I remember when I first played Hollow Knight, when I came face to club with a Great Husk, and it dealt two Masks of damage, I was freaking out because I thought I wasn't ready, as in, didn't have the in game equipment to deal with it yet... False Knight told me I did, before beating me to a pulp. Side note, I did beat him on my second try.
The difference with failed champ is it's completely optional for the main story and completely optional for PoP which is why most people want essence. Also, by the time most people are going to look for dream bosses and exploring the earlier parts of the map they were most likely done exploring city of tears which has descending dive which gives you I frames making it very easy to dodge every one of the false knights attacks. Also if your radianting bosses you probably have good nail upgrades, shade cloak, and atleast one spell upgrade making failed champ easy.
@@thee_holland Using d dark at all will gives you i think like half a second to a second or whatever of Invincibility, you can use this for really any attack, especially the falling barrels.
The thing is, you can skip false knight completely after phase 1. While breaking the arena isn't the most well-telegraphed, if you are really struggling, you can skip it and come back when you're much stronger.
Hmm that's true, Big Bones. But how could you get much stronger without being able to beat the first boss? I never really understood why you could break out of the arena
@@thee_holland Right out the gate, vengeful spirit is pretty huge. It allows you to keep your distance from FK's flailing and it does 3 times your nail's damage. If you go into the arena with a full soul meter, you just have to land 3 fireballs and 4 nail swings per stagger, and you risk taking less damage as well. Also exploring and finding charm builds and whatnot may help a little as well.
@@thee_holland this feature also means that if you are strong enough as a player, you can just skip the false knight and try to reach the city without the crest.
13:39 1, thas actually pretty cool i didnt know that was in the game 2, you can equip dream wielder and itll double the amount of soul you get and also just make the dream nail faster, so it doesnt have to be a chore. If youre in the pantheons though and you dont wanna have to sacrifice a charm for dream wielder, then fair.
@@thee_hollandit also helps to go behind the boss instead of dream nailing yhe head, you can just stay behind it and you dont have to jump and pogo everytime, you can just swing
Ok, to be fair quitting the game because of it would of course make you think it’s bad, all it takes is learning the patterns and practice, as long as you don’t give up you’ll beat it.
I think that's true, Jasper. But he also does a little backwards jump (almost every time) which is a really nice indicator on Radiant difficulty. Except when he doesn't...
@@underdrow5572 You're totally right, Underdrow, my problem is just that I can't react fast enough when Failed Champion does it without first jumping backwards :(
9:26 I think you are going into a wrong direction with that sentence, Hollow Knight is known to be a hard game and only for people who actually want to play it. You will die to bosses *a lot* on your first playthrough and it will be annoying. But that only means that you need to learn more about the boss you are fighting, the Bosses in this game are supposed to make you analyse them, and learn their patterns, and you shouldn't give up, even if its hard for you, if you win, it will always be a good feeling, even if its hard to keep going.
I really do agree with that! But wouldn't you say there are a few types of very casual gamers who would just find it too frustrating no matter how much time they spent on it?
@Thee_Holland That is what im saying, you really need to focus on playing Hollow Knight and not quit to actually play through all of it, i like spending as much time in a game as possible
@Thee_Holland well, than obviously there are a lot of other beautiful games you can try, if you don't want to play Hollow Knight, that's absolutely ok. What i mean is that its perfectly fine to lose at something, but you shouldn't stop doing that thing only because you failed once
Another importante point to mention. If you, experienced player, find the false knight fight boring. Just skip it. Don't blame cherry team. I don't remember struggling to kill him first time, but I remember dying. Although I didn't replay the game ofter I beated, watching your video show me how I learned how to kill him, and maybe that's why I didn't struggled. Same can be said about the mantis lord. First you learn the moves with 1 mantis, then your use everything you've learned again two at the same time. That a wonderful game. I beated it about a week ago and now I'm looking for 112%.
Tbh false night is a perfect first maybe even the best!, at first your gonna damn struggle but after finally defeating him,you become ready to fight all the incoming bosses, not tooo ready, but ready enough,PERFECT
False Knight is my favorite boss in Hollow Knight and mostly because he is so easy once you learn his patterns... He is kinda hard in the dream fight but still the easiest of the dream re-fights.
You said something interesting that made me think: “Making a harder version of a boss is actually a pretty good way to test whether it’s fairly designed or not.” The problem with this line of thinking is that fair and harder are subjective things. Additionally, when you make balance changes, it is an entirely different fight. If we scale up the speed at which Soul Tyrant attacks by 5x; suddenly it’s not so fair. Is this an indicator that the base fight is *not* fairly designed? I don’t think so. What it is indicative of however, is that the changes made to that fight were a poor design choice. What dictates ‘fair’ and ‘hard’ is entirely dependent on the context of the game, your expected progression/moveset, balance decisions, and player skill level. Hope you found this interesting.
That's a good point, Haxox. I wanted the video to be about both False Knight *and* Failed Champion, but I don't think I made that clear at all. That's on me!
@@haxox1795 I don't believe fair and harder are subjective, actually. Maybe to a very slight degree, but there would be no point in doing an analysis at all if it was all just "my opinion". I hear this "subjectivity" point a lot, but would you then say that there's *no* objectivity to how well a fight is made? Should all game design principles be forgotten, because one man's Prince Zote is another's Pure Vessel? If you scale up a boss to the point where its attacks are literally impossible to react to, then no, that obviously doesn't say much about the boss' design. But if you have a really clear telegraph - say, Soul Master teleporting to the far-side of the arena to indicate that he's about to charge - then that'll carry over very well to a faster version of the boss. Whereas other attacks might feel more random or poorly telegraphed when sped up. I agree that difficulty and fairness is dependent on all of those things. It's those exact things I'm trying to uncover in my analyses :) I did, and thanks a lot for the comment!
