An Over-Analysis of Hollow Knight Boss Design

Well silk song is still not out so I decided to replay Hollow night because it is good and I mean it is really good and to me one of the biggest highlights of the game outside of of course the character design level design World progression music Atmosphere minimalistic storytelling the movement system and every single word that comes out of Elder bug's mouth is The Game's boss fights the boss fights in Hollow Night are absolutely incredible even though move sets are often limited the fights always carry an incredible weight to the with some gorgeous characterizing animations

and though some fights are simple often boasting only two or three attacks others represent some of the most mechanically demanding bosses in this genre as a heads up most of this footage came from a challenge run I posted a little bit ago using an unupgraded nail and no charms or magic So if you're looking at this footage and wondering why I'm not healing when I have huge windows or why I'm sitting around with My Soul gauge full that's why like with my from software videos I'd like to analyze the bosses of of hollow night today

why the bosses make the choices they make and how they succeed and the places where they fall short just in case you haven't been here before I'm going to grade everything on an F through S scale f means it is a Failure as a boss fight and attracts from the game d means it's non an interesting boss fight but doesn't make me hate my life C is an average fight B is a great fight a are the fights that you look forward to when you're replaying the game and S are the fights that make the

game as good as it is they're the fights that stick in your your head long after they're over so without further Ado let's dive down into the bug infested world of hollow [Music] Knight when replaying Hollow KN there is no better moment to describe the way that the player is empowered over the course of the game's duration than going from watching footage of an endgame battle to watching a player fight against the grother because to say that she moves in slow motion compared to the end game suggests far more speed than she actually boasts the

G's mother rests right on that line between mini boss and Boss with a simplistic move set that works well enough for the early game but doesn't provide a suitable threat later on in the experience after all she even shows up later as a Duo fight in a random wave in one of the Coliseum trials the grother is created as an early game Boss to test your positioning and make sure that you're prepared to dodge at any point via two attacks either a charge forward slamming against the wall or a long series of slams Bouncing against

the walls of the arena and a zigzag pattern these attacks move fast enough that you have to make sure that you do have some distance between you and her to either walk out of the way or jump above the gr's mother's charge it is amazing how much removing the player's mobility in this fight is felt in later playthroughs without the dash the gr's mother punishes greed as she barrels towards you but when you face her with an endgame move set in God Home especially the Shadow Dash and the double jump there is nothing she can

do to the player it makes it a strange fight to start a repeated playthrough with because you'll often just not bother dodging because you expected yourself to be able to move faster and then you'll get hit not to say that she's in any way a threat on a repeat playthrough it takes no time at all to kill the grother her health is far too low even for an introductory mini boss And it's easy to take her down in 10 to 15 seconds if you know what you're doing on a more positive note though the limited

Arena space here does some great double duty the small area means that the grother can never fly Out Of Reach while still making her attacks all feel quicker than are to a new player the force that she runs into the wall does sell the player on the power of the charge and the restrictive space is one of the big things that helps to sell That on top of that the multiple wall bounce attack has a great skill ceiling a new player will often step back and let it happen just needing to dodge under her once

but an experienced player can attack her well she's bouncing once you get to know how to control your movement again the issue is that the fight goes by far too quickly once you know how to do this which removes a lot of the impact of the grother as a boss the end of the fight does contain a fun Falling action with her chest bursting out as a swarm of gruz fly out on the final notes of the boss's theme at this point the fight is effectively done as the gr's slow patterns means they're never too

much of a challenge but it does end up being a dramatic ending that makes the encounter end on a more memorable note her ascended variation in God home also has enough of a change to deserve discussion not only does she gain a little bit more Health but three Spike pits are added to the arena though it does mean the fight is more engaging I think it also speaks to how straightforward the gr's mother is the fight is so simple even compared to the rest of the early game that even with half the floor removed she

still struggles to be anything other than a speed bump overall the grother earns a high d-grade I was debating putting her in the c-grade but the fight is just a little too short especially if you've Already collected vengful Spirit by the time you find her which is more than realistic the false Knight is the first real boss Encounter of the game the G mother is fully optional only locking Sly and salubra behind her but false Knight is a partially required battle in order to progress in the Green Path unlike grother though he also feels like

he moves in slow motion compared to the end game he feels a lot more complete and thorough as a boss fight than the Grother did as a big circular Knight with a mace the false Knight primarily attacks by leaping around to deal damage with his body and a large jumping swing on top of that a well telegraphed swing with his Bas that creates a shock wave that players will need to leap over once you've dealt a certain amount of damage to the the night he'll collapse over and you're introduced to the creature really piloting this

suit a tiny goofy sounding maggot that you slap a few times before He gets back up now this is completely personal but the way I learned about Hollow Knight was actually a video compilation of every boss fight in the main game it ended up autop playing in the background and gr's mother didn't look very impressive to me when I watched the false night footage however and the maggot popped out of the suit for the first time I immediately stopped the video and checked out the game on Steam the next day this little guy is Filled

with so much character that to me it makes the fight entertaining even when the move set is simple enough that veteran players don't see it as anything more than a road bump there are also a lot of great environmental interactions with this fight certain attacks of the false Knight does cause rocks to fall from the sky particularly an attack he uses when he rises up after a knockdown will he'll leap into the center of the arena and jump around wildly not only Does this effectively introduce the occasionally bullet Hellas element that some later fights will

really lead into but the Rocks also serve as a form of optional offense as you can hit the rocks out of the sky and into the false Knight for additional damage since the false Knight is blocking players from access to their first spell it means that players will often be limited to just their nail here this does a great job keeping the fight dynamic as Obviously in melee the player will feel engaged but now the player has an opportunity to feel engaged even when they're stepping away to give the boss some space on top of

that the false Knight's unique use of the Stagger mechanic works really well for teaching new players when you stagger most bosses you'll have a few moments before they'll gather themselves and leap back into the fight or you can alternatively break them out of that stun by attacking false Knight will not stand back up until you've done enough damage to the maggot which means a new player can stop and heal multiple times throughout the encounter without ever being in a rush even more so you only gain soul to heal from hitting the maggot which means there

is a limit to how many times new players can heal the false Knight may not be a ridiculous challenge but it forces new players to engage in a really fun way and and with even more Replayable detail packed in the false Knight as I slightly alluded to before is not necessarily required after you've gotten the first knockdown on the false Knight this point in the wall weakens as he does his first wild slam attack at which point you can destroy that wall and leave the arena this not only gives returning players the flexibility they need

to bypass a skill check boss that they won't have a problem with but it also gives an observant firsttime Players struggling with the false Knight the ability to improve themselves with magic it's a great mechanic it also leads into the great final beats of the battle each wild slam shakes the arena more and more until after his last knockdown the floor gives way as he does his wild slam and he falls down allowing the player to drop down and land the final blows for a first major boss this serves as a really satisfying moment even

if it may lack some of the Challenge that later fights in this game try to reach also the head of his mace is a bug the whole time and that's adorable the false Knight may be a simple fo but there are so many details and environmental interactions that he remains a satisfying foe to overwhelm even as the game grows so exponentially in complexity from him he earns a low a grade and also holds the honor of being the boss that attracted me to holl night in the first place and I will always Love him for

[Music] that much like the gr's mother the venge fly King suffers from his Simplicity he has two moves he Roars to summon some venge flies to fill the area or he sweeps across the floor as a HIIT box sometimes he'll just Roar and not summon anything too he's simple enough that for his boss rematch in the pantheon of hollow Nest there are just two of him and even with that he still ends up a Contender for the easiest boss in the pantheon from a design standpoint the venge fly King does try to teach an important

skill the player doesn't have the mobility necessary to hit him at the point they'll encounter him and the vengeful Spirit can absolutely shred his limited health bar if you know how to do it most new players are going to have to learn one of if not the single most most important mobility and combat skill that Hollow Knight utilizes pogoing and the Venge fly King focuses on teaching this pretty naturally the venge fly King can only be reliably damaged when he's flying across the arena and the only way to dodge that at this point is by

jumping this means that a new player will be swinging downward in order to hit the venge fly King and when they do so start to notice that they're bouncing off the boss so though the boss himself is boring at the best of times he does serve an important role in the game as a Whole by serving in as another opportunity for players to experiment with the mobility of their move set he's also attacking zot when you find him which means that he doesn't feel like a waste of time especially since a knowledgeable player can walk

in with a full Soul meter and instantly blast him down without needing to engage with the fight at all overall I'm going to give the venge fly King another degrade his role is a tutorial for players who Haven't figured out Pogo and gives him a lot of Grace because otherwise he'd likely be at the bottom of the pool after all if you make grother look like more of a real threat you've done something something wrong but speaking of the bottom of the pool the massive Moss charger doesn't really earn the same Grace that venge fly

King did similarly featuring two moves the charger will either Rush at the player or jump over the player the Jump can be avoided by walking slightly to the side maybe even getting a cheeky hit in but the dash attack is honestly more dangerous for the Moss charger than it is for the player if you use charms like quick slash or heavy blow this boss is just a QuickTime event you Hammer your attack button and it dies it is so bizarrely and uniquely disinteresting and underdeveloped as a challenge that it's become a meme within the community

I'm not ranking these encounters based Off their ascended variations but for some reason the massive Moss charger is the only of the simple Trio of bosses that remains unchanged the gruz mother gained spikes in her Arena the veng fly King was doubled but all the massive Moss charger gets is more health and especially that late in the game that really doesn't matter most bizarrely this is an empowered version of a really unique enemy when you hit a normal Moss charger the Moss will break and you'll Gain the opportunity to attack the creature inside before it

Burrows away I feel like there was a huge opportunity for a boss that you slowly disassemble or break down certain parts of before getting to his core to take him down the massive Moss charger is an f-r encounter outside of memes it serves no real role in the very tightly woven net that is hollow Knight's world [Music] and resting at the end of the early game We reached the place where Hollow Knight really hits the ground running the first battle with Hornet guarding the dash upgrade that allows Hollow Knight's combat to really intensify compared to

the enemies you fought up to this point Hornet speed has increased substantially and her move set is a lot more detailed than the other fights up to this point in the game Hornet has a dash attack that she can start on the ground or in the middle of a jump which gives her a Lot of mobility and aggression as she can interrupt her own movement in order to rush towards the player her ability to jump means she can maneuver and move away from the player forcing them to consider their positioning more carefully than more telegraphed

fights like the false Knight on top of that she also has an AOE that she can again perform grounded or Airborne to punish any unchecked greed and finally she has a needle throat that needs to be dodged Both leaving and approaching her which is one of the most satisfying moves to learn because you can leap over land some hits and leap back over the boomerang it's ridiculously satisfying this whole move set comes together beautifully like the rest of the early bosses her speed is eclipsed by the late game but as the final challenge before the

player gets the dash that the game balances around she ends up testing the players's grasp of Base mechanics before The game starts to add the increase in speed that the dash carries Hornet also serves as the first major suggestion of the lore behind Hollow night there is certainly suggestion of lore and story prior to the fight but Hornet is the first moment that the game starts to really engage with any more standard storytelling tropes hornet starts to suggest something that you are that is wrong something that you are seeking that she cannot let you find

it places You in the role of a now active participant in whatever story is happening rather than just a Wanderer made of Shadow even if the story itself will continue to elude understanding for a long while Hornet protector is where the game usually aims to sink its Talons into the players Hornet protector earns another a grade again she's much simpler than later fights but successfully fulfills her role within the design of hollow Nest really artfully and once she Drops the player receives the dash and the game's gloves come [Music] off though the false Knight and

Hornet protector hooked me into the game the first moment of awe I experienced was the Mantis Lords this is one of the most perfectly designed bosses in any action game and it does so as a two-on-one battle when the battle begins a single mantis Lord will drop down it has three moves a dash across the arena a drop- Down spear attack and a few varieties of climbing on the wall and throwing its Spears a boomerang that can be avoided the first two attacks both have clear counters leap over the dash and punish potentially with a

pogo if you can time it correctly and step or Dash to the side of the slam and then land a hit before she darts back away the manta's Lord disappearing leaves a few moments of downtime but the fight moves fast enough that the player rarely feels like They're waiting on the game and healing is a tall order here once the Mantis Lord is down the other two mantises stand up and attack together this demonstrates why Hollow Knight has some of the single best multi-enemy boss fights I've ever had the pleasure of fighting the Lords attack

in this almost natural Rhythm Dash slam slam dash dash slam Dash Dash and then a huge stopping moment as they'll both create new Boomerang patterns the only moments the Player really gets to breathe are if they've learned the boomerangs well enough to find somewhere they can heal safely this fight is a huge increase in Challenge from any of the battles that came before and though they aren't required to be fought at this point in the list the game's world is beauti built around them making the reward the mark of Pride charm is a great way

to encourage an early matchup for experienced players and if the player Dies at least once they'll end up seeing quirrel on their way back to the boss informing them about a nailsmith in the city of tear who will allow them to deal more damage the Precision of this boss also means that as the game's difficulty starts to intensify it does so in a fair and well-communicated way you never get killed by the Mantis Lords wondering what you're supposed to have done because every move here is so precise and clear that it's only a matter of

