learning Enemy Patterns
00:17:00
Speaker
Yeah. And they have like a couple different attacks, one where they'll try to like run you through with like a vertical flight. They're flying around and they have another one where they'll just, you know, like do a stab at you or whatever.
00:17:13
Speaker
And then one where they'll throw the spear at you, which is the one I wasn't expecting. And they're just like, oh, time to pull another spear out of my inventory because this is.
00:17:23
Speaker
Because I'm a character in Dark Souls. I just have been hoarding these. But once I learned that, it's like, OK, here's the threat radius of whatever enemies I'm facing. And so even the enemies that can pull off combos on you, they'll do several swings forward or something like that. It's all mitigatable by knowledge.
00:17:47
Speaker
Yeah. Also, one thing about knowledge that they don't explicitly tell you early, but you do kind of figure out later and then you learn how to abuse it a lot is like I said, your combat is just like you kind of strike out horizontally in front of you.
00:18:04
Speaker
If something's above you, you can strike up. And if something's below you, you can jump and strike below you. Which is nice because every time you strike something below you, whether it's an enemy or spikes, you can keep attacking.
00:18:21
Speaker
Because it essentially resets your attack and you get another like a little you get a little hop off of it because you're the force of your strike is pushing you back a little bit. Yeah. So you can use that to kind of like jump across spikes or there are certain areas where you have to jump on bugs armored shells to go across an area. Yeah. And that as a mechanic is really cool. But it also encourages you to say, OK, maybe I should be attacking certain enemies from above because they maybe don't have an up attack pattern.
00:18:51
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, I started doing that like not as early as I could have obviously, but I started doing it before it was like mechanically necessary to get through some of the platforming segments, like to avoid acid. Like you were saying.
Game Progression and Area Diversity
00:19:05
Speaker
And so when it came time for that asset, I was like, I'm ready for this. I'm already Mr. Pogo Bug. I'm good to go. It reminds me of Commander Keen, actually, and the Pogo Stick, which is probably a dated reference at this point. But the...
00:19:25
Speaker
The air jumping, it makes some of the bosses considerably easier, or they'll have vulnerability phases where they're attacking the sides, and air attacks are just safe. In particular, the final boss-ish that we aren't really talking about yet is vulnerable to that. So it's like a skill that's definitely useful to learn. And you can take advantage of the bounces. And there's these really armored guys in City of Tears.
00:19:54
Speaker
that have actual vertical swings where they'll attack above to try to get you out of the air. But if you just hop back and forth hitting either side of them, avoiding whatever side they're attacking up on, you can just damage them to death. You just style on them. It feels so good.
00:20:13
Speaker
No, it's it's really nice. And with those guys, too, like, as soon as you attack them once from above, like, oh, I'm going to put my shield up so you can then bounce off the shield and then go behind them. And they're like, I'm going to attack up where he is slash was always gone. And then you hit him in the ass twice. You're like, let's go. Yeah, the night can be a ninja for sure. He has to be an actually by the end of it. Yeah, the enemy is really like to
00:20:41
Speaker
test, uh, preexisting strategies. Um, and, uh, you have other options. So like you could focus your soul to heal, but you also pretty early get, um, it is called vengeful spirit. Yeah. Uh, which is more than just a hero in Dota. And, um, it's just a projectile you fire out consumes some of your soul pool and consumes as much as it would for you to heal.
00:21:10
Speaker
Yeah, probably by default. You can modify them a little bit with Charms. There's one that makes your spells cheaper. But yeah, it is pretty expensive, right? So you can choose, you're like, no, I'm real good. Why would I need to heal and just spend all your potential life force lighting up bosses or something?
00:21:32
Speaker
Yeah, it's actually needed at certain points because there are enemies that will kind of armor up if you're nearby. It's kind of used as a gating mechanism early. You know, gatekeeping. But it teaches you how to use it and then you can use it to greater effect later. But I don't think beyond those specific gate points that it's mandatory.
00:21:58
Speaker
Because a lot of times I didn't find myself using the projectile because I would forget and I would panic, get hit and be like, I need to go heal in this corner. But the game is also really good about punishing you if you're like, I need to heal, but it might not be a good time to heal. But you're just like, well, not one health, I better. And then you die from something because you're not waiting for that good point.
00:22:22
Speaker
But I feel like... Because you watched me play. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And I'm like, I have to heal now. Goes, walks into death space, waits for death while healing. You see like a projectile coming out and Jake's like, no, I can start healing. I could take it.