@@thee_holland A fundamental disagreement! Interesting,, if you'll humour me: When we design games, we use game mechanics and art to inspire an experience. This experience is subject to a variety of outside factors, like social contexts, familiarity with the genre, a player's physical ability, etc. When a player is engaged in play, they experience our game through the unique lens of their own life, this introduces subjectivity. I find objectivity to be a rather unhelpful lens with which to view games for this reason, there is not an 'objective' way to experience something. By our nature as humans, each experience is fundamentally different from the last. Instead, I find it more productive to judge a games design based on how succesful they are in delivering the intended experience. Intent is important here, as nothing can be made for everyone. Like in the example of your brother; Hollow Knight isn't poorly made because it was never created with players like him in mind. If it was made with his enjoyment in mind however, I would say Hollow Knight is poorly designed. It's important to know the audience you are creating for, game design principles are a bag of tricks for instigating an intended experience within your audience. - This line of thinking does present a problem though, what if something's unintentionally great? Well, I wouldn't really credit the design in that case, just as I wouldn't credit designers for really fun glitches that add to the game (unless it's been left in intentionally). Additionally, intent is subject to a critic's interpretation, but assumptions need to be made for the sake of critique. I don't think this lessens the value of critique, the point of critique is to analyse and present the 'good' qualities. I think you did this really well in your video, highlighting the goals of the developers, and how they succeed and fail in some areas. I found your analysis on False Knight to be very insightful. Unfairness is a failure in design, because naturally we assume that the designer wants us to have fun, which is the primary objective in most games. You use an important word there, 'feel'. At which point do these things feel unfair? That is the subjectivity. It's only natural that attacks vary in fairness based on their attributes (telegraphs, speed, damage, etc). I don't think changing these is indicative of the original attack being 'bad' design, which was my main issue. Some attacks do scale better, but that's just an indicator of how dynamic they can be while retaining fairness. Thanks for the reply! I hope you found this insightful - or it allowed you to help strengthen your position. I study game design and I'm very passionate about the topic, it's lovely to engage in discussion about it.
@@haxox1795 How can you inspire a purely subjective experience? What is being inspired if it's all in the eye of the beholder? This post-modern thinking simply does not make sense to me :( If 99% of players feel that a specific boss move is unfair, is it still "subjective"? In some sense it is, but in another that's an absurdity. I think the less fair an attack is, almost without exception, the worse its design. I can't see where that rule wouldn't apply, except for an intentionally infuriating move. I'd love to talk more with you about this topic!
On failed champion, Idk what you were talk about the telegraph? If he jump slams there’s no shockwave, but if he is on the ground and slams, there is shockwave, not sure what’s more to it. Beating him is actually really really easy, you can just go to the side of the arena and he will run and then jump slam on you every single time, then you dodge give him a slap and run to the other side. Also how old is your brother? I’m guessing he is probably pretty young, so you could wait a bit til you tell him to play the game. It was my brother that got me to play the game after I quit on crossroads, and now it’s one of my favorite games ever.
Huh, that's funny about your brother introducing you as well, and you quitting in the same place as mine did. What a coincidence! My brother isn't that young, he's just used to first-person games I think. And about the telegraph, if you think this boss is really really easy, you're probably just out of my league. I can't really criticize the boss in detail if you're gonna tell me it's actually super easy. Thanks for the comment, though!
@Thee_Holland the boss is normally quite difficult, but if you literally just go to the wall opposite to where he is, he will run to you like a dumb idiot and just jump over you every time, and you can just give him a slap and run to the other side. Without this strat he is actually quite hard but with this it's actually free.
Not saying this boss is super easy, but his telegraph for the Shockwave attack is that little split second charge he does on the ground. He will never Shockwave off of a jump slam. Edit: also saw math's video, and I couldn't help but laugh the whole time. Hilarious that it works.
Bro I'm garbage at videogames and I still beat false knight on my second try. Your brother is just bad. I do agree with you on the failed champion's difficulty
Dang, why so rude? It took me like at least 3 tries, and now I've beaten AbsRad on Radiance - can't it just be that some people are really not used to platformers and have to get comfortable with the controls?
I think failed champion is actualy a pretty fair fight it not perfect but bpretty fair ecpacisally if you learn his paterns he becomes pretty eazy and if u go nail build u can kill him pretty quicly and take no damage concitenly
Ok, failed champion. I come from Elden Ring challenge running, so to be honest, failed champion seems fine to me. RNG doesn’t equal bad. When you don’t know how many shockwaves he is gonna send out, you essentially have to act as if he is going to send 1, 2 AND 3. Be ready to dash behind or away if he does 1 and jumps on u, AND be ready to jump if he slams the ground instead. In Elden Ring, this is MUCH, MUCH more prevalent. Bosses there tend to do much longer strings of attacks, and at each step, they could do one out of a few different options, so you have to be prepared for ALL of them at ONCE. Of course, you can gamble on them doing a specific one, and thats viable if you can afford to tank attacks. And that glitch where he doesn’t to the tell for shockwave is weird, but it happens. Just always know it’s possible whenever he’s near a wall. The only other thing I have a slight problem with is the boulders. It’s possible to get into a scenario where there is no realistic way not to get hit, like where he is coming down and boulder is on landing for one dash and wall is in the way of the other
Hi Kylewood, So glad you agree with me on the boulders, and I do get your point about being prepared that he might do 3 shockwaves every time he does 1. I'd just rather he did 2 every times, or 3 every time even! To some extend that's a nitpick, and to some extend I just like it when you know what attack the boss is going to do. I really am quite radical when it comes to RNG - I don't mind the boss' attacks being chosen at random (if they're about equally challenging to dodge), but other than that, I almost never want there to be any RNG to a fight. It so easily influences the difficulty of y our fight to say, someone who got really lucky. But I get your point! Side-note: I'm really considering doing a video on Elden Ring, because oh boy do I have some opinions about that game... I think Hollow Knight does difficulty way, way, way better. But to each their own, as they say! Thanks a ton for the comment!
