Gudadantza: Anyways Cathedral or Celeste are even harder, so they have not pushed too hard. I guess.
Celeste at least doesn't punish you for dying. Your death counter (which does nothing other than being a statistic) increases, and you're sent back to the start of the room (never more than a few minutes, and almost always a lot less), but that's about it. (Well, assuming you're not holding a golden berry, but that's a totally optional thing that you don't unlock until you've already demonstrated mastery of the game.)
I actually played Hollow Knight immediately after Celeste, and the difference in the way the games handled death was rather stark.
(For anyone familiar with HK but not Celeste, imagine the Path of Pain, except that you have unlimited health and a simpler movement with no combat-focused moves. The entire game is like that, except that Celeste is a lot easier until you get to the hard parts.)
Gudadantza: I´d maintain the original vision (self-tested, original self-indulgent difficulty and features, normal mode, call it as you want) but i´d add another difficulty, with a couple of tweaks like no double damage taken etc as an additional mode (call it the easy mode, although it would not make the game specially easy, one of the clues is the more complex basic enemies list of moves, and hits needed to defeat them; every flying apparently innocent bug can put you in problems) The only change like no double damage would make the game more tolerant to occasional errors, now in three hits you can die.
mqstout: I'd be fine with them adding an easy mode. However, I'd prefer they tweak "normal" mode so it's not this unhollowed mess for the standard experience it is. People can revert to original release (or they could do a "hard mode" setting) that preserves this current state.
Call what's there now the default "original challenge mode". Fix the normal (and don't label it anything unusual). Optionally add an 'easy' down the road. But the "normal" should be not really much worse than a standard Hollow Knight clear, else Silksong will continue to be looked upon in poor light as a sequel.
It won't be easy for them to do however -- because some of the platforming itself would need to change on the difficulty settings. Again, I say this as someone who did do HK rather thoroughly except the Pantheon and Path (I could get most of the way through it), and have done plenty of precision platformers like some of Guacamelee's towering areas, or all of Shovel Knight, and a full clear of Smelter, etc. I'm glad I could do it. But being able to do, e.g., the disappearing flower jumps over spikes that have enemies spawn on top of you for the way back should NOT be required for the basic full clear.)
I agree with adding another difficulty that's closer to the first game's difficulty.
I would also like a second setting, independent of difficulty, that affects the handling of death. One setting would be the current behavior, one would make you not lose anything except your position, and Steel Soul would appear here once unlocked. This setting would be independent of the other difficulty setting.
(It would not make sense to combine "no penalty for death" with "save deleted on death". On the other hand, combining "enemies are less dangerous" with "save deleted on death" should be allowed.)
