Hollow Knight - A Complete Overview for Platinum

This guide is meant as a review for the people which might be interested in going for the completion of all of the game achievements. Being an achievement hunter myself and having already obtained this platinum, I will go over the game and its achievements, analyzing them to the best of my abilities.

Also it should be noted that this in not a comprehensive guide on HOW to obtain said achievements, since I think there is more that enough material online for basically all of the games I will cover, which will be able to help you gain the specific achievements you might still need. This guide will instead go over the game and will show you what you should expect while achievement hunting for this game.

One thing that should be clear to all readers is that this guide is a reflection of the game at the moment in which I am writing about it, so it might not be completely accurate if much time is passed as there might have been more updates released with adjustments and so on. The only thing I will try to always keep up to date will be eventual new achievements that might be released in the future. Of course keep particular attention to multiplayer-related achievements, since they might be affected by server closure or simply by drop in popularity of the game which might affect the easiness of which you might find the other people needed to obtain certain objectives. This of course might not pertain to the game in question since that's a common disclaimer I put on all my guides, so it’s just a warning.

Last thing, of course this will NOT be a spoiler free review, since the goal is to analyze what is necessary for the platinum it will be necessary at times to discuss the contents of the game. That said, it’s also not a full spoiler review, so when is not needed I will not spoil the contents of the game. For this reason you might want to avoid reading this review if you don’t want to risk any kind of spoiler to the game and maybe go back to it only after you’ve played your first run and are ready to hunt for the remaining achievements you might be missing.

Now, for the guide itself, it will be divided into four sections, the first one will be a brief general overview of the game and its achievements, the second will focus on the game itself and its pacing, the third will cover particularly difficult achievements to which you might want to put more focus compared to the rest, and the fourth will draw the conclusions based on the previous three analyses.

Hollow Knight includes a total of 63 achievements, with 52 of which that are related to the base game, while the last 11 are tied to the three DLCs Hidden Dreams, The Grimm Troupe and Godmaster, but since all of these are just basically free updates you won’t have to buy anything else to be able to reach 100% completion. Out of the 52 base achievements, 8 are story-related and unmissable, while the remaining 44 are mainly tied to alternate endings, collectibles, in-game challenges, optional bosses, and hidden challenges.

One important thing to keep in mind is that one playthrough of this game is not sufficient to reach 100% completion, to which the minimum is at least two different playthroughs, although is also pretty likely that you’ll need a third one to avoid piling up too many challenges in one single game, which is already by itself extremely challenging.

I’ve found Hollow Knight to be a really good game, despite it’s really high difficulty I’ll say that it’s also unbelievably well balance, which is something pretty rare these days. In an environment where developers often try to make a name for themselves by artificially increasing the difficulty of their games, without bothering to actually make it fair and balanced, this one does it all and does it well. Of course by fair I don’t mean easy “if you know what to do”, as it rarely becomes that even in the base game without considering the extra content like the Pantheons and the Grimm Troupe, but there is always a way to defeat enemies even in desperate situations, so if you found yourself stuck somewhere, you can be sure that it’s just a skill issue (as you have to be VERY skilled to clear many parts of the game).

As I’ve said, Hollow Knight is a HARD game, the hardest I’ve completed (and probably even just played on Steam) so far and BY far, which I expect to be surpassed in the near future only by its sequel, when I’ll find the time and the will to play it (though it won’t be anytime soon, considering what I have still to play from my library). That means that you’ll likely remain stuck many times during you playthrough, and many of those points will not be considered by this guide despite their difficulty, since due to the overall difficulty of the game content, I would have to include probably close to a third of the achievements in this section (maybe not this much, but just to give you a point of reference). So, what I’ll include will just be what I think are the absolute peaks of difficulty of each aspect of the game. The achievements listed here are 6, “Pure Completion”, “Dream No More”, “Speedrun 2”, “Speed Completion”, “Steel Heart” and “Embrace the Void”.

“Pure Completion” is the achievements which will make you reach 112% completion on a savefile. The content of the original game reaches the normal 100%, so to obtain 112% you’ll have to also complete all the added content of all the DLCs. To get it, some of the things that count are Bosses, Charms, Equipments, Collectibles, Nail Arts and Upgrades, Spells and the challenges of the Colosseum of Fools and the Pantheons (except for the very last one, the Pantheon of Hallownest). To track your progress you can use online guides and even upload your savefile to sites that analyze it and tell you what you’re still missing. I consider this the easiest out of all the achievements I’ll talk about here, as most of it it’s just completion (except for certain thing which are included in other achievements, like the first four Pantheons, but you’ll have to do those for other things so I’m not counting them to calculate the difficulty of this one).

