Help Me Finish Hollow Knight

In that dark, dark time before I fell in love with The Witcher 3, I asked you all to help me finish it. You gave me great advice that changed my gaming life. Today, I am here to ask for your assistance once again, with Hollow Knight

Everyone loves Hollow Knight. I want to love Hollow Knight too! I recently started trying to play the game again (editor’s note: dear god “recently” was January, what is time), lured in by its beautiful art and intriguing mysteries, excited to curl up on my couch with my Switch and explore a new world. What I’ve seen of it so far is so pretty and interesting! But the game is so hard. It took me ages to beat the first boss fight against Hornet, and I’m sure it only gets harder from there.

Kotaku’s tips, while helpful, haven’t been enough to get me over my particular hurdle. The trouble is that I don’t really like boss fights. I tend to get frustrated and put down a gamewith them for the night, and then I struggle to bring myself back to the game because I know I have a boss fight waiting for me. I know a lot of people like boss fights, and I’m not against them on some kind of moral grounds. But once I solve the puzzle of how to beat a boss, I find it tedious to actually do, and the exhilarated determination of “one more try!” quickly gives way to annoyance. I find this especially tough in Hollow Knight, where I can lose all my gathered Geo currency if I rage quit without retrieving it. Trust me, I wish I weren’t like this too, but you gotta play the hand you’re dealt.

I’m currently somewhere in the Fungal Wastes, where—if I recall correctly—I fell through some troublesome areas due to my lousy platforming skills and the wonky Joy-Con I refuse to replace. (Whether one of the issues actually is my Joy-Con or whether I’m just blaming it for my video game failures has been one of the enduring questions of my quarantine gaming.) I suspect there’s a boss lurking nearby whom I’m sure will destroy me, but I’ve yet to work up the fortitude to boot up the game and check.

I wonder a lot if maybe Hollow Knight just isn’t for me, especially given my dislike of boss games. But then I see someone talking about it and I get sucked in all over again. Surely many of you know the secret to falling in love with Hollow Knight. Thank you in advance for braving the comment section to share that love with me.