Silksong Journal, Entry 14

My first journey through Pharloom has come to a closure. I've collected the last missing things for the 100%, completed the Hunter's Journal, gotten all mementos, and then faced the final final boss... very often. Needless to say that this post will contain spoilers for all that, so read at your own risk!

Last time I still had three things to find: a Memory Locket, a Craftmetal, and a Rune Harp. And at this point I had to consider that checking every wall for the third time might not change anything, that I'm dealing with some blind spots, where either I'm completely oblivious to them or I'm being stupid.

And the Craftmetal turned out to be a honest mistake. I needed it for one last tool from the Architect and it was hidden not far from this vendor, in the Cauldron down below. Actually, it wasn't hidden at all, it was at the end of a room where you have to go through a series of lava streams – you can't really miss it.

But when I first went there, I must have retreated out of this room due to low health and then proceeded to the Clawline chamber, only to forgot about the room below afterwards. And when I returned there later on to hunt for the Void Masses, it didn't have any inside and I thought that I had already cleared the room before. It was fully drawn on the map, after all... Happens.

The Memory Locket was much more embarrassing: it was inside Halfway Home all this time! That's a location I've visited dozens of times, but for some reason I had never noticed the ledge above the entrance... And it never occurred to me to thoroughly check the insides of this house for hidden secrets, even though Hollow Knight should have taught me otherwise. So, this was a simple combination of being both blind and dumb.

Ultimately, the missing Rune Harp is something that I had to look up on the internet. I don't believe I would have found this one otherwise... Well, I had the right idea that it might be in one of the Weavenests, because that made the most sense thematically, but I couldn't tell which one nor what I had to do...

It was in Cindril, which is where you can get the Silkspeed Anklets after performing a speed test. Naturally, I tried the speed test a second time with the anklets, but this doesn't make a difference (or it does and I didn't really see it). The trick is to use the Flea Brew on top to gain maximum speed, which will open a secret hatch at the end. But even after reading about this on the wiki and knowing what I had to do here, it took me three times to get this to work.

Well, you can find this out by paying close attention to the number of lights that show up and experimenting, but I salute every player who has discovered this on their own. To me this place was gone and done after I got the Silkspeed Anklets.

It is a cool secret, though, giving you the only glimpse (so far) at the rightmost edge of Pharloom, which shows the same sandblasted wasteland as on the other end. There is also a "map" down here, depicting how Pharloom connects to other lands. You can't really see anything on it, but there seem to be many more.

Now, there still might be some shards hidden somewhere, but with these items I got to the 100% and also collected all the relics. I love how Hornet insists with Scrounge that a reward for the latter would be proper, but only gets told that looking at the completed collection is reward enough. That's the spirit!

But there was one more collection to complete: all the extended journal entries, which first brought me back into the Abyss. With the repaired diving bell you can now go up and down at will. It even offers you a bench for whenever you need it, so that's nice.

This is where I gave the new tool from the Architect a first try, the Sawtooth Circlet, because it felt like a good way to deal with the Gloomsacs, those discount Metroids. But it wasn't really useful for them, because they take too many hits to be taken out with it. The range is nice, but the sound effect whenever you're double jumping gets on my nerves quickly. Plus, it's a blue tool, so there's too much competition.

The Gloomsacs were also the only entry down here that I already had completed. It took three more of their big brethren, which are still annoying, and I had to defeat the Shadow Charger like five more times. And I could only find two of them, one at the bottom left room. Luckily, there is the bench next to the void lake not far from there...

Anyway, with that my journal has now all of Hornet's endless wisdom and I could get the Hunter's Memento from Nuu, as expected, leaving only one memento missing. And I didn't want to give up about that one, since I had already topped two out of the three highscores set by Seth. Only the Flea Dodge was left.

But this didn't really get any better. Unlike with most boss fights or other challenges in this game, there were no further learning curve. While some of the bosses also have some nonsense going on, you can usually tell what you could have done differently to survive. Don't get too greedy, don't move too much, and so on. You slowly get better with each encounter and learn from your mistakes.

