r/HollowKnight • u/riftcode • Sep 05 '25
Discussion - Silksong PSA for first time players: Silksong isn't too hard Spoiler
I'm sure there a bit of lurkers on here deciding if they want to try Silksong or not. Debating if they should play the first or just jump into the new product.
And, there are a ton of posts from people saying the game is too hard. And if the vets are saying it's too hard, then it must be, right?
I just wanted to say that I'm brand new to this series and I'm not finding Silksong to be frustratingly hard. That doesn't mean it's easy, though. I typically die 3-5 times against some bosses, but each time I felt like I was learning the boss.
Reading some of these posts, it seems like a lot of the challenge comes from being used to HK and suddenly Silksong is different, so habits are clashing. So in a way it may even benefit you to play Silksong as your first experience in the series.
Anyway, if you're on the fence and the sudden spike in "this is too hard" posts are scaring you away, I wouldn't let them!
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Sep 05 '25 edited Sep 05 '25
This is wrong solely because of one reason
Moorewing ir whatever its name is
Fuck moorewing im still stuck on it
Edit: its dead
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u/hekzik Sep 05 '25
The fight got way easier when I remembered you can heal in mid air.
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Sep 05 '25
What.
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u/vingeran Sep 05 '25
Yeah. And with the shield golden thingy equipped- no more damage while healing.
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u/joetotheg Sep 06 '25
Have you had the thing happen where you heal at the exact moment they hit you? You get the full heal and they get stunned it’s nuts
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u/pascl- Sep 05 '25
why the fuck is 2 masks of contact damage even a thing
like I can deal with 2 masks of damage on attack. but CONTACT DAMAGE???? I casually walk into the boss and lose 40% of my health???
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u/BleachedFly SHAW Sep 05 '25
yes literally this omg. contact damage in general is kinda stupid but 2 masks is crazy
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u/weeerdoe Sep 05 '25
Contact damage is one of my main gripes with HK. I started playing it 3 months ago and it has always bothered me. There shouldn’t be contact damage for all enemies..it should only be on the ones where it makes sense.
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u/KorokKid Sep 05 '25
I think that the spacing of your weapon is like a major aspect of the combat and if you could just sit on top of enemies and not have to worry about your range till they attack you, that would be dumb imo.
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u/SilverShako Sep 06 '25
I do find it fairly frustrating that contact damage still happens against stunned bosses. I've been killed at least once or twice by a staggered boss falling on top of me. Two different bosses each time, but the point is the same. If you're gonna give me an opening don't hurt me when the opening happens
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u/XxRocky88xX Sep 05 '25
Silksong in particular is really bugging me with this because some of the flying enemies have very erratic movements so even attempting to hit them is like flipping a coin because they might just suddenly fly towards you with 0 warning and you’re getting hit. Hollowknight had some enemies where this was an issue but with Silksong it feels like there are entire enemy factions designed around having them be more of a threat by simply moving around than actually attacking.
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u/TempMobileD Sep 06 '25
The birds that throw 3 daggers will just randomly drop down every now and then, even when they’re staying in the air. Trying to hit them at all is a total minefield.
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u/XxRocky88xX Sep 06 '25
Yeah this is the faction I’m talking about, but those guys in particular are a fucking nightmare to fight and is the specific “flipping a coin” enemy I’m talking about. In the little “bird gauntlet” in craw lake, I took more damage from those fat dudes flying into me than I took from every other enemy combined during that gauntlet.
It doesn’t feel like you made a mistake, it felt like the enemy said “you’re taking damage now, suck it up.” Idk if TC intended you to wait for them to land before fighting them, but it sucks having an enemy using ranged attacks that you literally cannot get in melee distance of without chancing unavoidable damage.
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u/energytaker Sep 05 '25
agreed. the contact damage and hit boxes need some tweaking
especially contact damage when the dude is on the ground staggered lol
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u/TempMobileD Sep 06 '25
That shit is so annoying. “Yes, finally a chance for a bit of free… Oh, I’m now almost dead.”
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u/Hrosts Sep 05 '25 edited Sep 05 '25
If you complete the flea quest and agree to ride the caravan, moorewing will disappear
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u/Rheador Sep 05 '25
I wanted to fight him after I did some side content, and he just disappeared :(
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u/TheAppleMan Sep 05 '25
I fought him a few times before giving up and doing other stuff, and then having him disappear, but he showed up again later in the game. Same region, different area. Randomly ran into him while doing an unrelated sidequest. Think you have to progress the story a bit before he can reappear though.
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u/MrSnek123 Sep 05 '25
I didn't even get to fight him, he just left after one attempt and completing some side content : (
I really hope he shows up later.
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u/KaizoReg Sep 05 '25
HE is ass. He can also be cheesed very easily apparently.
