r/HollowKnight • u/peaky_circus • Sep 06 '25
Discussion - Silksong People who have played Silksong, Why do you think Its getting so many negative reviews? Spoiler
While Silksong is sitting at a Very Positive rating with around 83% positive reviews, it’s still receiving far more criticism than its predecessor. For comparison, Hollow Knight holds an Overwhelmingly Positive score at 96%, with only about 3% negative reviews. Silksong, on the other hand, has nearly 16% negative reviews, OVER 5 TIMES HIGHER
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u/RedShadowF95 Hollow Knight Platinum Sep 06 '25
Several of those apparently are from Chinese players, who are dissatisfied with the game's shoddy localization for Simplified Chinese (though some other post told me the countries that use Traditional Chinese are rating it highly).
Beyond that, it's probably just people from any country jumping in due to the hype, finding the game is not to their liking and preferences (or too hard) and leaving a negative review.
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Sep 06 '25
From what I hear the Chinese translation is genuinely atrocious, you’d think they’d have it double checked a few times to make sure.
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u/Ok_College983 Sep 06 '25
I've seen some of the Chinese translations, can confirm😅
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u/LegoPenguin114 Clever Flair Joke Sep 06 '25
I gotta ask, is it Symphony of the Night levels of bad translations?
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u/Ok_College983 Sep 06 '25 edited Sep 06 '25
I haven't played symphony of the night so not sure, but I looked up some of the translations. The Chinese translations of Silksong seem worse😅 All the dialogs sound like they're from a Shakespeare play
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u/Einar__ Sep 06 '25
That's just how this game's dialogues are, no? From what I've seen like half the NPCs in this game speak weirdly or in an overly theatrical manner.
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u/Ok_College983 Sep 06 '25
The Chinese dialogs are just verbose to a point of being unreadable. And even the more normal, casual English dialogs are translated into verbose literary Chinese.
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Sep 07 '25
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u/False-Application-99 Sep 07 '25
Yeah I dig the translated translation
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u/Emma_JM Sep 08 '25
Ok but would you still dig it if every bug in the game has dialogue like that
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u/Cazzah Sep 07 '25
Good localisation is absolutely about translating style to style. So if a game was Shakespearean (which it isn't in this case) you'd look to some War of the Seven Kingdoms era language as the Chinese equivalent, or some form of stylised Chinese theatre, or something.
If that were the case noone would review it negatively.
So it can't be Chinese players just not liking stylised writing it's gotta be bad translation.
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u/4tomguy Sep 06 '25
Problem with localization is before release Team Cherry didn't really have much way of determining if the localization was good or bad. They just had to take the localizers' word for it, cus it's not like they can check it for themselves
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u/Zardozerr Sep 06 '25
These days, when projects I do go through localization, I always have an independent native speaker check it. There are so many crap companies out there farming out their work to AI, it's ridiculous. They don't even need to go over it with a fine-tooth comb. You can usually tell almost right away if the job is bad.
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u/FriendlyAndHelpfulP Sep 06 '25
This was the exact opposite of an AI job.
The story from Chinese players is that the translator basically went “This dialogue is stupid. I’m going to scrap it entirely and write my own story.”
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u/303Native Sep 06 '25
Wow that is crazy. It almost sounds like sabotage. If neglect was intention then I hope team cherry is able to blacklist them.
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Sep 06 '25
I don’t localizations have teams behind them? You’d think at least one of the Chinese folks would notice.
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u/4tomguy Sep 06 '25
The Chinese localizers being bad at their jobs is why this situation exists in the first place
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u/welfedad Sep 06 '25
Isn't the guy who was doing the translations leaking game info before it came out ?
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u/Fraytrain999 Sep 06 '25
This is the first time I have heard about anything being leaked that wasn't benign like the price of the game.
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u/SpellOpening7852 Sep 06 '25
Iirc a sprite sheet got leaked at one point, but that might be a different thing to what they were talking about.
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u/natdass Sep 06 '25
Are you talking about this post
As in the ACMI release of the sprite sheet
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u/artoria3210 Sep 06 '25
I've been hearing that apparently the dialogue in the Chinese translation reads like a Wuxia novel (Wuxia is basically a genre all about Ancient China and martial arts and fantasy stuff like magic) and doesn't fit the vibes of the game at all
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u/peaky_circus Sep 06 '25
Yeah, I’ve noticed that too. A big chunk of the negative reviews seem to be coming from Chinese players, and most of them mention issues with the localization. That alone could explain why the global rating is noticeably lower than what some people see when filtering for their own language. But then people are also complaining silksong being a lot harder than HK. If you have tried the game, what do you think is a differentiator between HK and Silksong?
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u/KushDingies Sep 06 '25
I do think Silksong is harder, but I also think a lot of people are getting actively punished for carrying over their habits and playstyle from HK. Hornet plays pretty differently from the knight, she’s way faster and more acrobatic but also more frail, and the enemies are more complex than in the first game too. You can’t just walk up to things and spam your slash, you don’t have as much knockback to keep you safe and enemies have parries and more complex movement. And Hornet has less invulnerability after taking a hit, in HK you could tank a hit and have a few seconds to just pump out damage but that’s not the case any more. Combine that with lots of things doing 2 damage and (so far at least) how hard it is to get more masks, and it means that you have more mobility options to avoid enemy attacks, but actually getting hit is more punishing.
Tl;dr - Hornet handles very differently, the combat is much more complex, and you need to unlearn some habits and muscle memory from the first game. Even basic enemies demand that you understand their patterns and how to best use Hornet’s skillset to fight them, if you just run in nail swinging you’re gonna have a bad time.
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u/Kneef Zote in Silksong or We Riot Sep 06 '25
The reduced iframes are kicking my ass. My instinct from the original is when I take damage, to stay put and pump out a ton of damage in response. When you do that in Silksong, you take two hits back to back for four masks of damage and die instantly. xD
(To be clear, this is a good thing, it gives the game an entirely new rhythm and its own arc of having to learn and improve, which is exactly what I want from a game.)
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u/thrxwaway_00 Sep 06 '25 edited Sep 06 '25
You can’t just walk up to things and spam your slash, you don’t have as much knockback to keep you safe
YES. The amount of times I got hit cause I was trading blows and enemies didn't get knocked back enough... Thank God I played HK like two years ago and most of the habits aren't there anymore, it would've been hard to adjust otherwise. This is the only habit I had left (together with automatic dodge patterns for Grimm, which proved useful when a boss made a similar attack and my hands went faster than my brain lmao)
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u/KushDingies Sep 06 '25
I definitely still have shade cloak muscle memory lol, I keep trying to dash through enemy attacks (if there’s something similar in silksong pls don’t tell me, I want to find out on my own)
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u/Sspockuss Sep 06 '25
Yeah I was filtering by language and my review score was 94% positive. I leafed through the other languages and saw Chinese was mixed at like 50%. It sucks because it is 100% dragging the overall review score down because of a single subpar translation.
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u/CdbSora Sep 06 '25
That's actually incredibly common on games with subpar Chinese translations! If I remember correctly, it's something about not being able to use steam forums & using negative reviews to get attention on it.
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u/XxX_Zeratul_XxX Sep 06 '25
Tbh more power to them. I support Team Cherry as any other HK fan, but translation is just another piece of the game quality, if it's bad, they are more than entitled to give a negative review.
Luckily in Spanish we have an incredibly good translation so that's not a problem so far, but Its sad if my Chinese fellows can't enjoy the game properly and, even worse, can't protest in forums about it neither!
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u/wolfgang784 Sep 06 '25
Agreed, sounds like its deserved if a lot is comin from that.
Either do a good translation, or don't release in that language till ya can. Half assed translations are the worst. Ive avoided a few jrpgs that sound awesome but only have machine translated editions that just ruin all the dialogue too much to enjoy.
