Hollow Knight

This game is so great it deserves its own thread.

I'm now 35 hours or so into this, and I have no idea how much progress I have made. Every time I play it I discover something new, or a new power, or a new secret. The map gets bigger, there are new enemies. And I get better, too. But as I posted on the other thread, I'm still not even sure what the objective is, so I have no clue how close I am to achieving that! Which is a little annoying, except that the design and writing and gameplay is so exemplary I'm having a blast just wandering around, finding and fighting things. I haven't had this much fun playing a game in ages, and I feel like in some ways it's preparing me for when I finally get around to cracking open my copy of Dark Souls on the PS4.

this is a dark souls game posing as a metroid game and i got duped by it

I think it's a great hybrid of lots of stuff, but I think what is key for me is as of yet I'm not sick of looking at it. I just love the art and design. That was my problem with Celeste (besides hurting my thumbs and me not really getting any better at it).

Something else I've liked about it so far is that I don't think I've hit an enemy or spot I couldn't figure out yet, or at least that required some sort of trick or luck or esoteric strategy. Part of that is because you can almost always go another way, or try some other area. You're never actually "stuck," and whether it's a tricky bit of platforming or an enemy there is no help, per se, just sticking with it until you do the thing. I have turned to one or two wikis or videos, but since there is no right or wrong way to proceed - I've heard of people making it super far before even learning they can upgrade their nail - my biggest takeaway has been discovering stuff/routes/secrets I just didn't see or missed. Or in the case of, say, the dash slash or whatever it is called, needing to look up instructions for how to perform it right. The game is definitely tougher than Steamworld, Dig 2, but iirc in that one I encountered more dead ends that required guidance.

An exception are the plumes of smoke coming up from the ground. I had no clue how to pass them and still don't, because I did a quick google and the explanation was convoluted and foreign to me at this point I decided to just cross that bridge when it became more obvious.

And again, I have absolutely no idea how much of this world I have not explored yet. I have a feeling I'm still at the tip of the iceberg.

Heh, I had accumulated over 10,000 geo just goofing around, and then I lost it all doing something stupid (or at least underestimating a commonplace enemy). Oh well, back to the grind!

this game owns

... but is insanely hard

See, posts like that make me wonder if indeed I have only scratched the surface of the game. I've explored tons, but so far nothing has seemed significantly (as in, stuck for hours) hard, at least not compared to Celeste or even Shovel Knight. An exception so far is Crystal Peak, which I find very frustrating, but I seem to be doing OK otherwise! Though to be fair I don't think I've even tried fighting any of the Dream bosses, and my discovery of the flower delivery quest ended in miserable failure when I diligently made it all the way to the (wrong) place only to get injured and lose the challenge at the last second (though I did discover something useful on the way there, so I guess that's a win?).

insanely was maybe an exaggeration but in my defense I was drunk when I posted that. I was stuck on the hornet but just applied a little patience and cleared her pretty handily. about 2/3 hours into the game now

This game is just the right level of challenge, IMO

I am 40 hours deep, and I think in the home stretch. Just did the second fight with Hornet, taken out 2 of the 3 dreamers, and mapped all the areas except one, I think. The plot is still almost totally opaque to me. Is it possible to get the story without having to watch a bunch of lore videos on YouTube?

I am over 40 hours and nowhere near where you are, I don't think ... or I don't know. I keep finding new stuff to distract me. Right now I keep losing my soul ghost in that sealed room with a beating heart and all those manifesting poison-spitting bee-things (not the Hive). I think I have a long way to go, and regret not leaving more markers on my map.

Out of curiosity I glanced online at a map, and thankfully I think I've explored most/much of the world at this point. Now it's just a matter of discovering all the secrets, unlocking powers, beating enemies/bosses/challenges, that sort of thing, which should be fun!

On sale for $10 right now!!!

I've just opened up my fifth station and I love this so far. The atmosphere and rhythm of it is great, not getting a map at first in each area is a clever way to step up the sense of danger.

My one complaint is the annoying decision to assign the unnecessary quick cast to R - it's too close to RT and I've accidentally triggered it at the worst possible moment so many times.

Apparently they just updated it with a big new free DLC.

