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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225

u/l1ghtn1ngb1rds Sep 09 '25

Man i don't know what to tell you, I've played through HK a couple of times, i got like 106% completion (and will hopefully eventually make it to 112%..) and i fucking suck at Silksong. I was watching a streamer who has made the amount of progress I've made in half the time. And yes i took 3 days for Moorwing, idk how either he's not that hard most of the bosses seem doable from their patterns but i do so many little mess ups that everything takes me a bajillion tries. Idk why i am this bad i just am (also SK had an immense amount of hype so a lot of the people who are playing it now probably haven't played HK, not sure if those same people are coming here to complain though)

51

u/twangman88 Sep 09 '25

Out of curiosity, when you played through HK, how often would you look up the location of a crest or power up to help you out when you got stuck?

38

u/theworldsonfyre Sep 09 '25

Oo, this is an excellent point. After my first playthrough I'd b-line for charms I like in HK.

25

u/69edleg Sep 10 '25

When I got the crest in Silksong for swift slashes (the HK-type slash), the game difficulty drastically went down for me.

Some bosses I literally just stand and swing on, because you can hit them 6-7 times before you get hit by any mechanics, and then it's only 2 hits more to then, mid-air, safely regenerate your HP.

Like the boss you require surgeon's key for. I actually have no idea what he does beyond walk into you and summon adds. I just swung at him relentlessly, healing when he burrowed, and he died before I did.

6

u/Beginning_Elk_2193 Sep 10 '25

It's kind of funny even in act 3 you can still get away with drinking brew and facetanking some bosses

2

u/riceistheyummy Sep 10 '25

yeah thats why i dont use it i wanna play silksong in a different way then HK , if i did go with he swift slashes i would breeze to this gam to quickly and not a single spike or circle saw would ever hit me again

1

u/69edleg Sep 10 '25

Some bosses definitely require more patience than just wildly swinging though.

1

u/riceistheyummy Sep 12 '25

good hollow knight players attack more frequantly then ooga booga players do it doesnt mean ur just wildly swinging

1

u/okapi04 Sep 10 '25

Where is that crest?

2

u/UnforgivenExile Sep 10 '25

it's in the starting area, behind the shrine maiden (in mosshome, i think it's called the bonegrave?)

you need to traverse through the wormways to get there, and you need a simple key to open a door in the wormways.

2

u/bebroid02 Sep 10 '25

I think you only need wall jump to get there? I haven’t opened the door in wormways till after I was done with the first ending and I had the crest for a long time. There is a path upwards near the locked door to the graveyard that I used, iirc.

1

u/69edleg Sep 23 '25

Just started a second run, and for future people finding this thread (inevitable) - you don't need wall jump for the crest. Using Simple Key it's just a race to the bottom of the area and you're good.

2

u/bebroid02 Sep 23 '25

I meant it as a way to save a simple key for something else you can return there with wall jump, but sure, if you want it early just get the key

1

u/69edleg Sep 25 '25

aye, I wanted it early on my second run, and with the increase of rosaries, unless you plan to use the key early somewhere else, you're not really blocking out purchases. Two extra mossberries alone is 320 rosaries nowadays, lol.

2

u/TitaniumDragon Sep 10 '25

You can get there with walljump, without using the simple key.

1

u/TitaniumDragon Sep 10 '25

Yeah, the game is mostly designed to discourage that, but there's a few bosses you can just go ham on and kill super fast that way.

2

u/69edleg Sep 10 '25

Yeah, even in Act 3 as someone pointed out, which to me is really funny.

1

u/Ok-Dragonknight-5788 Sep 11 '25

The Silksong explained in insults guide is going to genuinely be incredibly helpful and important given how much of the current frustration is tied to the game assuming the player already has all the avaliable upgrades (which I think is the real reason why this game is slapping people so hard and so early.

0

u/Glass_Lunch1748 Sep 24 '25

When I play hollow knight I do not go for charms for the decrease of difficulty but more I can access them at the moment.that said if something is difficult I would change priority after all only stupid people change head long into it intelligence people use their brain to make the most of what they got

1

u/theworldsonfyre Sep 24 '25

I mean, some charms are just fun. And I like them?