Of course, this is also true for the mini-games, even the Flea Dodge to a degree. It's reasonable to master the initial record of 65 seconds, despite its random patterns. However, afterwards it gets so chaotic that you're quickly out of control and there is sometimes simply nothing that you could have done. And even if there is, this insight won't really help you the next time, because you likely won't get into the exact same situation.

I still managed to do it eventually after hours of trying, but only barely. And I'm not able to say with confidence that I could reach such a score again. For the last three or four seconds I just got bounced by the many fleas back and forth, like in a pinball machine, praying that I would not crash down too early...

The most recent patch hasn't changed anything here, but even though I do now have the Guardian's Memento, I still think that the scores for Flea Dodge should be lowered by at least ten seconds to make it more manageable. It's the kind of stuff that makes the thought of completing this game another time less appealing.

But I can die happy, now that my home is full of shiny things... With no procrastination excuse left in the game, it was time to go back to the Abyss and dive even deeper.

That whole sequence was already amazing, with how the music of the release trailer kicks in during the dive. Well, technically, they have used the "Last Dive" track for the trailer, but most will have heard that song through the trailer first. And hearing this again at the end of this long journey just goes right into the feels.

Hornet's words to Lace, before she takes the plunge, are also equally epic. I said last time that I fully expect to go on a suicide mission with Hornet – that she is ready to sacrifice herself to undo the damage that she has unleashed on Pharloom. But no, she clearly states that is not her intention (she must be enjoying that new bellhome full of shiny things) and that she doesn't fear the darkness below any longer, as a daughter of Hallownest. That's the first time that she says that name of that land out loud.

Once you arrive at the bottom you're greeted with the real final boss in giant letters: LOST LACE. It's like Lost Garmond, but the void sickness now happened to Lace. And that's a fantastic choice. They could have done a void-infused Grand Mother Silk, but they went with the character who is probably the closest to Hornet in her role from the original Hollow Knight, and who has a similar fighting style. Lost Lace contrasts the Radiance in every possible way, while posing a tough challenge of her own.

This also posed an interesting challenge for me personally, because I had struggled with the first two Lace fights quite a bit. They just never turned into a major problem, because she didn't have all that much health. But now she does, with a number of void upgrades thrown on top and a total of four phases, taking me several hours to finally master and beat.

Since the Wanderer didn't do the trick for me in her other encounters, I experimented early on with the different crests, all except Beast. Shaman and Witch quickly fell out of the competition with how they let you heal. You can't reliably do it with the Witch, since Lace teleports around and moves very quickly. And you often want to heal in the air, so the Shaman didn't seem like a good choice either. Architect was the one that won the second Lace fight for and I had used the Hunter in the first, but both have a diagonal pogo and pogoing clearly became more important in this version of Lace, at least for me.

Her dash attack now creates a path of Void Tendrils behind her, which can even reach you on jumping height, so your spacing has to be perfect if you want to land a hit during this. After two dashes she can also follow this up into either a third dash, her jumping attack, or her ground Void Tendril lash, depending on how you're positioned, which can get tricky.

Overall, Lost Lace is really good at conditioning certain behavior only to directly punish it. She may provoke a dodge, only to appear right behind you, making you dodge into her. So, you have to be even more disciplined about unnecessary movements than usual. Always wait for her to make the first move and position yourself accordingly.

Ultimately, I just went back to the Wanderer, combined with the Long Claw. The downward pogo made attacking during Lace's dash much easier and safer. And since you have to be so precise with your positioning, there was no reason to go with the much slower Reaper instead. The Wanderer was my most-used crest anyway and unsurprisingly the first that allowed me to enter the second phase.

That's when Lost Lace starts to summon the usual void shenanigans, like the blade blobs and the homing projectiles. While summoning she stands (or floats) still for a while, making the Wanderer shine even more, because you can get a good number of hits in during these pauses. This sometimes let me end the second phase very quickly.