Whenever I get stuck I admit I glance at an online map, not for any specific hint but for a general direction as to where to go. But I sometimes I also check in with a particular youtube walkthrough, which is only so helpful, given the person is doing different things in a different order. And yet, every once in a while I watch and he pops into some place for the first time, some place I have been to dozens of times, and just immediately knocks down a hidden wall or finds a secret passage. Similarly faces various challenges in a seriously underpowered state, challenges I have problems with even after getting the thing that does the thing. What the fuck, dude!? How do you do that?

Bought it in the sale and enjoying it so far. Does a story/point develop or is it just amiably running and jumping in different directions?

I think the latter? I have played almost 60 hours and have no idea what's going on!

I should stress/clarify that as I progress, things *are*changing and developing, and there is an overarching mythology to the world. I'm just not quite clear on the ultimate goal, or whether I am moving toward it. I'm certainly doing stuff, but I think it's partly a matter of trying different things and exploring different areas until other things and areas make themselves apparent to you. And with those areas and things and powers come more aspects of the mythology.

That said, every once in a while I get stuck and hit the internet for advice, and sometimes the advice is all stuff I'm am totally unfamiliar with! And I've made a lot of progress! "Oh, first you should get the thing from the place after you beat the guy." And I think, huh, that seems harder than what I'm trying to achieve!

I'm enjoying wandering around randomly! I hope I don't have to remember too much about where I've been.

That said I'm wondering about getting a different controller - I'm not sure the basic set that comes with the Switch is really that suited to platforming. Had the same problem with Celeste. It's hard to do little micro-moves with the joystick.

I had a much easier time with this and the regular Switch controllers than I did with Celeste. But Celeste benefitted from the Pro, if only for comfort.

This is great! Maybe the first Switch game outside of Zelda that I feel like I've really connecting with. But even just finding the coin for the quill and compass seems pretty hard!

It gets easier, gradually. But you know what? I've accumulated so many power-ups and charms and abilities, improved my nail three times, and still I have yet to encounter anything that made me feel overpowered. Even the simplest enemies can take you down if you don't pay attention, and some of the simpler enemies suddenly get more difficult as you progress in the game. Nothing is easy, just easier.

I take it back: the Dream Shield charm, plus or minus a couple of others, has really helped me steamroll the last few bosses, even bosses that had given me a lot of trouble before (like Watcher Knights and Hive Knight). I don't know if it counts as overpowered, because I am terrible and need the help, but a few of those charms (plus extra life, etc.) have really made a big difference, at least added to my growing experience.

Another thing: I had made good progress but ran up against a figurative wall and needed to get a hint online. Not only had I totally forgotten about a boss I'd put off, even if I had beat said boss I literally would have had no idea what to do next. I would have just dashed around indefinitely. I don't know if that's because I missed a clue, or didn't understand, or what, but the game's dedication to ambiguity and elliptical mythology would have gotten me nowhere without some concrete direction. How some of these (you?) serious gamers figure all this shit out is beyond me.

Made it to Greenpath! Loving this. Hands hurt.

Wonderful music too.

feels like the jump button has a lag. Or has different timing than most other games.

Jump is fine for me! But finding it a little awkward attacking baddies on the diagonal (although maybe it's meant to be)

I think there's a problem with my controller when not directly connected. or maybe I am just bad.

jumping is really crisp for me. sounds like a controller issue

Like I said, I'm generally not very good at these games, and not being a game ninja it takes me longer than many to get a hang of things, but I've been cruising along at a pretty steady clip here so I assume the controls are pretty solid. My theory is that lots of 8-bit styled platformers, whether something challenging like Shovel Knight or punishing like Celeste, the style of the art lends themselves to very precise control movement, down to the pixel. But Hollow Knight (like Steamworld) is so beautifully stylized/designed/drawn that while it can be challenging it feels a little less pixel-precise. There are a couple places with very tough platform moves and attacks, but it all feels very graceful to me, not at all mechanical. That said, I've yet to be able to master the nail bounce in Hollow Knight, and I think that is the downside of its art style; when there's something specific and mechanical you have to do, doing something based almost on intuition and instinct rather than robotic precision is a bit more trouble. I dunno. I wonder how I'd do at something like Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze.