Execution I mean combine that with quirrel it makes it clear that leaving and upgrading is a potential strategy the one minus with the fight is that it does have a little bit of negative space after the second of the Mantis Lords goes down the teleportation speed of the Mantis doesn't increase so the finale ends up feeling slower than the first Lord however I do think this still serves as a decent falling action if you successfully made it through two then The third Lord won't have anything to surprise you anyway the fight is just a matter

of cleaning up at this point point and the rotating nature of the Mantis Lords attacks means the fight won't ever go on for much longer the Mantis Lords earn holl Knight's first s grade they may be a minimalist fight with a limited move set but every move is used with such intent and precision that I cannot help but be impressed with how incredible this fight [Music] feels the soul Warrior is a boss only by technicality out of everything on this list it's the only boss that appears twice in the Overworld without a title card it

only earns a spot on this list due to its statue in God home but with that said the soul Warrior is a difficult boss to analyze after all if we analyze it as a boss it struggles to stand out from the rest of the more detailed roster it teleports around the Arena using slashes from downward slams or casting spells there is a rematch with this boss which upgrades vengeful spirit and in it the health gets a decent increase and he starts to summon mobs which adds a lot of needed complexity to the move set now

these moves aren't bad and the teleportation Builds on the soul sanctums primary enemies while keeping the fight exciting but none of the moves feel unique to the soul Warrior there's nothing that makes Him stand out past a basic enemy but on the other hand if we analyze Soul Warrior as a big mob blocking access to the soul master and shade soul with it it shines a lot compared to just waves of enemies the addition of melee attacks alongside the magic of the rest of the area makes the fight a lot more interactive and exciting than

just gauntlets filled with tele torting Mages would be on top of that the fact that he only ever teleports away to cast a spell That players can punish by staying aggressive keeps the fight from Ever Getting stale or stopping in the same way gauntlets would have he also serves as a great nail upgrade check before you reach the more challenging fight at the peak of the sanctum since the player can often only Land one hit at a time cutting so many hits off the length of the fight is immediately felt by a player I think

the soul Warrior despite his Simplicity does still Edge into the Seade he rides the right between the D and C grade but he's not an unpleasant fight and he helps with the difficulty build of the Soul sanctum the second version definitely feels a little stranger with the move set Simplicity struggling to last until end game but again it's effectively a mini boss challenge with the additional complication of mobs and so it does decently well at that [Music] Too Hollow Knight as a game is very Marshal even among the more magical enemies the players face most

enemies will still attack you with their bodies claw attacks or other weapons soulmaster is the first of a very small group of enemies who base their moves around magic more than melee and it makes him stand out from the rest of the roster in a really great way his introduction is the most cinematic thus far in the game bursting from the background with this Huge teleport before he begins his assault he can teleport and shoot a tracking orb which will often do two to three times in a row forcing the player to chase him around

in order to try to sneak in a few attacks he can also appear at the side of the arena and create a rot ating circle of orbs that the player has to travel through Before He'll disappear and send the orbs back across with an increased speed it is possible to land a hit here but it Demands a lot more aerial mobility and precision than any of the bosses that came prior which make the soul Master feel like a really hard boss to punish on a first playthrough he also has two more melee focused attacks one

is a simple Dash across the ground it moves slowly enough that your pogoing skills that you've ideally been honing since the venge fly King are rewarded with a few hits but the other attack is is a lot more complicated he'll teleport Above the player with an audio que and Smash down into the ground that is of course unless you dodged too quickly in which case he'll start to smash down but instead teleport again and dash down even faster there it ends up creating an exciting Dodge Rhythm that means you're never more than a moment away

from ever being hit as you start to delay your Dodge as long as possible this is one of those genius design decisions that make a slower attack feel terrifying it also Builds up the reward from this fight being his dive spell it improves the gameplay makes the atmosphere feel more tense and encourages the player to later make use of a new move once they finally manage to win on top of that the soul master has a second phase escalation that is both effective and hilarious whenever the soul Master staggers he will completely deflate for a

moment and at the end of the first phase deflate and start to teleport around wildly he Vanishes for a moment and as you leap up to collect the upgrade that you've rightfully earned he'll reappear and Smash down at you destroy ring the floor and trapping you in a new lower portion of the Arena the second phase is a lot simpler than the first and I still adore it he only uses his Smash down attack for a short time forcing your timing to be even more precise as the speed is increased it is possible to damage

him here but requires even more advanced Knowledge of exactly where the slam HIIT boxes are after he smashes the ground for a little while he'll teleport to a random location on the bottom half of the arena and start to spawn magic orbs most players are going to use this part of the face in order to land most their attacks weaving through the orbs as the master stays in a single spot for the longest time in the entire battle now if you don't kill him in time the cycle will repeat he'll dive over and over Again

until he chooses a new spot to sit importantly this phase teaches a skill that becomes absolutely critical in the boss fight against the radiance the game's final boss encounter namely having to deal with spawning magical orbs while trying to attack a slightly moving around Airborne creature I love this master and I think he executes his concept beautifully he earns an egg rate his move set is unique while still being clear and concise he has a ton of fun Characterization and feels like a great climax for the soul sanctum the last of what I'd consider the

simple early game bosses the crystal Guardian faces the night after being nicely asked to make space on a bench that definitely had enough room for both of them like other simple bosses the crystal Guardian has two real attacks it scream spawning four lasers that cover the arena vertically or charges a single laser targeted at the knight's location Forcing them to jump up and usually either Dash over the guardian or Pogo on his head to stay out of the blast though both satisfying to dodge especially the tracking laser they don't create a lot of depth the

player just needs to stand next to the guardian and press attack jumping over him if he points a laser at you or stepping to the side if a vertical laser happens to land on you which it's also very possible that it just won't he has one other thing worth Noting h Al leap around the arena and his body like almost everything in Hollow night is a hitbox the reason I mention it here is that the guardian is incredibly talented in terms of jumping into the player now this doesn't make the fight too difficult but it

is indicative of how simple the fight is that the guardian jumping around randomly is often his hardest move to dodge the crystal Guardian only earns a degrade though the moves here have some Potential they don't combine together in any engaging way and with how easy it is to just stand next to him at hammer or at the attack button the guardian ends up lacking the depth necessary to stay entertaining oh fluke mm somehow in my most recent challenge run this was the only boss where after just two attempts I realized she was completely impossible to

defeat I mean just look at this footage it's absolutely ridiculous fluk Mar has one attack and even that Statement is being generous every few seconds she'll spit out two flukes up to a maximum of six on screen at a time the flukes will move faster than the player and can take anywhere between 3 to one hits to kill depending on what your nails upgrade level is if you kill the flukes in a single hit this fight is steamroll but if it takes more than one hit to kill the flukes this becomes a ridiculously difficult encounter

without magic the fluke movement may be strange But once you have it figured out a properly equipped player is just going to slap the flukes away before going back to hitting the body and the fight doesn't last much longer from there as I mentioned magic also does a ton of work against this boss as soon as you use any spells the fluke m is effectively a waste of space even without using charms to buff magic just a few shriek spells was enough to burst through the fight before she had the opportunity to do Anything there

is nothing fun about the fluke Mar whether you're being swarmed by six enemies attacking too fast to handle or the boss is crumpling without any real effort on your part the fluke m is an f-r boss and frankly the worst boss in Hollow night damage test bosses work best to block off a portion of the game but a damage test boss rewarding the player in a niche charm ends up a bizarre design choice in a game that usually places bosses in the world with A lot of [Music] intention this may sound like a strange sentence

but Hollow Knight has some really good voice acting some of the lines from bosses and NPC cement themselves into your mind and despite being nonsense words and phrases are incredibly characterizing even just hearing me play Hollow night meant my wife started using banada in our day-to-day life the voice acting is just That good but there is one voice actor who goes above and beyond the rest one voice actor who brings so much enthusiasm and energy that before a single text box comes up on screen he created a fan favorite character behold ogram the dung Defender

the greatest strengths of KN night's best boss fights are often their atmosphere and characterization the false Knight being a maggot piloting the armor the soul Master's wild screaming And even Hornets focused strikes the dung eater here is having so much fun that it is beyond contagious he is laughing and singing to himself as he leaps around the arena with these over-the-top battlecries and when combined with the almost dance-like soundtrack compared to the usually more intimidating Boss themes it gives the entire encounter a unique fun feel the malevolence and Dread of the waterways is somehow nowhere

to be found here as The bizarre and heroic nature of this night ends up on full display as he throws balls of his own [ __ ] at you the move set here doesn't disappoint either he'll move through the floor of his Arena like a swimming pool throw balls of dung that bounce off the walls and floor and even fling himself around the arena laughing wildly as he bounces against the walls a talented player can even chase Underneath Him and juggle him to stop him from ever leaving this state He can also go underground and

prepare to burst out allowing the player to either use the dive spell to knock him out of the ground and get some free hits or to make sure to position themselves to hit him as he Dives up or Focus entirely on dodging the falling dung orbs from the upwards explosion when his health gets low he'll do a final attack barrage he gives another huge battlecry and pounds his chest before performing this bursting attack six times in a row Like most the underground attacks he can be knocked out of it by a dive or the player

can choose to take the reliable attacks as an opportunity to land a few more hits to get to the end sooner either way it is a really exciting way to feel like you're progressing prior to the end of the fight the one issue is that the Royal waterways is a strange area in terms of when in a run you're supposed to be doing it it can be reached really early on or players can Choose to hold off for a long time before diving in the dark and often restrictive tunnels aam is balanced for that earlier

version which means it is very easy to run into the dung Defender when you are massively overprepared pred and he poses absolutely no risk which ends up turning into a real bummer overall the dung Defender earns a high a grade if he was a little stronger and could take a few more hits I think I'd give him that Sr title but like the Abyss Watchers before him that smaller health bar hurts him a lot when you're replaying the game and speaking of bosses that feel like there isn't a natural place to fight them we have

the brooding mik located in the Forgotten Crossroads the brooding MC can technically be reached as the game's first boss but only through some very precise pogoing on wall spikes usually players will come here after getting the Mantis claw down In the fungal Canyon and if players come here right after the mik does pose a decent risk while also having a solid reward in the form of mask Shard but if they keep exploring and progressing through the game and don't come back for the MC until later the area outside the MC evolving to the infected Crossroads

ends up more dangerous than the boss residing within it the brooding Malik has four attacks by unlike a majority of hollow Knight's bosses mle attacks Intentionally overlap with each other forcing more situational awareness than a lot of the other fights two of his attacks follow the more typical pattern of attacks in Hollow Knight the first is that he'll spit a wall of infection that covers one half of the Arena forcing a player to LEAP up and either Dash over or Pogo on the Malik though it's straightforward it's also a satisfying move to dodge especially when

it brings the usual Rhythm of the fight to a Temporary Hulk his second attack is like the crystal Guardian leaping around but the brooding is a lot more predictable as to where he's going to move the first jump will always take him off his Center platform and the second will always bring him back to the middle it gives him some much needed Mobility as he's usually restricted to that middle platform while still keeping the horizontal design of the mik's attacks from ever becoming frustrating in the Ascended version the mik is in a flat area which

theoretically makes him more mobile and thus more dangerous personally I actually prefer the characterization that the arena added the fact that the Malik is so Central on the screen here while still being able to threaten the whole Space is a lot more engaging than him just wandering around the flat Arena his last two attacks are where this move set gets unique if he's not doing one of his Aformentioned attacks the mik is constantly spitting infection Globs at a consistent Pace one at a time with some Light Tracking towards the knight's location at the start of

the spit they aren't too tough to dodge but they do make the already fairly limited space on one half of the MC a lot more restrictive and then this combines with the fact that whenever the player gets close to the MC it'll do a quick claw strike that I've never seen anyone Dodge The first time he does it once you know this attack is coming it's easy to attack once or twice and then pull back but this attack gets complicated by those constantly falling infection Globs you have to be aware of where you're going to

run away to as you dodge those claw strikes and land your attacks it ends up creating this fun back and forth while not being overwhelmingly demanding the fight discourages mashing the attack button in a way a lot of other early Game fights didn't while not forcing the player to wait so long that the battle ever becomes boring like the dung Defender he suffers from his strange placement in the Overworld because of that especially combined with the lack of any wow factor I think he just holds on to a seade I enjoy the fight and the

unique way the attacks intertwine but it lacks any purpose within the game's World outside of the dung Defender I haven't really brought up music most of The early songs are good and the dung Defenders is particularly characterizing but the first point in the game that a boss theme really lingered in my head after the fight was done was the broken Bren vessel this boss guards the Monarch wings and feels like it marks about the middle of the game proper which is saying a lot considering we are only 13 bosses into a 47 boss long list

there's a melancholic feeling that the broken vessel brings to the table that other Boss fights haven't tried to create all at once exciting intense and uncomfortable this vessel and his cello Focus lament Echoes the main theme of the game and does a ton of work setting up the emotional roller coaster that the final battle of the game plans to take you on from a move set and design standpoint the broken vessel is a dark reflection of the player a vessel like you but broken at the bottom of the Basin and at the bottom of the

world Filled with infection and rot this is a Walking Corpse and the move set amplifies the knights in a great way the vessel will fla with his nail or do a dash along the ground or in the air being able to be pogoed off of or being able to be bounced even further into the air he also similarly has a dive attack creating a few orbs of infection as well that need to be dodged the broken vessel leaps back and forth incredibly quickly often being difficult to dodge as a leap Into the player especially as

he frequently stops midleap in order to do intact or charge on top of the rest of his move set the broken vessel also has a bullet hell attack where he'll begin to flail in the center of the Arena causing orbs of infection to leave him go down and rise up through the arena I really love the nature of the projectiles rising up towards the player often projectiles in this game come from above or to the side but down in the Basin where it seems like the player is at the bottom of all things there is

still something underneath rising up towards you and that ends up being the case because below the Basin is the abyss the source of both you and this unfortunate vessel now that might be an over analysis of a bullet hell attack but the variation in how projectiles Works makes the vesile seem unique compared to a lot of the other battles and similar bullet hell attacks after He's taken a a few hits the broken vessel will begin to spawn infection balloons these always have one hit point dying in one hit and will move at a predictable Pace

towards the player in a straight line I love these things as mobs other summoned enemies like the flukes were difficult due to the Arena's unique shape and the fluke propensity to get stuck on something before they burst at the player with speed and enemies in the soul warriors's later rematch are More of a threat from having any additional Health but the balloons here only have one hit point and are very predictable any nail hit spell or even charm damage can break them instantly which turns the entire fight into more of a balancing act the broken

