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.
Hollow Knight was hard, but managed to stay enjoyable. Silksong is so difficult it's no longer fun, play sessions are simply irritating (at best).
Even normal enemies feel like boss fights, pretty much everyone but basic monsters have 2-3 attacks, can parry or hide. Way too many enemies do 2 masks of damage. Some even do *random* and *untelegraphed* movements (those birds with throwing knives in Greymoor).
Level design is crazy - you *can* get stuck in areas with no way back but through a challenge room or a boss. In HK I could always backtrack and try a different path until I "get gud".
Controls are also questionable - spells are now bound to a different button (because you don't need to hold the heal button now) and it's much harder to use them along with e.g. dashing.
This is the only game that made me ragequit after putting ~10h into it.
Cannot recommend unless devs patch the difficulty curve.
Looks and sounds cool, though.
Like Hollow Knight, in terms of content this is amazing value for money, but unfortunately most of it's difficulty comes from being very tedious and not really respecting the player's time.
Did you 100% the original Hollow Knight on Steel Soul mode? Was it easy for you? Then Silksong will give you the challenge you've been looking for. If you struggled to beat the first game, Silksong will be the most frustrating experience you'll ever have in the Metroidvania genre.
Right out of the gate, Silksong pulls no punches. There's a joke going round that Hollow Knight was the tutorial for Silksong, and you'd better believe it. Even early game bosses are tougher than anything the original game threw at you. My biggest issue with the game is you start with 5 masks (health) and bosses do 2 masks of damage - even on contact with them. You heal for 3, if you can manage to do enough damage to be able to heal, but from max health you die in 3 hits. This makes that first health upgrade feel worthless, as you'd still die in 3 hits if you can't do enough damage and get another heal off. This is Silksong's progression in a nutshell. It gives you plenty of tools, but upgrades are hard to come by and don't feel impactful. By the time you have a weapon upgrade, the enemies you're facing are tougher, so you won't feel a difference. It doesn't feel satisfying, and coupled with the brutal difficulty, the game feels more frustrating than anything.
I've rolled credits on this game twice, and the extra stuff it wants you to do to get the "true" ending is ridiculous. It feels like the game was made to be hard for the sake of being hard, rather than providing a satisfying challenge. It demands mastery of its mechanics to finish the game, let alone complete it. That or dumb luck, which is what the majority of boss fights felt like for me.
If you're a hardcore Hollow Knight fan and want a massive challenge, this is for you. If you're more of a casual gamer, give it a miss, for your own sanity's sake.
Let's start with this - I finished the original several times, every time with full, complete playthrough, Path of Pain included. So it is not like difficulty is unfamilair to me.
The game is noticeably harder than the original Hollow Knight beause nemies that hit you for 2 points of damage are MUCH more prevalent, meaning Hornet is a fair bit more fragile.
This means you have to addapt to a fairly different playstyle and quickly - one that revolves around avoidance, calculated attacks and acrobatics.
The game is beautiful, sounds amazing, generally controls almost flawlessly (except one MAJOR thing that infuriated me, I'll get to that), oozes the climate. It should be perfect.
Many of the bosses are epic - Lace, The Dancers, the Widow, Karmelita, Trobbio, Phantom and more - they evoke the best moments I had in the original Hollow Knight and in a good way.
The general platforming is perfectly fine - Hornet moves much more smoothly than Knight ever did.
The new charm system is interesting - you get a choice of more movesets with the crests, but the charm setups are more restrictive this time around.
You also get replenishable tools which act as rough equivalents of spells from the first game - they can be immensely powerful, though grinding for shards acting as effectively ammo can be a bit tedious.
That being said - the tool system gives you much more firepower overall and a much more varied attack selection.
Now, let's discuss couple of rough spots.
The first act is generally perfectly balanced - it is difficult, but it also guides you well if you are willing to explore.
But the beginning of the Act 2 is a bit rough in couple of places.
Let's start with the health - a lot of enemies, most bosses deal 2 masks of damage. This makes your first health upgrade nearly pointless, and it diminishes and slows down your further health progression - you basically need 2 more hitpoints to actually matter.
2nd Act is a place where you can encounter 2 very annoying, although optional bosses early on.
