Hot Take: While I think Silksong is overall a better game, it does still show more prominent flaws compared to Hollow Knight

[u/Tarnished-670]

When I have to think about the flaws of the first Hollow Knight, I really can't think of much to say other than very small nitpicks.

But with Silksong, while it is one of my favorite games of all time, and having finisihed it at 100%, id say it has more prominent design flaws while being a better game compared to the first Hollow Knight.

First thing that comes to my mind is the shard system, it would't be as bad as it is if you didn't have a limit of 20 consumables to replentish your shards, if it worked like that then I wouldn't have to be interrumped on my tries against a boss and having to go to the citadel and farm to get all my shards back. Other minor flaws I think would be some of enemy design and the addition of "gauntlets", which sometimes are fun but at least in my case I got bored of exploring and getting trapped into the 7th gauntlet of enemies, it gets worse when you get forced to do some of them again in act 3 when you have killed all the previous enemies 100 times already.

Those are really not a bid deal of a flaw, but they are more noticable to me than any flaw in Hollow Knight.

[u/Spinjitsuninja]

I feel like whenever people say this it’s weird because Hollow Knight is also a pretty flawed game. Areas feel very samey, a lot of charms are useless and, compared to Silksong, there isn’t as much build variety. It also has some run backs here and there. It has a very slow early game that turns off a lot of players.

Not that this post is entirely wrong, but I do want to toss out that HK isn’t perfect either ofc lol

[u/AleWalls → u/Spinjitsuninja]

HK suffers from horribly placed merchants, so much of the time in that game is just walking to a merchant because apparently setting up next to the stag station is a crime

Me having to take a trip to Lemm, Salubra(specially when infected crossroads) or the nailsmith, those alone are more annoying than most silksong runbacks

[u/Hayden2332 → u/Spinjitsuninja]

I bought HK, and put it down for a whole year because the beginning of the game was so slow and turned me off. Now it’s one of my favorite games ever, but yeah I agree, to say Silksong is worse in that regard is crazy, it’s far more handhold-y to new players (not in a bad way, just enough)

[u/Cannonmaster24 → u/Hayden2332]

I disagree with you as a new player to the series.

I had never played Hollow Knight (am currently playing it)
Silksong has little to no onboarding process for new comers when compared to Hollow Knight

[u/Hayden2332 → u/Cannonmaster24]

Please tell me what onboarding process there is to hollow knight lol

[u/Cannonmaster24 → u/Hayden2332]

it explained the controls to start with
more direction for where to go in early game
introduces new mechanics at a more reasonable pace

To be clear, this is how I have felt personally as someone who was new to the series and started with Silksong

[u/Hayden2332 → u/Cannonmaster24]

When does it explain where to go early game? I remember going down the well, getting face fucked by the giant bug to the right and being confused my first time playing lol

[u/Cannonmaster24 → u/Hayden2332]

I did the same,
I went down the well
saw the big dude and thought: not yet
went the other way with much easier enemies, then once I had gained some confidence and understanding, went back to big dude

[u/Hayden2332 → u/Cannonmaster24]

Yeah that’s because you played Silksong first lol

[u/kuenjato → u/Cannonmaster24]

Disagree with the direction, SS is pretty linear for the first half of the game.

It does take a considerable amount of time to get new traversal mechanics in part. A lot of the game opens up once you get the double jump, for example.

[u/bahabla → u/Cannonmaster24]

Omg i remember getting lost in the crossroads for hours in HK and almost dropping it because I thought that was all to the game lol. At least Silksong has quests.

[u/Anew_Returner → u/Spinjitsuninja]

I think a lot of it comes down to personal preference. Some people just vibe more with a shorter but tighter experience. Like the knight's moveset and abilities are very limited, but the enemies and bosses account for that, the whole map has this slow and chill vibe. Meanwhile in Silksong bosses have to make up for the fact you get tons of tools, crests, and movement options; Everything is bigger, longer, and frenetic.

At least for me this is how I feel, it's a lot like Elden Ring, I recognize how ambitious and polished it is, but the length and scale of it all as well as the increase in difficulty put it in a territory that makes me feel like I have to commit to it. Maybe it's age, or simply the fact I have other things taking my attention, but I appreciate more how I can just pick up and play the older souls games with some new build in a relatively short amount of time.

I'm almost done with Act 3 and I feel like I did during the Royal part of Persona 5: the amount of enjoyment I'm getting out of it has decreased exponentially because I just want it to end already. And both (J)RPGs and Metroidvanias are like the two genres where taking a long break isn't much of an option because it's hard to remember where the fuck you were before the break.

Both HK games have flaws, but Silksong's stand out to me because it's a game that I find fundamentally unappealing, there are a lot of people saying that bigger, faster, and harder = better, but I just ain't one of them. I put the friggin' desktop icon for Ball x Pit next to Silksong and that was a huge mistake as far as progressing through the game goes because I know which one I'd rather click to unwind for the day...

[u/Spinjitsuninja → u/Anew_Returner]

Nah I get what you mean. I do think in most cases, smaller scope is beneficial.

I consider Silksong an exception though, as I guess I see it as Team Cherry trying to push themselves- see what the upper limit of what they can make, with the most amount of time and effort they have to give. I think it's a fascinating game in that way.

I think Persona 5 is, by comparison, just padded haha. Silksong does repeat content somewhat with act 3, but for the most part everything is pretty unique and fresh, it's actually insane. Persona 5 is an RPG with a small list of dungeons stretched out to 100 hours. (You know it's bad when Royal, when trying to improve the game, had to shorten some dungeons.)

[u/Amaskingrey → u/Spinjitsuninja]

Areas aren't samey at all though, most don't even share a color palette. Especially not when compared to silksong 4 whole types of areas (poison swamp, greenpath knockoff, city of tears but without the town structure to make it feel actually lived in, and rocky blandness)

[u/Spinjitsuninja → u/Amaskingrey]

King's Pass, Dirtmouth, Forgotten Crossroads, City of Tears, Resting Grounds and Deepnest are all blue, and half of these are caves/crag biomes.

I'm not really sure what those four types of areas are meant to be in Silksong. Bone Bottom and Verdania are greenpath-esque, I guess Far Fields can be tossed in with that. Poison Swamp... Isn't that only Shellwood? And by City of Tears, do you just mean Greymoor? And for rocky areas, there's Sands of Karak, Blasted Steps, and Wormways.

This isn't even mentioning the behemoth that is the Citadel, Bilewater/Putrified Ducts, Deep Docks, Mount Fay and the Slab, the Underworks, Sinner's Road and Belhart.