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Joining the chorus of people impressed by that, Nat!
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Apr 27, 2021 02:02
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Yup. I honestly thought you were done for at several points during the fight but you managed to recover admirably. Bravo.
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Apr 27, 2021 02:14
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I just finished beating three bosses in a row: the Mantis Lords and two Nat hasn't seen yet. I'm a bit peeved that, using my preferred method of following the walls clockwise, I didn't get to talk to Cornifer in the Fungal Wastes, since his spot is one of the last places I visited there. Crystal Peak is the next area I'm gonna visit, so I'm looking forward to fighting the guardian myself.
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Apr 27, 2021 02:25
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The talk about laser using characters in fighting games reminds me of possibly the most broken character in fighting games, Ivan Ooze from MMPR: The Fighting Edition. He can fly around the screen, shoots homing projectiles, and can give himself a shield (though he can't block)
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Apr 27, 2021 02:32
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Fantastic Foreskin posted:Yes, Tea, I think there's potential here. Yeah it was pretty rough, that. Though it could have been mitigated by simply saving and quitting, which would have returned Nat to the last bench rested at.
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Apr 27, 2021 10:14
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That fall is how I got to the Resting Grounds the first time. I will say it's worth it to head back up and finish exploring what you can of Crystal Peak.
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Apr 27, 2021 12:04
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Yeah, I think that is the "intended" way to first get into Resting Ground. That was how I found it on my first playthrough.
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Apr 27, 2021 13:54
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Marluxia posted:Yeah, I think that is the "intended" way to first get into Resting Ground. That was how I found it on my first playthrough. It's one of them. The game is pretty clever - if you're just following a linear sort of "what is the next apparent area to go" then the route will take you the way Nat 20 mostly went, through City of Tears to the Waterway to the right-hand half of the city up to the resting grounds. On the other hand, if you prefer to explore off the beaten track and backtrack , you'll fairly quickly end up at Crystal Peak (either through unlocking the lantern or getting the other upgrade that lets you in) since it's the first closed gate you're likely to have encountered and sticks out in the memory, and you end up dropping down that hole. Both ways funnel you into the Resting Grounds to get given your next objectives without ever explicitly telling you to go there or actually gating much behind it.
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Apr 27, 2021 14:10
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I ended up taking the third way in during my LP inspired play because of other sidetracking and some areas feeling oddly more comfortable for me. All of them are to the left of the spooky statue that makes you dream though, so I think Tea is right that Cornifer can't be found in the Resting Grounds. I'll be a little curious if Tea helps Nat20 poke the DLC, can be a little hard to find. Which is just another way Hollow Knight is kind of Dark Souls.
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Apr 27, 2021 14:16
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My route through this part of the game was after completely ignoring the city, beating the Mantis Lords, and going through Deepnest, I crawled through it until I got the Tram Pass and used to go to Ancient Basin and left out of there to climb upwards towards the city's backside, and found Resting Grounds and Crystal Peak after that. It was a bad route but it sure did make me git gud as they say.
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Apr 27, 2021 14:48
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There are a bunch of things I should not be fighting with an unupgraded nail. But I'm dumb and stubborn (and keep forgetting) Keep at it Nat20! You continue to be worrying good at not dying.
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Apr 27, 2021 14:57
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I played a bit a while ago and just beelined Deepnest from fungal wastes, where you fall in from the top. That's probably one of the least-used routes but one of the more challenging fun ones, and by the time you get to City of tears you can upgrade your nail twice, which beefs you up nicely for the next whatever you decide to do. It's a nice little reward for hacking your way through all those spiders with the vanilla nail.
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Apr 27, 2021 15:00
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Hey just chiming in to say, please be careful when discussing areas I've not been to yet! I don't want to chill your cool discussion about different routes but I have to read the thread and it means I now know that the second nail upgrade is somewhere in the deepnest!
