is steel soul mode even possible to beat?

[Garbage_Collector]

lol, no dieing? Is this just some joke? This has to be the hardest video game i've ever beaten. I've played a little bit of the contra series and that appears to be even harder....

jeez...crazy stuff...

[🉑 rezno[R].technology]

How often do you play platform games?

Steel Soul is rather for the more experienced (and cautious) player who wants some additional challenge. There are lots of people who completed the game in this mode (even did 100%) as you can see in the Steam stats. It's actually much easier than Godhome and Nightmare King Grimm for me, as you can always pause when at 1 mask of health left and Quit to Menu and just play very carefully + equip protection charms + avoid a lot of bosses and fights that you already know about after first game completion and plan your playthrough accordingly.

I am also rather a beginner in platform games, and a more casual player, who started playing a few of them since Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition, so definitively not too experienced when compared to other players (but I can be rather persistent and try often if I like something very much and this helps a lot).

2.1% Steam game owners completed Steel Soul mode.
If we assume game owners to be between 2 mln and 5 mln (from steamdb) that would be between 42,000 and 105,000 people similar to me just on Steam who completed it (not counting owners of Switch, XBO and PS4 versions). That is a lot of people 😉

[jewishlightning]

Pause and quit when almost dead if you wish but it's pretty fun trying not to die once throughout the game

[MADE IN IRON]

It is a hard game, but have you started a second playtrhough? If you beated the game and you start it again, you will find it a lot easier than the first time. And I guess it becomes easier each time you play it, so at some point steel soul becomes doable.

[🉑 rezno[R].technology]

Definitively! We often don't remember how we played at the beginning and we don't notice how much we improved along the way of just playing it, because we very rarely feel the need to compare our past selves with our present selves to explicitly see the improvements.

Happens in everything, not only in games.

[kanna]

I also found Steel Soul was too hard for me right after the first time I beat the game. Then after beating it a couple of times, it was a breeze. Try getting the completion and then the speedrunning achievements first. (I would suggest aiming for completion first, then speed. Save Steel Soul until death is a rare thing for your regular playthroughs on regular bosses.)

[Garbage_Collector]

thanks everyone...i have so much respect for the artificial intelligence in the game, it drives crazy not having played it before. I probably switched charms over 20 times in order to beat the hollow knight, but i just maxed out all my health charms: fragile heart, lifeblood heart, dream shield...then i only had to quite before dieing another ten times to protect the fragile heart... and hey luckily i knew i was going to win. Gosh, such a deceitful boss...you think your about to win when he's stabbing himself...but then once you get past that you actually did win. I'm in the 18%er club now!

[A_random_player]

Well, I beat Steel Heart (Steel Soul 100%) Yesterday. It sounds way harder than it actually is, and the Pantheon of Hallownest kinda overprepares you for the bosses. Now you have the Trial of the Conquerer, some enemy rooms and some platforming challenges to worry about. By the way, The Hollow Knight gets absolutely destroyed by quick slash, and dont attack him when he stabs himself, just heal, you basically don´t do any damage during that part.
Edit: I just want to say that it kinda removes the reason behind Steel Soul to just quit out at 1 mask, it´s just what people do to get the achievement, I mean is there really a reason to cheat an achievement, just so people think you did it?

[mdesaleah]

Originally posted by Garbage_Collector:

thanks everyone...i have so much respect for the artificial intelligence in the game, it drives crazy not having played it before. I probably switched charms over 20 times in order to beat the hollow knight, but i just maxed out all my health charms: fragile heart, lifeblood heart, dream shield...then i only had to quite before dieing another ten times to protect the fragile heart... and hey luckily i knew i was going to win. Gosh, such a deceitful boss...you think your about to win when he's stabbing himself...but then once you get past that you actually did win. I'm in the 18%er club now!

Not sure if this is your first time, but there’s more to do in that fight if you get the Void Heart

[FRΛCTURΞD SOUL]

Originally posted by mdesaleah:

Originally posted by Garbage_Collector:

thanks everyone...i have so much respect for the artificial intelligence in the game, it drives crazy not having played it before. I probably switched charms over 20 times in order to beat the hollow knight, but i just maxed out all my health charms: fragile heart, lifeblood heart, dream shield...then i only had to quite before dieing another ten times to protect the fragile heart... and hey luckily i knew i was going to win. Gosh, such a deceitful boss...you think your about to win when he's stabbing himself...but then once you get past that you actually did win. I'm in the 18%er club now!

