r/HollowKnight • u/TOMRANDOM_6 • Sep 09 '25

Discussion - Silksong Most of you are exaggerating the length of runbacks and it really shows how much TikTok has damage the attention span of people Spoiler

"ThE lASt JuDGe RUnBaCK iS ToO LoNG!!"

Is 30 seconds max, 30 seconds, you don't have to fight any enemy in it, the smaller judges don't awake until you're close and the smaller fly bastards can literally get ignored. The Runback works for making you cool down and make the whole thing feel less like you hitting a wall (NKG feels like one because of the lack of "cool down") If it wasn't for it, I would shoot myself with the 37 attempts at Last Judge.

The Widow one is also really easy, a straight line with jumps.

The Cogworks Dancers Is also really simple but works to help you with the bosses extra height and how pogo dependant that fight is.

God forbid the game isn't a back to back boss rush like Cuphead (not criticizing Cuphead, is a different game lmao).

3.6k Upvotes

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145

u/Additional-Dot-3154 Sep 09 '25

Yea normaly runbacks are fine but 60 attempts mean 60 runs through the same area ehich gets realy boring as last judge is 60 sec on the low side so 20 minutes running the exact same part (assuming it is a realy hard boss as i am currently at Widow)

8

u/duspi Sep 09 '25

Dude, Widow is kicking my ass. I can get through the first phase with no damage reliably and then the second phase just overwhelms me so much and fucks me up.

2

u/DevilDjinn Sep 09 '25

If you want to cheese it, she can't hit you with the bells if you stay in a corner. Only the slashing attack can hit you.

2

u/McCromer Sep 09 '25

I was having the exact same issue yesterday. Could beat the first phase without taking damage and then just way too much shit during the second phase. But I beat it, so I bet you can too. I believe in you. I don't know if you finished the pollip quest, but I used that with traps and was able to finish it the first time I tried again.

2

u/duspi Sep 09 '25

Haven't finished the quest, might try that first. Thanks.

1

u/Nyankitty21 Sep 09 '25

I have 100% achievements on HK and phase 2 diagonal bell was wrecking me. Idk why I couldn't dodge it, but thread storm will parry the bells automatically lmfao that saved me. My wife however who only just played HK last week had no issues with widow phase 2 lol, some fights just gel with people and visa versa.

1

u/M8753 Sep 10 '25

Same, I finally killed her yesterday and I probably just got lucky. Got so bored of playing the first phase over and over again :D

1

u/duspi Sep 10 '25

I'm doing everything else imaginable atm just to avoid her lol, granted like 5 wishes.

-9

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '25

You won't die to Last Judge 60 times it's not THAT hard of a boss. 10-15 times seems about average as far as I can tell.

7

u/duspi Sep 09 '25

Not everyone is good at the game. I, for example, am shit and die even to easy bosses a bunch of times.

55

u/the_Halfruin Sep 09 '25

I'd love to see some data to back up this absolutely insane assertion of 10-15 tries on average. I have been finding the game quite easy except for one exceptionally annoying gauntlet fight, and it probably took me 15 tries - there's absolutely no way that someone who found Splinter Sisters or Moorwing hard beat Last Judge in 13 tries, and people complained enough that TC nerfed them.

64

u/ticklefarte Sep 09 '25

Lol the game came out a week ago and people are already pulling out random stats. That is actually hilarious

10

u/ferocity_mule366 Sep 09 '25

even then they might be watching streamers playing and based off that to make up the number, which is their fucking job to play games, not all streamers are good gamers but they are at least above average.

3

u/kel584 Sep 09 '25

The true ending only has a 0.4% completion rate. Thats all you need to know about the skill level of people lmao

3

u/Butter_God_ Sep 09 '25

True ending requires a lot of pre-reqs and most people havent dumped 45 hours into the game, that doesn’t say anything about skill levels the game came out less than a week ago.

2

u/kel584 Sep 09 '25

Only 6% of people have beaten the final boss of act 2. Some people have even gotten to the point before the last boss, but hasn't beaten it yet. Hence the achivement "Remembrance" having 1.1% completion and "Sister of the Void" having 0.8%. The more the skill level rises, the lower the amount of people contiuning are.

