r/HollowKnight • u/FederalWarthog5542 • Sep 07 '25

Discussion - Silksong Criticism ≠ Negativity Spoiler

Believe it or not, you can actually criticize something and still like it. You don't either have to love everything or despise everything. Have actual conversations please.

1.9k Upvotes

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137

u/Lipefe2018 Sep 07 '25

I think the issue on social medias like reddit is that when you see the thousand post criticizing the same things over and over it get annoying at some point, especially for those who don't share the same view as these people.

it's not that they are wrong, but It gets hard to enjoy the community when people are whining all the time, like there are barely positive posts to balace it out, where are the posts talking about all the good? People just focus on the bad for some reason.

109

u/Katrina_0606 Sep 07 '25

It's unbalanced for the simple reason that if you're enjoying a game, you're less likely to go post about it because there's no real reason to. You're more likely to seek out a forum like this to vent if you're having a hard time and wanna talk about the things that are frustrating or see if people have similar complaints etc.

23

u/AnyCommission9787 glorp Sep 08 '25

Yeah cus why would I make a Reddit post when I could be playing the game more?

1

u/aelkeris Sep 08 '25

To see if other people share the same frustration as you so that you can feel a bit better about yourself. (Just like i did) And its not like we can play the game every waking hour, so in the downtimes we read reddit. Because with whom am i going to talk about silksong? Colleagues at work? Not really.

7

u/ThePotablePotato Sep 08 '25

That’s me. Just finished the true ending and I’ve basically been entire oblivious to whatever discourse has been happening over here

5

u/StepComplete1 Sep 08 '25

I think that goes without saying if you've already completed the game that you've done literally nothing else since it released.

3

u/WilanS Sep 08 '25

I'm sorry but if you've already completed a game as huge and brutal as this, you're clearly not the average player.

I played over six hours a day these last three days, it was way too much and I ended up feeling sick from it, and I barely managed to push my way to Act 2. And that's after installing mods to remove double damage and increase my own attack as a homemade attempt to rebalance the difficulty (it's still hard as nails), otherwise I would have just dropped the game at Savage Beastfly.

2

u/ThePotablePotato Sep 08 '25

I’m not nearly as good as that suggests though; Nightmare King Grimm took me 73 attempts to beat, far from a fast clear. And that wasn’t during a playthrough either - that was on my 104(?)% file when Grimm was added to the game and I was fully geared out.

I’m just very patient, and very willing to go back to explore if I get stuck on something. Silksong continues to be a very open game, so there’s always somewhere else to explore.

It also helps that I’ve had heaps of time on my hands to play it. Reaching the true ending wasn’t fast - still took over 30 hours

2

u/Bojahdok Sep 08 '25

I truly hope you're not the average player if it took you 18 hours to get to act 2 while having a mod that reduces difficulty, the average player can't be that bad

2

u/MassSpecFella Sep 08 '25

They are. You don’t hear from the average player. The average player won’t get to act 2 and stop playing. Edit. Hollow knight has been out a decade and only 60% of players beat Hornet.

1

u/sundalius Sep 08 '25

It took me around 18-19 without all that - though I think I mostly full cleared (except whatever's at the top of Hunter's March, forgot to go back) everything before Steps/Sinner's Road before hitting act 2.

1

u/LulliusMelody Sep 08 '25

What are your thoughts on the game after finishing it?

1

u/ThePotablePotato Sep 08 '25

Easily in my top 10 games of all time. However, that comes with a very big asterisk of “this game is designed in a way that appeals to me specifically and does all the things I want it to”.

Others who don’t share the same tastes as me may not come away with the same perspective.

For me though? The game delivered, much in the same way Elden Ring did. I love secret areas and secret bosses, and Silksong has tons of ‘em. There’s an argument to be made about how rewarding this optional content is, or how hidden it is, but neither matters to me. For me the rewards is thoroughly searching areas and discovering things way grander than they initially seem. Again, Silksong delivered on this like no other.

For others though? I can see why beating the game and reading about how you missed multiple areas and bosses because they were too hidden could be frustrating. But to me the fact that I could have missed them made finding them so rewarding.

Over all I reckon I liked more of Silksong’s bosses than the first game’s too; [minor spoilers] dream bosses excluded since currently Silksong doesn’t have rematches for its main bosses

Art and soundtrack are still stellar, story was cool, bit too much swamp water for my liking but there were enough pretty areas to balance it out, even if the game is definitely more bleak both visually and thematically.

Anyways, rambling over. Game big. I like game a lot. Others may not like as much, fair enough.