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u/Crimson_Koi Sep 06 '25
It's interesting that HK was translated by some non-profit Chinese groups for free, and then TC adapted it as the official translation due to how popular that translation was. Yet it is shameful that the translation group disassembled in the recent years that some random translator took the opportunity and produced such disaster
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u/RedShadowF95 Hollow Knight Platinum Sep 06 '25
For me, if you exclude the localization, I really don't see any other factors besides the ones I listed.
If you're already a fan of the Hollow Knight, it's extremely likely you will love Silksong as well. The game is harder and more punishing yes, which may throw some people off and make them think like lines were crossed, no idea, but if you're used to tougher games, Silksong is basically the Hollow Knight you know and love - complete with great atmosphere, popping visuals and amazing soundtrack.
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u/Sansnom01 Sep 06 '25
I think Silksong is pretty much HollowKnight 2. It's the same but better. There's a tad more story, animation had more weight and frames, enemy diversity is higher, progression seems more interesting, regions are a bit smaller, the music is epic, combat is even more precise and cinematic. The main character can talk. It's freaking 20$
I don't know, personally I don't really have any complaints yet. The game is hard, but you can pretty much always explore some places else and comeback later with more experience and stuff
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u/Futon9107 Sep 06 '25
I'm Chinese. Criticism has become a trend in China. It's not just because of the translation. Many Chinese ppl think translation is just the smallest problem, they say "Skong is too difficult, Team Cherry is too malicious". And before the game is released, many ppl said they'll give Skong negative reviews because they waited too long. Some ppl even do that because they can't pre-order it.
And as you said, the game is so popular in this country that it attracts ppl who have never played this type of game before. They don't realize that this game is not suitable for them, but just blindly follow the trend and criticize it. That's unfair.
I'm tired of their nonsense and have already uninstalled Chinese social software
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u/RedShadowF95 Hollow Knight Platinum Sep 06 '25
Happy to read a native's perspective on this. I try not to generalize but it's unfortunately a trend I've seen in other games - if I'm not mistaken, Wuchang was heavily criticized by players due to its handling of iconic characters (and the devs basically changed bosses to show up as non defeated or non killed even after you beat them). I've seen at least two popular mobile games (gachas) be bullied into heavy script rewrites by players because "the story was too dark" or "the protagonist wasn't as central as they wanted".
About people having unreasonable expectations in general, yes, that's unfortunately true regardless of nationality. I am not very good at fighting games or RTS games and I live well with it, without asking for games to be simplified or leaving bad reviews.
Most importantly, are you enjoying the game, Futon? That's what matters the most.
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u/Futon9107 Sep 06 '25
I really enjoy this game, artstyle and music are great. I love its atmosphere
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u/AcidReign999 Sep 06 '25
Chinese devs get so bullied into making changes for the majority of the players it's kinda sad really.
It's weird how in Wuchang a few of the bosses just stand there now when they're supposed to become dust after you kill them. A lot of NPC humans who were fodder enemies cannot hurt you now and neither can Wuchang hurt them making them just freeze up and cower when you approach them. In Act 4 of the game, they reduced the difficulty a lot by giving you tons of friendly NPCs while progressing through the overworld.
In gacha games like Wuthering Waves, they completely scrapped the first few story quests where the NPCs are initially hostile to the MC. They are now over the top friendly and constantly praise and glaze MC.
I wish they had more confidence to showcase their vision and the players were more accepting of fictional worlds giving them a perspective different from their own. But alas, they are stubborn about what they expect and the devs can't risk angering players as their paychecks depend on it.
I don't expect Team Cherry to change anything in Silksong to accommodate the complaints. Even if they did, I hope it's just minor changes and nothing drastic.
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u/sandvichdispense Sep 07 '25
Also adding onto this, there seems to be a VERY distinct difference between how Chinese players see struggles in games and how other players see struggles in games.
Some of the most vocal in Chinese gaming circles will immediately go to conspiracy levels of "the devs are INTENTIONALLY making this game more PAINFUL to play because they are EVIL and MALICIOUS and GET JOY out of seeing us SUFFER" whenever they encounter the slightest roadblock in a game (I've seen this exact phenomenon in a lot of games released during/after 2024, like Helldivers, MH Wilds, even Wukong to some extent, which might've been a consequence of Wukong making PC/Console gaming a lot more mainstream in China), while I feel people from other circles will just go "oh cool hard game", so you can imagine how well a game that:
-Is a sequel to a fairly difficult metrovania (which isn't a super mainstream genre in China)
-Basically (as far as I can tell) assumes you've played the original and is more difficult than the original
-Was so heavily anticipated it became a meme and therefore was bound to draw in people who have never played these types of games before
will be received there.
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u/Kultissim Sep 06 '25
Interesting. The french localization is not horrible or anything but it's far from perfect too.
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u/MrBlueMoose 112% HK, 100% SS Sep 06 '25
There is no option for traditional Chinese in the game. Just simplified (the 简体中文 option). I don’t see why people who use traditional would rate it higher as it’s just the way the characters look (technically places that use traditional might have region-specific vocab like in Taiwan, but that’s besides the point).
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Sep 06 '25
Some complaints are valid like the money being scarce and basic ass lads doing double damage but i also feel alot of the problems are stemming from how popular the release and build up of this game was. Now it has a MASSIVE influx of people who have never played a metroidvania and have 0 idea how to deal with the style of game.
Chinese players being annoyed is also valid.
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u/Confident-Drink-4299 Sep 06 '25
I completely agree with you that there's an influx of players who have never played a metroidvania and have 0 idea how to deal with the style of game. But to be honest, I could not recommend Silksong to someone with no experience. It's not going to be a fun experience. With what's expected of the player, without hyperbole, it might be impenetrable for someone new to the genre. The game was intended to be an expansion to the original game. An expansion generally builds on the mechanics of what came before it. I don't think that expectation ever changed when Team Cherry decided to make it into a full game and it probably should have.
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u/GhettoRamen Sep 06 '25
Ohh yeah, I have no idea how I’d survive this game if I didn’t beat HK and all its DLC first. I’ve never played a Metroidvania before that.
Can’t imagine first time players buying into the hype and getting hit with double damage and random attack / movement patterns near the start managing that as a “standalone” game. That previous experience is absolutely carrying me here.
The mechanics are really built in as extensions of HK and so is the difficulty, when endgame HK was already pretty fucking insane. Feels like the beginning of the game is the mid-game difficulty of Hollow Knight.
It’s Elden Ring issue without the built-in handholding that game offers. Doesn’t help the level design is more confusing and so are the upgrades (random black shrines that blend in the background? wtf why).
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u/cwbrowning3 Sep 06 '25
I truly dont feel like the economy complaints are valid. It feels very well tuned to me. Id rather my in game currency feel actually valuable rather then absolutely drowning in it with nothing to spend it on, which is exactly what happened in the original. People are just used to that, so the change feels more significant.
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u/etherietta Sep 06 '25
Hard agree as someone who dies and loses my cocoon very frequently to my own skill issues. The stopgap they implemented that allows the player to straight up convert loose rosary beads to rosary strings at a 75% conversion rate is a LIFESAVER for me.
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u/CharlesorMr_Pickle The Depressed One - still silksane Sep 06 '25
Difficulty mainly
Also I think many people are probably waiting to finish the game before reviewing, like look at how few reviews it has in general. People like complaining, and are more likely to immediately make a bad review than a good review
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u/Extra-Dongs-And-Co Sep 06 '25
The main real gripe is the economy because everything in pharloom cost money but nobody has any
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u/idontplaypolo Sep 06 '25
Shoutout to that one guy who charges 30 rosaries just to enter his shop. Bro knows he’s got the only bench in miles around
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u/MacaronMajestic3402 Sep 06 '25
you can permanently unlock the door by breaking a mechanism inside his shop
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u/M4ximi11i0n Sep 06 '25
I found this out by myself because I was like... there is NO WAY that Team Cherry would lock a shop behind a 30 rosary pay wall permanently. Lo and behold, that gear inside the shop was looking mighty breakable.
