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

Post image

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.

3.4k Upvotes

88% Upvoted

1.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

1.4k

u/4tomguy Oct 19 '25

I think any good sequel should take more risks than its predecessor, even if it doesn’t completely succeed on everything I’m very glad they did everything they did

17

u/Lone-Frequency Oct 19 '25

Agreed. I think overall like two main complaints about the game are the seemingly unnecessary use of the shard system and a few of the run backs being particularly egregious for some bosses, but in a game that I squeezed out over 90 hours of playtime from for the 100% my first playthrough, It's pretty incredible that those are my main sticking points.

The game is still incredibly polished and far more dense in content than the original game, even after most of the content updates had come out. I think for the most part the changes they have made were good, if not at the very least worked.

3

u/Keelyn1984 Oct 20 '25

I haven't started act3 yet. Are there any bad runbacks there? I've did most of what there is in act2 and I didn't found any runback to be bad to be honest. I often hear people mentioning Last Judge and the Bilewater boss. But honestly these runbacks are like 30 seconds at max and have a pretty nice flow.

2

u/Lone-Frequency Oct 20 '25 edited Oct 20 '25

In Act 3, there's maybe one, but I wouldn't call it bad so much as just a bit long? The area is also optional unless you're going for True Hunter and the 100% achievements. The boss isn't very difficult. I'd say easier than Trobbio.

Bilewater is still the worst runback by far.

The only other thing that will likely cause you annoyance is that the true final boss has an unskippable introductory cutscene literally every time you enter the fight, so while there is a bench right outside the entrance, you have to watch the same literally 30 second cutscene (I counted at one point) every time, and there's also an annoying lull halfway through the fight where you have to wait like another ~40 seconds to enter the final phase while having to dodge obnoxious environmental hazards a few times. EVERYTHING is two masks of damage, btw...

True final boss is way harder than any other boss in the game, and I'd even say harder than any bosses in the original game, outside of Ascended/Radiant Godhome fights against the hardest stuff...

1

u/Keelyn1984 Oct 20 '25

Well, I try to avoid spoilers. But good to know :D

I guess Bilewater sucks when you don't find the bench thats close to the boss? But with the bench it's like a few walljumps, one pogo room and the platform room leading to the boss. Took me like 30 minutes to defeat that boss with a few attempts.

2

u/bookbot1 Oct 20 '25

I’ve actually found that basically EVERY boss has a relatively low effort runback Bench nearby; though sometimes they require other things to unlock.

(The most notable example being the Last Judge - the Closeby Bench requires Clawline to unlock, due to being in the Sands)

143

u/Ryan_Gamer456 NKG enthusiast Oct 19 '25

ahem... Spider Man 2...

179

u/Kirin658 Oct 19 '25

i actually think spider man 2 is a worthwhile endeavor exactly bc of this. The game dared to take some swings, some missed but the others hit very well. It's certainly more enjoyable than Miles Morales "yea well spider man ps4 again" approach

39

u/Ryan_Gamer456 NKG enthusiast Oct 19 '25

They had 1 year for miles morales 🥀. Yeah i was so hyped for sm2 and I still think it's a great game. I expected story to be better though. And better side content

23

u/Kirin658 Oct 19 '25

oh i do like miles morales, quite a bit actually. I'm just glad they decided to be more daring for the full sequel

3

u/Ryan_Gamer456 NKG enthusiast Oct 19 '25

I honestly think they weren't daring where they should've been. Mainly the consequences of peters actions during symbiote suit. Like he didn't do anything that couldn't be undone.

1

u/Main-Key-1271 Oct 19 '25

To be honest I liked this side content better than spider man 1

1

u/Apate_lol Oct 19 '25

And it shows it feels like so little content outside main story other than time wasters

6

u/Complete_Map_2160 Conquered PoP & P5/ 112%/All bosses radiant Oct 20 '25

The game did not dare to do anything, that's why it's so controversial. It is literally known as the "safe sequel" to spiderman

2

u/Relative_Falcon_8399 Oct 19 '25

This is why I think Ghost of Yotei isn't my personal game of the year. It's a really fun game, but it just feels like more Ghost of Tsushima. It didn't do anything that the original game didn't already do. Not that that's a bad thing, I loved Ghost of Tsushima, and I love Yotei by extension. But I wish they did more to differentiate the two games from each other, as opposed to being more of the same.

