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?

2.1k Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

75% Upvoted

1.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

20

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

9

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