Timeless Classic
Back in December 2023 I wrote this synopsis of Hollow Knight. Back then I was just looking for a Christmas gift for my nephew, but little did I know I'd stumble upon such a timeless classic that will surely outlive most other games in the hall of fame. This isn't exactly one that can get dated or stale with such a unique style. Almost a year later I tested out 3speak a bit by posting my best speedrun.
In any case last month I decided I would replay the game for that nostalgia factor. There were still a couple of challenges I had never completed back in the day so I figured after beating the game I could give them a whirl and see if I was up for it. Surprisingly I was able to complete them all. Back in the day I was so burnt out by how hard the game was that I simply gave up doing the absolute hardest challenges. There was still more to do even after getting every single Steam achievement, unlocking all 5 endings, and 112% percenting the game.
Grinders gonna grind!
This is an in game screenshot of me completing the Pantheon of Hallownest with all four bindings unlocked. No, I did not do all the bindings at the same time, as that would require a level of autism currently not available to me. It's far easier to beat them one at a time even though the pantheon itself takes over 45 minutes to get through. Still, spending 45 minutes to complete one of them is much better than trying to do more than one, dying, and then having to start all over again with nothing to show for it.
How it works:
In this challenge you have to beat every single boss in the game, one after another, without dying even a single time. It is almost certainly one of the most difficult single-player gaming challenges ever (not counting those mods and map editors that make some games nearly impossible). All the easy bosses come first which is no big deal... except for the fact that it takes time to slog through them making it taxing to get back to where you were after dying.
Four Bindings
- Nail: reduces your physical slash damage from 21 to 13.
- Shell: reduces your lifeforce from 9 masks to 4.
- Charms: eliminates all your charms.
- Soul: reduces your magic power from 6 spells banked to 1.
Nail Binding
Any one of these handicaps makes a pantheon significantly harder, but some are a lot easier to work around than others. The nail binding is by far the easiest one to deal with, all the player has to do is pick a spellcaster build:
The min/max spellcaster build is pretty simple and obvious.
Every charm used is one that either increases soul generation or makes spells do more damage. Seeing as shaman stone is used in most builds anyway it's just a matter of getting used to using spells all the time, which can be difficult if the player has been hacking and slashing the entire game (which is the standard for most players because you take so much damage and have to heal all the time).
Shell Binding
Getting your mask HP reduced from 9 to 4 is almost certainly the most difficult binding to deal with. The reason for this is that some bosses hit for double damage. Make two minor mistakes and you lose the game and have to start all over. Seeing as both the finial boss and the penultimate both do double damage it's very easy to make it all the way to the end only to get completely wrecked in short order.
There is a charm called the Shape of Unn that allows you to move while healing that can make this binding a lot more tolerable on the easier pantheons. There's even a full healer build that most people don't even know about:
- Shape of Unn
- Quick Focus
- Deep Focus
The reason why most players don't realize this is a good build is because everyone assumes that Deep Focus is completely worthless. It allows you to heal for two but it takes you so long to do so that actually getting off the heal becomes nearly impossible in most situations. However, there's a secret synergy with Shape of Unn and Quick Focus. Quick focus allows you to move even faster than before (faster than walking normally). When Deep focus is added and casting time is reduced, this move speed stays the same making it trivially easy to heal for 2 is a normal amount of time. It's a very good build for the hardcore-permadeath Steel Soul mode.
The last 2 notches are optional so I usually put something in there that does passive damage under the assumption that if the player is getting hit a lot and are spending a lot of time healing it might be good to do damage while all that running around and trying to stay alive is happening (assuming you even have all 11 notches).
Unfortunately this build isn't even viable for Pantheon of Hallownest with the shell binding because the DPS is way too low and you really don't want to be trying to heal on the final bosses under any circumstances, as doing so just ends up in death regardless of any advantage (get hit one time while healing and you die instantly).
However, it is a good build for all the lesser pantheons on shell-mode which allow you to get extra blue masks at the benches.
There are 4 lesser Pantheons that split up bosses in much smaller, more manageable, parts. Instead of fighting 46 in a row its only 11 or 12. By completing the bindings on these lower pantheons the blue lights of this room light up and allow you to collect extra life during all the rest points. I figured out quite by accident that this is in fact the easiest way to beat the shell mode for the hardest Pantheon.
You just load up the maximum DPS build and get so good at the easy bosses that you take no damage on them and try to stack blue masks (can't be healed) using the 7 benches given on the Pantheon of Hallownest. It's good strategy to get really good at the pure vessel and be able to do him hitless because then you'll have at least 9 masks (4 regular + 5 blue) on the final absolute radiance boss (who is absolutely nightmarish).
Charms binding
The simplest of the handicaps is to just do the pantheon without any charms at all. This isn't too difficult and honestly a bit refreshing as you don't really have to worry about which strategy to pick. I would say this is the second easiest binding right after nail.
Soul Binding
This one reduces the amount of spells you can bank from 6 to 1, which completely destroys any kind of casting build. It also makes healing extremely difficult because you can only heal 1 mask at a time before having to farm more soul. Luckily the maximum damage charm loadout is good here and makes short work of most bosses.
Max DPS
- Strength: +50% damage physical
- Shaman Stone: +50% damage spells
- Quick Slash: +50% attack speed
- Spell Twister: increases spell bank from 6 to 8 spells.
This is the loadout I used to beat Pantheon of Hallownest on the shell binding. It allows you to speedrun easier bosses insanely fast. Sometimes you can kill them before they even have a chance to hit you. All of the charms synergize together to crank out maximum DPS, with strength and quick slash being particularly good. Although Spell twister is worthless on the soul binding though so I'd swap that out for sprint master and steady body which are also pretty good with this build.
Have some flavor text for your troubles!
And after all that I had finally completed the Pantheon of Hallownest.
Four times on all four bindings!
What a grind.
You don't get an achievement on Steam for accomplishing this feat, and I'm honestly glad you don't because it would drive people up the wall considering how difficult it is to do it. The game does allow you to go into a secret area and pick up this "Weathered Mask" for bragging rights though. Again, this is one of the most difficult challenges in single player gaming ever. Hollow Knight is already considered an extremely hard "souls like" game (Dark Souls). This end game is way harder than the regular game is.
But wait... there's more
There's a practice room where you can fight all the bosses in the game solo so that beating the Pantheons is actually possible without having to grind out all the easy bosses over and over again. There are three difficulties: attuned, ascended, and radiant. A radiant victory means you can't get hit even a single time. This screenshot shows I've beaten every boss on the radiant mode, which is honestly kind of insane just looking at this list and knowing what it took to get there. However, none of them even cast a shadow when compared to the final boss of light.
Getting a radiant victory on absolute radiance is arguably even harder than the entire Pantheon system. I didn't record my victory but let's find one on youtube to give an idea of what it's like. Believe me when I say that it feels like an impossible task at first.
Yep it's pretty hard
I also beat Path of Pain which is a ridiculously hard optional platforming section in a hidden part of the game. It hardly seems worth mentioning though considering how relatively easy it is compared to these other challenges. There's a lot of videos of people freaking out over beating the path of pain as well:
"IM FREE"
lol