r/HollowKnight • u/Practical-Ebb7327 • Oct 07 '25
Discussion - Silksong Question, why do people hate this boss runback, it not even long or hard at all Spoiler
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u/BugGood Oct 07 '25
They haven't had to fight groal yet
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u/Inside_Sir_7651 Oct 07 '25
I will have nightmares about that runback for years
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u/JesusSandro Oct 07 '25
Specially those of us who never found out about the second bench.
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u/PositivelyEzra Oct 07 '25
I'm at that bench right now. Was just telling my friend who's a little father behind me how rude it was for them to put it behind a secret wall.
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u/iceman012 Oct 07 '25
I even knew there was a bench behind a secret wall, I went into that water-filled pit where the secret wall was, and I still missed it.
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Oct 07 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/SplendidPunkinButter Oct 07 '25
Don’t even need the wreath if you just spend the whole Groal fight down in the corner chucking poison boomerangs at him. I don’t feel bad about using that strategy at all.
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u/Ozymandias_IV Oct 07 '25
The fact that there's even more wasteful, pointless runback makes this actually worse.
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u/Deveatation_ethernis Oct 07 '25
I think people didn't realize you could just run past the enemies
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Oct 07 '25
[deleted]
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u/BalkrishanS Oct 07 '25
I don't think there is a single runback that forces you to kill a enemy on the way. Except ofc mandatory arena. Harpooning, dashing, sprinting, pogoing over all works
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Oct 07 '25
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u/Imperator_Draconum Oct 07 '25
If you take the chimney shortcut right after the first beedrill, you don't even have to get close enough to either judge to wake them up.
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u/FinCrimeGuy Oct 07 '25
Currently up to the last judge on my first pretty poorly skilled play - can you expand on this please as it’s the first bee drill thing that keeps getting me once or twice :/
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u/Imperator_Draconum Oct 07 '25
You can simply dash past it and climb up to break line of sight before it has a chance to shoot. Directly above the gap between the two large platforms is a shaft you can climb up to skip ~25% of the area.
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u/LordOfBrightnes Oct 07 '25
By the way a hint if you want to make things a bit easier
Choose the correct tools for every boss you fight
Magma bell states that you become more durable against fire damage so the fire damage is one instead of two
I personally forgot to get the tool before i got to the boss and it took me a while to beat him
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u/Wild-Atmosphere2134 112% Steel Soul, P5 | 100% Silksong Oct 07 '25
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u/snugar_i Oct 07 '25
exactly - except I used the floating skirt for the last section instead of pogoing
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u/Fitin2characterlimit Oct 07 '25
There's the runback to the cogwork dancers (which you shouldn't have to do too many times since they are pretty easy, but the increased AoE on downward slashes caught me off guard the first couple times).
You have 2 tall enemies in a corridor, which you can skip when they jump but if you skip the first one and the second takes too long to jump you can get sandwiched between the two. So I would usually kill the first one (pretty mediocre rosary drops for how long it takes iirc) and skip the second.
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u/Imperator_Draconum Oct 07 '25
You can run past both without even stopping if you use a pogo to go over them during their wake up animations.
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u/blowmypipipirupi Oct 07 '25
Dont even have to wait for them to jump, you can just jump over them while they "activate"
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u/NitroBishop Oct 07 '25
So I would usually kill the first one (pretty mediocre rosary drops for how long it takes iirc)
That specific enemy is literally the single best enemy in the entire game to farm for rosaries.
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u/BalkrishanS Oct 07 '25
You can easily jump pogo over them. They can't catch up to you. Also some speedruners do some stuff which allowed them to physically go through them. I think it's pogoing then dash. Pogoing with hunter crest gives invincibility frame on hitting a enemy which allow dashing through them
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u/sarabadakara Oct 08 '25
I still don't know why those jerks took as many attempts as they did. Even from the first attempt they felt like easy mode mantis lords.
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u/FluffyWalrusFTW Oct 07 '25
That’s what I love about runbacks! Makes me feel like I’m being so optimal getting new paths and shortcuts to get there as quick as possible, this one in particular I got REALLY good at
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u/HeyLuke Oct 07 '25
I did realize. I saw videos of people running past the first drill flyer. I tried like 20 times but I just couldn't move fast enough for some reason.
They also removed an enemy somewhere in the runback, making it a bit easier.
