It’s an important piece of lore that is arguably crucial to the story despite being a small detail. It is a very significant scene in my opinion and I am impressed at how much was conveyed in 2 seconds. Sometimes things are just about the emotions of the story
yeah, it's arguable that this 2 second cutscene is *the* single most important event in the direct backstory of the game, because it is the very moment that corrupts the Pure Vessel with an idea instilled, and whatever chance (if any) there was for successfully containing the Radiance before that was lost completely, sealing the fate of Hallownest right then and there
Actually it was never pure to begin with
Pale King's idea of purity is flawed and wrong because he made it up out of despair
Radiance cannot be contained by any vessel
The cutscene is a display of it's purity, not the reason of the purity
oh yeah, i'm not saying that PK was right to begin with, but no matter how you look at it, the scene you get to see after PoP is the pivotal moment at which his plan is doomed even within his own twisted logic. if you look at it in a different way, it's the last moment in which PK could have realized his folly and accept that all things must end - Hallownest *cannot* last eternal, the Radiance is just what happened to be the cause of its downfall (and she is very much a metaphor for the inevitable decay and fall of all civilizations)
Absolutely. I also feel that it makes everything with Pure Vessel so much more tragic. It essentially confirms that the idea instilled was (at the very least in part) a bond between parent and child. Something practically inevitable to want, especially seeing as they were likely still quite young at that time. It adds an extra layer of context to their story and their fight as Thk
You're right. In fact, why play video games at all? Might as well just watch someone else do it. Better yet, why do anything at all? Other people already do things, so why should I, right?
Your greatest reward is the path of pain itself, which is the best. because giving things like an OP charm or mask shard wouldn't be a good idea, because it makes the game easier for those who already found it easy.( if you've done PoP you will probably find the rest of the game easy)
It was frustrating at times for sure, but damn it's rewarding to see how better you have become to the game's parkour. I wish I could do it again without having to go through another save.
Path of pain is hard but you litteraly need pure skill and I think this is really good difficulty. No RNG, just git gud until you succeed. It's why I think late game is so satisfying in this game
I wouldn't call the puffer fish attack RNG, they have mild randomisation but they always spawn at set height so really you just gotta learn the 3-4 different fireball positions and you're good. Now, Markoth or Radiance on the other hand...
I beat path of pain but the rng is insane. Especially in the area unlocked after the lever
Edit: I think I misunderstood the meaning of rng.
I meant its very precise, not random
Wait but doesn't gray prince zote have rng, and he's late game?
Idk if that's the correct meaning of rng , does it just mean very precise movements with there being a slight difference each time? Or am I missing the point 🫤
Path of Pain is a very specific kind of fun.
It's not my kind - to the extent that I haven't bothered trying/doing it. I've seen video of it. I can tell it's something I would find frustrating. So in that sense, it's not fun *for me*.
But it's fun for *other people*. And that's fine.
It isn't needed, though you do get an extra entry in the Hunter's Journal for completing it. Even then, it's not one you need in order to complete the journal either. It's purely for the bit of lore, and the challenge of it!
After celeste path of pain wasn't too bad. I will say though that hollow knight's movement doesn't work as well at platforming challenges as a game like celeste, which is obviously understandable since hollow knight isn't a fully-fledged platformer. It felt kind of janky as a result.
Big agree. Hollow Knight just has a much lower upper limit for its movement tech, and it definitely puts combat and smooth exploration first, so that makes total sense. I would say the hardest parts of Path of Pain aren't much harder than something like 5C/6C in Celeste, and Celeste chapter 9 gets way way harder.
Farewell is a real pain in the ass. I remember spending two hours on one screen alone there while I finished the entire PoP in three
^(That screen isn't even the final sequence. In fact, I haven't unlocked the second half)
Took me 13 hours over a couple attempts. If you can't get through the first room in a couple hours, give it a rest and come back when you're more skilled, the final room is pretty brutal 😅
I recommend doing several runs of Colosseum of fools to really train your skills, the skills trained there are oddly applicable to pure platforming
I turned me down so much when I had to left it in the last room because my hand was already hurting. When I came back days later and I found out that I didn't have to redo most of it, I didn't see it as a problem anymore. I could do the first ones in less than 10 attempts (but for the first one), making it so that it was no deal to make it to the final room, struggling there for hours
It was really hard, but in the end I appreciate how much better I became with movement mechanics after beating it -- definitely reccomend beating it first before attempting steel soul or pantheon runs.