I feel like I'm in the home stretch of this game by the way, certainly the final 20% or so, though I get the impression there's an advanced mode or something you need to beat to really finish it.

I have three weeks before I go back to work when I thought I'd have a crack at finishing Middlemarch finally, but, uh, Hollow Knight

All right I started playing this and beat the first boss…it’s good

This game is so good that sometimes I can't even tell if I'm even fighting a boss.

Curious to see how Dark Souls hits you Josh. I haven’t played HK yet (have it on the Switch tho, wanna get thru Zelda first), but a lot of things you’re talking about sound very much DS inspired.

I got it all figured out. Hollow Knight, then finish Doom, then Dark Souls. I can tell you right now that Hollow Knight is at times cute, and funny, and always nice to look at, even when it is really dark. Dark Souls is all gloom all the time isn't it?

um, well, there's a certain humor that can potentially be found in dying a lot, if you look at it from one perspective. but yeah, not too cheerful. but it does an excellent job of setting a distinct and memorable mood

Yeah it’s super gloom for the most part but there’s comedy to be had through getting wrecked like Karl said. Also unexpected lols from certain enemies.

Meant more the unexplained, esoteric nature of it. Also it’s supposed difficulty, but sounds like you’re managing it pretty well in HK.

Man, this Hornet is really really really really hard for a second level Boss

Yeah I'm not much farther than you are and I had trouble with Hornet too - all I can say is just be patient, keep your distance, get in a hit or two when you can but just try to avoid her hits and wear her down

I am super stuck on Hornet too. As much as I appreciate not having to fight bosses again if you'd rather just peace out and do something else (and it's cool you can get your shade back without initiating the boss fight), I wish you could just hit "try again" rather than spending a couple minutes after every regen filling up with soul and heading back to their lair.

The Switch is the first videogame system I've played since the PS2, and the deterioration in my skills is never more evident than when I mess up and die fighting Hornet because my hands are sweaty lol. This game is extremely pretty and fun though, and I look forward to maybe getting to see at least one more area.

Hornet is pretty tough. Mantis Lords are super tough. Watcher Knights were hard. I'm trying to remember a few more. None has been totally maddening yet, except maybe Hive boss for me, mostly because I would get my ass kicked on my way there by enemies, so I'd arrive in a weakened state.

I took an hour and like eight tries to beat the soul master today. After taking an hour and like twelve tries to even open up the way to his room. I haven’t played a game tuned to this kind of difficulty since Viewtiful Joe I think. (Which I never beat.) Celeste B-sides are harder but the deaths are much less of a punishment so they don’t key me up as much.

I think - and I could be wrong - that as you go along money/geo becomes less important, so losing that cash (and the time spent accumulating it) isn't as soul destroying. Plus, there's that dude you can unlock up in Dirthmouth who will restore your soul for a rotten egg, which is a) funny and b) a relief. I do like the spikes in difficulty, though. It keeps me engaged. I thought every single second of "Celeste" was tough, which eventually turned me off.

I really hate this game and love it

I'm definitely really close to (I think) the (first) final boss, and I only know that because once again I more or less did everything I thought I was supposed to be doing and literally had no idea what to do next and had to look it up.

can someone come to my house and do hornet please

iirc just take your time and heal when you get the chance. I want to say there are times she gets tired and you are tempted to attack, but sometimes you just got to take one for the team and heal instead.

if you think hornet is hard just wait for hornet v.2

yeah i never got past hornet the game wasn't hooking me enough to persevere

Hornet was harder for me the first time around. All the time it took to get to Hornet v.2 plus all the upgrades I'd made made it less of a challenge the second time around. Then again, I had a lot of trouble fighting what some consider easier bosses, like Mantis Lords and Hive Knight. Right now started working on (first) final boss and have no idea how hard it will be. But hard enough so far!

Man, some of the art as you wrap up the first phase is gorgeous. And now that I know what my percentage is - 78% - I know how much more of the game there is for me to explore even after I "beat" it.

Rob OTM upthread, I wish I could just hit "fight again" instead of having to go through the five minute kill shade/gather energy rigmarole after every death. It's so frustrating when the shade hits you too!

