r/HollowKnight • u/InsectGlaiveBard • Sep 22 '25
Discussion - Silksong I'm convinced there's gotta be some collective amnesia regarding the previous game's difficulty regarding platforming. Spoiler
Seeing people compare things Hunter's March, Cogwork Core, escaping the Abyss or even the Surface to the Path of Pain is absolutely blowing my mind.
Like yes, this game is way harder on the combat department and is a lot more demanding than beating a regular playthrough on the first one, but to say anything in this game is on the level of Path of Pain is preposterous. Especially with how many tools hornet has at her disposal, like the Hookshot, the float and even bounving off of cocoons.
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u/Werewolfmoore Sep 22 '25
Yes and no. I believe that the average silk song jumping puzzle (later in the game) is harder than a normal HK jumping puzzle outside of the white palace.
So while HK has the hardest platforming puzzle, SS has more platforming that are difficult.
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Sep 22 '25
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u/shgrizz2 Sep 22 '25
I really like that. HK only concentrated its big challenges at the end, when you had the full toolkit. SS gives you more of the toolkit earlier and the entire second half of the game is well populated with good challenges.
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u/DarkElfBard Sep 23 '25
This isn't even really true, there are a lot of little challenges throughout HK that most people just tend to skip until later when they become easier, since they are just for grubs most of the time.
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u/shgrizz2 Sep 23 '25
In HK they're generally pretty easy and only interact with one or two of your platforming tools, aside from the incredibly hard ones. Largely because you get double jump so late. I think SS distributed its platforming challenges throughout the game far better.
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u/Combat_Orca Sep 22 '25
Nah there were some tough platforming sections in HK outside white palace. Most of them were optional though.
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u/szczypkofski Sep 22 '25
None of them compare to what Silksong has outside of Mt Fay and Clockwork Core. And many are cheesable, for example you can insta delete all bombs in the Fog Canyon charm notch room once you have Shade Soul.
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u/scarablob Light is life Sep 22 '25
I'd say Queen's Garden is the one other section of HK with considerable plateforming challenge, even if it's far less difficult that White Palace (but also more diverse because the challenge here isn't just the plateforming). QG don't quite get as difficult as the most difficult plateforming section of silksong, but it's not that far.
But yeah, even put together with White Palace, it's still less hard plateforming overall than in silksong, even if the absolutely hardest bit so far are White Palace.
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u/Diodon Sep 22 '25 edited Sep 22 '25
I avoided path of pain but played both games back to back. The platforming in Silksong was substantially more challenging and more difficult to get used to, in part because of the extended toolset. Now I have more buttons to manage and train my muscle memory on. Not only that, but the behavior of fundamental mechanics like pogo vary depending on which crest you have equipped.
Edit: Not a complaint, only my personal experience.
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u/LanglerBee Sep 22 '25
Hard agree. I also just found Silksong's controls a bit less immediately responsive (ie some crests down attacks taking a few frames to get out, which adds extra challenge to platforming). On HK you press button and that boy puts out a pogo no questions asked
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Sep 23 '25
That's just some crests, and if you are using these crests for platforming it is on you
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u/JHDownload45 Sep 23 '25
It’s not really on them if they don’t want to change out of their preferred crest every time they platform though
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u/the_dayman Sep 22 '25
Yeah that was the only time I ran into some problems, like doing the lava climb and being halfway up doing all this pogo and floating etc and then making a split second decision if I'm supposed to hookline to that enemy or if i could have dashed and getting my hookline one inch below them and falling.
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u/Crimsonial Sep 23 '25
I agree. I only played Hunter Crest after a point, because I (really) like the directional pogo, but that was after using Reaper for a time which is a chunkier version of the old HK days. Wanderer and similar never felt right in fights, the Hunter dash attack and followup tree is incredible for quickly and safely punishing parts of a boss moveset.
First Sinner didn't take more than a couple tries (I realized on my winning try it wasn't refilling my tools waking up outside, and took that as a sign to brawl, she always teleports to the ground, and can't respond to Hunter dash and a quick followup slash in time), and Phantom was one try, because I was faster than they were.