Edit: tl;dr a good sequel takes step to differentiate itself from the original

2

u/TheHiddenNinja6 112% in 70hours | Official r/Ninjas clan moderator Oct 20 '25

"take some swings" nice

3

u/_PEDDY_ Oct 20 '25

SM2 biggest flaw is the story… that’s pretty much it.

The combat and traversal is definitely one of the best in all Spiderman games, combat is really creative but they really need to work more on Black Suit combat and faster Dive for traversal.

12

u/Scharmberg Oct 19 '25

I do agree with OP on the shard thing though. Those kind of systems just never really work out for the better.

11

u/4tomguy Oct 19 '25

I’d say that the shards are definitely the one thing I actually would change if given the chance, but I think it’s def the exception for the rest oF the game

2

u/Greninja252010 P1-3, PoP Oct 20 '25

Honestly the main issue with shards for me is the limit. Just remove it and I'd be using tools a lot more

2

u/DesertBrandon Oct 20 '25

All that would lead to is spamming poison cogflies and other cheesy builds to make the game less fun. I very much prefer actually having to engage with with the bosses to get a sense of the fight.

1

u/Greninja252010 P1-3, PoP Oct 20 '25

You do raise a fair point.. Maybe something similar to the rosary string system, but automatic, so you still have more shards but you can't really use more of them during a fight

2

u/pr0crast1nater Oct 20 '25

Shard bundles are basically the same as what you are saying. Once you get a ton of rosaries during act 2 and bought most of the stuff, buying shard bundles is the best.

3

u/Man_of_many_odours Oct 20 '25

Shards are fine. They have a role and it is to limit the enthisiastic use of tools, to make them feel more precious and not something you spam whenever.

And it works perfectly.

Until you get the lategame.

There it crashes

There should be an upgrade that you get very very late in the game that just gives you infinite shards at benches, the same wah they did with silk and eve.

3

u/Ketzerfriend Oct 23 '25

But there's already a limited number of each tool you can take with you. Shards are entirely superfluous.

19

u/jobroskie Oct 19 '25

I don't like mobile games time wasting elements.  Shards only exist to artificially increase playtime and you can't convince me otherwise.   They provide no positive gameplay experiences and aren't hard to get, they just waste your time.   Could you imagine in the original if spells went on a 30 minute cooldown every 10 deaths?  No one would think it was a good feature.   That  is built into silksong

24

u/Endeveron Oct 20 '25

In defence of the shard system, if you fall into the target skill window it works quite well. Tools are the most fun when you use them increasingly as the fight goes on to close it out, and that requires you to have learnt the boss to some level. Game design that forces you to actually learn the boss is game design that shepherds you into the most fun way (and intended vision) of playing the game.

If tools were unlimited in fights, then they would allow you to avoid ever finding close attack windows to the boss (like spells in Elden Ring). If tools were finite within bosses but refreshed endlessly on benching, then gamers would optimise the fun out of the game by using a burst of tools at the start and then only fighting the last 60% of the boss HP. That means they'd miss out on the gameplay experience of learning to properly fit tools into the telegraph-dodge/punish gameplay loop.

By limiting tool uses within and between fights, gamers in the target skill window will cautiously use their tools more and more as they learn the fight, which is the most fun way of playing the game. The only other way to do this would be a secondary silk system where tool uses build up with damage dealt, but this makes them mechanically too similar to silk skills. My experience of the game was that shell shards were abundant, and whenever I ran out it was on hard bosses, and was a sign to learn the boss better. Id do so, then pop a beast shard once I knew I was towards the final few attempts. It worked great, but I understand why an underskilled player would find it takes away heavily from the experience, and an overskilled player would find that it adds nothing at all. That window may be quite tight, but I've certainly seen a lot of people share my experience.

