And all music should be under three minutes long. Every book should have page numbers. Photographers should have familiar subjects. Paintings should have a full explanation by the artist telling you exactly what they meant to communicate. /s
If the game isn’t for you, just move along. There are tons of games out there.
are you aware of the meaning of the word “setting” in this context?
Just in case I can explain:
It means you can switch something from one behaviour or effect to another, basically giving you a choice of how something should work. So, adding a difficulty setting changes nothing about your experience of the game.
do you need more words to explain this simple thing?
I can try to use simple language and shorter sentences if you require it?
I think it’s a great game for veterans who like challenges like myself.
But I have to call out team Cherry for their interviews: They said they wanted anyone to be able to pick up this as their first Hollow Knight game and just start playing… Sorry, but, bullshit. the difficulty ramp is too quick, double damage comes out to early and the boss fights get more challenging quickly. See the weaver for instance, a fight I’d place around the difficulty of Grimm, but there’s double damage and you probably only have 5 health.
Also they mentioned part of the game’s difficulty was due to Hornet’s competence and utility… Ghost is canonically a better fighter than Hornet, so by that logic they should have made the game easier (yes I’m being silly about this part).
I dont think there is any conversation to be had about an easy mode or boss runbacks. Any time this small dev team spends on an easy mode is time wasted IMO.
If its to hard you can play another game. I see this the same as people demanding a complex movie be changed to be easier to understand. Its just a dumb complaint and im sick of seeing these people flood every comment section of every slightly challenging game.
I’m ok with there being a conversation on this topic, even if the arguments devolve to ‘waaah’ vs. ‘git gud’.
Ultimately though, I agree that a small dev team shouldn’t have to focus on a game-mode outside their vision - and any such demand for an easy-mode or other additions can and should be left up to mod makers.
It’s a single-player game, so in the end how the individual user wants to play is how they should be able to play.
I'm guessing it's something like when you lose to a boss you have to travel a senselessly difficult and long way back to the boss to try again?
That's exactly it. The runbacks aren't too long in this game despite all the complaints, but some of them are tricky and can get annoying if you keep dying 10 seconds into a fight.
More like the Dark Souls formula of having to trek through heaps of enemies and traps to get back to the boss. Including the whole “lose all of your money on death” thing.
This is the only thing I wanted to know from reviews, for whether or not to bother with Silksong. I love difficult boss fights, but cannot be arsed to spend more than half a minute doing a tedious chore in order to actually redo boss fights.
I’m guessing it’s something like when you lose to a boss you have to travel a senselessly difficult and long way back to the boss to try again?
Exactly. Lots of bosses don’t have convenient save points nearby, so you’re forced to walk back from the save point every time. And many of the treks are either long or just outright annoying (cheesy enemies, obstacle courses, etc). It’s like the 5 Minute Long Unskippable Cutscene’s more annoying older brother, because this unskippable cutscene requires actual gameplay and focus.
Hot take here, but I don’t mind them. Exactly because they take focus. They tell me when it’s time for a break. If I’m not up for the runback, then I’m not up for aother attempt at the boss.
I haven’t played silksong, but I’m just going off other games in the past for my experience.
If you make it through the hallway of meaningless denizens that just waste time and get to the boss, then die to the boss… Why waste time going through the meaningless denizens again to challenge the boss?
I can see it on higher difficulties when you need to make sure you get through the meaningless denizens perfectly in order to preserve your health and resources to have a better chance of defeating the boss.
But when you just want to experience the story on lower difficulty why make the denizens less powerful to make the boss easier when you can instead just put the save point in front of the boss in instead of the denizens? You’ve already made it through the denizens, it’s not like you’re skipping content.
Why are these side scrollers premium price?? Seems like such a cash grab. That’s why franchises are going backwards into side scrollers, easy money, i avoid them
I was all-in on Hollow Knight. Beat it multiple times, including Path of Pain and the Nightmare King. But I’m struggling with Silksong.