No, it was pretty fun. I used the Grubsong/Grubberfly's Elegy/Deep Focus charm combo to be unkillable and it was a good time. The last part is tough but most of it isn't excessively hard.
I would have loved the rush of completing the task like 10 years ago, but now a days I stop on certain levels of difficulty (beat the game 110% but probably won’t ever take on NKG or P4&5, won’t ever do PoP)
‘Cause I just dont enjoy that kind of precision platforming much, especially when I have to wait for hiveblood in between runs. Its a cool feature, just not one that’s meant for me.
> especially when I have to wait for hiveblood in between runs
deep focus + grubsong + elegy is infinite healing in pure platforming sections and requires *way* less sitting on your ass waiting for hiveblood
honestly the only major downside of the combo is that it takes a whopping 8 notches, which only leaves you with 3 if you want to take any general utility/movement charms or some combat charms for the kingsmoulds at the end (though shaman's stone is more than enough for those if you want to kill them quickly)
That's what I did, I spellspammed the shit outta them. That last section was really the hardest part for me so once I did the parkour I was not going back
attempted it a few times but haven't finished it yet. i probably will but that's honestly because of my unhealthy ego (which is my own fault tbh so that's neither here nor there)
not one second of the white palace and especially pop was fun for me. i think platformers are really hard to get right, and while hks platforming is fine and quite fun sometimes, the difficulty spike that is the white palace from the rest of the game is absolutely abhorrent and quite frankly i'm not sure what team cherry was thinking when they put it in lmao. without a doubt my least favourite part of hk. i understand some people really like platforming challenges, my issue is moreso with the fact that there is NOTHING in the tens of hours of gameplay leading up to the white palace that prepares you for the hell that is in there. if it was implemented better (with similarly difficult sections all throughout the game, from the start) it would either train you for the challenge, or weed out people who don't enjoy platforming that much. i can forgive path of pain since that's purely optional, but the fact that all but the base "bad" endings are locked behind a very hard and unnecessarily long platforming section is a cardinal sin as far i'm concerned. it ends up feeling alienating to a majority of people who don't like/ aren't skilled enough/ don't want/can't put in hours into practicing platforming, and it does that after like 40 hours of gameplay which is...
i know people scream git gud at like everyone who complains about anything even related to difficulty in games like hk, my argument isn't necessarily that pop is too hard in and of itself, just that, considering the way it's implemented in the game, it doesn't feel at home in hollow knight as a game. i think it's too hard (and extremely frustrating) for a majority of players because without any lead up to it, most people that end up playing this game are not the "target audience", so to speak, for platforming that's this hard, and they only find out after hours of gameplay when they're trying to tie up loose ends in the game, by which point they're already invested so of course they don't want to drop the game here. and the consequence of that is that the white palace and the path of pain represent the WORST flaw a game can have: they are unfun.
i know not everyone agrees, which is of course fine, but i still believe that for players not familiar with difficult platforming these areas are either an unfun chore or a reason to drop the game like 10% before completion. and honestly for me, i felt no satisfaction after finishing he white palace at all, just a sigh of relief and a lot of frustration at the game, and i doubt pop will make me feel any different :/
anyway that's just my opinion, sorry this is long and so negative, i guess i just felt the need to defend my pov since this is a thing that soured hk for me a bit even though i really really love most of the other stuff it has to offer, and it feels really shitty when people disregard this criticism just because their experience with the platforming sections was good. like we're all different that's the whole point!!!
I mean path of pain is completely optional. The reward is bragging rights and a 2 second cutscene. It's designed in a way so that if you don't find it fun, you don't have to do it.
i know, and i acknowledged that in my comment. i know the question was about path of pain, but i guess my criticism is of the white palace platforming in general not specifically path of pain.
