I think that the dreamers not fighting back is a deliberate tonal and narrative choice, meant to build unease specifically BY subverting your expectation that the dreamers will be a boss fight. The way you have to hit them over and over, the way they twitch with each hit but don't react, the way that you have to absorb their essence - it's all made to make you question whether you're actually doing the right thing by killing them, and to build the tragedy of the game once you understand why they want to die.
@@KameKame27 he specifically said that he didn't understand that part, the one with killing the Dreamers, and that it was probably a purposeful design choice and that was fine. He specifically mentions when he is pretty sure it's something he doesn't get, he does this in other reviews as well. He isn't perfect, but you can't fault him for that.
@@JimJamTheAdmin Not in this video my guy, in the actual review he made a good amount of mistakes when judging things he didn't understand about the lore. I won't go back to he video for proof ( cause it's looooong ), but trust me
I spent most of this video staring at the black box in the bottom right At first, it was a distraction. Something that took away from the experience of this video. But after a while, it became something entirely different. Whenever the background went black, i felt sadness, as if the little black box went away. But then I was always reminded that it only appeared to be that way. The little black box was there the whole time, it never left. This experience became the new video for me. This weird version of hide and seek, where the box never hid and I never sought. I now appreciate the little black box for what it is. It makes me wonder how many things i missed that were always there, right in front of me. The little black box definitely changed the way I look at this video, but maybe even the way I look at like life itself.
At @18:00 this comment has become my new meaning after I figured that I'm watching this video for some reason, and I haven't even played Hollow Knight, nor do I intend to! In fact, I'm not sure what the video was about, but it certainly sounded like this nicely illustrated platform jumping game has something to do with market philosophy and also somehow spurs theological transcendence in its players. But after a while, I realized that some people in this world have too much time and leisure in their life and need to solemnly express their selfish fragile opinions on matters of taste and personal development, probably only to be able to consider themselves properly engaged in human affairs and thus look up in the mirror again. I won't say the essay is retarded though, but we, as a specie inhabiting this sufficiently large planet -- which is a speck of dust at the same time -- hopefully aren't at this stage of decadence yet. Hollow Knight is not a movement, it's a bloody game and a commercial entertainment product that follows the same shitty typical Western get-abilities-while-unlocking-areas and the same ol' adrenaline-pumping pattern-matching-when-fighting-bosses dexterity recipe, not that far away from Guitar Hero. To be able to beat it, doesn't make anyone special, and I couldn't give any fucks to how its free DLCs break hearts and whatnot in a 35 minute long video, framed as a Nobel Prize speech. I'd rather watch someone play it piss-poorly than having to suffer the emotional outpour of an eye-to-hand addict. At least be useful and learn to play piano instead. In any case, long live the black box in the bottom right -- TBBITBR!
@Krish Nair no checkmarks = no attention unfortunately (although somehow he is the second to top comment even while having a fraction of the likes and replies of other comments lol) edit: he got a checkmark :o
Find someone who looks at you the way UA-camr Joseph Anderson looks at Hollow Knight (because it's important to be with someone who appreciates how great you are while also encouraging you to work on your flaws)
I don't think giving players a stronger weapon so they can out-DPS the boss before succumbing is the right way to help players overcome the challenges. It's a band-aid fix. A real fix would be to have several versions of each boss that incrementally build to the full moveset/speed/complexity so that players can feel like they're making progress towards learning the fight by focusing on the fundamentals and then putting it all together.
@@sknight43 but it is clearly intentional you don't think baldur shell, sharp shadow, all defense build combinations were made to make the game harder no they were built towards less twitchy players
I was upset in his first review when he said the game was unplayable without dash master and that he refused to use the no knock back charm because it was op. The charms are made to switch up gameplay and make everyone’s play style different, I don’t know why he feels like some of them are useless or too powerful, other players might need those charms to play or conversely have no need for those charms.
Call me petty, but I loathe that boss fight to a tee. The whole challenge is to limit your options of where you can jump but I honestly feel like it’s utter hell facing against Markoth when doing ascended form. Having no ground makes the fight so much more annoying to me, not to mention that you take double damage in the fight makes it so damn frustrating for me when he decides move towards me because he feels like it.
Prankster Mona you are far from petty, I beat the PoH and I don’t think anything in it comes close to how bullshit any version of Markoth above attuned is, it doesn’t feel like you can control the fight the more you learn, it feels like it takes a bit less luck to progress.
its a tough pill to swallow when i hear this guy describe how easy this game is for him... hes practically begging for more difficulty and im over here tearing my hair out trying to kill GPZ for just the 2nd time.
Very late, but I feel you so much. I practised the fucker 30 times + in the hall of gods and can beat him about 50% there, but with the added stress of the pantheon I haven't been able to do it once
@@malte3756 Its kinda cool looking back at this comment now. I was finally able to beat everything including P5, but it was after a lot more practice. I conquered Zote pretty completely but I had even worse problems with Markoth with no floor. He's still the boss most likely to kill me although I don't play HK as much anymore... now I just need Silksong to be released at some point in this lifetime
@@blackmage1276 To be fair if you spent dozens of hours grinding at the pantheons only to realise how strong strength was afterwards it *would* feel like cheating.
@@svenweiland3322 Well, on PS4 only 1.5% of players have completed Pantheon of Hallownest. So, I suppose that much fewer players have defeated all bosses on Radiant. I did it, but I haven't tried to beat the five Pantheons with bindings and I don't think I will.
@@COG2360 thanks. I think I got to the last phase once and another two times on the stairs, but the second phase really sucks and that already took like 50h because I'm bad.
Knight: **has Void Heart to command the Void and many powers using Void and/or Soul** Void in Absolute Radiance Bossfight: that can't stop me because I can't read **damages you anyway**
When I killed the first Dreamer, most of the backstory hadn't yet been revealed, and that moment had a big impact on me. The game seemed to be building up to a big fight, but instead the boss just stood there. It made me feel like I was killing a helpless individual in the world, and made me question if I was doing the right thing. Was I the bad guy in this world and what was up with all this Void I seem to have an affinity with? The NPCs with story connections to the Dreamers like Quirrel only made it sadder. I think something would be lost if they fought back initially.
It would make sense for Monomon if she didn't fight back since she was the one willing to unbind the seals because she knew the seal wasn't doing anything to stop the infection. Lurien on the other hand should have showed signs of going against this other than their dialogue when the dreamers were having a discussion in the resting grounds.
@@riverajustinmarks.2 years late, but I’m not sure if they even can fight back. What would be the point of their defenses (watcher knights, Quirell + Uumu, beasts den/the entirety of deep nest) if they could actually do things themselves to prevent someone from killing them?
I personally played through the game after all the DLCs were already released and I feel like that makes such a huge difference here. They integrated the DLC so well into the base game that it doesn’t ever feel like it’s actually DLC. I was surprised to hear that all the stuff I just did wasn’t part of the main game after I finished it. That’s why I have way different opinions and views on the DLC as a whole, because I judge them alongside the main game, not as stand alone content. It’s pretty interesting to see how simply approaching the game differently can change peoples views and opinions so much, but I find that to be true about a lot of things about this game, that’s why I like it so much.
I disagree with the integration comment, but ONLY with the Grimm Troupe DLC. I was really excited for that one just because it was so visually appealing and some of the upgrades it provides (Like the little Grimm pet and the upgraded fragile charms) seemed great. I essentially went through the whole game (I'm talking roughly 80% of base game complete including upgrades) and had to look up a guide to find out the DLC was hidden behind a random-ass, barely visible breakable wall in the most barren and out of the way part of the game.
Smiles Edgeworth Grimm troupe is pretty much impossible to naturally find I found it early because I heard someone say where it was. The Godmaster mode feels like it fits in the world but it fits a bit too well so you don’t realize how important it is until you finally open it.
@@blazingdude11 I was the opposite; since the moment I got Mantis Claw I knew the first thing I wanted to do was climb out of Hollownest and explore that area, so I did my absolute best to explore absolutely everywhere. Came across the corpse by chance, hit some stuff, then I was worried that by beginning Grimm's DLC stuff I would mess with the base game. It didn't thankfully, but at the same time that makes it very clear just how separate it feels from the main game.
Slight correction, the Nail binding doesn't revert your nail to its base damage. It reduces its damage to 13 (the amount of damage done with the second nail upgrade) or, if you don't have the third or fourth nail upgrades yet, cuts its damage to 80%. This video is perfect otherwise, though it was free so I can't really judge it as a product
Interestingly enough, the nail binding also doesn't reduce nail art damage. Nail art damage is still whatever your original nail was. Probably a mistake.