That said the Green level music is so good, it's gotta be one of the best computer game themes I've heard

I think the music is pretty impressive across the board. I read somewhere that that is one of the few things the tiny team outsourced and spent money on.

Holy shit! Beat the (first) final boss, who was surprisingly fun and not too bad, though man, the match gets super dark and the twist when it's over is ... also super dark. I know there's more to the game, but I have no idea what to expect. Man, what a ton of fun this has been so far.

I managed to beat Hornet a couple days after I posted. There are various bits of good advice on fighting her out there, but one thing I saw helped more than I expected: turn the sound down. I love the music and sound design on this game, but they seem designed to mess with you in this fight, and Hornet's yelps (which are random afaict) are actively distracting since you need to register her moves visually to react well.

In the meantime, I looked up what the postgame White Palace "real" ending game is like, and yeah, no thanks. At least not now. One of the reasons I liked Hollow Knight is that it was not Super Meat Boy or Celeste.

Heh, every once in a while I read something about Hollow Knight and there are references to bosses and battles and challenges I somehow totally missed, despite "completing" the game. Totally nuts, the amount of content in here.

yesterday I bumbled my way out of the logjam I was in w/r/t knowing where to go next, and in the process encountered at two bosses I suspect are optional (one definitely is).

Then I found the part of the map where the enemy bugs all have little cravats and waistcoats

I was unpleasantly stuck again and then I glanced at a walkthrough which suggested I go left and lo and behold, progress.

video games have conditioned us all to go right

Ok I started this and it's pretty great. Just past the False Knight and the area where you get your first spell.

It does feel overwhelmingly massive, even the first area seems huge. And where Dark Souls gives you a bonfire after each boss, here you have to run back to a warp spot, so you're even more tempted to explore a little further instead (and then wind up deep in a new section with tons of currency on the line).

Some travel times stay long, some get shorter. Eventually you get some skills that significantly speed things up, but by then (imo) some aspects of the game get a little tougher, so it sort of balances out.

It wasn't even that long, I just never want to take the time to go back to home base areas even though it's the logical thing to do.

Also the choice not to show boss health bars adds some tension, but also makes it easier not to get greedy near the end.

"A world of insects and heroes" hits my twee heartstrings so hard! And a sidescrolling platformer would be a great change of pace from all these open-worldish 3D games I've been playing lately.

The lack of boss bars was (in this game and others) a little off-putting to me, because there were times I got really frustrated when I died not knowing if I was even remotely close. Definitely forces you to think through strategies and/or adjust expectations.

Beat the hornet lady on the second try! Now I guess I need to backtrack through everything to find the newly accessible places, huh. As you do.

Jealous

Seething, actually

(I’m still stuck there. Playing mario odyssey instead.)

I don't think I've ever liked a game this much so soon after starting it. The design is so enchanting, top to bottom. This is exactly the game I need right now

Beat the Broken Vessel last night, got the double-jump, I’ve got one more Dreamer to murder free

Beat the Hornet (not quite as quickly as Jordan, but definitely < 10 tries), so I've got my dash! THERE ARE CATERPILLARS THAT NEED SAVIN.

just in case you haven't been doing it, be sure to check in on them in their little caterpillar conclave every once in awhile.

The caterpillars are the best. I'm in the City of Tears so far, at a boss. I'm pretty sure I missed two bosses in the last area though?!

Yes! It took me a little while to figure out what was going on there. xp

Got the mantis claw! The part in the same region where you have to jump off walls and dash over a bed of spikes, all to flip a switch, is one of the hardest video game things I've done in a LONG while.

Is that the bit in Queen's Station? I gave up on that after a couple of tries.

I think he means that bridge that leads you out of the Fungal Wastes.
There's a part in Crystal Peak later that is a lot like that but much harder!

I am back to loving this after a brief period being mad at how easy it is to wander into areas you have no business trying

Not far from there, the Mantis Village (which I think is in the Fungal Wastes).

One thing that does bug (hah geddit) is the amount of slow traveling I have to do, what with dying all the time and benches being relatively sparse.

xps

OTOH! The bouncy mushrooms are love.