@ Thx for taking time to respond! Funnily enough, I like Elden Ring better, but you’re 100% right that Hollow Knight does difficulty WAY better 😂 objectively Elden Ring makes some HEINOUS mistakes, and the only thing that saves it is its mythos, the fact that the atmosphere and story has always been about overcoming UNREASONABLE tasks. The feeling is unmatched when you truly dominate something that broken And to each their own! I’ve definitely heard both sides when it comes to RNG, it’s much more dance-like when it’s more deterministic and much more hunter-like when it’s more unpredictable, and I think that’s great that we all can find the balance we like best and find amazing creators who have catered to that experience!
@@kylewood4001 Oh my god, dance-like and hunter-like are such good ways of characterizing each system! Really appreciate how nice you are about this, always love when two people can both agree and disagree in civility!
Respectfully, I completely disagree with your points about failed champion and would like to explain why (If I misunderstand any of your points, please correct me): Firstly, you claim that the fight is heavily reliant on RNG to determine it's difficulty, due to the "rocks" falling from above (Idk what they are) and how that affects the difficulty of avoiding a shockwave attack while there are still "rocks" falling. You then later said that the number of shockwave attacks ranging from 1-3 causes arbitrarily large amounts of difficulty due to the lack of knowing when he will stop doing shockwave attacks. I think that this is not an issue personally, since you can decide when to tackle the shockwave, and you can get past it by jumping, jumping and dashing, jumping and then jumping again, doing a small jump and then shade cloaking through the shockwave, or I guess you could use dive (personally I never use dive to get invulnerability but it is a way). Each of these, combined with the ability to run to a spot of your choice (within range) to dodge the shockwave, allows you to choose the correct option to avoid taking damage in the most comfortable way (it felt intuitive to me but maybe I am strange for this). I would also like to mention that any series of attacks can be beaten, if there are multiple shockwaves, you can jump over them while being able to move around freely (ish), if it is straight into a jump slam, you can go under and the failed champion will completely protect you from all the "rocks", if there is a single shockwave followed closely by a slam attack, then you can either dodge the shockwave forward and dash under, guaranteeing that you are safe from "rocks" since you are going to a spot the false knight just jumped from, or dodge the shockwave by going away from the boss and being in the air for longer, either with a dash or double jump. However, the majority of the time that I fought this boss, this wasn't even a consideration, since I found that the best way to play was to just be in the failed champion's face at all times, since he will only do: 1. A charge slam to do a shockwave, at which point you dash away and then jump and dash back in over the shockwave (repeat until he stops doing shockwaves) - the "rocks" will not have fallen far enough to be an issue. 2. A big jump slam, when you just dash under. 3. A jump - walk or dash to an appropriate location. The only time an issue appeared was when doing several shockwaves in a row, but I found that I could just walk a few steps futher before doing my jump and dash if I would have been hit, or do a double jump and wait at some distance for a slam attack (or jump), after which I get back in to close quarters. I do not disagree that the position of the "rocks" is random, I just think that it doesn't make the fight necessarily majorly different based on this. I am also aware of the fact that this is a playstyle that may not be shared by everyone, but I think that the general principles work in every situation; dodge under when possible, jump over shockwaves in the most comfortable way you can. As an aside, using sharp shadow for this fight is really fun since you can dash through him entirely, allowing you to just keep attacking almost indepentanly of what attacks he is doing. As for your point about the number of shockwaves being anywhere from 1-3. I just don't find that to be an issue personally (not really sure if I can justify this other than just how it felt to play). Secondly, you state that "you didn't know exactly what the telegraph for a shockwave attack was". The telegraph is that he doesn't jump and charges up a swing. Because he will always jump to do his other attack or to reposition using a jump. It is a short telegraph, but no shorter or less clear than the jump slam attack. Now, the backwards jump is probably just a repositioning jump that is done to try and have a specific ideal distance or longer for starting the shockwave attack, and he doesn't do it when he is already far enough away, or too close to the wall. Now for your third point, I already spoke about this with regard to lost kin when replying to a reply on your soul master video: When a boss does this you stay grounded more often. Now for this fight in particular, you are VERY unlikely to be high in the air (at least I am when I play this fight) due to the "rocks", the jump slam attacks, and the need to be prepared to dodge the shockwaves, so I find this repositioning jump to be not nearly so unfair as you claim. Finally, you mention the false knight/failed champion cheese strategy, and here I think we come to an impassable difference of opinion. You state that "because it is so powerful, you are forced to use it if you don't want to handicap yourself". I disagree, I never once used this strategy, despite knowing about it for most of my failed champion kills. This is the case for both radiant, and for when I played through the game with the express purpose of seeing how the dream fights held up when you got to them as early as possible (I got vs, dash, dream nail, and claw and headed straight to failed champion). When doing the radiant clear I got a lot of hits off by just using the nail (no spells or sould required) when he goes to the middle, by using quick slash and shade cloaking away right when he was about to hit me, then I hit rocks back to him and he is basically down already, much faster then farming soul and casting spells for almost the same effect. Plus it was a lot more fun and doesn't take away from the pace of the fight. And when doing the limited stuff fight, sure I could have healed using the dream nail, but I healed because I got soul from hitting him in the face and focused while he did a rage in the centre, so I missed out on 3 vs shots, which doesn't really matter when the fight takes so much longer anyway, it is a tiny bit of free damage with a large time penalty for having to farm soul (this is similar to using nail arts on grimm when he is bowing, sure you get a free great slash hit, but then you cannot hit him until he finishes pufferfishing). Now, you could say that I am handicapping myself here, and, sure, maybe I am, but I find that overall it is a small change that requires a lot of time, makes the fight less fun, makes the combat less interesting, and cheeses the boss (I am just generally against cheesing bosses personally - I don't mind if others do it but I do not, at least not on purpose). Just to be clear, I am not attempting to be hateful or say that I am definitely correct, I am just saying it as I see it, and I see it as not quite so bad as you made it out to be since I like having to switch how I am playing the game for specific fights (except no eyes and markoth, I hate how slowly you have to play those fights. - I am fine with patience fights like uumuu and elder hu because I am just playing the game, dealing damage when given the opportunity, but I don't like no eyes and markoth because of how irritating it is to try to deal damage to them). WOW this was a long comment, sorry. I tried to add breaks but it wasn't all that sucessful.