Now, the next question was what tools to use. I didn't rely on red tools until I neared the end of the battle, because otherwise I would have depleted my shard supply rather quickly. Though, I had purchased the maximum of Shard Bundles, so this might not have been an issue, but generally I prefer to learn the boss with the needle and then add other weapons once I feel like I have a fighting chance. In this case I went with the Throwing Ring, because I liked the thought of having Shakra's support down here in spirit, and it allowed me to quickly land some shots from a distance, e.g. when she does that Void Tendril attack.

As for the blue tools, one slot had to go to the Long Claw to give me some leeway. And otherwise I usually had the Warding Bell and Injector Band equipped throughout the game, for quick and safe heals. But at some point during the battle I realized that neither are truly necessary here. Given that you react properly to Lost Lace's attacks, you get long windows of where you can safely heal in the right spot.

Therefore, I experimented a little bit, where the Druid's Eyes have surprised me and really brought me over the edge. I never really liked this tool before, because of how you need to be hit twice in order for it to create silk. But many of Lost Lace's attacks (like everything with Void Tendrils in it) do double-hit damage, meaning that they quickly take two masks in a row, instead of two masks at once. And this results in getting lots of silk back instantly, which allows you to heal sooner afterwards.

And this advantage eventually let me to deal the finishing blow... But you don't "finish" her, you free her of the void. And then the Grand Mother Silk even supports you by providing a super-powered Silk Soar, so you and her daughter can escape the depths, sacrificing herself in the process.

This already is a great a moment, where the final confrontation turned into a rescue mission and ultimately the mother just wanted her child to live. I did not see this coming. And I also didn't expect the big highlight that came after...

They don't quite make it to the top, about to be attacked by the tendrils, but that's when the Knight comes to intervene in his Void Entity form to save his sister, together by all their other shade siblings. That's such a beautiful scene and the perfect way to end the third act, the part that truly linked Silksong to the first game.

It also means that this game takes place either after the "Dream No More" or the "Embrace the Void" endings. It's left ambiguous, in my opinion, because he is in the form that he takes during the former ending, but you can also briefly see how the Knight flashes into the monstrosity that he becomes at the end of Godhome. It could be that this is his actual form, since he also attacks the tentacles with the same claw attacks, but he appears to Hornet in this more familiar shape, so that she recognizes him.

In "Dream No More" you can also see how all the other shades just disappear, while they are back here. However, that ending creates a much closer connection between Hornet and the Knight, since this is where they have fought together... But like so many things in both games, this is left to interpretation, sparking discussions among the community. Team Cherry really knows the value of this, it's an essential part of their success.

The fans will also certainly talk about how they ship Hornet and Lace after this. But what happens after they exchange laughter and smiles is left to the imagination of the players as well. At least Mister Mushroom promises a continuation once more, for all its worth.

Now, it took me a whole whopping 100 hours to complete this game, but keep in mind that I tend to take forever with these type of games, where you have so much to explore and so many secrets to discover. I'm no benchmark here and I didn't try to be. And it probably would have taken 120 hours if I kept searching for that last Rune Harp...

But so far I'm very happy with Hollow Knight: Silksong. Its predecessor already counted as one of my all-time favorites, but this is a step up in almost every aspect. I also found this fun to complete. It is a very tough and challenging game, but there is no Trial of the Fool, Path of Pain or Pantheon of Hallownest to make things truly overwhelming or demotivating. You know, something you never want to play again after you've beaten it. Except for the Flea Dodge mini-game, that one can go drown in void...

Of course, the worst challenges were added to Hollow Knight in its DLCs, especially Godmaster, so this can still happen to Silksong. But as of now I definitely want to play through it a second time, since there are a couple of things that I have missed in my first playthrough. I never experienced the Slab capture sequence, for example, or I missed the Gormand sparring battle, and there is a secret ending to reach at the end of Act 2, which will pose a true challenge for that boss.

Plus, it will be fun to experiment with the game's non-linearity even more, e.g. by skipping the first Lace fight, which is definitely possible. Or skipping Moorwing. I'm really looking forward to it, but now I need a break and Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment is coming out soon.