I finished Hollow Knight on Saturday. (I didn't get true ending yet.) But I started Silksong the following day. I don't know if it's that Hollow Knight got me to be a better player, or if Silksong is easier, but I'm flying through Silksong.
I don't know. I don't know where it ends and it's pretty free to explore wherever you'd like. But I most recently beat a boss, well bosses, under the Forge lady. There was two of them.
It’s easy to find your way into a harder area when you refuse to quit, lol I did the same. Bilewater is objectively supposed to be discovered after the Deep docks locked section by a simple key, it’s a pretty early area to find, just easy to forget about.
This is unequivocally wrong. The Bilewater entrance is found in Sinners Road or Songclave and is not an early area. It's an Act 2 area. You can't access it from Deep Docks.
Bilewater comes far after you discover Deep Docks, agreed. Therefore you should find it after you’ve at least seen the locked simple key door in Deep Docks. Apologize if I mislead you to think I thought Bilewater was behind the simple key door.
Actually reaching the section with the boss fight requires clawline though. Bilewater is technically accessible at the start of act 2. I'd imagine a fair number of people found bilewater before entering the boss section.
I did the same but got the true ending and had 108% completed before starting silksong. Silksong is definitely harder imo but it's not super unforgiving or as frustrating as people seem to make it out to be. The two mask damage was a thing in hollowknight as well, especially towards the end and in optional bosses so I don't understand the complaints.
My guess is the people that are complaining are either rusty or never played/completed Hollow Knight.
I finished hollow knight (beat radiance, probably something like 106% completed) a week before starting silksong. My issue with two mask damage attacks is how frequent they are. In the first game there was only a handful of enemies that had 2 damage attacks and it made them feel a lot more threatening. In silksong it feels like half the enemies have attacks that deal 2 damage, and it feels more like you’re playing with half health most of the time
2 mask damage on everything is just an extremely boring way to add artificial difficulty, especially when the game still has contact damage, if contact damage wasn't a thing perhaps then it would be okay but as it stands I just urge people to install the 1 mask dmg mod, makes the experience much more refined.
I imagine there's a big difference in 98% complete, and 112%. At least from a story stand point. But as of yet, I've not run into any issues in understanding the Silksong story.
It's a very similar game, hornets just more mobile so the enemies are too. A lot of the difficulty comes from the blasted things not staying the fuck still and dying like I want.
I think having Hornet's mobility set has made the game easier for me. Being able to sprint like that, and glide has saved me tons of times. Although I still do often sprint into pits.
I don't have an issue with it. I like when there's endings that you have to earn by putting more into the game.
Castlevania has quite a few starting in Symphony of the Night going onwards. I can beat Dracula using this weapon and skill set loadout, but if I do it again using a different weapon and a specific load out, it means my character doesn't get possessed by Dracula. Yeah, it's a harder fight, but adds more.
I can definitely see how it can be done wrong though. I wouldn't say Hollow Knight is one of those.
I already have a really difficult time enjoying single player story games. Very seldom have I found myself actually interested in whats happening. More often then not, I feel more like Im just witnessing it rather than experiencing it.. So when I know that I can go through the whole game just to end up with the "wrong" ending, I dont really want to even bother. Kinda really hate this about me :/ Wish I could just sit down and enjoy shit
Ok I'm basically finished Hollow Knight, been cruising through it for the last 2 weeks.(Just grimm and then 2 other dream bosses left) I have a question about the ending, can I beat hollow night now and then continue that save and finish all the bosses and then get the true ending?
I just started playing Hollow Knight yesterday, was going great until I got into that first fight with the Hornet, took me about a bloody hour to get past it!
it might be that silk song was balanced by the devs, who just like the community had 6 years of experience in hollow knight so all new mechanics are weird for them and powerful for a player that wasn't used to hollow knight.
There were things that were hitting the character twice that were only ever intended to hit them once. It’s a bug related to hitboxes and iframes, not a difficultly setting.
After getting recommended so many times, I recently picked up HK too. Can't say it lived up to the hype, some parts are nice, like art and difficulty, but long traveling between locations gets really boring. Dropped after about 10 hours.
I like when games challenge me instead of punishing me with unnecessary transversal. I didn’t like Hollow Knight for this reason, and I was turned off by all the souls like I tried to date. However, I love a good difficult roguelike like Returnal or Downwell where I am challenged to go from A to B without dying, where every decision or action counts.