vessel is a glass Cannon his attacks move quickly and he can be targeted down very fast if you hit him from stagger to stagger with the addition of the balloons the player needs to be more aware of their Surroundings taking the gaps in the vessel's aggression to pop the balloon before returning to the boss and with more balloons there's never a want for soul so using spells to get out of tight situations or just to add more damage becomes a key ke to the damage race that this fight has the potential to become I'll get

more into how the broken vessel plays into the story as a whole as we get to the hollow KN but this fight introduces the Thematic Concepts that The game plans to bring to its climax in a much calmer environment offering an excellent battle against a dark version of the main player's Avatar while using Christopher Lin's absolutely incredible main theme to an astonishing effect personally I think the broken vessel rests near the top of the a grade if he had a little more endurance I think he'd be higher again but like the dung Defender he just

goes down too quickly ah if only there were a more difficult [Music] version but with all of the movement upgrades accessed in this hypothetical boss order it's time to collect the dream nail the item that provides the player their first sense of precise Direction find three dreamers and use this nail on them on top of that the dream nail provides immediate access to three matches that I'll get to later and a group of seven bosses that I'll get into now the Dream Warriors the first of Whom is found right next to the Dream Nails location

zero the dream Warrior visual designs were all made by Kickstarter backers and so they end up a bit more hit and miss for me than the rest of the game's design though a lot of these designs are neat some will carry a lot more characterization than other more straightforward ones Zero's design is pretty good it fits him well and it gives a feeling of power with the silhouette almost looking like he has a Cape that flows behind him each dream Warrior has one attack that after reaching a certain amount amount of Health speeds up zero

has two floating Spears one of them will Spin and then Rush towards the player before slowly moving back towards its place once he gets low on health he'll summon two more Spears and start being able to have two Spears fly out at a time though it's simple design the boomerang nature of the attack means that positioning stays Fun while also never trapping the player in a bad situation off of bad luck alone he introduces the concept behind Dream Warriors really well because the player immediately understands how these fights will end up working this is descended

arena is also a solid upgrade as the single floor gives way to three platforms with so much of the fight being about positioning yourself to hit zero while avoiding being between him and his Spears this kind of Arena Complicates a simple battle in a great way though it doesn't make him impossible it means that there's a lot more to make zero interesting than there was for battles like Rother and the venge fly King overall I'd give zero a seade he's an interesting opponent while still being simple enough that players can build up some Essence on

these easier bosses and his placement right next to the dream nail means that he's also a great way to tell players what to Look for how to find these battles in the Overworld and what to expect from each of them as I mentioned all the Dream Warriors were designed by a Kickstarter backer and whoever designed gorb deserves a solid handshake and award because this guy is just so much goddamn fun the actor here is going absolutely wild as a slug floating around creating spiral waves of Spears that emerge and shoot with a delay as the

fight Progresses gorb starts to add eventually two more waves each offset so that the first and third waves will hit the same location and the second hits directly between them strangely enough this is a really good attack to learn how to dodge as it shows up again in the fight against the radiance with the sunbeams the fact that gorb is knocked back when you hit him means using spells to reposition him before the attack comes out is a really engaging interaction That players can use in a tricky situation with a satisfying move to dodge the

teacher skills that help in the true final boss of the game and an incredible characterization as gorb instructs the player to ascend with gorb gorb also plays with the exciting Trope of getting the player to return back to the opening area of the game now that they've collected movement upgrades gorb appears on your map with the dream Warrior pin introducing people to an Area they might not otherwise notice and as they explore they'll have the best chance to run into the Grim troop Lantern having a boss that marks on your map later in the game

is a great way to get players to return back to the start and gorb makes that happen like zero before him gorb ascended Arena decides to lose the floor it sadly doesn't improve gorb as much since horizontal mobility is less important here than vertical mobility but it doesn't hurt The fight to have a little bit more of a threat as he is one of the two more straightforward Dream Warriors gorb shall earn a bgrade and is my favorite dream Warrior to fight Elder who is the dreamer found within the fungal wasts and though I love

the concept of these purple beads sticking out against the yellow he always felt a little off compared to the other dreamers even when the dreamers are louder like gorb and later marmu There's still an almost uncanny nature to the battles a Silence of other sounds outside of the dream Warrior that kicks in as soon as the dream itself wakes up Elder who is the exception because the entire fight is filled with the sound of hammers smashing into the ground which robs the fight of a lot of its potential atmosphere Elder who is one of the

only dreamers with two whole unique attacks as he floats around the first has him raise his hand and bring down a random p Pattern of hammers that cover about half the arena they drop down quickly but I've never found myself in any fully impossible situation I'm not sure exactly how the randomness Safeguard works but there seems like there has to be a gap at least nearby your current location as he does this you can also jump up and land some cheeky hits his other attack is where the fight completely loses me though Elder who teleports

away and creates a Cascade of Hammers that begin on the outside and fall one at a time towards the middle of the Arena if the player doesn't have the shade cloak there is a little bit of timing involved but if they do then the attack is a non-threat more frustratingly it is an attack that lasts for about 4 seconds and can only be interacted with via a single Dodge Elder who is completely gone so there's nothing to attack there's no skill cealing here there's just dodge once it Provides a window to heal yes but the

dream Warrior fights are usually shorter than most normal boss fights and are not built around having Windows to heal so this ends up feeling more like Deadtime than anything else when that's combined with the fact that Elder who has a chance to teleport whenever he gets hit the fight pretty easily starts to drag on as you spend most of it chasing after the Elder while dodging pretty boring attacks that don't carry any of the Atmosphere that the already straightforward fights boasted on top of that Elder who is one of only two Dream Warriors that do

not increase their Tempo over the course of their battle meaning that feeling of progression that the Dream Warriors usually excel at is missing I think Elder who is the worst dream warrior with a degrade it's all right for fight to take a while or for bosses to be evasive but Elder who goes a little bit too far with It this one might seem like a little bit of whiplash after I was so upset about Elder who's Habit to teleport away but I really like the encounter with no eyes no eyes has no attacks herself she'll

float around her Arena singing and you have to chase after her in the hopes of being able to hit her once or twice before she teleports elsewhere unlike Elder who however who felt like he was dragging out a fight by disappearing for almost a third of the encounter no eyes Leans into the concept of chasing her down by doubling down on her atmosphere her arena is dark lit only by the lantern upgrade and the dream where your music doesn't play here all you hear is no eyes singing uncanny and off-pitch just enough to feel haunted

while still feeling musical the threat in the arena comes from floating ghosts that fly through the entire space bobbing up and down as they do at first there's only a few on screen at a time but the lower no Eyes gets the faster the ghosts get and the more they spawn until they end up covering a ton of screen real estate there's no summoning animation or a moment it speeds up either things just naturally intensify over the course of the battle as the tension here builds and builds I haven't really touched on it yet but

Hollow Knight elects not to have health bars for its boss fights so you never know how far you were towards victory until the moment the boss Finally drops in fights like this that draw tension out further and further it means that there's never a moment of real pause until the moment the boss dies which makes the atmosphere feel even more exceptional I also really love the visual design of no eyes the dripping black from her eyes the hair going wild throughout the fight it makes an uninterested boss feel incredibly present personally I think no eyes

earns a high b-grade gorb may be my favorite Dream Warrior but no eyes is a fight that from a design standpoint technically has the most going for it most most of the Dream Warriors the player finds are found as gravestones with only two exceptions my personal favorite of those exceptions being the grave site of Galen in the deepest corners of deep Nest surrounded by lifeblood and blue flowers the corpse of this Warrior awaits by his Scythe his soul trapped in an unwinable battle Against the hordes of the Weavers when the fight begins Galen draws what

is by far my favorite weapon the Dream Warriors use an old Scythe drawn out of the ground he spins it and it begins to fly towards the player bouncing off the ground and walls it does track the player decently but doesn't ever turn around until it's bounced off something which keeps the attack feeling threatening without ever feeling cheap something tracking attacks can easily Drift into as the fight progresses Galen will start to spawn golden discs that don't track the player instead moving in an almost DVD logo like pattern around the arena when this combines with

the way that the Scythe follows the player it ends up adding some really fun danger without the ability to trap the player into damage unless the player put themselves somewhere that these two attacks were going to converge like the other Dream Warriors Galen is a simple And sadly brief battle but I really adore the encounter and think it also deserves a b-grade the atmosphere of this corpse in a Blu lit Arena at the heart of the game's most oppressive space the way his own weapon is ripped up out of the ground and flung towards you

and how the attack is so exciting to dodge as you can Juke the Scythe throw it off your scent for a moment to create yourself a huge window to attack it all comes together really Well set in the Queen's Gardens marmu is usually one of the last Dream Warriors that people will encounter but has the simplest concept out of the batch marmu will form into a ball and Rush at the player hit him away enough and he'll teleport pause then roll into a ball and do it again this entire fight is about timing marmu is

a funny sounding yo-yo that you have to learn how to use once you do the fight is pretty straightforward especially when you Combine it with char arms that can extend your nail range and speed to make the Rhythm easier to fall into the issue here is that maru's bouncing physics are to put it mildly chaotically unpredictable sometimes he'll bounce exactly as you expect but other times he'll start moving around at strange angles or go past the player at a weirdly high speed before turning and hitting them from behind which can become really frustrating because it

Adds an X Factor that feels more cheap than it does satisfying on top of that there's just nothing happening in this fight if it works as intended the fight isn't exciting because you're hitting marmu as he bounces back and forth in a very predictable Rhythm but if it doesn't work is intended it's frustrating as his physics will cause him to bounce and hit you from angles and speeds it feels like he shouldn't have access to the one thing that saves Him from the f grade is his charm marmu is effectively a dead pet dog and

he is adorable even with that silly design combined with the constant screaming of his own name marmu makes for a really cute opponent and hearing him whoop every time he gets hit does get pretty satisfying if the physics are working correctly personally I think marmu is another d-grade boss coming in a little bit better than Elder who but definitely still a below average Encounter so this boss is not supposed to be here on the list you cannot reach marov if you've only fought the bosses I've listed thus far but I wanted to talk about all

the Dream Warriors at once and I didn't want to hold off on any of the other encounters for any longer than I already did so here he is the sub object of so many Hollow night players's hatred maroth firstly maroth is almost certainly designed to be a late game Enemy he is one of only three Bosses outside of God home that requires you have shade Dash the only bosses that require that are him traitor Lord and the radiance like Galen marth's corpse is found at the outskirts of Kingdom's Edge and finding the corpse tucked away

at the edge of the Kingdom though not as effective as Galen does to create an atmospheric moment out of the seven Kickstarter designs I think maroth is the strongest except gorb but gorb is gorb and it isn't fair to compare him to Anything else the horned moth in a massive cloak Cuts an imposing figure and before you even see his move set he feels more powerful than the other Dream Warriors that you've encountered up to this point in terms of gameplay maroth follows the example of the brooding mik using two methods of offense the player

needs to get through at once in order to attack unlike the mik neither of these attacks trigger by the player getting close enough Marcos attacks are both Non-stop first he'll spawn Spears that Rush at the player unlike zero these don't return to marov but unlike zero they can spawn literally anywhere next to the player on the other side of the Arena outside the arena off screen they will appear and Rush at you in a Non-Stop Rhythm on top of that marov has a dream Shield that circles around him as he flies randomly through the arena

his entire body is a hitbox and he really loves to fly into the player he Is knocked backed by nail strikes but the dream Shield will block attacks which means the player really needs to choose their moments carefully marov is also the only dream Guardian who has a separate attack that is designed as a good moment for the player to heal or to be aggressive he'll stop in place stop summoning nails and begin to spin the dream Shield increasing the radius of his threatened range if you're far enough out you can heal here otherwise There

is no time to recover if you're aggressive enough you can also push through and land a few hits or a spell on him but then the second phase rolls along and this is where the fight gets brutal not only does the speed of nails double but maros starts to move faster and spawns a second dream Shield that always stays exactly 180° across from the first which means the windows to attack here are even harder to find and are honestly harder to find than they Are for any boss in the entire game and I mean that

sincerely even among the elite Final Bosses there are plenty of opportunities to attack especially compared to marth's second phase but all of that is not why maroth is hated the reason why he's hated so much is his ascended arena in the original maroth fight there were moments that you could be trapped into taking damage even with a full floor to explore below platforms that you were able to use to try to use Verticality to your advantage in the ascended Arena however they got rid of the floor you're fighting him now on six small floating platforms

and remember you have a different nail coming at you from completely random unpredictable directions less than a second apart combined with a randomly moving boss that can can only be attacked from constantly changing angles when maroth works as he was intended to the Precision in the fight is great learning How to sneak through the barrage of nails and land a few hits or when to abuse magic being able to Pogo off the dream Shield to get out of a tricky situation or using wall clings and invincibility Dash all feel great and his low Health scaling

on your nail upgrade means that the fight won't ever last forever regardless of how upgraded you are but when marov is being rude when those Nails come from offscreen while he's floating into you and Trapping you into damage or knocking you into a pit it becomes one of the single most aggravating fights in the game the detail in this fight and the challenge it poses are great in theory and with some guard rails that stop the boss from ever trapping you in situations where you have to be hit like how the false Knight wouldn't slam

the mace on a new player if there wasn't enough space for that player to move back away from the Knight could have really helped remove Some of the frustrations from this fight overall I do think Mark Hoth still earns a seade yes he can be frustrating but having the final dream Warrior be so precise isn't an inherent bad thing and the challenge of the spinning dream shield and flying Nails can make the fight satisfying to pull off he's just held back by the frustrating moments and if we were also grading ascended Arenas that one would

definitely earn a worse grade despite being such a key point of The lore there are not many beings made a void in Hollow Knight the Knight is void the broken vessel was probably void at one point and the hollow Knight himself is void outside of that there's only one other voidborn and whereas broken vessel and Hollow Knight are both these solemn duels The Collector is a chaotic loud and uncomfortable fight in the best way The Collector is another of the most vocal bosses in Hollow night spending most the fight laughing Whooping and even in his