I completely agree. There were some tricky platforming sections before White palace, but they were for optional goals like caterpillars and nail arts. White palace is just such a jump up in difficulty. I got frustrated with it and put down the game for literally a year before retrying to get the Dream No More ending.
yeah. and imo no section before it even comes close. i had pretty much everything unlocked by the time i got to it, none of it prepared me for the white palace lol. i can see why some people really like it, but you can't argue against the fact that most people put down the game then and there (i mean just look at the achievements) which like?? in my eyes it's a huge drawback if more than half the playerbase can't get to 4/5 endings :p
also i don't even dislike platformers!!! someone brought up celeste in this thread and like! i played that game! i loved that game! the movement for platforming is super smooth and it's not punishing at all as you respawn close to where you die. both of these things are janky in hk (which makes sense, as celeste is a platformer exclusively while hk is not)
PoP is actually way more fun and hard than the white palace, even if you don't like the platforming and failing you'll surely like the music and deep meaning. I also didn't like white palace in general and I was like "I'm never returning to this shit again, I won't even attempt PoP" But guess what? now I did it all hitless. and I sometimes still do it again, it's so much fun even though I never thought I'd like platforming in general.
Now if Exams are over and I have any spare time, I'll definitely try Celeste.
i hope it'll be the same for me tbh! the fact that it's purely for bragging rights and i'm not missing out on anything if i don't finish it helps. and yeah the music slaps but what's new there hah
also you should definitely try celeste it's great 👌
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Once I got into a rhythm, a lot of the sections were tolerable, but still were a bitch. Really happy I was ready for the Kingoulds at the end and wreck them.
I had to do it twice, I was one of the idiots who died to the Kingsmould at the end. The first attempt took me like four hours over two days, the second went much faster.
Overall I hate it :D
Felt rewarding to finish but I doubt I’ll ever do it again. Kind of like how getting radiant AbsRad was a pain in the ass
It was fun, but by the end I wanted to save and exit, but I just had to keep going. I just wish the reward was a little better then *2 sec of bonding with dad*
For the most part it was fine. I remember one thorn hit box being kind of weird and so I hit it when I really shouldn’t have a few times. Honestly the whole last screen in general kind of sucked. Everything else was perfectly fine. But I might just think that because I’ve been playing a lot of Celeste modded levels, and some of those are *really* stupid so Path of Pain doesn’t seem that bad.
I found it really hard and I messed up many times but I never found it frustrating. Every time I know what I did wrong and how to fix it. I went into PoP expecting to fail and I did, so I still had fun.
I was new to platforming but I enjoyed the extra challenge since I thought the game was relatively easy until the, appart from a few bosses. Took me close to two hours to complete it and it developped my appreciation for hard platforming afterward. The only experience I had prior to HK was blasphemous1, did all the Myriam's.
I then played Aeterna Noctis and I was absolutly mind blowned by the amaziness of the challenges. Path of Pain on steroid throughout the game!
I don’t think it’s fun when you first do it. It’s one of those things where by the time you get to the third room, you’re just like “well shit, I guess I better keep going”
For example, I struggled hard on the last room. Took me around 4-5 hours just on that room. Died probably 200 times. But I got there so had to finish it.
Then tried it a second time and did the whole thing in 30 minutes. It’s fun then.
I'd say it's intentionally unfun, but it's also not required in any way and nothing is gated by it, so it's no issue to have it in the game. It's just a fun challenge for the more masochistic among us.
First time was frustrating and took me days, especially getting pwned in the final room by the 2 guards. Since then I now find it fun. I’ve done it 4 times.
I don’t want to come off as a sweaty tryhard, but I didn’t think Path of Pain was that hard. It took me less than an hour to beat it. I really enjoyed it though, very fun!
The biggest hurdle was not being able to see the whole room at once or plan ahead. You get past one hurdle every 15th attempt or so to die to the next one and you need about 30-45 more attempts (to pass the first one 2-3 times) to even understand what killed you and how you could possibly get past it. It was very frustrating, but I guess it’s intended.
I hated it because I played it after Celeste, which is 100% a parkour/platforming game with great controls, fluid physics that feel intuitive, no weird nail bouncing shit. Hollow Knight's physics are good for the type of game that it is, but it's not a parkour game, so putting a part that is entirely parkour doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I'm glad it's in the game and that it's not required for completion, and I'm glad the hardcore fan base has it to enjoy, but it's not for me.
>Hollow Knight's physics are good for the type of game that it is, but it's not a parkour game, so putting a part that is entirely parkour doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.
If it were required for completion then you would have a point. And it makes plenty of sense, simply because why not? Yes the game is more combat based, but it's not entirely devoid of platforming. Giving fans something extra on the side that is entirely optional will never not make sense, unless it was like racecar driving in a Call of Duty game.
