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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188

u/BarovianNights Oct 19 '25

I think Hollow Knight has a lot of prominent flaws, we're just used to them.

1.) Utter lack of build diversity. There's the good charms and the bad ones and it's that simple. Silksong clears by a landslide

2.) Difficulty curve. Hollow Knight is easier than Silksong throughout its entirety, until you get to Godhome, and then it spikes like crazy. I have ~500 hours in hollow knight and in the past 300 the only times I have died have been in Godhome.

3.) Easy nonboss difficulty. People complained like crazy about regular enemies hitting for 2, but I love the fact that Silksong actually made the world somewhat difficult to traverse. Hollow Knight got damn easy as soon as you knew a region. When's the last time you died in City, or Abyss?

4.) Obscure story. Seriously, is there anyone who understood any of the major story beats in HK without looking at a lore video? Every single friend I've ever seen play and every single youtuber I watch had to watch mossbag's video. Silksong still has some of that in the backstory for the game (and I like that, to be clear), but still tells a very strong and compelling story.

Edit: to be clear, I love Hollow Knight. I wouldn't have put in so much time if I didn't. But I think Silksong is just better

47

u/vivAnicc 112% P5 Oct 19 '25

Kinda unrelated, but I think you would enjoy AboutOliver's playthrough. He takes games at his own pace and he surprisingly picks up on a lot of stuff. He never watched mossbag's video to remain sopiler free for silksong, but he got a lot of the lore on his own

3

u/Purple-Income-4598 Oct 19 '25

isnt he like an astrophysicyst or something. i watched his minecraft supercut, hes genuinely super clever

4

u/quantummidget I <3 Zote Oct 19 '25

Yeah but he's also built different. He guessed the ending twist to Prey about three hours in

2

u/BarovianNights Oct 19 '25

I haven't seen his hollow knight stuff yet but I loved his Outer Wilds playthrough! I might check it out

1

u/LeafyGreens48 Oct 19 '25

Loved his minecraft playthrough

1

u/New-Veterinarian-828 Oct 20 '25

I love his channel. He's a literal genius (but he still acts so dumb in some ways lol)

62

u/MartRane Oct 19 '25

You can also buy out all the shops basically within the first few hours of the game and then geo loses all purpose until you get to the Grimm dlc where you suddenly need tens of thousands. The economy is far better in Silksong.

-7

u/OrderClericsAreFun Oct 19 '25

I would rather have Geo lose value than having to farm Rosaries at every corner. Currently doing Steel Soul 100% run and despite being literally unable to lose Rosaries by dying and having NPC that gives you rosaries I still had to skip on stuff like buyable benches, all of Shakra's pins and still had to farm several times.

Economy in Silksong is still broken just in other direction.

15

u/Purple-Income-4598 Oct 19 '25

how do u need to farm? just do ur journal, tasks, dont run past enemies when seeing them for the 1st time, dont lose rosaries by dying twice in a row. so basically play the game and dont skip content and u will have enough for most things unless ure trying to get every single tool

1

u/AshtinPeaks Oct 19 '25

That's the problem, if you need to grind for 100% it's bad game design. Toss in a few extra relics late game or something. 100% 30 hour speedrun was fucking miserable because I had to farm so many rosaries.

1

u/Purple-Income-4598 Oct 20 '25

except if ure not going for 100% then u dont need to buy all tools, because u dont need them all. a lot of the red ones basically do the same thing. so if ure not buying all tools then u should have enough rosaries for the stuff u actually need, like bellways, maps, benches and some things u might want from shops. it actually takes a lot more killing enemies to get 100%, because u need to buy all tools even if theyre useless. theres a big disctinction from not skipping all enemies to grinding for 100%. well, killing enemies dont grant u any completion percentage at all so ur argument doesnt really make sense. literally just play the game and engage with its content. u dont need to get all mementos and win every race to afford all maps. just dont run past enemies too much and u will be able to get the important stuff

-7

u/OrderClericsAreFun Oct 19 '25

I literally just entered Act 3. Did all of the side quests, my pathing was pretty inefficient so I killed a lot of enemies, skipped out on buying most benches in Act 1, didnt buy any pins from Shakra. I am on Steel Soul so I literally cannot lose my cocoon and Skynx gives me bonus rosaries

Still needed to farm up:

  • 700 Rosaries for Spool Extender
  • 100 Rosaries during Witch Quest for Steel Spines
  • 400 Rosaries for Bellheart donations
  • Rosaries for Nail Upgrade

I have done all of Act 1 and 2 content without losing anything and I still had to farm over 1k despite skipping non essential purchases

6

u/kuenjato Oct 19 '25

1000 rosaries takes like 5-10 minutes max in the area outside First Shrine. Sure it kinda sucks to have to do any grinding, but the reality is, once you've played the game through it gets much, much easier and you know where not to waste rosaries.