death laughing maniacally as he collapses into a pool of Goo I've seen two camps online here people who either find The Collector hilarious or violently canny I personally land in the ladder especially with how the final blow is a drawn out process of hitting the collector as he melts away combined with the Warped version of the Bas Boss music it makes for a really creepy encounter The Collector joins fluk Mar in terms of Combat strategy but does so infinitely better he's usually not too threatening of a boss and he focuses on summoning enemies to attack

in terms of his actual attacks he does two things first he hops around the arena in a very predictable series of arcs before giving a whoop and lunging forward with a claw swipe after a few moments he can also leap into the ceiling bringing jars down and releasing the enemies from within at first only one or two jars will land but once you Reach a certain Health gate he'll start dropping two or three jars instead there are three unique enemy types and they are not created equal they can spawn a venge fly which drops in

a single hit after Just One Nail upgrade he can summon a boulder which provides a great horizontal threat and combines with the collector's short hops to be a really lethal move and and then of course the asins who spit a single blob at you while they fly around having random Enemies does make this fight RNG dependent but the enemies all interact in a fun way asids are a constant issue hariring the player with projectiles but will also be flying away from the player meaning the player has to make the active choice to chase them down

venge flies and balers always move towards the player on the other side either on the ground or in the air meaning all three enemies end up providing a unique threat from the other ones and with an upgraded Nail you can often catch enemies as they fall to keep the arena from getting out of control but with that like with maroth we do have to talk about ascended collector he gets more Health yes and the boulders become larger and tankier while the venge flies become Stingers rushing forward in a much more direct fashion but the real

threat the real challenge here is that this is the only boss fight with Primal asids for the uninitiated the Primal aspid flies away From the player and shoots three orbs at a time at a rapid Pace standard collector was already a fastpac uncanny fight that can quickly get out of control but ascended collector is a terrifying monster and if you aren't using the unbreakable strength charm with a fully upgraded nail you can't kill his summons in a single hit it is easily the most demanding ascended increase even with maroth losing his entire floor but with

the Primal asid's Existence mentioned there is a final piece of design that makes the collector come together hitting the collector does not provide the player any Soul which means the only way to heal or to use magic is to hit his summons in melee considering how much vengeful Spirit can defang this fight with its large hit box this forces the player to be more cognizant of their soul usage as they swap between attacks with the nail and using magic for burst damage unlike fluk Mar being short on damage doesn't make the fight impossible just far

more challenging I think the collector earns a high b-grade though the move set is simple the Swarms of enemies make this fight thematic and unique while still staying fair and fun throughout Hollow Knight doesn't have many required boss fights assuming that you don't use any skips at all you'll need Hornet for dash dung Defender for the eastus tier broken vessel for the Double jump umu The Watcher Knights and the hollow Knight and of that grouping The Watcher Knights often eclipse the challenge of even the final boss this is easily the hardest of the required six

fights like the Mantis Lords The Watcher Knights are designed as a Duo battle but it also serves as a bit of an endurance test as you'll fight your way through the parade of knights in my Dark Souls ranking one of the more contentious bosses was the Four Kings a damage test That would spawn in addition Kings as time passes Watcher Knight takes that concept and polishes it into a fight that though it's one of the game's most difficult rewards game knowledge skill and exploration all in incredible ways at the start of the fight one of

the six Watcher Knights will wake up after a short time a second Knight Will Rise to join him once one of these two knights drops another Knight immediately starts waking up and that method of spawning Continues until you're left in a one-on-one fight with the last Knight at which point you finally take it out and claim victory there are so many things that this fight does does well so to start let's talk about communicating to the player how much longer the fight is going to be you can see all six of the knights at the

start even amid the Sea of knights in the background it is immediately clear which Knights are going to be animating as this Fight Continues which gives the player a general idea as to how much time is left in the overall fight on top of that an observant player can knock down this chandelier destroying one of the knights before the fight even begins which is a great reward for exploration second the pacing of the fight is perfect for a damage test if you Target only the first Watcher night before the second wakes up you'll end up

with two kns at near full health as the third wakes up unlike Other endurance and damage test bosses like the Four Kings and B gargoyles you're encouraged to spread your damage Out Among the knights throughout the battle that way once you're down to the final one-on-one it won't last too long third The Watcher Knight's move set though less precise than the Mantis Lords is in my mind a nearly perfect Duo move set two sword strikes can come out fast but only cover a little space meaning it's hard for this move to ever Overlap with the

Knight's more dangerous spinning moves it discourages spamming attacks on the Knight but isn't going to add additional pressure if you were already retreating past that there are two rolls a straight roll that rolls across the arena and bounces off the wall or a double bounce that varies arcs and usually leans towards higher jumps while the watch Knights are in a rolled up form they are immune to all nail strengths but vulnerable to Magic damage This means using the dive to gain invincibility while still dealing some damage or being able to get behind them in order

to launch a shade soul to deal some spread out damage or even finding a perfect pocket in an arc for an abyss streak means every part of your Arsenal helps in some unique way which really rewards game knowledge by making the entire fight have a ton of opportunities to Counterattack in what initially seems like a hard wall on top of that as the Big gameplay challenge stopping players from finishing the game The Game's best hidden upgrade the Shadow Dash ends up being a huge Boon here The Watcher Knights won't ever trap the player in attacks

that are fully impossible to dodge being limited to only two at a time and having their attacks either leave a large L vertical safe space or varying horizontal safe space means you'll rarely get hit from RNG it is however very easy to make a mistake to Use a double jump when you shouldn't have this is where the Shadow Dash lets you use your invincibility to escape bad situations the game's design keeps it from being required while still heavily encouraging players to explore the rest of the game and Lead towards that true ending the only issue

with the fight is that sometimes the Watcher Knight's rolls will just go in the wrong direction causing them roll away from you and into other walls which often Forces you into more challenging situations where the watch Knights are now on either side of you rather than being on one now it's not as frustrating as move set glitches like ornstein's charge but it does hurt the fight a lot on top of that the watch Knights are often a frustrating battle to struggle against once you master their move set and weave in and out of their attacks

it becomes satisfying but when you're trying to find the gaps or learn about The weakness to Magic it doesn't create that same flow state that the rhythmic dashing of other Duo fights like the Mantis Lords had when you learned it The Watcher Knights are brutal and learnable but the learning curve here can be very frustrating overall I think the watch kns deserve a high a grade I know that might be a bit controversial since I know some people really Lo this fight and I was in that camp as I learned the game My First playthrough

but the more I Played the more respect I gained for this design even in my recent no nail upgrades no magic no healing no charms run I was able to get it on just my sixth attempt because there is a really specific Precision here I mentioned before that Watcher Knights is usually the last gameplay challenge that most players will encounter doing as few bosses as possible the other option for the final boss before the hollow night is the guardian of manaman The dreamer umu now I messed up and didn't record my winning second attempt against

umu and umu is the only boss who will list their God home rematch as a completely unique battle so there will not be any good footage here just me trying to relearn U's attacks as I run out of Health and die umu is Cinematic in a way no other boss in Hollow night tries to be the jellyfish cannot be damaged Nails spells bizarre charms you cannot touch umu it floats around the Arena as a living hit box and does two attacks on a loop the first one generates lightning bugs with only a few safe gaps

to stand where you have to reach a safe spot and then stay there the second generates lightning bugs on the player's location continuously for a few seconds forcing the player to keep mobile the two attacks work well together but there isn't enough happening to make the waiting interesting the attacks both have huge Gaps between them and once you remember the Tells they aren't that complicated after a few attacks have come out corl shows up and attacks making umu vulnerable and writing that sentence I realize I should probably explain who quarl is outside of Elder bug

quirl is one of the easiest NPCs for the player to bump into he's inside the black egg Temple at the start of the game he pushes you towards the city of Tears if you were struggling with the Mantis Lords and he has a ton of other moments that his path crosses with the player he's a Wanderer after all like yourself who's forgotten who he is and his search has led him here where he's realized he serves as a part of the key to access maman's dream to break the seal of the hollow Knight that's a

real Wiki level summation but the point is that qul is a wellestablished character who's been unlocking memories that led him here after he arrives for the first time Deflating umu for a few moments and making him vulnerable umu recovers and still keeps his focus on the player qul will continue to hop around preparing to do another disrupting slash that gives you another moment to attack the boss usually if you're properly leveled this fight does last too long often ending anywhere between 1 to three Cycles the issue is that the fight here is a waiting game

at the best of times umu does have a neat design and his attacks Aren't bad they engage together well but running in a circle around the arena while you're waiting for quirrel to attack doesn't make for an exciting battle it is satisfying to work alongside an NPC especially when as wholesome as quirrel but that doesn't make the battle last on subsequent playthroughs I think umu earns a degrade there's some interesting stuff Happening Here but the fight doesn't engage the player enough to make it a good fight to Return to and like I said we'll get

to God home umu when we reach the DLC bosses for most of hollow Knight bosses are designed around gameplay first with atmosphere as a close second there is however an undeniable exception to this rule one boss who is here to look cool and be creepy whose entire move set feels limited by the restrictions with the art design had the player will first spot nskk as they're walking through the edge of deep nest and it'll look like Another version of the night standing just ahead of the player the player moves forward and nosk leads them further

and further down into the nest eventually as the player heads through a tight tunnel doors start to spring up behind them and they walk into the arena to witness this once nskk has torn out from his disguise and the horror movie music starts blasting full force the player gets to fight the boss proper and it's okay the Atmosphere remains excellent with most of the credit here going to Larin soundtrack this is one of my favorite boss themes deep Nest as an area didn't have a culminating boss fight at the dreamer which means nosk ends up

feeling like the optional culmination of the Aries horror adjacent atmosphere as I mentioned before his move set is where things often struggle to impress and this is his expanded move set you're looking at when he was released he had Two moves he'd run across the arena or he'd jump once if you stood here nosk could never hurt you and even with the expanded move set most of his attacks still can't hurt you here but now there is one thing that can hurt you in that AFF forementioned update two more attacks were added to the encounter

the first has nosk stop his charge in the center of the arena and spray infection everywhere and the second only triggers if nosk is under a certain Health Threshold he'll leap into the ceiling and move towards you well off screen infection Globs fall from the ceiling and stay as Hazard for a moment and eventually nskk drops back down and though these attacks are definitely more engaging nskk struggles from a strange to describe principle even among enemies with stranger attack patterns or patterns that make it more difficult to find a moment to attack the bosses in

h Knight feel like they are designed to be Fought things like The Watcher Knights left plenty of opportunities and even bosses that spent most of their fight running away like noi sacrificed mobility and up close threat in order to make them into a more enjoyable encounter noos charges and leaps around the arena quickly which makes it feel constantly aggressive and is great for its atmosphere but on the other hand nosk runs so far away so quickly and spends so much time on the ceiling that Once that move unlocks nskk often feels like he's just running

far enough away from you you can't reach him and outside of shooting a spell at him you might as well just wait because he's going to come back in just a couple of seconds anyway though a strange contradiction within the fight itself I think it still earns a b grade the fight isn't as bad as it was on release where it would have probably earned a bit of a lower grade but it also doesn't lend itself to the Same Flow State most of the combat and holite reaches on the other hand the atmosphere within this

fight is beyond Pitch Perfect easily resting above most of the other roster because of that a little above average felt like a good place to put the encounter as a whole at the end of the fight with the Crystal Guardian way back at the start of this video he fell down got up and leapt away once you get the Monarch wings and you're able to finally give Chase you run into him again but this time he's very cross with you so cross in fact that he decides to be the first boss in the game that

deals two damage every time he hits you the pure vessel two gods and this very angry Rock are the only ones that do two damage with every single hit one of these things to put it lightly is not like the others and yes there are other bosses with moves that deal two masks of damage but only these four deal two damage with Every single part of their hit box with that being said the enraged guardian's move set has not changed from the crystal Guardian though it's almost doubled in speed in some ways this does make

the fight harder attacks come out faster and you need to be constantly ready to deal with both of his jumps and the lasers he'll conjure up and the lack of a moment to heal and dealing two masks of damage means mistakes add up really fast especially since it is Possible you won't even be fully upgraded by the time you reach this rematch on the other hand learning this fight is one of the reasons that the crystal Guardian becomes as hard to dodge as it is once the crystal Guardian starts an attack you have time to

land a few more hits before you need a Dodge and the enraged Guardian forces you to unlearn that habit the move set is still simple but landing a hitless fight here is a lot more satisfying and rewarding As by the time you finish dodging and punishing any move another one is already starting to come out the enraged Guardian may feel like a joke in God home especially compared to the other late game Heavy Hitters but he is guarding a Mass Shard meaning the player won't have the maximum amount of health and the rematch will often

happen as they're traveling to collect the pale ore for a nail upgrade from the top of the crystal Peak this means he's meant To be fought with your nail at either a plus two or a plus three with none of your health maxed for a midgame hurdle that you face before encountering the real Horrors that await you in the late game The increased pace and threat actually fit pretty well at this point in the roster blowing far past the first encounter the enraged Guardian gets a high b-grade I'll never forget the first time I real

realized he was dealing two masks of damage to me on every single Hit it easily was one of my highlights the first playthrough and helped make a simple boss fill a great role by setting that up as a rule that can be broken before we reach the end game we have to talk about two of the strangest boss fights to analyze like in the from software series I haven't been discussing boss runs but there are two boss fights that I have to break that pattern for because in order to face the ablab and God tamer

in the Overworld World you have to get through the Coliseum at the end of the second Coliseum challenge the players will encounter the Ables now before I even touch on the design of the blobbles the second Coliseum challenge requires that the player get through 16 waves of enemies a total of 63 mobs before they face a blobbles for the first time and if the player dies at any point both during this boss or the Run they have to do the whole thing again there are no Checkpoints on top of that the Ables are one of