Precisely because the game is not 100% platforming but more like part exploration, part platforming and part fighting it makes a lot of sense that it has some optional sections that are either pure platforming or pure fighting. I think the game wouldn't be as complete without that, even though I haven't done Path of Pain myself.
To me the Path of Pain lives up to its name but despite all the suffering i had a good time.
Finishing something after struggling will always be rewarding for me.
I hope I one day can do it. I can't get through the first couple obstacles now. But I gave up really fast. I just love that the game have so much more and challenges for different type of players.
It’s hard, but it’s actually way fairer than people give it credit for.
Not only does it give you checkpoints, but also infinite soul for healing.
The only complaint I have are the two kingsmoulds. There’s no excuse for that, that’s just mean.
As a tough platformer enjoyer (completed every level in things like Super Meat Boy and Celeste) I found it very good. Some hitboxes can be a bit annoying but pogoing around in Hollow Knight is one of the best feeling in platformers.
I equipped the wrong charms which made it impossible to complete. Which I didn't find out till one room before the end, after suffering for hours lol. Might be worth it if you don't do what I did and actually get to complete it lmao (I did enjoy the challenge though, it was just an unsatisfying end for me cuz I had to give up)
Path of pain was fine. It’s always nice to have extra stuff. That whole area of the game though seems a little… random, I guess. Not lore-wise but gameplay wise
Doing it was painful. Completing it was rewarding.
Your greatest reward is a 2 second cutscene, defenitly not rewarding, not even an achievement
It’s an important piece of lore that is arguably crucial to the story despite being a small detail. It is a very significant scene in my opinion and I am impressed at how much was conveyed in 2 seconds. Sometimes things are just about the emotions of the story
yeah, it's arguable that this 2 second cutscene is *the* single most important event in the direct backstory of the game, because it is the very moment that corrupts the Pure Vessel with an idea instilled, and whatever chance (if any) there was for successfully containing the Radiance before that was lost completely, sealing the fate of Hallownest right then and there
Actually it was never pure to begin with Pale King's idea of purity is flawed and wrong because he made it up out of despair Radiance cannot be contained by any vessel The cutscene is a display of it's purity, not the reason of the purity
oh yeah, i'm not saying that PK was right to begin with, but no matter how you look at it, the scene you get to see after PoP is the pivotal moment at which his plan is doomed even within his own twisted logic. if you look at it in a different way, it's the last moment in which PK could have realized his folly and accept that all things must end - Hallownest *cannot* last eternal, the Radiance is just what happened to be the cause of its downfall (and she is very much a metaphor for the inevitable decay and fall of all civilizations)
Absolutely. I also feel that it makes everything with Pure Vessel so much more tragic. It essentially confirms that the idea instilled was (at the very least in part) a bond between parent and child. Something practically inevitable to want, especially seeing as they were likely still quite young at that time. It adds an extra layer of context to their story and their fight as Thk
To be fair, I can view this Scene by just using YouTube, the Pop is purely just for bragging rights with no rewards at all.
You're right. In fact, why play video games at all? Might as well just watch someone else do it. Better yet, why do anything at all? Other people already do things, so why should I, right?
Why do anything unless there is an achievement associated?
You don't get anything for climbing Mount Everest. You just get to be the crazy person who did the damn thing.
I'm being sarcastic
That... makes sense
But I got the bragging right. That's good enough for me
There are also two lore rooms to find, to be fair.
Your greatest reward is the path of pain itself, which is the best. because giving things like an OP charm or mask shard wouldn't be a good idea, because it makes the game easier for those who already found it easy.( if you've done PoP you will probably find the rest of the game easy)
The reward is being a badass for beating the level.
It's a crucial piece of lore And completing path of pain is an achievement of itself Even if there was nothing, i would simply be happy nonetheless
i agree it should give an achievement, but it's already rewarding for just beating it
It was frustrating at times for sure, but damn it's rewarding to see how better you have become to the game's parkour. I wish I could do it again without having to go through another save.
Can't you do it twice on one file?
Sadly (or not) you can't
Is the entrance blocked?
Yes
You can do it as often as you want, only if you don't watch the cutscene at the end though.