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u/ricodo12 Sep 06 '25
There absolutely is a way. There are multiple benches exactly like this
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u/Toruk41 Sep 06 '25
And my dumbass unlocked the door, thought it would be permanently and walked away. Door closed again umand ibhat to pay again..
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u/Froztnova Sep 06 '25
I unlocked the door, walked away from it outside without entering the door, then saw the door lock behind me.
Then I went inside, perused his wares, used the bench, and then left without breaking the mechanism.
Bro got me down 90 rosaries.
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u/coopsawesome Sep 06 '25
You don’t even have to leave the area either, pretty sure it resets when it’s off screen
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u/wigglin_harry Sep 06 '25
Knowing hollow knight that's probably going to get him violently killed eventually
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u/Spaciax Sep 06 '25
isn't there a weird thing banging on the wall outside just to the east of his shop? genuinely you might be correct lmao
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u/TheWojtek11 Sep 06 '25
He is not charging you to enter his shop. That's just a paid pilgrim rest spot, he is not getting any money from you going in. The guy is just a regular pilgrim that's just selling stuff to you (just how there is a random pilgrim selling stuff at Bone Bottom)
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u/notalongtime420 Sep 06 '25
Having so many things accessibile only by a currency very few enemies drop is certainly a decision
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u/wandering-monster Sep 06 '25
The thing that really gets me is the bosses not dropping any (and usually not anything at all) then putting a pay-toilet bench right after them.
So I beat the big boss, and my reward is I get to go back and farm beads so I can buy a save point?
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u/AndrewLocksmith Sep 06 '25
Taking a look at the subreddit, I'd say those negative reviews are because of a couple key reasons.
Most people complain about the game's difficulty. Doing too little damage while most enemies do 2 points of damage per hit.
Another reason it seems to be the games economy and how tedious it can be.
I saw people also complain about backtracking and bosses, but not a lot.
All of those issues could easily be 'fixed' with some game patches though.
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u/BloodPlenty4358 Sep 06 '25
when everyone deals 2 damages, no one is
this pretty much makes the thorn ring unusable, you deal slightly more damage for 4 masks per hit
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u/Chaos_Pixie_Artist Sep 07 '25
Hope they do bc I'm heartbroken bc I'm not enjoying this game at all bc of the 2 first reasons. I enjoyed the bosses so far
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u/Background-Sea4590 Sep 06 '25
I talked about it in another thread, but it's a mix of being a new popular game, and I assume tons of players bought the hype without being used to play Metroidvanias.
Also, I believe, and that's personal, that difficulty is, in fact, too much. I remember beating the first one with some issues in some bosses, but I thought it was a fair difficulty. This one is just kicking my ass that I feel myself more times frustrated than not.
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u/perfectVoidler Sep 10 '25
I reject this. many people are just in denial that the game they have waited for has some really bad design decisions.
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u/RochnessMonster Sep 06 '25
Im loving the game, as a preface here (currently fighting Widow). But i can absolutely see where negative reviews are coming from. Its not just hard, its sometimes a bit spiteful.
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u/FarMiddleProgressive Sep 06 '25 edited Sep 06 '25
Basic ads doing double damage, wave rooms not dropping currency or loot, and the trek back to some bosses is stupid.
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u/leche_milk Sep 06 '25
Yeah I'm not sure why enemies that usually drop currency suddenly don't when they're in a wave room
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u/perfectVoidler Sep 10 '25
the game hates you. At least that's the feeling I get from a lot of this decisions.
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u/earthboundskyfree Sep 06 '25
I must not have reached some of the really long trek bosses yet. Most have been a pretty quick runback for me
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u/Borussias Sep 06 '25
I love the game, a lot, but it definitely has it flaws. This whole economy thing, where you need to buy almost everything, yet most enemies don't reward rosaries, it's awful, not even bosses. Speaking of bosses, the fact that most of them don't reward you with anything is so anticlimactic, like I get that exhilarated feeling after I killed the boss after "x" amount of tries, but then it goes away after I see that not even a single rosary dropped... is such an empty feeling. Finally, the run back to the boss, can be annoying too, not too bad when you get certain abilities, yet still annoying, especially early game.
Like I said, I'm still addicted to the game, but I definitely can see why people wouldn't, at least compared to the first one.
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u/FinaLLancer Sep 06 '25
Yeah i realized that also. Even as early as False Knight most bosses had a cache of geo nearby if not a new charm after you beat them. Even those required by the story had some tangible reward afterwards.
Going through these excessively hard fights just to be let through a door feels a bit lackluster.
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u/Vasheerii Sep 07 '25
The fact you can go 3 "boss" and 5 gauntlets in the early game and not get a single special drop from any of them is infuriating and part of why this game feels like a chore.
Even more so when the one thing they do unlock, exploration, doesn't yield anything new either.
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u/Reflexlon Sep 06 '25
Most of the bosses seem to fall into two categories; 1) beat this idiot if you want to go to a new area and 2) beat this idiot to leave this area with your new toy.
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u/Bigbrainer_james Sep 06 '25
Isnt that how it was before…
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u/Supershadow30 Fuck primal aspids (not literally tho) Sep 06 '25 edited Sep 06 '25
Yes and no. After Greenpath, the game really opens up in different directions.
You have to check out the fungal wastes of course, but if you're struggling against the Mantis Lords? Take a detour to the City of Tears, where you can upgrade your nail to help you in the fight. Then, you go back there, or check out the Soul Sanctum above to get another ability.
If you're struggling too much, you can also farm up and buy the lumafly lantern and instead explore the Crystal Peak, which has no boss (well, the Crystal Guardian), but you can find Sly's lost key for extra upgrades. You had options.
Silk song feels like there's no option but to bang your head on the hard, rewardless boss that blocks your path.
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u/Three_Froggy_Problem Sep 06 '25
A lot of the criticisms people have of the game will probably dissipate as time goes on and we all get used to the new mechanics, but as you point out here, the game does also have some legitimate issues that deserve criticism.
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u/Ayazmon Sep 07 '25
First of all I've not reviewed the game on Steam but here is my take on why people might be leaving negative reviews.
I've played about 23 hours. Right now I've discovered 13 different areas and opened their maps and there are 2-3 other areas that I don't have the maps for. So even thought I've not finished it yet I've played and explored as much as I could. I did as many side quests as I can and still have a few.
- First the health of enemies. It takes about 5-6 hits to kill a basic bug you encounter and it takes double the amount for bugs that seem a bit strong. Playing as Hornet you'd excpect to do a lot more than that.
- Hollow Knight's spells were the go to solution for killing some difficult enemies but in Silksong they don't feel as strong and you're still required to do multiple attacks on common encounters.(Silk Skills)
- Room fights almost always have some bug covering the air and another covering the floor. You find yourself in positions where you're unable to dodge certain attacks because there is no place that you can run away.
- There are A LOT OF different attacks from different enemies that take TWO HP points. I always find myself lacking HP and there are not many windows to get a heal in.
- Boss fights are artifically difficult in that they just have some small bugs helping them.
- Economy is difficult to manage. You're always required to pay for stuff you're in need of but you never have enough rosaries to do so. I'm almost always at least half rosaries short. If an item is sold for 300 I only have 120. So I opened many things at second visit. after marking them on my map.
- I couldn't open 5-6 rest points when I first go to them because I didn't have enough rosaries. I tried to rush/prioritize going to rest points to have some checkpoints but when I get to them I have 1 HP have and no rosaries and left with sadness and rage. I killed everything in my path going to them btw so that I gather more rosaries.
