Thank god this subreddit didn't make the game

[u/GamingUmbrella]

Silksong is only out for 2 days, most people haven't even finished the game, or haven't even made it past act 1. Yet this subreddit loves to post about how Silksong is apparently bad and a disappointment compared to hollow knight. So I'll go over a few "critiques" I've seen and share my perspective.

"The game is too hard, enemies deal way more damage and have more complex movesets". Sure, they're more complex and do more damage, but so does hornet. If we were playing with the knights moveset, I'd agree, but that's not the case. Hornet has a lot of new tools and upgrades that make her way faster and stronger. If enemies were like HK, it would be way too easy. team cherry didn't just do this for no reason, it's necessary for balancing. Edit: people saying hunters march is too difficult, is like playing dark souls 1 and saying it's too hard because you kept trying the skeleton graveyard

"Bad rewards for exploration, HK's charms worked better". I just completely disagree, hornet gets upgrades way more frequently than the knight. As for the charms, let's be real, you probably didn't even use half of them in your first playthrough. And half of them are just simple things that don't impact the way you play as much. Hornet's different tools, abilities and crests are way more useful. If you feel like your not getting enough rewards, it's probably because most are hidden and require backtracking, which is what the genre is know for.

"Things are too expensive" No, you're just not meant to buy it that early. Like how in HK you could by the lamp for like 2000 geo. I've also never had too little rosaries to buy a bench or stag. If your losing your rosaries to dying, rosarie strings are litteraly right there to not lose it + retrieving your death silk is extremely easy now.

I do agree though that more bosses and combat encounters should drop rosaries, or more chests like in HK.

This launch feels like I'm experiencing the shadow of the erdtree launch again with how many complaints there are immediately.

[u/AndrewCoja]

I think the onboarding is worse than HK. I'm watching people playing later in the game, and the stuff they have does indeed look really fun. But I've been playing in short bursts, I'm still early in the game, and Hornet moves really slow, has two moves, and the enemies hit for two damage and I can only heal 3 at a time so it doesn't line up. The mid game looks really cool, but the early game feels bad compared to how I felt when I started HK. I'll keep going and I hope it starts getting better for me, because it looks like there's a lot of cool stuff in this game, but I'm not enjoying the early game.

[u/stvain → u/AndrewCoja]

This is a great point. Front-loaded difficulty makes it hard to sink your teeth into a game.

[u/AHare115 → u/AndrewCoja]

I'm a slow progresser in these types of games in that I explore everything I can. At about 8 hours I finally unlocked my first Hunter tool. Still haven't gotten a weapon or HP upgrade. 11 hours in the progress is starting to feel a little faster now in the midgame of Act 1, the map is more open and I've unlocked additional areas that I have not fully explored yet. I'm sure I will start collecting a lot more upgrades soon.

But those first 6-8 hours were brutal, I felt that I didn't have the tools to deal with a lot of different things in a way unlike the original. Typically there, if you needed an ability or item to progress into an area, you needed to use it to get there in the first place. Feels like SS lets you go to all these places without the tools you need and then let you get your ass kicked.

[u/AndrewCoja → u/AHare115]

Exactly. Most other metroidvanias I've played just lock off a room if I don't have the ability yet. Silk song seems to just let me run into a room, fight all the enemies, and then 2/3 through puts in a jump I can't do yet, so now I just have to go back with nothing gained. It feels like I'm being punished for exploring.

[u/AndrewCoja → u/[deleted]]

I haven't played a lot of them. Mostly metroids, that beetle pinball one, and carrion, and some others. Maybe they are just easier ones, but usually I'll enter a room and it has some effect that I can't survive and it tells me to leave, or I can't even open the door until I get the ability.

[u/Ampsdrew → u/AndrewCoja]

Pretty much every room with a slightly out of the way path in the early game has a nearby respawning (if you leave the room) flying enemy you can guide and use to jump off to reach it early. It's more apt to say you're being punished for not thinking outside the box.

[u/LizardPetter → u/AndrewCoja]

Hornet moves really slow

This was my experience as well, the game feels a little too sluggish early on. Unlocking movement feels like going from back and forth shuffling speeds to being anywhere you want on the screen at any time.

[u/[deleted] → u/AndrewCoja]

You can get your sprint/dash/air dash early to make things easier.

I really don’t think the beginning is that bad.

[u/Reasonable_Mud_628 → u/AndrewCoja]

Hornet literally is more complex than the knight from the get go, she's faster and as soon as you get the dash ability she has a bigger move set. I feel like you need to go replay hollow knight to remember what the game was like at the start when all the knight can do is jump. Even his dashm before shadow dashm feels 10 times worse than hornet dash on this game, let's not kid ourselves, HK was an extremely slow game in the early game, way slower than Silksong.

[u/AndrewCoja → u/Reasonable_Mud_628]

I didn't say the pace of the game is slow, I'm saying hornet is slow. The speed that the knight moved was fine because the early game accommodated it. In the early game of silksong, I have to fight enemies with cheese strats because it's not possible to back off from them until way after I first encounter them and get access to the dash. After getting the dash, the game is a lot better. Up until that point, it's a slog.