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Apr 27, 2021 15:10
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Ah poo poo sorry. I just got carried away with the discussion. Guess there's no point spoiler tagging my post now...
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Apr 27, 2021 16:06
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Dareon posted:That fall is how I got to the Resting Grounds the first time.  to both. As someone else mentioned, the game does a good way of indirectly nudging you towards Resting Grounds after you've gotten the Mantis Claw.
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Apr 27, 2021 22:00
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Natural 20 posted:Hey just chiming in to say, please be careful when discussing areas I've not been to yet! Without openly spoiling you further, you haven't been quite as spoiled as you think. The nail upgrades are all from heading back to the Nailsmith and handing him increasing amounts of upgrade materials. you find one in Deepnest, but you can find them elsewhere too. Since you only need one for the next upgrade, any of them will do. That said, there are many reasons to go to Deepnest, and probably as many or more to stay far, far away.
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Apr 28, 2021 04:07
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I also beat the Crystal Guardian on my first try.  The game has had many other opportunities to kick my rear end, though.
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Apr 28, 2021 04:32
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Hollow Knight does so, so much right, but nothing stands out so much as just an accomplishment as Deepnest.
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Apr 28, 2021 04:39
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Solitair posted:I also beat the Crystal Guardian on my first try. Died plenty on all the other bosses shown off already, though. As for routes: my first time until I stopped I don't quite remember, but I did get to Peak pretty early and then for some reason didn't finish it - which blocked my progress at some point later. I also don't remember the Guardian. Might have just been an idiot wrt exploring? Second time which I did finish, I unlocked the Waterway but just...ignored it until way the hell later because I kept getting distracted by other stuff. Deepnest I deliberately saved until way late. Reached Resting Ground via Crystal Peak as well which disoriented me a lot, especially with the missing map, haha. Actually, maybe that was what happened in my first playthrough, and that's why I only explored half of Peak?
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Apr 28, 2021 14:13
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Besides the awesome tense fight, I was really interested in Nat's "homework" session at the end of the episode. I'm also trying to put this stuff together totally blind here while I'm watching. And so far I've felt like all the earlier times Tea was prodding Nat about it, I wouldn't have had much to say myself, except "ask again later". But by now it finally feels like we're getting a lot of pieces to work with, and I guess I should start sharing my blind guesses too for even more vicarious newb thoughts. I think once I get some spare time to rewatch the earlier episodes while paying closer attention, things could make even more sense in hindsight. But for now I'm just gonna type this up based on my fuzzy incomplete memories. So we've got these mostly-deserted ruins of what used to be a grand city. I think Nat's guess is correct, that they were mining for crystal until they got a Moria situation on their hands, unearthing the "mind-control stuff", whatever that is. Nat didn't mention the word "plague" but I think that's what the dreamers and others must be referring to when they've used that word. I also think all the pretty little firefly-looking lights could be spores of it or something? One interesting thing is that this had to have happened relatively recently, rather than the more common trope of everything being some ancient mystery. Since the stag beetle still has living memory of the city being bustling and busy. I get what Nat's saying about the Greenpath seeming a bit disconnected from the rest of the city. I think that's the location where they must have actually performed whatever crazy dream magic they're doing, and where any other bugs who were sane enough to take part in it must be resting, pulled into the dream world like we were for just a brief time. Since that's the place that had all the vague mysterious messages to inspect, with a faintly religious nature about eternity and dreams and all. One big thing I noticed this episode though while Nat was in the shops, was that besides those mask fragments for extra health, we can also buy vessel fragments for extra soul. Now that the Resting Grounds got the word "vessel" on my mind, that stood out to me a lot more. At first I was wondering if THE Vessel could refer to a being rather than a thing, like maybe the Hollow Knight, and their "sacrifice" was becoming this Vessel. But I didn't know what being the Vessel meant. Now that I got a reminder about this item, it seems to refer very specifically to a container to store soul power. So now I think the Vessel might be a bigass container that can hold enough soul energy to power all the dream magic. Those things you whack for