00:22:43
Speaker
What nothing I like about this game is it has such a diversity of enemies. It's early on, like you're seeing like some basic pill bugs or like flies or grubs.
The Green Path's Influence
00:22:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:59
Speaker
Tilt bugs. Oh, okay. I was trying to guess what that joke was. Nice. Yeah. But nothing super crazy. But then as you get into green path, you already now have these bush enemies, a lot of which are kind of docile, minding their own business. And other ones become bombs. Other ones kind of charge at you and are gigantic. But if you actually hit them,
00:23:27
Speaker
you realize it's mostly leaves. And it's just like a little bug that kind of scurries away. And then they have knights in there too. And the knights have projectiles and it just keeps building from there.
00:23:39
Speaker
And like the areas are so distinct. Oh yeah. You talked about Green Path and Green Path was one of my, so like you start out, you go down into crossroads and as, or forgotten crossroads. And as one may expect by the name, they're a crossroads of sorts that branch out to most of the like starter areas or the relatively safe in quotes areas.
00:24:04
Speaker
And Green Path was one of my first favorite areas in the game, for sure. Yeah, because it starts off like crossroads are so desolate and quiet, and you're just kind of seeing a rundown area. But then when you go to a Green Path, it's so, I don't get to use this word enough, vergent. And it's so green and lush, and everything's growing, and it's alive, and the music changes.
00:24:32
Speaker
And it feels kind of peaceful yet upbeat. And you really get a nice sense of fun exploration when you're there. Because it's literally a whole new world compared to the dim dank above that what you've been at. Yeah.
00:24:49
Speaker
Green Path is basically the moment where you know that the game isn't just spelunky with some different mechanics. You're just like, oh, snap, this is this very biodiverse forest. It's actually, not a lot of people know this, but Green Path was the motivation for the color green and magic and all of its mechanics.
Bug-themed World and NPC Design
00:25:13
Speaker
Yeah, those dates definitely check out. Also, I don't know if we mentioned this, but everything you fight in the game is bugs and you are a bug. This game is actually based off of Bugs Life, a gritty, gritty reboot. It's the director's cat for Bugs Life.
00:25:35
Speaker
It's just always impressive when somebody chooses a different medium. It's like, oh, we're not doing people. We'll do something else. But I feel like each of the characters and NPCs and enemies can be stylized or expressive enough to where you get what they're going for. Yeah, they have like they use some different tropes and or at least things you can pick up on immediately personalities.
00:26:04
Speaker
Plus their voices, their voices also lend a lot to the NPC personality. It's kind of like an Animal Crossing intonation. Like when you hear the one shopkeeper, she's like,
00:26:20
Speaker
You're like, Oh, she's kind of like, whatever. Um, this is my day job type thing. Yeah. The intonation is what sells it. It reminded me a lot of, um, pyre actually. Yeah. Yeah. The way that they, uh, they use the voices in that game. Um,
00:26:39
Speaker
But it's funny because some NPCs were kind of obnoxious just because of their voice lines and how they were a little bit harsh or whatever. I'm just like, ah, this guy again. I have an idea of who you mean, but who do you mean? I don't know. There's a couple that bothered me, I guess. And I think Sly. So Sly is the shopkeeper that sells you charms. And he's got this, I can't remember exactly what he says. It's some nonsense words and then geo.
NPC Interactions and Lore
00:27:09
Speaker
And I heard it so many times through the course of the game. I was like, I get it. I get it. I get it. You want money? I'll be back with your money when we go farm some bugs. He's one of my favorite shopkeepers because he's like so upbeat and peppy and has like these just huge eyes. He's an actual fly, right? Like just a fly.
00:27:32
Speaker
Um, he might be, I forget. But did you know he actually has some decent lore about him? I figured out like a little bit in the course of my playthrough, because I got all the, the nail arts and then went back and he's like, Hey, come to the basement. I'm like, how this stuff again? Okay. So you actually then, you know, yeah, he's the, the actual nail master who trained those three nail artists. I think at some point in the DLC, you can actually fight him.
00:28:02
Speaker
Yes, I think I think I saw that somewhere. Yeah. Which seems like it would be hard because he's absolutely tiny. And the picture of him like wielding a nail that's like four times his body like cloud stripes got nothing. Nothing on this guy. It's fucking huge.