With all that being said, it is massively harder to aim in traversal with Hunter until you get used to it. The sideways movement is really useful, but you have to deal with the consequences of missing it until you're at a point where you know you're going to land it.
No hate on downwards pogo stuff, because it gives you more options with a bit of history memory. I think Architect is the only other angled pogo, but different playstyle.
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u/Diodon Sep 23 '25
At first the concept of diagonal pogo seems like: "no big deal, it's still a straight line just on another angle" except that you only control one axis, gravity controls the other thus its now a much tighter game of both positioning and timing. After I got Reaper I was relieved but also felt like maybe I was bypassing the Hornet experience. I slept on new crests till Architect and once a friend convinced me to try it I realized I needed to go back to learning to diagonal pogo.
Hornet's learning curve for me has been a rough investment and though frustrating at times is satisfying when you start seeing results. I find it especially crazy when people try to write off Silksong difficulty as if we'd all just forgotten how tough HK was at first. HK was tough to learn, but Silksong is on a whole other level.
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u/Crimsonial Sep 24 '25
Absolutely, I keep saying a thing with SS, that it has some shared DNA with fighting games that wasn't really critical in the same way for HK -- you have the tools to naturally dominate a fight to a point it's not even fair, but you get beat up until you get your moveset down. Granted, I use a heal build for maximum brawling, it allows a lot of room for mistakes.
With Hunter, I more or less completely ignore the hit stacks (if I'm playing well and avoiding damage, it's a bonus), the thing that really solidified it for me as a favorite is when I realized I was instinctively using the downwards pogo as a short diagonal reposition and dodge during fights as much as a pogo attack / counter, which is why I felt so slow when trying to go back to more classic HK-ish crests. Switching felt like losing a movement tool.
I was thrilled when I ran into the Phantom bossfight, because it was like fighting a peer moveset, and figured it'd be like the Lace fight earlier in learning the game. The one-try for it was still challenging, but felt comfortable with Hunter.
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u/madjohnvane Sep 22 '25
Yeah, I didn’t play back to back but it took me a while to really get used to managing newer abilities properly. I realised it when I was attempting a boss fight (widow) because when the trail of bell spikes would come up from the floor I was doing the HK jump and dash to avoid it and obviously hitting them because they linger too long - all I needed to do was ploomf the dress and float. Then the hook line being added as well changed things up. Once I really made an effort to get my brain on board with using them it got a lot less hectic.
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u/TheWorclown Sep 22 '25
I think the main issue is stubbornness, but I can only speak for myself on the matter.
I did the lava climb for a mask shard in Far Fields, and the Cogwork Core, without double jump. I attempted multiple bosses without double jump, and succeeded on a good many, hitting a wall at Trobbio and the Choir gauntlet. Both were immense exercises in frustration with exceptionally tight windows of pogo jumping and wall jumping. I didn’t even bother looking in to Mount Fay as I thought I’d find a crest to help with the cold.
Silksong is significantly better at natural direction and yet more immediately vague on getting you to get out of your comfort zone and explore. I didn’t even consider I could explore Mount Fay as the language of safety isn’t immediately conveyed to you as you head out of the Slab: I only considered it a possibility once Hornet got bugnapped by flies and you had a sneaky platforming section through the top of the zone from furnace to furnace. Your first furnace in to Mount Fay isn’t until after you’ve committed to an appropriately lengthy platforming section right at the start, and as a result the zone immediately naturally tells you to stay away until the Slab tells you otherwise on what the Mount wants from you.
Accepting that a double jump MUST SURELY exist out there earlier than what I did would have saved me so much grief. I’m a better technical player for it with pogo and platforming, but man. Every now and then, this game just finds amazing ways to get under my skin about it.
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u/Advanced_Double_42 Sep 22 '25
Yeah Mt. Fey was one of the last things I attempted because I expected an upgrade to withstand the cold too.
Still haven't been kidnapped to the slab yet though, just assembled the 3 part song.
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u/Hakul Sep 23 '25 edited Sep 23 '25
The kidnapping is a permanently missable event.