@Puppet 10 months late but it makes what I'm saying more possible: it means it's possible that someone beat Pantheon of Hallownest with the Old Nail and the nail binding, doing 4 damage per hit, and possibly one of the people that did all bindings did this, even if it's not recorded.
He has announced his plan on the Patreon I believe. The Witcher video is in production, but he felt that no video output is not justified, hence relatively smaller projects are in the making as well.
He said in previous vids that he can still do small projects. He had a whole apology in the Fallout 76 one too saying he didn't think it would take long. Can't imagine stressful it would be to critique the entirety of Witcher 3. Doing the Lord's work for us xD
tbf I think he has been working on this even before he made that statement. besides for so much free content to a already masterpiece of a game had to be addressed
It's meant to hide an uncooperative shadowplay icon that show up during recording but usually disappear in the proper footage (but apparently didn't on HK one), he felt the black box blended a bit better in most shots of the game. He knows there's an option to hide it entirely but prefer to have it on while recording to make sure it is actually doing just that.
Imagine, near the end of the game of Silksong, you are chasing the final boss of the game and find yourself back in the kings pass, where it all began, walking back into dirt mouth, where the town is thriving with life and brighter than ever. No bug is infected, and some new bugs moved into town.
Impossible, the cultural and economical devellopment of hallownest is due to the pale king, it will never rise up to its glory again as bugs aren't able to devellop a civilisation without the pale king's influence
@@TheMagmanium11 I disagree. Most, if not all bugs have self-awareness, can be rational, can form abstract thoughts, think long-term and have advanced language and knowledge. It would be foolish to think that a civilization would not happen when all of these factors are combined. Yes the Pale King was the one to originally give bugs their expanded mind and consciousness and the one to unite all of Hallownest under one banner, but since bugs already have expanded minds and already there even is some tribes and small towns here and there, I don't think rebuilding Hallownest would be impossible.
@@TheMagmanium11 i assume by "pale king's influence" you're talking about how he gave to bugs the ability to think for themselves. If that's the case, then you're just wrong. That influence is obviously still there as all the bugs (except the infected ones) still act rationally.
and then, you hear Zote singing the animal crossing new horizons theme song. Elderbug approaches you about taking out a loan on one of his new houses. Cornifer's wife still say bapanada every time.
Weird that Nightmare Grimm comes up constantly on top bosses lists, including my own, for the same reason Sisters of Battle is on those lists. Some of the bosses in the game feel more like dances than combat and people are into that. Not every battle has to be a gritting-your-teeth sort of affair. Sometimes you want to feel like you've mastered something that was once difficult to you. This is the same formula Dark Souls uses and presumably the reason it's so popular.
The issue is that sometimes you've mastered a boss so well that it just takes too long. You don't have any good options to speed it up, so you've hit the skill ceiling and you're just waiting.
When people say Pure Vessel is too hard, we say "lol, GIT GUD" When people say Nightmare King Grimm is tough but fair, we say, "Damn straight!" When people say Absolute Radiance is bullshit, we say, "Amen, brother, amen." But when someone says all three of those bosses are too easy, and that the Path of Pain is too short, there's only one thing to say to that. "...Damn."
@@andrewday6899 Pure facts. The thing with difficulty in videogames is that it's entirely subjective. One player may be permanently stopped by a challenge that another player beat first try. This makes it really weird to discuss it in a critique because it's such an essential part of a videogame, yet it's different for every player. Glossing over difficulty would be a mistake, but making a concrete assertion is impossible.
@@adamweinberg2532 eh it's kind of impossible but considering most people aren't as good as him it's obvious that just a lot of people need to git gud, feel like it's a copt out to just say someone's really good and give up on getting that good. We all have a brain and if you blame yourself for your mistakes instead of going "game too hard" game ends uo getting pretty easy.
So, about killing the dreamers. I've always viewed these moments as a somber experience. Both you & the dreamer know what must be done, you have to kill them in order to stop the infection, they don't fight back because they understand that it's the only way the kingdom can finally rest. So they sit there & let you kill them, as it's the only way for anything in the kingdom to change. (At least that's what I got from these moments)
i wished back then that they fight back for some sort of deeper personal reasons. Lurien fights back for its love of the king, Herrah for her daughter's protection, and Monomon for the preservation of the history of Hallownest. However, I agree with your points there. I actually got saddened the first time I killed them.
@@kingkongmalunggay Well if Lurien loves the king they wouldn't fight back since it was the king's plan, Herra wouldn't since the infection could hurt Hornet so it's better to stop it using us, and Monomon is the one most in favor of this exchange since she specifically put quill in charge and knew something like this would happen.
Normal enemy combat was my favorite part. I loved the coliseum, but if I’m being honest most boss fights were pretty hard for me. I was able to finish the first two coliseum challenges first try but I don’t know if I beat any bosses first try.
Ditto. The art music and scope of exploration is beyond anything this genre has received in the last 10 years. The boss battles were the weakest link for me but I stuck it out to see the basic ending. Bullet hell and teleportation enemies are more of a headache for me and its something that Dark Souls was able to avoid.
I really like how mechanical the boss fight with Nightmare King becomes after you master it. It's like learning to ride a bicycle, which I think it was the intention. When you learn a specific dance for a song, you don't need room to improvise, the choreography is already perfected and tight. Grimm is not a chaotic boss attacking you, it's an artist dancing with you, asking for perfection from your part, and NKG is the same.
@@adamroberts2691 I'd become a patron in a heartbeat, but, you know...bum ass third world country banking system, lagging 20-25 years behind modern standards and all that jazz. Even buying stuff online is a concept in its infancy where I live. Joseph is among the handful of content creators I feel as though I'm stealing from when watching their content for free (including AGermanSpy and MauLer). The best I can do for the moment is give them as much ad revenue as I can and spread the good word.
I know I'm very late, but I've had something on my mind about your gripe with the charm binding. In your first video, you talked about the Steady Body's ability to nullify the recoil when you attack with your nail and how you never used it because it would be very off-putting to start without it when replaying the game, but you felt the Dashmaster charm was mandatory. Because of this, the charm binding removing the ability to dash downwards forced you to adapt to the lack of movement you had now, and argue that the game should change the charm binding system. This seems contradictory to me. You argue that it would be hard to get used to the lack of recoil when replaying the game, yet you also seem to blame the game for making it such a challenge to get used to battling without the dash master, because you're so used to having it equipped. I could easily see a Joseph Anderson from a different timeline having swapped the Dashmaster charm with the Steady Body charm, and nothing would change. "I feel like Steady Body is mandatory for fights" would eventually turn into "not having the Steady Body charm felt like having to re-program my muscle memory which was a challenge I didn't enjoy". This is a very bad draft about a small thing that's been bugging me in this video. I enjoy watching your videos and consider your Hollow Knight ones to be my favourite, since they're the ones that introduced me to this amazing game. I hope that you'll be able to understand where I'm coming from. Otherwise, great video!
@@davidkleiner2492 You don't get I-frames the moment you cast, whereas you do with the downwards dash. I use DDark more anyway but it's an important difference that someone who was used to dashmaster probably wouldn't like.
You really focus on bosses a lot, I don’t think every area should have one. I think the absence of something promised can translate into a really good story beat.
In defence of nkg: i saw a guy that managed to hit nkg 11 times while he was doing fire pillars attack. If thats not expressing oneself than i dont know what it is
Hey Joseph, just wanted to let you know that you were the primary reason for my buying Hollow Knight. I managed to get over 80 hours of enjoyment for $10 on GOG, and I'm rebuying a physical copy on Switch when it comes out at the end of the month.
Bruh, I brought it for 7 something on GOG during a New Years sake I think. Best 7 dollars I’ve spent in my whole life. I’m currently stuck on the Radiance fight, 65 hours into the game.
I would honestly be surprised if not at least one of them watched the video. I have often seen indie developers show up in the comment sections of comparatively tiny youtubers. I mean, if you made something, wouldnt you check out videos that people make about it?
29:22 SOLAR VOID UP IN THIS OH WATCH HER SWORD RAIN USE YOUR CLOAK WATCH HER CRANK DAT SOLAR VOID NOW SUPERMAN SWORD WALL UP ON IT YOUUUU(SOLAR VOID NOW WATCH HER) YOUUUU(SOLAR VOID NOW WATCH HER) YOUUUU
Lol yeah I do the same thing. I sure hope Mr Anderson is at least flattered that bunch of us guys sleep soundly to his voice whispering sweet nothings into our ears.