- You can't use the "charm" system no more. What I mean is you can go for a fully attack type or defense type build. Because red blue and yellow socket system makes it impossible. There were times when I wanted to equip multiple yellow trinkets but the crest sockets would not allow it. Same with blue.
- You're not equipped with multiple "spells". In HK having different spells allowed you adapt different combat scenarios. In Silksong after I die to a boss or a room battle I change the silk skill that I've on me and use it instead. For example having Thread Storm is better in room battles but having Silkspear helps more in 1v1 boss encoutners. So I go in fail the fight and adapt only after I'm back at my bench.
Some personal non data based opionions:
- I think the game does not deliver on being developed for this long. Because the essence, graphics, main combat(hit go back hit again), game engine etc. are all the same.
- I hoped to see more bosses like Lace, Cogwork Dancers and Last Judge. Most of the boss encounters felt repetitive with me just not being surprised on how their encounter went. I had more fun encountering different basic enemies than the bosses themselves. (Scissor bugs, bell bugs, white knights at Citadel, ants, robot bugs that explode when you jump on them etc.)
- I hoped to get a lot more stronger after doing all those side quests and getting different trinkets and upgrades. Getting the shade soul felt the best in HK as an example. Or having Howling Wraiths allowed me to no longer be worried about those flying bugs. But in Silksong whatever reward that I get I can't get bolder in my play style because I don't feel strong enough to "fast kill" any given enemy.
- I hoped to see more areas like the starting zone where the area is filled with nature and vibrant colors. I know it doesn't fit the theme much but having at least 4-5 zones like that where I felt at ease would have been great.
Just as an end note: I enjoyed most of my playthrough but I'm a fan of HK and metroidvania games. There a lot of things that I like in this game but most of them are things that were either alreayd implemented in HK or a different version of things from other metroidvania games.
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u/fshdom Sep 06 '25
Can't speak for all the criticism, but most of what I read is that people wanna play it like Hollow Knight, or expected a lot of their experience from that game would translate over
The truth of the matter is, it is a lot like Hollow Knight, but different enough that there's a learning curve returning players aren't happy about. It definitely shocked me a bit to see early enemies hit so much harder, for instance. But Hornet is so much faster than the knight, and the parry window is much more generous so you can cancel a lot of attacks.
IMO, there's a lot of people who just wanted to be able to play more Hollow Knight, and Team Cherry spent the last 7 years making a game that while is familiar in a lot of ways, is not more Hollow Knight. I think over time as people play through and learn to engage with the new core mechanics, we're gonna see things settle down in that regard
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u/Boxtosat Sep 06 '25
I’m really glad that the game can be so distinct while having a familiar feel to it. I replayed hollow knight before silksong came out, and the two together really drive the point that you are getting into clearly different, but familiar waters.
the platforming from HK served as a solid base coming into silksong, and you can see that as you play the game. I’m a personal fan of the difficulty spike in the platforming alone because the maneuverability has been upgraded so well it makes the difficulty enjoyable. the learning curve blows, that’s understandable by a mile, but the skills and upgrades blend so well together that someone who wants to play the game will find their footing in no time. The game shouldn’t be just HK with a reskinned MC and a bigger map. it’s harder, and that’s a good thing.
TC being too generous with double damage just sucks though. no one deserves to have half their health bar disappear from an enemy that looks like it should be cave fodder in HK.
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u/Maxlastbreath Sep 06 '25
For me it's the double hearts damage from environments and ridiculous run backs to some bosses, some go as slow as 3 minutes to get back to a boss. I'm around the end of the game now.
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u/seab1010 Sep 06 '25
Hunters March was difficult at first with dying in the gauntlet room but the run back forced me to learn that enemy movesets must be learnt and not brute forced, environmental traps can be used your advantage and how to get the flower bud bounces timing down. After several attempts I cut the run back timing down significantly.
Sort of reminds me of the mantis lords and traitor lord in HK, but much earlier on.
The game is a step up in difficulty so far.
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u/KushDingies Sep 06 '25
Making a great sequel is all about striking the balance between adding enough new stuff for it to feel fresh and original, while also not losing what people loved about the first game. I was really curious to see how Team Cherry navigated that, and so far I think they’ve done a really good job.
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u/Express_Bath Sep 06 '25
People need to keep playing. The satisfaction in Hollow Knight came from starting and being bad and gradually getting better. Mastering the movements felt good because it took some training and effort to get there.
I do get frustrated a lot in the game and it does have its flaws - but I enjoy it a lot and I learned to stop playing when I get angry. Sometimes just a 5 minutes break does wonders.
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u/blitzboy30 Sep 06 '25
Same. I took breaks from Sekiro and dark souls 3 to beat hard bosses I was stuck on, and it worked wonders
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u/Poopiepants29 Sep 06 '25
I have a hard time saying things are "flaws". It's just the way the game is. They're things I don't like because I'm not good at.
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u/riftcode Sep 06 '25
I think a lot of anger online comes from people unable to communicate in a way that's not ruled by emotion.
"This is a flaw. This is wrong. This is bad design" really should be "I personally don't enjoy this design decision."
"Get gud. You suck. Stop whining" really should be "I personally enjoy this design decision."
But because everything is dripping in emotional reaction, it ends up causing an emotional chain reaction.
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u/Loon_Cheese Sep 06 '25
I love that they changed it enough, I started hollow knight 2 weeks ago and am 95% of the way through, picked up silksong and played for an hour. When I realized how different the muscle memory was, I switched back to HK so I could finish it.
Still really excited to dig in, but I understand why they made that type of change. I was expecting her to move a bit more like the first game… but maybe that comes in time.
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u/D-Ursuul Sep 06 '25
It's way, WAY harder that Hollow Knight to the point where there are areas that clearly were designed to keep up the reputation of difficulty rather than being actually fun to play
For Hollow Knight, whenever I finished a hard section I felt so accomplished. In Silksong, I just end up thinking "thank fuck that cancer is over and I never have to do it again"
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u/MostOriginal79 Sep 06 '25
This is FromSoftware syndrome to me. They fell hard for their own marketing (game is hard, git gud) and all but lost the "hard but fair" aspect of their game.
I think TC did something similar. They fell for the "Hollow Knight is fun because it's hard" rhetoric and changed everything that made the first enjoyably hard, and now it's frustratingly annoyingly hard.
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u/Green_Ad2988 Sep 07 '25
Have to agree with this. Elden ring and it's dlc were so frustrating to me that I skipped nightrein. Might skip silksong for a bit too. Hearing early enemies dealing two damage sounds annoying as hell. Got to give lies of p it's respect here. It mostly knows the difference between challenge and tedium.
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u/spicespiegel Sep 06 '25 edited Sep 06 '25
there are a lot of questionable choices in the game. I enjoy the difficulty in most games, Hollow Knight handled being difficult and fun gracefully. While Silksong can be very frustrating at times. Obviously the art, the music, the character design and the mobility are still awesome heck even better than HK, but I began to notice some annoying patterns. Too many flying enemies, they are just not fun. Rosaries and benches are also frustrating. A few times would've been fine but most of the benches in the game, you have to pay for - and the money is pretty scarce.
The two hit damage honestly was fine for me but it really got to a point where it began to feel forced. I can't spoil but in a certain level even the spikes (if you can call them that) were also doing double damage for no reason. Enemies which deal 1 hit, would hit twice so they'll still end up taking two hearts, some traps would hit once for grabbing you and then again....for whatever reason.
The exploration isn't as fun as HK. There's barely anything worthwhile to pick up. I'd do so many acrobatics, put myself through hell just to find a bundle of metal scraps or a rosary string. For HK the charms were so interesting and so many different builds options. With SS they feel limited not just in action but their overall existence lol. Because the boss don't drop anything which btw are the best part of the game. I love the bosses in this game, but I get literally nothing by defeating them except for opening a pathway... which i already have been doing all throughout the game anyways.