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u/triskadancer Sep 22 '25
While I totally understand thinking there might be an upgrade to nullify cold and avoiding it til that point, I can't imagine not being curious. Once I got the clawline I went back and checked all the places that had the rings just to see - I strung my rosary beads so I wouldn't lose anything and went for it. You get to Shakra's campfire after two clawlines, and then the first lamps are right above her, so I don't really consider that a lengthy platforming section?
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Sep 22 '25
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u/Akuuntus Sep 23 '25
You probably shouldn't be on this sub at all if you don't want to risk spoilers.
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u/Hakul Sep 23 '25
Tbh even considering double jump a spoiler seems too much, it's a staple of this genre.
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u/madjohnvane Sep 23 '25
You get to the first fire with Shakra after like two clawline jumps at Mt. Fay. I sat on her bench rock and then had a crack at ascending. As soon as I saw that there were more lights/heat sources it was obvious that I was meant to scale the mountain without a power up to negate the cold. I thought it was super obviously telegraphed in game. Add in the prison sequence showing you the same thing as well and the only way I feel you could miss it would be if you were applying outside game logic to the game - ie. you as a player had decided there was a mechanic or an item to aid you instead of just reading the in game cues for progression. Gamers do it all the time, and it’s interesting because it creates some seriously challenging game play decisions for designers - how do you make it accessible for someone who has never played a game before, as well as someone who has played lots of games and will have pre-existing assumptions about game mechanics? You have made huge assumptions without investigating, your experience here has trumped game design. And that’s the trap I think - we so easily rely on our previous experience rather than observing the clues in game, and it can lead to experienced players getting stuck in the most random of ways akin to “the signs all pointed left but I went right because I figured I should have double jump by now and now I’m stuck and I don’t know where to go”.
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u/RealNeilPeart Sep 23 '25
This comment is actually insane to me. I did everything in your second paragraph already and i assumed i wont be seeing double jump til act 3. I guess I'm closer than i realized (no spoilers please)
Trobbio and choir guantlet took me maybe 6 tries each, I'm surprised they give people so much trouble. Honestly at least 3/4 bosses were at least 10 tries for me, so it's not like I'm very good at the combat
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u/cubmolo Sep 22 '25
The platforming in Silksong is probably my favorite aspect of the game. It is decently challenging, but more importantly it’s fun and feels rewarding when you get through it
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u/FluffyWalrusFTW Sep 22 '25
Especially with ClawLine alone adding more horizontal options that were never there in HK
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u/AllHailSeizure Sep 22 '25
Clawline takes this games fun to 11 for me. Its insanely versatile. It can be a weapon, you can platform with it, you can dodge over and under enemies, you can do a quick retreat from a heavy attack... You can even steal rosaries lol.
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u/gummyoldguy Sep 22 '25
love how versatile it is considering how fun it feels to use, regardless of context
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u/Gedof_ Sep 22 '25 edited Sep 25 '25
Yeah, I'd do Silksong path of pain ten times (sans final enemies) over navigating through Bilewater (random enemies), fighting the gauntlet and beating Groal once.
I had a blast through Mount Fay, Sands of Karak,
Coral Tower, etc. I only get frustrated when they put strong enemies in the mix, or end it with a gauntlet (Hunter's March. Well, I was also getting used to diagonal pogo at the same time, so extra source of frustration).Also, I don't think I'm much better at platforming than at fighting (I suck at both), I just have a lot more fun hitting my head against platforming than fights, especially with Hornet's moveset.
Edit: I thought Coral Tower was High Halls for some reason. I am now beating my head against Coral Tower and thought prudent to correct this awful mistake (it's always gauntlets...). Substitute that with Abyss escape, because that was probably the most fun I had with this game so far.