00:28:21
Speaker
That's one of the things I like about the game is another of the Steam tags is Souls-like, meaning that it's awesome. But also in the way that it does storytelling, it's not, hey, I'm the guy. We grew up together. This is our story. We have to go to feed the big bad. No. Everything is kind of inferred through brief dialogues with NPCs, things you see in the world.
00:28:47
Speaker
which are a lot of times in the background and you'll miss on it, myself included, or it might be item descriptions, which kind of gives you a more rounded view of the in-game universe. Yeah, Hollow Nest is basically the entirety of the map, more or less.
00:29:05
Speaker
up or down, left or right, just a little bit. But for the most part, it's just holo nest. And I don't think you know something like to earn this the souls like thing, there's a couple things, there's a couple similarities. The benches are bonfires, because they heal you and allow you to change your items.
00:29:23
Speaker
They don't tell you what your main objective is until like actually significantly into the game. Like I think in Hollow Knight, it's not until you reach resting grounds that you even get objectives for the quote unquote main quest, what you actually need to do.
00:29:46
Speaker
And it's not like you have that quest, but you don't know where to go. It's like you don't know what you're, you're just exploring. You're just getting stronger buying stuff and exploring for the fun of it. Which obviously equates to, you know, Dark Souls when you would get the quest for the Lordvessel and stuff. And it's like, hey,
00:30:08
Speaker
There's an actual plot here. It's not just everything else. Yeah. But I like how long it rides the exploring for fun. Oh, yeah. Because if you start to enjoy the combat and the different areas and enemies, and then the little nooks and crannies, and then as you do get other upgrades or mobility options, you're like, oh, maybe I can actually go back here. And I don't think we mentioned it yet, but you can also buy markers for your map.
00:30:37
Speaker
kind of say, hey, I want to come back and investigate this spot right here, where I definitely need to be able to climb walls or some bullshit. I don't even know what that is yet.
00:30:45
Speaker
but then you go back and you're like, oh cool, I found a neat little thing. One of which,
Charm System and Customization
00:30:50
Speaker
you can find these little grubs in glass jars who are the cutest things and made me immediately enamored with the game. Because they make this cute little like cooing sound and they seem so innocent. But then as you go back to a certain area, there's like a little pod of them. And then if you come by, they're like, hey,
00:31:13
Speaker
I mean, they don't say, hey, but they're just very excited to see you and you can feel it. And then the grub father will kind of give you a reward for saving one.
00:31:22
Speaker
And he gives you rewards for all of the ones you've saved since you last went there. Yeah, I went and I got like 15 or 20 of them or something. And then I came back and I just stood in the center as he just made it rain, just geo falling all over the place, like like upgrade pieces, charms, all this other nonsense. I'm just standing here basking in it. It's freaking great. Yeah, it's a it's a worthy side quest for sure. Mm hmm.
00:31:52
Speaker
No, for sure. Speaking of Geo, to use my own thing as a segue, another charm I used a lot of the time was gathering swarm, basically magnetic for money. I had that on for a significant portion of the time I was playing the game until I basically didn't... I felt like I didn't need money anymore.
00:32:14
Speaker
But thanks to the DLC, I actually still should probably have been saving money. And as soon as the game's like, you can farm, I'm like, I will farm. And that's how I kind of treated Hollow Knight, too. I was like, I'm going to be grabbing all this money up because there's some significantly powerful charms you need to save up to buy.
00:32:42
Speaker
Do you have jazz? One that I really enjoyed was there's a guy down in it's fungal something. Fungal wastes?
Charm Effects and Strategy
00:32:53
Speaker
I think it's fungal waste, yeah, yeah, yeah. Where he sells you fragile charms.
00:33:00
Speaker
And there's three of them, one of them, and they're all relatively cheap. They take sockets, which I think you get through the course of the story, right? Like different. You start out with a couple of notches for your charms. And then as you get more charms, you can buy more notches from the one shopkeeper.
00:33:19
Speaker
That's right, that's right. But they're pretty, they don't take many notches, so low cost. But they give you more health, one of them gives you more health. The other one increases the amount of money that drops. And the last one increases your damage by 50%. And I'm like, these are amazing.
00:33:39
Speaker
but they're fragile. So if you die, they break, and you have to go back to them to have them repaired, which costs money. Yeah. So I did not end up using those that much. I'm very, as I say, for every game, very linear with a mindset. I find something that works, and I beat it to death. So an early upgrade you can get is the long nail, which just increases your weapon range a little bit. And I was like, dope, never taking this off.