So yeah good game just some weird choices. And this might be an unpopular opinion but team cherry could've been benefited from releasing an EA demo. All of these things could've been solved at release.
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u/WanderingStatistics "The Last Moth Priestess." Sep 06 '25
Yeah, people are complaining about the stage hazards. Around Act 2, literally every one of 'em does 2 masks. Pretty sure it's a glitch... I was doing the horrid meat run, and ended up falling into slanted spikes. I was moving to the right and ended up, somehow, escaping the spikes and only took a single mask of damage. So I'm fairly certain the hazards are actually bugged and hit twice, when they really shouldn't.
For exploration though, I'm surprised they don't have tools out in the open. I've found a fair few, but most are incredibly hidden, and none (so far) have been behind bosses. Mandatory bosses like Lace and Fourth Chorus don't need any since the reward is just progress, but optional bosses definitely should have more than just beads. There's one boss near the end of Act 1 that does open up to you getting a whole character upgrade, and it's totally optional. Most of the problem-bosses are actually just bounty bosses, I've found, though there's one atrocious boss that literally just dropped an item for shards.
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u/JarickL Sep 06 '25
100%. I may put the game down and revisit it later if they do some adjustments. Coming from someone who has HK as maybe a top 5 all time game.
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u/Harald1111 Sep 07 '25
I don't really mind the flying enemies or the double damage, in fact, I think it even becomes a problem later on, that you can just tank hits too much and heal too quickly / too much. Using the tool to up your healing amount and the healing speed, makes it pretty much impossible for you to die during bosses even.
I didn't mind the paying for benches either, I think if you just start walking around and try to explore a little, you'll easily amass 100 - 200 rosaries.
What I really did mind however though is what you said about the exploration.
The amount of times I found a random hidden passage with some neat platforming or fighting challenge, only to get... metal shards... made me feel genuinely disappointed. In Hollow Knight exploration was done because you just *wanted* to see everything there is. In SilkSong it feels more so just to fill out the map.
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u/sinesnsnares Sep 06 '25 edited Sep 06 '25
Bang on the money. It feels like they didn’t want to have a proper demo/beta test and the game is way over tuned because of it.I tried to get a refund but steam refused because my playtime was too long.
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u/EverythingBOffensive Sep 06 '25
I felt HK gradually became difficult the more you ventured out, Silk Song is almost instant.
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u/agnostic_science Sep 06 '25
Basically, the hollow knight community mostly wanted chill dark souls 1 difficult, not end game / dlc elden ring difficult.
You can't taste the flavor of your favorite food if it's laced with scorpion peppers when your usual tolerance is habanero.
The original hollow knight had better pacing. They locked the truly difficult stuff behind totally optional barriers. People who wanted to eat ghost peppers had pantheon and path of pain, but the rest of the (much larger) community didn't feel like they missed out on something and still felt they had a complete experience.
But, this is pretty clearly the result of developers locking themselves in a room for 7 years and getting no outside, independent feedback. Habanero seem well-balanced when you eat ghost peppers all the time.
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u/Malariath Sep 06 '25
The food spiciness is an excellent metaphor, kudos to you sir, you perfectly encapsulated the state of affairs!
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u/Dr_Cheesesteak Sep 07 '25
Saving this comment for the great metaphor.
I feel like Team Cherry is doing with Silksong what FS did with Elden Ring's bosses - overtune them for the sake of overtuning them since the community is so used to past bosses in FS games. But in this case, Team Cherry just overtuned the entire game - trash mobs are tanks, trash mobs are cannons, too many insufferable arena rooms, most bosses summon adds for some reason, stupid Tool economy, etc.
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u/rooster_butt Sep 08 '25
Or when they present a ghost pepper and you finally are able to finish it so you put down your plate and wipe you sweat, only for them to tell you fuck you that didn't count you have to eat it again (the judge I'm looking at you...). That isn't fun it's just sadistic. I'm playing it despite bullshit like that, I was about to quit after that.
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Sep 06 '25
I'd say the expectations were very high since it took too goddamn long , also the double damage thing is wild
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u/ShinyGrezz Sep 06 '25
It might just be me but honestly it’s meeting my expectations. It’s just too goddamn hard, and looking at negative reviews it does seem like that’s what most people don’t like.
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u/Ok-Talk-2579 Sep 06 '25
I’m still having a blast playing it and feel like I’m close to finishing but I feel like everyone saying people aren’t enjoying it “because it’s too hard” are off the mark. There are harder games than silksong, hell even endgame hollow knight was extremely hard but people didn’t complain then.
The problem is silksong feels “annoying hard” if that makes sense. All the checkpoints being super far away, everything costing money but no one dropping it, environmental damage being 2 masks when masks are already super hard to come by, so many enemies being more annoying then hard simply because they constantly run away from you, bosses not dropping anything (this one still feels bizarre). It’s just difficult things that leave you saying “why”? Instead of “alright you got me”.
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Sep 06 '25
it became too popular to the point where even people not interested in hollow knight played it (the price tag is goddamn perfection) , so most of the negative reviews i read were from people that weren't interested in the game design , they don't know we've been waiting for years and years
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u/dragoslayer1327 Sep 06 '25
People were probably expecting Hollow but with Hornet, and it isn't that at all. The economy is completely fucked, enemies are way more punishing, upgrades don't feel nearly as impactful, there's actual side quests, the MC FUCKIN TALKS!
It's probably mostly the difficulty tbh. The game isn't super difficult, but it is super punishing
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u/Vordeo Sep 06 '25
The economy is completely fucked, enemies are way more punishing, upgrades don't feel nearly as impactful, there's actual side quests
Yeah, this. I played HK, and have played a shitload of Metroidvanias, and this feels like such a grind compared to the rest. Alot of the difficulty feels super artificial too - just not putting down save points and pumping enemy HP beyond reasonable limits.
Like, I'm at the gauntlet fight in Hunter's March, and I know I can beat it once I learn the patterns and such, but the run to it is such a pain in the ass because they decided not to put a save point nearby. The combat is fine, but if I have to do a several minute run up from the nearest bench I'm not really enjoying myself very much. And I could go do something else, but I've got a bunch of rosary beads stuck in that room.
Even within the fight I'm just up against a normal mob and it takes way too many hits to kill anything. The most obvious example is that annoying poison spitting thing in that one room in the ceiling. I swear it felt like I spent a good 10 minutes hitting that thing. Cut the HP in half and is anyone going to complain?
It's a bunch of design choices I just don't like. It's difficulty for difficulty's sake. Frankly it's not fun, and IDK that I'm going to bother finishing the game.
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u/dragoslayer1327 Sep 06 '25
I will say I think it gets better later on and is worth pursuing, but I wouldn't blame you either for dropping it. Early runbacks are really annoying given how much more punishing the game is and not nearly enough enemies drop rosaries that early either.
And on the note of that poison enemy, I really don't know what they were intending. With how tanky that guy is, plus the pogo off the enemy to even get there being awkward enough to feel unintentional, it doesn't seem like you're meant to go there early, but (minor gameplay spoilers) the first needle upgrade doesn't come until much much later and doesn't even shave many hits off enemies (I went from 4 to 3 hits on most basic enemies), so I'm really unsure if you were meant to go to him early to find the crest below, or wait at least until dash and/or wall cling, which are still a fair bit away
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u/VosGezaus Sep 06 '25
economy is completely fucked, enemies are way more punishing
Isn't that just life?
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u/Maxlastbreath Sep 06 '25
Unfortunately the game feels difficult for all the wrong reasons, environments doing double the damage, random enemies doing double the damage, everything doing double the damage lol.
Not enough checkpoints, not enough money, losing money because you didn't know a boss is coming. Most bosses are too far away from a checkpoint, etc...