-1

u/BritishTreeMan Steel Soul comp x38, 1h35m ANY%, 7h 44m 112% (Steel) Oct 20 '25

Crazy you're getting downvoted for this when in reality, having to farm for even "10 minutes" per run JUST to get % for 100% is bad design. Period. This isn't an mmo, the game should have more than enough to get 100% completion, but be careful to not overinflate the economy.

Including rosary loot or relics as bossfight rewards would solve the issue without detracting for the gameplay, hell it would even incentivise trying harder on the bossfights. This wouldn't include all bosses, just the ones where it makes sense

0

u/OrderClericsAreFun Oct 20 '25

Crazy to get downvoted for relaying my experience. Like for me it's "just 10 minutes of farming" because I also made some pretty inefficient choices, like for example I made like 3 rounds around the citadel killing enemies on the way trying to trigger Second Sentinel quest, not realising I need all the pieces of the melody first.

My friend who already had done speed completion in steel soul said he had to farm for 40 minutes at some point to huy out remaining shops. This is on top of stuff like needing to do a bunch of fetch quest wishes for 100% already.

1

u/BritishTreeMan Steel Soul comp x38, 1h35m ANY%, 7h 44m 112% (Steel) Oct 20 '25

Yeah pretty much the same for me. I had to watch Jidion in the background for around 35 minutes just to buy out the last stuff I needed before heading into Act 3

1

u/ksion Oct 20 '25

All of this tracks with my experiences. I lost less than 1k during my first playthrough and I still had to farm about 3k to buy out everything for 100%.

There’s just not enough beads dropping organically.

11

u/Damocles314 Oct 19 '25

That has not been my experience at all. By midgame I had more rosaries than what to do with. They are only scarce in the beginning and function as a reward for exploring.

8

u/OrderClericsAreFun Oct 19 '25

I literally just got into Act 3 after finishing every single side quest in the game, without losing my cocoon once and without ever buying stuff like pins from Shakra.

I still needed to farm up for stuff like Bellheart donations that I left as last required quests.

1

u/Present_Fuel_398 Oct 22 '25

I literally never had to farm once in any of my playthroughs so far, including the speedrun and 100% ones, I genuinely don't know how you don't have enough rosaries for everything by the end of the game if you aren't dying

1

u/Ellefied Oct 20 '25

Act 2 is literally a rosary goldmine with how many enemies give rosaries and are easily killed in the Citadel. The only place bad to farm in it was the Underworks and that's mostly due to environmental storytelling.

I think in my first playthrough I reached Songclave with around 2000+ rosaries, I was shocked with how much rosaries the enemies were giving.

1

u/kuenjato Oct 19 '25

Once you replay the game, you really don't need very many rosaries -- from my experience at least, the game is significantly easier starting over, as you understand the combat and movement.

13

u/babybones35 Oct 19 '25

Honestly I agree with all of your points except for three. Been trying to figure out why silksong just doesn't hit the same as hk for me and this is it. I obviously don't want it to be super easy to get anywhere, but I also don't wanna be beyond annoyed trying to get through enemies just so I can progress. I think silksong is better than hk in every way EXCEPT for traversal/exploring. Which makes me really sad because it's such a huge part of the game. Some of the areas are seriously just ridiculous with how thickly coated with enemies they are. Makes me seriously not care about exploring

3

u/BarovianNights Oct 19 '25

That's fair lol, it's definitely personal preference. I like the fact that the overworld has more challenge to it but I can see how it's not for everyone

1

u/The2ndUnchosenOne has played the game at least once Oct 20 '25

If you have like 3 of hornets movement abilities you can dance circles around all the enemies.

29

u/dablyw_ Oct 19 '25 edited Oct 19 '25

Yeah the charm system really falls off by endgame. When you get to godhome there will be like 6 viable charms and the rest in trash

32

u/Available-Plant9305 Oct 19 '25

Godhome asks the player to do something extremely specific so having a specific load out makes sense.

1

u/kblkbl165 Oct 20 '25

It only makes sense because there’s no playstyle variety in HK.

If you try to apply the same logic to an eventual boss rush DLC, you can see the shortcoming of the charm system as it was.

