This is ridiculous.

You're saying anyone who agrees with you is being "objective", and anyone who disagrees with you is being blinded by hype. And you're saying this is ruining the videogames industry? I would argue "AAAA" games launching at $80 filled with microtransactions and predatory practices, while also being full of bugs and clearly unfinished are doing a lot more harm to the industry than a little game developed by 4 people with a passion.

I'm not criticizing those who enjoyed the game, mind you. I was trying to raise an issue I think is important: that a game like Silksong can receive a 10/10 review so blindly, when in fact it has serious design issues that make the experience generally frustrating, sometimes at very high levels. And I haven't yet found anyone who says the game isn't.

And all this to say that when a title tends to be frustrating, it should be penalized, because this has always been a critical point, the antithesis of playability, since the dawn of the gaming medium. Otherwise, what's the point of criticism? A review should serve to reassure the consumer, guiding them towards a proper purchase. It should be done to protect the consumer, not the development team or the publisher.

A 10/10 game should basically be perfect in every way, which Silksong isn't, despite the beautiful and rich package they've put together.

Well, first of all, reviews at least until the late 90s critisised game for being too easy, instead of too hard. And we are talking about games that make Silksong feel like Animal Crossing .

Secondly, a 10/10 is not a perfect game, because such a thing cannot ever exist. A 10/10, in my opinion, should be a game that revolutionizes a genre and offers an amazing experience all around. Something that I believe Silksong achieves, through its use of challenge, atmosphere, gameplay mechanics and Storytelling. 

Lastly, there are a lot of people, including myself, that can tell you that game has no serious design flaws, in fact I couldn't find minor ones, so the point that noone says otherwise doesn't stand. 

Can you name some of these design flaws? What in particular makes the game frustrating that shouldn't? Mind you, Silksong tries to make you feel uncomfortable because that is the feeling the designers were going for, so several of the design choices reflect that, but they are all deliberate and fine-tuned.

I'm glad you enjoyed it and that you spent your time with the game well.

Personally, no matter how hard I tried to get to the end, no matter how much I defeated all the mandatory and optional bosses that came my way, no matter how much I tackled the complex platforming challenges (mountain fay, bilewater, etc.), I couldn't help but note that many of the more extreme difficulties—requiring incessant repetition of the bench-to-boss path, farming shards to regain the ability to use extra weapons against bosses, the poor placement of benches, the poor placement of basic enemies, as well as their excessive aggressiveness—were generally due to gaps in the level design or the equipment system, or in the management of the aforementioned shards, the placement of enemies in the levels, and many other small details.

All things that make the experience grueling, even for a hardcore gamer.

The point is that creating a difficult or near-impossible game is extremely easy, because generally during game development, both programmers and playtesters become accustomed to the challenges. The subtle art of game design lies precisely in making the experience consistently enjoyable and finding the perfect balance between player skill and proposed challenges, adding and tweaking small things here and there. It's a complex art that few manage to successfully develop, and ultimately determines whether a game is well-made or not.

Unfortunately, this isn't done in this title, and this is rewarded precisely by those who should have the minimum amount of expertise to do so.

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.

Why does a 10/10 game have to be perfect in every way when video game review scores (really scores of any artistic work) generally have nothing to do with perfection?

Well, then Silksong isn't (10/10) because it doesn't really revolutionize anything. It has exactly the same style, graphics, atmosphere, and much of the gameplay as its predecessor. It's just much less balanced, with less sophisticated level design. We're rewarding that.

Among what I consider flaws, and they're not all:
- excessive distances between benches and bosses (repetitiveness and gratuitous boredom)
- poor placement of benches in the levels (another excessive boredom, in the event of an accidental death)
- poorly designed world navigation system
- nonfunctional shard system, which makes weapons useful against a boss, for example, only when you already know you'll be able to defeat it; otherwise, you reset them in the previous run and essentially return to the boss even weaker than before (nonsensical!)
- basic enemies that are too aggressive, poorly positioned in certain spots, which are extremely boring to face after the 20th time, let alone the 150th, especially the flying ones (gratuitously tiring)
- fairly obvious user input reading by enemies, often hitting you not where you are but where you will be (especially evident for ranged attackers)
- the tool system offers various possibilities, but ultimately boils down to a few combinations of truly useful items (the compass is mandatory, right? Why should it take up a slot?)
- noticeable poor balancing in some gauntlets
- double jump achieved too late and poorly combined with gliding

These are some of the elements that don't make the game better, but only less enjoyable, annoying, and repetitive. They aren't thoughtful choices; it's simply the way it turned out, for better or worse. Otherwise, from now on, should we forgive every game that makes the experience frustrating?

I agree with you; I generalized and overused the concept of perfection. I agree that there are no perfect games in the sense of being suitable for everyone.

More than anything, I wanted to express the idea that a top rating should be associated with flawless design, regardless of whether you like the art style, music, or gameplay itself.

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.

For me I didn't have those sort of issues for example I never had to farm shards since I was usually gaining them at a faster rate than I was using them which made it that a lot of the time I was actually maxed on them though that did lead to the separate issue of a lot of the enemies were sometimes not dropping anything useful when killed unlike HK where Geo is always good to get till the late game. With the offensive tools I tried to not overly rely on them in that I'd only start using them against a boss if I thought I had a good chance of beating it that attempt with the extra help. Against the hardest bosses I'd not really use them at all till I had learned their attack patterns.

The combat in general is the area where Silksong surpasses the original the most I think with Hornet's better moveset and the bosses and even general enemies being significantly more complex on average than the ones in HK. Though it's not perfect since I'd say the worst designed aspect of the game is actually the crest system cause while it's really cool on paper the memory locket mechanic heavily discourages experimentation since I didn't wanna use a crappy new one with all its tool slots locked when I could just use the one I'm already familiar with that has all its slots opened up making it clearly better. As a result I just stuck to the default one the entire time outside of stuff like platforming challenges where the Wanderer crest works better.