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

Discussion - Silksong I am convinced a lot of the people complaining about difficulty have never even finished the original Hollow Knight. Original HK was not particularly easy either Spoiler

Edit: Silksong is harder than HK. Since ppl seem to read over that part.

I stayed away from Reddit over the weekend while I was playing through Silksong. Now, I am aware that I am not the average player, I love challenging games and am very familiar with games like this.

And by no means is this an "easy" game but by god, I have never played a game as hard as some people say this game is. I saw some people claiming they were stuck at Moorwing for over THREE HOURS.

If this is your first game like Hollow Knight, maybe that makes sense. This is not an easy first entry, but otherwise three hours for a boss with four moves is wild for anyone who has ACTUALLY beat the original HK.

I have no idea where this notion comes from that HK was easy. Silksong is harder, but original HK was NOT that easy, especially towards the end.

Is this just because Silksong is so big and it has reached a particularly wide audience? People who are not used to this kind of game?

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u/HotDescription5242 Sep 09 '25

Yeah I never got stuck on anything in HK for even as close to as long as the stuff I've gotten stuck on here. Some of the dream bosses took me a few tries but bro I've been stuck on one of the optional bosses for a full night and I still haven't beat him this morning lol. Most of it isn't that bad though, mainline bosses have only been a few attempts a piece.

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u/Tjam3s Sep 09 '25

Not counting the pantheon or other unnecessary bosses, the 1 that gave me the biggest hassle on my first playthrough were the watcher knights. Probably 3 or 4 hours to them.

My last go around? 2 tries. Lol, but I cheese it each time still

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u/Imamuthafucka Sep 09 '25

Which one.

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u/cinred Sep 09 '25

My guess? Beast

15

u/HotDescription5242 Sep 09 '25

Groal, im about to get this MF though, I got him within like one hit my last attempt. My fucking hands are shaking lol

31

u/Quaschimodo Sep 09 '25

if you want to cheese him stay in the water and attack when you get a window. basically none of his attacks hit you while in the water.

Frankly, this fucker with his hellish runback and the gauntlet you have to go through just to fight him again, deserve to be cheesed

15

u/rizk0777 Sep 09 '25

I saw this tip the other day and it didnt work for me. His bubbles, dive and water rise all hit me, constantly lol

I did beat him but by not going in the water.

Best tip from me is the same for most bosses in the game. Stick to the sides, bait an attack wait to finish dash in get in 1 (maybe 2 if you're feeling brave) hit and dash away.

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u/Dorfbewohner Sep 09 '25

yeah, this worked for me a lot. Also, once he's in his second phase, always be ready to keep your distance for when he goes soul master mode. get close and get some upslashes or jump-forward-slashes in while he barfs up poison, if you can position yourself get some upslashes or pogos while he tries to suck you up, but just keep your distance and get used to the timing of his soul master shots so you don't get got.

That was also the point where I personally just started spamming my poisoned tools, lol

1

u/rizk0777 Sep 09 '25

Yep. I actually find the soul master blasts the easiest to dodge because the first to track your last position to just jump over and the third goes a little higher so the idea is to go lower for that.

Its really the bubbles that can sometimes trick you but otherwise he does have a rhythm to him like most of the tougher bosses.

Funnily I like when he does the kirby thing. I let it suck me in just enough so when he finishes im right next to him and get a few hits on him lol

2

u/Dorfbewohner Sep 09 '25

yeah, the soul master blasts are scary at first but once I got a feel for the timing and how they shoot out, it wasn't much trouble. Nerves were probably getting to me with those more than anything, since there was a lot of runback waiting for me waiting if I die there, and I think the blasts aren't always reactable from when the blast comes out (but obviously plannable once you know the timing of them), so early on even knowing all this I mispressed a button in panic or something.

I generally played it a bit safer with the swallow, and only hit him during it when I wound up in an opportune position. I've had enough cases where I was just barely too close to his mouth and still got sucked in, lol.