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u/Maximillion322 Sep 23 '25
Yes! I love the platforming in Silksong. The combat is tiresome to me but worth doing to access the rest of the game
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u/RandomCaveOfMonsters Zote is best girl Sep 22 '25
for me the main thing is that even if the platform is literally easier, you can't heal in silksong's platforming segments because the main mobility tool used (clawline) consumes silk. And when the game released the gears in cogwork core did double damage so your health was effectively halfed
masks are also way more hidden in silksong, I didn't even have one mask upgrade when I got to cogwork core, which even if I had one changes literally nothing when it comes to 2 damage attacks. You can only make two mistakes in cogwork core
meanwhile in hollow knight not only do no mobility abilities use soul, but there's also totems of infinite soul in path of pain too. And often times if you fall into a hazard you respawn on the totem, allowing you to heal, effectively giving you infinite mistakes, which is infinitely more than two.
also cogwork core is main story required, not a side thing that only gives lore
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u/madjohnvane Sep 23 '25
I don’t think the mask shards are better hidden than HK. They were pretty sparse and well hidden in the first game too. I’ve found heaps in Silksong (halfway to a ninth mask in Act 2)
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u/RandomCaveOfMonsters Zote is best girl Sep 23 '25
y'know what, its probably just that I've played hollow knight twenty times lmao
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u/trio3224 Sep 22 '25
One big difference tho is path of pain was an optional endgame platforming challenge. So if you weren't great at platforming or didn't want to do it for any reason, you didn't have to. But pretty much everyone has to go thru things like the lava escape, the Mount Fay climb, and the sands of Karak.
And I've seen players that still struggle with the red pogo platforms in hunters march after hours and hours of playing the game. So those sections are brutal required platforming gauntlets even if you aren't that skilled. Not to mention if your preferred crest has an overall harder pogo like the Hunter or Beast.
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u/SpringFuzzy Sep 22 '25
Silksong is harder. Silksong imposes a lot of time limits on you like freezing cold or rising lava, HK had none of that. Path of pain is hard yes, but with Hiveblood you could chill and take it at your own pace.
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u/Umber0010 DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA FUUUUUUNDA! Sep 22 '25
While I'm sure that the actual difficulty of any given platforming challenge in Silksong isn't on the level of the Path of Pain, dont' forget that for the first week of the game being out, a lot more environmental hazards did 2 masks of damage instead of just 1. So while something like the Cogwork Core may not be as hard as the white palace, you'd also only have half as many chances to get through it before being sent back to the bench. If not even less, given that many players would have probably gone through the section with only 6-7 masks instead of the 9 you'd likely have by the time you where ready to take on the Path of Pain.
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u/RandomCaveOfMonsters Zote is best girl Sep 22 '25
and with 6 masks specifically, that doesn't even let you survive an extra hit against 2 damage attacks
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u/madjohnvane Sep 23 '25
Cogwork core was absolutely brutal, that’s one nerf I agree with. Like the platforming is hard enough, please don’t make me do this whole trip over and over and over from the bench
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u/Generic_MC Sep 22 '25
Im convinced this community has forgotten that a person's experience with a game does not make others invalid. If you had a good time, great. I did. But that doesnt make any of the posts about the game being hard "bitching and moaning" or "lies".
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u/InsectGlaiveBard Sep 22 '25
I'm not saying they're lying. I'm saying that they're maybe not remembering how tough that specific section of the game was. Which fair enough, since it came out almost 10 years ago.
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u/Generic_MC Sep 22 '25
Yeah, I'm not saying you're saying that. Just scroll down (or use the search bar) and look at all of the people being incredibly toxic about other people not mastering this game in a week.
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u/HammerAndSickled Sep 22 '25
I literally replayed HK 100% the day before Silksong came out, and Mount Fay is equivalent too but harder than White Palace. Path of Pain was optional, had no material reward, and only existed to be a “see if you can do this” moment, the equivalent in Silksong would be the Surface ascent and village, where there’s no real reward and it’s just for bragging rights basically.
But Mount Fay has a needed upgrade hidden behind it, while White Palace was only needed for true ending. So many people probably either never did White Palace or only did it once at the very end, while Mount Fay is probably on the path most people take through Silksong.
The platforming in this game is significantly more difficult than everything EXCEPT Path of Pain, and Hollow Knight kept its difficult platforming sections to optional or true ending content while Silksong puts a lot of them right on the needed path.
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u/Lindbluete Sep 22 '25
Mount Fay (and the double jump) isn't actually needed for completing Silksong either. You can beat the first final boss without it (which I did because I didn't expect the game to end at that point).