I went back and started up Hollow Knight again just to sanity-check myself, and, yes, it’s definitely an easier game. Many fewer enemies can hit for 2 health; there’s more variety in paths in the early game, so if you hit a wall in one direction you can try another; and you get access to upgrades that actually feel impactful relatively early instead of skills that use up my magic pool that I can’t spare because I need them because I’m always one hit away from dying.
My pet theory is that Silksong is actually just exactly what they originally pitched: DLC for players that have mastered the highest skill points in Hollow Knight. And maybe that would be fine if I were coming straight into it off of the back of Godhome. But it’s been years since I was playing those areas, and my skills have atrophied. It’s okay for a DLC to expect mastery from the start, but a standalone game should have more of a curve.
This is to be expected. Silksong gained so much hype that now you have a bunch of people trying it who are finding out it’s not their thing.
I know people these days are used to early access garbage being shoved out the door as a full release, and are ready to rush to the comments to explain why the game is wrong, but I promise you this is not one of those cases.
So far, every run back I’ve experienced in silksong has a purpose. If it’s not something you enjoy, I recommend not playing the game. But don’t be in that overlap of the Venn Diagram between people who are enjoying the game and people who are complaining they aren’t enjoying the game. Either stop playing, or finish it and then we can talk about its design.
Name one with purpose, then. There is the big cave with the boss. It is separated in two halves by a long ass platform. There are no enemies, exploration, rewards or challenges on the platform. The sole purpose of it is to make you run right and then left, instead of just facing the boss right away.
If it’s the one I’m thinking of, I barely consider that one a run back. It’s like 40s to get to the boss from the bench. And at that point I the game, I noticed myself start hitting the bounce plants much more consistently after having to do this run many times. Up until then I hadn’t been forced to repeat the same small section yet.
And (staying vague to avoid spoilers), the bench itself was particularly “surprising” specifically because of the long gap without any benches leading up to it, forcing you to repeat the same long platforming/combat sections over and over. Players would not have been “surprised” by it if they weren’t so desperate for a bench.
It’s not about me liking it or not. I don’t even have that game. The point is that one should play games fitting ones abilities. There are people who will master this game, like I mastered Elite about forty years ago. Complaining about a game being difficult is either they overestimated their abilities, or they lack perseverance.
For the rest, there is always tictactoe or animal crossing.
Well whether you like it or not, you’re just insulting people for criticizing a game. Not even just for it’s difficulty, so you couldn’t be more off base.
Legitimately this mindset is why most gaming forums are so toxic. It makes it difficult to actually discuss problems with and opinions on games without people basically going “git gud.”
There is room to bring up the fact that some games are just not for everyone, but that also doesn’t invalidate the criticism they have.
Seems to me it’s usually “kids” that don’t mind difficult games. I’m in my 40s and I don’t have the time or inclination anymore to replay a boss for hours on end, but when I was younger I loved a challenge like that and would usually set difficulty to hard.
We have this debate monthly since the last decade. I don’t particularly like the way hollow knight handles saves, not the difficulty itself. It’s time consuming, not inherently hard…
Time consuming does not equal difficulty, remember this.
We should definitely talk about how levying criticism, especially thoughtful criticism, is treated as a personal attack by other people playing the same game. It’s a bizarre form of tribalism.
We should also talk about how “Difficulty is part of the game and if you find it too difficult then this game is not for you” is not a personal attack, but a perfectly valid response to said criticism.
If the criticism is limited to “It’s too hard.” then I would agree. But that’s not a valid response to criticisms about specific design elements like “these power ups feel like they do nothing”, even if it’s a perception issue at hand you need to address the actual observation and not jump on with ‘git gud’.
I was learning a game a few months ago and struggling with understanding a specific character, so I went to the official discord and asked for advice, not complaining it was too hard, just asking for what kinds of strategies work and I was met with endless ‘try harder, scrub’ responses and literally no actual advice. I quit playing the game because the community was so up it’s own asshole.
