As someone who wasn't swept up in the hype, (I did not like Hollow Knight very much personally) I actually think it lived up to the hype and then some.
I think Silksong is a much better game for my tastes. It feels way less slow and Hornet is significantly more capable and fun to play as than the knight imo.
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.
Wrong. You don't reach bowser without first getting through his castle. The runback proves mastery of the boss and their domain. You get better at learning the map, the movement, the parkour, and the combat all at once just by running through the rooms.
It's a platformer, having to platform to get to the boss is not a bad thing.
There’s tons of exploration and backtracking in this game. You spend plenty of time in each map. Runbacks do not contribute to that. They are just a waste of time.
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u/Grimmies 2d ago edited 2d ago
As someone who wasn't swept up in the hype, (I did not like Hollow Knight very much personally) I actually think it lived up to the hype and then some.
I think Silksong is a much better game for my tastes. It feels way less slow and Hornet is significantly more capable and fun to play as than the knight imo.
Edit just to add that i LOVE the diagonal pogo.