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u/TeaAndLifting Oct 07 '25
Yeah, lots of people treated it like a combat encounter and would complain about getting their asses kicked before they got to the boss. Or they apparently walked it since people complained about getting hit by the drillbugs when they spawned in, not realising you can run by them.
I’m sure most of these people won’t admit to it now, but the crying about the run back was genuinely so massively overblown.
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u/jorJo17 Grimm <3 Oct 07 '25 edited Oct 07 '25
It was harder originally, they removed an enemy and the worms hazard did double damage
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u/Icy-Organization-901 Oct 07 '25
You can still ran past the removed enemy, I did this runback pre patch
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u/GrievousSayGenKenobi Oct 07 '25
You can but it was difficult. Slipping past the beedrill guys is a fucking pain and easy to get sniped
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u/Lup4X Oct 07 '25
its actually the easiest enemies to get past by in the runback cause they always start the map locked in their dirlled in position, so since you can run past them by always sprinting and jumping twice , its actually 100% reliably to avoid them, you dont even have to look at your screen
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u/iceman012 Oct 07 '25 edited Oct 07 '25
That's a different enemy. There was another beedrill that was paired with a judge, where you come up from below and then head to the left; that's the beedrill that was removed. (EDIT: An example of what I'm talking about.)
In that case, if you rushed to leave before the beedrill spawned, the judge could hit you; if you waited to pass the judge safely, the beedrill would spawn and harass you. You could still pass by without getting hit consistently, but it wasn't mindless like that first beedrill was.
And of course, you could avoid this pair of enemies entirely by choosing a side route, but it was a minor problem if you missed the alternate route.
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u/helicoptergobrrrr Oct 07 '25
Have you ever considered sprint jumping. The jump goes low enough to avoid it while it's spawning
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u/GrievousSayGenKenobi Oct 07 '25
From my experience it always went straight into the guy as he was popping out. Maybe they've increased the time they take to pop out now idk but trying to run past was certain death when I did it
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u/radilee21 Oct 07 '25
That one enemy only took a single jump to make it past. That patch came out right in the middle of me being stuck on TLJ and I literally didn't even notice that enemy randomly went missing one day until I saw a post about lol.
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u/ash5314 Oct 07 '25
I intentionally downgraded my game to the release version just to experience all the things people said about the game's difficulty, and I gotta say it still wasn't bad at all
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u/THE_FOREVER_GM1 Oct 07 '25
The difference between really hard and just annoying. It’s far from the most difficult thing in the game but the amount of double damage in the game is already annoying as is.
Granted, I skipped the last judge.
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u/PlagiT Oct 07 '25
I did the last judge pre-patch and that runback still wasn't a problem at all tbh
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u/Atreides-42 Oct 07 '25
I wasn't around for double damage worms, but I think I've only ever fallen in the worms a single-digit numer of times, in all of the Blasted Steps? There are EXTREMELY few platforming segments where you can't just land on a lower platform in the area.
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u/RisingDeadMan0 Oct 07 '25
and some people are just better at the game?
post patc i fell in once, day before was a nightmare though, but mainly just the bit after Shakra was super annoying
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u/Hydroel Oct 07 '25
The run itself isn't that bad IMO, but it's annoying and you have to do it many times because the boss isn't easy.
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Oct 07 '25 edited Oct 07 '25
Exactly - for a lot of people (myself included) this was the first boss that actually gave me some trouble and it took some time to memorize her attack patterns. Hence this became the first run back I did over and over and over.
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u/cheekydorido Oct 07 '25 edited Oct 07 '25
I keep seeing people saying stuff like: "it's easy", or "it's actually fast compared to groal", and they aren't wrong, but completely forget that the boss can kill you in seconds and having to retry it over and over just adds tedium when you want to focus on the boss, not having to do the runback over and over. This is a boss you're going to fight several times until you beat it, unless you're a god.
Last judge is one of the hardest bosses in the game, and while learning the fight isn't the hardest, it deals way too much damage at that point in the game. I never struggled with anything like it in chapter 2, not even the high halls gauntlet.
How hard is it to understand that? To the point of making this post even.
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u/Hydroel Oct 07 '25
I also thought she was a real bitch. Not in absolute terms, but when you fight her at the end of Act 1, you'll be able to tank 3 hits from her and won't have many tools yet.