And for sake of clarity. I don’t play HK, it’s not my preferred genre and my favorite game (that I can replay) is Noita so I am familiar with reviews that complain about difficulty. It’s fine for games to be hard and it’s also fine for people who find the games too hard to leave a review saying they found it too hard. That is part of informing buyers so people can only pick it up if they desire that kind of challenge.
It’s just a trend that is all too common in gaming. People like a game or a developer and become incapable of seeing an opinion that they disagree without taking it as a personal slight. It’s weird.
This excuse stopped working the day I opened a tough-as-nails game like Furi, saw it had a difficulty menu, said “That’s nice”, and went back to challenging myself against the bosses on default settings.
It’s such a huge cop-out of self control, and especially falls to acknowledge that the forms of difficulty in a game are often varied - and someone might suck at only one of them.
I haven't played Silksong yet, in part because truthfully, Hollow Knight was alright but not my favorite Metroidvania. The one thing I really disliked about the original was the runbacks. I remember getting stuck on one platforming section, and I could easily get to the halfway point where I kept dying to retrieve my money, but then drop it again because there was no turning back from this halfway point, had to keep trying to finish it. I wanted to just explore a different part of the map and come back to this section later, but sunk cost fallacy forced me to keep bashing my skull against it.
Which then felt like this mechanic conflicted with the exploration I expect from a Metroidvania. That's the real problem IMO.
You yourself admit it's a fallacy! This isn't exactly a "skill issue" situation, but in future efforts on these kind of games you might try being more thoughtful about when to take a break and spend accumulated currency.
Although as others have pointed out elsewhere in the thread, learning to accept not retrieving your stuff is sometimes necessary too. I lost around 1500 at a certain boss by getting too cocky trying to fight enemies on the runback instead of skipping them, and it took me a while to make peace with it lol.
If you do end up playing Silksong you should know that there is a mechanic specifically addressing this, where you can convert your currency into consumable items at a bit of a loss to keep them across deaths.
There are mechanisms in both games that allow you to remotely retrieve your body if you are desperate not to lose it. Hollow Knight is definitely less forgiving than Silksong in this respect though.
Exploration is a task that has inherent difficulty in the genre, it's uncommon to have actual points of no return as you describe, but if you can't see through a particular segment to the next checkpoint, yeah sometimes giving up will cost you. An actual point of no return probably means you're on the cusp of a sweet new ability though.
I am returning to Hollow Knight thanks to the Silksong hype. I had dropped it before because I was unsure where I needed to go to progress and was getting sick of running around the map trying to figure out which paths were actually available to me and which needed some equipment I didn’t have. Well, I did figure it out and basically have everything important unlocked so now I am enjoying it again.
If you do pick it up again, I have some advice. First, there’s a relic in an area called the Hive that will give you passive health regen if there’s a long enough gap between instances of damage. This means you can keep messing up a platforming section and as long as you don’t rush it you can heal back after messing up without needing new sources of soul. Second, there are some sections that are traversable with minimal equipment but become trivial with more. Deepnest was really annoying to me when I went through it and I frankly would have probably enjoyed it if I had one really helpful item unlocked (or even just a bit more health). Third, don’t worry too much about money. Normal enemies don’t give you much from farming and I think I’ve run out of stuff to spend it on mostly from other sources. So don’t be afraid to let it go. If you’ve unlocked the fast travel thing, just head back to vendors when you’ve noticed you accumulated a decent amount.