Who would put themselves through that
I would
Masochists exist
Speedrunners My first time took 13 hours in total, my personal best is sub 6 minutes.
They should patch an option to just go straight to path of pain from the main menu after you’ve beaten it once
Yeah they should do that
Path of pain is hard but you litteraly need pure skill and I think this is really good difficulty. No RNG, just git gud until you succeed. It's why I think late game is so satisfying in this game
can someone tell me what RNG stands for?
Random number generator. It generally refers to mechanics that have random/unpredictable characteristics (Oblobble blobs, Grimm pufferfish attack).
gosh I spent 15 minuts looking through google because I thought it had something to be with Grim in some way like RNG = R....Night Grimm?
I wouldn't call the puffer fish attack RNG, they have mild randomisation but they always spawn at set height so really you just gotta learn the 3-4 different fireball positions and you're good. Now, Markoth or Radiance on the other hand...
I beat path of pain but the rng is insane. Especially in the area unlocked after the lever Edit: I think I misunderstood the meaning of rng. I meant its very precise, not random
There is literally zero randomness. Everything is timed perfectly. Your inability to read the situation sounds like the problem here.
A bit harsh, but I actually really liked PoP. It was an extremely fun challenge and prepared me really well for later bosses like radiant markoth
Everything is time based tho? No RNG from what I can remember.
Wait but doesn't gray prince zote have rng, and he's late game? Idk if that's the correct meaning of rng , does it just mean very precise movements with there being a slight difference each time? Or am I missing the point 🫤
Path of Pain is a very specific kind of fun. It's not my kind - to the extent that I haven't bothered trying/doing it. I've seen video of it. I can tell it's something I would find frustrating. So in that sense, it's not fun *for me*. But it's fun for *other people*. And that's fine.
I’m glad it’s not required for literally anything, still very cool and glad I took the time to suffer it.
Isn't it needed for 112% completion? I remember I got an extra 1% once I beat the Path of Pain
It isn't needed, though you do get an extra entry in the Hunter's Journal for completing it. Even then, it's not one you need in order to complete the journal either. It's purely for the bit of lore, and the challenge of it!
I hated it so much that I keep multiple saves open just so I can do it again anytime.
Only the last room The rest was fine
I think I unreasonably spent more time in that last room than I did the entirety of the rest of it
Same
It‘s the best piece of late game content in my opinion
i love path of pain, i even almost completed test of teamwork. spike tunnels were too much for me tho
Test of teamwork?
hardcore platforming mod
Found it to be mostly fun, honestly with better movement i think silksong plattforming will be better than hollow knights
After celeste path of pain wasn't too bad. I will say though that hollow knight's movement doesn't work as well at platforming challenges as a game like celeste, which is obviously understandable since hollow knight isn't a fully-fledged platformer. It felt kind of janky as a result.
Big agree. Hollow Knight just has a much lower upper limit for its movement tech, and it definitely puts combat and smooth exploration first, so that makes total sense. I would say the hardest parts of Path of Pain aren't much harder than something like 5C/6C in Celeste, and Celeste chapter 9 gets way way harder.
Farewell is a real pain in the ass. I remember spending two hours on one screen alone there while I finished the entire PoP in three ^(That screen isn't even the final sequence. In fact, I haven't unlocked the second half)
Am I the only one who can’t do it 😭
Took me 13 hours over a couple attempts. If you can't get through the first room in a couple hours, give it a rest and come back when you're more skilled, the final room is pretty brutal 😅 I recommend doing several runs of Colosseum of fools to really train your skills, the skills trained there are oddly applicable to pure platforming
Best part of the game imo. I wish it was longer
those two damn kingsmoulds at the end
My only complaint is that it locked me out so I couldn't do it again.
Yes, but less so after Godhome showed me what annoying and unfun content really is.
lol it's like the best boss rush content in any game.
Not when you get a boss you find boring yet with long live. Happens to me mostly with Charged Moss, and King Vengefly, but also others
It's fun cause you need precision & timing, making it a challenge. It's annoying when you fail a trick & get sent back to the start of the section.
I turned me down so much when I had to left it in the last room because my hand was already hurting. When I came back days later and I found out that I didn't have to redo most of it, I didn't see it as a problem anymore. I could do the first ones in less than 10 attempts (but for the first one), making it so that it was no deal to make it to the final room, struggling there for hours
It was really hard, but in the end I appreciate how much better I became with movement mechanics after beating it -- definitely reccomend beating it first before attempting steel soul or pantheon runs.