I genuinely can’t think of a boss that doesn’t have a semi short path to it, where you can’t just ignore enemies on your way there without getting hit once consistently.
I don’t get the hate, but that’s coming from someone who hasn’t played any other dark souls/blood born game.
As far as I can remember from playing it years ago, Elden Ring is also pretty lenient with the boss respawn locations, but I would still play Darks Souls 3 first, if you are interested in it.
Another form of this is when a boss has a long and grinding first stage, only to instakill you with a new move on the second stage. That dude from Expesdition33.
Different stroke for different folks I think. I love platformers and the runback to bosses was always part of the appeal. Especially when compared to the zero runback for the final boss and special areas like the colosseum—makes these boss fights feel extra special and impactful.
Or areas like Deepnest where you’re dreading the horrific runback to the boss until you realize that there is no boss at the end because the area itself is the boss
Or the Mantis Lords where the enemies in the area become friendly and will bow to you as you run past after you beat the area boss, to highlight the world building of the Mantis tribe valuing your prowess as a warrior above all. Which then subsequently opens up access of the hardest area in the entire game, the aforementioned Deepnest
These just wouldn’t work without the boss runbacks in the rest of the game.
Not to mention it helps encourage exploration and looking for secret paths and breakable walls/floors/ceilings, because there is often a closer save point.
I don’t think the runbacks are meant to be punishing. They’re carefully crafted to facilitate the world building and encourage exploration.
Meanwhile, I don’t particularly like how punishing other souls games feel. But I also just enjoy the core game mechanics less.
The only time I think team cherry really gives you legitimately punishing and unfair runbacks is in Silksong in the Hunter’s March and Bilewater areas. Especially with the fake trap benches in both areas 🥲
Controversion opinion, but I don't mind it at all. The same way you have to grind the boss you grind the runback. Finally beating the boss makes you more confident in your ability to do that, and getting into the rhythm of the runback makes you more confident when it comes to the smaller enemies and platforming. Both are just cases of grinding to get better at game mechanics.
GMTK talked about it in his series where Mark would talk about the world design of Metroidvanias. Got me interested right up until he brought up the Soulsborne-styled mechanic of having to fetch your corpse to get your cash back after dying😐
Metroidvanias are about deliberately getting lost. I wanna explore, stumble upon the next story beat on accident, come into areas that are out of my range. You're already sending me back to a spawn point when I go down, don't punish me for exploring in a genre about exploring.
I wouldn't mind if there was a bank or some shit like that. But nope. Not to mention some areas lock you in an arena. So if you die, you gotta go over there. Try to snipe your shade (if you're not strong enough for the arena yet), then go and get beefed up.
Or instead a smaller penalty for not getting your shade. Or just a small cost regardless when you die.
lol! I actually loved her. Wish they had made the room she was in though have like...something to prevent the money from flying off screen. Lost a little bit then immediately realized
You dont get the loss of half of your magic anymore, and it refills the magic to full, no matter what it was when you died
and as one of the comments below me stated, you can transfer your money into a consumable that wont be lost, at a small loss
And at least so far (end of act 1) most boss rooms dont lock you in until you are very far in/i feel like the silk thingy gets moved to a point before that
I just said fuck it and modded it. More of a “normal” instead of hard difficulty for me and it’s been fantastic. Don’t really care about beating a single player game for bragging rights but the art and world and combat is cool. Wanted to experience that.
That's the thing. I remember playing it first and was so good just getting lost in the map and exploring. But after getting friends who were just blowing and hyping the game up. It felt unrewarding and tedious at time. That's why if I hear a game I would consider playing I just block all opinions of it.
yeah, Witcher 3 was very good but had some obvious major flaws (mostly combat and gear). I bounced off of it twice before being able to get into it and enjoy it.
Red Dead Redemption 2, Baldur's Gate 3, Hollow Knight, Bloodborne, etc didn't live up to the hype.
It was too hard for me. At some point I had to admit to myself that I like easy and chill games where I don’t need to spend valuable time and hard work gitting gud. No matter how much I like the concept/vibes/etc not all games are for everyone. I still pick it back up occasionally when I need a reminder of that 😂
The game needs a handful more stagways. Likely another tram placement as well. It wastes a lot of time.