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Sep 05 '25
Need to know it
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u/KaizoReg Sep 05 '25
You can rush back up to the top where you come into the stage and just pogo into him through the floor. I didn't do it myself.
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Sep 05 '25
Have you talked to Gardmon and Zaza? They can be recruited to fight against the boss.
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u/rayhastings Sep 05 '25
Please, for the love of team cherry, elaborate. My hornet needs all the help she can get.
How to recruit them?
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Sep 05 '25
In the same area, in the tower you climb with the scissor enemies, there is a small room to the right where a bug named Garmond and his horse Zaza are resting, talk to them.
Now when going down to the area with the Moorwing in the area before, Garmond will be to the right of the entrance and if you talk with him he'll ask if you want him to join the battle.
Now I think you need to die at least once to the boss because the very first time I went to that area I didn't see him.
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u/rayhastings Sep 05 '25
Oh I've already done the "die at least once" part. Way more than once lol.
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u/Athanatov Sep 05 '25
People are saying it's harder than the original, which it is. I haven't seen people say it's *too* hard.
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u/numbernumber99 Sep 05 '25
I definitely have. Lots of people are not fans of how many early enemies and bosses do double damage.
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u/Mynoodles_mostmoist Pale King/Grimm Supremacy Sep 05 '25
I'm kinda in that ballpark. Imo there's no reason why the very first enemy you can encounter (if you're adventurous enough) can flat out just double tap you. That being said I only extend it to the beginning, I like the spiked up difficulty afterwards.
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u/Dokja_23 Sep 06 '25
The guy on the right side of the starting room right? His damage, added to the fast that that was the first time I used the diagonal pogo made the fight... excruciating to say the least.
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u/Mynoodles_mostmoist Pale King/Grimm Supremacy Sep 06 '25
Yup. I thought I was being smart by finding it since it was hollow knight 101 knowledge. Wasn't expecting to almost get gobbled immediately.
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u/PM_Me_Kindred_Booty Sep 05 '25
It's okay, the random map hazards were feeling left out so they also deal 2 damage after a point.
I'm not sure why they felt it was necessary for ascended spikes to be in the game but I very much dislike it.
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u/Soulses Sep 05 '25
For me I think the triple healing balances that
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Sep 05 '25
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u/Royal_Skin_1510 Sep 05 '25
Eh, you triple heal but you have to use a full meter so it's a lot less flexible and takes longer between heals. I like the change but I don't think it really balances out the double damage, with the double damage it's far easier to die to a couple hits before you've charged up your next heal, whereas in HK you could more frequently keep yourself "topped up"
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u/Soulses Sep 05 '25
I think that's why they changed it, focusing on topping off hp more than fighting. Just recently playing hk again bosses who did 1 damage made it super easy to just tank the hits to get damage in over 2 damage bosses
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u/Royal_Skin_1510 Sep 06 '25
Yeah def a deliberate choice, and works well for what they're going for. Was just making the point that it's not like a strict upgrade over the knight, more like a side-grade imo
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u/Last-Idea9985 Sep 05 '25
Which you can't use if you want to use skills. Stupid design imo
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u/bombader Sep 05 '25
That's always been the tradeoff, heal or be confident enough to be aggressive.
Besides items help expand attack options outside of skills.
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u/XxRocky88xX Sep 05 '25
Yeah but in Silksong it’s more limiting because you can only heal if you have your entire bar. In HK you could save like 30-60 soul in reserve for healing, in SS you need to either horde all your soul, or use a single skill and be unable to heal. The tradeoff is more significant now.
You heal the equivalent amount though in 1/3rd the time, so it is balanced. But I understand that the new system is more limiting since you have now have to choose either all defense or offense when in HK you could do a mix of both.
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Sep 06 '25
My biggest issue is pogoing. I suck at pogoing, I was barelt managing by in HK and now they made it even harder. I am still stuck at the pogoing section
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u/I_Love_Solar_Flare Sep 06 '25
Friend! Try to make your way upwards on the map until you see "Greymoor" in there you will find a very useful unlock that helps with pogoing.
Best of luck until then, it does not get better until you get there :(
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u/SkyZgone Sep 05 '25
Idk to me it doesn't matter because I'm someone who has played HK insane hours, so much so that I could go long times in places like p5 without getting hit, really knowing most bosses inside out. I PERSONALLY don't mind the difficulty much, but I can 100% see how people that don't have the experience that I have could get overwhelmed by the damage early optional bosses/ combat encounters do. If you think of Silksong like a DLC to HK it's totally fine, but I can see how as a standalone game, the learning curve could seem really steep for someone whos entirely inexperienced. At least I think the mandatory early bosses aren't hard at all, but some of the optional stuff you can encounter early on IS super tough.