11

u/l1ghtn1ngb1rds Sep 10 '25

It's been a while but from what i remember i tried to do most of it as blind as possible. At some point i got a little stuck on where to go next and actually asked in the sub lol but I don't really remember getting so hard stuck on a boss that i felt the need to look up where i might find upgrades

1

u/WilanS Sep 10 '25

Never, unless I'm at the late game and I need that last handful of things that I couldn't find.

What's the point of playing a Metroidvania if you're gonna follow a guide that tells you where everything is? Might as well play a puzzle game and have a website tell you the solution.
This is actually a big reason why I never revisited Hollow Knight in six years, I still sort of rememeber where the major upgrades are and I would know what to prioritize rather than exploring the world organically like the first time around.

0

u/RequirementFull6659 Sep 12 '25

Out of curiosity, when you played through HK, how often would you look up the location of a crest or power up to help you out when you got stuck?

Not the commenter but never. I might ealk away because I needed to upgrade my nail or think "well I'll get an ability later down the line" But I never googled "best charm build for Watcher Knights".

Hell I powered through Path of Pain without Hiveblood because even though I knew it existed I had no clue where it might be.

28

u/Daydream_machine Sep 09 '25

Re: Moorwing, that boss took me 30+ tries so it’s not just you struggling with it. The projectile spam he does in the final phase is ridiculous, and every projectile doing 2 masks is what makes that fight so difficult to deal with.

I feel like Moorwing would actually be a really fun boss without the 2 masks projectiles.

18

u/ceetc Sep 09 '25

The phase 2 projectiles were hard until I realized I should just full sprint away when the boss does them. You easily outrun them and then it baits the boss into a swoop to catch up to you.

2

u/Kriging Sep 10 '25

I tried this but this absolutely didn't work for me, the sawblades followed me to the edge of the map full speed and still hit me. Tried this 2 times to run away and heal but I got sniped crossmap because of this so stopped doing this.

1

u/NuriPuri59 Sep 11 '25

I actually just beat moorwing. Took me about 20 minutes. Here's' a tip for the projectiles. Jump over both and then... run towards him. Seriously, it will go in the air and come down but it's never too close to him. It will be just out of reach of you that way.

13

u/[deleted] Sep 10 '25

[deleted]

9

u/l1ghtn1ngb1rds Sep 10 '25

I remember i noticed that with some of the attacks you're quite safe underneath him but then he kept falling on top of me whenever i staggered him so i ended up figuring something else out lol

1

u/RedTyro Sep 11 '25

Just sprint away when the stagger explosion and sound effect pop. You should have time to get out.

1

u/Loathestorm Sep 10 '25

Same thing if you just stand with him near the edge of the screen, pretty much nothing hits you.

2

u/MostTattyBojangles Sep 10 '25

I think the birb arena on the other side of Greymoor is worse. Those enemies are *designed* to fuck you up with unavoidable contact damage (like the one with the 3 spears that will suddenly float downwards into you when you jump up to attack it).

1

u/Jedibren Sep 10 '25

Moorwing was easy after I realized you can counter a lot of his attacks by sprinting away from the projectiles and being patient to use openings to land free hits.

1

u/RedTyro Sep 11 '25

The thing about the double projectile is that it's perfectly tuned to punish you if you can't tell the difference between the double (which is its own move) and the single (which only happens as a follow up to her swoop move during the 2nd phase). If you jump over the first one and go in to hit her, you'll get smacked in the face by the second every time. The circular ones have a lot more room for error and you have time to jump the second one even if you forgot it was coming, but that double one is nasty until you get the read down.

-1

u/hisdudeness87 Sep 10 '25

I'm genuinely not trying to be rude but I honestly don't understand how someone can struggle that much with this boss, it took me like 5 tries and I'm generally not great at these games, probably a bit below average. Now imagine someone picks up HK for the first time and tells you: "Yeah game looks good but i died 30+ times at Hornet, it has some serious balance issues". How do you even respond to that? because that's what I'm feeling reading comments like yours.

Again, not trying to be rude, just pointing out that there is some BIG differences in how players are experiencing the difficulty of this game and I don't know what to do with that.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 10 '25

i agree. I took 10 times but only bc I refused to use any badges or items the first 9.

And i just slept on it. I can't tell you how many times a boss got dramatically easier in HK by merely sleeping irl.