Second fight with the Beasfly - yeah, a boss that at this stage of the game wrecks you in 3 hits. can and will destroy the floor, charges from beyond the screen while tracking your hight, spawns help that is erratic and tanky.
That was not a fun fight at all.
Broodmother - tiny arena, constantly spawns adds that explode for 2 damage, herself does 2 damage, has a snare attack that guarantees you getting hit, and her primary lunge attack can be chained - she can immediately turn and hit you again if you dodge. She can basically turn half the screen into a dead zone.
The upgrade distribution is a bit uneven.
First Needle upgrade is fairly late in Act 1, and it hardly changes anything - enemies you will be encountering at this point will still die in the same amount of hits, but at least those in early areas you have no reason to really visit again much will die in 2 hits now. What a boon.
And then it turns out the 3rd needle upgrade - you know, a fairly essential thing - is locked behind a TIMED courier mission.
Remember the Flower mission for Ze'Mer/Grey Mourner? Now do that on a timer to get an essential upgrade.
I DETEST timed missions.
Fortunately, there is a way to do this very easily - if you are willing to take your time and plot the path and clear it beforehand.
While platforming is generally tight and well done, there is one problem. Let me tell you the story o Mount Fay - a massive climb with a pseudo-time limit due to cold mechanic.
This one is weird - it exposes one horrid inconsistency in the controls.
You need the Clawshot - which is basically a harpoon upgrade.
The harpoon can latch to special hoops and to the walls - to jump away from those walls, you need to press 'jump' - makes perfect sense, doesn't it?
You can also harpoon to the enemies - you press 'jump' and you jump away. Wonderful.
But on Mount Fay you will notice you are not making these jumps well - your jumps are ever so slightly too short.
You start thinking - it must be my aim, or my timing. But nope, no matter what, you will not make these jumps 99% of the time.
You get desperate, trying for hours - you call this Path of Pain 2.0 in anger.
You throw the controller and leave it.
Next morning you start trying again to no avail.
And finally, in frustration you just kill one of the enemies with the harpoon, without jumping... And Hornet JUMPS. This is where it hits you.
If you jump manually, you cancel the animation and make half the jump.
You have to NOT press 'jump' in order to JUMP HIGHER.
You get overcome by anger - asking you to not jump to jump. What's next? Not touching the d-pad to run faster?
And the worst of wall - after 4 hours of trying in vain... after discovering this nonsense, the whole Mount Fay takes you 15 minutes and maybe 2-3 tries to complete.
The impossible challenge is easy, because you figured out the logic-defying quirk in controls.
I'll tell you this - THIS ONE THING stained my entire experience with this game so much, it took me days to overcome my anger and have fun with it again.
And hopefully, if you read this - I have saved you hours of frustration - because now at least, you will be spared the anger I went through.
Now that I've got that out of my system...
Once you get over these growing pains I mentioned - there is a world of wonder to explore and discover - new lore, wonderful character moments, fantastic level and character design.
The more I played, the more it clicked, the more my initial hurdles disappeared. Turns out that, with the exception of the Mount Fay issues, I just had to get into the rhytm of things.
And how adequate is that? Silksong - it is in the title, the analogies to music, singing and dance are all over the place - rhytm, being methodical, calculated, harmonic - this is how you conquer this game.
It punishes chaos, brute force and panic.
Most of the hurdles can be conquered by exploration and getting prepared, like a proper Metroidvania requires.
For example - Bilewater - the infamous Blighttown equivalent of this game. It can be trivialized with some combinations of Crest and Tools - like Architect with a Plasmium vial.
Pretty much all bosses are doable if you learn to observe - Hornet is not a powerhouse the Knight was, she is an agile huntress - and you need to play like one. This game punishes mindless aggression.
If you have trouble with any boss - stop, and learn to dodge first, wait for the attack and THEN find the openings.
Treat your fights like a dance, where the enemy is the lead. Follow their steps with your own.
And don't be scared to use tools - the game gives you tons of options, learn them, use them - do not restrict yourself unless you are doing challenge runs.
Initially I was prepared to give it only 4 out of 5...
But once I got over the whole Mount Fay... problem... I was greeted with an adventure full of wonder, full of care and secrets.
It is a true sequel, and a worthy successor in every single aspect.