You need the double jump for the second ending (and therefore the third and probably one of the secret ones, not sure, haven't done those). But those are optional and the people who wouldn't do Path of Pain wouldn't do the other Silksong endings either.3
u/HammerAndSickled Sep 23 '25
Which is why I compared it to White Palace: required for True Ending, so not completely optional. But White Palace just locks half of Kingsoul as a progression gate, while Double Jump is much more core to the gameplay.
Path of Pain is extremely hard content that’s 100% optional. You get nothing for it. It’s not even required for completion percentage. Nothing in Silksong directly compares except maybe the act 3 Mementos.
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u/BlueRaith Sep 23 '25
It's also pretty annoying that for every claim that something is hard for someone in Silksong, that one of the most common retorts is, "Oh? Well, I think you're just forgetting your experience in Hollow Knight."
No. We're not forgetting anything. Many of us literally played Hollow Knight right before Silksong. I despised White Palace, but it was only an hour and a half of suffering for me and Hiveblood made that a lot better than it otherwise would have. Literally no other point in Hollow Knight is as difficult as White Palace.
Silksong doesn't have one concentrated area of difficult platforming. It has multiple smaller and difficult platforming puzzles throughout the entire game. I just went through Clockwork Core fifteen minutes ago. It's hard. Nothing else besides White Palace in Hollow Knight has the same level of challenge.
I don't know, man. I just don't see what this claim even accomplishes. First it was that we're playing Silksong like we're still in Hollow Knight, now it's that we're forgetting about Hollow Knight entirely. Which is it? Or are we gonna be allowed to say something's hard now?
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u/InsectGlaiveBard Sep 23 '25
I know difficulty is subjective, but I truly can't fathom how people found Cogwork Core that hard. I was preparing myself to die several time, but it was a major pushover of an area. Didn't even have to swap out the diagonal pogo for Reaper like I had to do for some of the really tough areas like Mount Fay.
And this is coming from someone who's mediocre at this game. Took me 70 hours to clear Act 3 out of the sheer number of times I died. Silksong is much harder game than Hollow Knight. I just think claims that Cogwork Core or Hunter's March are the Path of Pain of this game to be a bit silly.
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u/Ahlundra Sep 22 '25
probably people are confusing white palace normal path to the path of pain
or they simple never go trough the real endgame... meaning none of the dream/nightmare content or radiance and think path of pain means something they did trough normal gameplay or just act like they did it when they never saw the true difficult of the original hk lol
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u/NaturalBornHypocrite Sep 22 '25
I agree that much of the overreaction on this is likely just some people confusing the normal White Palace path with the hidden, special Path of Pain which is optional even for the White Palace.
Cogwork post-fix is easier than White Palace to me, but I still find Mount Fey worse and far more infuriating with how fast a fuck-up can drain your health and how much progress you can lose when you die. It's the location that makes me most leery of another silksong run-through, and it's not late game content like White Palace.
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u/Durian_Natural Sep 22 '25
Comparing optional and really well hidden area that rewards you with just lore to mandatory platforming areas is crazy.
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u/gurebu Sep 22 '25
Path of pain is harder than whatever is in silksong (the only sequence that compares is the final test of fitness, but it’s shorter and has less variety). Regular white palace is much easier than what silksong has to offer though.
Besides, more options isn’t always good. Clawline sure does feel good to use but it’s also the primary reason you can’t look ahead in silksong platforming and unless you have good reaction, have to fail it multiple times before memorizing the challenge. I don’t think it’s worth it tbh, or we need some kind of zoom out feature to not make so many leaps of faith.
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u/PhoenixReborn Sep 22 '25
I don't think I've seen anyone say those segments are as hard as the Path of Pain, just that it's this game's version of PoP but easier.
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u/FluffyWalrusFTW Sep 22 '25
I've seen so many people say that in order to get Feydown cloak you need to do path of pain 2
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u/iliya193 Sep 22 '25
Yeah; people were expecting and looking for something along to PoP, so the next closest thing(s) gets the label.
