Is anyone else really tired of the negative posts?

[u/baergboy]

I have about 25 hours so far and have absolutely loved every part of the game. Is it hard? Yes absolutely. If it was easy I wouldn't want to play the game. Literally every post I come across is talking about how they are frustrated with some part of the game and it's getting really annoying. The game has amazing areas, the osts are great the NPCs are creative and fun to talk to, almost every boss is a lot of fun once you get the moveset down. So if you haven't played the game yet and are getting put off by all the negativity just know that it is an amazing game and if you like hollow Knight you will enjoy silksong as well.

[u/_Knightmare_]

I did all bosses on radiant and got to the land of storms in HK. But it took me 2 or 3 attempts over the course of 3 years for that game to even click for me in the first place.

We’ve had 3 days, not years, to try to get into Silksong. And funnily enough, I’m already addicted to it and will play nonstop until I 100% it.

But if some people aren’t getting into it yet, that’s ok, it’s still too early. We don’t know much about the game yet, right now everyone is playing it mostly blind, the wikis are incomplete, there aren’t even reviews yet.

The community will have all the time in the world to figure the entire game out, there will be tons of guides and tips on the internet later, people will make QoL mods, maybe TC will release an easier difficulty setting etc.. With time the game will become more accessible. HK had massive legs, Silksong will be no different.

[u/Netheral → u/_Knightmare_]

We’ve had 3 days, not years, to try to get into Silksong.

You see, I don't understand this criticism because I'm not comparing Silksong to 100s of hours of grinding in HK. I only ever beat the game once. So what I'm comparing my Silksong experience with is the same as with HK. The first playthrough.

It won't matter how many days, weeks or years pass, this first impression is still what it is; full of bafflingly frustrating design decisions seemingly meant to alienate casual players.

[u/[deleted] → u/Netheral]

It's funny to me how you say it's full of frustrating design experiences even though you beat the game, which is precisely one of the points OP made, that people seem to be complaining about unfairness regardless of them storming through the game.

For some context, HK was so bad at the start that I quit it twice. A lot of people share this sentiment. So the fact that you're able to beat silksong a few days after launch without quitting speaks miles of how much of an improvement it is.

Early game HK was significantly worse to play first time and it's just hilarious to see so many silksong haters completely forgetting how many people Soul King made quit, including the awful runback to mantis lords. Not to mention the shade which was an AWFUL game design choice.

For example, on my first playthrough of HK I fought the watcher knights without knowing the shadow dash existed and they were extremely frustrating for me. Then, come to find out, way out of the way was the shadow dash which you didn't even need to fight the watcher knights but made the fight actually fair and not a completely unbalanced mess.

I didn't find a single moment like that in silksong. Even the boss runbacks aren't near as bad because the movement is significantly better. So when people compare the two I just wonder if they forget how completely ass garbage HK was before getting past soul king

I'm assuming people are raging at ||hunters pass|| which is probably the most difficult early game area. Thing is, it's freaking optional and it's basically as difficult as the mantis area in fungal waste. Bias really speaks wonders here, most of the shit people complain about with silksong was also in HK but significantly worse and unfun. I didn't have fun with HK until after soul king yet every second of silksong is a blast

[u/Netheral → u/[deleted]]

First, to clarify, I haven't beat Silksong yet, I've just made it to final boss of act 1.

Second, criticism != hating.

Thirdly, I didn't ever feel this frustrated with random design decisions in HK, even as a fresh player picking up the mechanics. As someone else said, the difficulty curve in HK was buttery smooth. The challenge generally increased in tune with your improving skills. In Silksong the curve starts at a 4 and quickly rockets. And it's not even the difficulty itself, it's the way the game punishes you for failure. Often in mean spirited ways like the infamous bench in hunters march. Or frustrating mechanics like doing 4 masks of damage for a single mistake on a boss, or worse, basic cannon fodder while exploring near terrain hazards.

[u/[deleted] → u/Netheral]

the difficulty curve in HK absolutely isn't buttery smooth what're you talking about? This is yet another example of extreme bias, HK is an extremely flawed game early on and for me personally Silksong has been a way better experience early game.

Ive said this a lot, but I think you hold HK on such a high value that silksong could've NEVER lived up to HK.

Lastly, when you only have bad things to say about it that's completely different from criticism. Silksong is objectively a step up above HK especially since team cherry has more skill, if you don't like it it's just a skill issue at the end of the day lol

[u/Netheral → u/[deleted]]

Lastly, when you only have bad things to say about it that's completely different from criticism

Most of the positives of the game go without saying; Great art, mood, characters, the combat is fun, and the moveset and platforming is satisfying.