the most abnormal bosses in the game instead of occasional attacks with bullet hell inspired elements the ablab are a bullet hell encounter no ifs and or butts when there are two of them floating around they'll bounce off each other and the walls before they occasionally stop to spray an array of infection orbs in every direction around them the orbs do move decently fast and don't follow the same predictable Pattern as projectiles like gorb there are patterns that you can find but they're similar enough that I personally can't tell them apart making it even more difficult

the Ables AIS are separate here sometimes the bullet hell's line up giving you a nice opportunity to Counterattack and other times they'll stagger meaning you're dodging one bullet hell while trying to punish the other ablab on top of that ablab physics are some of the weirdest In the game namely because it's possible to hit them in such a way that the abla will start doing a stationary bullet hell well moving and when they can bounce off each other at strange angles and speeds that make running into a player a real threat combined with how much

they're moving around and how many bullets are on screen screen this is one of those fights that it's just really hard to be on top of thankfully they also don't have much health in the Coliseum because if they did this fight would be significantly more dangerous the oblobble is also the only dual battle in the game that doesn't get easier when the first ablab drops the second one gains a health boost and en rageous doubling in speed both in terms of movement the speed of their bullet health and the gaps between when they are and

aren't shooting this is one of the only Boss faces in the game that feels like it's moving too fast I mean Even the super boss in the late game give you more time to dodge or punish than the enraged ablo does in the Hall of Gods on my main save there are only four bosses that I have not gotten radiant on and this is one of them the fact you want to balance damage between two foes does give it a little boost in terms of Engagement but the second phase is just not fun to fight

against speaking of God home the ablab get a huge Health boost outside of the arena In my recent challenge run this was one of the only bosses I couldn't beat without using magic to burst it down though the existence of a second phase would give the Ables a boost the sloppy physics combined with the bullet hell makes the fight feel unsatisfying compared to other non-m Marshal Encounters in the game like Radiance or soulmaster meaning I think it earns a degrade there's enough detail here with the healing and needing to balance Health in the first phase

that I can't justify an f grade but there is a lot holding this fight back from being an exciting challenge the god Tamer is the other Coliseum fight and reaching the god Tamer is so challenging that the player doesn't doesn't need to beat it to unlock the pantheon it's found in in the god home DLC the god Tamer will be unlocked in the Hall of Gods after facing it just once in the pantheon to Get to the god tamer in the Coliseum you need to beat about 126 enemies including two venge fly Kings the brooding

Malik and not one but two Soul Warriors there are platforming sections where you have to dodge environmental attacks sections with no platforms and at the end of all of that you finally reach the god Tamer and honestly compared to the ables the god Tamer feels almost under underwhelming this is another Duo fight the god Tamer And the Beast it calls God ironically despite the god Tamer being the boss's Nam sake the fight ends when the Beast dies not when the Tamer does the Tamer herself has a single attack she'll leap High into the air and

bring her weapon down as a slam attack effectively as long as you aren't overly aggressive or not paying attention she's really a nonissue that just occasionally forces you to back away the Beast has two unique moves and though they're both Simple they're both effective the first and most common is a watcher knightes charge but with a more pronounced bounce at the end similarly nail hits won't bother the Beast while it's charging but magic can deal damage that said there's plenty of time after he lands to get some damage in the other attack is an infected

spit attack that leaves three Globs on the ground for some lingering damage while also allowing a quick player to LEAP up and land a few Pogo Hits before the spit comes out the only time that the move sets overlap in any dangerous way is if there's a damage spot on the ground while a beast does a dash at the exact moment that the god Tamer decides to do a jump and even then if you have your shade Dash ready you can just use that to escape the situation without too much of an issue the cruestv

for the third Coliseum than the ablab were for the second but even with Its Health boosted in God home the god Tamer feels incomplete there's no Evolution and the move set Is tragically easy to learn this is of course by Design the god Tamer was not designed as a boss but as a final challenge when the player is already 15 to 20 minutes into a brutal Gauntlet having already fought multiple other small bosses and barely staying alive and so though it's not a great boss in God home it does exactly what it's supposed to do

in the Overworld personally I think the fight still earns a spot near the top of the b-grade though simple it serves its role in the game really well and though it's very rare I ever decide to actually do the third Coliseum that lies more in the challenges that come before for it than the boss itself but now it's rematch time and we've got four rematches to go and they are some of the game's finest duels the rematches in the light game of hollow Knight are a master class in how to take simpler fights and complicate

them to create a satisfying challenge so to begin is the only non-dream rematch of the bunch The Hornet Sentinel firstly the change in Arena here does a lot to up the tension and stake of the fight even if a potential person did not know the game or see the move sets at all seeing these two Arenas back to back meant that people could pretty accurately guess which one was an early Game duel and which one is a late game battle Hornet's visual design doesn't change or evolve here but the soft greens of a large prior

Arena giving away to a violent snowstorm in a much more restrictive space make everything immediately more tense on top of that Hornet Sentinel blocks access to the Kings brand one of the most important progression items in a true ending run she ends up serving as the Gateway into the faster late game Boss challenges the True ending will beat you against like her first variation The Hornet Sentinels move set is simple she'll Dash across the ground leap into the air and dash in the middle of her jumps the only difference here is her speed with the

player now armed with a dash themselves wall jumps for their own maneuverability and more than likely the double jump there are a lot more options to move around Hornet it makes the move set familiar but still feel unique Aggressive play is a lot more rewarding here than it was in the first battle where it was pretty easy to get yourself into a bad situation due to the player's lack of Mobility options though Hornet still poses a real threat the fact that you have so many options means the player feels their growth here more than in

the other rematches that said her move set does have some new tricks her gof me AOE has doubled in size and she's learned to Parry if you hit her in this State she'll avoid the damage and respond with a fast large swing this Parry move even ends up making its way into a couple of the late game fights and though it does a good job initially checking aggressive once you know how to look for it and how long it'll take Hornet to leave The Stance it becomes more abusable than threatening the biggest change to the

move set is her ability to slash in the air and spawn multiple spiky orbs held aoft by string These are naturally hit boxes but the player can hit them out of the air with their nail combined with Hornet's mobility in the smaller Arena these do a great job cutting the player's usable space off without ever feeling unfair especially since the player can go for damage on Hornet or immediately try to reopen the arena back up as she spawns them in this battle also serves as one of the most satisfying story beats in Hollow KN in

your first battle Hornet Had little respect for the Knight but here Hornet seems almost curious and hopeful about the knight's ability to change the state of hollow Nest not only will beating her here confirm that she'll come in and help in the final boss fight but it'll also allow her to spawn in after destroying Hera if you haven't already giving Hornet a chance to open up about her pass and how does the game tell you that Hornet now respects you not via dialogue or text Boxes but through great wordless storytelling after beating her Hornet will

let you pass through still only half convinced that you can really change anything but after the player has claimed the king's brand the tunnel will collapse on them and they'll find themselves pulled out of the rubble by Hornet who without saying a word dashes back off into the world it is a great way to show that you've gained this new Ally and helps get the player invested Into Hornet as a character there's a reason people are excited for silk song half of it is to see more gameplay and level design from Team Cherry yes but

the other half is that adoration for Hornet as a character this fight and the sequence that follows carries a ton of weight overall Hornet Sentinel is an expertly done rematch taking the first really required boss and speeding it up is a great way to wall off the final requirements to get into the true ending Creating a satisfying beat right at the end of the game where the gameplay and Story come full circle personally I think she earns an S grade that said this is the 28th boss in this video and if no DL was released

the list would only be 34 bosses long rather than a 47 boss roster with the DLC Hornet Sentinel has adjusted a little from Welcome to the end game and more of Welcome to the Real meat of holl night even with that adjustment however I think she still Serves her role in the game progression beautifully the next rematch is the only one of the four that ever does two damage on a hit the failed Champion which is the rematch against the false Knight and in this rematch he doesn't just beat up he goes postal where false

Knights moves and AI were carefully designed to never catch the player in an undodgeable scenario the failed Champion has absolutely no such qualms after all he expects that the players will have Shade Dash double jump and dive to defend themselves if things get desperate when it all comes together the failed Champion is one of the first fights that displays the satisfying design that Hollow Knights and game relies on challenge through Simplicity even with the training wheels off the moves that here is clear concise and fair outside of the aforementioned AI adjustments speed is the biggest

change here attacks coming out faster is always A risk on its own but the speed increase also makes a secondary mechanic far more dangerous when rocks fall from the ceiling instead of just being a followup to his heavier attacks the failed Champion will now attack fast enough that you'll deal with the next attack on top of the bullet Health rocks are creating with those rocks still being able to be weaponized against him it takes that simple mechanic and dials it up to 11 on top of that the scale is Increased more rocks fall on each

of his jumps and slams and the shock waves generated from each attack increase to Max the vertical control players should have at this point an excellent piece of design with the Falling Rocks existed in the false KN but matters a lot more here namely that the Rocks cannot pass through the champion if he's Airborne being under him makes you safe for a moment which does three big things firstly the champion takes up a lot of The screen real estate meaning it's easy for him to make it hard to see other attacks meaning the player could

be line sighted by rocks if this wasn't here it avoids a lot of potential frustration second it encourages the player to be in the Champions face as much as possible something the aggression he put out often discourages especially getting into the late game being able to stick to the side of a large boss even amid their aggression is a critical skill That the champion is cementing finally it makes the champion feel like a physical part of the game's world the collapsing Arena interacts with both of you which goes a long way towards making the fight

feel as connected IC as it is as I mentioned some of the Champion's attacks can deal two masks of damage unlike the guardian the champion only has select attacks that deal at higher amount the shock wave Falling Rocks and the Champion's body only deal one damage Strikes with his mace are the only thing that's going to deal two frankly the fact that the Champion's body doesn't deal to does feel a little bit off there are bosses later where players can make the choice to take a two damage hit or to fall into a pit to

minimize the damage taken that option may exist here but the choice is often to take the hit or move into the Champion's body proper these kind of moments have always felt video gamey to me after all a video game Character would never think to avoid damage utilizing invincibility frames that exist solely for the user experience but when the optimal strategy for the fight is to dash into the boss's body to take less damage it feels a little backwards All Things Considered but with that said I think the failed Champion is an improvement on the false

Knight earning another a grade the strangeness with damage takes away what is otherwise an astonishing proof as to The detail the false Knight hid behind his [Music] Simplicity the next rematch is with the hollow Knights resident Mage the soul Master returned now as the sole Tyrant without dealing the same two damage that the failed Champion can though the speed of the Tyrant makes him an aggressive threat the soul Tyrant is usually actually the easiest of the three dream rematches like the failed Champion Everything the Tyrant does is a variation on the Master's move set Amplified

and intensified the magic projectile spawn and move fast and his teleports moving around the arena at an even more break neck Pace meaning the player needs to rush the Tyrant to even have a chance to land a single hit before he leaves again his dive attacks are faster and the shock wave has again doubled in size to account for the player likely having a double jump Though I should mention it is exactly large enough to be jumped over with a single precise jump the fake out dive however is a lot more dangerous here there are

definitely timings you can put yourself in where escaping the second hit requires an incredibly tight set of movement the dash across the ground has sped up but with the double jump and the player having more familiarity with Pogo hips it doesn't feel dangerous enough for a late game fo on top of that the Speed makes it even easier to dodge because you can now just shade Dash through it you don't even need to jump over him the attack that's made significantly more dangerous is when he summons an array of orbs flies across the arena and

then teleports away as the orbs go flying back instead of creating four orbs in a square there are now six of them forming too difficult to dodge through walls especially with the increased speed while players are Learning this fight this is easily the hardest move to relearn frustratingly the answer is just to stand in the middle of the Arena it even serves as a very safe moment to heal since once you know where you're supposed to stand it goes from the most threatening to an absolutely defanged attack and though the increased speed means the second

phase is harder the move set here remains completely identical I feel like one or two more moves in the second Phase could help catch the player off guard here in the hope of recreating that same feeling of panic that the soul Master did because this just doesn't cap capture it though I rag on the soul tyrants updates the chassis of the Soul Master fight means the rematch is still fun it just misses out on a lot of potential the other rematches reach the soul Master both pushes the player and the Knight to their absolute limit

whereas the soul Tyrant is a fun Challenge that requires you to react faster rather than pushing the Knight to the same kind of limit that the soulmaster did overall I think the soul Tyrant is the only rematch that gets a lower grade than his first battle he does still earn an a grade however it is a great fight it just doesn't impress me or feel as momentous of an occasion as the first variation did there are a lot of fast bosses in Hollow Knight especially in the end game But I think the most Breakneck fight

by a pretty significant margin is actually the Lost kin the rematch with the broken vessel like the soul Tyrant the Lost kin loses some of his atmospheric punch in the rematch though the beautiful theme is still present it's a lot less shocking the second time around despite only dealing a single mask of damage the Lost kin still manages to be one of the fastest most aggressive bosses in the entirety of hollow night outside of Being staggered the Lost kin is always on the move with sped up versions of the Broken Vessels attacks he has the

same dashes along the ground in air he can swap to a nail strike in an instant now and he can stop midair and dive downward really quickly on top of that the enemies he spawn spawn in faster and though they still only have one hit point move a lot faster too uniquely this is the only rematch that removes an attack from the boss namely the broken Vessel's bullet hell where infected filled the screen is gone and with it the only opportunity to wail away at the Kim is gone as well everything that made the vessel

work mechanically still works here but with the challenge and speed cranked to the maximum outside of hollow Knight's super bosses this was by far the hardest boss in my blind playthrough the demand of speed is so much higher than anything else the summoned enemies dying in one hit and providing Soul Still works really well for rewarding player aggression but it also means that healing is a really tall task after all these things spawn and reach you in often less than one or two seconds meaning that even if the last Canin is staggered you'll still need

to be ready to keep that pressure up though the Lost skin may not hit atmospherically in quite the same way that the broken vessel does it is such a visceral fight that it rests above the vessel it walks That delicate line between being a challenge and a super boss that must be fought in one specific way a lot better than a lot of other bosses in Hollow night for that the Lost kin earns in Sr though he's not the best boss in the game finally reaching the level of reaction that the kin demands and taking