extra soul energy look kinda like little mini-versions of the Hollow Knight statue now that I think about it. But how do they keep the energy from running out as they preserve Hallownest "eternally"? Maybe the same way our soul meter keeps getting recharged: drawing on the lives of all the zombie bugs around. This gives some more sinister implications to the fact that bugs are flocking to the ruins and feeling drawn to explore them. I remain confused about Hornet and her motivations, and the Sage who seems to want us to just go buck wild breaking the seal. And I'm also a little confused about why the Dreamers pulled us in to the dream world when that just seemed to grant us a great opportunity to get this big fated weapon in our hands. Or maybe it was just a manifestation of our PC's own dream logic? His will to fight and escape? The exact nature of our PC is the absolute biggest question in the game to me right now. Nat theorised that our PC might be some husk or remnant of the Hollow Knight commemorated in the statue, and that feels like a good guess, but I'm not sure that's actually right. Since Hornet seems to understand a lot about us and our nature, as well as the city's history, and would probably recognise if that were the case? I think if we were the reincarnation of OG Hollow Knight or whatever, she wouldn't have had such a disdainful initial attitude towards us in the beginning. I remember something about "two voids" mentioned once, and when Nat finally died to something we got to see the ghost thing, which has been called our "regrets", but yeah for now I'm left feeling like I got no real clue what it's supposed to actually mean and how much of it is plot significant versus game mechanics. But it feels like they're trying to make even those game mechanics still refer to diagetic stuff that's supposed to be actually happening in the story. Is it not normal to be able to suck up soul energy from killing stuff? Is that something fairly unique to our PC? Is that the nature Hornet was talking about when she said "a being like you" or whatever the exact quote was, way back then? But then other creatures have got to use magic, like that early NPC who first taught us the hadouken. So I don't know. That's my biggest question right now, personally. Bifauxnen fucked around with this message at 15:32 on Apr 28, 2021 |
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Apr 28, 2021 15:29
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I think the Magus Sisters said the word "plague" at that one monument. So yeah that sounds like probably what happened is that the area got infected by some disease turning the bugs into zombie bugs and so they sealed it away so the plague wouldn't spread to the rest of the world. This makes sense for why Hornet is piseed at us and trying to stop us, because we're trying to break the seals I guess for...reasons? Maybe we're the bad guy and we want the plague to infect the world.
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Apr 28, 2021 22:36
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Apr 28, 2021 23:08
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Essence and Soul are both fluids, clearly they should be measured in mililitres. Edit: the magic sword tennis thing in Zelda is sometimes called "Dead Man's Volley" because that's what one of the characters called it in Phantom Hourglass. . YggiDee fucked around with this message at 23:50 on Apr 28, 2021 |
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Apr 28, 2021 23:36
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There is a trick that many people don't know even after finishing the game, that would have come quite in handy during that strange fight against the shardmites. you can use the dream blade on enemies to recharge soul And I have literally never heard people calling the bullet tennis mechanic "dead man's volley" before today.
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Apr 29, 2021 11:16
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The term sounded really familiar, but I think I was thinking of the Agatha Christie novel Dead Man's Folly, which I presume it's a reference to.
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Apr 29, 2021 11:44
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Dead Man's Volley makes sense as a term for that mechanic, even if tennis is a lot easier to use and everyone knows what you're talking about when you say it. A volley, in tennis or other racket sports, is when the players continually whack the ball back and forth. Difference being, in a videogame, one of the players is dead at the end. Thus, Dead Man's Volley.Bifauxnen posted:One interesting thing is that this had to have happened relatively recently, rather than the more common trope of everything being some ancient mystery. Since the stag beetle still has living memory of the city being bustling and busy. quote:But it feels like they're trying to make even those game mechanics still refer to diagetic stuff that's supposed to be actually happening in the story. Is it not normal to be able to suck up soul energy from killing stuff? Is that something fairly unique to our PC? Is that the nature Hornet was talking about when she said "a being like you" or whatever the exact quote was, way back then? But then other creatures have got to use magic, like that early NPC who first taught us the hadouken. So I don't know. That's my biggest question right now, personally.