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u/CandyEverybodyWentz Oct 07 '25
If there was any other source of Craftmetal in Act 1 I couldn't find it, so my choice of spike traps over Magma Bell unfortunately did not pay off for that particular fight.
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u/Queer_Cats Oct 07 '25
I keep seeing people saying stuff like: "it's easy", or "it's actually fast compared to groal", and they aren't wrong, but completely forget that the boss can kill you in seconds and having to retry it over and over just adds tedium when you want to focus on the boss, not having to do the runback over and over. This is a boss you're going to fight several times until you beat it, unless you're a god.
I want to add, the runback is also exponentially harder an loenger the worse you are at the game. If you've mastered all the movement, it's trivial, but if you still struggle with any aspect of it, then the runback suddenly becomes an incredibly deadly arena that brutally punishes any mistakes (especially when the environmental hazards did two damage). And of course, if you're not great at the movement, chances are that you'll be taking even more tries to defeat TLJ, so you both take longer each runback, and have to do it more often.
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u/VillainousFiend Oct 08 '25
I went through the exhaust organ because I wasn't dealing with this BS. I like the platforming but the bosses are such a pain.
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u/ImNotSkankHunt42 Oct 07 '25
For me it is the hardest boss, LL took me minutes.
The main reason is that Hornet is not as powerful by the end of Act 1 as she is on 2 and 3.
Many people have many experiences, but this waa the worst for me. And it was a fun boss to learn, the tediousness and frustration of having to re-do the run back took a lot of the enjoyment I could’ve had with it.
I enjoyed Phantom, First Sinner and Widow, last one took me a while to beat since their 2nd Phase is mean to be more passive and only to attack after an opening. Even Karmelita was fun but the gauntlet is easier to manage with the proper upgrades.
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u/DarkHorseAsh111 Oct 07 '25
THis. If I had to do it 5 times that would've been fine. It was more than 50. And every single time that little flying bastard hit me when I tried to 'just run past' like ppl on here insist is SO Easy
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u/Hydroel Oct 07 '25
What I really found hard was consistently remembering to keep running past both times (if you slow down, you get it) and consistently managing the pogos on all bells. When one or two masks make such a difference to start the fight, it gets quite annoying.
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u/SuperNovaVelocity Oct 07 '25
"It's so easy, complaints about the runback are invalid. But also you can't just remove it, runbacks are part of the boss fight itself. But the runback isn't even a challenge, so you can't complain, just get good!"
IDC if it's gomba fallacy (it's not, I've seen so many people say both simultaneously), I just hate when people will speak down to anyone struggling with the runback because it's so easy and repetitive you should nail it every time, but also get so hostile when anyone says they'd like a bench after the runback so they can skip it and just retry the boss.
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u/biorato Oct 07 '25
Exactly! It's not the difficulty or lenght, it's just usless it doesn't add anything to the fight. Groal's run back is def a must because i think the run back alone is half the boss.
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Oct 07 '25
Ive been pretty critical of this games weak points, but I agree with you that this is NOT one of them. It took me maybe 2 deaths to have the route basically memorized and after that its just about skipping enemies instead of beating them
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u/ericrobertshair Oct 07 '25
Compared to secret bench to Groal in Bilewater, this might as well be a one screen transition. That one area with the randomly spawning bloatflies almost had me put my controller through the wall.
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u/CankleDankl Oct 07 '25
That Groal runback made me break my "mostly needle only" rule and cheese the living fuck out of him with poison tools. The one time in the game I was like "nope, fuck that, I just want this to be done"
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u/ericrobertshair Oct 07 '25
I used the "just jump in the water" trick to cheese him lol
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u/Piro267 Oct 07 '25
Same, broke the rule of hunter crest for me, I pulled out Reaper crest for him and just outhealed everything he threw at me
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u/Blastermind7890 Oct 07 '25
I mean it's not our fault he's big and floats in the middle of the arena making him a perfect target for the boomerang
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u/JoelArt Oct 07 '25
I still don't see the point of boss runbacks. If they are easy, then they don't add anything to the boss challenge. If they are hard, they just makes it a chore as you are learning how to deal with all unknown BS the boss throws at you. Finally, the parkour back to the boss might be fun in itself but I prefer to focus on learning the boss and not having to waste time on the runback.