Hi, Devilsblade, Really well spoken! I read the entire comment, and I think you make your case quite diligently! Maybe I can just respond to a few things? Everything you say about dodging the boss' attacks makes perfect sense to me - it's more or less the same way I go about fighting him. My issue with the RNG-aspects isn't that it makes Failed Champion impossible, because usually there's a way to get around even the worst RNG. But because it can make the fight go from "kind of hard" to "pretty dang hard" (which I do believe it can), I feel like one of my attempts can be so much more challenging than my next. Not impossibly so, just noticeably harder. My biggest problems with the fight are the repositioning and the fact that False Knight doesn't always properly indicate that he's about to do a shockwave-attack. Maybe I'm just bad at the game, but I CANNOT reliably dodge the shockwave-attack without seeing the little backwards jump he does - especially because he does it *nearly every time*, so I get used to it, right up until he doesn't do it and I die! If nothing else, you HAVE to play more carefully if you're just gonna rely on the tiny charge-up animation from his hammer, and that means you're dealing less damage to avoid a small chance of the boss not properly telegraphing his attack! And in terms of repositioning, you note that you just have to "stay grounded", which is very much true... and I hate that! I hate that you can't use the arena to its full potential. You *cannot* be in the air without risk of being hit by an unavoidable "attack", not because the boss might strike at you, but because he might fly across the arena and land on you with his fat behind! Ugh. I just wish bosses would indicate - properly - when they were gonna reposition. And maybe even where! Lastly, about the cheese thing, I think we agree, actually. I'd say you're handicapping yourself to have a more fun fight, and I totally get that! You also seem quite good at the game - and for a weaker player, having to handicap themselves when there's a "better option" that's more tedious just seems like not the best game design. But truly, I don't think it's a huge problem. Thanks a lot for the comment, I really enjoyed reading your thoughts!
I remember when I first played Hollow Knight, when I came face to club with a Great Husk, and it dealt two Masks of damage, I was freaking out because I thought I wasn't ready, as in, didn't have the in game equipment to deal with it yet...
False Knight told me I did, before beating me to a pulp.
Side note, I did beat him on my second try.
That's a great story, Underdrow ;D
And I vaguely remember feeling quite similarly about those damn husks dealing double damage...!
i played hollow knight, died and raged quitted to gruz mother years later i picked it up again and now i love it
@@younesisalivethankfully My brother struggles with Gruz Mother too
Your brother just has a skill issue
He fell into a deep depression after reading this comment.
@@thee_hollandIf he’s reading this, don’t give up, my first attempt at beating him was 4 hours!
I can now complete him in 2 minutes
@@V1therobotcoin I love the humility, RobotCoin! I thought it was very hard the first time too!
And I actually don't think he's gonna give up... ;)
@@thee_hollandTell your brother that it's ok. It took me 6-8 hours to beat Genichiro Ashina from sekiro never struggled that much on anyone ever.
@@Season_xD I'm sure he'll appreciate that a lot, thank you
The difference with failed champ is it's completely optional for the main story and completely optional for PoP which is why most people want essence. Also, by the time most people are going to look for dream bosses and exploring the earlier parts of the map they were most likely done exploring city of tears which has descending dive which gives you I frames making it very easy to dodge every one of the false knights attacks. Also if your radianting bosses you probably have good nail upgrades, shade cloak, and atleast one spell upgrade making failed champ easy.
Fair points! Although I'm not even sure how to use Descending Dark properly against Failed Champion... ':D
Thanks for the comment!
@@thee_holland Using d dark at all will gives you i think like half a second to a second or whatever of Invincibility, you can use this for really any attack, especially the falling barrels.
@@sushiverseichigo7264 Fair!
@@sushiverseichigo7264you can, but the lack of soul will very quickly become an issue
I was gonna say that failed champion isn’t that bad, but then I remembered that I have the reflexes of a cat. Very close to beating P5!
Very honest, my friend. And I wish you all the luck in that endeavor!
The thing is, you can skip false knight completely after phase 1. While breaking the arena isn't the most well-telegraphed, if you are really struggling, you can skip it and come back when you're much stronger.
Hmm that's true, Big Bones. But how could you get much stronger without being able to beat the first boss? I never really understood why you could break out of the arena
@@thee_holland Right out the gate, vengeful spirit is pretty huge. It allows you to keep your distance from FK's flailing and it does 3 times your nail's damage. If you go into the arena with a full soul meter, you just have to land 3 fireballs and 4 nail swings per stagger, and you risk taking less damage as well. Also exploring and finding charm builds and whatnot may help a little as well.