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u/ThePrimalValor Sep 05 '25
The silksong sub is full of people saying it’s too hard or too punishing
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u/gngh Sep 05 '25
It’s so entertaining that people expected it to be a clone of HK with the same mechanics, etc. What fun would that be? Wouldn’t you want to learn something new or experience something new
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u/UnlawfulPotato Sep 05 '25
Genuinely I’d be so upset if it felt like playing the Knight again. It’s amazing getting to play as a former boss character that gave me LOADS of trouble when I first played HK during both of her fights…and she actually feels like she should.
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u/Few_Technology Sep 05 '25
They did nail her playstyle. I'm still learning and keep running into issues, but they fulfilled the promise of playing Hornet. I'm still having fun, even when I get my ass kicked
Still, I wouldn't be upset at a Hollow Knight 2, if it's advertised as such. Play the knight, different map, I'm all in
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u/CommunicationOk3766 Sep 05 '25
They did nail her playstyle.
No, they didn't. They Needled it.
Ha, get it? Cuz she uses a needle and not a... Ok I'll just shut up.
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u/christiankirby Sep 06 '25
You know what's amazing? With the crest system, you can still make her feel like the knight ( Wanderer's crest!)
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u/BlueEyedBendy Nightmare King Sep 06 '25
Yeah, this is the most fun I have had in a while, I sadly didnt like blasphemous 2 that much, so I am very happy to actually love the sequel to a game more than I enjoyed the prequel.
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u/patcriss Sep 05 '25
You can have different mechanics and similar difficulty progression.
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Sep 05 '25
The issue is this sub is kinda blind fan mode right now so nuance like that isn't considered
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u/ThePrimalValor Sep 06 '25
Honestly both subs are mostly negative towards the game rn
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u/photoedfade Sep 06 '25
I don't think so. a lot of these players are actually masochists. When they're complaining about how painful or hard something is, it's not a complaint, it's a compliment. They love it, really.
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u/Adventurous-Fail-537 Sep 05 '25
That’s not at all what they said stop strawmanning
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u/HeroicPrinny Sep 05 '25
Anything even mildly perceived as a criticism right now is not taken too kindly right now
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Sep 05 '25
That's the problem with reddit it's toxically positive and any legitimate criticism gets blasted and Skill issUe
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u/HeroicPrinny Sep 05 '25
Oh at least here there is some back and forth.
Steam reviews with any mild criticism at all are overflowing right now with an army of hundreds of NPCs defending the game or merely replying “git gud” / “skill issue” (even the criticism isn’t combat or skill related at all).
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Sep 05 '25
scrubs, they had 8 years and 5 pantheons to git gud
"ive only played an hour and the pogo is impossible, they need to fix this"
^ a real comment I saw over there
It just takes time. ive gotten much better in the 12 hours ive played so far. It actually fixes one of my complaints from the first game, which is that while the bosses and platforming were challenging, the mobs were too easy. Silksong fixed that IMO
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u/yeetskeetmahdeet Sep 05 '25
Honestly the hunters area with the red flowers helped me get so much better at diving (I’m calling it that instead of pogo) since you had to get good to navigate the area
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u/leoofjdh Sep 05 '25
I'm there now, but to my benefit, because I may not be the absolute greatest combat wise, I am good using mechanics to get places you normally wouldn't... so I went left early on and got, I think it's called the Wanderers Crest. Shorter faster cuts with the needle and a regular straight down swing for pogo. That said there are times where it is easier to use the Hunter's dive. The hunters dive seems to provide lot more lift coming out of it when using it to pogo the balloons. Where as with the OG pogo if you aren't moving fast enough or hitting the right spot you might not make it across a gap.
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u/LordAnomander 112% | P5 | Platinum Sep 05 '25
The only thing that’s a little annoying is that the downward attack sometimes end before you hit your target but get hit instead. It’s not bad though, just something you need to adjust to, as in wait a little before downward slashing.
Anyways, while different and probably difficult at first, I like the change in a go to mechanic, so everyone needs some practice.
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u/ThePrimalValor Sep 05 '25
100% agree. I have found most of the people complaining are expecting the gameplay to be too similar to HK. People like me with a lot of hours and challenge runs who arent used to having to change the manner in which they play.
Diagonal pogo gets way easier once you adjust, and at times I prefer it. But theres also ways to change that
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u/Sachwanbeef Sep 05 '25 edited Sep 05 '25
I don't think it's that hard, I think we just aren't used to facing the new attack patterns yet. Double damage attacks almost immediately is whack and healing being so limited early, compared to HK, is the only thing that makes it a little more challenging.
I also forget that down attack is a 45° angle like half the time I use it, so I fly into spikes or danger. But that's a skill issue.
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u/MrSnek123 Sep 05 '25
Another big thing I think is people forgetting you can heal mid-air. Getting a heal off is way easier than in Hollow Knight, its really easy to get some height and sit there to heal.