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Apr 29, 2021 13:47
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Dareon posted:Yeah, the fall of Hallownest was within living memory, Elderbug as well talks about how the city used to be busier. How long that actually is is sort of up in the air, since we don't know how long these bugs live and there seems to be no way of marking the passage of time. The fun thing about using bugs is that some bugs live for weeks while others live for decades, so you could easily have characters that remember Hallownest's height while there are others whose ancestors' ancestors were there for the fall. Assuming they're running off real bug biology, which the game largely isn't. Still fun to think about.
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Apr 29, 2021 13:52
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Dareon posted:A volley, in tennis or other racket sports, is when the players continually whack the ball back and forth. I think you're thinking of a rally. A volley is a single shot which is returned before it bounces on the ground.
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Apr 29, 2021 13:57
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Reveilled posted:I think you're thinking of a rally. A volley is a single shot which is returned before it bounces on the ground. Oops, I very much am.
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Apr 29, 2021 14:40
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Dead Man's Volley feels like a portmanteau of Dead Man's Switch, and Volleyball. With the idea of the person who drops the pass explodes. Which.. fit I guess? I like Aganim Tennis, but mostly because 2D zeldas yay, 3d zeldas zzzzzz.
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Apr 29, 2021 15:04
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Guess who just lost 6,800 geo by dying before they got to their original shade?  I decided to start the game over completely instead of playing further and waiting to get that poo poo back naturally, or stopping my progress to grind more.
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Apr 29, 2021 23:36
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Solitair posted:Guess who just lost 6,800 geo by dying before they got to their original shade? There really isn't that much to buy in the game
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Apr 30, 2021 00:54
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Counter point : There totally can be especially with the DLC. I mean, Sly's shop with the key Nat20 found is probably over 8k of geo to buy out. Salubria is also not cheap. Worth buying becomes an argument. But buyable for sure. You do need to be a bit careful about shades and stuff. But Nat has already shown there is a little get out of dumbass jail option.. if you can get back to it without dying. So in short, yeah that sucks. There's ways to grind for money faster, but I don't advise them except for some dumb end-game stuff. Also a restart is probably pretty quick, and a chance to find out if you still suck about bosses. 
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Apr 30, 2021 01:15
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there is one expensive thing thats worth grinding for imho just to let you bang your head against bosses over and over again without worry
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Apr 30, 2021 01:24
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Apr 30, 2021 23:03
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Fun to see ways to approach some of these platforming bits. Like, for some of those stretches, I'd crystal, drop, pogo, dash rather than a long pogo. Some sections have some pity sources of soul around, which is nice.
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Apr 30, 2021 23:32
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Jumping down that shortcut early after how long it took you to clear that platforming challenge was  They did a good job of making backtracking interesting and well-paced in this game. It feels like there's something to do in each area for just about every new movement upgrade you get. Plus you open up a lot of shortcuts in the process, there's a lot of those walls that are breakable from one side but that look normal from the other. E: also thank you Tea for telling Nat that he can Dream Nail NPCs, I don't know that the game ever explicitly tells you this.
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May 1, 2021 04:33
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Yeah this episode was hilarious. Also I appreciate that you at least have gathering swarm now even if you can't equip it.
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May 1, 2021 05:06
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Grub mimics are rude as hell 
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May 1, 2021 05:07
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The Crystal Dash is my absolute favorite movement ability. Mostly because the way the Knight's helmet vibrates makes it seem like they're constantly screaming. I completely missed that downward exit in the shortcut back to Dirtmouth, so thanks, Nat, you've shown me where the last Grub Mimic I need to complete the Hunter's notes is.
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May 1, 2021 06:24
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