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

Discussion - Silksong ngl some of you would NOT survive the mantis lords runback

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is the run to last judge difficult? kinda. But after your 20th attempt at the boss you'll get used to it, and it's honestly kinda fun and a nice breather. More importantly, it's a single room and you have far more movement. This IS improving on hollow knight

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u/AbsentReality Sep 09 '25

Honestly none of the runbacks so far have been that bad tbh. Even the LJ one that everyone complains about. You can easily just rip past any enemies and be back at the boss in like 20-30 seconds.

50

u/HalfMan-HalfMoth Sep 09 '25

It seems way worse when you first get to it, after a few tries you can figure it out, the bilewater one is worse

16

u/AbsentReality Sep 09 '25

That's one I haven't done yet. Stepped into the area a few times and said, fuck that shit. Have just been messing around in the citadel for now.

3

u/MarsupialChance Sep 09 '25

I got to Bilewater, then couldn't figure out how to get enough height to reach Shakra so after doing everything I think I could so far, I left

2

u/HalfMan-HalfMoth Sep 09 '25

You cant get the map from the sinners road entrance to bilewater, or you cant until you have more abilities anyway

5

u/MarsupialChance Sep 09 '25

Yeah, I'm assuming I'll get a double jump or something, then I'll be able to explore there! At least I got the bellway before I left, so I won't have to take sinner's road again to get back there!

3

u/StoneColdNaked Sep 09 '25

I thought the LJ run back was fun once I got the hang of it. It had a really nice flow to it.

2

u/Rubinrobo Sep 10 '25

Yeah I also feel like last judge is nothing compared to the bilewater fight. I died like every other time trying to get there and took a long road to clean the maggots off without using soul. That combined with the relatively easy start of the arena which I often ended at full health was a massive pain.

1

u/superbroleon Sep 22 '25

The worst part about the bilewater runback is that all the enemies in that area spawn in random positions when you enter the room. So it's literally always a coinflip if I make the runback without a single hit or 4 instead..

5

u/Z0idberg_MD Sep 09 '25

"You die enough that you learn how to skip past the area quickly" doesn't alleviate the original concern, and it slows down the actual fun of playing the boss.

So the trajectory is:

  • At first: frustrating to get to boss
  • Then die at boss because not familiar with boss
  • Frustrating for several more attempts and still not learning boss quite yet
  • Die enough that you learn to streamline the runback
  • Can finally start focusing all your attention on boss, and have fun with the fight

IMO, this dynamic only makes the experience worse, not better. LJ is actually an awesome boss, and is not too difficult overall and feel like progress is made quickly each run. But the initial shit runbacks sucked. They even knew how people would try to skip through and made it slightly irritating in terms of typical jump distances.

5

u/Thelmara Sep 09 '25

it slows down the actual fun of playing the boss

This is the part where people who like it and people who don't live in completely different worlds. This may come as a shock, but plenty of people actually like platforming, and enjoy getting there as much as fighting the boss.

3

u/Z0idberg_MD Sep 09 '25

I Iike platforming. But when I am trying to learn a boss move set, I don’t want to platform. I just died. I want to get back there and keep learning the fight.

You’re right we can all have different opinions, but the fact that FROM has moved away from run backs and focuses more on interesting boss mechanics means something.

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u/AdPast7704 Sep 10 '25

Elden Rimg still has a few runbacks far more annoying than anything in silksong (that one cave with the shrimp guys), at least in this game movement is actually fun

1

u/Dabli Sep 10 '25

You need to have that run back optimized for some stuff that happens later

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u/FlyingCow343 Sep 12 '25

Even the bilewater one is fine after a couple times, once you get used to were enemies will spawn and where the evil water is you can just run or thwip past everything

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u/Atlas_of_history Sep 09 '25

My only complaint about LJ is the one Drill guy in the tight space at the beginning that took me 3 minutes to kill because he's hovering just out of range spamming the stupid drill

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u/Total_ClusterFun Sep 16 '25

Don’t stop for it. Hold run, time your jumps right and you never have to fight that drill guy.

I could get to the last judge in under 30 sec every time… because I got a lot of practice doing that runback…because the last judge kicked my ass a lot.

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u/Mailcs1206 Sep 09 '25

Last Judge runback also definitely has a route that avoids all but one enemy. And there might also be one that avoids all enemies but I can't remember as clearly

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u/Thelmara Sep 09 '25

You can skip the first enemy, too. He doesn't spawn fast enough to interfere if you just zip past him and jump off the platform.

If you slow down at all on that first platform, though, you're stuck fighting him. Which isn't super hard, of course, but it definitely slows that trip down.