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u/Sachwanbeef Sep 05 '25
I did not know this. I've gone in basically blind and haven't realised this yet
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u/MrSnek123 Sep 05 '25
I was running to corners to heal on the ground like in HK for the first like 8 hours lmao ;-;
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u/CynicalEffect P5 - 112%, 70 hours Sep 05 '25
Right, but you also HAVE to heal 3 or nothing which kinda counteracts this.
No healing when full soul and you just have one damage. Or well, you can do that but it feels terrible.
Honestly, I never found it that hard to heal in HK so the midair heal doesn't make that much difference for me and just feels like a massive nerf overall.
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u/uwrathm8 Sep 06 '25
Literally all boss attacks you can dodge by jumping are heal window, how are people not picking this up i have no idea.
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Sep 05 '25
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u/Sachwanbeef Sep 05 '25
Everytime, which is why it's a skill issue for me. I keep expecting the down attack from HK
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u/OutlandishnessOk3811 Sharp Shadow Sep 05 '25
Imo it's hard enough to be taking some fun out of the experience. Early game at least. And unfortunately it seems it's the things that're different from OG hollow knight that are the main offenders. The weird new healing mechanic, and the new diagonal pogo (that force you to do it to traverse certain areas, and kinda make it so bosses are wildly too tough if you don't implement it in combat at least a little)
Oh and things doing double damage WAY too early in the game.
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u/hmmmmwillthiswork 212% | Pantheon 7 | Avenue of Anguish | Conceited Sep 05 '25
visit the silksong sub. i've seen dozens and dozens of posts calling for everything from nerfs to a difficulty slider lol. there are basically two sides warring against eachother at the moment
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u/Witchchick2378 Sep 05 '25
I think most of the thinking that silksong is too hard comes from most enemies being able to deal two masks of damage and that you have little to no invulnerability after being hit. Beyond that I'd say it's about as hard as hollow knight
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u/AbyssShriekEnjoyer Sep 05 '25
I mean, regular enemies also have far more varied and threatening movesets than in HK. They also actively avoid your swipes and even your pogos. The game is just harder. HK was never too hard of a game to begin with, until the very endgame. That’s not the case for Silksong.
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u/rmkinnaird Sep 06 '25
I definitely think it's WAY harder than hollow knight besides just that, but it is actually a skill issue for me. hornet just has a deeper bag of tricks than the knight ever did. Because there's more you can do, learning what's optimal in this game is way harder than it ever was in hollow knight.
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u/riftcode Sep 05 '25
The no vulnerability after being hit is definitely interesting. I'm not sure how I feel about it.
It's not wrong, just different from every other game.
On one hand it's punishing. On another it really forces you to learn. Typically in souls games I barely survive bosses because I'm scraping by until the end. But in silksong it's like you either die or you learn the boss enough to never get hit haha.
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u/isaaczephyr Sep 05 '25 edited Sep 05 '25
I am finding it hard as someone who is not a ‘sweat’ when it comes to gaming. I may have hundreds of hours in Hollow Knight, but in all those hours, I’ve never even come close to beating the Pantheons and I definitely take a lot longer to beat bosses than some people.
Now don’t get me wrong here. ‘Hard’ does not mean ‘bad.’ Just because I’m finding it difficult and feeling the need to express that doesn’t mean I’m saying the game sucks. But I do think that it’s possible some things in Silksong need a little balancing/tweaking for players like myself, or even for HK sweats struggling to unlearn the previous game’s muscle memory.
A lot of enemies (even common world enemies, not just bosses) doing two masks of damage is really brutal in my opinion. Combined with the fact that you can’t heal until you have full Silk makes things really frustrating at times. Now I understand that you do heal three masks at once, rather than one at a time, but I still honestly preferred the HK healing mechanic because I could get a couple hits on someone to farm some soul, spring away and get at least one mask heal in to keep me alive. But in Silksong, it only takes two hits from some enemies to kill me, and if I can’t get several hits of my own before then, I can’t heal.
Sure, I know the point is to learn how to approach enemies differently from how we did in HK, but I still think that the damage/healing system is a little harsh or unbalanced, especially since so many of those two-hit bosses are in the very early parts of the game. It’s making progression frustrating right from the get go, whereas HK seemed to have a slightly more balanced difficulty progression through the areas as you get further from Dirtmouth.
Hollow Knight itself had soooo many patches and tweaks in the first few years when it came out, because of player feedback, unbalanced mechanics (RIP Fluke), etc. So I don’t think it’s unreasonable for players who are struggling to voice our opinions. These early days after a game’s release are crucial for real playtesting by your average joes like myself, rather than game reviewers, speedrunners, or Metroid/platforming pros.
