You need this game. Hollow Knight: Silksong is at a pricepoint that should not be obstructive to anyone wishing to experience it. I played only about 30 mins of actual gameplay and I can already feel how it has elevated the qualities found in the original Hollow Knight. This is a sequel done right. Enough elements are changed that it feels dramatically different but all of your senses and muscle memory learned from Hollow Knight transfers to Silksong. You play a much more skillful character this time, where your needle stabs have to be carefully chosen or feel the consequence of mindless play. For a game that was eagerly waited for, it has shattered and reached many expectations I've had since playing the original. The aesthetic is better, the music and sound design are better. It is hard to describe things pertaining to this game without just saying better than Hollow Knight. Buy it, buy it, buy it now. If you want more and haven't played Hollow Knight? Buy that too. This series is on a rocket ship.
Can't really recommend this game to people. I'm pretty annoyed with this right now so let that be a reflection of the possible bias. I've played quite a few games like this, mostly just Dracula. The big problem I have with this game is how arbitrary it is. The most infuriating of issues being a possible softlock that killed my save file. Since you can't save the game when you want, I'm locked into a sequence where I'm missing an Item needed to progress. I don't want to spoil the game so I'll just explain a sequence of actions. You talk to a guy who gives you a clue to some puzzle you need to solve that is somewhere later in the game. Because you're just told this information, its very easy to forget it and you can't go back to obtain this key information. At the same time, the clue is also wrong in that the solution is totally opposite to what would happen in that alignment. A bit later in the game, you get the hint that they thought that maybe reminders to the hint are a good idea and I was able to solve this puzzle because it made sense. This would only be moments before a confusing stealth sequence and eventual softlock because I didn't totally pay attention to what an NPC said. I found out that I missed something because I was fumbling for an hour being repeatedly stabbed after a strange choice by the MC to nap. I broke down and pulled up a Longplay on Youtube to see the solution and in the Items the Longplayer had was an Item that I didn't have. Figured I could just reload the game and be back a certain ways. Nope. It started me right where I kept dying over and over so my playthrough is dead. I could reset the game but I'd be forced to playthrough with a guide to avoid softlocks and I just don't find that very fun in a Puzzle game.
There is an illusory and dream-like atmosphere so the solutions to puzzles, right off the bat, are more symbolic. The true meat is being this investigator who owes a guy a favor so you look into these brothers who were up at a cabin in the middle of nowhere. Apparently some violent situations happened. You're solving things in a manor that feels more puzzling as the adventure goes on. A little extreme at points. Once you're done unraveling things, it gets weird all of a sudden. I wouldn't know how to describe what happens. The Whisperer is short but missing a lot. I usually like stuff like this, since I've gotten through three of the Dracula games and the first Siberia. You spend more time trying to figure out in what obtuse way to decipher the puzzles by combining tools and holding candles to see. Visually, its good at delivering the symbolism but its disjointed with what the player would expect. This is a bit of a spoiler but at a point you will see a bowl full of a kind of stew, maybe a fish stew. The game allows you to interact with it and you get a message calling it strange. You cannot do anything with this mystery stew, it just is. I felt like I should be able to do something with it and just kept interacting with it for like an hour as nothing else was being directed to or given a clue about.
Those unfamilliar with Bram Stoker's Dracula novel will be confused to start of the trilogy with an explanation of prior events. This is indeed contains the first game, Dracula - The Resurrection, of the series but it takes place after certain events in the novel (good novel and worth reading). The three games in this Trilogy are all about the same setting but the third is obviously an extrapolation of themes that loosely tie it to the first and second. Dracula - The Resurrection is a fun adventure that doesn't bend too hard in the ways of the impractical or out-of-context thinking when it comes to solving the puzzles of the game. Navigation of the game is scene by scene, where if you're familiar with Point and Click style adventures, involving clicking items to pick up, to look at or to go to certain places. This is the better of the games in the trilogy, which I recommend people experience. Dracula - The Last Sanctuary leaves much to desire but brings the previous game to its Ultimate Climax. Much of the same gameplay is repeated with the clicky clicky with items and inspection; however, the addition of enemies to fight bring a new level of annoyance to the game. Instead of taking your time and coming up with a solution, the red bar comes up and you're expected to solve the multi-tiered of puzzles very quickly or die. A part from that, there is a level of impractical with some puzzles of the game but no expectation that things outside of the game's knowledge is needed. Dracula - The Path of the Dragon is the third game in the series but carries the least engaging factors. Puzzles are long and require extra-impressive thinking to accomplish, which is great for the evolving puzzle solver but hard to understand when considering the games before it. Puzzles in one and two only require the most basic of solving; where as, three requires the understanding of the Fibonacci sequence. Its a great game but not a well fit for the other two before it.