I disagree, Nightmare is my favourite boss I've fought so far, period. Finding new ways to dodge moves and getting tiny extra hits on him before he disappears was really fun for me, and a good test of reactions
In the Dream No More ending, all you see is the broken mask. While this could imply that the Knight died, it could also indicate that it’s still in the pure void form that it killed Radiance with
i always enjoy grimms fight, it really feels like a performance shown for an audience. especially in the god home, where you are being judged the entire time
The Pure Vessel is easily my favorite boss in the game. The moveset, pacing, lore and overall aesthetic all combine to make a bossfight I never tire of fighing. Hell, I even return to the game sometimes just to go to godhome and fight him again.
I think the same, amazing boss and fun to fight. But the first time was so fast to understand what is he going to do and I tried over 2 hours to beat hil xD
Unbreakable strength has become a staple charm for when I'm trying to get through the first couple dozen fights in the fifth Pantheon. Makes the boring fights a lot faster
Finally a chance to express my rage at this. I died to this against Radiant AR in her final phase, one hit away from killing her. *One.* Then I proceeded to accidentally kill her hitless on Attuned while practicing the climb, and had to do it again on Radiant. Thankfully, though, the lingering hitbox only ever happened to me twice.
I noticed you almost never use soul abilities, they can sometimes let you attack when you can't with your nail, so that might be one of the reasons you felt bored when fighting flying bosses like winged nosk and Grimm.
I started watching you because of your Hollow Knight critique and now I am trying to go through all of your uploaded videos while playing Diablo III. This upload blessed me like no other thing. Thanks.
In both of your hollow knight videos, i don't think you talked a lot about spells. in HK i think they're meant to be used alongside melee. some bosses are built with spells in mind imo. Flying nosk for example leaves a big opening when it flies away after attacking and you can use the shade soul spell to deal massive damage which otherwise you couldn't if you just used your nail and it gets rid of some of the tedium in that fight and makes it a lot shorter. Other spells like the Descending dark which gives you a generous amount of i-frames help A LOT in fights like grey prince Zote and Absolute radiance which both have overlapping attacks and can make you feel overwhelmed. Absolute radiance especially is pretty much impossible to do damage less without using Descending dark.
seriously, he complains so much about the fights being slow and that the boss movement prevents aggressive strategies and refuses to use most of the offensive options in the game, the highest damage ones ... if he wanted them to be faster, he could have looked one time at a speedrun. This is frustrating. XD
Godmaster's biggest flaw is how... necessary it feels, which you pointed out and offered solutions to. Only 1% of players even got Embrace the Void on pc, which I think speaks volumes about how unforgiving the DLC is to many of its players. Of course, this statistic is decreased with the fact that some people didn't play since they got any ending (or Dream no More), but DnM has 10.9% of players and Ritual (NKG) has 6.7%, while being the most challenging fights of their time. Unlike Ritual, Godmaster offers a lot of lore that's related to Hollow Knight proper (pk's death confirmation, some recontextualizing, and of course EtV), while the main bulk of Grimm Troupe is its own thing. These things are a very big flaw of Godmaster that I think I would rate as a merely 6/10 (time investment wise) simply because it's too difficult for no reason. (They had to nerf some bosses after release. Namely, ascended Collector's summons have less hp now, but even then you have Markoth who is insanely difficult without a simple floor).
I suppose mine might be an unpopular opinion but I like having important things locked behind a difficulty wall. I don't know how many people can empathize when I say I like difficulty in my game, but I can't introduce it myself. I never, for example, deliberately choose not to upgrade nail to self impose a challenge unless it's a game i've played and finished way too many times. I also have mixed feelings about post game challenges. They are certainly nice to have, but they seem so pointless sometimes. I really do appreciate some incentive for finishing said challenges. A combination of these two reasons means that I quite enjoy having something significant, either lore or gear wise, behind a difficulty spike. I get it feel a little bad not being able to "finish", but on the other hand there's also always a little bit more to play if you want to try harder, and that's not a bad thing.
@@dangerouslydubiousdoubleda9821 You sure can, all depends on how you phrase it. There are a few games out there where the true end is locked behind crazy requirements (like collecting 100% of all items, or beating bosses in really obscure ways). Also, plenty of 199x-200x games have true endings that, while not grindy nor technically challenging, are practically impossible to stumble into. That route is sort of blocked off due to internet. Technical challenge can be a way to recreate that feeling.
@@randomnobody660 yeah but the true ending often doesn't mean locking major parts of the story most games when you finish the normal ending everything has had its arc and theme explored hollow knight locked a big conclusion with tons of implications behind a skill wall where 99% of players couldn't get past and had to watch it
@@dangerouslydubiousdoubleda9821 Hollow knight also just locked an ending behind the gauntlet thou. I actually haven't the previously mentioned games where collecting everything unlocks true ending, quite a few games lock vital information or a huge chunk of the game behind obscure actions you must take. Let's say aria of sorrow. If you simply beat the "final boss" normally the game ends. You never find out why Soma has these weird powers, you never got to know the nature of dracula nor who dracula was reborned as, nor where dracula's powers were hiding in the castle. How many people did you think found out the exact 3 souls to equip that was mentioned nowhere (none of which are "good" might I add)? Everybody who didn't literally missed the conclusion of the game, as well as an explanation for everything. What is wrong with having to work your way to an informative ending? At least in hollow knight's case you can see the goal in sight.
26:26 - The floor spikes are on a separate cycle. They always just go back and forth. You just need to keep that timer going in your head to know that it's time to switch sides soon and be ready to be on the other side of the arena.
I looked at the old critique multiple times and with every content pack I was kinda like "hey they fixed that now, also there's more and a boss rush andcetera". I'm really glad you're talking about Hollow Knight again. Especially the beginning explained how people could possibly be so against FREE dlc because I 100% didn't understand. Also I hate the bosses that attack you by flinging their body at you or side stepping towards you. God tamer also does this and he can do this while there is goop on the floor. Of course it is avoidable but dying to it always feels terrible. Also Lost kin will jump towards you which is incredibly fast and only consistently avoidable with shadow dash. I've also had times where I stagger a boss and their body hits me which I hope is unintentional. It's definitely killed some radiant battles for me. Bosses are definitely programmed to hit you in any way possible but always leave room for escape. Uumuu will literally try to spawn the bomb jellyfish underneath you to make it harder for you to get up to certain platforms which doesn't feel cheaty, just very clever. Another boss thingy, Elder Hu is the worst boss in the game.. You can avoid every attack by pressing shadow dash. The first time I fought him I had shadow dash and it felt like I was using an exploit. We do share a lot of opinions on the game tbh. It's my favorite game of all time yet I still feel the same criticisms you voice here. Anyways love your content keep being great.
Just realised this is my favourite channel... Whenever I see any video I immediately click it and watch it (if humanly possible) in one sitting. Good stuff bro, and well done on keeping this under an hour! :)
I enjoy your videos so much. It allows me to revisit games with you in a way, but in a more in-depth manner. Thanks for continuing to make these videos. I always look forward to seeing a new one in my feed.
Oh man, I'll go insane if they pull a Kanto + Johto region thing with Swansong. It'll be padding, but it's my kind of padding, with 20 more hours down the drain
In my opinion, it can not be overstated how much value the Godmaster DLC adds to Hollow Knight. The ability to re-battle all the games bosses was a sorely missed feature and it's such a relief it was added. To be able to truly challenge yourself through combinations of Ascended and Radiant Boss difficulties as well as pantheon Bindings truly expands the game's skill ceiling to new heights. When The Grimm Troupe DLC was added, NKG felt like a truly, truly challenging fight, and for a new player he still is, but now, with the ability to efficiently practice your combat skills with added challenges have made NKG feel much easier, without making the boss itself any easier, it just allowed you to get better with the games tools. And the addition of new, even more extreme challenges to match the new skill ceiling will keep players grinding to "git gud" long after they've completed the base game. As you said, this does have the side-effect of making said base game feel less challenging, but when considering that the Godmasters DLC also added 3 of, arguably, the games best bosses (and it's worst) I'd say it's a a good bargain. It really shows that the developers have grown better at their art and gave it their all when giving us this DLC. And the fact that it is all added to the base 'Hollow Knight' package for Free is indeed priceless.
Great video, I'm happy to see the videos be a bit more streamlined. I still greatly enjoy hearing you list every moon! The bloopers at the end where a great touch!
I was so excited to hear on one of your streams that you were doing a follow up video for the hollow knight dlc. I absolutely loved this game to death. I have such vivid memories of starting it up on my crappy laptop a year and a half ago, thankfully with headphones (the sound design in this game is just incredible) and getting immediately sucked into the atmosphere of the world. My interests began with the hand draw characters and their dialogue. I went into the game completely blind (only having seen Dunkey mention it briefly in a video) and had no idea how good the combat was going to be. This game completely changed the way I think about difficulty in video games. After pouring 90 hrs in on the laptop, and then a further 80 on the switch, this game is definitely in my top 3 of all time. Joseph, thank you so much for your long form videos covering games that mean so much to so many people!
