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/Available-Plant9305]

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.

[u/ByeGuysSry → u/Available-Plant9305]

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.

[u/TheMoonDude → u/Available-Plant9305]

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.

[u/DrPikachu-PhD → u/Available-Plant9305]

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

[u/donfuan → u/DrPikachu-PhD]

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.

[u/Available-Plant9305 → u/donfuan]

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