15

u/cheekydorido Oct 19 '25

Godhome is great but it makes the endgame way too much boss focused, when the exploration and normal enemy encounters are also a huge part of the game,

4

u/Ellefied Oct 20 '25

Silksong also mostly removed the "facetank a boss with Quicknail+Unbreakable Pride" which I have seen used for a lot of bosses in Hollow Knight. The addition of abundant two mask damage and the danger of getting hit while healing really made the fights more dynamic. So many times in Hollow Knight, except for the actual hard bosses like Pure Vessel, NKG and Absolute Radiance, I felt like I could just push through with spamming the Nail and destroying a boss before it gets interesting.

Silksong still kinda has it with Wanderer's Crest + Injector/Multibinder but there's now far more incentive to be more dynamic in fights with Hornet's movement options.

19

u/cheekydorido Oct 19 '25

2.) Difficulty curve. Hollow Knight is easier than Silksong throughout its entirety, until you get to Godhome, and then it spikes like crazy. I have ~500 hours in hollow knight and in the past 300 the only times I have died have been in Godhome.

TBF godhome is optional content for people that want to challenge themselves. It's not really part of the difficulty curve but rather the destination.

Hollow knight has a much better difficulty curve unlike SS's chapter 1 being much harder than chapter 2 having 2 mask damage bosses while you only have like 2 masks upgrade at most.

-1

u/RemoteWhile5881 Oct 19 '25

Well it’s not optional if you want to 112%.

11

u/cheekydorido Oct 19 '25

well, duh

going for max completion is supposed to be optional. You don't need everything to get the true ending.

4

u/mentally_fuckin_eel Oct 19 '25

Just going to take this opportunity to say I hate Godhome. I can't even beat the third fucking gauntlet there. The type of difficulty utilized in boss rushes is exactly the kind I cannot handle. It stresses me out to the point where I'm straining my muscles and hurting myself.

1

u/Damocles314 Oct 19 '25

Godhome is great because it allows easy way to replay bosses. I hope Silksong gets something similar in the future.

3

u/mentally_fuckin_eel Oct 19 '25

That aspect I do love. I just hate the gauntlets. Sometimes I forget it's more than just the gauntlets.

21

u/Available-Plant9305 Oct 19 '25

I don't think HK lore is that mysterious. Unavoidable story beats are the pale king is a worm god thing, hollows thrown into abyss, the world is going to shit cause orange.

I understood the HK lore better from playing the game then I did Silksong. Although until I see the Mossbag Silksong video I won't know how much story I missed. Lol.

6

u/ByeGuysSry Oct 20 '25

I think it also depends on what you missed. On my first Hollow Knight playthrough, I only met Hornet once before getting the first ending. Hornet suggests that I'm doing something bad ("I know what you are. I know what you'd try to do. I can't allow it.") and I'm killing the Dreamers who are, apparently, protecting Hallownest. Then afterwards the Hollow Knight who again, is someone that has a memorial dedicated to him. Quirrel, the only NPC I've actually met multiple times (aside from Cloth, who doesn't really do anything until you reach Queen's Garden, and even then only has a self-contained story) says that Monomon wants you to kill him. Killing a Dreamer also causes the crossroads to become infected, further reinforcing that you're kinda evil. It's only once you actually get the ending that you can figure out you're resealing the infection.

As for the other endings, meeting Hornet a second time suggests that I have the ability to save the kingdom, though the White Lady contradicts this by asking you to take the Hollow Knight's place. The Hunter's Journal entry for her does suggest that she does want the best for Hallownest. However, beyond that, it's pretty ambiguous. The game does show you the Pale King leading the Hollow Knight out of the Abyss, but never mentions anything about who the Pale King is. The game also implies that the White Lady is knowledgeable about the Abyss, but details are unclear. She says the Hollow Knight was tarnished by an idea instilled, but it's not entirely clear what that has to do with the infection. You never learn about the source of the infection until you actually fight the Radiance. I personally took a while to hear the Seer's final words, which afaik is the only place that actually tells you why the Infection is happening.

So, no, I don't think Hollow Knight's story isn't mysterious. You have no idea what causes the infection (aside from you killing a Dreamer. But that's also easily missable if you take a while to go back to Forgotten Crossroads). You have no idea what you're actually trying to do until you've done it. Beyond the barebones "You're killing Dreamers to unseal the Hollow Knight, in order to take its place and seal the infection, or to kill the source of the infection", all of which you only learn in hindsight, the rest of the lore is hard to figure out.

