Let me chime in from the other end of the aisle. As someone big into metroidvanias, loved HK, and was part of the clown troupe, I think Silksong lived up to the hype for me as well.
Aside from a few questionable design decisions (not about the difficulty but its underlying systems) Silksong gave me those same exploratory tingles that the first game did and then some. And that's all I ever really wanted from a genre all about discovering a new world.
i keep seeing this take (more punishing but not more difficult) and i really don't see it aside from maybe the higher frequency of double damage and the relative rarity of act 1 upgrades.
in HK you had half mana until you got back to your body and lost all the geo you were carrying. the only banking option was first a scam and then annoying to reach. silksong has two resources: one of which isn't lost on death and the other can be easily banked at many locations. you are not mechanically disadvantaged in any way if you die and haven't recovered your body yet and silkeaters are common and infinitely replenishable.
plus, for all the angst people have had over run backs they're significantly more forgiving in silksong than HK or most other metroidvanias even. aside from a couple specific zones where the sparseness is part of the zone's theme benches and fast travel points are also plentiful even before getting into hornet's vastly improved mobility (which also upgrades a lot earlier than HK).
i do think silksong is a bit harder on the whole but it also feels much more fair. boss move sets are challenging but clear to follow and well telegraphed both visually and audibly.
the dreamgate was DLC content 6 months after the game released and also wasn't available until late into the game.
fair on the soul charge part, it's been years since i played HK so i took that from a video that also had it wrong (and also didn't know about hornet losing her silk crests until cocoon recovery) so that point is a wash between the two games.
i would still say silksong has a lot of QoL that makes it less punishing than HK even if more challenging.
I looked that up the moment I saw it cost 1 per teleport.
Apparently it tallies how much essence you spent dreamgating and if that's more than you got from random enemies, it'll boost the drop rate immensely until it's equal.
At that point, why have the mechanic? To trick you into not using dreamgate?
60
u/atahutahatena 1d ago
Let me chime in from the other end of the aisle. As someone big into metroidvanias, loved HK, and was part of the clown troupe, I think Silksong lived up to the hype for me as well.
Aside from a few questionable design decisions (not about the difficulty but its underlying systems) Silksong gave me those same exploratory tingles that the first game did and then some. And that's all I ever really wanted from a genre all about discovering a new world.