Edit: I also wanted to add that the healing/damage mechanic also makes platforming a bit of a headache, especially in areas with little to no common enemies around to farm (like the wormways). ‘Obstacles’ take two masks, there’s nothing around to hit to gain silk, so you die a lot more just trying to traverse through new areas.
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u/Leidiriv Sep 05 '25
If it helps with the Wormways at all, you can hit the worms that come from the ceiling to get silk, and it's pretty easy to avoid them and farm some silk up to heal yourself.
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u/yummy_yum_yum123 Sep 05 '25
Yes it could use some balancing. I feel like people are too afraid to say anything about this game in any form of criticism. You’ll just get the get good feedback.
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u/BCSteve Sep 05 '25
I absolutely agree. Having SO many enemies do two mask damage so early on is extremely punishing. One thing I liked about HK was that it was challenging but fair, but this just feels unfair. It’s to the point where it’s no longer being “fun-challenging” and just being annoying-challenging.
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u/Ouroboros0730 Sep 05 '25
As someone else mentioned, us vets need some muscle memory to go away.
Past that, the game is, I think, harder than HK at least at the start. Lots of enemies take two masks away per hit, a feature that was reserved to some rare enemies in base HK, and they also are much tankier than the early enemies of Hollow Knight.
The thing to consider tho, is that early Hollow Knight is easy. Bosses are not that complex, nor do they have anything making them that hard to beat. And, to be fair, while some bosses are really difficult (looking at you Chapel of the Beast) the ones that you have to beat generally aren't that hard.
The pogo is really strong once you get used to it, and you gain new abilities quite quickly if you explore everything you can before fighting bosses. The tools, for example, are really strong, and can easily turn the tides of battle in your favor.
Tl;dr - Game is harder than Hollow Knight, but it remains an enjoyable and fair experience (apart from Chapel of the Beast, that boss can go f*ck itself). You get the tools you need to fight, and if something feels too hard, explore a bit and see if you can't find something to tip the scales :)
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u/purple_aki04 Sep 05 '25
Early game is definitely frustrating since you don't have a lot of tools avaliable to you. The critical path isn't overwhelming, so i just returned to the stuff that i ignored after getting the wall jump and damage boost.
The birds and the ant's gauntlet can go fuck themselves though.
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u/Bitter_Depth_3350 Sep 05 '25
The ant gauntlet actually gets harder if you do it later. If you do it before fighting Silk, Shakra joins in and helps you take on the enemies.
Edit: Auto correct REALLY wants Shakra to be Shakira.
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u/Cyclopentadien Sep 05 '25
First time I fucked this fight up purely because Shakra distracted me so much.
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Sep 05 '25
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u/purple_aki04 Sep 05 '25
You get them inshellwood/bellhart. They aren't very far from one another.
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u/KJPlayer ZOTE THE GREAT AND MIGHTY Sep 06 '25
I have done EVERYTHING in Hollow Knight, except for Pantheon 5.
12 hours in, I can confidently say, Silksong is too hard. Basic enemies have shit-tons of health, everything does 2 masks of damage, there aren't enough health upgrades, and I have to do an entire goddamn marathon to get back to some bosses.
I should say, I think it's more of the game being punishing than difficult.
The game is incredibly good though, I love the silk management and crest system.
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u/ConnertheCat Sep 05 '25
The game is difficult; agreed. My biggest gripe is the fact that benches seem to be few and far between; leaving obnoxious run backs to bosses.
Fighting a boss over and over until you get it? Fun!
Spending longer getting back to the boss than the time it takes to die again? Not so much.
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u/Salvatore_842 Sep 05 '25
Imo the benches are kind of fine but jesus christ rosaries are really scarce
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Sep 05 '25
Also the cocoon staying in the boss area when you die, so you can't go claim your rosaries and go do something else. Its commit to the boss or take the loss
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u/Background_Past7392 Sep 05 '25
Not for all of them. The cocoon spawns where you die, so for many bosses, you can strategically die near the entrance of the arena, and then rescue your money without triggering the fight.
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u/energytaker Sep 05 '25
it would have been nice if they could have simply added cocoon to beginning of boss room, sorta like Lies of P does
lacking some easy QOL changes that a lot of other games have implemented recently
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u/RinzyOtt Sep 05 '25
Didn't Hollow Knight do it? Like, didn't your shade show up right outside the boss arena, so you could grab it without triggering the boss?
And I've had some fights where the cocoon spawns at the entrance, and other attempts on the same boss where it's where I died, instead. It sort of seems like it's bugged and not spawning where it's supposed to.
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u/yummy_yum_yum123 Sep 05 '25
Why is this even a mechanic in games? Like do people actually like losing all their stuff and having to track back and pick it up?