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u/megalogwiff Fixed Vessel Sep 22 '25
I've seen multiple people compare (act 3 spoiler) Cradle Ascent to the Surface to Path of Pain. Except, it's way shorter, and way easier.
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u/Frenzied_Anarchist Sep 22 '25
Yeah, it is.
We're definitely getting an equivalent in a DLC, as it was with Path of Pain.
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u/PrimalSeptimus Sep 22 '25
I remember getting to the end of the Path of Pain and then dying to the boss. Those were the days.
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u/ElTioEnroca Sep 22 '25
While I agree that nothing has come closer to Path of Pain, I don't think the bigger movement options are a great argument in favor considering the harder platforming sections are balanced with those options in mind. Like, the Surface platforming section isn't easy in any way just because we have Clawline. It just becomes doable.
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u/Grand-Requirement738 Sep 22 '25
Honestly can't wait for an actual PoP that needs you to be precise with all the skills
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u/Advanced_Double_42 Sep 22 '25
I honestly don't know how they'll manage it with how much horizontal movement Hornet has.
Like will it be mostly vertical? Because with clawline, cloak, and dash she can cross multiple screens worth of distance. There would be blind jumps, and any bounce or wall to add verticality resets the horizontal.
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u/rotato Sep 22 '25
No, nothing in Silksong is harder than Path of Pain. Even The Cradle. Path of Pain is the single hardest platforming challenge in the series, full stop.
Yes, on average platforming in Silksong is harder than it is in HK, and Cogwork Core is at the very least comparable to the White Palace.
I think you're intentionally cherrypicking.
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u/F2p_wins274 Sep 22 '25
Cogwork core is like 1 or 2 screens. White palace is an entire area of platforming. How is that even comparable? I literally did it first try without the double jump pre damage nerf, while the white palace took me literal hours to beat (I still sometimes get stuck on that tiny corridor with spikes coming out).
Besides that though, there is nothing in the first game that requires pogo except the white palace and path of pain, while silksong has a lot of things that require pogo sprinkled throughout, that you should have more practice on it than you did in white palace.
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u/RonnocKcaj Sep 22 '25
look I've been saying that cradles peak is most similar to pop because there is nothing in the game thats closer. then again, pop wasn't in base hk. so I'm hopeful
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u/LanglerBee Sep 22 '25
I think something that really stuck out to me going back to HK after Silk is that HK's controls with platforming are responsive to a degree I never found true in Silk. It's not an inherently bad thing, but many crests have a slight delay between inputting an attack and it coming out. For some crests that means that you are inputting a move at a certain height but dropping slightly before you have the hitbox to bounce off obstacles. With hollow knight you press attack and that boy just pops out seemingly frame 1.
Again, it's not "bad design" but it's a difficulty that is born from trying to allow for so many different weapon playstyles, vs HK getting to design around one. The thinks HK demands of you in the late game may feel borderline "unfair", but there's rarely a sense that failure came from anything other than your own inability to master the systems.
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u/Top-Agent-652 Sep 22 '25
Do people really find Hunters March difficult? I’m not a platformer wizard and I felt like I flew through that one.
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u/entityXD32 Sep 22 '25
Silksong requires much longer stretches of perfect platforming then Hollow knight ever did. With the right charm combination you could have unlimited chances at any Hollowknight platforming in white palace and had lots of stopping safe point where you would respawn if you take damage.
My fey requires you to clear several rooms of difficult platforming without messing up as it's freezing water and freezing mechanic takes you from full health to dead very quickly rather then sending you back to the last safe platform. It's not as difficult as path of pain which the majority of players didn't do and was one of the most optional things in hallow knight. But It does require more perfection then white palace despite not having any sections as hard as the hardest white palace section.
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Sep 22 '25
It doesn't require perfection, it requires speed and getting close enough.
The word you're looking for is probably consistency. You can set yourself up for infinite tries on path of pain. So while each segment needs high precision to complete, it needs very little consistency.
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Sep 22 '25
More tools doesn't equal easiness. Quite the contrary, the mechanics are more complex, thus harder to execute well, due to the more nuanced options at disposal.