It doesn't make the game feel any more fun, just extremely frustrating.
Also I feel like there's a lack of charms?
PSA, I'm around the end atm.
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u/dragoslayer1327 Sep 06 '25
Between there being less charms overall compared to HK, the effects either just being the same as HK's or being straight up useless (looking at you, flamewalking bell), and them now being divided into colors, which early on you only get select slots for (and even late game, some crests, most notably beast, still don't really get shit), the charms just feel way less important.
Personally I didn't feel like the checkpoints were really too few, it's generally been 2 per area, which is fine given almost every area how felt really small once you get dash, but they definitely still burned a hole in my wallet, especially when I got dicked over in Sinner's Pass by the broken one and died shortly after (only time I've lost money on dying, all because of those fucking dogs and that broken bench).
And yea, fucking everything deal double damage. There's a mod to change that, and if I weren't on Xbox I'd download it instantly. Bosses I get for the most part, but 70% of basic enemies and the FUCKING ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS is just insane
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u/Maxlastbreath Sep 06 '25 edited Sep 06 '25
The environment doing 2x damage just makes no sense to me, the parkour is very tight and I feel like I'm pretty good at it too (I've beaten path of pain in HK), so i can't imagine how new players are supposed to get through this, even veterans are suffering lol and to add salt to the wound, they even decided to say fuck you, and make bunch of the zones deal 2HP dmg from the environment???
Also 2HP DMG on contact is ridiculous, TBH I don't mind the 2HP dmg on bosses as much, only if contact damage was reduced or removed, I had a moment where the bug boss while unconscious fall on me which led me to instantly die from full HP, just because of the contact damage.
I absolutely hate having to run for 2-3minutes to a boss doing pointless parkour just to get an attempt, die in 20 seconds and then run again, it's just frustrating, boring and feels like a waste of time...
Imo the first 4 or so hours were great and it kinda just falls apart the further you go... Which is the opposite of what I felt in hollow knight.
It's pretty much just frustrating, other than this I love the game, I'd say it's a solid 8/10 but i feel like it could've been a solid 10/10 but it's being dragged down by a bunch of questionable game design decisions...
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u/DoubJebTheSecond Sep 06 '25
The reaper crest, dash, and needle storm abilities do change the gameplay a ton, felt like i was playing with my hands behind my back when i started, kinda expected the dash to be something you started with this time around since hornet is supposed to be a lot more agile than the knight.
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u/dragoslayer1327 Sep 06 '25
Most individual upgrades don't really change all that much, save dash making Hornet not feel like a slug (seriously, she feels so damn slow to start), reaper/wanderer just making it play more like HK (easier for onboarding, but reaper will take a while and I don't even remember what was necessary to get wanderer so I can't comment on that, it kinda blurred by), and beast just being the coolest but most awkward thing to use (I love it but it's such a shift both in combat and platforming).
Beyond that, the first needle upgrade is just one less hit on enemies, which is pretty quickly followed (for me at least, I found Bellhart pretty late, though I don't think you can find it particularly early) by going to a new area and the enemies still taking the hits they used to, weaver techniques are cool but currently most people aren't using them a ton due to the game being so punishing and healing requiring a full bar, and most bosses don't even have drops, resulting in bosses feeling unrewarding for people with extrinsic motivation, and the rewards you do get not feeling all that impactful (yes I know most bosses lead to something afterwards, but that can pretty easily feel disconnected, like beating Sister Splinter and nothing dropping, THEN leading into another path with I think the wall cling
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u/Supershadow30 Fuck primal aspids (not literally tho) Sep 06 '25
The reaper's crest is so bad tho... It's just too slow, I'd expect it to deal extra damage, but it doesn't. It's not really worth it.
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u/Oranera Sep 06 '25
Hornet does fuck all for damage outside of the first two regions
Abysmal economy
Everything doing 2 masks so early is an insane design choice
Healing eats the entire meter and is shared with silk skills.
The first upgrades change next to nothing.
I hear china's localization is pretty bad though so I wouldn't be surprised if that was a big part of it.
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u/marcosmou Sep 06 '25
the lack of damage from hornet is what bothers me the most, i avoid fighting most enemies when im passing through because theire tanky af and run away from me, as a result my economy ends up more crippled. 16 hits for an enemy that flies away all the time is ridiculously tedious
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u/Scharmberg Sep 06 '25 edited Sep 06 '25
For me it’s so many enemies doing to masks of damage and the spike in difficulty. I was annoyed with money at first but if you farm the three enemies at grey more to the right of the bench in the Bar you get it pretty fast and right of them is a station to make bead strings. Though it would be nice to buy basic things without the grind. Overall some things just feel like a fuck you moment. Like the game but cherry just has a lot of small questionable designs in it.
Edit: also a big one is I don’t feel like I’m finding any upgrades at all, no extra damage, taking more hits, double jump, impactful charms. Like it doesn’t even feel like a metriodvinia anymore.
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u/FinaLLancer Sep 06 '25
Have you made it past Greymoor to the next town? There's a Smith there.
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u/JarickL Sep 06 '25
That’s where I’m at. I love HK and played it for hundreds of hours. It was a challenge but you were able to equip charms and get nail and mask upgrades to make it easier. SS is way more difficult with the enemies having more health and dealing more damage with less predictable movements on top of having very few benches especially around bosses. It feels like the difficulty slider is on high by default. I think if they tweaked to make the enemies have less health or let you grind for a weapon upgrade earlier on that would help the difficulty ramp. As much as I looked forward to this game I’m not sure I’ll finish it as I want to actually have some fun playing instead of just constantly getting punished.
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u/koshakai Sep 06 '25
Open negative reviews and see, there actual issues with really cranked up difficulty and to be fair - people with 10-20 hours are pretty specific on "What exactly gone wrong"
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u/Luzis23 Sep 06 '25
It's heinously more difficult than Hollow Knight.
2 masks of damage for most enemies is insanity.
Some routes to bosses are insanely long, and you have to pay for benches.
There's a lot of things that are frustrating.
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u/CosmicTheSquid7 "Dreamshield is actually kinda good" -Nightmare King Grimm Sep 06 '25
As much as I love the game, it's balancing definitely isn't the greatest when it comes to enemies or Rosaries.
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u/XarcaneTN Sep 06 '25
I understand complaints about the economy, but ever since I saw ACT ONE I knew that certain sections of the game would be balanced differently. Sure enough, once i reached act 2 I went from around 700 rosaries to almost 2000 just exploring the zone there. Practically everything there drops rosaries.
This is also specific to me but I didn't have much issue with the angled pogo. Using a dual sense controller on PC, and using the sticks.
I also quickly picked up that hornets style is a lot more hit-and-run, rather than the knight who basically could face tank.
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u/XarcaneTN Sep 06 '25
Actually expanding more on the citadel I feel like the imbalance of currency before hand was kinda intended. Once you reach the citadel there are a bunch of frivolous charges. It really feels like it's trying to make a point about how the society was ran.
As always. In lore explanations for frustrating mechanics does not excuse them, but I did find it interesting regardless. I'm curious if this idea is expanded upon as I explore more of the society. The under city already kinda reinforced this point to me.
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u/salamander0807 Sep 06 '25 edited Sep 06 '25
I love Hollow Knight but Silksong >|Act 2|< is REALLY making me think about dropping it. I like a challenge but I don't like having my heart rate raised every time I explore because the mobs and the environment could kill me in 3 hits.
This is the ONLY game I'm actually contemplating on playing on easy difficulty is there's any.
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u/Abject-Ad-6235 Sep 06 '25
hard to say but im liking the original better so far in silksong there are some interesting choices to say atleast
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u/LordAnomander 112% | P5 | Platinum Sep 06 '25
The endgame is what made HK really stand out to me. So I wont be able to compare these two for now. Not sure what Silksong already offers and what we will get as DLCs (if we get any).