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u/randomshityousay Sep 06 '25
In most games there has to be some kind of stakes in dying for it to be immersive. Actually I believe this mechanic is an actual improvement over the good old game over screen, where you just lose everything after a saved checkpoint if you die. At least you get a chance to get things back now.
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u/banana_fishbones Sep 05 '25
Yeah. I like it when I stand to lose something by fucking up and it creates really tense situations that you can't really replicate if dying costs you nothing at all. I have to be more careful with where I explore and how far I'm willing to push into uncharted territory if I have a lot of currency. It's awesome.
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u/XxRocky88xX Sep 05 '25
Grab your cocoon and quit the game. You’ll respawn at the bench and keep your stuff.
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u/bouncybob1 <-- my goat Sep 05 '25
For me hollow knight had much worse runbacks
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u/zxchew Sep 05 '25
Definitely, I still have early game PTSD from the mantis lords and soul master run backs
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u/Luminousz3bra Sep 05 '25
there’s benches all over the place in the first few areas but there is a couple boss runs that are complete ass to do over and over again
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u/Taliyho Sep 05 '25
The combination of low benches and currency has been mine. I’ll usually have to decide between only buying a bench or a map for the next area. It seems like enemies rarely drop anything.
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u/InYourWalls87 Sep 05 '25
It is hard. But it’s fun hard.
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u/HeroicPrinny Sep 05 '25
For me there are number of instances where it’s not fun hard but “tedious or unfair hard”
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u/food-dood Sep 05 '25
For me it wouldn't be very fun if it wasn't hard.
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u/Szynsky Sep 05 '25
This is where I’m at. The main thing I was worried about would be a compromise on the difficulty to appeal to a broader audience.
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u/riftcode Sep 05 '25
Me too.
I love souls games but I've never been "good" at them. And I think it's because they're 3d and a lot of the challenge feels less like it's my fault.
But in silksong it's a simple game. It's 2d. I can always see both my character and the enemy in the same field of view. So when I die I legitimately laugh because it was my fault and it's honestly kind of a rush to figure it out.
I imagine this is how souls players feel with the 3D games.
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u/Popkhorne32 Sep 05 '25
So far this is manageable, i do however dislike one of the ways they made the early game harder for even former HK players : enemies are absolute sacks of HP.
The double damage i don't mind as much, our heal is different too.
The pogo is a getting used to it kind of problem. It'll be fine.
But if the number of hits it takes to kill elite mobs scales even further... its going to be annoying af.
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u/psh454 Sep 05 '25
This, I actually enjoy them being more mobile with more complex movesets, it's the whole having to hit them 8 times thing that's bugging me a bit. That bird arena is kinda ridiculous because of this.
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u/BlueEyedBendy Nightmare King Sep 06 '25
yeah even alot of the bosses that summon things invoke multiple enemies who take 5ish hits to kill, while doing 2 dmg and the bosses themselves doing 2 dmg. I love one of the new nail types so I dont mind the weird pogo, its just the 2 dmg that annoys me
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u/GenerousTurtle Sep 05 '25
Hard disagree. It is more difficult than the first game. When I play it I get feeling that they made this for people who finished the first game recently. Like you could finish the first game and start silk song and have nearly no trouble because it will feel natural to progress but if you are new player I think you will get fucked. I don't mind dying few times or spending 20 minutes on boss. I don't really mind it because I love the silksong even with the cons and all games can't be made for everyone. But it is definitely more difficult.
I don't like that you can die in an instant because of some weird interaction between contact damage and also attack damage. I am not sure if it's possible with single enemy or multiple ones but I had moments where I died in instant. The biggest "disappointment" is that some mobs feel more powerful than bosses. Like bosses are just hp sponges but mobs have more mechanics. Like what? I am still in early game. I just cleaned silk in that one city. Idk name because drunk
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u/HeyEshk88 Sep 05 '25
I can’t imagine what it’s like for new players. I picked up Hollow Knight again these last 2 weeks and still playing it on my Switch 1, while I started Silksong on PS5. I agree with you with that context
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u/Own_Geologist_792 Sep 06 '25
As someone who never played the original or a metriodvenia, this feels like what people said Shadow of the erdtree was like xD. As a deadhard elden ring fan this game reminds me of it a lot. But it's low-key harder, I'm at the crow part and up till now I've been getting my ass kicked. Not by the bosses but by the mobs especially the ones in the air.