Like I said, I’m enjoying the game again after years away, but I really wish they had a better way of letting you know where you should go next and what isn’t available to you. Needing to go through zones again to check if something is now unlocked or not is tiresome. The pins help but they are not enough, and I didn’t think to reserve certain colors for certain types of obstacles the first time.
something that i think gets lost in the sauce in thrse discussions is whether fun is derived from playing or winning. people are comparing Silksong- and to get ahead of it right now i haven't played and am not criticizing either of the Hollow Knights- to old arcade and early console games and their legendary difficulty, but a lot of those games were meant to be complete and fun experiences even if you game over very early on. they also didn't have levels full of bespoke Stuff in them, it was the same few tiles and entities in different configurations., so being stuck on level 1 didn't mean you were missing out on a narrative and worldbuilding. with how the lines have blurred between games and narrative art forms in the last few decades, there are different incentives at play and someone stuck on world 1 of SMB isn't missing out nearly as much as someone stuck on whatever the first stage of Silksong is. it's all ultimately apples and oranges
The problem with “old difficulty” was that in arcades especially, and even on consoles by way of the industry being smaller and the same people working on both, were designed around quarter-munching.
Stuff was hard to get people to pay up.
I would have preferred modern ideas like bosses are hard because you have to learn their patterns- and to be clear, this is also present - but also the feeling that I’m not strong enough to do anything more than chip damage is a bit annoying.
I think there’s validity in all the arguments I’ve seen people making; but at the same time I’m glad the game’s not easy. I just don’t know if it always needs to be punishing through frustration.
(The thing that pisses me off the most are those
Tap for spoilerRed flower buds you need to pogo off of. Do they REALLY need to be over spikes every time? Does my downward thrust really need to be at an angle to bounce off them?? I started out being ok with that movement and I’ve never regressed so fast or so hard at anything in a game before. I swear I’ve lost more lives and to that than bosses; and by the game’s very nature that means a run back every time! Ugh!
So that’s why I say there’s a difference between “tricky” hard and “annoying” hard.
I would have preferred modern ideas like bosses are hard because you have to learn their patterns- and to be clear, this is also present - but also the feeling that I’m not strong enough to do anything more than chip damage is a bit annoying.
This is why I stopped playing Elden Ring. I have no problem learning patterns for boss fights but the perpetual feeling that I’m fighting Godzilla with a badminton racket is obnoxious. Especially after I spent the last 20 hours of play grinding out equipment upgrades and levels. It doesn’t feel fun or rewarding.
I recently started gaming again after a twenty year gap. Back in the day I used to go for high difficulty and complete everything. Now, I’m playing on easy difficulty setting. Partly cos I’m in my 50s, reactions are slower and my hands are a bit fucked up. Partly because I want to enjoy the story and the experience - if I get stuck on a fight and keep dying I get frustrated eventually and angry with myself for not being as good as I want to be. That feeling is not what I’m gaming for, so yeah, easy setting.
I haven’t played hollow knight because I’m told it’s frustrating and difficult, and, while the aesthetic really appeals to me I don’t wanna be frustrated. But I’m so happy for all the people who have been waiting for this and are enjoying it, sometimes we do get nice things!
For me, much of the fun is making progress. i never finished the first game because I kept getting lost and stuck and unable to progress for extended periods. In a From Software game I can spend weeks on a single boss and masochistically enjoy every moment because I know what I have to do. The problem I had with Hollow Knight was I kept finding myself completely at a loss about where to go or what to do. I would spend days retreading the same empty caverns looking for a clue or a new path and not finding any. When I knew what I had to do, I enjoyed it immensely, but progression was often too obscure and my interest slowly evaporated.
Tangentially related but I agree. It makes the long run through sections of the campaign more bearable.
On a more related note, POE2 has checkpoints practically on top of the bosses during the story so you can bash your head against it as much as you want. The only time you’re punished for dying is endgame bosses.
The runbacks don’t bother me too much so far. I do think there’s some skills in the runback, but it relies heavily on the level designer as well. An ideal runback:
is relatively short, you should have time to reflect on the boss, but not get sidetracked
has enemies that drop currency, so repeated runs slowly build you up (assuming you always collect your shade)
has enemies that train you on the bosses timings or counters (if the boss is parry heavy, put a tricky-to-parry enemy enroute back)
has a “speed route” that let’s you bypass most or all of the run once you’ve figured it out
These factors make a run both interesting game play and still a form of progression. A badly designed run lacks these factors, being just a slow slog to get back into the boss fight.
