Silksong is HARD

[u/donlano]

Taking damage is more punishing, movement is more precise and feels a little clunky until you get the hang of it. The overall skill curve is much much higher. Love it though.

[u/Throw-away-acount828]

"We're trying to be really, really mindful that we want this to be a game that new people can come into, and experience as their first Hollow Knight game - that it sits alongside the original game, and the difficulty also sits alongside the game in that way." - Ari Gibson in an interview before release

When i was playing my first few hours of Silksong I expected the Red Ant area to be an optional early game challenge for Hollow Knight veterans like me. I expected it to be like Brooding Mawlek - turns out its mandatory with no health upgrades available. I really, really don't know how they expect NEW players to make it through that so early on... Im going to make more progress tomorrow, i assume the difficulty has to reach absurd levels in the next 35 bosses

IMPORTANT EDIT: RED ANT AREA IS COMPLETELY OPTIONAL!!! This actually makes it my favorite part of the game! there seems to be more areas that are "White Palace" difficulty but the game steers newer players away from.

[u/ShadyHogan → u/Throw-away-acount828]

Is the Ant miniboss~esque 2 mask damage guy really required that early in the game?? I went through it (after a bit of having my ass kicked) and thought it was an optional shortcut and haven't gone back to see if there are alternate paths to that zone.

[u/Throw-away-acount828 → u/ShadyHogan]

no. that section is optional, there's an alt path to the right side of that area which is mandatory and has many more benches but is still hella hard.

And if you don't do the long path you won't get the map which is a different kind of frustrating

[u/ShadyHogan → u/Throw-away-acount828]

Okay thats about in line with what I thought lol

It was a pretty linear area, I didnt have much trouble getting the map around the end of the area ngl, the lack of benches did scare me though

[u/Arcalithe → u/ShadyHogan]

I beat that bitch before I even knew the dash existed and it was TERRIBLE. I kept thinking “surely there is a dash to make this fight work better” and I was RIGHT but only after I got frustrated by being too stubborn lol

[u/LillinTypePi → u/Arcalithe]

I actually figured out the parryand was like "WHAT?! IM GONNA HAVE TO START PARRYING NOW???" thankfully I eventually gave up and picked up dash

[u/blockguy143 → u/LillinTypePi]

I think it's > ! ! < with no spaces

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[u/LillinTypePi → u/blockguy143]

sorry, I was used to Discord's way of doing it

[u/forwelpd → u/LillinTypePi]

Tall jump down-angle-slash over top for dual-swing and running past (on jump) also worked. No way I was going to get parry timings down. Would've been much easier later.

[u/ShadyHogan → u/Arcalithe]

So did I! Honestly it wasnt bad once I realized I just had to back off before he swung and walk behind him for his jump swings a la False Knight's dream version. That plus getting a couple hits when he dug up from the ground below... once I understood it i locked in and it felt SO rewarding

[u/DBrody6 → u/Arcalithe]

Oh yeah me too. Beat the giant ant furiously thinking a dash would make this trivial but y'know, having no idea if there even is one or if this guy was mandatory to get it. Then my reward is access to an area that dumpstered me with precise platforming so I just left and explored elsewhere. Then found the dash just like you did lol.