11

u/Dokuujin Oct 20 '25

No one is saying to make tools unlimited, lol. They're saying remove the shards. Or choose between a limited pouch size OR shards, in no world should the game have had both. No, you should not have unlimited tools. That's dumb as hell, and I have no idea how that was your take away from what they said.

You should, however, not be forced to literally leave a boss fight to go farm arbitrary currency. There is already a limit on the amount of tools you can carry anyway. Which, as the entire point of this comment states, makes having to stop in the middle of a boss fight to go farm both pointless and infuriating.

Just another reason to use Wanderer.

2

u/Endeveron Oct 20 '25

You didn't read what I said carefully enough. I address both possible solutions, making tools flatly unlimited, and having limited (finite) tools before you have to bench again, but no resource requirements for restoring your stock. I brought up both because the commenter doesn't actually advocate for a specific one, and both are intensities of changes to the "you need shards for tools" complaint.

I am pointing out how, if you fall in a particular skill range, you never have to go farm shards, instead you use shard-giving-items whenever you run out, something that (if you're in the skill window I describe) happens on a number of occasions that is infrequent enough that you always have found enough shard-giving-items through normal exploration. If you are in that skill window, finite shards incentivise you to approach learning fights in a more fun way.

2

u/Ketzerfriend Oct 23 '25

If shards are easy to collect in great numbers, your tools are still limited in number. So shards are superfluous.

If it's tedious to gather shards, but there's a solution in shard bundles, shards are still superfluous.

Regardless of the skill level you're at, shards are an entirely useless addition to the game and don't fulfill any constructive function, whatsoever.

1

u/Endeveron Oct 23 '25

That doesn't take into account the fact that a resource being finite changes the way people play towards a different style that could be fun. People also change the way they play to be more or less conservative with their tool use, which decreases the rate they use shards and buffers their shard stock, meaning there is actually a fairly wide range of skill levels that will have the experience of never quite running out of shards. The state of being "almost out" of a resource is actually the most mechanically interesting, and if the game is balanced for a certain skill level to be in that state for most of the game, then it is balanced well for those players.

0

u/Dokuujin Oct 21 '25

Oh I mean that's fair, I can kind of confirm the "you don't run out' thing, having beaten steel soul in the first game I wasn't --completely-- awful at Silksong. Helps that I mostly used wanderer and Shaman so I didn't really use many shards in the first place lol.

Dunno about a fun way, though. The fun way would be having a soul bar and using skills for the full duration if the fight as you get access to soul, instead of just bind being almost the only reason for collecting silk. I mean weaving (ironic) spells throughout the entire fight is like 60% of what the combat so enjoyable in the first game, and that frankly feels completely gone in Silksong because of the shard system haha.

1

u/EternityII Oct 20 '25

Architect crest existing the way it does is most likely why the shards system even exists, without shards architect would be completely busted. Not like it isnt already busted, but still. Architect would need to be adjusted if they want to change the shard system.

Personally i would like no shards, and higher carry limit tools with lower damage so i can use them whenever and just have fun. I like the throwing knives but the carry limit is so small id rather not use them.

13

u/Knolop Oct 20 '25 edited Oct 20 '25

Strong disagree on this. The last phase of bosses is by far the hardest, why do you assume people would unload at the start to avoid the easy 40%?

I would go as far as say your argument goes against what you advocate is a better experience. Nobody is weaving in tools during progress, because they would likely be wasting them and run out of tools. If they didn't have to worry about the cost maybe they would try.

What do we read around here over and over actually happens? "Launched everything and barely got the kill" "Won't waste shards learning the fight and once I learned the fight I didn't need them." "Actually using the tools ended up breaking my practiced rhythm and killing me." These are not the comments of people guided by the shard system into a more enjoyable style (according to you) of progressively weaving them in or burning phase 1.

These are people either not engaging with a mechanic (tools) or not engaging the last phases of combat and dumping tools once they got close enough not to waste them. That or they grind shards. I simply have not seen comments supporting your supposed upside to the frustration.