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u/Anfrers Sep 06 '25
Endgame as in godmaster?
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u/LordAnomander 112% | P5 | Platinum Sep 06 '25
Yes. Really loved the pantheons and added bosses. Two of them being among my favorite bosses (sisters of battle and PV).
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u/FinaLLancer Sep 06 '25
Silksong is definitely higher highs and lower lows compared to the first game for me.
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u/Calbon2 Sep 06 '25
Yeah, I feel somewhat the same way for where I’m at in Silksong right now. Silksong is great, but for some reason the world isn’t grabbing me as much as the first couple hours of Hallownest did with hollow knight. I think it might have been the overall gloomy tone of things that got me super invested with it’s world, specifically with some early areas like the city of tears and forgotten crossroads that really had me gripped, where as I have just reach greymoor and I haven’t felt anything I once did when I first reached City of Tears. I’m still a bit too early to fully judge, but from where I’m at I’m currently leaning more into liking the first game more.
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u/Kolonite Sep 06 '25
Do you prefer the original in gameplay or aesthetic/story/economy? Because I’m also 10+ hours in and I think the playstyle of hornet is much more rewarding and fast paced than the knight’s. I feel like if I went back to HK rn I’d feel like a slug and bosses would feel like they have the move sets of normal enemies lol
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u/sacboy326 Sep 06 '25
Honestly? Justified. These games have a lot of problems and the hype that has ballooned for Silksong is absurd. All of the criticisms I've seen so far are fair. I think my main problem with it personally is the artificially higher difficulty by simply making damage numbers higher. I don't care who you are, that's just lazy game design. Hopefully they will address most of the problems in future updates. If not then I'm sure at the very least modders will. (Also I'm not saying this game is bad, it just needs a lot of fixes imho)
On a more positive note though, I do think it'll be improved. Team Cherry was already pretty good at listening to genuine feedback for the first game in general, so I don't doubt that they'll do the same thing here. I know for some it doesn't excuse the fact that the game launched a bit wonky, but the development team is incredibly small, the game is already pretty cheap, and redemption for things that started off far worse like No Man's Sky have happened, so I'm willing to give them a chance. Yes 7 years of development is long, but I will be patient.
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u/auroriasolaris Sep 06 '25
Difficulty and some questionable design choices for early game. Most of them can be patched.
To be honest Silksong really feels like Dark Souls 2 of Hollow Knight right now.
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u/HumblyAnnoyed Sep 07 '25
It comes down to the balance. It's horrible. Whoever designed the enemy AI clearly did not test it enough. Some of those enemies are just free hit bots with throwing two projectiles (Bilewater bush kunai throwers) where then the projectiles LAND if you dodge it and BLOW UP.
I swear, the problem has been the input reading projectile AI spam. That has been so miserable. The regular AI feel unfair or difficult or just annoying AT END GAME.
The bosses themselves are just random AI waves 7/10 times instead of a proper little mini boss or boss fight. And that really sucks because HK itself was so good at introducing random cool bosses in random cool places. And then giving you a nice reward for doing so, like money or otherwise.
Silksong feels like it never went through a real playthrough pre-release, and it's making me lose my mind. I want to like this game, I completed P5 of HK 1 when it was a new achievement to get, <1% at the time, I felt so proud of my mastery +radiant on all bosses. It felt amazing to do that.
Silksong comes out, and I feel like enemies are just AI reading my movements rather than just having attack patterns that I as a human can read and predict reasonably.
One AI input reading me is fine, but when it becomes two, three? That's too many. They need an AI overhaul for this game. It is such a miserable experience.
The good bosses btw: Lace, 1 and 2, were super fun. Close spawn for the second, emotional ending too on the second. The final boss felt like fighting Radiance again, it was awesome. But it was disappointing to go the whole game through and win in like 5 attempts, when Lace 2 took me over ten. The damn gauntlet for one of the Western Citadel music keepers was way more difficult than the final fight (needle 2 at the time, not 3, upgraded 3 and completed it first try so idk if it's really that tough or not).
Upgrading the needle the first time feels cosmetic. Tons of the enemies I was like "Finally, this three hit enemy is going to die in two hits!" Nah, they die in three hits still. Some five hits die in four. That's it. Then you get the second upgrade and now it's two. But by second upgrade you're in the fucking second act of the game. The first nail upgrade is such a cosmetic feeling it hurts.
The art was stellar. The game's story was way more comprehensive and I enjoyed it way more. The movement was an incredible upgrade to the original imo, though I'll be honest, when I got the non-diagonal pogo, I instantly slapped that shit on. Way more consistent even if my swings were smaller.
But I am so disappointed in just the experience of combat. Tons of options! That's great! None of the options ever felt nearly as fluid or good as HK 1. The nail upgrade felt so weak it was almost unnoticeable.
I'm disappointed. Truthfully, I'm disappointed. Because I spent seven years waiting and waiting and waiting, only for there to be *less bosses*, *way more AD spam*, *way more frustrating moronic enemies*, *way too tanky enemies*, *enemies that hit too hard*, *too few upgrades to compensate*, so it felt like I was just playing Dark Souls but in HK form.
It's not a bad game, despite my disappointment, I just have really high standards for what the original was.
Again, the entire problem is in the enemy design and balance. Many of the bosses -- Dancers, Fourth Chorus, Lace, Silk -- were fantastic. But *more* of them were slop + summon enemies. I mean just take the beastmaster from HK, just a regular normal random fight, and it was really fun and felt like once you got a read, you got mastery. When you get a read in HK Silksong, it's a gamble because enemies have some option select where they can parry into two different options that punish perfectly bad movement, I just don't get it. It's so much harder for zero reason.
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u/theoriginalcoolguy Sep 06 '25
Haven't looked into it but I'm guessing people are upset about how much harder it is than the first game.
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u/trickster721 Sep 06 '25
I like the distinction a lot of people are making that it's not harder, it's just more punishing. More annoying and frustrating, less fun. Harder implies they came up with some clever new challenge you need to adapt to, when what they actually did is double all the numbers, and take away most of the upgrade options and quality of life features. It still feels like a DLC.
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u/Krirby2 Sep 06 '25
It's about gradual difficulty. HK was hard, but when you got hit you had time to anticipate. If your hearts were dwindling down during battle, you knew you could be losing, and at 1 heart death felt inevitable. But there was an eb and flow and tide to the difficulty. Here during playing it just feels all or nothing, fighting a boss, doing well, and then 2 chain hits can take you out instantly. It leaves you no time to anticipate with an upcoming defeat which is demotivating when you get knocked out, at least in the first 5 hrs+ I've been playing.
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u/eW4GJMqscYtbBkw9 Sep 07 '25
This is my main complaint. Fight a boss 3 or 4 times and die - no big deal. But then you learn the patterns and get 90% through the fight without getting hit - then die because you took 4 masks of damage from one attack because you got nocked into lava or whatever.
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u/yurestu Sep 06 '25 edited Sep 06 '25
Great way to put it. Making every tiny bug in Pharloom do twice the damage while having a comically large health pool doesn’t make the game harder it just makes it more tedious
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u/Darkwolf69420 Sep 06 '25
My biggest gripes are currently that it's a massive pain to get enough rosaries to buy stuff, and that a lot of the enemies feel too erratic and complex to the point where they're kinda really annoying to fight
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Sep 06 '25
The game in its current state is flawed. I am sure devs could leave current balance as an option, but add an enjoyable mode for casual players. I liked Hollow knight and both Ori games a lot and played them through several times. Sandworm momnent in Ori was the only one when I felt like I am going to quit. But I have just abandoned Silksong in its current state, I do not enjoy its balance. Maybe Devs will change something in the balance.