@@bigbonesbrian Oh yeah, Vengeful Spirit of course! Duh, I'm stupid...
That makes sense! Thanks for elaborating :D
@@thee_holland this feature also means that if you are strong enough as a player, you can just skip the false knight and try to reach the city without the crest.
@@alathreon8315 I guess so, yeah, and maybe that's useful for speedrunning? But how do you even get into the city without the crest?
If you wanna talk about rng, talk about Markoth. Oh boy...Markoth.
Oh boy Markoth indeed... I really do want to talk about him at some point :')
the telegraph is not that he jumps back but rather if he swings his mace from behind him
I do believe it's *also* that he jumps back. If you can react to that damn hammer in time, then you have the reaction time of a God
13:39
1, thas actually pretty cool i didnt know that was in the game
2, you can equip dream wielder and itll double the amount of soul you get and also just make the dream nail faster, so it doesnt have to be a chore.
If youre in the pantheons though and you dont wanna have to sacrifice a charm for dream wielder, then fair.
Yeah that's true, Chosen. That would make it less of a chore
@@thee_hollandit also helps to go behind the boss instead of dream nailing yhe head, you can just stay behind it and you dont have to jump and pogo everytime, you can just swing
@@dampseeker Oh wow, does that work? That's cool! I gotta try that out :D
Ok, to be fair quitting the game because of it would of course make you think it’s bad, all it takes is learning the patterns and practice, as long as you don’t give up you’ll beat it.
I agree with that, Meh! And he came back and beat it, actually!
I thought False Knight only did the shock wave attack when he doesn't jump.
I think that's true, Jasper. But he also does a little backwards jump (almost every time) which is a really nice indicator on Radiant difficulty. Except when he doesn't...
He does only do it when grounded, yeah. So maybe try being weary of that for when he doesn't hop
@@underdrow5572 You're totally right, Underdrow, my problem is just that I can't react fast enough when Failed Champion does it without first jumping backwards :(
11:48 i'm pretty sure failed champion always send shockwave when he is on the ground and never when he slamjump
That is true, Neadeux, but he doesn't do his whole telegraph every time, which can really throw you off!
@@thee_hollandim 99% sure the jump has nothing to do with it, the tlegraph is whether he charges up the swing or not
@@dampseeker Okay, well I'm 100% sure it does ':D
9:26 I think you are going into a wrong direction with that sentence, Hollow Knight is known to be a hard game and only for people who actually want to play it. You will die to bosses *a lot* on your first playthrough and it will be annoying. But that only means that you need to learn more about the boss you are fighting, the Bosses in this game are supposed to make you analyse them, and learn their patterns, and you shouldn't give up, even if its hard for you, if you win, it will always be a good feeling, even if its hard to keep going.
I really do agree with that! But wouldn't you say there are a few types of very casual gamers who would just find it too frustrating no matter how much time they spent on it?
@Thee_Holland That is what im saying, you really need to focus on playing Hollow Knight and not quit to actually play through all of it, i like spending as much time in a game as possible
@@miguelcrafter2997 But what if you're just not built for motoric finesse? What if you literally can't handle the button presses?
@Thee_Holland well, than obviously there are a lot of other beautiful games you can try, if you don't want to play Hollow Knight, that's absolutely ok. What i mean is that its perfectly fine to lose at something, but you shouldn't stop doing that thing only because you failed once
@@miguelcrafter2997 I agree with that, my man
Another importante point to mention. If you, experienced player, find the false knight fight boring. Just skip it. Don't blame cherry team. I don't remember struggling to kill him first time, but I remember dying. Although I didn't replay the game ofter I beated, watching your video show me how I learned how to kill him, and maybe that's why I didn't struggled. Same can be said about the mantis lord. First you learn the moves with 1 mantis, then your use everything you've learned again two at the same time.
That a wonderful game. I beated it about a week ago and now I'm looking for 112%.
Yeah, that's a great point, Jaozin; I forgot to mention that you can skip the fight entirely :)
Congrats on the 112%!
Tbh false night is a perfect first maybe even the best!, at first your gonna damn struggle but after finally defeating him,you become ready to fight all the incoming bosses, not tooo ready, but ready enough,PERFECT
I'd drink to that, Jawad!
False Knight is my favorite boss in Hollow Knight and mostly because he is so easy once you learn his patterns... He is kinda hard in the dream fight but still the easiest of the dream re-fights.
Wow, favorite fight, huh? That's totally fair! He is super fun once you learn his moves.
Thanks for the comment!
I gave up on the failed champion- there's better ways to get essence
That's completely understandable
Same. Soul tyrant is better balanced, and lost kin didn't feel any faster than the original broken vessel fight
@@tnsquidd Definitely agree that Soul Tyrant is better balanced!
Failed champ is the easiest one
@@nogass5381 I think Soul Tyrant is the easiest!
damn good quality
Wow that is amazingly kind of you, Phi. Thanks a lot
@@thee_holland damn you guess my name right
@@PhiTaNguyen I'm a genius!
@@thee_holland fr =)))
false knight teached me that when a boss is staggered i should hit it, made the game much easier (sarcasm)
fair
Do a video on the traitor lord, he's one of my favorite bosses
I'd love to!
Great video, especially in the beginning. The latter bit felt disjointed from the main point of the video however.
You said something interesting that made me think: “Making a harder version of a boss is actually a pretty good way to test whether it’s fairly designed or not.”
The problem with this line of thinking is that fair and harder are subjective things.
Additionally, when you make balance changes, it is an entirely different fight. If we scale up the speed at which Soul Tyrant attacks by 5x; suddenly it’s not so fair. Is this an indicator that the base fight is *not* fairly designed? I don’t think so.