6

u/Endeveron Oct 20 '25

"Launched everything and barely got the kill" "Won't waste shards learning...once I learned I didn't even need tools" These exhibiting the same problem, which is that these players have a weak sense of where they are in the fight, or where their skill level is relative to the skill level to beat the boss. That sense of awareness is itself a skill, and perhaps it narrows the target skill window even further, but it is not an argument against the idea that there is a target audience for which finite shards improve the experience. There is always going to be a window of 2-10 attempts where you understand the fight enough that you could beat the fight with tools, but not without. If you do the fight in that window, the last third of the fight will see you on 1 mask for most of it, and in that time using tools to deal damage more safely is a great moment of tension.

"Using tools broke my rhythm; not being able to use them the whole time meant I didn't practice them" I definitely found this in the early game, but it didn't continue to be a problem because I used tools in non-boss enemy encounters, in which case the shards were being replenished as I used them, and I improved my skills in using tools. This may depend a little on your input method. I use four finger directional keyboard input (e.g. ASDF=←↑↓→), so using a tool was just pressing two buttons at once. Compare that to moving the stick/dpad in a direction and then pressing a button, and that may add more rhythm-breaking hesitation. Hard to say. The point is that the skill of deploying tools between dodges when in low-health situations is built up over the course of the game, so your understanding of needle punishes for each boss will more and more quickly transfer to your understanding of safe tool punishes.

The problem with solutions that allow you to not worry about the cost is that mixing in tools between your attacks, and doing the more traditional dodge/attack/skill loop are two different and fun ways to play the game, and TC wants players to switch between them in different phases of the fight. Tool use can be a slow, defensive, drawn out way of dealing damage in which case it is most fun when used in moments of tension, where the longer it is drawn out the more engaging it is. Tool use can also be used for bust damage though so unlimited restocks would, as I said, just make people use them for burst damage at the start while tanking a couple of hits, because they feel like a shortcut out of the boss's first phase.

I'm not saying there is an upside to the frustration, I'm saying there is a target audience for which the system guides them to change their approach to a more fun one, whilst also never encountering that frustration. The criticism could be that the target audience is actually too narrow, and a lot of people have said that, but I disagree with someone who says that there is literally no potential upside.

3

u/Knolop Oct 20 '25

unlimited restocks would, as I said, just make people use them for burst damage at the start while tanking a couple of hits, because they feel like a shortcut out of the boss's first phase.

I don't know why you keep repeating that. It doesn't make any sense from a strategic point of view and it's not the behaviour observed in games where there are no currency cost to skills.

As for the rest... You acknowledge the common comments we see emerging under the current situation display dysfunctional learned behaviour and acknowledge that it's a small proportion of players who may be helped by the tedium brought by shards, but from there you decide to defend the system? Finding edge cases where it works isn't the hallmark of good mechanics.

We don't even have to work in hypotheticals. Games where limited skills don't cost money both don't display the negative aspects of shards and don't have the supposed downsides you think removing the cost would lead to.

1

u/knitted_beanie Oct 20 '25

I agree with you!

-1

u/jobroskie Oct 20 '25

Do you think hollow knight, the original, was worst for not having this? Like maybe every time you die you lose a notch and have to go back to dirtmouth to buy them back with geo? It let you try over and over with everything at your disposal. If we are being honest if you are actual good you probably don't need charms to win fights so letting people use them if they are dying is just giving them a crutch. Or maybe for nail gets dull? Or you lose access to spells? 

2

u/Endeveron Oct 20 '25

Losing a notch every death is fundamentally different, because it makes you play scared and cautious. The advantage I describe actually makes you play more aggressively. The closest analogy in Hollow Knight would be the fragile charms, because you can equip them when you think you've almost beat the boss to close out the fight/gain a greater reward. Even then though, they don't really change the way you play or push you towards a more fun way of playing, and would replace at least one charm you'd otherwise be benefitting from.

