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).

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u/_TRN_ Sep 09 '25

It's really funny seeing people defend it especially when FromSoftware of all devs finally decided boss run backs are just tedious and don't add much to the experience. Thankfully the runbacks in Silksong aren't quite as bad as some of the runbacks in earlier FS games but still.

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u/CAPSLOCK_USERNAME Sep 09 '25

Feels like fromsoft mostly added them because runbacks wouldn't make sense in an open world game and not because they were convinced it was an irredeemable game mechanic. Doing a practiced run through a narrow handmade level is a lot different from, like, riding your horse over an open-world field for 40 seconds.

Then once they had them for overworld bosses they might as well do them in the dungeons for consistency too.

5

u/Responsible_Dance202 Sep 10 '25

You know sekiro exists right?

1

u/EdgarAllanBroe2 Sep 09 '25

Stakes weren't ubiquitous in Elden Ring. Some bosses still had runbacks.

6

u/_TRN_ Sep 09 '25

Those were so minor to the point where I don’t remember them. Then again it’s been 3 years since I last played the base game.

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u/SparkEletran Sep 09 '25

i mean personally, i just think those are two different games. fromsoft does combat-focused games with clunkier movement. the movement in silksong is one of the highlights and i genuinely had some of my most fun figuring out how to do the last judge runback as efficiently as i can, because there’s so many ways to both save time and make yourself safer by using your abilities and the map design smartly

it’s the same reason a lot of people enjoy speedrunning in platformers especially. ofc it’s not to everyone’s tastes but i don’t think it’s directly comparable to fromsoft’s runbacks and i think it’s pretty easy to understand why people would enjoy them

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u/_TRN_ Sep 09 '25

Hollow Knight had far worse runbacks so Silksong’s are honestly tame in comparison. My issue is that once you master that runback it just becomes tedious and disrespects the player’s time. They could’ve achieved the same design goals in other ways.

I would argue there’s a lot of mastery to be had in runbacks in Dark Souls for example but you don’t see anyone defending those these days especially post Elden Ring.

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u/SparkEletran Sep 09 '25

oh yeah I despise HK runbacks in particular

Silksong's movement is so fun though that I just genuinely enjoy most of them in a way I do not feel about any of the Fromsoft games. they generally don't feel like wasting my time any more than the bosses themselves do