Let's talk about Godmaster's final boss for a moment.

[Flavor Savior]

Yes, I understand that I’m an entitled child complaining about free content to an already criminally underpriced game, but hear me out. I went through the Godmaster expansion having a fair amount of fun. The new bosses are fantastic, Sisters of Battle feel like a natural improvement on the original fight, Oro, Mato, Sheo and Sly are all completely new bosses with new moves and tricks, and although I wish they could be challenged in the vanilla game, they are fantastic additions to Godhome.

Pure Vessel was a phenomenal remix of an existing fight, new attacks and new art assets, a somber musical score; when the Pure Vessel starts the fight with his roaring animation and is completely silent as the melody swells, I get chills. After that, Pantheon of Hallownest feels like a bit of a slog. There’s a nice surprise with a new Nosk variant, but it’s around 40 minutes of effortless bosses, into 15-20 minutes of challenging bosses which lead into a final battle that seems like kind of a letdown.

Whereas Oro, Mato, Sheo, Sly and the Pure Vessel got new attacks, sprites and unique art assets, all Absolute Radiance has to offer as the climactic final boss is twice the speed of the original fight, a larger halo and some different platforms. It’s also just not a fair fight. At any moment the boss can decide to screw you with multiple spike walls after a light pillar depletes your shade dash, or a homing orb might return from offscreen to sucker-punch you, or you can thread through a tight situation only to get impaled by a spread of razor-sharp, poorly telegraphed death shooting out from Radiance’s face.

After challenging her in the Hall of Gods multiple dozens of times, I’ve been victorious all of twice. These successes don’t make me feel any more confident about challenging the Pantheon of Hallownest, because they felt like sheer luck. When Absolute Radiance decides to spam easily avoidable, non-overlapping attacks that leave her open, and when she doesn't constantly teleport to the opposite side of the arena, the fight can end with a fraction of the effort required when her full arsenal is constantly on display.

The worst of it is that this isn’t an optional challenge, this fight is 100% mandatory if the player should wish to see the true final ending of Hollow Knight which (I’m told) likely leads into the upcoming Hornet DLC. I’m not one to balk at a challenge, I’d beaten Nightmare King Grimm and the Path of Pain in previous expansions and painstakingly earned every achievement prior to Godmaster’s release; being frank, locking away the canonical ending of the game behind a series of fights that sub-1% of players are going to be able to complete just strikes me as utterly wasteful.

Absolute Radiance is absolutely rubbish.

[Desticler]

AbsRad is the worst part about Godmaster for sure.

[Tat011]

And the ending isn't worth it either, it makes no sense, doesn't fit thematically with the rest of the game (compare dream no more with embrace the void and you'll see what i'm talking about) and is a cliffhanger meaning that it's just there to promote the dlc.

[Edgy]

Originally posted by Tat011:

And the ending isn't worth it either, it makes no sense, doesn't fit thematically with the rest of the game (compare dream no more with embrace the void and you'll see what i'm talking about) and is a cliffhanger meaning that it's just there to promote the dlc.

Compared them and I don't see how it doesn't make sense?

[Tat011]

So our protagonist once it defeats the radiance decides to become a giant monster thing and try to take over the world (or something similar) the obvious problem is that the MC doesn't have any motivations outside of containing or killing the infection since it's completely hollow.

[Edgy]

Originally posted by Tat011:

So our protagonist once it defeats the radiance decides to become a giant monster thing and try to take over the world (or something similar) the obvious problem is that the MC doesn't have any motivations outside of containing or killing the infection since it's completely hollow.

I think what actually happens is that the knight merges with the void creating the shade lord entity which is the god of gods. This only happens since after each pantheon it gets attuned.

[Onni]

Originally posted by Edgy Knight:

Originally posted by Tat011:

So our protagonist once it defeats the radiance decides to become a giant monster thing and try to take over the world (or something similar) the obvious problem is that the MC doesn't have any motivations outside of containing or killing the infection since it's completely hollow.

I think what actually happens is that the knight merges with the void creating the shade lord entity which is the god of gods. This only happens since after each pantheon it gets attuned.

I think he murges with the rest of the void and at the same time gets mixed with the imperfect hollow knights

[Edgy]

Originally posted by Onnisaurus:

Originally posted by Edgy Knight:

I think what actually happens is that the knight merges with the void creating the shade lord entity which is the god of gods. This only happens since after each pantheon it gets attuned.

I think he murges with the rest of the void and at the same time gets mixed with the imperfect hollow knights

Originally, the beast the knight creates when it beats absrad in the pantheon, was 'void given mind' this alone makes the ending make sense. It has changed to 'void given focus' which is what happens when you attune to each pantheon. The beast most likely has a mind and is the 'ancient enemy' that radiance speaks about when you dreamnail her.

[Onni]

Originally posted by Edgy Knight:

Originally posted by Onnisaurus:

I think he murges with the rest of the void and at the same time gets mixed with the imperfect hollow knights

Originally, the beast the knight creates when it beats absrad in the pantheon, was 'void given mind' this alone makes the ending make sense. It has changed to 'void given focus' which is what happens when you attune to each pantheon. The beast most likely has a mind and is the 'ancient enemy' that radiance speaks about when you dreamnail her.

Indeed but I think it is unlikely that he wants to destroy the world like tat0 said. At most he will kill Bretta for cheating on him

[Flavor Savior]

Originally posted by Onnisaurus:

Indeed but I think it is unlikely that he wants to destroy the world like tat0 said. At most he will kill Bretta for cheating on him

That would be really petty for a god-like void creature.

[BaconSpider]

Originally posted by Flavor Savior:

Originally posted by Onnisaurus:

Indeed but I think it is unlikely that he wants to destroy the world like tat0 said. At most he will kill Bretta for cheating on him

That would be really petty for a god-like void creature.

actually in most mythologies alot of gods are pretty petty so it would make sense

[Onni]

Originally posted by Flavor Savior:

Originally posted by Onnisaurus:

Indeed but I think it is unlikely that he wants to destroy the world like tat0 said. At most he will kill Bretta for cheating on him

That would be really petty for a god-like void creature.

The last part was a joke