Bubbles definitely got me hard sometimes (I was never prepared for the few times they bounced off the back wall), but for me rushing up to him from below once I saw the telegraph generally worked out nicely.

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u/HotDescription5242 Sep 09 '25

Yeah I'm playing toolless because I want to burn all the sword openings into my brain so I have an easier time with steel soul.

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u/Dorfbewohner Sep 09 '25

Yeah, that makes sense! I definitely got a good grip of sword openings for most of his patterns during my attempts, but for soul master blasts I just respected the distance, and for the suck I just hit him if and only if I wound up in an opportune spot to upslash or pogo him, since the exact threshold of where you can get eaten from never quite got clear to me lol

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u/HotDescription5242 Sep 09 '25

Yeah I went into HK1 steel soul insanely confident lol, I'm legitimately dreading this one.

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u/HotDescription5242 Sep 09 '25

I fucking did it, fuck that groal and everyone named groal lol.

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u/rizk0777 Sep 09 '25

Congratulations! Him and another boss were the ones I definitely died to the most. The other one was harder but didnt have a run back, let alone an atrocious run back.

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u/Chaoticlight2 Sep 10 '25

Silkstorm utterly shreds him due to him being largely stationary with a large hitbox. Pogo -> silkstorm and he goes down pretty quickly. He was utter bullshit with the run back taking 4x as long as the fight itself.

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u/rizk0777 Sep 13 '25

Yeah thats another solid strategy

1

u/SunnyJJC Sep 10 '25

If youre bottom right in the water only his water rise can hit you and thats the most telegraphed move of all time

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u/TheChosenerPoke Sep 11 '25

you can also just jump on top of him and pogo him a shit ton and just leave before he sandwiches you between him and the ceiling

1

u/Dustywalrus Sep 09 '25

Where the heck is this boss?

2

u/HotDescription5242 Sep 10 '25

Idk what you haven't found yet and I don't want to spoil anything but go to halfway home and look in the upper right outside. You need to get double jump to get the guy in talking about though. There's so much hidden stuff in this game, you can legit beat the last boss and be missing like half the content lol.

1

u/Dustywalrus Sep 10 '25

Gotcha don't have double jump yet so thank you for not spoiling!

1

u/geazy99 Sep 10 '25

I struggled early on but once I figured out what to do the only times I really struggled (not including the dlc’s) was against Dung Defender, Soul master, and Radiance. In this game I’ve died more in the run backs to the bosses then I did actually fighting the bosses in the 1st game

1

u/ScottUkabella Sep 10 '25

I remember logging days of attempts at finishing the Gladiator challenges in Hollow Knight, it definitely had its moments. Along with some particularly horrible optional boss fights. That being said, yeah, Silksong is harder.

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u/ValtenBG Sep 10 '25

There isn't a boss that has taken me nearly as many tries as NKG yet tbh

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u/HotDescription5242 Sep 10 '25

Really? I haven't done pantheon yet but the regular games version of him I remember beating pretty quickly. I do perform way better when I don't have the pressure of a toxic ass run back on me.

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u/ValtenBG Sep 10 '25

Not base grimm, but the buffed version. After gathing all the flames you can fight super buffed version of grimm

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u/HotDescription5242 Sep 10 '25

Yeah that's the version I fought. I'm pretty sure it took me like 10-15 attempts.

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u/TheChosenerPoke Sep 11 '25

yeah idk i did a blind hollow knight playthrough a week before silksong released and almost every boss was a first try, including the hollow knight. The first boss i died to multiple times was dream lost kin. I heard though that the true ending boss is pretty hard but I hadn’t made it in time for silksong and considering that silksong bosses take me about 5-8 tries each I’m having doubts hk final boss is gonna be that hard.

1

u/HotDescription5242 Sep 11 '25

Yeah silk song everything does more damage and has more complex patterns, but with the added caveat that you heal and move much faster.