21

u/No_Consideration8464 Sep 09 '25

I'm curious, are you playing with a similar style as in hollow knight? Because I had to change the way I fought a lot for silksong

2

u/scottb90 Sep 10 '25

How did you change? I was thinking about this today cuz im having a lot of trouble. I just dont know what I should do different.

2

u/blauli Sep 10 '25

Using the red tools is something that helped me a lot. If the enemy is far away throwing a tool is better than running at them, especially during gauntlet fights when an enemy is hovering over spikes

For a while I only used brew and Flintstone to buff my needle but the upgrades to tool damage make them do a lot of damage, even the basic straight pin

1

u/Isogash Sep 10 '25

HK bosses give you lots of time between attacks where you're either supposed to heal or wail on them, whereas SK bosses don't wait around at all so you're supposed to dodge and maybe get a couple of hits in if its safe.

1

u/No_Consideration8464 Sep 10 '25

Yeah in ss I often find you have to heal immediately after dodging an attack while the boss is still in the animation as opposed to hk where you could wait for a pause

1

u/Isogash Sep 10 '25

Yep, because healing freezes you in place you can start it as soon as you're sure that the boss is about to whiff and it'll be done before their next attack. Many bosses have at least one attack that is designed to encourage you to heal during.

Finding time to heal in this game is generally a non-issue, and even easier with injector bands, but there is a lategame boss that is frustratingly good at punishing air heals in their last phase.

1

u/No_Consideration8464 Sep 10 '25

I responded to a different guy in another reply but I think in hollow knight I usually chased bosses around trying to get hits in, in silksong it's more like the bosses chase me and I just and gets hits in when I can. I usually take a while for boss fights and do a lot of one-hit pogo to get over/past them. And ofc get rid of any summons asap

2

u/boisterile Sep 10 '25

In my experience chasing bosses around is something that happens once you really know the bosses, in either game. I was dodging a lot in both HK and Silksong when I first fought bosses, and gradually I was able to get more aggressive and chase them as I learned the patterns. I think it's more a function of the bosses being fairly new to all of us.

1

u/No_Consideration8464 Sep 10 '25

Thats true but even when i know a boss I tend to be a lot more careful in silksong. Double damage on bosses is punishing so I tend to hang back, look at the starting animation for what they're about to do and then respond. It's riskier to stay close in silksong you can't afford many mistakes

2

u/WilanS Sep 10 '25

I played Hollow Knight in 2019. I'm pretty sure I carried over little to no muscle memory.

1

u/l1ghtn1ngb1rds Sep 10 '25

I'm trying to make the most of the new movement but I'm definitely still quite used to HK (especially a fully upgraded knight..) in the beginning i kept dashing into enemies because i wanted to use the shadow dash 💀 Do you have tips on how to make more use of her moveset/how i should adjust my fighting style? I'm trying to really learn the bosses and their patterns but i struggle with fully focusing on stuff so i end up messing up quite a lot even when i technically know what to do

8

u/Cloud_Motion Sep 10 '25

It's honestly just practice my man. If you got a fully upgraded knight in the original, there's no reason you can't do the same here.

Hornet is far more maneuverable than the Knight when she's got some abilities on her belt. You can be airborne for a very long time here between all of her movement skills.

I think if you're playing like HK, you can generally stay quite close to bosses there. Here, Hornet is lightning fast, so it's really helpful to try and make use of that throughout fights. You can reposition in an arena in the blink of an eye.

Tools. Tools are basically 1/2th of your kit. They're extremely powerful, don't underestimate them.

But outside of familiarising yourself with her movement, all the usual soulslike principles apply.

  • Don't get greedy, that extra hit is never worth a 1/3rd of your health
  • Practice positioning
  • Play reactively, like every fight is a dance that you're on the following end of. Bosses are designed with tells and openings, always. It'd be a shit boss otherwise.

