Hollow Knight (2017)

10h in, got a few new abilities, the map opened quite a bit but I still don't know what my goals are. Explore just for the sake of it? Was I an explorer in the first place? Talk with the ghosts? Rebuild the city?

10 hours in and there's no plot or end goal. I'm staying because of the mechanics and the platforming, which are greatly done.

My opinion on this game has completely changed. I absolutely love it, and given the current version of the game (with the free updates which address some QoL issues as well as game balance), it's a contender with the Metroid franchise itself, and I'm not even kidding.

I'm about 25 hours into this game, just took down all the Dreamers, working on the Dream Bosses now. It's perfection, every last bit of it.

Oh and regarding my update, yeah the Geo doesn't matter at all at a certain point in the game. You guys were right!

I HIGHLY doubt I will 100% this game, achievements wise, but I AM going to get everything I can out of it, including 100% of ingame content, such as warrior graves, charms, mask shards, etc. I am probably at 80% overall at this point, so I'm getting very very close to endgame stuff. My save file might top out at 60 hours max, maybe? We'll see.

But I know for a fact I will never 100% this achievement wise simply because of the speedrun achievements, more than anything else. I simply don't even try for those sorts of things, especially in a game as long as this.

I've owned this game nearly since it came out and I'm finally playing it. Holy cow it can get mighty frustrating when you're flush with Geo and desperately looking for a bench.

Then you die, and you have to get back through some insane bewildering mess of a puzzle, or you lose everything. Which has happened many, many times. I've probably lost 5K already.

My biggest gripes are twofold - 1) the compass charm. How can you possibly play this without a compass? The compass must be EQUIPPED which takes up a slot, meaning all the other cool charms you get, well, if they cost more than 3 slots, you're out of luck. Why do I have to equip a compass? and 2) the magnetic Geo charm, where dropped Geo will automatically float to you once you kill an enemy, must also be equipped, and takes up another slot. So 50% of your available charm slots are basically always taken up.

It feels very silly to explore and find a puzzle, solve a difficult section, to get rewarded with an equippable charm, but you can't use it because then you would lose your compass, or the ability to actually pick up Geo which constantly gets blasted throughout the map. I've been racking my brain trying to understand why this is the way that it is, but I cannot for the life of me land on an answer.

It's not like a compass and picking up Geo automatically would have made the game easier or anything. A compass is necessary and the second is a quality of life improvement. What am I going to do, chase down every Geo? These should just be permanent upgrades, not charms.

Anyway, end of rant - I really enjoy this game for the most part, but when I get killed in a "gotcha!" section where spikes randomly appear and are completely unavoidable, and then I spend another 20 minutes trying to get back there only to get killed again and lose everything, it really makes me want to ragequit.

For the most part, dying has been my own fault, but there have been a few "F-you!" sections that seemed set up to make the player fail first time, which results in many frustrating and unnecessarily stressful moments.

So I'll just ask here.

I am one grub away from having them all, but it appears to be within Herrah's den. Since I do not plan to do the teacher stuff until towards the end, once everything else is completed, I am obviously hesitant to go get the grub, as I'm afraid that once I get taken into the den, I will be forced to fight Herrah in order to leave.

So, for the sake of completion, can someone please tell me if, once the villagers take me in, do I have to fight Herrah, or can I just get the grub and go and come back later? Thanks guys.