Hollow Knight: April 3 2025

Rapid Progress

I have probably been playing a lot more than I should be. But this is one of the only things that I'm enjoying right now, so I've given myself some grace. Since I last wrote about my playthrough, I have defeated the Mantis Kings, broken into Deepnest, the Royal Waterways, Kingdom's Edge, the City of Tears, and the Crystal shithole. Sorry. I don't like that area. But I tend to just kind of alternate between where I want to explore depending on how I'm feeling, or whatever's frustrating me. I still don't have a map to the Fog Canyon and I've been playing for 20 hours. But it's probably my fault, because I took so long to even try to go down to the city in the first place. I did things in a probably very roundabout way that would be annoying to watch as a stream, so it's for the best that no one is actually watching me. I am having a hard time remembering the exact order, but I think that I have traversed in this order:

  1. Dirtmouth
  2. Forgotten Crossroads
  3. Greenpath
  4. Fog Canyon
  5. Fungal Wastes- I do remember that the second that I found the Mantis Claws, I backtracked like crazy because I remembered all of the places where I hadn't previously been able to go. This may be affecting the order in which I remember things.
  6. Howling Cliffs
  7. Deepnest (still progressing in that area)
  8. City of Tears (it took me way too long to get here and learn the Desolate Dive.)
  9. Crystal Shithole. Can't seem to make progress here.
  10. Kingdom's Edge. I hate this area. It's the least enjoyable in the game so far. The only reason that it doesn't have a cruel name is because I can't think of one yet.
  11. Resting Grounds
  12. Some kind of unlabeled area near the city? It's grey. And it's got a dream tree in it, but it's fucking covered in spikes. I suspect it's some kinda prison.
  13. Royal Waterways, because I spent the first key I had on the exorcism hole.

Current toolkit

I currently have the Channeled Nail and the Dream Nail. I have 28 charms and the Tram Pass. I have two out of three sword moves, and I constantly forget that they exist. I went to The Temple of the Black Egg because Hornet yelled at me, but nothing happened, probably because I didn't even have the Dream Nail when she did. The Failed Tramway is my favorite location in the game so far. It is... so disturbing. And yes, I have been to the bottom of the Soul Sanctum. There is something so... civically indifferent about the horror of the Trams smashed into the ground, everyone inside so fucking dead that they can't even revive as husks. Something about believing in infinite expansion for expansion's sake. Familiar to me as an American. On a lighter note, I was delighted to learn that Mark of Pride and Longnail are stackable. Once I have enough notches for that, Dashmaster and the Compass, it's over for you hoes.

Fuck wizards, man.

The Soul Sanctum was a disturbing look into Hallownest's cultures of cruelty, but... Wizard Spam really kinda ruined that for me. Do you know what kind of suffering it takes for me to dislike one of the places with the most organ on the soundtrack? It takes wizard spam. Lots and lots of wizard spam.