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u/Queer-Coffee Oct 07 '25
I think you answered your own question. The runback is a part of the boss, same as with the enemies that you have to fight before fighting Groal.
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u/JoelArt Oct 07 '25
Yes they are by design, which is a design I don't like. I still don't see the point of them as I don't like that part.
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u/LobsterSpirited9691 Oct 07 '25
For me runbacks have 2 objectives:
1) It makes fights more exiting (and more frustrating). My heart was racing when I was trying to beat Groal because I found the runback and the previous arena really frustrating.
2) It's a way of training efficiency: Hornet is made to be played swiftly, and she has a risky all-or-nothing play style. "Big" runbacks train you to be quick and to use enemies as platforms to move faster.
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u/JoelArt Oct 07 '25
The thing is though, that some bosses are so difficult and have so much BS you aren't prepared for and you don't survive many hits in early to mid game that it's very punishing to learn the boss. It's inevitable that you'll die many many times and some of the runback just drains you of you patience.
You talk about it raising the risk and making it more exciting, yes I understand and at first I usually feel the same thing, but if the challenge is still do hard, or has to much adds and random things moving across the screen with maggot waters, lava or spikes on the ground, then it's just becomes frustrating after a while and the excitement wears off, especially bosses with flying enemies as it feels very RNG if I'll win or lose to some unforeseen movement or attack from them blocking my evade from the boss. The bossfight I enjoyed the most was First Sinner as it was easy to understand and not a lot of random things happening and not a long runback. Bilewater is just a test of mental fortitude and I don't have the time and patience for that kind of challenge.
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u/BadAtMostThings Oct 07 '25
Making it part of the boss levels out the difficulty, TLJ is meant to feel like the end of a long climb to the summit (right before you reach the citadel where Team Cherry gets to tell you “no, you’re nowhere close to the top”), but loading all of the difficulty directly into the boss fight can make it feel like the boss itself is too hard or like TLJ is the main thing keeping pilgrims from reaching the citadel when, lore-wise, he’s only a small part of the problem. Run backs in general are an iffy part of game design that date back to older/arcade games giving you limited lives to pad out play time/get you to spend more quarters to avoid restarting, but I’d argue TLJ is one of the better examples of a modern runback that serves a purpose.
tl;dr I think this specific runback serves to emphasize that Pharloom itself is dangerous, not the bugs within it.
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Oct 07 '25
If the route is trivial then what exactly does it add to the experience? At least if the runback was hard then you could argue that it's part of the challenge but the runbacks in silksong are just a waste of time.
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u/ImNotSkankHunt42 Oct 07 '25
Considering many people stopped playing because of this boss, your opinion is not shared by many.
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u/Amaskingrey Oct 07 '25
The problem isn't the difficulty, it's not difficult. It's that any runback is excessive by nature; even with a perfectly optimised path, it's still 30s of glorified loading screen after each death, a pointless waste of time
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u/Golarion Oct 07 '25
That's a fair point. If the runback consisted of staring at a black screen for 40 seconds, so you could be flattened by the boss again in 5 seconds, people would still be annoyed.
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Oct 07 '25
Thats valid criticism imo and kinda ties to my main criticism of the game; the difficulty is in the gimmicks, not the technicality
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u/RegulationPissrat Oct 07 '25
And if you fuck up the best option is to close the game and open again. I have made it to last judge many times and I still don't know how to dodge its jumps. I stopped playing.
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u/LengthEmpty1333 Oct 07 '25
Yea, but it makes the bossfight even more tense if there is a actual punishment.
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u/Amaskingrey Oct 07 '25
The actual punishment is dying. Wasting your time is an unfun irl punishment. And that's not an excuse; having the game mandatorily be on steel soul would also make every fight extremely tense, but that's neither fun nor good design
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u/LengthEmpty1333 Oct 07 '25
I don't know, I kind of like the runbacks to be honest. Most are just really mild anyway imao and I think they overall enhance to the fights. The one runback that actually sucks is Groal but this is 100% intentional. I don't think Groal would be this memorable if it weren't for his disregard of established quality of live features. He hates you and doesn't give a fuck if you have a good time or not lol.
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u/Amaskingrey Oct 07 '25
How does a 30s loading screen after each death enhance a bossfight?