What it is indicative of however, is that the changes made to that fight were a poor design choice.
What dictates ‘fair’ and ‘hard’ is entirely dependent on the context of the game, your expected progression/moveset, balance decisions, and player skill level.
Hope you found this interesting.
That's a good point, Haxox. I wanted the video to be about both False Knight *and* Failed Champion, but I don't think I made that clear at all. That's on me!
@@haxox1795
I don't believe fair and harder are subjective, actually. Maybe to a very slight degree, but there would be no point in doing an analysis at all if it was all just "my opinion". I hear this "subjectivity" point a lot, but would you then say that there's *no* objectivity to how well a fight is made? Should all game design principles be forgotten, because one man's Prince Zote is another's Pure Vessel?
If you scale up a boss to the point where its attacks are literally impossible to react to, then no, that obviously doesn't say much about the boss' design. But if you have a really clear telegraph - say, Soul Master teleporting to the far-side of the arena to indicate that he's about to charge - then that'll carry over very well to a faster version of the boss. Whereas other attacks might feel more random or poorly telegraphed when sped up.
I agree that difficulty and fairness is dependent on all of those things. It's those exact things I'm trying to uncover in my analyses :)
I did, and thanks a lot for the comment!
@@thee_holland A fundamental disagreement! Interesting,, if you'll humour me:
When we design games, we use game mechanics and art to inspire an experience. This experience is subject to a variety of outside factors, like social contexts, familiarity with the genre, a player's physical ability, etc. When a player is engaged in play, they experience our game through the unique lens of their own life, this introduces subjectivity.
I find objectivity to be a rather unhelpful lens with which to view games for this reason, there is not an 'objective' way to experience something. By our nature as humans, each experience is fundamentally different from the last. Instead, I find it more productive to judge a games design based on how succesful they are in delivering the intended experience.
Intent is important here, as nothing can be made for everyone. Like in the example of your brother; Hollow Knight isn't poorly made because it was never created with players like him in mind. If it was made with his enjoyment in mind however, I would say Hollow Knight is poorly designed.
It's important to know the audience you are creating for, game design principles are a bag of tricks for instigating an intended experience within your audience.
- This line of thinking does present a problem though, what if something's unintentionally great? Well, I wouldn't really credit the design in that case, just as I wouldn't credit designers for really fun glitches that add to the game (unless it's been left in intentionally).
Additionally, intent is subject to a critic's interpretation, but assumptions need to be made for the sake of critique. I don't think this lessens the value of critique, the point of critique is to analyse and present the 'good' qualities. I think you did this really well in your video, highlighting the goals of the developers, and how they succeed and fail in some areas. I found your analysis on False Knight to be very insightful.
Unfairness is a failure in design, because naturally we assume that the designer wants us to have fun, which is the primary objective in most games.
You use an important word there, 'feel'. At which point do these things feel unfair? That is the subjectivity. It's only natural that attacks vary in fairness based on their attributes (telegraphs, speed, damage, etc). I don't think changing these is indicative of the original attack being 'bad' design, which was my main issue. Some attacks do scale better, but that's just an indicator of how dynamic they can be while retaining fairness.
Thanks for the reply! I hope you found this insightful - or it allowed you to help strengthen your position. I study game design and I'm very passionate about the topic, it's lovely to engage in discussion about it.
@@haxox1795
How can you inspire a purely subjective experience? What is being inspired if it's all in the eye of the beholder? This post-modern thinking simply does not make sense to me :(
If 99% of players feel that a specific boss move is unfair, is it still "subjective"? In some sense it is, but in another that's an absurdity.
I think the less fair an attack is, almost without exception, the worse its design. I can't see where that rule wouldn't apply, except for an intentionally infuriating move.
I'd love to talk more with you about this topic!
On failed champion, Idk what you were talk about the telegraph? If he jump slams there’s no shockwave, but if he is on the ground and slams, there is shockwave, not sure what’s more to it. Beating him is actually really really easy, you can just go to the side of the arena and he will run and then jump slam on you every single time, then you dodge give him a slap and run to the other side.
Also how old is your brother? I’m guessing he is probably pretty young, so you could wait a bit til you tell him to play the game. It was my brother that got me to play the game after I quit on crossroads, and now it’s one of my favorite games ever.
Huh, that's funny about your brother introducing you as well, and you quitting in the same place as mine did. What a coincidence! My brother isn't that young, he's just used to first-person games I think.
And about the telegraph, if you think this boss is really really easy, you're probably just out of my league. I can't really criticize the boss in detail if you're gonna tell me it's actually super easy.
Thanks for the comment, though!
@Thee_Holland the boss is normally quite difficult, but if you literally just go to the wall opposite to where he is, he will run to you like a dumb idiot and just jump over you every time, and you can just give him a slap and run to the other side. Without this strat he is actually quite hard but with this it's actually free.
@@matheuscabral9618 Hmm. I'd love to see someone doing that on video, because I can't imagine he'd just stop doing the shockwaves altogether.
@ just posted the vid
Not saying this boss is super easy, but his telegraph for the Shockwave attack is that little split second charge he does on the ground. He will never Shockwave off of a jump slam.
Edit: also saw math's video, and I couldn't help but laugh the whole time. Hilarious that it works.
Maybe I was overpowered, but Failed Champion died on 3rd attempt
Yeah that's a good point, it does depend a lot on how powerful you are
i beat false knight first try,i didnt know how anyone can struggle with him lol.
Well, try to see it from the perspective of someone who's not as used to video games as yourself :)
11:46 isn’t it just when he does the normal attack on the ground?