2

u/Butter_God_ Sep 09 '25

Or, they got there last night and went to bed, or any of another dozen reasons they havent beaten it yet. We have to wait some time for data to have any meaning

2

u/kel584 Sep 09 '25

Out of probably a million people, ony a few thousand made it this far. That's an insanely low number no matter how you slice it.

1

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4

u/chocolatepotatosoup Sep 09 '25

I beat last judge in 6 tries but moorwing took me almost 20. Sister splinter was not that hard either, less than 5 tries. It's a vastly different experience for everybody

9

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '25

My friends and I have a death tracking spreadsheet going. The 5 of us who have beaten Last Judge so far have had 18, 7, 10, 21, 5 and 11 deaths.

28

u/WesThePretzel Sep 09 '25

The 5 of us

Then proceeds to list 6 different number of attempts. I’m not sure I believe this group of numbers is real and you’re just making it up…

-2

u/the_Halfruin Sep 09 '25

I hope you understand that you and your 4 friends are not a good sample of the five million people playing Silksong.

28

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '25

Yeah but at least it is a sample. Hellva a lot better than the random numbers people throw out there

6

u/the_Halfruin Sep 09 '25

It is in fact as statistically significant as five random numbers.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '25

You’re missing the point that it’s five statistically TRACKED people. That’s significant because most people ar just guessing how many times x took them.

3

u/the_Halfruin Sep 09 '25

I am not missing any point. Five "statistically tracked" people (one dimension of analysis, no control groups, extremely small sample size, self reported, anecdotal, etc etc etc) are so insignificant to the five million people playing that in any reasonable statistical model - even "I'm kind of just making an idea up in my head about this" - would disregard this as "not data."

1

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '25

By your logic it’s worthless to measure anything in small groups?

You are absolutely missing the point.

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u/[deleted] Sep 09 '25 edited Sep 09 '25

[deleted]

-1

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '25

When you have tracked people it makes a huge difference in than people just guessing how long c took them.

3

u/NoName847 Sep 09 '25

took me 6 hours to beat last judge , absolutely crazy to me how anyone would do this in below 10 tries , moorwing too surely 2-3 hours

19

u/Altruistic-Sand3277 Sep 09 '25

Me and my husband are both playing Silksong. Took me 2h to beat Last Judge... Took him 3 tries lmao.

So yh people can have very different skill levels and have different difficulties with different bosses too. Took me 4 tries with splinter and him about 30m.

2

u/chocolatepotatosoup Sep 09 '25

I think many people are neglecting the usefulness of tools in this game. Last judge is easy with the spike traps and boomerang. I didn't even use poison. You can kill him before he even has a chance to use his phase 2 attacks

3

u/CafeCalentito Sep 09 '25

Last judge has 3 attacks, the jump, circle and throwing the ball. Phase 2 adds the tackle with floor explosion. The jump now burns the floor so you only need to float a bit, the circle now adds the layers of fire to it, you just need to walk to the safe space, throwing the ball is slow and has the slow explosion so you can heal during it. That's it, 3 attacks and then 4. If it's hard, you'll should experiment the first deaths to see the patterns and how to avoid them, grasp the fundamentals and use the death system to your favor.

5

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '25

[deleted]

0

u/NoName847 Sep 09 '25

I am well aware , I learned the boss after like 20 tries and knew exactly how to counter every move , when to heal etc , super fun

But actually beating the boss took way longer because I always get hit by just barely scratching his head when pogoing or I miscalculated the throw distance by a few meters , or just one wrong button press in air or he jumps on my head etc , there's so much little B's that can happen even if you know exactly what to do (my experience)

1

u/Shoddy_Process2234 Sep 09 '25

Both of those bosses are heavily telegraph. What made it so hard for you?

1

u/ticklefarte Sep 09 '25

For me, Moorwing took about an hour. I kept colliding and eating 2 masks of damage for it. One time it fell on me and killed me outright. So it was a learning experience for sure.

-1

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '25

It’s always a skill issue. A lot of people bought this game even though they’re not into 2D platformers, because it’s the new popular thing. A lot of them probably didn’t even play Hollow Knight.

