Silksong: a missed opportunity?

[Vodacixi]

IcaroRibeiro said:

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.

No matter how much you explore and use your tools you still have to deal with mobs taking forever to kill and the map being absolutely insane to walk without killing a good chunk of them every single time

This is because there are much more fliers and platforming is harder and more complex

In theory, this sounds fun. It is, the first or second time. The third time you need to get through the same map again it quickly become just miserable 

I decided to mod the game yesterday to play it again, increasing Hornet damage by a mere 25% and removing 2 masks damage 

I quickly noticed how they balanced the game damage, because is a matter of 3 hours I already managed to reach close to the end of act 1

The maps are a bit more linear, with few digressions and much less circular design, ther is less incentive to backtracking while in HK I always came back to Forgotten Crossroads to discover a new secret after unlocking new abilities 

It doesn't exactly play like a Metroidvania, it plays more like an action platformer. The Ants (Hunters Marshall I belive) is pretty much a straight line. Greymour is a straight line, but with horizontal areas in the two ends. 

So if you're strong enough (a mere 25% increase in damage), you can breeze the maps very quickly.  Shellwood was the area that becomes the most enjoyable with increase damage. This an area where mobs are not really strong (slow, simple moveseat), but since there are lots of platforming it was always a test of patience to kill them so they don't fuck you 

My honest analysis is: The maps are less exciting and take less time to explore, so they ""solved"" the issue by making Hornet die more frequently (2 mask damage, even to environmental hazards you are hit by accident) and making enemies mobs harder to kill which inflates the time needed in each section of the map

The first time an enemy needed more than 4 hits to kill in OG Hollow Knight was City of Tears (4th area of the game), which also have a very nice nail upgrade there. Hornet had enemies that literally take 6+ hits to kill on the very first map, and needs you to beat a couple of hard bosses to upgrade her needle (damn Widow, I hate you so much) 

They are so damn aware the game kills you much more times than needed they removed currency drop from mobs, except for specific ones. This is was a really diabolical choice to make you repeatedly kill the mobs again and again for no rewards 

Mobs take forever to kill… if you don’t use any tools or silk skills. If you insist on only using basic attacks with your needle, you are gonna have a very hard time in general with this game.

Many areas can be traversed fairly easy and you can ignore most of the enemies by choosing a specific path or by just jumping over them. Once you get the Swift Step (early game) you can do this more easily, and once you start getting more movement skills you can do it even easier. Most of the time, you don’t need to kill all of the enemies to proceed.

Platforming is harder and more complex… which goes in tandem with your new set of skills and movement options compared to the original Hollow Knight. There are more fliers, but you have more options to deal with them now (again, TOOLS).

There are areas that are more open than others, yes. The map is also way bigger than in the original Hollow Knight, so there’s more variety. I find very interesting that you are only bringing up Act 1 locations, because once you reach Act 2, the new zones are more in line with what you are looking for. 

Not that Act 1 locations are linear or anything: as I said, there is a bit of everything. Hunter’s March is one of the smallest areas in the game, so it makes sense for it to not be too complex. Greymoor is far from a straight line (it may look straight on the map, but there are several rooms that are huge and with a lot of verticality).

There are plenty of reasons to backtrack in Silksong. By backtracking, you can get new tools, mask pieces, spool fragments, new sidequests that expand on the lore and characters of the game, new Crests, sharpen your needle, new optional zones, new bosses, etc. Not too different from the original Hollow Knight.

As for the currency thing… there’s simply two different currencies now that are dropped by different types of enemies. Shards are very easy to come by; rosaries not as much. But you can still get plenty by exploring or exploiting specific enemies. Quests usually give you a good amount of rosaries too.

I don’t know what to tell you. The game is not perfect, but some complaints about it are just a bit ridiculous and show a lack of understanding of the game. But hey, If you managed to have fun with it by modding it to be easier, good for you ^^