him down is one of my favorite moments in any [Music] playthrough finally leaving the world of Dreams we reached two bosses that are tough to place in a list personally my plan was to structure these videos usually with base game the DLCs and then the final boss encounters Hollow Knight of course has to make that as complicated as possible the dlc's both offer a unique variation of the final boss which means I can't talk about the last DLC before I talk about that final boss and some DLCs changed boss fights from the main game almost

past the point Of recognizability so the order from here on out is going to get a little bit odd starting off is another boss required for the true ending the trader Lord when Hollow Knight came out the trader Lord was a pushover to put it modly being one of only two Overworld bosses at the time that required that you have the shade Dash he was placed to be one of the last challenges in the game and he frankly did not put out the threat necessary for that position in The Overworld he was just a larger

more tanky version of a standard mantis enemy at this point he used a dash attack and a leap into a dash attack two moves for one of the Final Bosses ended up being a massive let down but when life blood came out Trader Lord glowed up in a big way what we have today is effectively a DLC boss fight he got more Health more moves and the moves he already had started to deal two damage per hit and that's just the surface of everything Happened with the Traer Lord now to begin this is the only

boss in the game that requires that you fight mobs prior to getting a chance to take on the boss properly except of course the pantheons and God home but we'll get to that later I'm not certain if this was a change made in the lifeblood update but it makes the Traer Lord feel a lot more weighty than most boss fights with that said I also wish that we saw the traiter Lord before he just appeared randomly Maybe if he was in the background and clearly send the mantises to swarm us just to make it clear

that this was was more than a standard fight from the moment it begins because as it stands it just feels like a mob fight and then suddenly traiter Lord is here even with the update his base moves are still based on those basic mantis enemies that he was sending forward but now dealing two damage a hit a pogo over the dash can create a good opening and just Standing and punishing the jump feels most of the fight but the Traer Lord is designed around the Shadow Dash dashing through both of his dashes is a great

way to get out of a tight spot but his ground pound attack new from lifeblood covers the entire screen vertically requiring you to use your shade cloak in order to dash through and avoid damage the fact that this boss is required for the true ending is important here because this is another of those Introductions of a move that the radiance uses namely the Sunbeam that goes across the screen past that he can throw some Infected boomerangs at a distance using a much more complicated pattern than the ranged mantises so long as you're being aggressive however

you usually don't need to worry about learning this attack since he only does it if you're at a distance on top of all this if you've done cloth who is an NPC's quest line she'll end up joining In the fight leaping around with her Club to land a few hits the tragedy here is that if cloth joined the fight when the Traer Lord goes down he'll kill cloth as his final action and she'll land the final blow in retaliation it makes for a good culminating moment for cloth's story and it's not nearly as hard to

find as other similar battles in these Souls like games like seberg was I really enjoy the enhan an ments to the trader Lord the move set is still simple Enough that it's not overwhelming but an increase to damage speed and the new attacks made one of the final boss challenges in this game feel like he earned a spot this late in the story I think he earns another a grade there are few things as satisfying as learning the trader Lords move set and absolutely obliterating him well we're already talking about the lifeblood update so everything's

already out of order so before we head back to The dreams content we might as well talk about what must be by far the easiest of the update bosses The Hive Knight The Hive Knight isn't necessarily easier because he's a let down or has some gimmick far from it the hive KN is just the result of Team Cherry creating The Hive in the base game and not putting a boss into it leading to a lot of people saying that the hive was disappointing so in the final room they've patched in the hive night he's designed

for an Endgame area rather than being designed as a final challenge like most the other update opponents were The Hive Knight is primarily a melee boss with a couple teleportation abilities that keep him feeling mobile and unique each of his lunges and stings are well telegraphed as he dashes straight forward or teleports to the player's vertical level and holds in the air for a moment before darting forward with the shade Dash this fight becomes a little too easy but Without it it is an incredibly Dynamic battle on top of his melee attacks The Hive Knight

also spits up small bees that fly down in the general direction of the player serving as a threat while the hive Knight continues to attack while also providing a window to land a few free hits while he's summoning them if you land a knockdown and wait to ensure there are less bees remaining it makes for a fun back and forth and knowing that you might be just one or Two hits away from a knockdown during that Beast storm makes you really want to keep up the aggression after all if he stops you'll be out of

the much more dangerous situation of dealing with the bee bullet hell and the melee attacks at once and the bees don't follow the player enough to make attacking impossible just enough that they are a constant threat you need to be aware of the last of his attacks summons three orbs with need sticking out of all eight Major directions where these orbs spawn seems to be completely random and after a moment they explode all at once overlapping with each other to create another bullet hell I'm much less of a fan of this move compared to the

bees the orbs can be interacted with and knocked away but the delay on the burst is really short here not giving the player much time at all to react and the hive Knight Will frequently go back to attacking as the orbs start to explode Meaning that you're dodging three strangely placed grids and the hive Knight at the same time which makes for a much more demanding attack than the rest of the fight but with that said the hive Knight definitely improves the area he resides in he may not be the perfect encounter with a move

set easily overcome by shade Dash and a frustrating set of projectiles but I think he still earns a b-grade and no I promise I'm not just giving him that grade for the pun He actually gets a b-grade he also gets a shout out for the official worst run back in Hollow Knight I lo running through the hive here so please put down your dream gate and never do this run back normally but returning back to that first hidden dream update now we'll get a few more bosses that feel like they belonged in the main game

the first of which is a dream rematch with the dung Defender at his Peak as the White Defender lore Hungry players are eating very well here within OG's dream five silhouetted figures watched the rematch The Pale King on his throne in the center and the four other Knights each off to the side watching ogram throw his entire being into this battle other dream boss has definitely got a mechanical upgrade as we've previously discussed but the White Defender has increased the challenge to make him one of the Final Bosses a player will usually experience not only

Are his attacks faster but he also spawns more projectiles his health has more than doubled from your first encounter and he no longer staggers and with the defender being as aggressive as he is that means that every heal the player uses here has to be very carefully earned fun fact the White Defender is actually tied with the pure vessel as the second most indiv idual Health in the game only beaten by the radiances and also by Oro and matu and The sister battles combined health bars but like I said individual health bars this makes the

fight feel a lot more significant now it feels like a final Challenge and it really makes the final emotional catharsis the fight builds to feel earned when the defender is beaten he'll reach up towards the five silhouettes on the pedestal almost desperate before the dream ends for such a bubbly character and fight it makes for an almost tragic ending to the Battle and conveys OG Grim's story and characterization beautifully he feels like the one Knight could never stand with the others and yet he's somehow the only one still fighting even within his own dream he

fails to live up to the Legacy he wants to uphold you can rematch his dream up to five times and the number of masks he deals with each hit increases each rematch until he's dealing five damage in a single hit beyond the lack of knockdowns there's One more big change to the defender you can no longer knock him out of the ground with Dives which means you have to learn to dodge the attacks instead which I personally find a lot more engaging and dangerous even though it's just as easy to punish with an abyss Stree

his low Health attack becomes a bit more dangerous because this as you can no longer interrupt him when he bursts out of the ground in Rapid succession despite all these Enhancements I think the White Defender still stays out of what I'd consider super boss territory only providing the option for players to choose to take him on with the increased damage which puts him more in that field though he is an exceptional challenge especially on my most recent run he isn't fast enough to be impossible or require memorization the White Defender fits in with the rest

of the game's catalog as an endgame challenge the White Defender earns the Escr that the dung Defender missed out on it maintains all the things that the first battle did well while adding to the atmosphere in a way that other dream matches didn't do while also providing an escalation and challenge that makes him an exciting foe to revisit how do I describe the second boss of the Hidden Dreams update what words could possibly be conjured to invoke the emotion stirred within players Hearts from this encounter how About Invincible Fearless sensual mysterious enchanting vigorous diligent overwhelming

gorgeous passionate terrifying beautiful powerful but could that even possibly describe the gray Prince zot zot is an NPC that the player runs into throughout the game usually having gotten himself into some sort of lethal Peril eaten by the venge fly King stuck in deep Nest kept by the Coliseum of fools for their entertainment fighting the actual zot looks like this The great Prince zot on the other hand is what Britta a hopeless romantic NPC thinks of zot after hearing his stories about his quote unquote Adventures the atmosphere and design of this fight is excellent after

a long drop down through a display of paintings and art of zot you find brida being treated as a queen and her great Prince Rises up with his usual battlecry before the music kicks into gear and the fight begins truth beauty and hatred which serves as Z's Boss theme is one of my single favorite pieces of music in the game the dancing strings over the heavy brass section make zot simultaneously feel powerful and threatening while also capturing the wild Whimsy and Chaos of this move set and frankly chaotic does not go far enough describing the

kinds of shenanigans that zot uses here he'll wave his nail around wildly while following the player before he trips and falls on his own face which causes shock Waves to come out from him he'll leap into the air and come crashing down but but sometimes he'll do this midair pette to readjust his location and other times he'll similarly fall on his face and not actually do anything he'll spit out fly versions of himself to hunt down the player and occasionally just hop around as a big hitbox and with all this considered Z becomes one of

the single hardest bosses to learn in this game though he's not the hardest boss in the Game by a pretty wide margin there are so many fake outs and trips that half the time the threat the zot outputs is completely unrelated to whatever he's trying to do and that makes his move set really difficult to reach especially when compared to the Precision of the rest of the game I've seen people go both ways on this fight some players love the charm and Chaos in characterization it brings and others hate how it lacks the clarity and

intent And animation that PO Knight excels at personally I think the fight works on multiple levels as I mentioned it's characterizing for both zot and brida while still providing a unique gameplay challenge that no other boss in the game really does and though that move set is bizarre it can still be learned even if it's easier said than done there is one more fun detail that zot uses to stick out that I already kind of alluded to like the White Defender the great Prince Zot evolves as you beat him repeatedly dealing more damage and gaining

more attacks the two biggest new ones being spider zots that leap around the arena and explosive zotes that make finding a safe place incredibly difficult in God home and the pantheon of hollow Nest zot starts with each of these attacks unlocked even when his damage is still normal and as you beat the dreams out brida in the real world begins to realize zot is and has always been a [ __ ] idiot I think great Prince zot earns an EG grade his characterization and momentum Forge him into a satisfying ingame challenge but the lack of

clarity does make fighting him at higher damage levels a more than frustrating Prospect Grim is a really tough boss to analyze on a first playthrough he seems like a solid opponent his mve set is detailed but there's nothing nearly as dangerous as the other endgame threats his health is even on the Lower Side Compared to the DLC foes and his stagger leaves huge Windows of opportunity to heal he ends up feeling like a late to midgame boss rather than an endgame opponent which means the fight will often end right as You' started really getting invested

into the battle the move set doesn't have anything too while to catch you off guard he can Dash forwards or backwards with claw swipes and descending fire blasts throw bats out as projectiles and create long Spikes from the ground giving you an opportunity to attack if you stay close to him on top of that at certain Health Gates he'll create a bullet hell AOE that makes the player focus on vertical dodging and makes him immune to all basic nail strikes for a moment if the player wants they can keep on the pressure with magic and

tying this to his health bar gives the fight a really natural overall Rhythm despite the lack of any visible health bar but with all That said that's not to say that Grim is a disappointing fight despite being on the easier side of these update battles Grim is here to set the atmosphere for the Grim troops real boss encounter the light accordion music at the beginning and end of the the battle combined with the audience cheering for the fight the way the music becomes wild and violent during the bullet hell attacks and the way the fight

ends with him Landing back in the arena with a bow pleased at your Demonstration it's all Pitch Perfect even after you've beaten Grim here he still feels threatening which is good because his real boss fight absolutely is one final cool detail is that if you attack Grim at the beginning of the fight while he's bowing he'll scream in Rage and immediately enter a bullet house the the reason I love this so much is because nothing else has phased Grim even when he loses the fight his reaction is pretty muted overall this Scream however completely removes

all of Grim's proper veneer of the circus master and reveals how mad he truly is the first battle with Grimm earns an a r the battle is a dance lesson teaching you Grim's move in a straightforward duel before he'll send you back into the world to fetch the last couple flames you need to reach the real encounter and with that I want to start by saying that the nightmare King Grim is a heavy Contender for my single Favorite boss fight of all time I have run into a ton of bosses and games that have taken

my breath away bosses that have left me in tears by the end bosses that have pushed my skill to its breaking point but there is something about the nightmare King Grim that just works I know six different people who have beaten nightmare King Grim all of them with varying personal skill levels every single one of them however had nearly the exact same experience they Reached the boss fight began it and died within 30 seconds then they spent around 3 hours ramming their head into him over and over again when this fight is executed correctly on

a fully upgraded player the fight takes about 3 to 4 minutes if you're going slowly so 3 hours is a lot of attempts but despite attempt after attempt after attempt I never saw anyone get mad at nightmare King Grim there was no frustration just that desire to try one more time to Figure out that one extra attack to try to get a little bit further as you realize that what initially felt impossible and overwhelming is a fair and well choreographed dance that nightmare King Grim forces you to learn taking Grim's attacks as a base the

nightmare King Grim improves on every single one of them the bat attack has sped up but a jump into a dash now travel straight through each of them allowing for a hit the claw forward Leaves just enough of a beat to hit him before he leaps into the air for a rainfall of fire that's hard to dodge if you weren't pressed close to where he ended the dash and the spike attacks now have Grim teleport away and leave you less time to react meaning they are now entirely just an attack to avoid before he reappears

and on top of the speed everything now deals two masks of damage except for falling off the ledge at the sides of the Arena that only deals one At 75% 50% % and 25% he will make you aware that the fight is progressing with those bullet HS which have sped up pretty significantly from Grim where Grim suggested an increase in musical intensity nightmare King Grim soundtrack is the single most violent and electronic piece in this soundtrack the force behind his theme is wild and being the first boss on today's list with a title card that