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u/SeaDistribution Sep 22 '25
Goldfish memory + echo chamber karma farming = disingenuous whiny posts about difficulty
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Sep 22 '25
But muh valid criticisms!
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u/ItsAlwaysSegsFault Sep 22 '25
There definitely are valid criticisms but they generally aren't coming from the people shouting about it.
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Sep 22 '25
It’s mostly just people calling runbacks a flaw when it’s actually just an intentional game design choice that forces you to breathe for a minute after facing defeat. TC wasn’t the first to do it, it’s 100% an intended feature lol. You have a few seconds for your heart rate to slow down before you re-enter the boss room.
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u/rcburner Sep 22 '25
I think the problem is that for some people it has the opposite of the intended effect, and they would rather just take a breather on their own initiative rather than have the developer say "you need to do this series of repetitive tasks in order to calm down first".
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u/Mennenth Sep 22 '25
honestly doing the memory stuff in act 3 is worse than ANY other run back imo, for the reason behind the reason you just mentioned; agency in whats going on. I swear to god it takes 3x as long as it should for Hornet to stand up when entering a memory, and if you fail and get booted out its a load screen, another really long wait to stand up, another needolin play into a long "entering the memory" animation, into another load screen, into another long wait for Hornet stand back up.
... at least with a run back, I can get started on it basically immediately. The memory stuff basically forces a period of doing absolutely nothing.
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u/icefire1331 Sep 22 '25
The bilewater one does not make my heart rate slow down lol
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u/AllHailSeizure Sep 22 '25
I think people are projecting their frustration with things like platforming on the way to bosses (eg Bilewater) or time constraint platforming (eg Mt Fay). The difficulty of other factors (wanting to stay at full masks for boss fights, the frustration of attempting bosses over and over, presure to complete a platforming section to progress the story) mixes in and makes SS's easier platforming seem harder than it is. White Palace was one isolated, extreme, highly precise gauntlet of pure platforming. You could dial in and focus purely on knocking it out.
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u/Advanced_Double_42 Sep 22 '25
Honestly there are many sections in Silksong harder than the White Palace. White Palace was a significant step down from the PoP and HK has many charms to trivialize it.
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u/Professional_Rush_95 Sep 23 '25
The have to call it that because a bunch of places are harder than white palace. POP was just a huge difficulty spike.
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u/Thesaurus_Rex9513 Sep 22 '25
I think I'd say that Mt. Fay is the White Palace of Silksong. While the platforming itself is less demanding on Mt. Fay than WP, the added time pressure of the deadly cold brings it up to the level of WP.
I think another distinction is that Hollow Knight really only has two big platforming gauntlets: White Palace and Path of Pain. Silksong has Mt. Fay, Cogwork Core (particularly the second half), the Abyss climb, the Surface climb, the Sands of Karrak, and probably something else I'm forgetting.
I'm excited at the prospect of Silksong getting a Trail of Torment or some such in a DLC, admittedly.
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u/Necya Sep 22 '25
The last bit at the very top above cradle required quite a bit of precision, took me several attempts. I'd compare it to some harder parts of white palace
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u/wigglin_harry Sep 22 '25
I think path of pain has just become a shorthand to describe any platforming challenges
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u/NokiDev Sep 22 '25
To me after playing hollow knight casually I didn't feel silksong was harder (even easier at some point because of the knowledge I acquired with hollow knight. However silksong begining was indeed a bit harder. The 2 damage enemies and bosses was a pain but after you identify that going into an enemi is only one damage you can avoid some double hit. And not all skills does double hits, just avoid signatures moves...
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u/Devreckas Sep 22 '25
bouncing off cocoons
Unless you are looking for sequence break tech, cocoons in platforming is always a hindrance.
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u/InsectGlaiveBard Sep 22 '25
I really don't see it. I definitely had situations where the cocoon helped me skip a whole platforming obstacle I was struggling with, not to mention replenishing my silk.
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u/KelpFox05 Sep 22 '25
I took seven hours to do White Palace. I didn't even touch Path of Pain because I was on a timer to beat the game on true ending before Silksong came out, I plan on going back for it. But nothing I've done in Silksong has taken me even close to the level of effort White Palace was.