Other things that I am proud of:
- Figuring out how to kill the Mantises without resorting to projectile blasts (two ways, though one is pure cheese)
- Figuring out how to kill the fungi that spit spore bombs at you

Ah ok, I was thinking of a different area in the FW. There are a lot of super hard platforming zones lol

I bought this a second time, on PS4, because my PC can't run it properly.

I like how the map doesn't update until you save. It makes exploring new areas feel mysterious.

- Figuring out how to kill the fungi that spit spore bombs at you

Good for you, I just started running past them.

Somehow I got the Mantis Claw (which is amazing) but didn't find the Mantis Lords, will have to go back.

I want to say there is only one enemy I totally avoided attacking, and that's the bigger jellyfish that spits out a hollow knight seeking missile. Also, after some of the earlier stages ... change, I tended to avoid those newly aggro enemies.

It's been interesting playing Dark Souls more or less after this one. HK clearly owes a lot to DS, but the design, while dark, I find to be a bit easier on the eyes. DS is just so relentlessly grim.

I haven't found the Mantis Lords either.

Josh, I'm experiencing the same thing with Bloodborne. I unequivocally prefer playing HK, though.

Recently went back to Greenpath to try something with a new ability and as much as the whole game is superbly designed and scored, I would love a sequel/spin-off/whatever that was entirely in this style

The music may be key to this game. I read somewhere that the design team was super small but they decided to splurge on an outside composer, which was smart.

absolutely. Crystal Peak might have ended me without the music

I believe u all but I have been playing this one on mute/listening to podcasts a fair amount

I stumbled into the City of Tears and crawling without a map was some stressful stuff!

All of the audio design in this game is A++; the music, the sfx, the way the volume momentarily cuts out when you get hit, (my favorite) the wonderfully expressive gibberish voice-acting.

Yeah the voice acting rules.

Geo, kalala!

the sound of opening up a hidden passage with your nail is so satisfying

Ok I went back and found the Mantis Lords. Haven't gotten through it yet but I can see how it's done.

The Mantis Lords are surprisingly easy once you get their pattern down. The Watcher Knights on the other hand...(I'm still stuck here)

^ hit the Watcher Knights the other day and while I know tanking up isn't really the solution to these bosses I had no real ideas about them

Are they the four or five knights that sort of roll around in pairs? Make sure you have upgraded your nail at least once or twice before you fight them. There's also a trick to get the chandelier to kill one of them...

What constitutes tanking up in this game, upgrading your masks and getting cool charms?

My nail is on upgrade 2 and I've done the chandelier trick as well. My biggest problem seems to be dodging one's roll attack and getting hit by the other's bounce (or vice versa), or getting smacked while healing. I've tried all kinds of peculiar charm loadouts to help. I think I just have to git gud as they say.

I want to say that/those boss/bosses gave me the hardest time. Oh, wait, there is a magic ground smash attack that I think helped, I forget what power that was ...

Ok I beat the Mantis Lords and it was extremely satisfying.

I tried my hand at the Mantis Lords unsuccessfully. Am I right that they attack too quickly to heal? I got as far as the 2-vs-1 portion and then their double projectile attack pwned me hard.

Then I tried to fight the Soul Master. He can kiss my butt.

0 for 2 against bosses tonight.

I used a key I found on a random door, and it opened up an empty "house of pleasure" which seems to be for world building -- then I found a breakable wall and got into two new zones, wtf.

*sigh* bapanada

I found that the projectile attacks were the only chance to heal, especially when there were two of them (they descend more slowly, and if you stand in the middle they'll just miss you much of the time). But then again I was using a Quick Focus charm that I bought from the large slug lady.

But then again I was using a Quick Focus charm that I bought from the large slug lady.

I *think* I've found her but the charm is apparently 800 geos, and instead I splurged on a simple key. :\

fwiw I put off fighting the Mantis Lords for a really long time. There's a ton of other stuff you could do first

I'm not sure where I'm 'supposed' to go now, I guess back to poking around in the City of Tears? I did beat that Soul Master boss down there.

you have a few options iirc, though that might depend on whether you've bought the lantern yet or not. But even without that, the ability you get from the Soul Master should lead you to some new area(s)

I'm having fun just wandering around, filling in small portions of the map.

I bought the QF charm and that was all the difference -- beat both the Mantis Lords (which makes traversing Mantis Village so much easier) and Soul Eater!