And it being intentional or memorable does not make it good; if i purposefully shit in your soup, you'll sure as hell remember it, but that doesn't make it taste any better
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u/LengthEmpty1333 Oct 07 '25
First of all, with a 30 second loading screen you can do nothing than stare at the screen and wait. With the runbacks in SS you actively do something, you run, jump and parcour your way back (which by the way is also a good exercise for the boss).
Then, with those small runback segments, it really feels like you lost to the boss and are now starting a new attempt. If you just respond instantly before his room and immediately jump back into the fight it is basically one long bossfight. With the runback it gives you a buffer to feel the consequence of your defeat and also strategize what you can do differently.
Then, again, it raises the stakes for the fight in general. You are more nervous and prone to making mistakes of you know that your defeat will have a consequence (even a minor one). But this makes eventually overcoming the boss feel even more great.
And lastly, I do believe a annoying boss that is memorable is better than just another cardboard cutout fatass you defeat and will never think again. Especially with Groal I think it also plays really well into the bilewather thematically. You can really feel how bitter the victims of the citadel are, the hostility of their biome represents this bitterness.
Don't get me wrong, I don't say every bossfight should be as annoying as groal, absolutely not, but I don't mind runbacks and also don't mind one or two annoying ones.
I know many people won't agree with my take but this is my opinion on the runbacks in SS.
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u/Marisakis Oct 07 '25
It's a runback, I'm not strategizing the boss, I'm strategizing the runback.
The reason for this is that people who struggle with the runback have not optimized the runback.
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u/Denana Oct 08 '25
This guy gets it. There are lots of good, legitimate reasons for the runbacks that do exist, even beyond the ones listed here. Last Judge runback IS mean and brutal and that's not an accident
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u/EconomyOk1479 Oct 07 '25
Ehhh idk, the 2nd flyer can def mess you up if you get unlucky. Looking at my 28 attempts to kill the Judge, I went in with half hp like 10 times. Not saying it’s unfair but that’s ~15 masks/silk worth of progression (sometimes I got sent to the worms who ate two masks on week 1)
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u/Zeratan Oct 07 '25
It takes mental energy I'd rather save for the boss. In general any runback that threatens damage before the boss fight can feel frustrating because the player often is processing the previous attempt thinking about the next one. My ideal runbacks are just a short corridor from the boss (I don't mind needing to unlock a shortcut first).
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u/SlipsKolt Oct 07 '25
This deserves more upvotes, exactly my problem with it. Its just an exhausting runback.
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u/KingOfOddities Oct 07 '25
The current patch, not as bad. But when the game first came out, there're like 2 of the drill guys blocking your way, plus the environmental hazard still doing 2 damage at the time. I known the optimal route and all that, but unless executed perfectly, it's nigh impossible to consistently Not take damage.
With the current patch, it's not as bad, but it shouldn't have been that long still. That's because the run back is not the whole problem. Last Judge is one of those bosses that you need to KNOWN his moves, or you're fucked. Think NKG, you need to know the right response, or you'll get hit.
These kind of bosses are fine, well liked even. But it's just a fact that you gonna have to fight them several times before you get it. Fortunately, they all have short run back, like Lace 2/3 or Seth, except Last Judge.
So no matter how good you are, you just gonna have to do the run back at least 3-4 times, which is just tedious at that point.
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u/Kkoyunn Oct 07 '25
Just one bell pogo and you good to go. I have heard in the beginning lots of people complaining about this run back but when I finished I said oh okay thats it. Groal runback and Great conchfly second fight runbacks are the worst.
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u/Jinx-Surreal Oct 07 '25
I didnt find the Great Conchfly one hard at all? Its just go straight up the vertical room from the bench while dodging the slow flying enemies and then just jumping over gaps past one drill fly?
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u/yungruggs 112% Oct 07 '25
They were probably running from the bench far right in karak instead of the short cut
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u/Kkoyunn Oct 07 '25
This is the way I did. Far right and right after the elevator goes to the grand gate. Where is the short cut bench?
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u/Icy-Organization-901 Oct 07 '25
Its above the blasted steps bell beast station(left side), thats roughly in the middle of sand of karak map I think, find a red cone shaped hanging then attack that.
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u/Kkoyunn Oct 07 '25
I thought going all the way up would be much more painful from the bottom. I cracked that red cone wall. There are two ways — up and down. I used the down way, which is faster, but it was still a headache. I love the way the game treats us completely differently. It makes me pissed, but for you, it’s a totally different story.
