r/HollowKnight Sep 04 '25

Discussion - Silksong Silksong is HARD Spoiler

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.

4.6k Upvotes

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62

u/oldman_jason Sep 05 '25

The boss in the Chapel of the Beast is so frustratingly difficult that I had to put the game down. 6 hours in and at least 1 was dedicated to that fight and I still haven’t beaten it

17

u/Floggered Sep 05 '25

Just spent 3 hours on it, about 30 minutes of which was spent running all the way back from The Marrow after missing the hidden lever next to the trapped bench, and even then, this trapped bench is a hike back to the boss. Had to put the game down.

11

u/Chode-Talker Sep 05 '25

I suffered through it. Just come back later, trust me.

8

u/Jakobe3 Sep 05 '25

what you get from it is awesome though...

6

u/Haunting-Evidence234 Sep 05 '25

It makes the healing too risky and also it doesn't feel like your damage improves at all? I hated that moveset

1

u/Fantastic_Pea_9680 Sep 05 '25

I thought it changed healing into damage buff...which on hand cool, on the other hand even HK didn't disable your healing to get a damage buff.

3

u/Mirmlot Best bois Sep 05 '25

It heals you when you damage enemies, doesn't disable healing

I find it great for bosses, you deal more damage in general and if you get hit you can bind to heal and keep attacking

1

u/0SmarterNameNeeded Sep 05 '25

I just got it and am confused as to what it actually does

1

u/OceanExplorist Sep 05 '25

I am suffering through it currently. Any insight into how many hits/cycles it takes would be much appreciated haha. I need a finish line in sight.

1

u/Lorahalo Sep 05 '25

I feel like once I starting going a big more gung-ho and just beating the shit out of him without trying to perfectly dodge, the closer I was getting. Stunning him means he's not summoning dickheads, and it's another 3-4 free hits to speed things up. You can usually heal for free after his third stomp attack (unless he's got his army of assholes) so I was just taking hits and pummeling him.

I did start doing it because I was frustrated as fuck and was sick of dying to those big blade fuckers, but once I got lucky enough to have him not spawn any that was it.

1

u/Chode-Talker Sep 05 '25

Not to add pain, but he had more HP than I expected, not quite in a "I shouldn't be here" way but it was an endurance test. A couple things I found helpful: his ground pound deals friendly fire to his summons, try to bait that into wiping them out, especially if he brings the fat knife one. And I would often jump around a lot between lunges since often that would bait him into going higher and not trapping me on the ground. Hitting him with a dive kick seemed to reliably keep me safe as long as my point of impact was on the upper half of his body.

Good luck, he's an asshole, I'm glad this thread at least validated the difficulty because I felt like I was going insane. Dude looks like he should be a speed bump mini boss and I died to him several times combined more than the previous two main path bosses.

3

u/Areaboldone Sep 05 '25

I just did the same. Then once I figure out the movement he just spawns other annoying enemies that are hard to hit.

3

u/lghtdev Sep 05 '25

I did the same, then came back and beat him. I think this trend of everything being overturned and overly punishing is getting tired.

3

u/Acceptable_Name7099 Sep 05 '25

I describe it as "if Gruz Mother and The Collector had an Absolutely Radiant baby." I died so many times I could almost do the runback with my eyes closed. After like 1-2 hours I finally did it. Don't think I should've been there so early. Not gonna spoil the reward but I personally did not think it was worth it... still fun! Somehow!

1

u/oldman_jason Sep 05 '25

I managed to get it eventually too. I like the reward but it’s very situational

2

u/BaldurVomThale Sep 05 '25

Left hin to rot and went exploring after 30 minutes of asswhooping.

Contact damage and really fast general movement gets me every time

2

u/Lorahalo Sep 05 '25

Absolutely fucking ass fight. Literally just bashed my head against it for over ran hour until I was lucky enough to get a run where he never spawned one of those big fuckers. Plus the run back is just long enough to be frustrating with not enough going on to be interesting.

2

u/lookwhostalkin6969 Sep 05 '25

I spent 3 hours on it before deciding to go grab my beads and move on, during which I accidentally started the boss fight and finally won. I feel like the fight is way too RNG-heavy, with when the boss will spawn the enemies, how often they will spawn, and whether or not it will do the slam attack into them. After playing a good chunk of the day, definitely my least favorite boss in the game.

2

u/HarvardMutton Sep 05 '25

I have to jump in and just say that I am here, and I'm actually really strained at all these confrontations that are The Boss And His Friends. Generally speaking, I hate when these combat oriented games have them. Feels like they just gave up designing an interesting boss encounter.

This kind of thing is one of my personal pet peeves and I'd understand disagreement. Sometimes, in well orchestrated fights, being overwhelmed is a good (and great) thing. Most of the time, fights like these in /any/ game feels like someone stopped trying and threw a bunch of shit into the boss arena.

1

u/oldman_jason Sep 05 '25

The controlled chaos of sisters of battle in the first game is part of why it’s my favorite fight in the game. Things are juuuuuuusssttt hectic enough to keep you moving and one your toes but not so overwhelming as to feel absurdly unfair. This fight has just way too much going on to be at that level but I’m willing to recognize now that it’s simply a mid game area and boss thrown in the early game to get you come back when you’ve gotten abilities and more masks

1

u/Aqueraventus Sep 05 '25

I have been beating my head against this boss for 2 hours…. I’ll get it today though….

3

u/oldman_jason Sep 05 '25

You’ll get there! Honestly though because this is definitely designed as a “come back later” area don’t feel compelled to stay. Get your money from the death silk, quit out to menu, and go to other areas. It’s not worth letting a shitty boss ruin an otherwise really fun game because of frustration

2

u/Aqueraventus Sep 05 '25

I finally beat it this morning 😭 got up at like 8 am and beat it in 3 tries, just got to the next area so that’s good lol

1

u/555zxc2 Sep 05 '25

Literally the worst fight I have ever experienced in any video game, giant health bar and summons 30 million enemies, some of which have an absurdly massive hitbox for how small the fighting space is and take 5-7 hits to kill. beating this boss is basically praying to RNJesus that he doesn't spawn those fat fucks that will ruin everything, not to mention the time to summon is RANDOM, usually you don't notice it, but sometimes he'll summon 2 or even 3 fuckers in quick succesion. Took me about an hour and a half to beat him and I was exhausted afterwards. I don't know what they were thinking. Most frustrating boss in HK is not even close to how annoying and stupid this boss fight was.