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 ?

Silksong's not my thing precisely because I can't stand frustration and so steer well clear of games that are purposefully punishing; to me nothing feels worse. 

I play games to relax, not to sweat.

I think Silksong is a very good game that is simply not a game for people who don’t love a super challenging experience. I personally dropped the game after 25hr (mostly because SMGalaxy 1+2 released, and I had already spent 4w on Silksong), and I don’t believe I remember reaching any “Act II” nor “Act III”(?), so I cannot comment much further than Act I.

I like difficulty games, so the difficulty here is not the issue

The issue is, as you stated, poor design choices

I reached the act 2 and my realization was I wasn't having fun. The maps were excruciatingly boring to traverse, with hazards that were nothing more than an annoyance

The map design was much inferior compared to HK. In HK there was always a secret around the corner where you could find a rare item, charm, etc. Here exploration simply don't feel rewarding. Worths nothing bosses don't drop a thing, not even money!

Difficulty was not what made HK a good game (which I don't even think it's that hard). What made it a great games was the exceptional level design, good boss design, interconnected world full of personality

Silksong seems designed around cool Hornet moveset, difficulty platforming (not good platforming) and difficulty bosses, and everything else was an afterthought

I thing the reason why it's a misfire is because they did the best to create a cool moveset for Hornet, the crest mechanics adds much more flavor and make combat more complex and engaging. But they also realized they needed stronger enemies and bosses to offset how strong Hornet is, and here started the strange choices like touching bosses taking 2 masks, mobs that takes you 6 to 8 hits to kill (really what's the point?), flyers with obvious input reading and complex pattern to avoid you hit them more than one time


In all, it's a game that became just tedious over the time. I gave it a 2.5 stars, sadly because OG HK was 4.5 stars for me

Mixed feelings about this take.

I agree the main issues of the game are about scenario design. Difficulty and challenge are great and gameplay/combat is more elaborated than it was in HK in a very good way. but scenario design does feel like a bit of a let down this time around.

I dont particularly think scenario design its terrible or anything, its just not as good as it was in HK, but thats a high bar to clear. Its also not as memorable, cause I think its underdesigned. It doesnt feel crafted to make for a good platforming, it feels crafted to exploit Hornet's moveset as IcaroRibero mentions, and that often falls flat.

However, my main issue with the game - and this might just be a "me" thing - is music. I dont think Silksong soundtrack is anywhere near as memorable as HK's. Its background elevator music almost all the time, and that sucks. HK had beautiful haunting and eeriee music that added to the beautiful atmosphere of the game. I feel Silksong has nothing of that. And that was a huge let down for me, specially cause "Music" is a big theme in the game.

All in all I liked the game quite a bit, but it doesnt reach the highs of HK and I agree that scenario design plays a big part in that. 

I trend toward this as well, but there is something nice about overcoming a difficult challenge, as long as said challenge feels fair. For instance, when I beat Star Fox and Kung Fu on original hardware last year, both in separate play-throughs without any thought put into them other than for the purpose of wanting something to pass time, it was extremely exhilarating, and I had forgotten how good it felt.

Do you find yourself missing that sort of thing? I know I did.

I agree with all the issues you've highlighted, and there are even more.
Sadly, I too struggle to give the game an acceptable rating because unfortunately, in its current state, it doesn't deserve one.

I've read people sharing their experiences gets significantly less frustrating when they use mods. I tend to agree mods will help easying the boss encounters and making traversing slightly less annoying

But the issues regarding subpar level design, lack of rewarding exploration and lack of personality and charm in the world cannot be arrested by just lowering the difficulty 

Can you list the shortcomings and bad design choices? My opinion is that the game is a masterpiece so I'm really curious to see what you found to be badly designed. 

I liked Silksong a lot, but I do think Hollow Knight is a better game. I'm not sure I see what you mean are mistakes as much as design choices, but I do think there are several design choices in Silksong that are simply bad and were NOT made in Hollow Knight, which makes them all the more baffling.

I think the heights of Silksong are equally high to Hollow Knight, but the overall experience is not. There's a lot of needless frustration for no good reason and the average experience isn't to the same height (there are a few music tracks that are at the same level as Hollow Knight in Silksong, but in Hollow Knight it's almost every track, whereas Silksong has a majority that are just "good", not "amazing").

I still think that Silksong is a very, very good game and I think it's absurdly worth it for the price point it costs. But Hollow Knight was a better game in almost every regard, to me. The only area where I think Silksong cleanly beats Hollow Knight is movement. Moving around as Hornet feels amazing, though this isn't the case at the start of the game, only later on.