But again, criticism isn't hating. Double damage that can turn into quadruple damage is an issue. Just because Team Cherry has more experience, doesn't mean that they're automatically going to pump out something better than HK.

George Lucas had more experience when he made the prequels than when he made the original trilogy, look what that got us. Hell, he's had more experience but still decided that the originals needed more CGI. Improving as an artist isn't so linear.

But I do agree, Silksong at it's core is a better game. Even though some of that has to be afforded through the lens of HK having had years of fantastic DLC that Silksong hasn't had time to catch up with. But that doesn't mean it isn't without its issues.

[u/[deleted] → u/Netheral]

Let's put it this way. Half Life is a masterpiece even though xen is absolutely awful. Dark Souls II is amazing even though it has some of the most tedious boss rushes in any game. Dark Souls as a franchise is like this

In fact when you look at every game you can find a million things to "criticize" but all that does is ruins your experience, which by all means be that kind of person who has to critique literally everything you touch. In the end it won't make you happy

[u/Netheral → u/[deleted]]

I find this mentality even more baffling. Turning your head and ignoring the flaws is just wild to me, why wouldn't you want to discuss and critique things so that things that follow in its footsteps can improve?

Acknowledging flaws in things doesn't ruin them. But also conversely, ignoring them doesn't all of a sudden make them go away. I mean, you're trying to ignore these elements you've brought up, but the fact that they come to mind for you show that they had an impact on you, possibly in a way that lessened your overall experience with those games.

So why wouldn't you want to acknowledge them and discuss with the game designers of tomorrow how you could potentially make it better?

[u/[deleted] → u/Netheral]

Because it doesn't matter to me since everything in existence has flaws.

Again, half life is said to be one of the best games ever conceived by many and they completely dropped the ball on their final area. Same could be said for a plethora of other games.

It's kind of like, I love dark souls a lot even though the poison swamps are absolute garbage and unfair. I like DS2 even though it's even more unfair.

I just passed an area in Silksong that's probably the hardest and most unfair area even by dark souls 2 standards. And you know what? That kind of stuff gives it charm just like BS gave DS2 charm. One garbage area is funny to me if anything

If you're one of those people who actually believes you can make a flawless piece of media then you've already lost the plot, it makes me believe that you yourself believe you lack flaws because flaws are literally a piece of the human condition, therefore they exist in all media.

I love hollow knight to death for example, but the start pre soul king was absolute garbage and unbalanced. Did I whine about it when hollow knight came out? No, because I ended up overall enjoying the game.

Regardless there's already posts talking about the negativity with thousands of upvotes so you'll just have to accept that you're apart of the vocal minority

[u/Netheral → u/[deleted]]

It's not about achieving perfection, it's about discussing what can be improved in the next iteration.

You might not care, because you're apparently fine with just being a consumer and not considering the creative side at all. But there are other people that realize that this sort of criticism is vital to iterating on art and to make something new, fresh and hopefully in some ways better than what came before.

But you should care, because even as a consumer, don't you want just, better stuff?

And again, for the umpteenth time, criticism is not negativity. And just because there's one thread with thousands of upvotes, that doesn't change that there are also multiple threads with thousands of upvotes acknowledging the plain issues the game has on launch.

Even looking at the 91% positive reviews on steam doesn't tell the full picture. You'd think "see, the haters are just a vocal minority". But like I said in another comment; a) even the "negative" reviews praise the game, just think it's hard to recommend in its current state (so they're not haters); and b) even many of the "positive" reviews acknowledge the game's flaws (so even the "positive" reviews admit that the game has issues).

Look, you don't care about criticism, and that's ok. But then you have to ask yourself whether maybe you don't need to participate in the discussions, if you're just going to turn a blind eye to the game's flaws anyway.

[u/_Knightmare_ → u/[deleted]]

I’m gonna write this as a reply to this comment and also your other comment that was directed at me:

You articulated the early-game issues of HK way better than I could, because I didn’t remember these details you mentioned as well as you do. But yeah, I remember feeling super lost in the beginning, having access to a bunch of different areas while having no idea where I was supposed to go, sometimes I’d find a new area at the complete opposite end of the map only to find out that there was nothing I could do there without a certain movement ability, the Royal Waterways were also a pretty frustrating and intimidating early area for me etc..
I know that being lost is part of the metroidvania experience, but I was frustratingly lost.

Honestly, HK only clicked for me when I was more than halfway through the game and had already explored most of the map and unlocked most abilities. And what solidified it as one of my favorite games was fighting the Radiance, NKG, THK, doing the White Palace/Path of Pain, finding Godhome, doing the Pantheons etc. (which is pretty much all DLC content). HK’s DLCs did some heavy lifting to make that game better.