33:50 The justification is easy exclusivity breeds desire, at this point in time its fair to assume that theres so much content, nobody feels left out, and yet theres MORE content for those who actually go ahead and beat all of it, motivating some people who were on the edge of joining that completionist club, to also go ahead and try maybe once or twice more. For someone who usually beats all content a game has to offer this little secret is one of the things i truely have to thank developers for, nothing feels worse then an ultimate challenge without payoff.
Quick potential explanation for not changing the Dreamer Encounters: Team Cherry wants to make you feel bad about killing the Dreamers. They want to direct killing them as necessary, but they want to make you not enjoy the task, not because it's bad, but because it tugs at your morale compass. The only change to the Dreamer encounters was the new music added, and the overall tone of it supports this theory.
I think you are misunderstanding the NKG fight. It is supposed to be a dance, between you and grim. For the purpose of the grim troupe, it works perfectly. I think the problem comes with the repetition of the fight over and over. The problem isn’t the fight itself, but the way it is presented.
15:53 - Okami has an area nearing the end of the game that you re-fight bosses in order to complete it, speaking of which you should definitely play it! I'm sure you'll have a pleasant and surprising experience!
Okami is great. Probably too long and padded in areas (I hate that digging minigame), but there are enough incredible moments that I didn't feel like my time was wasted on either of my playthroughs. I don't think I've ever seen another game presented quite like it.
I think there was an interesting change of perspective on your part between this and The Witness video you posted 3 years prior. In The Witness, you talked about a type of puzzle that made you go "holy shit!" when you first encountered it, and stayed fun while you were discovering it as you went by doing other things, but turned into just "shit" when you forced yourself to sit down and complete all of them purposefully. Yet here, your thinking has evolved (in my opinion) to that of "it's optional content. If you don't like it - don't play it." I think it's a very meaningful difference, especially when you considering that a) Hollow Knight has much more of a "story" than The Witness did. b) That you advocated both in this and your previous video that there should be more challenges that utilize the full set of mechanics for those who would want to take on this type of challenge. I think of many of the challenges in The Witness in this way (as someone who loved those mechanics to the point of 100% the game and not feeling board for one second).
You forgot to mention the amazing new Tiso boss fight!
God?
the man himself, Meme Knight
Why am i surprised....
Of course you would appear here.
Two gods clash here, The Meme Knight, and The Critical Knight
Of course
I think that the dreamers not fighting back is a deliberate tonal and narrative choice, meant to build unease specifically BY subverting your expectation that the dreamers will be a boss fight. The way you have to hit them over and over, the way they twitch with each hit but don't react, the way that you have to absorb their essence - it's all made to make you question whether you're actually doing the right thing by killing them, and to build the tragedy of the game once you understand why they want to die.
Yeah, some of what Joseph said on his review was wrong, and he'd know if he took more time to explore and interpret the lore
@@KameKame27 he specifically said that he didn't understand that part, the one with killing the Dreamers, and that it was probably a purposeful design choice and that was fine. He specifically mentions when he is pretty sure it's something he doesn't get, he does this in other reviews as well. He isn't perfect, but you can't fault him for that.
@@JimJamTheAdmin Not in this video my guy, in the actual review he made a good amount of mistakes when judging things he didn't understand about the lore. I won't go back to he video for proof ( cause it's looooong ), but trust me
@@KameKame27 Is it NKG?
Yea I definitely felt off the first time I stabbed a dreamer
"Absolute Radiance, the Soulja Boy of Hollow Night bosses."
- Joseph Anderson, 2019
Honestly-
CRANK THAT INFECTION YOOOOOOOU
Oh yes i love playing some Hollow *Night*
@@funninoriginal6054 Hollow Night by Team Jerry
🅱️ollow 🅱️ight 🅱️y 🅱️eam 🅱️erry
I spent most of this video staring at the black box in the bottom right
At first, it was a distraction. Something that took away from the experience of this video. But after a while, it became something entirely different. Whenever the background went black, i felt sadness, as if the little black box went away. But then I was always reminded that it only appeared to be that way. The little black box was there the whole time, it never left.
This experience became the new video for me. This weird version of hide and seek, where the box never hid and I never sought. I now appreciate the little black box for what it is. It makes me wonder how many things i missed that were always there, right in front of me.
The little black box definitely changed the way I look at this video, but maybe even the way I look at like life itself.
Underated comment
Bruwh
Fake and gay
@@funninoriginal6054 r U aSsUMinG tHat Blak bOx's gEnDER??!
At @18:00 this comment has become my new meaning after I figured that I'm watching this video for some reason, and I haven't even played Hollow Knight, nor do I intend to!
In fact, I'm not sure what the video was about, but it certainly sounded like this nicely illustrated platform jumping game has something to do with market philosophy and also somehow spurs theological transcendence in its players. But after a while, I realized that some people in this world have too much time and leisure in their life and need to solemnly express their selfish fragile opinions on matters of taste and personal development, probably only to be able to consider themselves properly engaged in human affairs and thus look up in the mirror again. I won't say the essay is retarded though, but we, as a specie inhabiting this sufficiently large planet -- which is a speck of dust at the same time -- hopefully aren't at this stage of decadence yet.
Hollow Knight is not a movement, it's a bloody game and a commercial entertainment product that follows the same shitty typical Western get-abilities-while-unlocking-areas and the same ol' adrenaline-pumping pattern-matching-when-fighting-bosses dexterity recipe, not that far away from Guitar Hero. To be able to beat it, doesn't make anyone special, and I couldn't give any fucks to how its free DLCs break hearts and whatnot in a 35 minute long video, framed as a Nobel Prize speech. I'd rather watch someone play it piss-poorly than having to suffer the emotional outpour of an eye-to-hand addict. At least be useful and learn to play piano instead.
In any case, long live the black box in the bottom right -- TBBITBR!
I love when bigger youtubers bring attention to Hollow Knight. It’s such a good game
Love your vids, really helped me when i got stuck in the game
@Krish Nair no checkmarks = no attention unfortunately
(although somehow he is the second to top comment even while having a fraction of the likes and replies of other comments lol)
edit: he got a checkmark :o
Love your videos
Find someone who looks at you the way UA-camr Joseph Anderson looks at Hollow Knight
(because it's important to be with someone who appreciates how great you are while also encouraging you to work on your flaws)
Awwwww
I just said goodbye to someone like that today, it's amazing when you meet the right person. The difference is night and day :')
♥
ok
That's almost completely out of left field... but nice
"It would be nice if the game had a way for weaker players to learn the bosses"
"This one optional charm makes it too easy"
Jesus Christ, Joe
I don't think giving players a stronger weapon so they can out-DPS the boss before succumbing is the right way to help players overcome the challenges. It's a band-aid fix. A real fix would be to have several versions of each boss that incrementally build to the full moveset/speed/complexity so that players can feel like they're making progress towards learning the fight by focusing on the fundamentals and then putting it all together.
Imperial Larch Jesus Christ, multiple versions of each boss? It’s an indie team of like 2 or 3 guys cut them some slack
@@imperiallarch7610 the thing is alot of the charms that makes bosses easier are not about damage
tehy are about taking damage
@@sknight43 but it is clearly intentional
you don't think baldur shell, sharp shadow, all defense build combinations were made to make the game harder no
they were built towards less twitchy players
I was upset in his first review when he said the game was unplayable without dash master and that he refused to use the no knock back charm because it was op. The charms are made to switch up gameplay and make everyone’s play style different, I don’t know why he feels like some of them are useless or too powerful, other players might need those charms to play or conversely have no need for those charms.
Did this man just say that ASCENDED MARKOTH was one of his favourite fights in the game????
I died to Markoth so many times in 5th Pantheon...
Didn't think anyone liked budget Gilgamesh (from Fate)
Call me petty, but I loathe that boss fight to a tee. The whole challenge is to limit your options of where you can jump but I honestly feel like it’s utter hell facing against Markoth when doing ascended form. Having no ground makes the fight so much more annoying to me, not to mention that you take double damage in the fight makes it so damn frustrating for me when he decides move towards me because he feels like it.
Prankster Mona I like the way you talk
Prankster Mona you are far from petty, I beat the PoH and I don’t think anything in it comes close to how bullshit any version of Markoth above attuned is, it doesn’t feel like you can control the fight the more you learn, it feels like it takes a bit less luck to progress.
its a tough pill to swallow when i hear this guy describe how easy this game is for him... hes practically begging for more difficulty and im over here tearing my hair out trying to kill GPZ for just the 2nd time.