My biggest complaint so far is the double damage. Every boss and so many common enemies do nothing but double damage. Why even have 5 HP instead of 3? And it being 5 (and bind healing 3) have compounding effects with this problem. Taking a single hit on the way to a boss actually costs you an entire “boss hit” so runbacks are worse all around. Trying to heal mid boss only gets you “one and a half” hits back which takes a lot of silk to build up and probably is a worse deal for you than just using the silk to power more attacks.
Double damage would suck a lot less (and be a better mechanic) if you had 6 HP to start, or if you healed 4 at a time, or if bosses didnt always do 2 damage. There’s no tension to avoiding punishing hits because every move is equally punishing. It makes fights feel very conservative which is maybe intentionally meant to evoke Hornet as a careful hunter, using traps and plans to take down big foes.
I find the opposite though, she feels fragile and reactive. I wish starting damage was higher too. I had this issue in Hollow Knight as well, everything takes too many hits. Common enemies are spongy, bosses take at least 33% too long across the board. Especially it gets annoying since a lot of bosses so far get spammier and faster towards their final phases, so you spend so much time dodging the same attacks and looking for openings to chip hits in. Skills and traps don’t do enough damage to feel especially useful either.
I also hate, and this is another compounding factor, the complete lack of enemy HP bars. On regular enemies this is annoying (gotta count my hits) but on bosses it feels negligent. Bosses have multiple phases and take so long to kill, it would be nice to know if my last run was just a hit or 2 away from the end or if I still had a 3rd phase to plan for. It adds to the poor perception of skills and traps as well. Sting Shard and Thread Storm both seem to hit several times, around a half-dozen, but neither seems to do much more damage than a couple of regular hits.
Overall I’m really loving Silksong, the art and music are top notch. The DLC for HK convinced me that Team Cherry and I disagree about some fundamental ideas in game design, and HKSS bears that out.
I’m pretty early into the game as well, so I almost didn’t say anything. But even if theres a charm that adds HP bars later, I would be annoyed about it. Why wait so long? I’m over 10 hours in. Why take a slot with it? I get similar annoyances about the compass, but at least that one I can understand because maybe some people like the challenge of landmark navigation using just the maps. There is a skill there, and it is part of the skillset of Exploration (a major pillar of design in any metroidvania).
The yellow tools, in general, I’m iffy about the design of. So far I only have 3: compass, more shards, and auto-collect beads. Of these, auto-beads is the most obviously useful. You need many beads, and they get lost pretty easy. Shards are super common and don’t have many uses. But none of these are essential, and all of them get less useful the later into the game you get. The tradeoff is only meaningful early game, and seems to encourage a balance between memorizing the levels and grinding, neither are amazing activities.
Having the compass charm tied to ALL map markers would certainly up the utility of it, though it’s gating another feature behind both a purchase and a charm. I’ve also only found 1 semi useful trap\red-charm so far. Maybe having more traps and skills that required shell bits would put more pressure on needing them and make the charm that gives extras more appeal for a trap-heavy play style?
Again, I grant that maybe I’m too early in the game yet, but I feel like these systems should be coming together and cohering more after a half-dozen bosses and 10 hours of play.
I, uh, have kinda given up on progressing for the foreseeable future. I’m bad at platforming, and after struggling for probably around half an hour to get through one aection that was particularly difficult for me, I was met with a surprise boss fight. Nearest bench before that section. It’s brutal. It takes me about 5ish minutes to do that section now, but fuck I wish I were exaggerating. None of the other fights have anywhere near as nasty a runback and it honestly feels like they forgot a bench.
The game is hard and that’s fine, but that instance I feel ok bitching about and don’t feel like I’m a qhiny pathetic fuck for doing so, which is incredibly telling given how easy it is to make me feel like a whiny pathetic fuck.
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