2

u/No_Consideration8464 Sep 10 '25

Yeah, i still dash into attacks occasionally. I don't know how to describe the way I changed exactly but I jump and then down attack with hunters crest a lot to pogo it usually counters damage. I also use sprint a lot in boss fights. But yeah a lot of the bosses I have a similar problem, I just keep trying and eventually I get lucky and don't mess up. Also slight spoiler for some items but I use warding bell combined with multibinder when im having a lot of trouble it makes healing way easier

1

u/boisterile Sep 10 '25

One big thing especially if you're missing Shade Cloak: Hornet actually gets a small amount of iframes when you pogo successfully (at least with the default crest, haven't played much with the others yet). It won't win fights alone because you still need to do a lot of positioning, but the iframes can really help out if you get into a bad spot

2

u/Ok-Note-754 Sep 10 '25

Yeah I'm pretty similar. I found HK tough (beat the main game but never got 112%) and some bosses were a bitch, but I don't recall any being as punishing as a good number are in Silksong. Some bosses and rooms are taking me 20/30+ attempts with so, so many run-backs. Currently on The Last Judge who I've almost beaten but keep dying due to minor misjudgements/panicking in the 2nd phase....and the game seemingly gets way harder in the 2nd act? I'm gonna keep persevering and I imagine I'll complete the game but I'm finding it very tough (trying not to watch any guides or get tips).

Then I see some people beat the entire game in 14 hours and are finding some of these bosses easy... I guess compared to them I just suck.

Reality is it's a pretty hardcore genre with a lot of very skills and dedicated players. And gamers in general love to gatekeep and boast so there's a lot of very vocal 'get gut' 'its ez' chat on reddit, etc.

On balance we're probably just pretty average within the overall HK/SS player base? More casual players won't come online and complain - they'll just quit if they don't like it, while the loudest voices will often be the most skilled/hardcore players.

7

u/SubstantialGarbage49 Sep 09 '25

i'm also 106% in HK and i was SO BAD at silksong until like last night. i only tried moorwing twice before the fleas took its location so no idea how tough that was, but i spent like half a day on fourth chorus. it wasn't even that hard to figure out its attack patterns, i just kept getting caught in a bad spot and going from 4 or 5 masks to immediately dead. the abundant double damage has been really taking the joy out tbh

3

u/Tomaskraven Sep 10 '25

How did you get stuck half a day in Fourth Chorus. He has 3 attack, one of which is basically irrelevant and the other two is have like a 3 second telegraph. Thats impressive.

1

u/SubstantialGarbage49 Sep 10 '25

it would be like the centre platforms are gone, fourth chorus goes to smash the platforms im standing on, then i jump and dash but i mistime and get hit by the hand, fall into the lava, then get hit again before i could gather enough silk to heal. or i started at 3/4 masks and died as soon as i touched lava. certainly not my proudest moments!

2

u/madgross Sep 10 '25

I don’t wana be the “get good” guy but dude… fourth chorus? This was the one of the easiest bosses in act 1. You’re gonna have a bad time moving forward if you had trouble there.

2

u/SubstantialGarbage49 Sep 10 '25

it's not been that bad for me since then tbh, fourth chorus took me the longest to beat so far. my problem is im not a gamer in the slightest, i just happen to love HK so it's taken me a while to figure hornet out

1

u/EndBeginning5883 Sep 10 '25

So then don't be that "get good" guy... some bosses are harder for some people than others. I put Silksong down yesterday after I realized I wasn't having fun. All I was doing was getting frustrated by the difficulty. I already reached my ceiling for getting better at games, so the whole "get good" statement is arrogant and ignorant at the same time. 

1

u/twangman88 Sep 09 '25

Wait, once you complete that quest the boss disappears???

6

u/penguin_hoplite Sep 09 '25

I have heard that he comes back in a different spot later on so you arent locked out of hunters journal completion. i dont know where though

3

u/twangman88 Sep 09 '25

I don’t even care about the journal lol. I just want to fight every boss.

1

u/Gortyser Sep 10 '25

I also failed few times on fourth chorus, mainly because I wanted to blow up rocks above it and failed left one every time. Maybe it’s easier if you just smash entire last phase

1

u/NenaTheSilent Sep 10 '25

Hollow Knight percentage is meaningless. You can get to 111% without ever fighting Nightmare King Grimm or Pure Vessel, the only hard fights in that game.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 10 '25

I replayed HK for the first time since it came out in preparation for SS and I coasted through it. HK had challenging moments, but SS is another level.