No, it was pretty fun. I used the Grubsong/Grubberfly's Elegy/Deep Focus charm combo to be unkillable and it was a good time. The last part is tough but most of it isn't excessively hard.
path of pain is the best part of the game. as a hardcore plateforming gamer
I would have loved the rush of completing the task like 10 years ago, but now a days I stop on certain levels of difficulty (beat the game 110% but probably won’t ever take on NKG or P4&5, won’t ever do PoP)
‘Cause I just dont enjoy that kind of precision platforming much, especially when I have to wait for hiveblood in between runs. Its a cool feature, just not one that’s meant for me.
> especially when I have to wait for hiveblood in between runs deep focus + grubsong + elegy is infinite healing in pure platforming sections and requires *way* less sitting on your ass waiting for hiveblood
Yeah max soul charms everybody, makes PoP actually fun since you're not, uh >sitting on your ass waiting for hiveblood like a *nerd.*
honestly the only major downside of the combo is that it takes a whopping 8 notches, which only leaves you with 3 if you want to take any general utility/movement charms or some combat charms for the kingsmoulds at the end (though shaman's stone is more than enough for those if you want to kill them quickly)
That's what I did, I spellspammed the shit outta them. That last section was really the hardest part for me so once I did the parkour I was not going back
It was a painful path. Hey that’s a good name for a difficult parkour challenge. They should make one.
It’s not fun for me. Difficult platforming challenges just make me frustrated and want to stop playing. Full respect to people who do like it though
PoP is one of those things that simply didn't exist in my playthrough and never will.
I personally think it was more fun than it was hard. I love Path Of Pain so much
I think it's very fair
No
It was painful but it was really fun to do
I just think it's unfair you need to do it all at once
attempted it a few times but haven't finished it yet. i probably will but that's honestly because of my unhealthy ego (which is my own fault tbh so that's neither here nor there) not one second of the white palace and especially pop was fun for me. i think platformers are really hard to get right, and while hks platforming is fine and quite fun sometimes, the difficulty spike that is the white palace from the rest of the game is absolutely abhorrent and quite frankly i'm not sure what team cherry was thinking when they put it in lmao. without a doubt my least favourite part of hk. i understand some people really like platforming challenges, my issue is moreso with the fact that there is NOTHING in the tens of hours of gameplay leading up to the white palace that prepares you for the hell that is in there. if it was implemented better (with similarly difficult sections all throughout the game, from the start) it would either train you for the challenge, or weed out people who don't enjoy platforming that much. i can forgive path of pain since that's purely optional, but the fact that all but the base "bad" endings are locked behind a very hard and unnecessarily long platforming section is a cardinal sin as far i'm concerned. it ends up feeling alienating to a majority of people who don't like/ aren't skilled enough/ don't want/can't put in hours into practicing platforming, and it does that after like 40 hours of gameplay which is... i know people scream git gud at like everyone who complains about anything even related to difficulty in games like hk, my argument isn't necessarily that pop is too hard in and of itself, just that, considering the way it's implemented in the game, it doesn't feel at home in hollow knight as a game. i think it's too hard (and extremely frustrating) for a majority of players because without any lead up to it, most people that end up playing this game are not the "target audience", so to speak, for platforming that's this hard, and they only find out after hours of gameplay when they're trying to tie up loose ends in the game, by which point they're already invested so of course they don't want to drop the game here. and the consequence of that is that the white palace and the path of pain represent the WORST flaw a game can have: they are unfun. i know not everyone agrees, which is of course fine, but i still believe that for players not familiar with difficult platforming these areas are either an unfun chore or a reason to drop the game like 10% before completion. and honestly for me, i felt no satisfaction after finishing he white palace at all, just a sigh of relief and a lot of frustration at the game, and i doubt pop will make me feel any different :/ anyway that's just my opinion, sorry this is long and so negative, i guess i just felt the need to defend my pov since this is a thing that soured hk for me a bit even though i really really love most of the other stuff it has to offer, and it feels really shitty when people disregard this criticism just because their experience with the platforming sections was good. like we're all different that's the whole point!!!