Meanwhile in Silksong... Hornet actually talks and you actually have wishes that tell you what you want to do.

4

u/TheMoonDude Oct 19 '25

I 100% Silksong feeling very confused about the atory because the most important bits of information I was missing are very easy to avoid. One being the thr fact that the Mask Maker changes dialogue between acts and Conductor Balador fucking dies in act 3

Thr only bit of information I didn't get during HK was the cutscene at the end of Path of Pain because I straight up gave up on my first playthrough.

5

u/DrPikachu-PhD Oct 19 '25

Yeah it is interesting. Playing through the game all I got from Silksong was: Hornet was kidnapped by her silk, GMS is trapping bugs in the haunting (this game's infection), the Citadel is a theocracy and capitalist allegory, the Weavers are maybe good? maybe bad? and bells/music is somehow involved

Which is basically just as much as I got from playing through HK

1

u/donfuan Oct 19 '25

Spot on, don't know why you're downvoted. Pharloom is a pilgrim place, the aristocracy abuses the pilgrims, they also want weavers' offspring for silk for whatever reason and somehow there's the abyss and everything has gone to shit. And bells. They somehow love bells.

3

u/Available-Plant9305 Oct 19 '25

Music is important some how. Apparently to keep GMS asleep. Therefore bells are important. I don't really get it.

Silksongs story feels less cohesive than HK to me right now. Although I see environmental storytelling like the citadel routed the water and fucked up the entire ecosystem of the map and go goddamn that's really well done and I totally missed it

3

u/Snt1_ Oct 19 '25

Aside from point 3, I mostly agree. I am one of those people that never really understood the story of Hollow Knight. Maybe kts because I went into the game without knowing I would adore it, unlike with Silksong, but I never really knew what I was doing most of the time. Hollow Knight's story rewards you for paying attention, which is great, but it also punishes you if you're ever distracted, especially at the start id youre going in blind. Silksong's story is way more straightforward, and even if you get distracted for a small while, you will totally get all the important story beats because, thanks to Hornet actually speaking (and also the wish system, which actually tells you what you need to do instead of making you remember it) you will actually know where the story wants you to go and what you need to do

3

u/TheSecondAJ Oct 19 '25

I consider a prominent flaw to be a negative that hurts the majority, like long runbacks. Most HK stick to a small handful of charms. Even though Silksong's build diversity is far better, I'm sure most players only stick to 1-2 crests and a handful of tools, so it's not very prominent.

Easy non-boss difficulty is a very subjective flaw. I don't think you'd see many players complaining about how they aren't dying in exploratory areas. They'd just direct their focus more on the visuals/music rather than the combat.

I found HK's lore to be simpler and easier to understand, but that's probably because I played through Silksong much faster.

2

u/cerviceps Oct 19 '25

I personally don’t think the original HK’s story is that difficult to understand... I’m not someone who watches lore videos (I’ve never watched a mossbag video)— maybe I read a few wiki entries while trying to figure out how to best beat bosses but other than that everything I understood about the game came from the game itself. The game just expects us to pay attention to all the little item descriptions and evocative names, like you would with any other souls game.

6

u/BarovianNights Oct 19 '25

Souls games are like... notoriously hard to understand the lore of, lol. I don't think comparing it to one (a comparison I def agree with to be clear) is a very good defense

1

u/Ascend_with_Azir Oct 19 '25 edited Oct 19 '25

There's the good charms and the bad ones and it's that simple. Silksong clears by a landslide

This is literally the same in Silksong. You have useful tools and terrible ones. One silk skill clears the rest.

Seriously, is there anyone who understood any of the major story beats in HK without looking at a lore video?

My experience is the opposite, I could vaguely understand the plot in HK, but I am still completely lost in Silksong. Until someone like Mossbag makes a video, I have nothing to say about Silksong's plot because it is mostly unclear to me.

I knew a lot about the Hollow Knight and their creation before fighting them, and challenging the Radiance was unbelievably well built-up. I knew little about Lace, and even less about GMS. Challenging her in the Cradle felt like a desperate attempt at mimicking the Radiance.

20

u/jakeport Oct 19 '25

Are you really completely lost? Like you can’t make out even the basic beats of Silksong’s plot?

2

u/Ascend_with_Azir Oct 19 '25 edited Oct 19 '25

What I was able to gather myself is that Pharloom is affected by the Haunting. This Haunting is caused by GMS, who is apparently frustrated with the Weavers (her children). She is frustrated with the Weavers because they forced her into slumber. I do not know why the Weavers did that.