Yes, yes it is. But he *also* does the little backwards jump almost every time he does the shockwave slam, so it's an additional indicator
Bro I'm garbage at videogames and I still beat false knight on my second try. Your brother is just bad. I do agree with you on the failed champion's difficulty
Dang, why so rude?
It took me like at least 3 tries, and now I've beaten AbsRad on Radiance - can't it just be that some people are really not used to platformers and have to get comfortable with the controls?
I think failed champion is actualy a pretty fair fight it not perfect but bpretty fair ecpacisally if you learn his paterns he becomes pretty eazy and if u go nail build u can kill him pretty quicly and take no damage concitenly
I think that's a good take, Bitop!
Ok, failed champion. I come from Elden Ring challenge running, so to be honest, failed champion seems fine to me.
RNG doesn’t equal bad. When you don’t know how many shockwaves he is gonna send out, you essentially have to act as if he is going to send 1, 2 AND 3. Be ready to dash behind or away if he does 1 and jumps on u, AND be ready to jump if he slams the ground instead. In Elden Ring, this is MUCH, MUCH more prevalent. Bosses there tend to do much longer strings of attacks, and at each step, they could do one out of a few different options, so you have to be prepared for ALL of them at ONCE. Of course, you can gamble on them doing a specific one, and thats viable if you can afford to tank attacks.
And that glitch where he doesn’t to the tell for shockwave is weird, but it happens. Just always know it’s possible whenever he’s near a wall.
The only other thing I have a slight problem with is the boulders. It’s possible to get into a scenario where there is no realistic way not to get hit, like where he is coming down and boulder is on landing for one dash and wall is in the way of the other
Hi Kylewood,
So glad you agree with me on the boulders, and I do get your point about being prepared that he might do 3 shockwaves every time he does 1. I'd just rather he did 2 every times, or 3 every time even!
To some extend that's a nitpick, and to some extend I just like it when you know what attack the boss is going to do. I really am quite radical when it comes to RNG - I don't mind the boss' attacks being chosen at random (if they're about equally challenging to dodge), but other than that, I almost never want there to be any RNG to a fight. It so easily influences the difficulty of y our fight to say, someone who got really lucky.
But I get your point!
Side-note: I'm really considering doing a video on Elden Ring, because oh boy do I have some opinions about that game... I think Hollow Knight does difficulty way, way, way better.
But to each their own, as they say!
Thanks a ton for the comment!
@ Thx for taking time to respond!
Funnily enough, I like Elden Ring better, but you’re 100% right that Hollow Knight does difficulty WAY better 😂 objectively Elden Ring makes some HEINOUS mistakes, and the only thing that saves it is its mythos, the fact that the atmosphere and story has always been about overcoming UNREASONABLE tasks. The feeling is unmatched when you truly dominate something that broken
And to each their own! I’ve definitely heard both sides when it comes to RNG, it’s much more dance-like when it’s more deterministic and much more hunter-like when it’s more unpredictable, and I think that’s great that we all can find the balance we like best and find amazing creators who have catered to that experience!
@@kylewood4001 Oh my god, dance-like and hunter-like are such good ways of characterizing each system!
Really appreciate how nice you are about this, always love when two people can both agree and disagree in civility!
Are you a bad first boss?
Yes... yes I am, Auranos 😢
good video, but it is a little clunky and I think its a bit repetitive.
subbed, happy to see your progression!
Thanks a for the feedback! I'll try to be more careful about repeating myself in the future. How do you mean clunky?
Respectfully, I completely disagree with your points about failed champion and would like to explain why (If I misunderstand any of your points, please correct me):
Firstly, you claim that the fight is heavily reliant on RNG to determine it's difficulty, due to the "rocks" falling from above (Idk what they are) and how that affects the difficulty of avoiding a shockwave attack while there are still "rocks" falling. You then later said that the number of shockwave attacks ranging from 1-3 causes arbitrarily large amounts of difficulty due to the lack of knowing when he will stop doing shockwave attacks.
I think that this is not an issue personally, since you can decide when to tackle the shockwave, and you can get past it by jumping, jumping and dashing, jumping and then jumping again, doing a small jump and then shade cloaking through the shockwave, or I guess you could use dive (personally I never use dive to get invulnerability but it is a way).
Each of these, combined with the ability to run to a spot of your choice (within range) to dodge the shockwave, allows you to choose the correct option to avoid taking damage in the most comfortable way (it felt intuitive to me but maybe I am strange for this).
I would also like to mention that any series of attacks can be beaten, if there are multiple shockwaves, you can jump over them while being able to move around freely (ish), if it is straight into a jump slam, you can go under and the failed champion will completely protect you from all the "rocks", if there is a single shockwave followed closely by a slam attack, then you can either dodge the shockwave forward and dash under, guaranteeing that you are safe from "rocks" since you are going to a spot the false knight just jumped from, or dodge the shockwave by going away from the boss and being in the air for longer, either with a dash or double jump.
However, the majority of the time that I fought this boss, this wasn't even a consideration, since I found that the best way to play was to just be in the failed champion's face at all times, since he will only do:
1. A charge slam to do a shockwave, at which point you dash away and then jump and dash back in over the shockwave (repeat until he stops doing shockwaves) - the "rocks" will not have fallen far enough to be an issue.
2. A big jump slam, when you just dash under.
3. A jump - walk or dash to an appropriate location.
The only time an issue appeared was when doing several shockwaves in a row, but I found that I could just walk a few steps futher before doing my jump and dash if I would have been hit, or do a double jump and wait at some distance for a slam attack (or jump), after which I get back in to close quarters.
I do not disagree that the position of the "rocks" is random, I just think that it doesn't make the fight necessarily majorly different based on this.