00:34:07
Speaker
And then after you fight the, is it after Mantis Lords? You get the Mantis Claw? Yeah, the claw is there. You can get it before the Mantis. Sorry, not the Mantis Claw. I'm thinking of, there's a Mantis. It's like brave emblem or whatever. Yeah, the extra length. But what's great is you can stack those. You can have both equipped.
00:34:32
Speaker
So you get extra, extra range. So it was really useful. But if I ever wanted to vary my build, I forgot how to play up close with standard weapon range. So a lot of times I would keep it on. They were really useful, though. I probably played with them less because I just I had other things that I considered essential. And so I very rarely had the pips available for them. Yeah. But a couple of times I'd toss them on there.
00:35:03
Speaker
Because attack range is freaking nice especially against flyers or other things you have to jump up and hit
00:35:10
Speaker
Or bosses where their their threat range for an immediate melee attack is a little bit wide Or sometimes when they're vulnerable and you're hitting them their next attack will extend a little bit Yeah, and you can be outside of that with any range. So I used soul Generation increases a lot
00:35:34
Speaker
And I actually misunderstood how one charm worked until today. So I had it equipped a lot of the time and I didn't use it for anything. Which one?
Dream Nail Mechanics and Lore
00:35:43
Speaker
So there's one for the, I think it's like Dream Collector or something. Yeah. And it says it speeds up the dream now, which we haven't talked about yet, but we'll get to it.
00:35:54
Speaker
and it makes it so you have more soul generation, which I thought was across the board, but it's specifically for hitting enemies with the dream nail. So I didn't particularly use that that much, but it was only one pip.
00:36:10
Speaker
Yeah. So about the dream now. Yeah. So. That's your main quest, right? After. Yeah. Finally hitting the wrestling. Shotgun plot points. This is one of those games where you should just play it instead of listening vicariously and being like, oh, that was nice. No, no. Yeah. Go play it. It's really good.
00:36:31
Speaker
But as you're uncovering the story of the world, you encounter these dreamers who are essentially locking off a gate to something. But when they see you're kind of progressing into holiness, kind of invading what they've set up, they kind of trap you in the dream world.
00:36:52
Speaker
Yeah, somebody enters the dream world and gives you this dream nail, which allows you to kind of cut through dreams, which then you can use throughout the game to hit anybody to kind of read their mind and see their innermost thoughts or enter their dreams. So this is where a lot of the lore building comes in through the game because. That's how you get lower. What's that person thinking? What's the backstory? This is. Hit him with the nail.
00:37:20
Speaker
Yeah, and it has more ramifications later. But it's not used for combat. It's more for triggering certain events. With the one exception, because it has like a bit of a charge up unless you're using the Dreamnail charm. It has a lot of a charge up unless you're using the Dreamnail charm actually. But it gives you a whole bunch of soul when you hit somebody with it.
00:37:46
Speaker
So sometimes you can weave it into like a boss fight for a lot of recharge, but most of the time you're just going to be hitting them with a safe move. Yeah. It is interesting though, cause it, um, one of the core plot points is there's an infection that's spreading this kind of orangy radiance light, um, that's corrupting the bugs. And if you hit the,
00:38:12
Speaker
Once I got the dream mail, I was like, oh, I can read things thoughts. Let's try hitting some of these enemies. I'm like, they all have either like kill, empty, destroy as like a thought, a dream, or like run, danger, like defend or something like that. I'm like, I think I might be the bad guy.
00:38:42
Speaker
But yeah, Dreamnail was awesome. I started hitting pretty much everything, everything with it that I could. You're a better man than I am. I brute force the whole game and then watch the lore video and like, wow, I was not paying attention. There's a couple of really, um, probably like four or five in the entire game, really wise or aware in PCs.
00:39:08
Speaker
where if you hit them with a dream nail, their inner thoughts are just like, that's really invasive. Why are you doing
Exploration Strategies with Dream Nail
00:39:16
Speaker
this? You know, something like that. And there's also, um, there's an upgrade mechanic for it too. That's, that's pretty necessary, um, in order to actually pierce like certain things, minds.
00:39:29
Speaker
Yeah, I didn't go back for everything once I got to that point. But there are certain things that will kind of shield their mind from you like you're saying. But I think at that point you can enter anything. Yeah. So I should have gone back to at least one giant tubby boy. Yeah, I think if you're talking about the big caterpillar guy at the
00:39:58
Speaker
Is it the, the, I can't remember the name of the area. It's on the west or the east, I mean. East. Howling. Howling. Howling. Howling. Kingdom's Edge. Yeah. He's one of the ones that's like, that's really rude. Why are you reading my mind? That's really funny.