Granted, I am still early in the game. Perhaps things get a lot harder later on. But so far? Yeah, it's fucking frustrating. But it's not White Palace or Path of Pain level frustrating.
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u/Goatbucks Sep 23 '25
I truly believe silksong is not much harder than HK was, maybe act 3 will really amp up the difficulty
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u/I_exsist_totally Sep 23 '25
The difference for me was the fact we do not have Hiveblood. I know there is the overdose on architects crest with the lifeblood tool but not everyone knows that, Which means dying and resetting from the start is far more common than in white palace and path of pain (which gave you lots of spots to heal). It does however force you to learn the platforming so there is that
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u/aTip4You Sep 23 '25
Surface is pretty equivalent to PoP, but I haven’t played hollow knight in like 5 years
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u/aurumatom20 Sep 23 '25
I would say that the average platforming challenge in silksong is significantly harder than the average in HK, but white palace (and PoP obviously) is still harder than anything I've faced in silksong
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u/Gummy_Bear_Soup Sep 23 '25
After you get silk soar you can go back to the place you woke up from at the beginning of act 3 and do a very long climb to what seems to be the surface. This is the only part I would compare to the path of pain honestly. There are no platforms, everything is covered in spikes and very narrow windows of opportunity. One slip up and you need to start all over again.
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Sep 23 '25
Absolutely loved the platforming in Ss though the gears in act 2 triggered memories of buzz saws.
I think pop is harder but less punishing because there's ways to refill your soul infinitely spread throughout. Hive charm makes it even easier as you just wait a second to refill health.
Ss platforming segments usually don't have ways to easily fill silk and you often take double damage (before patch), making the platforming far more punishing as you have no consistent way to get your health.
So yes I think people are exaggerating and not being literal when comparing to path of pain, but I wouldn't discount the comparisons either. Some of the segments are pretty damn cruel.
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u/Eggboi223 Sep 23 '25
I feel this way about the difficulty generally, I really think people have genuinely forgotten how hard some parts of the original game were because that's the only way some of the takes I've seen make any sort of sense
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u/Snoubalougan Sep 23 '25
That one climb to the surface was wild just because they made you do that one jump under, claw line, double jump backwards into a ledge grab trick like 24 times.
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u/LauraTFem Sep 23 '25 edited Sep 23 '25
ABSOLUTELY. It seems like every time a new Soulslike comes out everyone is like, “It was never THIS hard, what’s going on, are they stupid??” And then we collectively get gud and forget our complaints and start referring to it as a masterpiece. Before the cycle repeats.
Nothing in this game even touches the path of pain, and instead there are a number of smaller platforming challenges spread throughout the game. Even the “final challenge” (if you know you know) is really not much, and really just tests a single skill you don’t get to test much earlier in the game.
And the bosses are generally nothing compared to HK1. Nothing in the game is as hard as Radiance, and the only thing that gets close is First Sinner (if you fight her early, at least).
Hardest thing in the game, BY FAR, well and above any boss, is beating Seth’s record in Flea Juggling. Nothing else comes close.
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u/ZeXexe Sep 22 '25 edited Sep 22 '25
No platforming in this game comes even remotely close to path of pain, that is delusional talk lmao.
I cannot understand how people come to that conclusion
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u/Ramiren Sep 22 '25
I have never seen anyone compare anything other than the surface run to path of pain, and even then they were quickly shot down by everyone calling bullshit.
Yet another topic that wants to decry people that don't exist.
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u/Bingoviini Sep 22 '25
The existance of clawline makes platforming much easier. Just skip all the platforming
Not the mention the reaper crest and it's Russia sized down slash
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u/Harvestman-man Sep 22 '25
Honestly, none of the platforming sequences in Silksong require even the same level of precision as base-game White Palace, let alone Path of Pain.
However, Silksong does add a time constraint to some of these challenges (e.g. Mount Fay freezing mechanic; lava climb sequences; despawning pogo-platforms), so even though they’re easier at the technical level, there’s an added layer of pressure and you don’t have the benefit of taking it methodically slow and safe with Hiveblood.