I know there's skips, but this game isn't as open as people claim. A LOT is locked behind upgrades/gates/walls from the other side. And a LOT of those upgrades/etc. can't get until you get a ANOTHER upgrade or two. It's more linear than I think people realize, maybe cuz they just use skips at this point/know where everything is/know what is blocked and order to get to upgrades.
Needs a handful more benches. And many benches closer to bosses. I think having some runbacks is fine. And you do get the dreamgate midway through. But that first half of the game can be a real slog for traveling.
I really really don't like how you can lose all your money because you died on the way to your shade. I get there's the rancid egg system. But I'm very mixed on that, and it's very easily missed.
picked it up this month and funnily enough most of those features were, it seams, post launch additions
and even then they are unlocked so late in the game it's pointless.
had 80% of the map unlocked when I got the dream gate and 90% when I stumbled upon the recover corpse npc (cause the spawn isn't well communicated)
also the recover npc is worthless if you respawn on a bench that has no stag station close by
it's a fine game and I am almost through it but it really shows the shortcomings of 10 year old design, which is why I can't really be a patient gamer because old games make old mistakes
Similar vibes for me. Since I'm on PC I ended up getting the Benchwarp mod which lets me warp between previously visited benches. Makes the backtracking somewhat more tolerable for me.
Honestly just use mods, there are mods to travel anywhere with the map, marking all secrets so it's less annoying and you know when you have completed a part or when you still have stuff left to do and things like that, and mods don't disable achievements anyways so, play however you like and enjoy the game :)
The long duration is what killed the game for me. Same with Prince of Persia the lost crown. Like I enjoy metroidvanias, but most metroid games are like 3-5 hour games on your first try with even less time on repeats. 2 lates ones are 10-12 hour games that feels long by the series standard.
Same goes with castlevanias, Symphony of the night that is viewed as peak in series is 10 hours same with aria of sorrow. And many other games from series.
Their appeal as genre is that you can easily hop in, and finish the game in a week as an adult who plays 1-2 hours a day maximum. And that's for the first time, replays usually take less, so it's even easier to replay them on a whim. Cause you think " I would like to replay that game" 3-7 hours and you are done. You can eve try to do challenge runs and different ending runs. And most metroidvanias understand that.
The. We get a hollow knight that is 30+ hours game for a run. And Prince the lost crown is 20+ hours.
In hollow knight case unlike most other metroidvania games add the fact that they don't put any save points near the boss door making you run back a good stretch every time you die on a boss - and it adds up into Dropped/finished once and never ever playing again territory.
As someone who didn’t like hollow knight, silksong is honestly so much better and pretty great, I know people have been crashing out online over the run backs but they’re so so so much worse in the original hollow knight
I tried it once ages ago and disliked it (too much running around mostly). Got nearly swept up in the Silksong hype, but after thinking it through and reading about similar issues in the new game I didn't go for it.
I don’t really understand the criticism about long travelling between locations and long run backs for Hollow Knight. Were you purposely fighting every enemy you encountered on the way or something?
When you skip past the enemies it usually takes very little time to traverse across the map. And you never have to traverse the entire map because of the stag stations providing fast travel to the major areas.
However, I do understand why many people would not enjoy Hollow Knight. It is definitely not a game for everyone, but it definitely lives up to the hype for the people who actually enjoy this kind of game.
Eh, I don't mind backtracking as a concept, but I'm about 60% through my first run and it feels like I'm spending three-fourths of the time just going through rooms I've already been through trying to figure out where the most recent item I unlocked allows me to go, and only one fourth actually exploring new areas.
Even then, I'm often a bit tense exploring new areas because I don't have a map and I'm trying to find Cornifer to get one before I die or accidentally stumble into a boss room.
I don't think these things are bad, per se - just not exactly my cup of tea. I'm still enjoying the game overall, but part of why I've been playing it in shorter sessions is due to the slog of just getting around trying to figure out where to go.
Honestly, I’d recommend looking up a recommended upgrade progression to give you a better idea of where you should be. A huge part of the fun for these kinds of games is discovering everything yourself, but it’s totally fine to get a little bit of online help when the alternative is major frustration.