00:40:18
Speaker
or some of them are like statues or corpses, even like bugs that are seemingly dead on the ground. And you can hit them with the dream now to find out what like their last imperative was. Yeah, it's amazing how much information and detail there is kind of just tucked away and things. Mm hmm.
00:40:38
Speaker
also because this is a Souls like, there are breakable walls. So you start hitting everything everywhere to kind of explore. I missed a lot for a long time. Yeah. And even now for like, you beat the game, essentially the same point I did. You've missed a lot. I know things you've missed because I think there's like 40 ish or 45 charms in the game.
00:41:04
Speaker
Yeah. And I'm still missing like four. Not that I necessarily need all of them, but it would be nice to go back and explore to get the full context. Yeah. Some of them are pretty hard to get. Like you have to save all of the grubs to get one, which I didn't get. That's easy.
00:41:26
Speaker
It gets easier after you fight the collector. The collector will give you a map of other grubs on the map. You're like, Oh, cool. How do I get here? He gives it to
Traversal Mechanics and Abilities
00:41:38
Speaker
you. And the traditional I killed him went up to his study and took it in sort of a way. Yes. He decreased it. Right. It's what he would have wanted after after he killed him.
00:41:54
Speaker
Double back at work because I forgot to talk about some of the other mechanics So we talked about the heal ability we talked about eventual spear as a range projectile But we missed on a couple others. Oh, yeah, so there's a dash mechanic Which is good for quickly dashing about us. You can also jump and then dash in midair to clear some gaps Along the way. You'll also get a double jump
00:42:23
Speaker
Yeah, which is huge. Yes, it is. Not just the areas you can reach, but like, let's say you jump and hit an enemy, then it's like, I'm going to hit you. You're like, oh, fuck. You press jump again, you get out of that. So it allows you to reposition so much more finely. There's the mantis claw, which allows you to kind of hang on walls and keep jumping up them.
00:42:46
Speaker
So you can Mega Man it versus you can Mega Man exit instead of Mega Man it. There is the desolate dive, which does take soul to use. But as soon as you're in the air and you press down B, you kind of just skyrocket down and then you have like an impact.
00:43:07
Speaker
And it works across, there's several abilities in this game that work across area transition boundaries, and Desolate Dive is one of them. So you can dive through one area into the next. And you say it takes soul, but it gives you rep. Not as an in-game mechanic, but it just looks really cool when you Desolate Dive into a new area. Completely irrespective of whatever danger is in there. And spikes. Yeah, exactly. Most of the time it spikes.
00:43:38
Speaker
Howling Wraiths is another one that's super useful. It's kind of like... You kind of shotgun deal damage above you as like Soul, or rather the Abyss kind of goes out above you. It starts as Soul. Yeah, the first one Soul. But it does insanely good damage. So that one final boss that you fought is super weak to the upgraded version of that.
00:44:07
Speaker
Because it deals a lot of damage and especially if you have upgraded spells or cheaper spells, you can spam it out as long as you're getting hits to generate the soul to cast it. Yeah. And it's worth noting like all of these abilities, they're all spells and there's specific charms to build around them.
00:44:27
Speaker
Um, so I, I tried it a little bit. I didn't go full into it, but like soul generation, spell damage. You could fill your entire bar with it and just be like, the nail is a fallback plan for me. I'll hit them if I have to, but
00:44:44
Speaker
Yeah. And the upgraded, you mentioned the upgraded form of this, the Abyss Shriek, and there's several upgraded forms. This one multi hits. That's what makes it so incredibly devastating. As it's just like, oh, well, there's three instances of damage or whatever. Good luck, guy who's roughly above my head. Yeah, it's it's crazy. And then not usually used in combat,
00:45:13
Speaker
But super good for platforming is Crystal Heart. Yeah. This is probably my favorite. It's between this and Dash, I think, for my favorite overall ability in the game. What does Crystal Heart do, Jacob?
00:45:26
Speaker
Crystal Heart, which is found in an area with crystals, as one may expect, allows you to hold charge. It's a left trigger, I think. And if you're on the ground, you'll start building a charge in the direction you're going to release to. And then you just launch like a spaceship.
