Twenty tips
- Compass first, map second, everything else third.
- Rosaries in a string are safe; loose ones stay in your cocoon when you die and are gone if you die again before reaching it. Convert before bosses.
- The bench is usually closer to the boss than the boss is to the last bench. Look for it.
- Pogo the red flowers and the balloons: they are platforms, and several fleas are behind them.
- Bind when the boss is far. Never when you are low and it is near.
- Silk and Soul before the Cradle, or the game ends and act 3 does not start.
- Greyroot’s curse is a choice with a trophy attached (Twisted Child). You can have both on one file: after that ending, loading puts Hornet back at her last save point, and Infestation Operation cures the curse.
- Some optional bosses come back black-threaded in act 3, and Shakra and Garmond & Zaza do not come back at all. Fight them in act 2.
- Twelve fleas and a beaten Last Judge move the caravan to Blasted Steps, and a spool fragment comes with the ride (Hollow Knight Wiki; Fextralife says fourteen fleas, Vandal fifteen).
- Shakra’s maps are per area and cheap. The markers she sells are not optional either.
- Enemies deal two masks from the Citadel on. Masks matter less; the spool matters more.
- The Last Judge can be bypassed through Sinner’s Road and the Mist, but almost nobody should.
- Cross Stitch from the Phantom is a parry. It is the best silk skill for people who die to projectiles.
- Red tools refill at benches for shell shards; the Shard Pendant is how you afford them.
- Jubilana sells a mask shard and a spool fragment; rescue her twice.
- Grindle sells a spool fragment for 680 and two tools; he also tried to rob you earlier, and backed down when Hornet warned him.
- Bugs of Pharloom (Nuu’s journal, 100 entries) is a tool pouch. Kill things you have not killed.
- The Everbloom is behind the Red Memory. Remembrance is its trophy.
- 93% is the act-2 ceiling. If your file says 93, you are done with act 2, not with the game.
- Speedrunner and 100% are different files. Do not try to be both on the first.