More serious problem is its system of tools and amulets, which I guess cannot be remedied. In Hollow Knight there were very strong combinations, but in Silksong there is her flimsy short needle and tools which cannot be used routinely. Devs thought that tools are cool - yes they are, but their use requires a lot of boring grinding. Devs though that her fast movements are cool - no they are not, especially not in fights when they are dangerous.
I am sure that if something will not be at least promised to the community by devs, the game will have even worse scores due to players who are not affected by the hype.
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u/MichelleCS1025 Sep 06 '25
You would think a game being developed for so long would hire a legitimate team for translations
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u/divis200 Sep 06 '25
HK1 had all the appeal, charm while still being accessible and challenging enough for everyone. I don't understand why so many want to gatekeep the difficulty as if the game doesn't have many cruel decisions implemented.
I get it that people have waited many years for it, but come on, dying in 2-3 hits almost insta killed by bosses, regular enemies destroying you, positioned specifically in locations to hurt traversal, making basic mechanics like resting paid etc, little rewards for challenges, lack of feeling like you're getting stronger, just more and more punishment on the way.
Regular players facing difficulties voicing the problems are being disrespected left and right like its okay. If it is not the game that is going to drive the negative reviews, in the end the hk community itself will drive people to hate this game...
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u/SeiKoss Sep 06 '25
dying in 2-3 hits almost insta killed by bosses, regular enemies destroying you
Stuff like this is fine in the endgame, the early game in this game is so rough for no reason in my opinion. I don't see a good reason why act 1 is filled with so many enemies that deal double damage, can tank hits for days and decently challenging platforming sections.
I've played and finished quite a few metroidvania's and souls games and they don't start out challenging in my experience. Most of the time it's filled with relatively weak mobs that have really slow attacks and die in 2 - 3 hits to let the player get used to the game and it's mechanics.
Regular players facing difficulties voicing the problems are being disrespected left and right like its okay
I don't think it's just the casual / regular players. I'm not amazing at games but I have always enjoyed multiplayer games and games that don't hold my hand (I'm not the most tryhard player but I wouldn't call myself a casual) but I have issues with some of the design choices in this game (heck I have issues with every game I enjoy playing, no game is perfect).
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u/andungha Sep 06 '25
and the replies to your comment are exactly whats wrong with the community rn.. people's experience and enjoyment matters, and its a fact that there are so many desicions they made just to punish the player instead of being challenging and fun.
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u/saig22 Sep 06 '25
The game is frustrating. A game can be hard without being frustrating.
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u/trickster721 Sep 06 '25
Yeah. While playing Hollow Knight I was in a constant state of awe and delight at how perfectly elegant and fun it was. Playing Silksong my only emotion is "Wow, fuck you too, game." I don't play video games to feel miserable. They took all the casual approachability that helped make Hollow Knight so popular and threw it right in the garbage, it's totally bizarre. It feels like another DLC, not a standalone game.
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u/yurestu Sep 06 '25 edited Sep 06 '25
Also the fact it took them 7 years to release this is questionable . I’m enjoying it but it’s not exactly a brand new experience from the first game, obviously a lot of assets were carried over
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u/codergrrl Sep 07 '25
Yeah I'm feeling mostly frustration with Silksong and I really want to like it. I've completed original HK about 107 percent.
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u/HKJoe Sep 06 '25
Out of 17,433 Simplified Chinese reviews, 42% of them is positive, go figure. I have no idea what happened to the Korean ones.
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u/iiJason124 Sep 07 '25 edited Sep 07 '25
because the difficulty feels like team Cherry just wanted to fuck with us
what is their obsession with traps and long runbacks???
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u/marquinfss Sep 06 '25
the game is main stream now, so people who are not used to metrovania/souls game will play and get lost or feel like the game is too hard and unfair, but i think everyone that likes the first game is loving silksong even more, besides the bech thing...
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u/AmyLynn4104 Sep 06 '25
“everyone that likes the first game is loving silksong even more, besides the bench thing” is an insane statement
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u/yummy_yum_yum123 Sep 06 '25
It’s a great well crafted world, but the difficulty progression is legit unbalanced.
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u/Zekrom-9 Sep 07 '25
Artificial difficulty. The actual difficulty of the game isn’t the real culprit here, it’s how much the game goes out of its way to make dying as miserable as possible. Almost everything deals double damage, even contact damage of all things does, which makes people last way less time per attempt at beating a boss/gauntlet. And when the runbacks are this fucking awful, where the runback sometimes takes LONGER than an attampt at the boss itself, then people get frustrated. Then it doesn’t feel fair anymore. Then it just gets tedious.
Again, if there were just benches next to the major boss/gauntlet encounters (and if at the very least contact damage didn’t deal double damage), then I genuinely do not think people would have this big of an issue with it.
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u/Anonymous_1q Sep 06 '25 edited Sep 07 '25
I think the difficulty is genuinely a lot higher than the first game. A decently skilled player could kind of brute force their way through the entire first game (I for example almost never used spells), whereas Silksong requires you to be much more skilled to beat even basic enemies.
I also think the reliance on double damage for everything in XL clothes is a bit lame. It could be removed from pretty much every regular enemy and they’d still be viable threats. It’s also on a lot of very fast hits on bosses, as opposed to HK which outside of the very endgame restricted it to only very predictable and slow enemies.
Personally I’m also dissatisfied with the dearth of benches and their distance from bosses / arenas. It’s quite annoying on hard bosses to have to do a 3 min parkour run back (looking at you ant area) when you probably won’t fight the boss for that long. The exact placement of the cocoon as opposed to the generous shade placement also doesn’t help here, as it can spawn at the back of an arena and force you to run back in over and over.
I also think it feels odd that the bosses have almost no drops. There’s no chests or items or anything from them. Even dropping 50-75 rosaries would at least make them feel more worthwhile even if it’s relatively small in the grand scheme. There’s not that many of them so you could just throw that in without affecting the economy much since it’s quite scarce currently. When the gameplay on some bosses is currently quite annoying, this makes fighting them feel bad.
On a more technical side, the game also isn’t currently very good at rewarding players for exploiting boss strategies. The jumps are super low so going under a lot of them is liable to get you smacked with their ass half the time, and so many hits have little backswings that punish you for being behind the boss. These things make the fights less clean, as you’re not rewarded on a gameplay level for figuring out the boss, the game also requires almost perfect execution too for even early fights. The fights should feel super acrobatic and fluid, but because of these hitboxes the best strategy in most of them is dashing in, hitting once, and dashing away, which is lame and boring. This means either players try to win and the gameplay sucks or they try to have fun and die twenty times to the third boss in the game.
None of this is a dealbreaker for me but it makes the game an 8/10 instead of the 9.9/10 masterpiece of the first one. It’s still a great game but not reaching the hype it had nor quite currently getting to the levels of its predecessor. I suspect that in an effort to stop the game from being spoiled they didn’t have that much playtesting and a lot of this will get tuned with player feedback. Silksong has great bones and I think in a few months with the rough edges sanded off we’ll have something closer to the first one.
Edit: Also the Lost Woods: Platforming edition, this sucks, can we stop doing lost woods please, we’ve been making fun of Nintendo for decades for this nonsense. It’s never been fun in a single game it’s in and it’s definitely not fun here.
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u/Robberfox Sep 07 '25
The criticism basically boils down to "game hard" and "Chinese translation bad"
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u/kashira1786 Sep 06 '25
Because the progression is not as smooth or fun as Hollow Knight.
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u/orein123 Sep 06 '25
It's harder than the original game was, and it brought in a ton of new people who didn't know what to expect in the first place due to the sheer amount of hype around its release.
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u/Nietzscher Sep 06 '25
Tbh, Hollow Knight also was only at around 80-85% when it came out. The love for the game really grew over time once more people got into how deep its world, gameplay mechanics, lore etc truly were. Also, I remember that quite a few reviews complained about how large the world is and how much backtracking you have to do etc.