“Dream No More” is the achievement for the true ending of the game, after you’ve defeated both the base final boss and the Radiance. Now, the reason I’m including this one here is not for the fact that you’ll have to defeat both the Hollow Knight and the Radiance (I’m not saying that they are easy to beat, but since you’ll have to defeat a stronger version of them for the last achievement of this section, if it was just that I wouldn’t even consider it), but because to even access the secret boss fight, among other things you’ll have to acquire both pieces of the Kingsoul charm and the second one is found at the end of the White Palace. The White Palace contains a platforming section that you’ll have to clear, which is describable as a pure nightmare, worthy of belonging to a game like Super Meat Boy (maybe I’m exaggerating a bit here, but that was what I felt while I was doing it, as it’s easily the part of the game which I thoroughly hated doing and that I wished didn’t exist).

“Speedrun 2” requires to finish the game within 5 hours, luckily it’s not required any kind of percentage completion in that run, so you can do just the bare minimum required. Now, 5 hours might definitely sound a nightmarish requirement, but let me reassure you that it’s absolutely possible and it’s also pretty lenient, as it’s possible to get even under 3 hours without that much effort if you’re following a guide (the world record stands at around 30 minutes). What I’ll tell you is that if like me you hate speedrunning things, you might want to go for this achievement as one of the last ones (maybe just before “Speed Completion” and “Steel Heart”), so to be sufficiently skilled at the game that it won’t pose much of a challenge. If you’re feeling the challenge I believe it’s also possible to go for both this one and “Speed Completion” at the same time.

“Speed Completion” is another speedrun achievement, which requires to finish the game with 100% completion in under 20 hours. Again, much like “Speedrun 2”, this might appear as an insane objective, but is absolutely doable. Thanks to the increase of full completion from 100% to 112% with the added content, you can choose to do the least time-consuming things to reach the required 100%, saving you a lot of time with careful planing (or again just by following a guide). To the point that it’s absolutely possible as I’ve said to go for both this one and “Speedrun 2”, managing to do everything in under 5 hours time.

“Steel Heart” requires instead to finish the Steel Soul mode of the game with 100% completion (as I’ve said for “Speed Completion”, with all the add-ons the game reaching 112%, you have room to decide what you want to do and what you don’t want to). Steel Soul mode is the one with permadeath, which is unlocked after you’ve finished the game the first time. I suggest you to keep this one for last, since it will help enormously the skill you’ll mature while doing the last Pantheon.

The last, and most difficult, achievement is “Embrace the Void”, which will force you to clear the last Pantheon, the Pantheon of Hallownest that is unlocked after you’ve cleared the first four. If there is a single achievement which will make you quit the game, is definitely this one. Here you’ll have to defeat one after the other basically all the bosses in the game, in an LONG boss rush. This is also the reason I have not included in this section achievements for defeating bosses like Hollow Knight or either versions of Grimm (as I’ve said, I’ve included the Radiance not for the bossfight, but for the requirements to get to it). The whole challenge is hellishly difficult and proved to be incredibly demanding even though I’ve refused to attempt it before training all bosses (which can luckily be faced in an area of Godhome called Hall of Gods), to the point that I was easily capable to do first try and no damage most of them (with the exception of some of the hardest ones like Radiance and the Grimms). Unfortunately there really no trick to this achievement, as you’ll just have to arm yourself with A LOT of patience and try it over and over again until you make it.

I found Hollow Knight to be much more enjoyable than I previously thought, as before playing it the closest I’ve come to experiencing a metroidvania was Ori and the Blind Forest. Considering the easiness of the former and the name that Hollow Knight had already made for itself as a really hard game I knew I was going to have quite an experience, but honestly I wasn’t prepared for it (both in terms of difficulty and in terms of enjoyment).

This is a game that I recommend to everyone who enjoys the genre, but it’s also a game whose platinum as to be really considered, since it’s not something that’s for everyone. It WILL require A LOT of time effort and even more willpower, so beware and judge for yourself if it’s really worth the time and the effort it will need to be completed.

Personally, it took me around 100 hours to complete, but I have to say that I did a lot of planning beforehand and save myself a bit of time for the two speedrun achievements (didn’t have the gut to go for both of them at the same time, but I did repurpose a good portion of the “Speedrun 2” savefile for “Speed Completion”, by making a copy of it so I didn’t have to start a second time when it was time to go for the second one, though I probably saved just a couple hours at best). Another thing you have to consider is that for this game I took a full week where I just played the game when I wasn’t busy sleeping or eating, so my learning curve was really fast (as I knew I had to immerse myself fully if I wanted to complete it without quitting it for good), that means that you might expect to spend even 120 to 150 hours if you play it more casually and you’re already not pretty good at the genre.