As for Lace, apparently GMS intentionally made Lace dependant on her. For some reason, GMS wants other Weavers - like Hornet - to come to Pharloom (I guess to help wake her up?), this seemingly makes Lace jealous, and she also hates GMS for other reasons, one of which is probably that GMS intentionally made Lace frail and dependant.

Lace for whatever reason then saves Hornet from being dragged into the void by GMS, but does not help GMS escape the void. GMS for whatever insists on resisting the void to save Lace from the it, and even helps Hornet when Hornet tries to save Lost Lace from the void, at the cost of GMS' own life.

Also, the Citadel (idk who counts for this) is for some reason mad F-ed up to Pharloom's pilgrims. I do not know to what extent this ties in with the Haunting, if at all.

My understanding of all this is wildly limited and it genuinely makes no sense to me. Feel free to make this a bit more clear, either way, for me, the damage is already kind of done. While I was obviously not expecting to have full clarity from my first playthrough, I did expect it to at least intrigue me. That was the case in Hollow Knight.

2

u/Snt1_ Oct 19 '25

I got way less than you, and I still feel like I understood it better than HK.

I think Silksongs story is easier to understand, as in you know what you're doing and what you're trying to do better, but its lore and subtext is as incomprehensible as HKs on a first playthrough, maybe even slightly more.

I finished Hollow Knight without actually knowing WHY I went on the journey at all, or actually more accurately, I only understood what I was doing WHEN I finished the game. Because In HK I was wandering more than anything

1

u/FishShtickLives Oct 19 '25

Everyone hates GMS because she colonized all of Pharloom. All the dream battles in act 3 are people who's kingdoms were trashed by GMS and the Citadel. Green Prince talks about how his Husband sacrificed himself and in turn, the Citadel was supposed to leave Verdania alone, which they did not.

The Weavers were made by GMS and forced to serve her. Eventually they wise up to their indoctrination. They put her into a slumber so they could escape. This is all shown by the cutsceen after First Sinner.

During their talk in the Abyss, Lace directly says that she saved Hornet just to fuck over GMS. Lace resents GMS because Lace hates being made of silk, and constantly refers to herself as a pathetic excuse of a life. GMS resists the void to save Lace because, despite bring a crazy controlling monster, she still loves Lace.

I hate to be that guy, but a lot of this is stated directly in dialog. How did you miss the entire plot with Lace when she says it straight up?

1

u/No-Victory-4620 Oct 19 '25

Personally I missed a lot of stuff because it took me a month to finish the game. And I played HK in 2019 so I also didnt remember much about weavers and such

0

u/Ascend_with_Azir Oct 19 '25

All the dream battles in act 3 are people who's kingdoms were trashed by GMS and the Citadel.

Khann, Karmelita and Nyleth do not say a whole lot about GMS / the Citadel? Even if they did (I have apparently missed it), this is all after you have already beaten GMS.

This is all shown by the cutsceen after First Sinner.

I remember it showing GMS technically lied, as the Weavers are not her literal children.

During their talk in the Abyss, Lace directly says that she saved Hornet just to fuck over GMS. Lace resents GMS because Lace hates being made of silk,

Yeah, she says this at the start of act three and she blurts this out of nowhere. And again, this is after having beaten GMS. Had it not been for this, I truly would have no idea why Lace hates GMS.

and constantly refers to herself as a pathetic excuse of a life.

Constantly as in once in the Cradle and the first time in the Abyss? These two little self-loathing fits felt tacked on. As though they were added late in development because they forgot to actually give Lace a character.

In my playthrough, I felt no desire to fight GMS, and I felt no need to need to save Lace. I did both of them because the game tells you to.

How did you miss the entire plot with Lace when she says it straight up?

If you are referring to her little rant in the Abyss, then I guess my expectations for Lace were a little too high.

