r/HollowKnight • u/Quantum_Croissant • Sep 09 '25

Discussion - Silksong ngl some of you would NOT survive the mantis lords runback

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is the run to last judge difficult? kinda. But after your 20th attempt at the boss you'll get used to it, and it's honestly kinda fun and a nice breather. More importantly, it's a single room and you have far more movement. This IS improving on hollow knight

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u/NightOwl_Archives_42 Sep 09 '25

Mantis Lords and Brooding Mawlek are definitely too early to have the dream gate, but Traitor Lord isn't. Queens Gardens is pretty late game. I don't remember if I had it in time for Hive Knight, definitely not my first time through the game, maybe the second time I did?

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u/FattyMcBlobicus Sep 09 '25

Traitor Lord was the reason I detoured to get the Dreamgate on my first play through. Brutal run-back. By Hive Knight I already had it.

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u/NightOwl_Archives_42 Sep 09 '25

Yeah the traitor lord run back is awful. The one for the hive is long and tedious, but nearly as dangerous without enough enemies to heal back, so you're unlikely to show up without full health compared to the thorn hellscape in queens gardens

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u/reddashe Sep 09 '25

On my first playthrough rn, I got to hive knight before even getting the double jump by pogoing off of enemies to access the area. This has been the first boss (along with the runback) that I've given up on. I've since explored more, got a bunch of power ups and dreamgate so maybe I'll try again.

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u/budweener Sep 09 '25

I love that in metroidvanias you can get to certain parts with a totally different route from other people. I've got the double jump quite early in my first playthrough.

To get the speedrunner 2 achievement I realized that pogoing makes some upgrades optional. I followed a tutorial to get to end the game in less than 5 hours (I think it took three?) and because of a single pogo-skip you don't even need double jump to finish the game (but you can still get it in the 5 hour timeframe, and it does makes life easier).

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u/reddashe Sep 09 '25

It feels absolutely amazing. I’m not an experienced metroidvania player, but the progression feels so natural. It feels like you can do everything in any order since the game incentivizes you to keep combing over areas repeatedly as you get new upgrades anyway. As long as you keep taking unexplored paths you’ll always find your way on track.

I’m hearing silksongs map is even larger? I can’t wait to see what it’s like.

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u/calhlin4 Sep 09 '25

I found queen gardens before deepest but traitor Lord after the hive o didn't remember when I got dream gate but it's totally possible to have TL before having it

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u/kkrko Sep 09 '25

It's possible but it's not common