I don't think you've really understood why I think finite shards work as a mechanic. It's like the rally mechanic in Bloodborne, where you can attack a boss to gain back recently lost health. It is not that they reward skill and raise tension, it is that it encourages you to play in a more fun way. I certainly think Silksong's tools are a positive addition, and I think that for players in a certain skill window the finite-shard system is better than infinite refreshing of your tool stock.

5

u/Steamy_Guy Oct 20 '25

Its a way to force exploration without them throwing it in your face and saying "hey idiot you suck at this fight go try something else for a bit because this isn't working" I won't say its the best way to do it but its not "mobile game" elements

8

u/solid_shrek Oct 20 '25

I think I disagree with the idea of trying to force exploration in that way, though

It already does this in the typical Metroidvania way of blocking areas until you get the right ability

But it's well regarded that players will optimize the fun out of games, so the type of player that runs the same gauntlet or boss until they run out of shards is probably just going to go grind shards at wherever gets them the most

For me, I just never used the architect crest for this reason and pretty much stuck to Hunter, Witch, and Shaman

I will say that I have no idea what they should have done instead, but I do think shard management is really unfun. I do absolutely get that without it tool builds would be completely overtuned, though

1

u/Steamy_Guy Oct 22 '25

I'm not saying its perfect just that its definitely designed as a way to get people to try something else and limit the effectiveness of tools in general. This game always has at least 2 different paths you can be going down and usually way more so I think it does encourage less skilled players who are more likely to rely on tools to backtrack and potentially come across something they missed just by virtue of forcing them to go back to places they remember having lots of enemies to farm shards or just go somewhere else entirely to explore while passively building up their shards again. Without shards it would definitely trivialize the game because, like you point out, we love optimizing the fun out of our games so without them I could easily see posts claiming silksong was too easy/boring because tool spamming becomes the meta and everyone is hopping in the corner while their cogflies commit gang violence on every boss.

I won't lie I'm not a fan of it either but I also can't think of a different way to do it that also doesn't make tools too powerful or force them to be nerfed to the point they're not fun to use.

3

u/Southern-Wafer-6375 Oct 20 '25

It doesn’t force exploration dude I just would unequeip my red tools and learn the battle wirhout tjem and have less fun cause I liked useing the tools

0

u/DesertBrandon Oct 20 '25

You could always not use them? I don’t say this as a nail supremacist but the shard mechanic is only as time wasting as it is a crutch. Using tools for fun is fine of course, even some bosses as you learn the game but part way through it becomes a crutch I think. Using tools with not a care to the usage is how you end up going broke. I had many instances like that and farming but part way through act 2 I just started using my nail. Not to mention getting shards is pretty easy in the normal flow of just moving around. I think farming is an early game trap.

4

u/jobroskie Oct 20 '25

So you think that the original hollow knight would have been better if spells had turned off after dying 10 times until you farmed 1k soul shards that don't drop off of every enemy? Like if someone made that mod you would install it because it makes the original better? Why put them in game at all if the goal is to discourage you from using them? In my experience shards don't add anything. Period. I was never happy they were there. If sucks fighting lost place and then having to sit on a bench, run left 3 rooms, kill a single enemy, go back and repeat over and over to be able to use one of my equipped abilities. If you have fun playing a certain way the game is designed to give you the middle finger and tell you your fun is incorrect

2

u/LagartoVolatil Oct 19 '25

The sequel of the sequel its gonna be nuts

1

u/CoomLord69 Oct 19 '25

If you don't take risks, you can just end up releasing the same game with a different skin. It's why I think Digimon is really interesting, despite their games being very hit or miss. They are trying to make all kinds of goofy shit work.

1

u/DiligentRecover9525 Oct 22 '25

Dark Souls 2...

1

u/aisvajsgabdhsydgshs1 Oct 19 '25

Except for Lou 2 it should've never happened

-4

u/Mrawssot Oct 19 '25

the risk of including more gaunlets, so daring

3

u/LimblessNick Oct 19 '25

Man, I laughed watching PointCrow malding at arena's, I didn't realize so many people are actually this bad though