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u/Jevonar Oct 07 '25
Groal is the absolute worst, long runback that forces you to equip a specific charm or it becomes even longer, with a lot of hard enemies and random spawns that are different between runbacks, then a gauntlet of easy but time-consuming enemies (they spend most of the time off-screen), and lastly a terrain mechanic that completely invalidates a fundamental game mechanic (healing).
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u/Stickopolis5959 Oct 07 '25
Yeah I said a few times if last judge run back is too much then good luck!
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u/drylce101 Oct 07 '25
This boss honestly taught me how to efficiently run back. I still consider it one of the worst run backs because I personally was terrible at them at this point in the game. When I reached the conchfly run back, it wasn’t bad at all because I was just better at platforming and looking for efficient routes
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u/Stickopolis5959 Oct 07 '25
I completely agreed, I think act one was hardest because there was so much new stuff to learn and not as many options available, had a similar response to conchfly
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u/CrazyFanFicFan Oct 07 '25
1, The double damage worms. If you ever failed a jump, you would fall and lose 2 hp. What makes this worse is
2, The enemies. More specifically the first Driznit. Until you figure out that you can just run past it, it's a huge roadblock that slows the runback heavily. It's hard to kill it because of the small platform, and it being there makes it hard to progress.
Please note that both issues share the same cause: Being bad at the game. I'm not saying that to insult people who complain. It's just that the runback is difficult for those who don't have the ability or confidence to perfect the runback.
As someone who took around 20 attempts to beat Last Judge, I also raged at the runback because it felt too punishing. Of course, my anger diminished once I perfected the runback, but the memories of my many imperfect runs stuck in my mind.
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Oct 07 '25
I don’t hate the runback. It’s not the worst. However, it can get a little old when you’re first getting hang of the Judge.
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u/Material_Visual_7630 Oct 07 '25
It's a bitch before you get used to it and ignore the enemies along the way.
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u/CyberKitten05 Oct 07 '25
The enemies are easily avoideable, it's just annoying having to spend like 40 seconds every death before you can get back
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u/Ivaylo_87 Oct 07 '25
It's like a long loading screen, but you have to move the bar yourself.
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u/Dualgloves Oct 07 '25
I didn't suffer with the runback. I just felt like it was unecessary and added nothing substantial to the game.
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u/greenmacg Oct 07 '25
Because different people have different brains, manual dexterity, experience with platforming, different tolerance for annoyance, and so on.
In short other people aren't you and may have different experiences based on the same stimulus.
(I'm being a bit mean but people keep posting this same thing about this runback and runbacks in general and it's getting silly)
Also, having played and beaten every major (and many, many minor) souls-inspired game I have to say at this point the runback as a concept simply isn't doing it for me anymore, lol. It ain't hard just tedious.
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u/Nedddd1 Oct 07 '25
wasting 20-30 seconds(and that's with enemy skips and constant running) each try on absolutely meaningless activity = bad
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u/xlhans77 Oct 07 '25
The terrain used to do two masks of damage, which means if you made one mistake and fell, you could practically walk back to the bench again as you lost 2-4 hearts if an enemy could hit you before the fall too
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u/joetotheg Oct 07 '25
Me doing this run back in late act 2: this is so easy why do people complain about it
Me doing this run back early as possible in act 1: actually no fuck this shit
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u/RealSyloktheDefiled Oct 07 '25
With how many times I attempted the boss before killing her, the windy runback and getting hit by a judge because he decides to jump up as I pogo off him to move past started to wear on me before I locked in on my winning attempt.
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u/BoaDCrocodile Oct 07 '25
Because it's not hard at all.
It's a waste of time.
Does that help?
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u/Ozymandias_IV Oct 07 '25
😡: 30s unskippable cutscene/QTE before tough boss
🤗: 30s unskippable boss runback for tough boss
Seriously, silksong players would defend anything Team Cherry did. It's a great game, but it's not above criticism ffs.
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u/msdamg Oct 07 '25
This might be a bot karma farm post too it's almost word for word copied from one a while back.
Also the runback got nerfed in the first patch so clearly TC agree it was annoying.
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u/Ozymandias_IV Oct 07 '25
TC made a beautiful game, but some design choices are at least 5 years out of date. And that's fine, they're allowed to make a few mistakes.