Very late, but I feel you so much. I practised the fucker 30 times + in the hall of gods and can beat him about 50% there, but with the added stress of the pantheon I haven't been able to do it once
@@malte3756 Its kinda cool looking back at this comment now. I was finally able to beat everything including P5, but it was after a lot more practice. I conquered Zote pretty completely but I had even worse problems with Markoth with no floor. He's still the boss most likely to kill me although I don't play HK as much anymore... now I just need Silksong to be released at some point in this lifetime
@@increase9896 Damn that's great! Congrats on P5 man.
I'm new to hollow knight myself and can barely play anything else rn
"I didn't realise how powerful fragile strength was until after I beat all the pantheons, it felt like cheating" LIKE BRUH? I'm going to die
@@blackmage1276 To be fair if you spent dozens of hours grinding at the pantheons only to realise how strong strength was afterwards it *would* feel like cheating.
"I have beaten every boss in the game on radiant and every pantheon with a mix of bindings"
*_J E A L O U S Y I N T E N S I F I E S_*
I really wonder how many people actually did that.
@@svenweiland3322 Well, on PS4 only 1.5% of players have completed Pantheon of Hallownest. So, I suppose that much fewer players have defeated all bosses on Radiant. I did it, but I haven't tried to beat the five Pantheons with bindings and I don't think I will.
@@COG2360 I'm still missing radiant absolute radiance and the bindings for the last pantheon and I'm also not sure how far I'm still willing to go.
@@svenweiland3322 Good luck, man, Radiant Absolute Radiance was VERY hard.
@@COG2360 thanks. I think I got to the last phase once and another two times on the stairs, but the second phase really sucks and that already took like 50h because I'm bad.
Knight: **has Void Heart to command the Void and many powers using Void and/or Soul**
Void in Absolute Radiance Bossfight: that can't stop me because I can't read **damages you anyway**
THAT CAN STOP ME because i can’t read
Shotguns sounds intensify
When I killed the first Dreamer, most of the backstory hadn't yet been revealed, and that moment had a big impact on me. The game seemed to be building up to a big fight, but instead the boss just stood there.
It made me feel like I was killing a helpless individual in the world, and made me question if I was doing the right thing. Was I the bad guy in this world and what was up with all this Void I seem to have an affinity with? The NPCs with story connections to the Dreamers like Quirrel only made it sadder. I think something would be lost if they fought back initially.
It would make sense for Monomon if she didn't fight back since she was the one willing to unbind the seals because she knew the seal wasn't doing anything to stop the infection. Lurien on the other hand should have showed signs of going against this other than their dialogue when the dreamers were having a discussion in the resting grounds.
Yeah, exactly!! And he complains but also says he didnt pay any mind to any lore
@@riverajustinmarks. but they can't, they're sleeping. They're not able to fight back even if they want
@@riverajustinmarks.2 years late, but I’m not sure if they even can fight back. What would be the point of their defenses (watcher knights, Quirell + Uumu, beasts den/the entirety of deep nest) if they could actually do things themselves to prevent someone from killing them?
no, please. Give us a video where you go through every Hollow Knight boss one by one.
Team Jerry Seinfeld really outdid themselves with the hollow knight dlc
I'm a Team Tom myself but I have to agree
According to all know laws of aviation, there is no way way that hive knight should be able to fly.
I personally played through the game after all the DLCs were already released and I feel like that makes such a huge difference here. They integrated the DLC so well into the base game that it doesn’t ever feel like it’s actually DLC. I was surprised to hear that all the stuff I just did wasn’t part of the main game after I finished it.
That’s why I have way different opinions and views on the DLC as a whole, because I judge them alongside the main game, not as stand alone content. It’s pretty interesting to see how simply approaching the game differently can change peoples views and opinions so much, but I find that to be true about a lot of things about this game, that’s why I like it so much.
Hey, I did the same thing, I played for the first time about 10 months ago and didn't know about the DLCs, and I pretty much feel the same way as u
This is also me
I disagree with the integration comment, but ONLY with the Grimm Troupe DLC. I was really excited for that one just because it was so visually appealing and some of the upgrades it provides (Like the little Grimm pet and the upgraded fragile charms) seemed great. I essentially went through the whole game (I'm talking roughly 80% of base game complete including upgrades) and had to look up a guide to find out the DLC was hidden behind a random-ass, barely visible breakable wall in the most barren and out of the way part of the game.
Smiles Edgeworth Grimm troupe is pretty much impossible to naturally find I found it early because I heard someone say where it was. The
Godmaster mode feels like it fits in the world but it fits a bit too well so you don’t realize how important it is until you finally open it.
@@blazingdude11 I was the opposite; since the moment I got Mantis Claw I knew the first thing I wanted to do was climb out of Hollownest and explore that area, so I did my absolute best to explore absolutely everywhere. Came across the corpse by chance, hit some stuff, then I was worried that by beginning Grimm's DLC stuff I would mess with the base game. It didn't thankfully, but at the same time that makes it very clear just how separate it feels from the main game.
Slight correction, the Nail binding doesn't revert your nail to its base damage. It reduces its damage to 13 (the amount of damage done with the second nail upgrade) or, if you don't have the third or fourth nail upgrades yet, cuts its damage to 80%.
This video is perfect otherwise, though it was free so I can't really judge it as a product
SASSY
Interestingly enough, the nail binding also doesn't reduce nail art damage. Nail art damage is still whatever your original nail was. Probably a mistake.
@@BlueRiging That was a bug that's been fixed in the 1.4.3.2 patch
@@jngo102 Oh cool. All binding speedruns probably use older versions, that makes sense.
@Puppet 10 months late but it makes what I'm saying more possible: it means it's possible that someone beat Pantheon of Hallownest with the Old Nail and the nail binding, doing 4 damage per hit, and possibly one of the people that did all bindings did this, even if it's not recorded.
Joe: putting other projects on hold, focusing on the witcher video
"2 hours later"
Joe: HOLLOW KNIGHT DLC
He has announced his plan on the Patreon I believe. The Witcher video is in production, but he felt that no video output is not justified, hence relatively smaller projects are in the making as well.
He said in previous vids that he can still do small projects. He had a whole apology in the Fallout 76 one too saying he didn't think it would take long.
Can't imagine stressful it would be to critique the entirety of Witcher 3. Doing the Lord's work for us xD
@@nadirisen He's doing all of the Witcher so it's probably even more than we can all imagine.
tbf I think he has been working on this even before he made that statement. besides for so much free content to a already masterpiece of a game had to be addressed
@@gundiel8667 yieks That is insane. But I love it!
My favorite part of this video is the small black box at the bottom right.
Not gonna lie, I did some testing to make sure it wasn't my monitor being broken.
@@dstarr3 Dam you now I can't unsee it
Literally unwatchable.
It's meant to hide an uncooperative shadowplay icon that show up during recording but usually disappear in the proper footage (but apparently didn't on HK one), he felt the black box blended a bit better in most shots of the game. He knows there's an option to hide it entirely but prefer to have it on while recording to make sure it is actually doing just that.
oh god now i can never unsee it
7:38, “...afraid of being pushed back to the checkpoint...”
Never once have I been more anxious from a UA-cam video, looking at that one mask.
I was more anxious once, because I was there, with one mask, fighting for my life
Imagine, near the end of the game of Silksong, you are chasing the final boss of the game and find yourself back in the kings pass, where it all began, walking back into dirt mouth, where the town is thriving with life and brighter than ever. No bug is infected, and some new bugs moved into town.
Ham Sandwich but playing as hornet and actually witnessing her story while the hollow knight does his way
Impossible, the cultural and economical devellopment of hallownest is due to the pale king, it will never rise up to its glory again as bugs aren't able to devellop a civilisation without the pale king's influence
@@TheMagmanium11 I disagree.
Most, if not all bugs have self-awareness, can be rational, can form abstract thoughts, think long-term and have advanced language and knowledge. It would be foolish to think that a civilization would not happen when all of these factors are combined. Yes the Pale King was the one to originally give bugs their expanded mind and consciousness and the one to unite all of Hallownest under one banner, but since bugs already have expanded minds and already there even is some tribes and small towns here and there, I don't think rebuilding Hallownest would be impossible.
@@TheMagmanium11 i assume by "pale king's influence" you're talking about how he gave to bugs the ability to think for themselves. If that's the case, then you're just wrong. That influence is obviously still there as all the bugs (except the infected ones) still act rationally.
and then, you hear Zote singing the animal crossing new horizons theme song. Elderbug approaches you about taking out a loan on one of his new houses. Cornifer's wife still say bapanada every time.