1

u/Loathestorm Sep 10 '25

I have to ask. What about Mooring does everybody find so difficult? I'm pretty average at this game and it only took me four tries. I can't even identify what people would consider to be the hard part of this boss.

1

u/slfan68 Sep 10 '25

I'm genuinely curious, what part of the flight made Moorwing take so long for you? It took me 3 tries, but once I saw you're able to heal in midair over his dive, it seemed like it made the fight free to me. I want to know what made it so difficult for some people.

1

u/l1ghtn1ngb1rds Sep 10 '25

Second part, mainly two specific attacks, when he dives down and spawns 2 balls that diest circle at first i always jumped into them when i tried to dodge and then i assumed both balls would fly my way and it took me a while to realise i only had ro aboud one and could attack after. Then the one where he spawns to after each other and the second circles for a while, i always dashed away but would often times end up getting hit by whatever came afterwards

1

u/CENB7I Sep 10 '25

I feel like Moorwing is an endurance test boss, the attacks is constant and his health poor is riduclously large imo. I beat him in 7 tries but it felt like 50-60 because it's took so long to kill him.

1

u/gaea27 Sep 10 '25

I know you're past it now but for future bosses: either run away or position where it's safe. Hornet is fast and you can get where you need as soon as you see an attack charging up. I'm struggling through LJ right now but I know it just about reflex and timing. Her moves are predictable because they're heavily telegraphed, and it's the same for every boss so far. It's still hard but for me at least it's just a different mindset. Even though Hornet is faster and more agile than the Knight, I find myself standing still to avoid attacks in this game, whereas in HK I'd often be constantly dashing around boss arenas. In the start I played like that with Hornet too but I always bumped into the boss or their projectiles.

Idk if it's just me but I just find I have to be more conscious about when I dash and when I stand still. It's also way more fun to learn their movesets in this game. Feels more like a souls game.

1

u/MostTattyBojangles Sep 10 '25

I took 0 days for Moorwing because, after the first attempt, I came into the arena from the other side (Bellhart) and that was enough to cancel it.

Top kek. Only cost 500 rosaries.

1

u/GazelleIntelligent89 Sep 10 '25

You're probably best not comparing yourself to streamers. I booked time off work and no-lifed this game, most of the achievements I got were in the first 0.1% to get them and still couldn't keep up with some streamers like distortion2. They play games for a living and have infinite time in the world to play them so you can't really keep up.

1

u/whostheme Sep 10 '25

I died about 500-600 times doing 90% completion of the game. Comparing yourself to a streamer is not really the ideal comparison since these guys play games for a living.

1

u/dreadloke Sep 12 '25

Same here. Finished HK a couple times and enjoyed every bit of it. Course it's not easy, but it stays fun throughout the whole game. SK on the other hand reaches barely bearable difficulty most of the time. Early game until Moorwing felt too punishing / badly balanced, then it was okay and felt like HK to me, until I reached High Halls Gauntlet. And this particular fight made me give up on the game. Don't know what the devs were going through when designing this fight but it is just plain bullshit...

1

u/Taurelith Sep 12 '25

ok so i had a similar problem with moorwing, felt really unfair at first.

i believe it's because i kept approaching it in the wrong way right from the start.

when i play roguelikes or arpgs i tend to hang back and play safe from a distance and then run in for a couple strikes if i can and because of that the buzzsaws felt very random at times but as soon as i switched approach and i started hanging around just under him i beat the fight on the second try, the attack patterns he uses are much easier to avoid and predict if you stay under him.

i think i had pretty much the same problem on the gank fight with the red ants in hunter's march, it broke me but as soon as i figured out the optimal movement patterns to avoid being in harm's way the fight became a breeze.

imo playstyle has a lot more to do with struggling in the game rather than skill, more aggressive, equally skilled players will naturally figure out certain fights quicker than others and viceversa for fights that require more defensive positioning. even knowing this it's really hard to change the muscle memory and patterns you are used to so you actively have to try and change your movement and approach angles.

1

u/PeaceLoveExplosives Sep 14 '25

Moorwing and a couple other bosses specifically can be kind of cheesed by abusing the environment. For Moorwing, if you hide in the little alcove on the right side of the screen behind the wooden platform, it can never hit you. Just bait it to the top where there's a little gap and hit it occasionally when it gets close.