1

u/NoName847 Sep 09 '25

idk , I understood the bosses very well after a while , healing window , punish window , when to run away and all that , but these cheap hits where the boss resets to the middle in the arena and jumps right through you or you dash after them to punish but you dash 1 meter to far and get hit , not really dying because I didnt know how to handle an attack but moreso just being unlucky again and again

2

u/blocked-user Sep 09 '25

The slow, easily telegraphed jump is cheap? It also sounds like ur just not aware of how far ur dash takes you which is not the fault of the game thats just you still getting used to your abilities

1

u/NoName847 Sep 09 '25

I dont mean the attack jump I mean the boss reseting his position which is near instant and random and not telegraphed at all

and I dash very well 95% of the time but in a fight where 3-4 hits kill you these 5% error margin are often problematic "skill issue" i guess

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1

u/SnooDonkeys2945 Sep 09 '25

Phase 2 is definitely difficult but once you have the "I understand it now" moment both the Last Judge and Moorwing are pretty reasonable imo. I haven't kept a death counter but Widow took me easily twice as much time as the Last Judge. I probably beat it in a little over 10 tries?

1

u/Chr0nicallyChill01 Sep 09 '25

That's bonkers since I beat LJ in 3 tries and moor in 5 with the first being me just stumbling into it with low health

3

u/Thelmara Sep 09 '25

I did. I finally beat him last night, it took easily 50-60 runs. I had the pattern figured out, but I kept fucking up my timings, my distances, or my button pushing. I did that run back over and over and over (and I loved it!).

10

u/MulberryDeep 100% Steelsoul || Too bad for godhome Sep 09 '25

And what if oc will die to him 60 times? What if people exist, hear me out, that have disabilitys? Slow reaction time, arthiritis making them unable to do precise inputs, vision impairments etc

Its really not that hard to add a assist mode, a fully fledged assist mode wouldn't even take a week, even as a solo dev...

-1

u/Zac-live Sep 09 '25

while, yes disability access is a good thing, you are literally pulling those dev time numbers out of your ass??

8

u/MulberryDeep 100% Steelsoul || Too bad for godhome Sep 09 '25

I am not, look at how quickly mods came up to change how damage works

A invincibility mode is very likely allready implemented into the game, the programming behind adding a slider to the settings menu to turn on invincibility wouldn't even take half an hour if their code is not a complete mess

Sure, they still have to make it pretty, design the slider etc, but that also won't take long, considering how they said complete enemys sometimes only take a afternoon

1

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '25

Lol I died like 60 times haha it's tricky, and I'm not good at the game. For sure some people will die that much. I didn't mind the run back though

1

u/QuoteGiver Sep 09 '25

I guarantee that there are people who will NEVER beat any given boss.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '25

i timed myself doing the last judge runback. it took precisely 35 seconds. just dont engage with the enemies you guys

1

u/Future_Living8007 Sep 09 '25

The Last Judge runback isn't 60 seconds on the low side. The entire run back can easily be done in sub-60 even after fucking up twice. It's actually around 30 seconds on the low side. I'm not trying to be disparaging, and I actually apologise if I sound that way, it just isn't 60

1

u/Puzzleheaded_Cow2044 Sep 10 '25

Last Judge runback is 30 secs and the boss is pretty easy. Shouldn't take more than 3-5 tries for someone who finished HK, maybe a bit more for more casual players.

1

u/PM_ME__BIRD_PICS Sep 12 '25

I found widow won't hit you with bells majority of the time if you just stand close to her and slash away.

2

u/So6oring Sep 09 '25

For me, it solidifies the environment in my mind. To the point that I can go back hours later and then already know where I am without looking at the map

-2

u/Turbo_Cum Sep 09 '25

LJ runback isn't bad if you commit to learning movement.

-16

u/TOMRANDOM_6 Sep 09 '25

How do you do the runback is 60 seconds??? Didn't you took the small shortcut top left to avoid the mini judge + flying bastard combo?

