Hollow Knight talk: The White Palace

I knew what was coming up with the White Palace because of videos I had seen in the past when trying to figure out where the hell do I go next in this game. The videos I had seen and the terrors that i figured awaited me was something that I eventually decided to take on, only to discover that what I thought was going to be a very difficult jumping puzzle, turned out to be a lot of fun...

src

The White Palace is very late game content in Hollow Knight and it is one of those things that you don't even need to visit in order to "finish" the game. You aren't even able to get inside of it unless you have the fully upgraded dream nail and just like many other aspects of this game it isn't even terribly evident that getting this fully upgraded dream nail will even open the door to the White Palace.

This is what a lot of fans love about Hollow Knight, myself included. There is a ton of optional stuff that is hidden very well and while I think that most people probably used the internet in order to get to a lot of these things, there is a certain amount of satisfaction that comes along with accidentally discovering certain parts of the game on your own.

The White Palace is a unique part of the game in that there aren't a bunch of enemies to fight. In fact, there are only two guardians of the palace and they are extremely easy to kill.

One inside though, the terrors of the white palace become quite evident as you progress along.

src

Rather than having really tough enemies, a vast majority of what goes on in here is a gigantic jumping puzzle filled with kill you quick buzzsaws that of course you can not withstand a hit from.

Each hit from a buzzsaw or falling off the side into the brambles below takes one point of your health away. For the picture above this means that this guy can make 8 mistakes before it is game over. For the uninitiated, this means it is going to be game over very frequently.

Thankfully, these areas have a ton of hidden checkpoints that make it so you don't have to return to the start just because of one small mistake. If that was the way it was this would be a lot more frustrating than it is.

src

I was dreading going through this portion of the game because in the past in games I have played I really didn't like jumping puzzles. This was especially true in Guild Wars 2 where the JP's as they were called were waaay too difficult if you ask me.

There are a couple of charms that can prolong your life in here and if you are trying to take on the buzzsaw portions and dont want to get sent back to the start by a game over situation you should definitely equip them.

src

There is the Grubsong charm that gives you soul when you take damage. This means that every couple of times that you get hit by the buzzsaws (and you will) it gives you some soul back. You can use soul to recharge your health. You can prolong your run by about 50% by having this charm equipped.

src

The Hiveblood charm has very little practical application in all of the game except for here in the White Palace. This charm slowly recharges your life if you simply stand still. It will not recharge all of it though, just the one you recently lost. Since the buzzsaws only take one of your health, this means that equipping the Hiveblood charm can basically give you an unlimited amount of retries for the puzzles.

---

Overall I was loathing going to the White Palace in the first place but then after I begrudingly went in, I have found that it is actually one of my favorite parts of the entire game. This game just keeps giving me more and more reasons to love it and I am definitely disappointed that Silksong which is basically Hollow Knight 2, is going to initially be a Nintendo Switch exclusive :(