pops up before the fight it means that the force the theme has Smashing onto the player screen with the huge title nightmare King Grim is incredibly terrifying on top of that Grim's placement in the world is designed to remove every possible frustration of death there is no loss of resources no shade to collect no charms that can break you rake up right next to Grim immediately ready to hit the dream nail and dive right back into the battle the game wants you and begs you to try again and again and again until that Moment you

finally take him down the Stagger Gap now is just long enough to heal a single hip point and the tempo and nature of the move set encourages the player to never stop attacking or moving towards Grim as trying to heal amid the array of attacks is not very realistically done on top of that the Stagger here has him break into a collection of grim Childs only one of whom is real Grim did do the same thing but this animation makes staggering Grim Feel really unique compared to usually just knocking the boss off balance for a

moment and pushes the Dracula Vibe even further forward this was actually the first boss that I completed radiant in God home which to the uninitiated means I beat it damageless without causing any frustration the nightmare King GM teaches you the dance of his battle so expertly that by the end of it it is drilled into your mind permanently even in this challenge playthrough with no Spells healing charms or nail upgrades I beat nightmare King Grim on my 12th attempt despite the battle lasting over 10 minutes some me this move set into your mind is so

critical that he ended up being one of the easiest endgame bosses when I went back to the game if you hadn't figured out already the nightmare King Grim is an s-grade foe I'm frankly not even sure what else to even say even without the rest of this Artful roster of bosses the nightmare King Grim alone would make hollow night a game that I recommend to anyone who enjoys action games I debated pretty heavily where to place the hollow Knight fight on this list because for most endings this is The Game's final boss and I have

not even touched the last DLC despite this I feel like the hollow Knight and Radiance need to be discussed before we travel to God home as the true namesake of the game the hollow Knight is another fight Dripping with atmosphere and wordless storytelling you enter the arena and the music begins quiet but building to something clearly significant light strings that slowly layer on top of each other as you start to break the chain chains holding the hollow night in place and as the music builds more and more with more instruments Pile in you break the

last chain and he falls the music comes to a screeching halt and he screams in pain as his proper theme Begins the music is as Grand as you'd expect the final boss to be though the move set leans towards the simpler side all things consider the hollow Knight has a three- hit combo that can be pogoed over or shade dashed through if you've unlocked it and a long charge that could be handled in about the same way like hornet he can also enter a Parry stance punishing any aggression with a huge swing though like Hornets

the move is very easy to avoid and Punish as the Parry is dropping as the fight progresses however the hollow Knight's move set evolves first he starts to add infection attacks a bullet hell of orbs that can be dodged very easily at a distance or dashed through in order to deal a few more melee hits with shade Dash it's very easy to press through and without it it ends up being a lot more precise after that a huge leaping slam creates pillars that burst from the ground which is the only thing That deals two masks

of damage with these the variety of the move set really encourages and requires Mobility punishing any player who's jumped too early for melee strikes with leaping attacks of his own while still providing plenty of Windows for the player to push in since most attacks deal only one damage and the shade Dash counters most of his moves it ends up being a simple fight if you're fully leveled and geared out but a very tough fight for any Undergeared player but where the fight really steps up is is about halfway through when the hollow Knight joins the

fight alongside you his mind breaks free of the infection and he starts to stab himself leaving you a huge window to attack the music takes a turn for the solemn here and the knockdown animations lose the snappiness as the hollow Knight's body starts to collapse and fail him his basic nail attacks begin to phase out of his move set as the Infection begins to lift what's left of his corpse into the air and create bullet Hells of in inection or slam him down as a weapon towards the player all the attacks can be dodged and

punished in a similar way with the Slam in particular having a really satisfying Rhythm to get in hits between the slams but the warrior that began this fight is completely dead by the end of it in his last phase of Health his nail attacks have vanished completely and there are Three possibilities here if the player has not filled the requirements for the true ending the Fight Continues as normal until the hollow Knight dies if the player has done a hornet second fight she'll fly into the arena and pin down the hollow Knight for a moment

giving the player an opportunity to land a few hits before Hornet is flung to the ground where she lies for the rest of the battle or if the player draws an awakened dream nail they can enter into The mind of the hollow Knight which is where they face the game's true final boss the hollow Knight is in sgr fight the emotional storytelling as the hollow Knight is completely lost becoming more and more or a weapon of the infection as the melee movet melts away is incredible and all the endings whether it be the radience simple

Victory or Hornet's death create incredible emotional climaxes to the entire [Music] Experience as I mentioned in the hollow Knight fight if a player is well equipped with a fully upgraded nail spells and health then he collapses pretty quickly and without much challenge that's because every time a player attempts the true final boss they have to fight through the Hollow Knight and that would be a lot more frustrating if the Knight took more than a minute or two to get through and that's because the radiance was upon release the single Hardest boss in the base game

and it was not even a competition he is now objectively not the hardest boss in the game but the radiance was leagues above everything else for a long while the radiance is a five phase boss fight and the player's health is restored to full after the hollow night battle is done the battle begins on a flat small arena with the radiance floating above it the only way to damage it is to LEAP up and land an attack in between a barrage of Magical attacks of which she has a ton all of which like many of

the super bosses deal two damage she is constantly teleporting around the arena meaning the player has to be aggressive constantly here and with no stagger the assault that the radiance puts out has no plans on stopping meaning healing is a constant challenge Nails can come from the side leaving a gap to be manually dodged through or being fast enough that they can be shade dashed through Nails Can fall from the sky requiring the player to navigate around them and that previously mentioned pillar of light has to be shade dashed through it means that she can

cover the entire arena with damage especially since the radiance often overlaps these three attacks with other attacks those other attacks being that she can create a ring of nails that's spread out in a spinning pattern created sa network of light beams that burst out for damage three times in a Row and summons three orbs that track the player really really tightly punishing them for spending too much time in the air which is of course where the player is forced to be while trying to attack the radiance as I already slightly mentioned one of the best

things about this move set is how many moves are introduced earlier in the game the tracking orbs are from the soul master and Tyrant boss fights the sunbeams are a more advanced version of Vorbes nails the vertical and horizontal Nails call back to platforming in the White Palace the pillar of light was the shock wave that the trader Lord used the only completely new attack is the ring of nails she makes around herself which means learning what she's capable of doing isn't complicated the complicated part is executing all of this as the fight grows more

and more chaotic over time the second phase is a small shift and there's not a definitive line like Most phase transitions half the arena glows and then grows spikes that will deal one mask of damage after a short time no spikes disappear and the other side of the Arena begins to glow and the radiance doesn't change what it's doing from the first phase at all here it'll happily teleport over the spikes and the barrage of attacks shows no sign of ending personally I find this to be my least favorite of the five phases though a

player can technically Pogo on the Spikes while also attacking the radiance the risk of doing so is a lot higher than many of the other high skill level counters to bosses and with how fast-paced the fight can be while you're learning it the player isn't really encouraged to go for riskier punishes in the way they are with things like the hollow Knights repeated Slants the third phase is a bit of a difficulty break but serves as almost a moment of held breath before the final charge covering the Edges of the arena in spikes the radiance

moves to the center of the AR Ena and calls nails from the sky these nails do not stop until her health bar has been knocked into the next phase my favorite part about the nails here are that though there are large enough gaps to sneak through the space between any two Nails is exactly large enough that the player can slip through it as well and it's one of the most satisfying things to pull off as you're knocking Down the radiance or the player can choose to play it safe and move towards the gaps at the

end of this phase the void starts to make an appearance breaking the golden atmosphere of the Arena as something tries to pull the radiance down it doesn't last for long however as the radiance teleports back into the sky creating platforms that beg the player to follow there's enough time here to use six heels before the player forced to follow suit any longer and the Void will begin to rise dealing damage as a death plane from this point forward the fourth phase is easily the hardest of the radiances phases and by a pretty wide margin instead

of just one large platform you get small floating areas in a much larger space and the radi in since attacks have not changed it's very rare you'll get something entirely impossible to dodge but the chance of two bad attacks lining up especially with how much harder the orbs are to Shake without the help of a large space to absorb them and how difficult getting to the radians can become as you push your way across the entire arena for a single hit this is the phase with the highest chance of becoming frustrating to a player doing

the hollow night and the first half of this fight only for the radiance to use her hardest to dodge moves and teleport to the worst possible places can be really disheartening for a new player the final phase of the fight Does bring it back around as the radiance teleports upwards one final time for the only boss phase in the game that boasts a single hit point the player begins to climb these small platforms as the music gives way to a ringing drone the radiance begins to use its Sunbeam attack but now with only a single

beam focused on the player as the player Rises the beam becomes more and more accurate locking onto the player completely as they've almost finished Their assist asion once the player does reach the top and lands a final blow the fight is over the spirit of the hollow Knight appears and holds the radiance open as the Knight is consumed by the void that was following it unleashing this barrage of attacks that brings the game to a satisfying close there's a lot to love with the radiance the music and the lack of it at the ending works

really well here showing the extent of the infections cruelty and monstrous Nature via the hollow KN before giving that infection a face via the r Radiance ends up doing some great wordless storytelling and the design of the radiance being the entire sun in the background works really well for scale the atmosphere of the well-lit Arena also makes the unique visuals of the fight feel suitably like a finale there are on top of the issues I've already mentioned a couple other small ones the first being that it's often hard to Track yellow orbs against a yellow

background especially since they're often the hardest attacked to Dodge in the small platform phase bad tele important attack luck as I mentioned can completely kill the momentum that the fight otherwise keeps going pretty well and it also ends up being one of the buggier fights in the game there are a lot of videos on YouTube that you can find of the Void rising up and consuming the entire Arena leading to an instant Death for the player and in a multiple phase endurance battle that can honestly be even worse than a hard Toc attack but even

with all those minuses the spectacle and catharsis of those final blows make this boss a worthwhile final battle to culminate the game earning an egg grade it may not emotionally affect me as much as the hollow Knight did but it rides on that battle's coattails to an incredibly satisfying [Music] Conclusion but with that it is time to head into the final and largest update godm all eight of the next bosses I run over will lead to a hidden secret ending that is infinitely harder to reach than the rest of the game by an absurd margin

to reach the new Final Boss Of God home you have to complete four pantheons each featuring a 10 boss long Boss Rush using bosses of the base game and ending with a new Final Boss the first of these unique Final Bosses are the naom master Brothers Oro and M which means it's time to talk about some lore in the base game there were three nail Masters the player could find Oro mat and Sho who would teach you nail arts namely a dash slash a cyclone Dash or a great slash accordingly though a little tougher to

use than pairing quick slash and unbreakable strength together these Arts still made the Masters feel powerful and in their dialogue you learned of a falling out between Oro and M the two Brothers who were once close and in reality have not spoken for some time the battle here in God home begins with Oro using a move set fairly reminiscent of The Watcher Knights a huge side slash followed by a downward slash a leap into the air followed by an easyto predict slam or using using the dash slash art that he taught the player to flash

across the arena quickly the move set is aggressive but pretty easy to learn overall as Oro Falls however M jumps Into the arena the brothers see each other again and all their hatred is lost as you get to see them at their Peak the brothers working in perfect sync even after years apart in a lot of Duo fights even when the AI is taking what the other enemy is doing into account they'll still feel like unique enemies even in the Mantis Lord's boss fight it felt like a group of attacks coming at you from separate

sources Oro and M here feel almost like a single entity with Most of what they do only breaking their careful dance if you've placed yourself between them they'll leap in and out of combat together with jump and basic attacks or utilize the dash slash or M cyclone in order to surround you or push you against a wall once they've surrounded you they can sometimes synchronize their basic attacks too or at any point they can leap back to back and slam down all of this is incredibly satisfying and as I mentioned though There is one way

that the attacks can desync if you're attacking Oro and M in a recovery frame for one of the major attacks they might choose to launch into a basic attack on you while the other brother continues as usual which can lead to some difficult or frankly impossible to dodge situations the occasions are pretty few and far between but players will usually run into things being a little off at least a couple of times in a run but as they learn the Tempo of the fight they can begin to use this desync to open up larger windows

or to risk more hits and gamble that they can dodge the unsynced attacks the biggest issue here is that once one of the brothers goes down there is no Evolution to the fight it returns back to the first phase but now with the downed brothers sitting there making visibility a little tougher like the Mantis Lords it's not bad but it does mean that the battle loses its momentum Instead of ending at its peak I slightly mentioned this before but outside of the radiance variations Oro and M have one of the highest combined Health pools in

the game the only thing that gets higher is the sisters battle I think Oro and M are right at the top of an a grade it's a fun fight and though the occasional overlap can be frustrating the emotional feeling of watching these two brothers work in unison again makes up for the small mistakes that do Exist I wasn't sure immediately if umu in God home was different enough to count as a separate boss all his aggressive moves the same and the only difference is that there's now a new method to deal damage since quirrel isn't

here in addition to his usual attacks umu now has an attack that summons Omas when killed they'll turn into projectiles that home in on the player and explode for two masks of damage if that projectile hits umu it Now breaks his invulnerability and does 100 damage meaning you never have to do this cycle more than two or three times at the absolute most there are a couple really neat tricks that come in with this method of damage like using vengeful Spirit to carry the bomb to umu or needing to worry more about positioning as you

try to find the opportunity to land a hit on umu that does make his attacks a lot more Dynamic than just stand still and run in a Circle the biggest issue with this new mechanic is that there's nothing really discouraging you from face tanking the blasts with umu still on the lower side of aggression and health blowing yourself up and then attacking umu before landing and healing your health back up is a very valid strategy which removes that interesting back and forth that the fight tries to create via this new mechanic on top of that

once you have figured out the tricks the fight Becomes too simple it may be hard to get the upper hand when you're still learning how to to manipulate the tracking projectiles but it ends up being too easy once you do which means there's no golden Zone where umu hits right where he needs to be in terms of challenge it's still better than the Overworld variation earning a seade though it lacks the story of quirl it's a lot more engaging of a battle since there's a lot more thinking and Positioning that come into play it just

lacks the scaling necessary for the battle to remain interesting [Music] throughout the second of the godmaster boss fights and the third of the nail Masters sh is the nail master who has given up on violence completely and instead taken up a life of painting so of course for his battle he combines the skills that he once had with paint to create one of the most colorful and Exciting battles in the game every attack here has a different color the long stab across the arena sprays yellow paint a huge forward slash creates blue paint orbs and

leaping bullet hell into a slam uses red paint his great slash art uses purple paint and causes paintballs to rain from the sky over for his next attack there is an incredible sense of momentum and progression in the fight as the usually extraordinarily and sometimes problematically clinical godh Home arena becomes drenched in these Dynamic colors that pile on top of each other in just the best way the issue that holds Sho back a lot is that despite being the second godmaster duel and having less overall aggression than the duo fight that came before Sho has

way less Health than the other brothers and considering he's not that hard to keep pressure on it is a shame that he lingers behind so much of the DLC all of it is balanced around being fully Upgraded and leveled to give you an idea of scale Oro and M had a combin 2100 health over the course of the battle Sho only clocks in at 950 and especially if you decide to go all out with spells aggression and charms that means he folds like a piece of paper with no effort despite the impeccable art Direction which

is some of the game's best it does mean that he's trapped in the a grade I love how the paint layers over itself but sh is Even less of a threat than Grim who was an atmospheric focused battle that introduced a move scent whereas Sho never gets to evolve and the third of the godmaster encounters is the nail Sage the one who Ted Oro and Sho Sly a very tiny fly with a very big sword this move set is frankly hilarious to fight and though overwhelming at first ends up being one of my favorite ones

to learn in master Sly uses moves very similar to Oro and M A two-hit combo followed by turning into a Beyblade that rushes towards the player as well as a leaping slam followed by a huge swing that only comes out if the player is too close he also has the Cyclone spin dash slash and great slash with the great slash dealing two masks of damage the biggest thing that works with this move set is how much of his predictable follow-ups based on the player spacing when you start the attacks feel natural and his ability to

