After reaching the end of the second act, I feel the need to share my thoughts on a long-awaited title that, unfortunately, didn't turn out well in my opinion, making it one of the biggest disappointments of recent times. And it's a shame because I consider myself a fan of the genre, and obviously, I loved Hollow Knight.
VGChartz review: https://www.vgchartz.com/article/465901/hollow-knight-silksong-pc/
First of all I agree with this review, one of the few objective ones available online in my opinion.
It's worth noting right away that the title has no difficulty issues; there's no such thing as "artificial difficulty." It's normal for games to range from extremely easy to extremely hard and still be a joy to play, while still offering a well-designed, meticulously researched challenge and ultimately being masterpieces regardless.
So the question: is this game labeled as "difficult" because of deliberate design, or is it more likely due to design errors and poor choices? The answer for me is the latter: the game is objectively poorly designed in many respects, not by choice, but because of genuine mistakes. Anyone who has played it (with even a modicum of critical analysis) will surely know what I mean, and if not, I'd be happy to list everything that's wrong with it.
The title's serious problems are the extremely high levels of frustration, boredom, and repetition, which impair its playability, limit the joy of exploration (essential in this genre), and, unless you're a player who enjoys these things, make it unplayable. So it's a game for very, very few people.
Moreover, as you can easily discover online, the game has only had two playtesters and zero external feedback... does that seem normal for a title of this size and complexity? Not to me. Seven years in development, and only two playtesters: this brings us back to the previous point. Perhaps the title's release, despite everything, was rushed? I think so; it would have needed a few more months dedicated to overall balancing and addressing various issues. The launch timing was already suspect: announced on August 21st, with a release date of September 4th.
For the rest, I agree that from an audiovisual standpoint it's a masterpiece, given the obsessive attention to every little detail, not to mention the nearly perfect responsiveness of the controls. But you can't judge a game on these aspects alone.
Be wary of day-one reviews that give it a 10/10.
In the past, when paper magazines reigned supreme—in times that were less suspicious, let's say, when there was less money around and reviewers were often "free" to write—these things were punished in reviews, perhaps with a low average score, but with the caveat that a fan of the genre could add 1 or 2 more points to their rating.
What can I say? Let's try to remain critical and put the hype aside, for the good of videogames industry in general.
What do you think? Did you enjoy your time with Silksong or do you share some of my criticisms ?