I am also aware of the fact that this is a playstyle that may not be shared by everyone, but I think that the general principles work in every situation; dodge under when possible, jump over shockwaves in the most comfortable way you can.
As an aside, using sharp shadow for this fight is really fun since you can dash through him entirely, allowing you to just keep attacking almost indepentanly of what attacks he is doing.
As for your point about the number of shockwaves being anywhere from 1-3. I just don't find that to be an issue personally (not really sure if I can justify this other than just how it felt to play).
Secondly, you state that "you didn't know exactly what the telegraph for a shockwave attack was". The telegraph is that he doesn't jump and charges up a swing. Because he will always jump to do his other attack or to reposition using a jump. It is a short telegraph, but no shorter or less clear than the jump slam attack. Now, the backwards jump is probably just a repositioning jump that is done to try and have a specific ideal distance or longer for starting the shockwave attack, and he doesn't do it when he is already far enough away, or too close to the wall.
Now for your third point, I already spoke about this with regard to lost kin when replying to a reply on your soul master video:
When a boss does this you stay grounded more often. Now for this fight in particular, you are VERY unlikely to be high in the air (at least I am when I play this fight) due to the "rocks", the jump slam attacks, and the need to be prepared to dodge the shockwaves, so I find this repositioning jump to be not nearly so unfair as you claim.
Finally, you mention the false knight/failed champion cheese strategy, and here I think we come to an impassable difference of opinion. You state that "because it is so powerful, you are forced to use it if you don't want to handicap yourself".
I disagree, I never once used this strategy, despite knowing about it for most of my failed champion kills. This is the case for both radiant, and for when I played through the game with the express purpose of seeing how the dream fights held up when you got to them as early as possible (I got vs, dash, dream nail, and claw and headed straight to failed champion).
When doing the radiant clear I got a lot of hits off by just using the nail (no spells or sould required) when he goes to the middle, by using quick slash and shade cloaking away right when he was about to hit me, then I hit rocks back to him and he is basically down already, much faster then farming soul and casting spells for almost the same effect.
Plus it was a lot more fun and doesn't take away from the pace of the fight. And when doing the limited stuff fight, sure I could have healed using the dream nail, but I healed because I got soul from hitting him in the face and focused while he did a rage in the centre, so I missed out on 3 vs shots, which doesn't really matter when the fight takes so much longer anyway, it is a tiny bit of free damage with a large time penalty for having to farm soul (this is similar to using nail arts on grimm when he is bowing, sure you get a free great slash hit, but then you cannot hit him until he finishes pufferfishing).
Now, you could say that I am handicapping myself here, and, sure, maybe I am, but I find that overall it is a small change that requires a lot of time, makes the fight less fun, makes the combat less interesting, and cheeses the boss (I am just generally against cheesing bosses personally - I don't mind if others do it but I do not, at least not on purpose).
Just to be clear, I am not attempting to be hateful or say that I am definitely correct, I am just saying it as I see it, and I see it as not quite so bad as you made it out to be since I like having to switch how I am playing the game for specific fights (except no eyes and markoth, I hate how slowly you have to play those fights. - I am fine with patience fights like uumuu and elder hu because I am just playing the game, dealing damage when given the opportunity, but I don't like no eyes and markoth because of how irritating it is to try to deal damage to them).
WOW this was a long comment, sorry. I tried to add breaks but it wasn't all that sucessful.
Hi, Devilsblade,
Really well spoken! I read the entire comment, and I think you make your case quite diligently! Maybe I can just respond to a few things?
Everything you say about dodging the boss' attacks makes perfect sense to me - it's more or less the same way I go about fighting him.
My issue with the RNG-aspects isn't that it makes Failed Champion impossible, because usually there's a way to get around even the worst RNG. But because it can make the fight go from "kind of hard" to "pretty dang hard" (which I do believe it can), I feel like one of my attempts can be so much more challenging than my next. Not impossibly so, just noticeably harder.
My biggest problems with the fight are the repositioning and the fact that False Knight doesn't always properly indicate that he's about to do a shockwave-attack. Maybe I'm just bad at the game, but I CANNOT reliably dodge the shockwave-attack without seeing the little backwards jump he does - especially because he does it *nearly every time*, so I get used to it, right up until he doesn't do it and I die! If nothing else, you HAVE to play more carefully if you're just gonna rely on the tiny charge-up animation from his hammer, and that means you're dealing less damage to avoid a small chance of the boss not properly telegraphing his attack!
And in terms of repositioning, you note that you just have to "stay grounded", which is very much true... and I hate that! I hate that you can't use the arena to its full potential. You *cannot* be in the air without risk of being hit by an unavoidable "attack", not because the boss might strike at you, but because he might fly across the arena and land on you with his fat behind! Ugh. I just wish bosses would indicate - properly - when they were gonna reposition. And maybe even where!
Lastly, about the cheese thing, I think we agree, actually. I'd say you're handicapping yourself to have a more fun fight, and I totally get that! You also seem quite good at the game - and for a weaker player, having to handicap themselves when there's a "better option" that's more tedious just seems like not the best game design. But truly, I don't think it's a huge problem.
Thanks a lot for the comment, I really enjoyed reading your thoughts!
@@thee_holland you're a real one for reading the entire comment
@@KJV_Enjoyer. And so are you for taking the time to write it!
Naaaahh, first boss is Markoth
Bro if first boss was Markoth I would not have allowed my brother to play in the first place...
@@thee_holland Well, I don't expect your brother to do the Blue Lake skip on his first playthrough, lol!
@@Jimmy--Little Hahaha, you never know with those siblings! They can be surprising!!