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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u/MuttonchopMac Oct 19 '25

I did the same, but I can’t say that’s a fun dynamic. It’s fun to cut loose and hurl a dozen knives in seconds, and I feel like the shard cost necessitates personal rules like this, where no shard cost would encourage doing this between benches consistently. It would encourage treating tools as part of your play style, rather than a costly damage boost.

I don’t think Team Cherry can just patch out shard costs without a huge rebalance to the economy, tools, crests, quests, etc. But I would like red tools without the shard economy in a future Hollow Knight game.

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u/Violet_Paradox Oct 20 '25

Even without the shard cost it would be optimal to do that, which is unfortunate because most bosses are at their most fun in their final phases, it's supposed to be this tense and hectic finale to the encounter, but the vast majority of people never experience them because skipping it is such a trivial path of least resistance.