Not sure if this is your first time, but there’s more to do in that fight if you get the Void Heart

« Insert radiante scream »
Hornet : « Git gud »

[🉑 rezno[R].technology]

Originally posted by A_random_player:

Edit: I just want to say that it kinda removes the reason behind Steel Soul to just quit out at 1 mask, it´s just what people do to get the achievement, I mean is there really a reason to cheat an achievement, just so people think you did it?

Even if this mechanic is literally put there in the game by the developers, and used even in the normal runs by players? 🤔 Viewing this as a "cheat" sounds rather unreasonable while it is a normal mechanic put there by developers and commonly used in the game.

This doesn't, however, mean that it is the only way to get this achievement. I would say, that if you are especially proud of something you did harder than the developers made possible (eg. not using Quit to Menu mechanic at all), then you can always record a full gameplay of it and put it on display for everyone to see as a kind of "Proof of Resolve".
No one views your own way of playing as cheating, just because you are not using all game mechanics. So why treat other people's playstyle as that just because they have different ways of playing than yours and use more game mechanics 🙂

Diminishing others or others' achievements just because they have different views on a subject than you and did it in a different way than you is not an optimal way of treating human beings IMO. Such treatment makes other people feel worse than others inside (and make you look like a superior to them), while the objective truth is that they did exactly the same thing in the end, but just using different game mechanics. Nothing "better" or "worse" here. Some might actually even find it more wise, cunning, more optimal and time-saving. Depends on how a person looks at things and what values they have etc.

[batteran]

Going fr the speedrun achievement first, before trying steel soul, is a good idea: A steel Soul run can be frustrating, as you lose your save on your first error. Speedrun force you to increase your skill and play another way, and allow some error and panik once in a while.

[Nibbie]

Originally posted by 🉑 reznoR:

Originally posted by A_random_player:

Edit: I just want to say that it kinda removes the reason behind Steel Soul to just quit out at 1 mask, it´s just what people do to get the achievement, I mean is there really a reason to cheat an achievement, just so people think you did it?

Even if this mechanic is literally put there in the game by the developers, and used even in the normal runs by players? 🤔 Viewing this as a "cheat" sounds rather unreasonable while it is a normal mechanic put there by developers and commonly used in the game.

This doesn't, however, mean that it is the only way to get this achievement. I would say, that if you are especially proud of something you did harder than the developers made possible (eg. not using Quit to Menu mechanic at all), then you can always record a full gameplay of it and put it on display for everyone to see as a kind of "Proof of Resolve".
No one views your own way of playing as cheating, just because you are not using all game mechanics. So why treat other people's playstyle as that just because they have different ways of playing than yours and use more game mechanics 🙂

Diminishing others or others' achievements just because they have different views on a subject than you and did it in a different way than you is not an optimal way of treating human beings IMO. Such treatment makes other people feel worse than others inside (and make you look like a superior to them), while the objective truth is that they did exactly the same thing in the end, but just using different game mechanics. Nothing "better" or "worse" here. Some might actually even find it more wise, cunning, more optimal and time-saving. Depends on how a person looks at things and what values they have etc.

Cheat codes are a mechanic put into games by developers, but that doesn't mean they aren't cheating. Quitting the game is meant for quitting the game, not magically teleporting yourself out of any danger. I don't see why you would even do a steel soul run in the first place if you decided to turn on invincibility anyway.

[Goga Boga]

This isn't Dark Souls.

[kanna]

Originally posted by Nibbie:

Cheat codes are a mechanic put into games by developers, but that doesn't mean they aren't cheating. Quitting the game is meant for quitting the game, not magically teleporting yourself out of any danger. I don't see why you would even do a steel soul run in the first place if you decided to turn on invincibility anyway.

Some people enjoy playing the game one way, others enjoy playing it a different way. And even just starting over from the bench is a struggle for some people when they find a boss daunting.

You said in your earlier post that you think that people do that so "others" think they got the achievement without quitting out, but what does it have to do with what others think? Not everyone plays to show their stats off to other people.

Even if people start over from the bench, they still have to finish the run without dying so I don't see where the problem lies. Might as well play the game the way you enjoy it; and let other people play how they do and not diminish their accomplishments.

[Beef Hammer]

Originally posted by Nibbie:

Cheat codes are a mechanic put into games by developers, but that doesn't mean they aren't cheating. Quitting the game is meant for quitting the game, not magically teleporting yourself out of any danger. I don't see why you would even do a steel soul run in the first place if you decided to turn on invincibility anyway.

Quitting to bench is 100% legit, it's used by speedrunners and saves your ass when things outside of your control happen. It's not "cheating steel soul" just because you think it does.