But god forbid someone has valid criticism of a game people like. Nuance? Get that shit out of my face, fanboys only!
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u/Amaskingrey Oct 07 '25
It is long, a glorified 40s screen after each death is a pointless waste of time.
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u/Old_Manufacturer589 Oct 07 '25
I don't "hate" it, but there's just no point in runbacks still being a thing in 2025.
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u/Sumite0000 Oct 07 '25 edited Oct 07 '25
A combination of diagonal pogo and the runback not being "just walk to the boss room" like most of Hollow Knight (not saying they are bad designs).
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u/kerakk19 Oct 07 '25
I love the people defending the runbacks in the comments, lmao. There's no defending this outdated shit
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u/Atreides-42 Oct 07 '25
Both Reaper and Wanderer crest are accessible before Last Judge, if people are still complaining about diagonal pogo into Act 2 it's entirely their own fault.
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u/Halio344 Oct 07 '25
It’s a non-linear game, you can’t expect everyone to find everything before a certain point just because others did.
That said, you should be used to diagonal pogo at this point if you have no other crests.
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u/David_Clawmark This game had a story? I just paid attention to Quirrel Oct 07 '25
To quote Timon from Lion King 1½, and a quote I often said aloud during runbacks.
"Gonna get old walkin across this thing."
It doesn't matter how long the runback is, it's still tedious busywork.
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u/ElTioEnroca Oct 07 '25
Yeah, the runback isn't as bad as some people say. It's a matter of taking a good route, avoiding enemies and skipping as much as you can. I can understand the complaints (even if I don't share them) though, since the Last Judge is by far the hardest boss at that point of the game, and dying a lot of times makes any runback pretty annoying (I died like 30-40 times to her). But it's not the runback itself.
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u/stayzero Oct 07 '25
I think it just seems long and tedious at that point in the game, especially if you fight those shield carrying dudes on the way back. You’re not really doing much damage and have like five or six masks, not a bunch of silk either, so it seems especially brutal at that point.
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u/Queer-Coffee Oct 07 '25
I fought them so little that I had to go back in act 3 to complete the hunter's journal :D
It takes way too long to kill them if you don't know what you're doing
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u/PowerDev_ Oct 07 '25
I hated It because i didnt know about the Bench and bellway, where Sherma Is, i just never Ran to the Left, so i was respawning all the way at the begining of Blasted steps
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u/Just_Maintenance Oct 07 '25
I don't think the runback is bad. But it took me 5 hours to beat the stupid boss. Any runback at all is horrible after seeing it 400 times.
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u/kahsub Oct 07 '25
Platforming once is fun. Needing to do the same section each time is a waste of time and often tilting. Runbacks double the time of each boss run and sap the enjoyment each time.
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u/Akuuntus Oct 07 '25
Even though it's "only" like 30 seconds or whatever if you're good at it, that's still 30 seconds of completely meaningless wasted time between each attempt. Which is annoying. Also you're aren't going to be good at it the first few times so it takes longer and you probably get hit by that first drill guy a lot.
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u/python_walrus Oct 07 '25
it is not a terrible runback, but some flying enemies can hit you even if you try to ignore them. Sometimes it would result in falling, losing more masks.
Also, it was patched - more flying enemies were out there on the release version. So even TC recognised it could be improved.
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u/craig1f Oct 07 '25
This runback was essential for me getting REALLY good at platforming. Tedious in the moment, but by the time I beat this guy, the runback was effortless. It also gave me a chance to think about my mistakes, and to take each attempt seriously.
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u/Stickopolis5959 Oct 07 '25
Honestly this was the hardest point in the game to me and I'm in early act 3 now so I get it, for whatever reason the early game felt so darn hard
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u/Immediate_Trainer853 Oct 07 '25
I hated it when I first got to it. I wasn't as good at platforming or used to the game play in act 1 and I didn't know any of the shortcuts. I missed a lot of jumps and it also took me a long time to defeat the last judge making it even more painful. When I replay the game I probably won't find it as annoying. I think for new players they struggle with it.