I cant wait for Team Jerry to release Silksong
Marco Buzzi I prefer Team Lerry.
*Silkmilk
With Ben Gibson
i mean like... yeah (holyshit holyshithol sty)
Umm yes, team Jerry
Weird that Nightmare Grimm comes up constantly on top bosses lists, including my own, for the same reason Sisters of Battle is on those lists. Some of the bosses in the game feel more like dances than combat and people are into that. Not every battle has to be a gritting-your-teeth sort of affair. Sometimes you want to feel like you've mastered something that was once difficult to you. This is the same formula Dark Souls uses and presumably the reason it's so popular.
Yeah. And on another side there is Markoth)
The issue is that sometimes you've mastered a boss so well that it just takes too long. You don't have any good options to speed it up, so you've hit the skill ceiling and you're just waiting.
When people say Pure Vessel is too hard, we say "lol, GIT GUD"
When people say Nightmare King Grimm is tough but fair, we say, "Damn straight!"
When people say Absolute Radiance is bullshit, we say, "Amen, brother, amen."
But when someone says all three of those bosses are too easy, and that the Path of Pain is too short, there's only one thing to say to that.
"...Damn."
Yeah old man papa Joe is clearly a god gamer and the rest of us are useless
This absolutely needs more likes, only truths were spoken here.
The one thing to say to that is "this person has no place critiquing the difficulty of anything"
@@andrewday6899 Pure facts. The thing with difficulty in videogames is that it's entirely subjective. One player may be permanently stopped by a challenge that another player beat first try. This makes it really weird to discuss it in a critique because it's such an essential part of a videogame, yet it's different for every player. Glossing over difficulty would be a mistake, but making a concrete assertion is impossible.
@@adamweinberg2532 eh it's kind of impossible but considering most people aren't as good as him it's obvious that just a lot of people need to git gud, feel like it's a copt out to just say someone's really good and give up on getting that good. We all have a brain and if you blame yourself for your mistakes instead of going "game too hard" game ends uo getting pretty easy.
So, about killing the dreamers. I've always viewed these moments as a somber experience. Both you & the dreamer know what must be done, you have to kill them in order to stop the infection, they don't fight back because they understand that it's the only way the kingdom can finally rest. So they sit there & let you kill them, as it's the only way for anything in the kingdom to change. (At least that's what I got from these moments)
i wished back then that they fight back for some sort of deeper personal reasons.
Lurien fights back for its love of the king, Herrah for her daughter's protection, and Monomon for the preservation of the history of Hallownest.
However, I agree with your points there. I actually got saddened the first time I killed them.
@@kingkongmalunggay Well if Lurien loves the king they wouldn't fight back since it was the king's plan, Herra wouldn't since the infection could hurt Hornet so it's better to stop it using us, and Monomon is the one most in favor of this exchange since she specifically put quill in charge and knew something like this would happen.
Haven't watched the video yet, but if he complains about it being too easy, I'm gonna flip my shit
Edit: I am pleasantly surprised
he still kinda did that tho
It's mostly complaining about bosses that make you wait (he clearly likes playing aggressively in this game). Also a bit of bug complaints.
@@carlotta4th But the whole game is centered around bugs. I think the devs turned the bugs into a feature
@@Faun471 Idk man i haven't seen any bug in there
@@tutifru-titi9954 What? They are literally everywhere
Hollow Knight: favourite game of all time. Hands down.
Someone Else until Silksong that is
Mine too, along with some others.
Not only my favorite, but probably the objectively best one, along with BOTW.
I liked the exploration a whole lot more than the bosses.
Same, exploring the world and doing crazy moves to get to area's where you feel you shouldnt be, was what made this game so great for me.
Normal enemy combat was my favorite part. I loved the coliseum, but if I’m being honest most boss fights were pretty hard for me. I was able to finish the first two coliseum challenges first try but I don’t know if I beat any bosses first try.
Ditto. The art music and scope of exploration is beyond anything this genre has received in the last 10 years.
The boss battles were the weakest link for me but I stuck it out to see the basic ending.
Bullet hell and teleportation enemies are more of a headache for me and its something that Dark Souls was able to avoid.
@man with a username Hey I won't hold it against you.
I really like how mechanical the boss fight with Nightmare King becomes after you master it. It's like learning to ride a bicycle, which I think it was the intention. When you learn a specific dance for a song, you don't need room to improvise, the choreography is already perfected and tight. Grimm is not a chaotic boss attacking you, it's an artist dancing with you, asking for perfection from your part, and NKG is the same.
An unexpected Hollow Knight follow up from the man himself?
A surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one, Mr. Joestar.
-Bumbus Bungleton
Even speedwagon is happy
Unexpected ? SOMEONE'S NOT A PATREON
jk but if you enjoy his vids and can afford a coffee a month I'd highly recommend becoming a patreon
@@adamroberts2691
I'd become a patron in a heartbeat, but, you know...bum ass third world country banking system, lagging 20-25 years behind modern standards and all that jazz.
Even buying stuff online is a concept in its infancy where I live.
Joseph is among the handful of content creators I feel as though I'm stealing from when watching their content for free (including AGermanSpy and MauLer). The best I can do for the moment is give them as much ad revenue as I can and spread the good word.
Wait, is "A surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one" also a JoJo reference? How did I miss this in the anime?
Hey, did you notice they added a ramp in The Land of Storms to address your complain about every map layout being a bunch of cubes and platforms.
NMP DASD wow! better visit it again so i can see it
oh wait
I know I'm very late, but I've had something on my mind about your gripe with the charm binding. In your first video, you talked about the Steady Body's ability to nullify the recoil when you attack with your nail and how you never used it because it would be very off-putting to start without it when replaying the game, but you felt the Dashmaster charm was mandatory. Because of this, the charm binding removing the ability to dash downwards forced you to adapt to the lack of movement you had now, and argue that the game should change the charm binding system.
This seems contradictory to me. You argue that it would be hard to get used to the lack of recoil when replaying the game, yet you also seem to blame the game for making it such a challenge to get used to battling without the dash master, because you're so used to having it equipped. I could easily see a Joseph Anderson from a different timeline having swapped the Dashmaster charm with the Steady Body charm, and nothing would change. "I feel like Steady Body is mandatory for fights" would eventually turn into "not having the Steady Body charm felt like having to re-program my muscle memory which was a challenge I didn't enjoy".
This is a very bad draft about a small thing that's been bugging me in this video. I enjoy watching your videos and consider your Hollow Knight ones to be my favourite, since they're the ones that introduced me to this amazing game. I hope that you'll be able to understand where I'm coming from. Otherwise, great video!
its almost like he wants charm builds to be less customizable
seriously I turned my knight into a one mask berserker with air slashes
Descending Dark solves the downward shadow dash problem anyway with its I-Frames.
@@davidkleiner2492 It looks like he doesn't use spells lol
@@davidkleiner2492 You don't get I-frames the moment you cast, whereas you do with the downwards dash. I use DDark more anyway but it's an important difference that someone who was used to dashmaster probably wouldn't like.
@@blackmage1276 You can see him use them a bunch in the video lol
You really focus on bosses a lot, I don’t think every area should have one. I think the absence of something promised can translate into a really good story beat.
To To be be be there to take the time 99 I have no doubt about about this but if it was was was a las las que 9 9 en este
To To be be be there to take the time 99 I have no doubt about about this but if it was was was a las las que 9 9 en este mensaje
sometimes yes but other times it is kinda trash
Jo has a... disinterest? In most lore it seems. Or he did.
In defence of nkg: i saw a guy that managed to hit nkg 11 times while he was doing fire pillars attack. If thats not expressing oneself than i dont know what it is
The only game with more bugs than fallout 76
Debatable he only managed to make a 35 min video about the bugs in the expansion compared to Fallouts 3ish hours worth.
@@haruhirogrimgar6047 whoosh
@@pixelcat_yt No, you sir are wooshed.
I was going to say Pikmin has more, but then I remembered that you can't have more than 100 on screen at a time.
Unlike Fallout 76.
@@shayusu8317 no that's a good follow up, nothing beats the madness that is 3 hour of Bug analysis period.
It's so satisfying to watch a review with gameplay from the person that's like 10x better than your own
Hey Joseph, just wanted to let you know that you were the primary reason for my buying Hollow Knight. I managed to get over 80 hours of enjoyment for $10 on GOG, and I'm rebuying a physical copy on Switch when it comes out at the end of the month.