00:45:45
Speaker
leaving the Earth. It just fires you across the screen. No eye frames, like some sort of pansy. You'll take full damage on impact. And this is another ability that works across area boundaries. So you're just like, let's go. I'm resisting slapping my hand as I say this for the listeners. And I loved this. I would use this ability if it was technically slowing me down
00:46:14
Speaker
Because it's just so fun to launch across the screen. No, it's super good. And you can use it standing on the ground, minding your own business. Or if you're sliding down a wall. So you need to get under like a small gap. You're like, let's slide down as far as I can. And you just hold on. The crystals start growing around you. And then you just kind of, like you said, shoot off. Yeah.
00:46:35
Speaker
And it's made more hilarious by how small the knight is, the protagonist.
Silent Protagonist and Aesthetics
00:46:40
Speaker
He's just this little bug and like a little robe with a white mask and he's just booking it like across the screen. That's so good. Also, like he is a silent protagonist, but he also doesn't have facial expressions. He just kind of has like
00:47:01
Speaker
these dark circles, his eyes and the mask, which doesn't have anything for like a mouth or a nose. So you just see like you're charging being a bad-ass and he just has no expression the whole time. He's the definition of stoic. Yeah.
00:47:16
Speaker
There is a couple points where they'll add some some character or personality to them. I know if you sit on a bench and then like a lot of games have had idle animations like Sonic will tap his foot impatiently if you just sit there. But if you're sitting on a bench, the night will kind of like they'll slump just a little bit and slump a little bit more and fall asleep. Basically, take a little actual rest. It's incredibly cute.
00:47:49
Speaker
But yeah, that was as far as like contributing to the standard array of abilities that you usually get in a platform. Horizontal rocket ability is my contender for Hollow Knight. Take that, Sonic. Yeah.
00:48:05
Speaker
Well, he doesn't have a horizontal rocket ability, does he? No. Yeah, that one's really good. We've kind of shotgun around as we tend to do, which we both expected. But I do want to kind of cover some things you really liked about the game, whether they be areas, bosses, something that surprised you or caught you off guard you really liked. What's some stuff that stood out for you in this game?
City of Tears Appreciation
00:48:35
Speaker
Looking through the list, I mean, I wouldn't have to look at the list through this. So City of Tears is my favorite area in the game. And you get them not a bit before mid-game, I guess, before standard playthrough around the mid-game point, probably. And it's just raining constantly. It's like the remnants of the old city.
00:49:02
Speaker
So this is kind of like in Dark Souls, when you find Anor Londo, basically. Except the ambiance in City of Tears is awesome. The music is freaking awesome. The enemies are like, they're punishing, but they all have weaknesses. None of them are just obnoxious to fight. And they're mostly knights, like Anor Londo, right? And it's, like I said, it's constantly raining.
00:49:31
Speaker
Which, and I give the credit, the game like, and team cherry full credit for this. They found an in-universe justification to have an area approaching the bottom of the stack of levels. Um, where reigning makes sense. And they did that by putting blue Lake above it, which is just like from a world building perspective. I love that.
00:50:00
Speaker
Yeah, they really tie all the areas together super well. City of Tears is great. Every time the piano starts going, I'm like, all right, a little bit of fields, a little bit of fields. There's also a statue to Hollow Knight in City of Tears.
Resting Grounds Ambiance
00:50:19
Speaker
And it's like a little minor gameplay thing.
00:50:21
Speaker
whenever you read the plaque on a statue it like the text shows up with font and like unfurls kind of almost like like a scroll sort of not really like a scroll but more than just dialogue has appeared and there's text on it it's stylized it makes it more feel like you're reading a monument or a plaque and that was one of the
00:50:47
Speaker
I think that's the first time I actually got any idea of what Hollow Knight was because it's just like encased far above the Hollow Knight fulfills his purpose or whatever. I'm like, whoa, that's actual. You get you come in dangerously close to telling me something.
00:51:08
Speaker
Yeah, it's good about that. I can't think of an area that I actively dislike as far as theming and music because each area has its own music. It has a wildly different background. So no two areas you're like, oh, it kind of looks like a version of the other one.
00:51:34
Speaker
No, they're pretty distinct and they all make sense geographically for how they're positioned because obviously the deeper down you go, the closer you're going underground, closer to the core or something like that.