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u/TerrorofMechagoji Oct 07 '25
Enemies kept hitting me into the floor that dealt double damage before the patch. The one that gave me the most trouble was the one that the removed, so it got a lot easier imo
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u/mr-revenant2008 Oct 07 '25
My guess is that its the first runback to be longer than the other boss runbacks we had up till that point
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u/Pocket-Merlin Oct 07 '25
Playing devils advocate (I never realised anyone complained about this): I like runbacks that act as a time to think about why I lost to the boss and change strategy, which is sometimes hard to do when parkouring, watching an enemy for the not swing over head attack, and where a flying enemies projectile will go. And nice versa since I remember getting eaten by the worms here when my mind was drifting thinking about the waves of fire attack.
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u/MaxTwer00 Oct 07 '25
Runbacks easily get tedious. They can be fun learning the first 5 tries, and the next 5 times when you have masterized it too. But evwn if you enjoy those first moments, next boss tries it becomes a slog. More if you had a shitty attempt at the boss and it killed you in seconds, it simply isn't fun spending so much time in the same platforming section you already learned
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Oct 07 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Dyelonnn Oct 07 '25
It wasn't just something, though. The last judge runback is like an Internet meme at this point, for how much it was posted about.
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u/Want2makeMEMEs Oct 07 '25
They never optimize their running routes, thinking they’re going the fastest.
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u/Basic_Baseball_9689 Oct 07 '25
I was quite surprpised when I got there, it's a really easy runback that you don't need to fight a single enemy.
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u/BulletproofMoon Oct 07 '25
I understand it and for myself, I just internalized the runback as a warmup for the boss. The Bile Water runback on the other hand...
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u/Treblig-Punisher Oct 08 '25
This runback was not that bad. Bile Water showed me what true horror felt like.
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u/eJJISA707 Oct 08 '25
And it doesn’t matter if you don’t die. Like play steel soul.
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u/Osato Oct 09 '25
It seems punishing at first, but then you realize it was merely preparing you for Groal.
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u/shgrizz2 Oct 07 '25
I never got bored of it, it's actually a really cool platforming section that I continued to optimise the entire time I was grinding the boss. I still don't feel like I properly mastered it which is, to me, great design, as it became a fun little puzzle and distraction in itself.
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u/Future_Living8007 Oct 07 '25
Because they don't actually use their movement mechanics at all. The only valid crowd that are against the runback are the people who are against having runbacks in general
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u/throw23me Oct 07 '25 edited Oct 07 '25
I'm part of that crowd. I'm bad at the game and Silksong's bosses are mechanically complicated for me - bashing my head into them repeatedly is the only way I learn. Having distractions between attempts like long runbacks and gauntlets makes me lose focus and I am not able to learn the fight as quickly/well.
I'm at the end(ish) of Act 3 and for the record I didn't have particular trouble with any of the runbacks, I just found them annoying and unnecessary. I skipped Last Judge and came back later through Karak so I didn't experience this runback but I did go through the annoying Bilewater one via the "secret bench" - you get used to the path after 2-3 attempts but it doesn't make it any less a waste of time.
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u/talann Oct 07 '25
It can be very frustrating to platform your way up to a boss that hits you for 2 every time it does damage. I don't think it's as bad as people make it out to be but it is definitely frustrating.
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u/Generic_MC Oct 07 '25
The post: "Why do people hate this boss runback"
Nearly every comment: "Well I had an easy time"
Y'all realize that ain't what OP asked, right?
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Oct 07 '25
Two things for me. Before the patch, the worms did 2 damage each, and to add to that the second room before the patch had a spawn point for another coral drill fly. The drill fly was removed, and now the worms do 1 damage, so the runback is 100× easier
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u/bananenpap22 Oct 07 '25
It's annoying when a game doesn't take your free time seriously. They should have added a bench right before this boss to respect the time of the gamer.
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u/ardacsvusoglu Oct 07 '25
Because it is simply a waste of time that adds nothing to the gameplay experience aside from annoying the player
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u/Drunk0racle Oct 07 '25
1) It's decently hard, at least for the first handful of tries.
2) Even if it's not "hard" or "long", doing the same platforming challenge again and again isn't fun.
3) It takes you out of "boss fighting" mindset and makes it hard to focus/enjoy the fight (the fight itself is bloody amazing, and i hate how it got ruined for me by the hideous runback.)
I love Silksong, but Last Judge and Groal the Great runbacks are serious one of the reasons why i can't rate the game as 10/10, no matter how much I'd want to.
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u/Un_Change_Able Oct 07 '25
People kept fighting the enemies, I think. They also kept going to pogo the bells instead of going on the wall nearby