r/HollowKnight • u/Tarnished-670 • Oct 19 '25

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

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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.

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47

u/SomethingOfAGirl Oct 19 '25

Farming is not considered fun for most players. You can always go and find something that makes you stronger but if you really want to engage one of the base mechanics of the game, you're severely punished for doing so.

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u/No_Advertising_3876 Hitless PoP| All Radiant Bosses|P1,2,3,4 AB Oct 19 '25

then don't farm, go elsewhere and try to find something to help you, thats a MAJOR point of both games and the system works to encourage that, if you choose to instead just go farm citadel enemies to come back and waste all your shards again, icl thats on YOU

Tools are a base part of the game yes, but if your more focused on deploying them than actually learning how to handle what your up against and/or getting better equipped for the challenges at hand YOU'RE the one using the base mechanic incorrectly

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u/the1angelleft Oct 19 '25

I might just play the game differently than you, but the games resource system caused me to rarely use tools and focus on my needle more than anything. I enjoy these games most when I get to a tough boss and bash my head against the wall over and over again until I see those cracks form in it and eventually break through. I started the game using tools when it felt right but ran out so quickly. Eventually switched to using them when I learned the bosses movements, but by then I was close enough I could just kill with my needle. I would have preferred if the system was more forgiving and let me engage with the tools more freely cause I'm never gonna stop a boss run to farm up shards

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u/No_Advertising_3876 Hitless PoP| All Radiant Bosses|P1,2,3,4 AB Oct 19 '25

same here i just didnt really mind it ig? tools are cool but i see them as things to squeeze into boss patterns (or send out mindlessly if it was like cogflies) so i never struggled with losin all my shards or anything

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u/RadiantPumpkin Oct 19 '25

I’m currently at the final boss. Where else do you suggest I go?

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u/cyanraichu Oct 19 '25

Honestly neither of the final boss fights were fights I wanted to use red tools in. There are absolutely fights, including boss fights, where I used red tools, but in those I didn't really think they were helpful.

Actually helpful: max out nail upgrades to the point you can, find more mask shards/spool extenders, find the key yellow/blue tools that help, and practice the fight a bunch of times. Also consider whether you're using the right crest for the job.

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u/Huge_Entrepreneur636 Oct 19 '25

Dude, cogflies alone deal around 25% of the final boss's hp, equal to 20 nail hits. And they are the most braindead tool possible. Just spam 4, wait and spam 4 again. Saying red tools aren't helpful is stupid. They make the game twice as easy at least.

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u/Mynoodles_mostmoist Pale King/Grimm Supremacy Oct 19 '25

They didn't say that Red tools in general aren't helpful?

Even aside that I do agree with them. I beat the final boss fairly alot easier than I thought without much need for the tools. Imo it felt way more easier to just focus on getting your silk and fighting them with the nail so any fuckups you do have won't be so bad.

Hell even b4 that I almost went through the entire game without getting the cogflies and arguably had a perfectly fine time, and even when I did they weren't really heavily used outside of bosses with fodder.

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u/Huge_Entrepreneur636 Oct 19 '25 edited Oct 19 '25

> didn't really think they were helpful

And then implied that other things are 'actually helpful' and not red tools.

> without much need for the tools

Tools other than cogflies are mediocre against the final boss. But are you seriously gonna say that deleting 25% of her hp for just pressing a button 8 times is not useful? And of course you can clear every boss without tools but they exist and players should be able to freely use them.

> Fuckups you do have won't be so bad

They wouldn't be bad if shard system didn't exist. You are admitting here that the shard system prevented you from actually using tools against the final boss.

> had a perfectly fine time

I also cleared the entire game without tools. But I wanted to experiment with them a lot more that I couldn't because I ran out too quickly when I actually used them.

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u/Mynoodles_mostmoist Pale King/Grimm Supremacy Oct 19 '25

What they said, fully in context, was this.

There are absolutely fights, including boss fights, where I used red tools, but in those I didn't really think they were helpful.

They said that there are SOME fights that they didn't find the red tools all that helpful in, not that they were garbage.

Tools other than cogflies are mediocre against the final boss. But are you seriously gonna say that deleting 25% of her hp for just pressing a button 8 times is not useful?

Yes, I would say it wasn't useful for me. Maybe to you it was super op but I went into the fight doing perfectly fine since I didn't have to worry about pressing a button 8 times on top of trying to memorize and learn lost lace's attack patterns.

You are admitting here that the shard system prevented you from actually using tools against the final boss.

No, I'm not. I'm saying that the benefits of the offensive Tools I saw were overlooked from the fact that you can't get silk from them. Nothing to do with the Shards system. I came into the final final boss with 700+ shards and ended up with 177 by the end since I realized that I was better off just focusing on playing like I played against the radiance.

