Quote Originally Posted by Naryoril View Post
Not "second half", chapter 11 of 13.

It's the same as saying the second boss in SV HM isn't a hallway either, you have to branch off to get there. But honestly, almost all dungeons are linear, and not just in this game. SV normal mode for example is as linear as hard mode except it has about 3 rooms with monsters you can skip (where one of them only contains a single one).
Yes, SVHM is actually a worse dungeon than SVSM, which is quite an accomplishment! They took out all the optional rooms, and optional trash. Now all the chests are just on the way and you have to fight every single thing in the dungeon every single time.