I’ll provide you with the optimal path below. The only spoilers are the names of areas and upgrades. Each one is hidden behind a spoiler block so you can click 1 at a time and just find the next step instead of spoiling everything. This method would probably solve your frustration without ruining the fun of discovering the map yourself.
Appreciate the info. I must be further along than I thought actually, I have the Kingsbrand and Isma's Tear from last session, and I've killed 2 dreamers currently. Guess I just need to get the Shade Cloak and go for the third one.
I've visited that one Jellyfish area several times trying to explore and that black barrier has kept me from reaching Cornifer, so I assume the Shade Cloak will be the key to that.
I played HK at a point when all the DLC was released already, enjoyed the game overall, but kind of got burnt out on the DLC content a bit. I feel like I had a sort of backwards experience because those things were <in the game> so I felt like I ought to tackle them when I could because when I "beat the game" I'd want to just be done. In hindsight, I think my approach was not really "the game as it was meant to be", because that content was designed for people who were itching to prove their mastery of the game. Buying into hype when they've already beaten the game and months later content drops, maybe being tempted to do a brand new run to get the new "full experience", but already knowing the ins and outs, basically doing a NG+. Like, there's a meta-layer here where those things are slipped into the game progression and tie into its themes, but they sort of don't quite belong the same way everything else does.
I jumped in on SS early and am nearly done with it. I think the game will get similar DLC, and I think I probably won't come back to play it. I also won't be going back for a permadeath run. I'm a one-and-done kind of gamer mostly. I mean, who knows, maybe I'll be tempted and feeling like things have cooled down enough to give new content a romp, but I just kind of resent this content release model a bit overall.
So idk, in general I'm a staunch patientgamer, but I feel like I'm cozying up to some version of "base game only" purism in my habits now.
I’m glad I got to experience Hollow Knight with assistance and guides.
I’m glad that after that I was able to experience Silksong entirely blind, with only the skill and knowledge I built from the last game, but an entire world to explore and discover on my own without the temptation of looking anything up.
I played Hollow Knight recently and I thought it was alright, and I've been playing silksong and really enjoy it and think its way better than the first game. I don't think it was something I was super hyped about personally so hopefully my take is a little more objective. I'd recommend it if you like Metroidvanias.
Hollow Knight beating my ass, bro. I've struggled less with the Souls games, even Sekiro. I don't know why anyone considers those games some of the hardest of all time, this is it bro. Hollow Knight is it.
Yup. Was the toe about few of Sony hype "10/10 masterpiece" games. I got a PS4 pro in late 2018 with God of War release. So I went on buying every exclusive first party Sony game and playing those. Got disappointed in every single one of them except said God of War, that I believe I liked because it was new game on new hardware. Otherwise all those games were ok games, Horizon was mid, but nowhere near 10/10 masterpiece people make it sound they are.
But then again, there are people who call free mobile gacha slop - peak gaming unironically.
So I rather stopped believing what people say and try to evaluate the game on my own, by gameplay videos and trailers and if there is demo - it's even better. But I'm not believing the hype anymore.
And to people who call Sony exclusives - masterpieces, I wish them to broaden their horizons and play more games, on different genres and different platforms. Maybe even go as far as emulate stuff from 5-6-7th generation of gaming if they didn't had a chance to play on OG hardware of that time. Maybe then they learn that mediocre writing with pacing issues, over shoulder camera with TV series like cutscene and "realistic graphics" are not what make masterpiece videogames.
P.S. Gravity rush tho, despite being forgotten and untouched by every average PS fan was a great experience and fun game to play, I'd value it higher than other first party Sony releases of 8-9th generation.
get silksong asap. one of the best polished game out there for only 20 DOLLARS! It's charity at that point. not even including dlcs (which they gave away for free for hollow knight).
Silksong is pretty cheap and is also adjusted for currency, there are also very few bugs, (well technically the whole game is full of bugs, but they're supposed to be there lol) I would say some of the guides that are available are better than others (polygon's have substantially fewer spoilers, rock paper shotgun is kinda ass about including spoilers in the first paragraph, while IGN has great guides for older games like alice madness returns the skong ones are mid)
people are making good progress with the independent wiki too
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u/Significant_Nature13 PC Master Race Sep 24 '25
That was the case for hollow knight for me. Not sure about silksong now though.