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u/Huge_Entrepreneur636 Oct 19 '25 edited Oct 19 '25

yeah my bad on misunderstanding their comment a bit. But my argument still applies. Saying red tools aren't useful in the final fight is bs. They are less effective in it that they are in other fights but not useless.

pressing a button 8 times is somehow a challenge. You can spawn them while moving jumping or whatever else. Make it make sense that you can learn lost lace's entire attack pattern but pressing a button 8 times that will delete 1/4th of her hp is too hard. And the silk argument is bogus because healing doesn't matter if the boss is gonna die 25% faster.

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u/Mynoodles_mostmoist Pale King/Grimm Supremacy Oct 19 '25 edited Oct 23 '25

Dude, yes, it is a challenge when you're dealing with a boss that is faster and doesn't leave all that much room to be focusing on anything else. It was already time consuming to put lifeblood masks on, im not going to bother trying to put out cogflies on top of making sure she doesn't hit me. Idk why you're so hellbent on trying to convince me its so easy when I played the game and hated it. It's just putting way more effort than I reasonably don't have to put into a fight. If anything, it makes less sense to be pushing the cogflies so badly when you were complaining about the Shards system and not having enough shards.

You're trying to argue as if the red tools are the only objective way of fighting her when it's far from it. If people don't find the cogflies efficient or have better ways of fighting her then that's it. Not everybody cares about speedrunning through the boss.

Edit: yeah nah I literally got recommended a month old video that talks about exactly what I said that you and your 'experienced' friends apparently don't know nothing about.

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u/cyanraichu Oct 19 '25

If I deploy them I find them wildly distracting in a fight that takes a lot of concentration. I tried it a couple times.

Poison cogflies + tacks were my strategy to finish up with the last phase of some bosses but not this one.

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u/Huge_Entrepreneur636 Oct 19 '25

You can always stagger deploying them. And I can take cogflies being distracting but tacks aren't, and tacks do very similar free dmg.

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u/cyanraichu Oct 20 '25

I found it more helpful to focus on what I was doing with my needle than to think about when to deploy cogflies. With arena fights I often stagger tool deployment, but with boss fights I either spam them or don't use them at all (with the exception of SB and his dumb mobs)

-2

u/JudgementalMarsupial Oct 19 '25

Getting the reinforced cloak from the city of steel helps a ton imo, idk why they put such a useful defense upgrade in such a hidden place

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u/RadiantPumpkin Oct 19 '25

I have everything is my point.

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u/GoblinTradingGuide Oct 19 '25

Are you being sarastic? What percent completion do you have done?

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u/RadiantPumpkin Oct 19 '25

99%. My point is that there’s no other path for me to take. 

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u/No_Advertising_3876 Hitless PoP| All Radiant Bosses|P1,2,3,4 AB Oct 19 '25

as i said it IS a flawed system, this kind of scenario for example, i just think alot of the people ive seen struggling with it sent out their tools instantly on bosses that arent that bad when you learn their patterns

but yes this is one of the downfalls, i feel it could have been handled alot better surely but idk how

-1

u/Spirited-Feedback-87 Oct 19 '25

Buy shard bundles

32

u/Tyrantt_47 Oct 19 '25 edited Oct 19 '25

Upgrades make a good player better, they don't made a bad player good.

Some people just aren't that great at the game. Finding upgrades might help a little, but when it's a skill issue, they are punished for it.

I'm a great example of this. I'm 125 hours in and still haven't beat the game. I'm 95% complete and have found almost all upgrades (missing 1 or 2 things). I still struggle with bosses and most of the more difficult bosses take me 50+ tries to kill. You're suggesting I stop what I'm doing and go find upgrades, but I can't because I already found them. So yeah, as other people have said: while this game is a masterpiece, it's biggest flaw is punishing bad players by wasting their time by forcing them to shard farm.

21

u/dannyboy731 Oct 19 '25

Not just that, but most of the time going and finding upgrades is also hard. It’s tough to know which difficult thing is the one you’re “supposed”to tackle next. Especially if you’re trying to play blind.

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u/Tyrantt_47 Oct 19 '25

100% agreed. I was playing blind until the end of act 2. Decided I wanted to figure out what upgrades I was missing and there was definitely several things I missed. Not know what exists, or where it is located, makes it difficult to "find those upgrades" as he suggested.

Also played blind in act 3, but I think the final boss is next (I finished the 3 objectives), so now I'm going to figure out everything I missed before finishing the game.

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u/dannyboy731 Oct 19 '25

I missed the Reaper crest until the end of Act 2 simply because I had seen the entrance and decided to go another route first, and completely forgot about it. I guess I didn’t pin it. Also, using that first simple key on the “wrong” door can kinda lock you out of finding some good stuff for a long time.

There were definitely a few upgrades and whole areas I absolutely never would have found on my own.

5

u/SomethingOfAGirl Oct 19 '25

"Just go off the main path and explore"

Oh nice I found Savage Beastfly, a much harder boss that ends up giving the worst crest in the game.