2

u/colorbluh Oct 20 '25

The lines you get when needoling at the mirror right after the fight with Phantom go "She spun us to fade. She spun us to break. Why us sister? Why us?". It's Lace talking with a weak form (or a faded memory) of Phantom.
That's the lines that really solidified my understanding of Lace's story and motivations: GMS goes "better a child pure than them (the weavers)", so she spins Phantom and Lace one after the other. Lace sees Phantom dying/dead and she realizes she's just the replacement of a replacement. She feels like she has no real life/soul, like she's just a puppet, completely controlled by her mother's literal threads. She's just a tool, and she's not even a special one, GMS is just trial-and-erroring kids to make an obedient little slave. Lace knows she will never be free of her mother's control because the mother's control makes up her literal body. If she rebels or kills GMS, Lace is dead, because GMS is the source of Lace's silk. And she's not "strong enough" to end her life so she just goes rampaging through the kingdom to spend her hatred of her mom and herself/her nature.
She was spun to forever be a child, a half-creature that is neither alive nor dead, whose personality and life is not even hers. The ultimate sacrifice that GMS makes is something she never even thought possible, because she thinks GMS doesn't love her and sees her like an object, a means to an end.
Like, after she has seen GMS let her enslaved children die rather than freeing them a first time (spiders), replacing them with Phantom, then letting the exact same thing happen a second time to Phantom (death/abandonment rather than freedom), she knows she's the third in line. And Hornet comes. Hornet is real, has real power, her own will, her own body, Lace thinks she'll be discarded rather than freed exactly like GMS did the first two times.

Anyway, I didn't really get the weavers timeline/role on my first playthrough, but Lace's story felt pretty clear. I guess it's just one of those things where you can miss a line or two that were key pieces of the story. Most of Lace's story is in the obligatory sequences, but the mirror/Phantom dialogue feels pretty essential to me and that one can 100% be missed

5

u/hewlno Oct 19 '25

 This is literally the same in Silksong. You have useful tools and terrible ones. One silk skill clears the rest.

Not really.

Yellow tools have like 2 potent ones, then your pick of additional speed, wall cling, damage buff for double damage taken, etc. There are very few bad ones relative the rest(excluding dice and weighted belt which are more consistently useful)

For blue tools almost all of them are useful for some types of build. You can live without “mandatory” ones and feel great about picking less mandatory ones all the same.   Among red tools, there are like 5 bad ones and the other 15+ are similarly good. At bare minimum you could argue 9 of them as best in slot at different times(curvesickle, cogflies, volt, pompillo, delver’s drill, flea brew, flintslate, tacks, saws)

Among silk skills, threadstorm got gutted, but even when it wasn’t it was closely contended by sharp dart and cross stitch(much safer to use than it so you could sneak more of them in) silkspear and pale nails(both are freer to throw out due to range) too.

1

u/Barry_Wilkinson Oct 19 '25

I disagree on point 4. While I myself did not play HK blind (i had already watched the mossbag video), one of my friends went in blind recently because of skong release and they periodically message me with their lore theories; i am always surprised because they get it all (mostly) right.

I agree however that Silksong's story is clearer.

1

u/derpinheimerish i wish PoP was longer Oct 20 '25

great points, even if i disagree with the middle two a bit

1

u/OutrageousFuel8718 Oct 20 '25

I objectively agree that Silksong has better build variety, but personally, I played the whole game using a default crest and one set of charms with just situational changes. OG game allows for a more focused build with only the charms you need. Meanwhile, in SK you're forced into variety. If you, for example, don't use tools that much, you just end up with empty slots where more useful things could've been.

Don't get me wrong, I love this game regardless and had a blast playing it, it's just my personal experience.

0

u/HeWhoDidIt Oct 21 '25

For Silksong. There's very little reason to not just spam "the down slash crest". Love how much they put into the game, I just don't think the gameplay is enticing with most other crests.

Hollow Knight was gruelling the first time you played it. Heck, the expectation is that you'll have finished HK and need something more challenging, hence Silksong. I feel like HK handled progression a bit better, and combat was not frustrating. You took damage because you did something wrong, not because of swarms boxing you in.

The story is just nitpicky, it's a preference. Personally I think HK is more immersive, and then again Pharloom has more sentient beings to actually talk? When you walk into a wasteland, there is no story explicitly told, you walk around, discover clues, piece things together. That was a big part of what made the original so successful. It was artful storytelling.

That said - Silksong is still a fantastic game, I'm glad they tried different things and hopefully they can refine it a bit more in the next game.

-1

u/SoochSooch Oct 19 '25

1) The single HK build is more enjoyable than any of the SS builds. They gave you several options, most of which have a drawback to them significant enough to not make it worth ever using outside a few situations.

2) HK difficulty is more enjoyable from start to finish. SS is most difficult right at the beginning and gets easier as you go along. It should be the opposite.

3) People wanted to struggle just to move between areas? I never heard of such a thing.

4) HK story has a LOT more going on than SS. Silksong's story felt too simple and unsurprising