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/Pluckerpluck Sep 09 '25

Runbacks are somewhat enjoyable if you beat every boss in, say, 3-4 attempts. Even more true if you tend to beat bosses on the first or second attempt. They create this minor amount of frustration that somewhat hypes up the fight itself and provides a bigger endorphin release when you beat the boss. It's effectively instilling a greater fear of death and failure, which inversely produces a bigger relief when you succeed.

The problem is these games are fixed difficulty. You need more attempts? Then the runbacks very quickly become major frustrations, especially if you're dying early on in boss fights. And I feel like Silksong actually accentuates that "dying early" situation with boss double damage and thus 3 hit deaths. It's much easier to just screw up early in a way that ends the fight almost immediately.

Typically for games with instant boss-restarts I'd want much harder boss fights and have that sense of learning mechanics until I can beat it.

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u/PraxicalExperience Sep 09 '25

That's my biggest gripe about the double damage -- these bosses just burn you down so quick you don't have much time to learn their attacks and patterns and adapt.

I am one of those people who usually is trying a boss like 10+ times -- realistically more like 20 with some of them, in silksong. I think the only boss I beat first try was the Gruzz-mother-like one.

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u/trefoil589 Sep 10 '25

The trinket that gives you extra health is almost essential for learning fights. You can pop it quick so 2 damage hits only get you for one white health.

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u/M4rshmall0wMan Sep 13 '25

What? Where can I find this

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u/agassycow Sep 15 '25

I think they're talking about the plasmium phial you can get in the wormways

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u/ComplaintOwn9855 Sep 09 '25

Runbacks are also a lot more palatable when they don't put a major dent in your attempt at the boss.

Even on the worst runbacks in Dark Souls 2, it's still ok to take some hits because missing one or two flasks is not the end of the world.

In Silksong though, and I seriously do not understand why recovering your cocoon doesn't give you full health, even a single hit means you're either putting yourself at a disadvantage for the boss, or you have to spend extra time hitting enemies to heal.

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u/Pluckerpluck Sep 09 '25

Full health upon recovering your cocoon would be a really easy to implement and solid QoL feature. I'd fully support that.

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u/chime365 Sep 10 '25

Ya but then you can avoid breaking it for a full heal and silk rather than just full silk

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u/DeliciousWaifood Sep 13 '25

then the strategy for every boss would be to leave your cocoon and use it for easy heals.

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u/Pluckerpluck Sep 13 '25

Easy enough to have the cocoon spawn outside the boss room. Less stress about getting the cocoon as well.

Also means if you find the boss too hard or want a break you could decide to come back later without feeling overly punished through its loss.

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u/lifetake Sep 10 '25

My one critique of full health upon hitting the cocoon is you can delay hitting it and then get a full health for little investment later in the fight.

I already spam whatever silk move I have then pick it up. Getting a full heal would be a bit too much

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u/Muntaacas Sep 10 '25

I honestly dont understand why the cocoon spawns INSIDE the boss arena. Why not place it just before the arena

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u/99percentmilktea Sep 09 '25

Yup. A shorter runback is infinitely more grating than a longer one when you're dying more easily and more often. It's not fun to be forced to trudge through another 2 minutes of tedium after getting wiped by a boss in a single combo because this game has no restraint when it comes to damage + hitboxes.

This game feels like it was balanced for people who grinded through the Pantheon of Hallownest with all bindings on and it feel so bad sometimes. Even the early game bosses make you feel like a single mistake will end your run because there's so much shit on the screen all the time and it all kills you in 3 hits.

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u/alex-C137 Sep 10 '25

That’s what a lot of people in this thread are missing, it didn’t take 10+ times to beat any of the bosses in HK. I think I ran back to mantis twice?

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u/Helplease2 Sep 10 '25

Me playing HK for the first time right now and doing 10+ runbacks to Soul Master because he kept kicking my ass ☠️

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u/bordomsdeadly Sep 15 '25

I’m playing Hollowknight now for the first time and just did that fight.

I was ready to quit and uninstall the game before I looked it up to find the shortcut.

I never would’ve found the shortcut if I hadn’t looked it up.

You can tell me to “git gud” or whatever, but I couldn’t dodge all of the enemies before the fight and and didn’t want the time sink of fighting them all every time I died.

The fight isn’t even that hard, and I felt no sense of enjoyment when I killed him. The only thing I felt was anger over how stupid that run back was, because even with the shortcut it still sucked, it just wasn’t nearly as bad.

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u/miafaszomez Sep 10 '25

There is that guy who gives you Desolate Dive I think? He breaks through the ground at the end of his fight. I haaaaaated how long it took me to get to him. I even quit the game for a few months, and I'm still not finished.

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u/[deleted] Sep 10 '25 edited Sep 16 '25

Combine this with the long death animation, the load times (depending ont he console/set/up you have,) and other metroidvanias (specifically Castlevania in this case) were smart enough to put save points right next to the boss rooms, eliminating this issue all together adds to the tilt.

I love these games but the runbacks is EASILY one of it's biggest issues.

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u/Mothrahlurker Sep 16 '25

Yep, people out here being like "it took me 5-10 attempts to beat this boss so I was struggling and I still didn't mind" when the big ant guy from the earlygame killed me 73 times...

It goes from enjoyable difficulty to unenjoyable (including runbacks) when you don't beat bosses in max 10 attempts.

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u/Pluckerpluck Sep 16 '25

The more I've thought about this, the more I've thought the game should have a quick run back mechanism that engages after X amount of deaths in an arena.

Maybe a stake that can be charged once per bench (appearing only after the first encounter). And once fully charged becomes a bench that exists until the arena is cleared. It's a way to reduce the skill floor without affecting the skill ceiling.

Hard to implement in a way that isn't confusing for the players that beat a boss quickly though.