DrearierSpider1 there's only a month left?! I need to get on that now
Bruh, I brought it for 7 something on GOG during a New Years sake I think. Best 7 dollars I’ve spent in my whole life. I’m currently stuck on the Radiance fight, 65 hours into the game.
i got it for free 😪 and currently like around 80 hours ? but i bought it again once i realized how underpriced it was.
21:56
That was some god-tier editing right there
That REALLY caught me off guard and I’m glad to see someone appreciating how good that was.
@@TheTsuyuki i think they are talking about how the mantis lords are moving and attacking in sync with the music
Im pretty positive the editing were the jump cuts
@@TheTsuyuki They meant the jump cut.
And I agree, it is not god-tier, but sth. many people probably won't notice.
Oh that’s neat
After first video of Hollow Knight critique I wonder if Team Cherry are watching our beloved UA-cam Knight Joseph and making notes.
I would honestly be surprised if not at least one of them watched the video. I have often seen indie developers show up in the comment sections of comparatively tiny youtubers. I mean, if you made something, wouldnt you check out videos that people make about it?
Possible. Nosk, Traitor lord and Hive Knight could be a product from Joe's 1st critique video
You’re the sole reason I bought this game 👌
Same-
Now that I think about it, me too
@charlie freeman same just now it's installing on my ps4
29:22 SOLAR VOID UP IN THIS OH
WATCH HER SWORD RAIN USE YOUR CLOAK
WATCH HER CRANK DAT SOLAR VOID
NOW SUPERMAN SWORD WALL UP ON IT
YOUUUU(SOLAR VOID NOW WATCH HER)
YOUUUU(SOLAR VOID NOW WATCH HER)
YOUUUU
underrated comment
Mr. Anderson, I love your videos. I like to play them on a low volume every night and fall asleep to them. Your voice is great.
Joseph Anderson ASMR Critiques
I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE
This kinda feels weird to say. But yeah Joe's voice is great ^-^.
I do the same exact thing
Lol yeah I do the same thing.
I sure hope Mr Anderson is at least flattered that bunch of us guys sleep soundly to his voice whispering sweet nothings into our ears.
I disagree, Nightmare is my favourite boss I've fought so far, period. Finding new ways to dodge moves and getting tiny extra hits on him before he disappears was really fun for me, and a good test of reactions
Yeah I think Joseph just doesn't like a slower paced fight.
It isn't that slow, it is decently fast, also yeah NKG is my favorite boss too
These enemies at the end of path of pain aren’t difficult: *precedes to almost die to them instantly*
34:40 In all the endings in Hollow Knight, the Knight is either dead or a new vessel so I wouldn't think that they are up to much of anything.
In the Dream No More ending, all you see is the broken mask. While this could imply that the Knight died, it could also indicate that it’s still in the pure void form that it killed Radiance with
@@Edgeperor That is what I think happened (the latter option).
i always enjoy grimms fight, it really feels like a performance shown for an audience. especially in the god home, where you are being judged the entire time
The Pure Vessel is easily my favorite boss in the game. The moveset, pacing, lore and overall aesthetic all combine to make a bossfight I never tire of fighing. Hell, I even return to the game sometimes just to go to godhome and fight him again.
I think the same, amazing boss and fun to fight.
But the first time was so fast to understand what is he going to do and I tried over 2 hours to beat hil xD
Unbreakable strength has become a staple charm for when I'm trying to get through the first couple dozen fights in the fifth Pantheon. Makes the boring fights a lot faster
27:44 that is just... i cant express the rage i can feel from seeing that
Finally a chance to express my rage at this. I died to this against Radiant AR in her final phase, one hit away from killing her. *One.* Then I proceeded to accidentally kill her hitless on Attuned while practicing the climb, and had to do it again on Radiant. Thankfully, though, the lingering hitbox only ever happened to me twice.
I noticed you almost never use soul abilities, they can sometimes let you attack when you can't with your nail, so that might be one of the reasons you felt bored when fighting flying bosses like winged nosk and Grimm.
I saw you use Godmaster gameplay as background footage in one of your videos and wondered how you felt about the DLC. I’m glad you made a video on it!
Congrats on the babby #3
Hatsume Wait what? It seems like yesterday that his first boy was born 😂
I started watching you because of your Hollow Knight critique and now I am trying to go through all of your uploaded videos while playing Diablo III.
This upload blessed me like no other thing. Thanks.
I loved Grimm. The fight wasn’t about me, it was about him. He’s a goddamn show off and I love him for it. It’s literally his own stage after all.
In both of your hollow knight videos, i don't think you talked a lot about spells. in HK i think they're meant to be used alongside melee. some bosses are built with spells in mind imo. Flying nosk for example leaves a big opening when it flies away after attacking and you can use the shade soul spell to deal massive damage which otherwise you couldn't if you just used your nail and it gets rid of some of the tedium in that fight and makes it a lot shorter.
Other spells like the Descending dark which gives you a generous amount of i-frames help A LOT in fights like grey prince Zote and Absolute radiance which both have overlapping attacks and can make you feel overwhelmed. Absolute radiance especially is pretty much impossible to do damage less without using Descending dark.
seriously, he complains so much about the fights being slow and that the boss movement prevents aggressive strategies and refuses to use most of the offensive options in the game, the highest damage ones ... if he wanted them to be faster, he could have looked one time at a speedrun. This is frustrating. XD
Thank you Joseph for taking another look at my favourite game in the world.
If possible could you do an analysis on chess?
Boi I wanna give everyone here a hug bring it in ppl I love everyone here
wholesome
wholesome
Love you too man
aww that's so wholesome, come here
bring it here big guy
Godmaster's biggest flaw is how... necessary it feels, which you pointed out and offered solutions to. Only 1% of players even got Embrace the Void on pc, which I think speaks volumes about how unforgiving the DLC is to many of its players. Of course, this statistic is decreased with the fact that some people didn't play since they got any ending (or Dream no More), but DnM has 10.9% of players and Ritual (NKG) has 6.7%, while being the most challenging fights of their time.
Unlike Ritual, Godmaster offers a lot of lore that's related to Hollow Knight proper (pk's death confirmation, some recontextualizing, and of course EtV), while the main bulk of Grimm Troupe is its own thing.
These things are a very big flaw of Godmaster that I think I would rate as a merely 6/10 (time investment wise) simply because it's too difficult for no reason. (They had to nerf some bosses after release. Namely, ascended Collector's summons have less hp now, but even then you have Markoth who is insanely difficult without a simple floor).
I suppose mine might be an unpopular opinion but I like having important things locked behind a difficulty wall.
I don't know how many people can empathize when I say I like difficulty in my game, but I can't introduce it myself. I never, for example, deliberately choose not to upgrade nail to self impose a challenge unless it's a game i've played and finished way too many times.
I also have mixed feelings about post game challenges. They are certainly nice to have, but they seem so pointless sometimes. I really do appreciate some incentive for finishing said challenges.
A combination of these two reasons means that I quite enjoy having something significant, either lore or gear wise, behind a difficulty spike. I get it feel a little bad not being able to "finish", but on the other hand there's also always a little bit more to play if you want to try harder, and that's not a bad thing.
@@randomnobody660 you can't lock major lore
@@dangerouslydubiousdoubleda9821 You sure can, all depends on how you phrase it.
There are a few games out there where the true end is locked behind crazy requirements (like collecting 100% of all items, or beating bosses in really obscure ways).
Also, plenty of 199x-200x games have true endings that, while not grindy nor technically challenging, are practically impossible to stumble into. That route is sort of blocked off due to internet. Technical challenge can be a way to recreate that feeling.
@@randomnobody660 yeah but the true ending often doesn't mean locking major parts of the story
most games when you finish the normal ending everything has had its arc and theme explored
hollow knight locked a big conclusion with tons of implications behind a skill wall where 99% of players couldn't get past and had to watch it
@@dangerouslydubiousdoubleda9821 Hollow knight also just locked an ending behind the gauntlet thou.
I actually haven't the previously mentioned games where collecting everything unlocks true ending, quite a few games lock vital information or a huge chunk of the game behind obscure actions you must take.
Let's say aria of sorrow. If you simply beat the "final boss" normally the game ends. You never find out why Soma has these weird powers, you never got to know the nature of dracula nor who dracula was reborned as, nor where dracula's powers were hiding in the castle.
How many people did you think found out the exact 3 souls to equip that was mentioned nowhere (none of which are "good" might I add)? Everybody who didn't literally missed the conclusion of the game, as well as an explanation for everything.
What is wrong with having to work your way to an informative ending? At least in hollow knight's case you can see the goal in sight.
26:26 - The floor spikes are on a separate cycle. They always just go back and forth. You just need to keep that timer going in your head to know that it's time to switch sides soon and be ready to be on the other side of the arena.