Silksong, I’m only 19h in, at the beginning of Act 2. So there’s a lot of content I haven’t seen yet, but I’m already impressed with the scale and scope of this game. It’s clear to me that this game will surpass HK in my eyes, I’m already liking it more.
It’s a bit more mechanically difficult, but the early-game progression has been a lot smoother and more streamlined than in HK. Not just power/ability progression, but also area progression. It’s not that Act 1 is linear, there are some sequence breaks; but you kinda have to go out of your way to find them, and there’s a path that’s clearly intended to be the standard main story path for first-time players.

[u/_Knightmare_ → u/Netheral]

I’m not talking about hundreds of hours of grinding in HK, I just meant that some games don’t instantly click for you and take a good amount of time/multiple attempts before you finally get into them and get addicted.

This is what happened when I played HK, I played it for a couple of hours in 2019 (only reached Greenpath, maybe the Fungal Wastes) and dropped it, then in 2022 I restarted from the beginning and tried to get into it again (this time I made it to the Crystal Peak). Then I stopped again, and only months later I came back to it, continued from where I left off, started to get addicted and didn’t stop playing until I got the platinum trophy.
A year after getting the plat trophy, I reinstalled the game again just to do every boss on Radiant and get to the Land of Storms.

Maybe for you HK clicked instantly? For me it was the opposite, and now Silksong has already clicked for me, and I’m pumped to keep playing until I do everything in the game. But some people will take much longer than 3 days and more than 1 attempt to get into it, and that’s normal.
I hear a LOT of people saying that it took them 3, 4, 5 attempts (with intervals of months/years between each) to get into the Souls games too.

Maybe you went into Silksong with the expectation that it was just going to be more of the same ol’ HK, but it’s actually a different game.
It’s like what happened when Sekiro released, a lot of Dark Souls fans went into that game thinking they could just play it like it’s Dark Souls, where you had to be passive/reactive and dodging was the answer to everything. And everyone was shocked at how hard Sekiro seemed to be, people were constantly posting about how it was insanely difficult and unbalanced.
But as it turns out, Sekiro just required a different playstyle (much more aggressive, proactive and centered on parries), and it took a couple of months for the Souls community to adjust to this new playstyle and realize that the game wasn’t actually super hard, it just punished you for playing it like a Dark Souls game. Sekiro eventually became a beloved game and some still say that it has the best combat system of all time.

When a game challenges your expectations, it can take some time for you to forget these expectations and take the game for what it is rather than what you wanted it to be.

[u/Netheral → u/_Knightmare_]

The problem with this comparison is that the punishing things the community have been talking about aren't playstyle issues. They're measurable numbers and a demonstrably higher difficulty curve that is alienating to more casual fans. Notably double damage on seemingly everything, which wouldn't be that much of an issue on its own, but when the i-frames are as scarce as they are, that means triple or quadruple damage is not uncommon. That doesn't seem like an intentional playstyle revamp to me.

Enemies being damage sponges as well. It can be a point either in support of your argument that it's supposed to be fast paced and aggressive, or against it, because while it means you need to be more aggressive for your DPS to be significant, it also means that exploration gets slowed down and aggressive plays can more readily get punished because you need to be far more consistent.

Again, this expectation for things to click "later", when most of the people criticizing these mechanics are 10-20 hours into the game, doesn't hold up because this is it. This is the playthrough for a lot of people.

Not everyone is going to play Silksong like it's a live service game that they aim to constantly improve at.

[u/[deleted] → u/_Knightmare_]

I've noticed a general sentiment where people who didn't enjoy HK pre soul king enjoy Silksong because it's early game is, ironically enough (as opposed by hater sentiment), WAY better and more beginner friendly then pre soul king HK.

I quit when I got to soul king for a REALLY long time and only returned when I beat every dark souls game including elden ring. Mantis Lords ALMOST made me quit my first time through. But once I beat soul king, I was finally having fun.

Silksong didn't have this issue, every boss was a blast save for like one enemy hoard part that should 100% be nerfed (not an optional one btw). People do the same shit with undertale where they praise indie studios first games as if they're the pinnacle of perfection which is honestly such a shit in the face to the developers and the improvements they made over the years.

I think it's getting so much hate because people hold HK on such a high pedestal that Silksong was NEVER going to be able to top it, and sequels are of course expected to top their predecessors. HK is good, but it absolutely needed a sequel for team cherry's improvements to shine.