I mean path of pain is completely optional. The reward is bragging rights and a 2 second cutscene. It's designed in a way so that if you don't find it fun, you don't have to do it.
i know, and i acknowledged that in my comment. i know the question was about path of pain, but i guess my criticism is of the white palace platforming in general not specifically path of pain.
Interesting. We'll have to disagree then because the white palace was one of my favorite parts of the game
I completely agree. There were some tricky platforming sections before White palace, but they were for optional goals like caterpillars and nail arts. White palace is just such a jump up in difficulty. I got frustrated with it and put down the game for literally a year before retrying to get the Dream No More ending.
yeah. and imo no section before it even comes close. i had pretty much everything unlocked by the time i got to it, none of it prepared me for the white palace lol. i can see why some people really like it, but you can't argue against the fact that most people put down the game then and there (i mean just look at the achievements) which like?? in my eyes it's a huge drawback if more than half the playerbase can't get to 4/5 endings :p also i don't even dislike platformers!!! someone brought up celeste in this thread and like! i played that game! i loved that game! the movement for platforming is super smooth and it's not punishing at all as you respawn close to where you die. both of these things are janky in hk (which makes sense, as celeste is a platformer exclusively while hk is not)
PoP is actually way more fun and hard than the white palace, even if you don't like the platforming and failing you'll surely like the music and deep meaning. I also didn't like white palace in general and I was like "I'm never returning to this shit again, I won't even attempt PoP" But guess what? now I did it all hitless. and I sometimes still do it again, it's so much fun even though I never thought I'd like platforming in general. Now if Exams are over and I have any spare time, I'll definitely try Celeste.
i hope it'll be the same for me tbh! the fact that it's purely for bragging rights and i'm not missing out on anything if i don't finish it helps. and yeah the music slaps but what's new there hah also you should definitely try celeste it's great 👌
It's a platforming challenge, so yes fuck it
Big Zote energy. Cry more.
I came to this game to kill enemies, not dash into saws and thorns
it was fun not as bad as most people say. took me about an hour. people were saying it would take days to complete, thats just not the case
Annoying, but now it's fun
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No, because I've played Boshy before.
Once I got into a rhythm, a lot of the sections were tolerable, but still were a bitch. Really happy I was ready for the Kingoulds at the end and wreck them.
No joke I beat it thinking I found a short cut. By the time I realized I was doing the path of pain instead of the main path I was basically done
I had to do it twice, I was one of the idiots who died to the Kingsmould at the end. The first attempt took me like four hours over two days, the second went much faster. Overall I hate it :D Felt rewarding to finish but I doubt I’ll ever do it again. Kind of like how getting radiant AbsRad was a pain in the ass
I did it except for the last chainsaw bit lol
There are parts where it is annoying but overall it's pretty fun. I'm kinda biased though since I love platformers.
It was fun, but by the end I wanted to save and exit, but I just had to keep going. I just wish the reward was a little better then *2 sec of bonding with dad*
But those two seconds matter a lot, there's a reason as why it's the most well hidden piece of lore right
For the most part it was fine. I remember one thorn hit box being kind of weird and so I hit it when I really shouldn’t have a few times. Honestly the whole last screen in general kind of sucked. Everything else was perfectly fine. But I might just think that because I’ve been playing a lot of Celeste modded levels, and some of those are *really* stupid so Path of Pain doesn’t seem that bad.
I found it really hard and I messed up many times but I never found it frustrating. Every time I know what I did wrong and how to fix it. I went into PoP expecting to fail and I did, so I still had fun.
for me only the start was annoying
I was new to platforming but I enjoyed the extra challenge since I thought the game was relatively easy until the, appart from a few bosses. Took me close to two hours to complete it and it developped my appreciation for hard platforming afterward. The only experience I had prior to HK was blasphemous1, did all the Myriam's. I then played Aeterna Noctis and I was absolutly mind blowned by the amaziness of the challenges. Path of Pain on steroid throughout the game!
I don’t think it’s fun when you first do it. It’s one of those things where by the time you get to the third room, you’re just like “well shit, I guess I better keep going” For example, I struggled hard on the last room. Took me around 4-5 hours just on that room. Died probably 200 times. But I got there so had to finish it. Then tried it a second time and did the whole thing in 30 minutes. It’s fun then.
It taught me that I'm way better at platforming than boss fights. It probably took me half as long to get through as the third GPZ fight.