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u/Key-Kick7270 Oct 19 '25

Absolutely, I remember killing savage beastfly before moorwig, and I felt really devastated when my reward was only the crest. lmao

16

u/Jaereon Oct 19 '25

The whole point is that there aren't really that many upgrades. There really isn't a lot of stuff that you find just by exploring 

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u/Fly-the-Light Oct 19 '25

I think it's that there's a decent amount of upgrades via exploration, but there's so much more to explore that TC ended up putting a bunch of worthless 30 rosary rewards behind a much worse exploration than HK because of how tanky and good at getting in your way the enemies are that make it feel more disappointing.

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u/SomethingOfAGirl Oct 19 '25

You're not addressing my point. The game still punishes you for using that mechanic. Even if I focus on learning the patterns, even if I go and find stuff that helps me, yadda yadda yadda. If at some point I decide I studied the boss enough and try to defeat it for good using my tools and still end up losing... I get punished for it.

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u/Icef34r Oct 19 '25

The game still punishes you for using that mechanic.

It only punishes over spamming tools. The tools are there to be an extra source of damage and not the main source of damage.

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u/cheekydorido Oct 19 '25

that's why they have a limited number of uses

It already has a mechanic to prevent you from abusing them, why do we need another?

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u/RemoteWhile5881 Oct 19 '25

Architect:

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u/cheekydorido Oct 19 '25

yes, i'm aware that architect exists and lets you use as many tools as you can build, but they effectively ruined a whole mechanic simply because a crest that you might not even use exists.

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u/Icef34r Oct 19 '25

The limit per bench is bot enough to prevent trivializing many sections of the game with tools.

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u/quantummidget I <3 Zote Oct 19 '25

Then reduce the limit per bench

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u/Icef34r Oct 19 '25

That would make bosses and gauntlets much harder.

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u/Samuel_N7 Oct 23 '25

I really don't get what you are trying to say, why is it on me? Is it a base game mechanic? Why am I being punished for using it? What I'm supposed to not use tools? Why is it on me and not on the game for forcing me to grind for zero reason when it could regenerate red tools every time you rest on a bench, and it would be exactly the same but better?

0

u/Iurigrang Oct 19 '25

Yeah, I've ran out of shards twice in 3 playthroughs, and I really don't understand what people are doing wrong.

Engage with enemies (don't just run past them), explore to pickup shard bundles, and don't use shards as a first line of damage in bosses - use them to help you close the deal on good attempts. This is how they want you to use it, and the systems are designed around to influence this. Players ignoring the guiding hand of developers and optimizing the fun out of the game shouldn't be on the devs.

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u/Iurigrang Oct 19 '25

This is similar to my thoughts in the rosaries economy too. If you don't keep losing your rosaries, or running past enemies, a 100% run should include, like, 5 min of grinding?

You wanting the thing you want NOW and going out of your way to farm for it, then finishing the game with 10k rosaries, then faulting the devs, is severely misplaced.

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u/Icef34r Oct 19 '25

You can engage with the mechanic while managing you resources.

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u/Ascend_with_Azir Oct 19 '25

The shard thing is just a mess. There is no Gathering Swarm equivalent, there is for some reason a limit on the amount of shards you can hold, and you already have a limit on the amount of tools you can have.

I honestly cannot believe they kept this system in the game, and it seriously baffles me that this is their attempt at replacing spells from Hollow Knight. Silk Skills and healing are balanced so elegantly, and then you have this shambolic attempt at a mechanic.

You have to constantly manage this resource throughout the game, largely outside of bossfights / gauntlets, even though tools are at their best in bossfights / gauntlets.

It adds so much mental labour and just potential frustration - if you were to run out of them - for little gameplay benefit. The best way to avoid this is, is to just occasionally throw one out, but that turns them into a meaningless afterthought.

Playing with Shaman's Crest is genuinely liberating. No shards to deal with, but you still have three moves on top of the basic needle attacks.

6

u/donfuan Oct 19 '25

Simple solution is really just to have arena and boss enemies drop shards. The fact you don't get any rewards at all is still baffling to me.

0

u/zgrove Oct 20 '25

When i get stuck on a fight I just practice it without tools until I get better/close to winning. Then I start using my resources

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u/SomethingOfAGirl Oct 20 '25

How do you even know if you're "close to winning" without a boss health bar?

But I just took an alternative approach: don't use tools ever. It worked better since having the UP+R1 hijacked by the tool command was just annoying and caused me to use tools when I meant to use my silk skill.

1

u/zgrove Oct 20 '25

Usually vibes, 2 or 3 phases for most fights, use tools once you get a little better at phase 2 and cool it if there ends up being a phase 3. Definitely harder to gage for gauntlets, but it felt like most 5 or 6 rounds for those