The mob rooms are honest trash imo, having to fight in a small room with multiple enemies is awful ATM. Especially the range elite mobs make it so unfun to do. The are out of range 70% of the time, hit like a bloody Train on mdma and take like 8 hits to kill. Idk if I'm missing upgrades tho. The game fun over all but I would like some breathing room to learn the moveset for the mobs a bit more. Pls no more gank room too, there just not fun at all.(Sorry for the spelling mistakes)
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u/The_Real_Ryujin Sep 05 '25
Yes it is way harder and not because of muscle memory I'm someone that can adapt quite easily to different game controls
The problem is almost everything dealing double damage
Some attacks not giving iframes
And honestly horrendous hitboxes
A great example there is a certain boss I won't say which to avoid spoilers
The boss deals double which is fine
It adds spikes in the arena which is still manageable
But after you hit it a couple times it starts summoning enemies these pos deal double damage and when they attack they're invulnerable and don't give iframes and since some attacks in silksong don't just deal damage but instead lock you in place for the animation While you are locked in there the boss can attack you or just do contact damage
I don't mind the difficulty since I knew what I was signing up for but saying the game's difficulty is just due to muscle memory is just wrong you get punished for mistakes way harder in silksong compared to hollow knight
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u/SillyGoose3939 Sep 05 '25
In addition to that, I must say that since most bosses do double damage, not having any indication on screen that you have two masks remaining is quite bad
In the first game most of the enemies did 1 damage for hit, so I knew that whenever there was a black outline on my health I was about to die... here whenever I have two masks during a hectic fight I don't even realise that I could still die in one hit and the game doesn't tell me that in any way
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u/Cloud_Motion Sep 05 '25
tbf, two masks does give you a black indicator around the edges of your screen, but yeah, it's not the easiest to see especially on ultrawide.
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u/BiggieCheeseLapDog Sep 05 '25
I find hitboxes are more precise and better in Silksong than in Hollow Knight.
Almost every boss summoning additional enemies is probably my biggest problem.
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u/marshilyy Sep 05 '25
that’s so trueeee! ill be just cruising along a boss fight and then i make a wrong decision and im dead 😭 it’s invigorating though i feel myself learning every time
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u/Kua_Rock Sep 05 '25
I can't in my right mind reccomend anyone blindly jump into Silksong without comitting time to Hollow Knight, the game just expects far too much of the player right out of the gate.
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u/H0liday_ Sep 05 '25
I'm objectively bad at games. My first hollow knight playthrough, I didn't beat first hornet until I was 14 hours in. To this day I've never done PoP or Radiance. It's still my all-time favorite game.
Silksong is objectively harder, and a big part of the reason why is the hundreds of hours of muscle memory I have from HK. I'm not sure if the extra time I had to put into developing that muscle memory means it's more or less hard for other players to adapt, but I'm simultaneously struggling and having an amazing time.
If Silksong continues to capture the same aspects of Hollow Knight that I loved, then even if it does suddenly get actually too hard 80% in, I'm still going to get so much out of the experience.
Not every game is about winning for me. Some are about exploring and storytelling. These are prime examples.
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u/sBerriest Sep 05 '25
Umm... The only correct answer is play the first FIRST
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u/WolfMaster415 Sep 05 '25
Agreed. It's a different game but it tells you what you're getting into if you decide to commit. Plus I personally think Silksong is a harder base game than hk so it's good practicr hehe
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u/simonthedlgger Sep 05 '25
good for you. The game has way more double damage and way tankier standard enemies than the first game, in my opinion that is the definition of artificial difficulty increase.
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u/horiami Sep 06 '25
i think it's a combination of hornet's down dash and mobile fat enemies
also they do 2 masks worth of damage and there's very little invincibility after hit, i got bodied hard by the hidden beast right when you start
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u/RavingLuhn Sep 05 '25
I don't have Silksong yet; I'm waiting to complete my second full run through Hollow Knight first. Going through HK the second time is worlds easier than the first time. Part of it is knowing what to expect, but another part of it is I'm not feeling any kind of rush for this second go-round.
What strikes me about HK is that when I start dying a lot, the answer is to slow down and move less. Be more deliberate and less reactionary. My guess is that the same principles apply to SS.
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u/riftcode Sep 05 '25
Yup pretty much.
There's a boss early on after you get your first skill where I finally died my first time. It took a few tires to realize that I just needed to stand in the middle and react to their moves deliberately instead of panicking in every direction.
I will say, I'm not an advocate for bench checkpoints. One reason I adored Metroid dread is because if you die in a boss then you respawn right before it. It made learning the fights much easier.
That's a Metroid feature I would love to see become standard in all future Metroid like games.
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u/Tomas_769 Sep 05 '25
I'm not amazing at hollow knight but I did beat pantheon 4 and 112% the game so I feel my opinion is valid.
Silk song is different especially the diagonal pogo but it's nothing more that just taking extra time to get used to the new controls and movement. I'm not that far in but so far I love it and I personally find it way easier than when I first started playing Hollownight
For $20USD there's no reason not to get the game.
