I really enjoyed playing Hollow Knight several times. I never finished 100% because I have a life but everything that was not optional was great fun. Silksong however is bringing the non-fun parts that were optional in the first one to the front and center. The first time I had this bad feeling in my gut came when I was forced to diagonaly pogo from at least 5 consecutive targets perfectly to reach the next section - The targets have different heights and distances from one another so it isn't even possible to do this in a certain rythm as in other platformers where you can get into a certain flow. I put up with silly pogo platforming because I thought I might get something in the future that makes these passages easy and fun in the later game (and I did - kind of). Still making this mandatory is bad. The second thing that is important for these games is combat...and well... I had fun with many bosses in the early game, Lace especially made a great impression on me. So there is a lot of good here. With the bad stuff I thought it would be like platforming - at some point I will get stronger and the issues I'm having will be forgotten. That is what I thought - in reality I am 15 hours in having explored a lot of the early game very meticulously but I do as much damage as I did at the very beginning and I have almost as little life as in the beginning There are several normal enemies that take about 10 hits to defeat and it is not uncommon to lose 2 life in one hit even from non bosses. This makes me feel my 5-6 hearts are actually 2-3. I finally stopped playing for now after reaching a certain "Sister" and this feels just broken. The boss is summoning two mobs at once that also deal 2 damage which need 3 hits to die. Maybe if they are nice enough to introduce some balancing here for people like me that aren't that hardcore I might pick it up again because it is even more beautiful and cute as the first game. Until then I have better things to do with my time.
Asking for mouse support from a platforming game is silly. The controls are fine, the game is beautiful and the long wait was more than worth it. Bonus point for the great music/sound design.