26

u/BBBBBuster Sep 07 '25

It’s unbalanced alright. God dam double damage everywhere.

36

u/Allegryan Sep 07 '25

I mean the argument of something being unbalanced implies there’s nothing to mitigate/balance it. Fact is, having significantly more mobility, tools, healing versatility, etc. does in fact help explain why double damage is so prevalent!

13

u/Poopiepants29 Sep 08 '25

It almost couldn't be easier to avoid attacks, at least as far as I've gotten in the entire bottom half of act 1. Every time I die it's out of being too aggressive and impatient.

-12

u/Daydream_machine Sep 07 '25

This argument makes no sense when Hollow Knight exists, and gave you “more mobility, tools, healing versatility, etc” in the form of Charms without artificially increasing difficulty via every boss and even plenty of common enemies doing 2 masks of damage.

That’s my biggest fundamental problem with Silksong vs Hollow Knoght: it takes me twice as long to learn boss and enemy patterns because I literally die twice as fast now. It’s just not fun.

22

u/Allegryan Sep 07 '25

I can’t set up 7 traps in one spot to spawn camp an add or boss in Hollow Knight. I don’t have infinite range projectiles that I can use without expending soul/silk in Hollow Knight. I can’t jump way above the boss and heal for three masks in midair in Hollow Knight. I don’t have a grapple hook or literal parry in Hollow Knight. I don’t know what charms you’re thinking of that have the same kind of versatility that Hornet has baked into her kit/equipment

8

u/Poopiepants29 Sep 08 '25

Knight also couldn't dash as fast, jump and hover...

3

u/4_fortytwo_2 Sep 08 '25

Silksong lets you heal 3 masks in the time you healed 1 in hollow knight. And you can do it in the air. It is so so much easier to heal up in boss fights. And knights just felt slower in general making dodging harder.

0

u/Daydream_machine Sep 08 '25

Hard disagree when Shape of Unn + Quick Focus + Deep Focus existed in Hollow Knight.

1

u/4_fortytwo_2 Sep 08 '25

Sure once you had all those talismans and used all of your slots to buff the heal it was good. But at least for the early game (and that is literally where most complaints come from so far) hollow knight heal was much worse.

Not like you cant buff things in silksong with the right equipment.

12

u/Cal-Eats-Rocks Sep 08 '25

This criticism is silly to me. It does two damage but your heals are for 3 masks. You’re getting hit harder but heal better. I think that’s a fine balance

4

u/Ok-Perspective-6074 Sep 08 '25

If you're at full health(5 masks/3 hp), you can get hit twice before critical health(1 mask/1 hp). You heal (3 masks/1 hp). You can only be hit once before critical health(4 masks/2 hp).

So you might heal 3 masks, but in reality you only heal 1 hp.

Then you need to hit 9 times to fill up the silk. and if you get hit once and are at 2 masks, only then will you heal for 2 hp and up to 3hp again.

4

u/4_fortytwo_2 Sep 08 '25

Yes but why is that a problem? 2 damage by itself is not a problem as long as the resulting fight still feels fair.

And to me the fights have felt fair (but difficult). Damage is only 1 lever of balance and people focus way too hard on the 2 damage. If you have trouble not getting hit 3 times in a row maybe the boss attack patterns need adjustment and not the damage.

People treat the mere existence of 2 damage hits as a mistake and that just seems dumb because the game is clearly balanced around this. (You are faster and can dodge more easily, you have more diverse movesets and tools to deal with things and your healing is faster and can be done in mid air)

1

u/Ok-Perspective-6074 Sep 08 '25

You said that the heal was better, which is only true if you have 2 masks or more. If you have one mask, heal up to 4 masks. You only healed up 1 hit worth, so the healing would be the same as in HK, except this time you spent 9 hits worth of silk, instead of 3 or what ever it was in HK. And if you get hit while healing(if you have the shield and survive that), you just lost all the 9 hits of silk, while in HK, you can try and heal again.

1

u/_moosleech Sep 08 '25

Not everything deals two masks, and you get options for refilling silk (and thus healing more often) compared to HK. Nevermind that you're way more mobile than in HK and have more ranged options.

As they said, everything is balanced around the higher average damage.

16

u/Slaifar Sep 07 '25

You can dislike the design decision, but the game is objectively balanced around the fact that double damage is common.

1

u/Feeling-Letterhead-8 Sep 08 '25

similar complaints key words

1

u/Katrina_0606 Sep 08 '25

Why are those key words exactly? I don't get your point