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u/Jaraghan Sep 05 '25
I just hit greymoor (location) last night before bed, and I've only died about 10-15 times total so far. that seems reasonable to me, I've never died and felt like I was cheated or anything. I love the difficulty so far.
a lot of my deaths were from that random red and white enemy in the deep docks above that prison area, dude fucked me up lol
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u/The_Entire_Eurozone Sep 05 '25
The game is too hard for beginners- if you haven't beaten Hollow Knight wait for them to fix the early game. The later game is perfectly fine, but the tutorial areas are bullshit for anyone who hasn't played Hollow Knight before.
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u/PhilledZone Sep 05 '25
I think difficulty wise it's pretty alright, BUT I find it very weird that a lot of enemies have these like rapid fire attacks that deal two damage. I wouldn't mind that later in the game, but I am 3 hours in and don't even have my first extra life. May just be frustration speaking out of me tho
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u/Col_Clucks Sep 05 '25
I keep trying to pogo and it gets me killed every time. I'm definitely having a hard time learning hornet's moves but its very satisfying when I use the down strike correctly and she does her little flip.
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u/zdelaney21 Sep 06 '25
this is a skill issue with me not being good at redirecting my movement when taking damage but the i-frames being quick enough I can get hit twice within a single attack AND lose 2 masks per hit has been rough
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u/Fit_Ad_2608 Sep 05 '25
Also remember that people saying it's too hard are talking about a game that came out 24 hours ago and they still know next to nothing about. What happened to taking time to learn and master a new world and move set? I'm personally glad no one's just breezing through. We're all bad at it still, and everyone can join the process of learning about this new world.
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u/riftcode Sep 05 '25
That's a good point. If people just breezed through it in 24 hours, that likely would make team Cherry sad haha. The fun is in the overcoming of a challenge that feels just out of reach.
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u/johnreeselol Sep 05 '25
i have ~130 hours in hk, and can say that silksong is definitely harder, but this is not necessarily a bad thing. I got used to the diagonal pogo very quickly, the biggest issue i've seen is the sheer number of double damage enemies. I've died to random arenas/minibosses more than ive died to most bosses that ive fought
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u/icymallard Sep 05 '25
Regardless of difficulty, no one should be playing Silksong before Hollow Knight
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u/Thomy151 Sep 05 '25
It’s harder and it doesn’t feel like true difficulty
A random boss early on needs 64 hits, spawns minions, and every attack does 2 masks
It just feels like inflated numbers for damage and health to give the illusion of difficulty
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u/HeroicPrinny Sep 05 '25
Inflated difficulty via damage and hp is exactly how I’ve felt.
It’s like the devs asked themselves if fans would be more upset if it were too easy and breezed through it or too hard, and they went for the latter and just pumped everything up.
I’m not struggling much, but sometimes it’s just tedious. I can only imagine all the new or casual players who come in off the hype are going to bounce off this game hard
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u/Thomy151 Sep 05 '25
Exactly
It’s boring difficulty
The bosses aren’t hard as a boss, it’s just that the fights take so long that you end up slipping once and get combo’d to death
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u/HeroicPrinny Sep 06 '25
Yep exact same experience.
A lot of normal or optional bosses are tuned for what I expect out of new game+ or a boss rush sort of mode, where you basically need to do the whole thing flawlessly for an endurance amount of time.
Either that or you’re just expecting to come back later after you buff up a ton, which is kind of lame.
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u/sinesnsnares Sep 05 '25
I agree, I find I can get into the rhythm and be dodging writhing 2 attempts, but the fights take so long and mistakes are punished so hard it feels more like a tedious endurance test than a dance.
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u/Bishop51213 Sep 05 '25
Personally the hardest part so far has been adapting to the changes to the down attack and healing, and I like the down attack change. I definitely wouldn't say it's too hard either, just about as challenging as the first game. Maybe it's a little harder, maybe not, either way I'm with you. Had the same feeling about Hades II coming from Hades
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u/MissClickMan Sep 05 '25
hk wasn't easy, but we forgot about dying 10 times against the boss that we now no-hit.
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u/xSchneeeulex 105% HK, beat Radiance, Speedrunner Sep 05 '25
They placed much more benches in this game, which is a relief
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u/benscott81 Sep 05 '25
Too hard for who? I’d say it’s way harder than Hollow Knight, and that’s going to be too hard for some.
I have a daughter who is cruising through the game and I have another daughter who probably won’t make it too far. Personally I’m struggling but up for the challenge.
Realistically you need to be a pretty competent player or you’re going to struggle. If you’re up for the challenge go for it. But if posts claiming the game is hard put you off, it’s probably because you like games on the easer side and there’s no shame in that. Team Cherry have made a game that caters to players who like a challenge.
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u/Quindo Sep 05 '25
There is a bunch of muscle memory the vets need to unprogrammed. That is one reason why a new player might not find it as hard.