00:51:49
Speaker
But it's just everything ties together so nicely. Yeah. I'm trying to ramp vamp here until I think of my favorite area. No, that's fair. I'll actually I'll throw another one out just to disqualify something you were thinking about. Yeah. I also really liked resting grounds because the music is super chill there.
00:52:14
Speaker
It's a relatively small area with not a bunch of enemies, even when you're approaching the area. It's kind of the grave of Hollow Nest, or the graveyard. It's not the grave for the entire city, it's a multitude of graves for different people.
Level Design and Learning Curve
00:52:33
Speaker
But it's got this nice serene feel to it, like it's further away from the corruption. And most importantly, there's this massive horizontal stretch where you can use Crystal Heart to clear the entire thing and do like multiple area transitions. So obviously a top contender.
00:53:00
Speaker
I think for me a big one is probably Kingdom's Edge. I fucking hate the enemies in there so much. They're so annoying and healthier than I would like. And you're susceptible to a lot of traps and projectiles you might have not expected. But it's just kind of cool because it's on the outskirts of everything else.
00:53:23
Speaker
It's kind of decaying a little bit. There's still like molted ash from like the worm husk. There's a lot of weird stuff out there. It's not like the music stands out or it's like the most beautiful area.
00:53:40
Speaker
I just like it a lot. Yeah. It's got a certain something. There's also like corpses falling from the Colosseum as you're climbing. Colosseum is another great area where you have to kind of sneak your way into it.
00:53:57
Speaker
But you can essentially fight to these challenges and earn rewards. Which is fun. Oh, yeah, it really tests your platforming ability and combat and doing both hand in hand. I still haven't officially beaten it. I haven't either. Though I've gotten damn close. I haven't tried the the the fool, the final difficulty, but yeah, I cleared everything else.
00:54:24
Speaker
I liked it though, because the, the, because the game's like, it's got this health feedback thing by getting hits, getting soul, allowing you to build around that for region. The combat feels like you can make mistakes early, as long as you learn.
00:54:44
Speaker
like relatively quickly and then you adapt it's not like this is one of the few things it does that's different than Dark Souls and Dark Souls if you screw up it tends to just be over like oh there's a hole in the ground here's an enemy hiding behind the wall that's gonna backstab you that's how you learn
00:55:03
Speaker
Hollow Knight's like, it slaps you once and it's like, what are you going to do about it? And you're like, well, and then it slaps you again. And then you're like, OK, I understand. And then you grab the hollow, you know, the game's arm and you're like, don't slap me. At least that was my experience. But it gives you room to learn and and fail and doesn't punish you if you learn quickly.
DLC Bosses and Endgame Content
00:55:30
Speaker
Yeah, I never felt like I was I've definitely had challenges when playing through the game. Like I get stuck on certain bosses. I'm like, what am I doing wrong? I just kind of get into the groove of the boss fight, learn their mechanics, actually dodge their stuff instead of trying to get in more attacks.
00:55:46
Speaker
And once I beat the game, I immediately started another playthrough and started going through again. And I essentially got to the same point in about half the time because I mechanically knew so much more. I knew how to react certain things. I also knew where to go. Yeah, all of that's a big one. And in conjunction together, I was like, oh, it's not actually as hard as I thought it was. I just had so much to learn.
00:56:12
Speaker
Yeah, but there are still things that will kick my ass. Like I was going to do DLC bosses first layer those challenges. I'm not that good or that patient. But everything as far as base gameplay. Outside of the third trial of fools. I feel confident that I could beat again. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. Like,
00:56:43
Speaker
I feel like I have to mention that at some point the game does become if you're going for like the quote-unquote true ending it becomes a little super meat boyish and by that I mean a hundred percent super meat boyish but now that we've reached this point I realize I'm good not spoiling the endings for the game I would just say that
00:57:08
Speaker
I have some reservations about the points where the game dips away from the exploration and the combat and starts becoming like, hey, hard platforming. But to be fair, I got through it, which means it's doable, which means you can too, listener. Just think about how much of a casual I am and how you're better than me. This is all just a motivational ramp up to get people to play the game, I think.
00:57:40
Speaker
Well, I mean, I feel like whenever I play a game, like when I played Celeste, right? I knew which things I struggled on. I'm like, you should check on Celeste. And then I watched you play it. And you're just like, that part was easy. I'm like, fuck this guy. So when you were struggling at that point, I was like, don't tell me you can't do it. I've seen you do things. So it was, I actually like stayed up and watched Jake do
00:58:07
Speaker
the white palace for like an hour and a half. It just made me so happy to see you go through the same trials that I had and overcome them. And yeah, that one is definitely platform heavy. But again, if you utilize the skills
Exploration Focus and Replay Value
00:58:25
Speaker
you've picked up for mobility and some of the nail interactions and you have locations, you can overcome anything in that game. And it feels good too. I don't feel like I had to cheat my way through something. I was breaking the system and I don't feel like they ever just handed it to me on a plate.
