Hollow Knight: Initial Pacifist Run (and Notes)

Channel:

CrankyTemplar

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Published on December 4, 2019 5:59:59 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lILtQMpGHk

Game:

Hollow Knight (2017)

Duration: 1:24:22

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A challenge suggested by Duosora to complete Hollow Knight while killing as few enemies as possible. I am grateful for the information provided by Eklipser and SnowOfAllTrades about completing a pacifist run (and that they discussed how to do one a good while ago). After my ghost genocide route, a little bit of pacifism should balance things out.

This is a first go completing a full run with the pacifist rules so there are lots of mistakes made with running through the game. Strictly speaking, this run is not successful. Killing the lifeseeds at 26:58 would probably count as a failure. There's quite a few platforming goofs (I had forgotten the acid skip into Fog Canyon and it took some tries). And goodness, my fight with the Hollow Knight was dreadful.

I'm not fond of save skips so I opted to leave them out. Playing on Steel Soul kind of made shade skips impossible.

The kills that appear to be necessary are:
1) Three aspids in the crossroads (stalactites could be used but whether those count or not seems to be quibbling)
2) Elder Baldur in ancestral mound (using a vengefly to avoid killing the small baldur)
3) Elder Baldur + baldur minion at Greenpath entrance
4) Moss Knight in Greenpath
5) Giant Sentry (definitely the most annoying part ignoring that winged sentry!)
6) Watcher Knights + Lurien
7) Uumuu + Monomon
8) Stalker Devout x 2 + Herrah (I suppose you could use a shade skip to defeat Hornet 2 and grab the shade cloak to avoid killing the stalker devouts)
9) The Hollow Knight

For the purposes of this list, Hornet and Mantis Lords aren't "killed" since the fight merely ends in their defeat. Unfortunately, pacifism demands we let Zote fend for himself. In general I try to avoid hurting enemies unless necessary (i.e. building soul before killing the Elder Baldur outside Greenpath), which is why I don't use the pogo skip to bypass a good chunk of Greenpath though in Beast's Den I do break that rule to avoid dying.

PACIFIST RUN:
2:53 Aspid Gauntlet
4:38 False Knight
6:53 Ancestral Mound Elder Baldur
8:39 Greenpath
13:42 Hornet
16:41 Fungal Wastes
20:35 Mantis Lords
23:48 Deepnest
29:42 Ancient Basin/City of Tears
33:05 Salubra and Sly
34:44 Dream Nail
37:20 Watcher's Spire (37:56 is probably the hardest part of the run)
40:07 Watcher Knights
46:21 Cashing in Relics
48:11 Buying the Lantern
49:27 Crystal Peaks
55:59 Crossroads Acid Skip (several flubs before this)
57:35 Uumuu
1:04:23 Back to Deepnest
1:07:12 Beast's Den
1:13:24 The Hollow Knight
1:20:22 Ending and Credits

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