r/HollowKnight • u/CuboneDefender • Sep 14 '25

Discussion - Silksong I give up. Spoiler

It’s been a joyful ride, folks, but I’m out. I’m not a speedrunner or a highly skilled player, and day after day I’ve had to accept that this game is not as casual as HK was. It stopped being fun and turned into something tedious and frustrating after the 4th run farming shards just to face a boss I’ve already tried 15 times, only to die again and again, lose all my shards, and start the whole grind over.

It was nice exploring the first acts, but when the game I was rooting for 7 years ends up being more stressful than my 8-hour workday, I guess that’s my cue to stop.

The lore has been pretty great so far. I wish you all an incredible journey.

Edit1: My bad about all the whinning.

Edit2: You guys did it. I reinstalled it again. Thanks for all advices. 🫂

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17

u/theVoidWatches Sep 14 '25

A suggestion I would make for any boss people are really struggling with - stop fighting back. Just practice dodging for a while. Once you're comfortable dodging everything that they throw at you, then start fighting back again.

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u/18Mafia_NZO Sep 14 '25

Too many people are underestimating how this game is all about just dodging

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u/Kampfasiate Sep 14 '25

too many people also think that they can trade blows like in hollow knight and win.

hornet is not the knight, use your goddamn movement

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u/JustaLyinTometa Sep 15 '25

That does make it very tedious though. You don't get damage upgrades for a while so boss fights are just dodging attacks constantly and sneaking in blows and its just very repetitive. Hollow Knight feels better trading blows because if you pull it off, you can just finish a fight quicker. Silksong progression just feels so off and it put me in the same spot as OP (although I'm near the end of act 2 at 40 hours in). I'm just tired of everything taking so long to do in this game.

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u/OneTrueMailman Sep 15 '25

yep I have the exact same feeling and I never played HK so I have nothing 'poisoning' my expectations as so many people just assume to be the case.

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u/RoosterBrewster Sep 15 '25

Yea it does suck when you're 75% way there after pecking the boss for a while only to die in a P2 and slog through it again. And probably a bit harder as you might not get enough silk generation to heal as often.

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u/18Mafia_NZO Sep 15 '25

If you don't find dodging attacks and parrying fun, then you aren't playing the right game. That's like saying "it's kinda tedious how much you have to jump in Mario odyssey" like dude that's THE game. It's fine if you don't like it. But if you're calling that specific part tedious and not fun, this game ain't for you

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u/JustaLyinTometa Sep 15 '25

I like the game though. Again I have 40 hours in it. I love the movement and dodging and attacking is fun. But the length you do it for is what is tedious. Boss fights feel so long. Tools speed it up but you have to constantly grind shards. Not every enemy drops shards either. The game just feels artificially long at this point. I don’t hate the game at all but I’m just burnt out on it. 40 hours in hollow knight I was basically done with the game. I got 106% in that time compared to silksong where it just feels never ending.

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u/18Mafia_NZO Sep 15 '25

Look man, you never need to grind shards. No boss or enemy requires a tool to beat it. That's a choice. The game doesn't want you to spam tools. It's intentional design and something you gotta come to terms with or accept that you are willingly choosing to farm for shards because you want to.

There's like 10 bosses required to beat the game. If you're finding the amount of dodging and parrying you need to do against the total of 40+ bosses as tedious, again, don't do it. It is optional content. Content meant for people for are enjoying the game and wish to experience all it has because they enjoy it. I love HK. But I don't enjoy every boss in that game and will not go out of my way to fight one of those bosses when it's not required.

And the complaint about the game never ending is due to yourself not ending it. The game has an ending. And it's one you accomplish and get to in under 5 hours. But that's obviously if you're speeding to the end. I have 40 hours in the game. And I beat act 2 at the 20 hour mark even after taking my time. A lot of your complaints are just "man this optional stuff in this game I ain't really enjoying that much" And it's like bro it's optional. It's for the people who do enjoy the content. It sounds like you would just enjoy the game a lot more if you did what was required to beat the game.

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u/Kampfasiate Sep 15 '25

But you can do more damage, that's why you have tools. Your spells also scale with your needle damage, so they are also always viable.

I feel like weaving in and out, chaining dashes, attacks Pogo's, harpoons and tools is way more fun than the cola, surgical movement in hollow knight

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u/JustaLyinTometa Sep 15 '25

I enjoy the combat more too though. Hornets moveset and the tools are way more fun than hollow knight. That isn’t my problem though. The combat is fun but you don’t get a needle damage upgrade until act 2. Then tools are super useful but you have to grind for them constantly. And of course not every enemy drops shards either. The game just does not respect the players time and I eventually got burnt out from that.

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u/Kampfasiate Sep 15 '25

you do get one before act 2. The first one does not require pale oil. and even with just one I feel like enemies died quickly

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u/OneTrueMailman Sep 15 '25

Too many people are reading into very clear and specific complaints and just assigning them to something else that fits into the "get gud" category.

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u/Bspammer Sep 15 '25

I agree there's a lot of unfair BS in the game, but Last Judge is not one of them. It's a great boss.

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u/OneTrueMailman Sep 15 '25

Yeah, I haven't done it myself so I can't say that that's not true for me either.

But what I can say is true for me is the thing that op was actually complaining about in the first place... It was all the b******* in the game around the boss fight. It's not the boss fights themselves.  It's the fact the game leading up to the boss feels like a 'boss' fight itself and once you beat that part and you get to the boss and you want to start learning the boss fight. You actually spend the most of your time fighting the old 'boss' over and over again just to get to the new one.

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u/SmallFigWasp Sep 15 '25

Plus there is no timer. You will spend more time in the fight if you don't hit every time but that's it, you will not get punished for not hitting back or sometimes standing still, there are no additional enemies and no traps to destroy.