Joe: I’m going to go through every single moon in märio odyssey
Also joe: I’m not going to go through all of the bosses in hollow knight
:(
I looked at the old critique multiple times and with every content pack I was kinda like "hey they fixed that now, also there's more and a boss rush andcetera". I'm really glad you're talking about Hollow Knight again. Especially the beginning explained how people could possibly be so against FREE dlc because I 100% didn't understand.
Also I hate the bosses that attack you by flinging their body at you or side stepping towards you. God tamer also does this and he can do this while there is goop on the floor. Of course it is avoidable but dying to it always feels terrible. Also Lost kin will jump towards you which is incredibly fast and only consistently avoidable with shadow dash. I've also had times where I stagger a boss and their body hits me which I hope is unintentional. It's definitely killed some radiant battles for me. Bosses are definitely programmed to hit you in any way possible but always leave room for escape. Uumuu will literally try to spawn the bomb jellyfish underneath you to make it harder for you to get up to certain platforms which doesn't feel cheaty, just very clever. Another boss thingy, Elder Hu is the worst boss in the game.. You can avoid every attack by pressing shadow dash. The first time I fought him I had shadow dash and it felt like I was using an exploit.
We do share a lot of opinions on the game tbh. It's my favorite game of all time yet I still feel the same criticisms you voice here. Anyways love your content keep being great.
I beat Hu just by walking
Just realised this is my favourite channel... Whenever I see any video I immediately click it and watch it (if humanly possible) in one sitting.
Good stuff bro, and well done on keeping this under an hour! :)
excellent analysis and insight as usual! and thank you for including the "team jerry" blooper at the end, it was very cute
Your videos are some of the best critiques going. Thanks again for such strong work on such a great game.
I enjoy your videos so much.
It allows me to revisit games with you in a way, but in a more in-depth manner.
Thanks for continuing to make these videos. I always look forward to seeing a new one in my feed.
There’s just something about your reviews that I find SO calming and enjoyable!
Oh man, I'll go insane if they pull a Kanto + Johto region thing with Swansong. It'll be padding, but it's my kind of padding, with 20 more hours down the drain
In my opinion, it can not be overstated how much value the Godmaster DLC adds to Hollow Knight.
The ability to re-battle all the games bosses was a sorely missed feature and it's such a relief it was added. To be able to truly challenge yourself through combinations of Ascended and Radiant Boss difficulties as well as pantheon Bindings truly expands the game's skill ceiling to new heights.
When The Grimm Troupe DLC was added, NKG felt like a truly, truly challenging fight, and for a new player he still is, but now, with the ability to efficiently practice your combat skills with added challenges have made NKG feel much easier, without making the boss itself any easier, it just allowed you to get better with the games tools. And the addition of new, even more extreme challenges to match the new skill ceiling will keep players grinding to "git gud" long after they've completed the base game.
As you said, this does have the side-effect of making said base game feel less challenging, but when considering that the Godmasters DLC also added 3 of, arguably, the games best bosses (and it's worst) I'd say it's a a good bargain. It really shows that the developers have grown better at their art and gave it their all when giving us this DLC. And the fact that it is all added to the base 'Hollow Knight' package for Free is indeed priceless.
Thanks a lot for this video! Every time I see your videos on my feed, I‘m getting really excited!
Always looking forward to some good background noise from Brainlet Anderson.
28:03. That bug happened to me in the 5th pantheon and I just sat there in horror, no joke.
Great video, I'm happy to see the videos be a bit more streamlined. I still greatly enjoy hearing you list every moon! The bloopers at the end where a great touch!
Not gonna lie, I subscribed to your channel due to your Hollow Knight video
I've seen some bad spelling mistakes in my day, but I think you just took the cake.
Dang. This legit was one of my favorite videos I've seen in a long time. Got me hyped to %112 Hollow Knight again! After exams, though...after exams.
I was the 50th person to get the Platinum on PS4 probably my biggest video game achievement lol
*life achievement
As always, excellent pacing and structure
Love your work!
Excellent video and worth the wait. Glad to see your commitment to quality isn't wavering. Still hoping for a Demon's Souls video.
00:00 Intro
3:52 DLC additions
5:26 Path of Pain
8:23 Bosses (Grimm)
12:45 Grimm Troupe
13:48 No New area
15:23 Godhome
17:23 New boss fights
18:42 Pantheon of Hallownest
21:05 Bosses (Sisters of Battle, Nosk, etc)
24:50 Absolute Radiance
30:04 Markoth
33:54 Ending
You’re a hero
I miss you so much Joseph, your new video made my day. hope you back on the stream soon!
I was so excited to hear on one of your streams that you were doing a follow up video for the hollow knight dlc. I absolutely loved this game to death. I have such vivid memories of starting it up on my crappy laptop a year and a half ago, thankfully with headphones (the sound design in this game is just incredible) and getting immediately sucked into the atmosphere of the world. My interests began with the hand draw characters and their dialogue. I went into the game completely blind (only having seen Dunkey mention it briefly in a video) and had no idea how good the combat was going to be. This game completely changed the way I think about difficulty in video games. After pouring 90 hrs in on the laptop, and then a further 80 on the switch, this game is definitely in my top 3 of all time.
Joseph, thank you so much for your long form videos covering games that mean so much to so many people!
well worth the wait!! thank you for this
feels like im falling in love with this game all over again
33:50 The justification is easy
exclusivity breeds desire, at this point in time its fair to assume that theres so much content, nobody feels left out, and yet theres MORE content for those who actually go ahead and beat all of it, motivating some people who were on the edge of joining that completionist club, to also go ahead and try maybe once or twice more. For someone who usually beats all content a game has to offer this little secret is one of the things i truely have to thank developers for, nothing feels worse then an ultimate challenge without payoff.
Quick potential explanation for not changing the Dreamer Encounters: Team Cherry wants to make you feel bad about killing the Dreamers. They want to direct killing them as necessary, but they want to make you not enjoy the task, not because it's bad, but because it tugs at your morale compass. The only change to the Dreamer encounters was the new music added, and the overall tone of it supports this theory.
This may be one of my favorite Hollow Knight videos ive seen. Amazing work!
Good lord your content is good. Your analysis is always thorough, well considered, and balanced. Bravo!
I think you are misunderstanding the NKG fight. It is supposed to be a dance, between you and grim. For the purpose of the grim troupe, it works perfectly. I think the problem comes with the repetition of the fight over and over. The problem isn’t the fight itself, but the way it is presented.
27:20 It's must have taken a lot of time and courage, which I never had...
Something about your videos...I absolutely love them. Keep up the amazing work, Joseph
15:53 - Okami has an area nearing the end of the game that you re-fight bosses in order to complete it, speaking of which you should definitely play it! I'm sure you'll have a pleasant and surprising experience!
That's such a longshot, but now I'm really hoping it'll happen. I have yet to see a great UA-cam video on Okami.
Okami is great. Probably too long and padded in areas (I hate that digging minigame), but there are enough incredible moments that I didn't feel like my time was wasted on either of my playthroughs. I don't think I've ever seen another game presented quite like it.
Okami has WHAT?
I think there was an interesting change of perspective on your part between this and The Witness video you posted 3 years prior.
In The Witness, you talked about a type of puzzle that made you go "holy shit!" when you first encountered it, and stayed fun while you were discovering it as you went by doing other things, but turned into just "shit" when you forced yourself to sit down and complete all of them purposefully.
Yet here, your thinking has evolved (in my opinion) to that of "it's optional content. If you don't like it - don't play it." I think it's a very meaningful difference, especially when you considering that a) Hollow Knight has much more of a "story" than The Witness did. b) That you advocated both in this and your previous video that there should be more challenges that utilize the full set of mechanics for those who would want to take on this type of challenge. I think of many of the challenges in The Witness in this way (as someone who loved those mechanics to the point of 100% the game and not feeling board for one second).
god these videos are so fucking amazing dude.
Don't have much to say except whenever a Joseph Anderson video pops up, I stop what I'm doing and watch it. Love your content man!
Amazing video dude.
You've just earned a new sub. ❤
There is no words to describe the utter joy that I feel when Joseph uploads.
Watching absolute radiance's 30 second intro every time you die while grinding radiant difficulty is just demoralizing.
I got so excited when I saw the notification that you had a new video, now I'm just waiting on the Sekiro critique you're surely working on
"afraid of dying and being set back to the checkpoint"
oh sweet summer child
"what's the DEAL with hollow knight" had me cracking up
Embrace the void is still one of the proudest achievements I've ever gotten. That, and getting the moonberry in celeste.
Been waiting for this since your HK critique :D
Saw that you dropped this and literally said 'Holy shit!' out loud.