Change direction mid combo can make him very hard to dodge but behind the huge swings are clear openings and punish Windows to break past that comically large sword and get in one or maybe even two hits before you Dart away again the fact that he can turn mid combo also means that you can never wail on him in the same way players could wail on sh or the other brothers his stagger is also hilarious as his nail will go flying across the arena leaving enough time for A hit or a heal Before He'll teleport away

grab the nail and Sprint back towards you there's so much character in this fight well it still feels like a culmination of the naom master fights that came before he also only has a little more Health than Sho but with damage being so much harder to earn here that same Health goes a lot further the second phase also serves as a great final challenge while still maintaining the characterization of the battle Leaping into the air he gives a war cry before he begins to Dart around the arena wildly occasionally spinning towards the player as a

Beyblade leaving them just a moment to hit him before he begins to bounce around again at first the attack feels insanely overwhelming but once you notice the power and can figure out when he's going to Lunge at you he ends up pretty easy to predict you don't watch The Bouncing you watch for when he's redirecting towards you Step away a little bit and punish him you repeat this just a few times and Sly is down considering that nail Sage Sly is a chaotic teacher of the nail arts the trick to the Final Phase being to

focus relax and simplify makes the whole exchange feel like a final exam like the nail Sage is giving you a final test before he declares you ready for the challenges still to come it is a great conclusion to the last three fights and escalates the challenge the last bosses Will bring without being overly demanding himself he aligns his thematic elements and gameplay really expertly and because of this I think Sly does just barely Edge his way into the es grade he's fun and engaging utilizing that reactive move set to make him feel unlike a lot

of other battles in holl night and I love everything that he does also bowing to him at the end is one of the only things that kept me moderately sane within the pantheon of hollow [Music] Nest so I'm going to cheat a little bit with boss order again there are two variations of main bosses in the pantheon that require you to beat the fourth God home boss to access but the bosses lack a lot of the final punch that the big two bosses of God home are going to have so I figured I should break

them down before I break down the super bosses as you may have guessed the sisters of battle are our first Encounter here that serves as a major variation off the base game boss fight namely and kind of obviously being a variation of the Mantis Lords their health scales pretty significantly for endgame here but the biggest change is that team Cherry takes the already chaotic fight against two mantises and increases the challenge in the only way that would make sense all three of them attack the player at one time all the moves here are the same

as they were Before but the attacks now come far faster with occasional downward slams while you're dodging the spear throws from wallmounted sisters you'd think that the delicate tempo of the Mantis Lords would become too much with all three here but but this fight feels incredible that same sense of momentum and constant aggression that made the Mantis Lords work so well has now escalated to endgame and with the combination of shade Dash better control Over pogoing and more spells to punish the sisters the player has enough options that the balance here feels just as good

if not better the biggest issue is the same as it was with the Mantis Lords proper though the sisters do a little bit better as the Mantis sisters drop out the fight slows down rather than ending at the climax counting down from three however does mean that there is still enough of a that the drop in tension is much more gradual than the Sheer drop off that most Duo fights in Hollow night have had I still wish there was something to end this phase with but the fight holds up despite it like the Mantis Lords

the sisters of battle are another s-grade foe resting just above the Mantis Lords in my personal rankings an endgame scaled mantis Lords would already be amazing but this fight just takes that one extra step that makes it feel exceptional the other boss that gets a New variation sadly does not do quite as well when you encounter nosk in the final Pantheon you run into one disguising itself as Hornet rather than the Knight and it transforms into the winged nosk the design similarly looks great here but unfortunately this enemy has less in common with the already

disappointing nosk and more in common with the venge fly King winged noos will fly across the ground providing an opportunity to Pogo off and attack and Can summon infection blobs that can be killed in one hit the exact moves of the venge fly King but with endgame stats and a more unique visual theme it does have two additional infection attacks one that creates a bullet hell with lingering infection and the other dropping infection from the ceiling that similarly will Linger on the ground for a moment but the lingering infection here doesn't do nearly as much

as it did in the first nosk because standing and Waiting for the sweep attack is the best way to deal damage here so not being able to move is not at all a problem it is better than the venge fly King just off atmosphere alone but the fight is still pretty dull and whereas the sister battle took the strengths of the Mantis Lords and Amplified them the things that made nosk still earn an above average grade are all missing here as Wing nsk's habit of flying up and out of the way means that she is

a very unthreatening Enemy magic and having the double jump help a little bit compared to the first fight with the venge fly King but not enough to make the fight engaging I think DED noos earns a high degrade it's a below average fight but the addition of some bullet hell elements does add a little more excitement even if it just as quickly ends up being frustrating as you just wait for nskk to move somewhere where you're owed to attack the final of the four main Pantheon bosses is another upgraded boss this time the hollow Knight

has been given a true final boss treatment all his attacks are faster deal two damage and he has a ton of new tricks that make this fight infinitely more threatening the slow moving orbs have been replaced by much harder to dodge knives that almost demand a Shadow Dash to keep up aggression and the jumping slam creates more regularly spaced knives instead of the erratic pillars though the attack is Also also much faster to compensate with two masks of damage and a lot more aggression pure vessel is the second boss that rests at nightmare King Grim's

level of challenge with that said the dance is a little bit tougher and less natural to learn the nightmare King Grims though there are Health Gates where pure vessel unlocks new attacks the benchmarks of the fight are much less clearly defined than they were with the nightmare King and needing to reach The later part of the fight to practice learning new moves lacks the straightforward nature that Grim's move set used to use to make the fight feel non-stop especially esally since in order to beat the pure vessel in its true Arena you have to first

beat nine late game Boss Fights before you get a single attempt thankfully you unlock the ability to rematch him once you've died to him your first time which does let you practice him before you have to Fight him at the end of the pantheon but where it loses me is that the pure vessel like nightmare King Grim wants you to smash into him over and over and over again until you've mastered the fight but unlike nightmare King GM that moment when the pure vessel drops for the first time isn't a moment of grand victory because

you know you still have to go up and do the whole thing again at the end of the pantheon because of this that Moment of release that you realize that you've done it you've done what you thought was impossible isn't as effective as it was with nightmare King Grim Because by the time that you've won in the pantheon you've already likely beaten him a couple of times in practice rounds already and it was just a matter of executing it correctly to me that isn't nearly as satisfying as I mentioned he does gain two new attacks

rather than developing new infection Attacks the first is a focus spell that creates a large damage radius around himself then creates smaller spawning ones that explode while he launches his next attack out I like this one a lot because it provides a lot of well- hidden Windows to punish pressing towards him as the small bursts go off using Magic from a distance or using invincibility to get through the first burst and keep him on the defense it ends up being a really engaging move the Last move is a little bit less so as he'll grow

void tendrils that whip across the entire Arena having you jump over them to either wait a moment or Pogo off his head for a final move this is also somehow one of his easiest ones to punish which can slow down the otherwise break Knight Tempo the fight tries to keep up it's not a bad move it's pretty satisfying to hit but it's a strange final move for the game's final boss encounter to develop though the Move set is just as clean as nightmare King Grim lacking the moment of explosive Victory holds this level of challenge

down a lot once you've beaten him you get to do the fourth Pantheon until you beat him again and once you beat him there you get the dlc's real challenge where the pure vessel just becomes another boss that you have to beat to reach the real final boss every single attempt because of that I can't put the pure vessel above an a grade I Still love the atmosphere and challenge here but the format of the fight in its true State stops it from reaching the game's highest peaks and ends up inviting more potential frustration than

anything else but if we want to talk about potential frustration we have to talk about the absolute Radiance the final boss of the pantheon of hollow nest and the godmaster DLC and when I said that the radiance was objectively no longer The hardest boss that's because the absolute Radiance exist and it's just the radiance with more Health speed phases and threat attacks here come out even faster and overlap more gaps are harder to find and it feels like the absolute Radiance teleports more frequently and with more speed added into the mix that platform phase has

even more potential for some absolutely brutal RNG that can make the absolute r have the ability to take the player's Chance at winning and minimize it drastically the last phase is the most notable increase in difficulty The Climb which was already fast-paced and exhilarating on its own is now even faster and a single mistake WIll often throw off your Rhythm enough that recovering is a serious accomplishment especially if you manage to recover from that at the end of the pantheon of hollow Nest you have nerves of Steel and once you do make it past that

there's a New sixth phase where the radiance teleports between three different SPS where you're stuck on two small platforms and she just summons the hard to see yellow orbs tracking you down there's no downtime to heal here because it is nonstop often players will be pogoing off the top of the screen utilizing the fact that the orbs despawn off screen in order to avoid taking damage and that just feels like the aggression is so significant that Something that feels like an exploit is the best way to stay aggressive I can't figure out why but I

also feel like the yellow attacks are even harder to see here than they were in the first encounter that might be the speed that might be the change of where the black bars in the background are but with the aggression so much higher and healing Windows even harder to find I often found myself more frustrated to the yellow orbs here than I was in the base Game fight but where the pure vessel suffered from the lack of a real Victorious punch when you win the absolute Radiance by his nature is a boss that is borderline

inaccessible for some players I love to recommend Hollow Knight but beating absolute Radiance is not something I recommend players do unless they really want the challenge not only do I find this to be the hardest most aggressive and longest fight in the game but to actually face It and get the achievement for beating it you have to go through the entire Pantheon of hollow Nest which is a gauntlet of nearly every single boss in the game all the way from grother to the Dream Warriors to both versions of the major fights nightmare King Grim appears

in it and every single boss from the DLC including pure vessel and you have to beat all of them to get a chance at this fight usually an attempt at the pantheon of hollow Nest can take around 40 to 50 Minutes for a casual player which means facing the absolute Radiance not only comes with the tension that six phases of Boss brings but the added pressure of an almost hourong run back to the boss if you mess up and since the absolute Radiance is like the pure vessel designed to be practiced that means that the

player needs to realize what the pantheon of Hest is and practice every other boss enough that they can get through just to die to the absolute Radiance for the first time so they can go back practice that hardest fight again until they feel confident enough to do it at the end of a gauntlet then run through the entire Pantheon a second time and stay calm enough to successfully make that practice pay off and take the absolute Radiance down now the finale of the DLC looks amazing as the night evolves to full void monster that tears

the radiance apart before consuming everything around it but it is So much more demanding than anything else in the game if you didn't do the pantheon winning and beating the absolute Radiance which is an accomplishment in its own right just gets you the ending shown here where the game Fades to Black before you get any real reward now there is fun to be had here because the radiance does really work as a super boss but with the RNG aspects being even more regularly problematic and the challenge of the Pantheon the all it serves in the

game as a whole is not great because of this I ended up having a really hard time grading the absolute Radiance and likee with other controversial bosses any grade that I put would be argued by someone when I was practicing the absolute Radiance I was angry at the game but once you have the fight mastered it does end up serving as a really good culmination and final challenge unless you're fighting it in The pantheon of hollow Nest where the moment of Victory feels like the player has been freed from this this ancient curse rather than

a final achievement because of that I'm going to give it a b-grade as a boss individually it might drift into a but as a final challenge in the pantheon of hollow Nest it would honestly rest much lower but any of those lower grades feels unfair to the absolute Radiance itself but with that we have gone over All 47 boss fights in Hollow night the roster in this game is something else in my opinion 23 bosses scored in a or higher meaning I see them as highlights of the game if you somehow have made it through

this entire video and enjoy action platformer Metro vanas and have not played Hollow night go and do that right now especially because Overworld exploration in this game has moments just as memorable as the boss fights and I didn't even touch on them here but as Always this is where our journey today will end I'll see you in the next video and hopefully have good good news about silk song [Music] existing from a design standpoint the veng where the health gets a decent increase and he starts to summon Mobs with mob creating spiral waves of Spears

that ort emerge imor Ascend with gorb the biggest thing that works here with the moves said is how much of it is Predictable followup I bit my tongue that serves as a major variation on a base game damn it