00:58:45
Speaker
There was one point in the white palace when we were reaching right before a checkpoint, the last, the spikes coming up and down from the ceiling where I like tried it, failed, made it back. I think tried it, failed, went back, paused in front of it and days like, I'm going to look at the video. I'm like, thank you.
00:59:06
Speaker
Um, but that's, that's one of my few gripes of it. Um, in general, exploring early instead of trying to fight everything I think is good advice because you get stronger by finding a lot of things, um, rather than trying like optional fights and whatnot.
00:59:26
Speaker
So going back, that's probably the advice I would have told myself. And it's worth it to stick through things like the White Palace.
00:59:38
Speaker
and actually get there. Yeah, it has a lot of content in it. And as long as you're enjoying the exploration, the combat, or just checking out the game, don't feel rushed to beat the game. Or if you do just want to go and beat it, try a second playthrough at a point.
00:59:56
Speaker
You're definitely even if you're not trying you're gonna find some other things that you missed the first time around and it's just It's so good mechanically solid stylistically amazing music and sound design There are some areas that make me feel uncomfortable when I listen to them. Yeah, but that's that means they did a good job
01:00:18
Speaker
And also the story and everything as you, even if you're not like going deep in the lore, cause I definitely missed a lot. Dear God, the feels.
Game Recommendation and Replay Insights
01:00:28
Speaker
Yeah. And it's just a really rewarding experience all in all. Environmental storytelling out the wazoo as they say. Um, so yeah, uh, three out of five. It's pretty good game. Um, no, this is actually probably,
01:00:44
Speaker
This is probably the best platformer I've played. It's competing. I don't know. Celeste is pretty good, but this is definitely top three. Celeste is definitely good, but I feel like it's in a different space. It is. It is. It definitely is. And what's funny is the thing I dislike about this game is the thing Celeste specialized.
01:01:03
Speaker
Which is difficult platforming. But yeah, definitely recommended. It goes on sale fairly frequently, I think. I think I've seen it for 75% off on Steam. And it's been three years. So definitely going to go on sale. I heartily recommend it if you can't stand platformers at all. Or if you like
01:01:29
Speaker
anything combatly, combat roguelike adjacent, not roguelike, souls like. It's all good stuff. Yeah. And this is one of those things that I slept on. People said it was really good. I'm like, all right, you fucking casuals, you sheep, just bandwagoning on a good thing. Oh, I'm going to wait. And then there's like a Saturday. I'm like, you know what? I have this game I got for like 10 bucks. Let me check it out.
01:01:57
Speaker
And then it was two days later, I'm like, I'm in deep. So maybe listen to your friends' recommendations. They probably know you pretty well on what you're going to like. Yeah. And we didn't spoil anything past basically mid-game for the most part. So play the game. And then watch a lore video afterwards. And then come back here and listen to the podcast again. Be like, ah, now I can empathize. I know what you're talking about with the Super Meat Boy stuff.
Listener Feedback and Engagement
01:02:27
Speaker
And hey, uh, Hollow Knight two going to be coming out at some point. Yeah. E3 trailer. Didn't look at the release date, but it's listed on steam. Um, not like purchasable, but it has a product listing on steam now. So looking forward to that.
01:02:47
Speaker
As always, you guys can, uh, reach out to us with your feedback or episode ideas. Feel free to do that at soapstone podcast at gmail.com. Or you can join the discussion on Facebook at, uh, facebook.com slash soapstone podcast. We're always happy to hear from people. People can add angry reactions and we're just like, Ooh, yeah, you're right. I agree. We could have done that better. You can also now add the care reaction.
01:03:15
Speaker
Oh yeah, is that the hugging the heart thing? I saw that a little bit. Yeah, it's the new one. So it now that that's added is every other reaction I don't care. Yeah. OK, that's why for a while you can only like when someone posted that their grandmother passed away. I'm still waiting for the thumbs down. This makes me uncomfortable that you posted. As always, we'll see you next one. Have a good night.
01:04:35
Speaker
you