Silksong: a missed opportunity?

[JimmyFantasy]

Vodacixi said:

First I would like to adress that, despite being my favourite game of 2025 along with DELTARUNE, Silksong is not perfect. It has some design decisions that are, at the very least questionable, and I would argue the game would be better without them. Now, these are not general design quirks, but very specific and annoying situations that involve unnecessarily tedious backtracking after losing to certain gauntlets of enemies and/or bosses. The biggest offenders are, in my opinion, on Bilewater and on the Coral Tower. Seriously... just respawn me closer to the damn enemies. If you were lucky to discover the secret bench in Bilewater, it's a bit less annoying, but still very inconvinient for no reason. And having to play the damn song to enter the Coral Tower EVERY SINGLE TIME serves no purpose at all, unless you count wasting my time a purpose.

Those specific instances aside... as much as I hate the whole "git gud" crowd... Yeah, that's the whole deal. The game is hard, but the game also gives you plenty of tools (no pun intended) to overcome pretty much every obstacle you face, that being a boss, a platforming section or some annoying situations in general (sadly, not all of them).

Does the new diagonal poggo not convince you? There's a Crest that makes it like in the original HK.

There is a boss or a gauntlet of enemies that kicks your ass in a consistent basis? There are tools that give you a huge advantage in battle that either can do huge chunks of damage to both stationary/big bosses or multiple smaller enemies at the same time, specially if you manage to use good combinations.

Did you die on a yet to be explored area and you are afraid of losing everything by coming back for your cocoon? There is an item that gives all of your rosaries and silk back on the spot (and you can easily farm said item).

Did you get too far into a certain dangerous area and you realized you are missing a certain ability to proceed? Then go back and follow the main objectives (they are marked on the map after all).

Of course, none of these guarantee you will be instantly successful. After all, the game is not supposed to be a walk in the park. But if people tried to engage with the game mechanics instead of trying to brute forcing it by slamming themselves against the same wall in the same way for 20 times until they succeed... they wouldn't complain nearly as much about the "bad" game design.

I believe saying Silksong is designed poorly is a very unfair and wrong take that usually come from ignorance.

I'm not saying Silksong is bad; for goodness sake, it excels at a lot of what it does. What left me perplexed was the lack of criticism for a series of design elements that simply make the overall gaming experience less enjoyable (like some of the things you highlighted). It's clear that every player has a different level of tolerance for frustration; some tolerate it very little, while others tolerate it extremely well, and that's fine.

What I don't think is right is canceling the criticism just because it's a title people have been waiting for seven years, as I have.

I don't know if it's a question of ignorance or not; I don't speak for others, but I can personally assure you that I've played a ton of "metroivania" games over the years, starting with the first Metroid way back in '88.