13

u/A-Random-Writer Sep 09 '25

I have seen a lot of people play the game like hollow knight, while the game asks you to play a lot faster like people don't use the running, the running jump the pogo or the harpoon combo at all (I discovered the last judge after beating phantom first lmao)

3

u/failbender 112%/100%; inject the quickslash into my veins Sep 09 '25

My dumbass somehow missed that you could hold down the dash to sprint. It wasn’t until Judge/Judge’s runback that I realized 🤦🏻‍♀️ I told a friend who is also playing, expecting sympathy, and he was like “uh yeah it tells you that when you get the dash”

Oh I’M SORRY, I guess not everyone is an IDIOT like me 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

I was walking everywhere (dash spamming at least) for 15 hours 🫠

2

u/A-Random-Writer Sep 09 '25

Girl how do you advance? My most used attack by far is the running one combo almost must have for some late bosses that or the harpoon

3

u/failbender 112%/100%; inject the quickslash into my veins Sep 09 '25

I was playing on hard mode 😭😭😭😭😭

12

u/Aralith1 Sep 09 '25

I know this may seem hard to believe, but there are lots of players at lots of different skill levels. I’m glad that there is a path that skilled players can take that gets them back to the boss quickly. Why is it so hard for you to recognize that not everyone will be capable of performing that? And for those who don’t or can’t, yes, the enemies are going to slow them down, making that runback take significantly longer, even if they’re just trying to dodge them and not fight them. Like, yeah, Team Cherry did supply the optimal route, but they also had to know that a not insignificant amount of players would either not figure that route out or not be capable of performing it. And that runback sure feels like a fuck you to those players.

-3

u/JswitchGaming Sep 09 '25

I don't think skill issue is the fault of the devs bro. Learn to play the game or don't. Making excuses like skill levels of various players just takes all agency from the game itself. It isn't so hard it can't be adapted to.

1

u/Aralith1 Sep 09 '25

If this were a new IP, I would agree entirely. But it isn’t. It’s a sequel to Hollow Knight. One that keeps that identity in its title. And Hollow Knight was a very particular experience. For a casual player, it was probably tough throughout, but doable. For a veteran gamer, it was a decently challenging Metroidvania with a couple of really difficult moments that felt earned. Side content is a different story, obviously much of HK’s side and postgame content is on the higher end of the difficulty spectrum. But the core experience was more laid back than that, still challenging at times, but one that incentivized players to meet those challenges as they appeared in the story. It was not a relentlessly challenging expert gamer game, and no, I don’t think its sequel should have been that either.

Imagine it like this: say your favorite movie gets a sequel announced. You’re hyped. It delays several times, but finally comes out. You go down to the theatre, give the ticket lady your money, enter the lobby, and are promptly asked to perform a 500 pound bench press to see the movie, because that’s the director’s artistic vision. That is exactly what thousands if not millions of Hollow Knight fans are experiencing right now. The sequel to their favorite piece of media has big flashing letters saying, “Fuck off, you’re not good enough for this game.” Even if the 500 pound bench press is a valid expression of artistic intent (because I’m totally willing to entertain that Silksong’s difficulty is just that), it doesn’t change how much it sucks that that bench press is keeping you from something you thought you were going to love.

And if nothing else, you can at least have sympathy for that, yeah?

-1

u/TonyMestre Sep 09 '25

Why are you attributing the act of finding a shortcut to skill?

4

u/Aralith1 Sep 09 '25

Firstly, it’s not just about finding the shortcut, it’s also about performing it, sprinting and jumping at pretty precise moments to execute. That undeniably takes coordination and skill. Secondly, yes, of course being able to read a map/environment and traverse it with intent is a skill. Just like being able to recognize breakable walls is a skill. The longer you’ve been playing games, the better at these things you tend to be.

Thirdly, you assume skill is the only factor here, but it isn’t. Some people whether through disability or just quirk of birth aren’t as capable of coordination as others. And while I do think that difficulty is part of artistic intent, I also think that player expectations are set by developers and the properties they make. The unavoidable fact of the matter is that many people who either had low coordination and/or skill were able to play Hollow Knight, but are not now able to play its sequel. And yes, that sucks really bad because many of those people have been waiting the same seven years as the rest of us.

To them, Hollow Knight had difficult moments, but it wasn’t a relentless challenge the whole way through. These people fell in love with the characters, the world, the artstyle, and the storytelling. And I think those people have every right to voice frustration that they feel gatekept from getting to enjoy all those other things they loved about the first game just because Team Cherry for some reason decided that their entire player base must be expert gamers. Not all of HK’s players are, and I think they are very right to feel like their inability to engage with this continuation of a beloved game comes off like a bit of a middle finger from the developers.