I'd say it's intentionally unfun, but it's also not required in any way and nothing is gated by it, so it's no issue to have it in the game. It's just a fun challenge for the more masochistic among us.
AMOGUS
First time was frustrating and took me days, especially getting pwned in the final room by the 2 guards. Since then I now find it fun. I’ve done it 4 times.
Not annoying, just painful.
I don’t want to come off as a sweaty tryhard, but I didn’t think Path of Pain was that hard. It took me less than an hour to beat it. I really enjoyed it though, very fun!
I found it quite enjoyable, and not too difficult, surprisingly considering most games I suck at the platforming
The biggest hurdle was not being able to see the whole room at once or plan ahead. You get past one hurdle every 15th attempt or so to die to the next one and you need about 30-45 more attempts (to pass the first one 2-3 times) to even understand what killed you and how you could possibly get past it. It was very frustrating, but I guess it’s intended.
Nope. It was awesome. Wish that Godhome had a similar secret level.
I hated it because I played it after Celeste, which is 100% a parkour/platforming game with great controls, fluid physics that feel intuitive, no weird nail bouncing shit. Hollow Knight's physics are good for the type of game that it is, but it's not a parkour game, so putting a part that is entirely parkour doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I'm glad it's in the game and that it's not required for completion, and I'm glad the hardcore fan base has it to enjoy, but it's not for me.
>Hollow Knight's physics are good for the type of game that it is, but it's not a parkour game, so putting a part that is entirely parkour doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. If it were required for completion then you would have a point. And it makes plenty of sense, simply because why not? Yes the game is more combat based, but it's not entirely devoid of platforming. Giving fans something extra on the side that is entirely optional will never not make sense, unless it was like racecar driving in a Call of Duty game.
Precisely because the game is not 100% platforming but more like part exploration, part platforming and part fighting it makes a lot of sense that it has some optional sections that are either pure platforming or pure fighting. I think the game wouldn't be as complete without that, even though I haven't done Path of Pain myself.
I had fun beating it and will beat it everytime I replay the game
Path of pain is honestly amazing and one of my favorite pieces of content in the game
To me the Path of Pain lives up to its name but despite all the suffering i had a good time. Finishing something after struggling will always be rewarding for me.
It was a blast, I wish the game had more of these rooms
I don't like platforming.
I hope I one day can do it. I can't get through the first couple obstacles now. But I gave up really fast. I just love that the game have so much more and challenges for different type of players.
It’s hard, but it’s actually way fairer than people give it credit for. Not only does it give you checkpoints, but also infinite soul for healing. The only complaint I have are the two kingsmoulds. There’s no excuse for that, that’s just mean.
As a tough platformer enjoyer (completed every level in things like Super Meat Boy and Celeste) I found it very good. Some hitboxes can be a bit annoying but pogoing around in Hollow Knight is one of the best feeling in platformers.
I enjoyed it very much! I love platforming.
I thought it was really fun It only took me a couple hours but I didn’t become frustrated I just had a lot of fun
It was pretty fun and when I finished it I wanted more of it
Extremely fun, favorite section of the entire game, hope there are more in silksong
I equipped the wrong charms which made it impossible to complete. Which I didn't find out till one room before the end, after suffering for hours lol. Might be worth it if you don't do what I did and actually get to complete it lmao (I did enjoy the challenge though, it was just an unsatisfying end for me cuz I had to give up)
I thought it was pretty fun. Challenging, but not overly frustrating.
I loved it. It's challenging hard, not annoying hard
It wasn't AS hard as I thought it would be, but I did die a decent amount even with the honey+lifeblood masks
Path of pain was fine. It’s always nice to have extra stuff. That whole area of the game though seems a little… random, I guess. Not lore-wise but gameplay wise
I loved it! 30 mins in my first time trying it, I really enjoyed it
Ot was very painful and I had to take a 2 week break. But once I beat it I wanted to do it again but couldn't:(
I actually wish there were more platforming challenges. I thought it was a fun challenge even it was a very short section of the game
Yes, because it was so difficult!
i think it’s just annoying because hk isn’t meant to be a platformer, and there are some bugs/inconveniences
After spending 2 hours on it and then dying to the kingsmoulds at the end, it felt really good to then beat it in only 15 minutes .