I love the gibberish voice acting on this. So diverse and silly.

I think I'm pretty far into the game. I just got the upgrade that lets you deal with those shaky floors. None of those 3 boss icons have been dealt with, though.

I'm around the same place and feel like I've barely cracked the surface.

Shaky floors? You mean what lets you slam through them? I love the violence of that and a few other upgrades. You bounce and hop around, but a few on them are like BLAM, out like a bullet.

Got my double jump, acid immunity, and second nail upgrade yesterday!

I love how there is no specific order for the upgrades.

Watcher Knights ugghhhhhhhhhhh I even cheated and looked up where to get a Pale Ore because I hadn’t found any and that helped but not enough. Trying the same boss for two hours is the woooooorst

I finally got the poison water immunity, somehow I missed it (and the map) when I went through its area. Also got the extra jump and the third sword upgrade.

I tried to beat a hard boss but died over 10 times. Think I'll explore some more. Got to remember to use that teleport sword power more often -- I've wasted a lot of time moving back to places I die.

There's a way of preemptively killing one of the Watchers, if you haven't tried that. Otherwise, try to isolate the Watchers because when they do different rolls at the same time from the same direction, it's virtually impossible to dodge. Also, get good at down slammed.

I had Defenders Crest and the thorn charm equipped too to do as much damage as possible.

I don't think I ever got a sword teleporter!

watching this thread has gotten me back into this game! i've put 18 hours into it and i'm way behind everyone else. i definitely haven't gotten a sword teleporter, and i only have the double-jump, not the triple.

I got nowhere with the Watcher Knights for a long time, couldn't even beat one. So I went off and did everything else I could (including looking up a whole not-very-obvious area and getting the reward for finishing it) and came back and then beat them on my second go. The upgrade from the very bottom of the map was the one that made the biggest difference.

Also, get good at down slammed.

This should read down slash.

Thanks for the tips, I didn’t actually get what Defender’s Crest did before. I beat them!

Here’s a fun thing, try having the Womb and Defender’s Crest on at the same time. It buffs your bugs! At least I think that’s what is doing it.

Just found the watcher knights myself. Even with the nail upgrades it was hard.

What charms are you guys using? I use a bunch of cheap ones, the sprint (I think this is DLC), dashmaster and mark of pride (aka really long nail). For bosses I put in quick charge.

I almost always used the map, long nail, quick focus and a couple of the smaller ones I can't remember. the one you get from the bee Knight or whatever is useful for some specific tasks.

If I'm just wandering around I use the compass, Grubsong, Longnail, Soul Catcher, and something else, usually Baldur Shell, though Quick Focus is great and Steady Body is kind of a must in some spots. I recently got a fun one that makes three little spider friends who attack enemies and gather soul for you, but I don't use it much since in certain environments they are useless. Stalwart Shell has been useful in a few specific situations.

I am bad at bosses and often have to use weird charm combos on them. Just beat this dude in Royal Waterways by maxing out my spell power with at least two charms and then just blasting it with Shade Soul. Other times I've used a few passive-damage ones like Defenders Crest and Dreamshield. Shamefully, I accidentally beat the mantis lords posthumously with this technique.

I do wish you got more notches more easily just because it's fun to experiment, but I can't imagine ever sacrificing three slots for, say, Flukenest even though it sounds intriguing

Dreamshield! I used that a lot.

I'd probably use it more but it's a little distracting. def a go-to when trying to crack a boss fight

I used Dreamshield a bit and it fit my play style of moving around rapidly and randomly hitting enemies -- but 3 slots was too much.

For normal wandering, I use Wayward Compass, Gathering Swarm, Longnail, Thorns of Agony pretty much all the time, and I fill out the rest of my notches with stuff like Steady Body (which really helps when you need precision jumping with enemies around).

For bosses, Quick Focus is a must, and if I'm resorting to cheese, Thorns of Agony and Defenders Crest. I might try Dreamshield on the current Warrior Dream that I'm stuck on.

So for the boss that you fight more than once, it's still remarkably hard even despite all the upgrades I've gotten!

It seems I'm way closer to the end than I realized! Is there a point of no return, or can I keep roaming around after beating the game?

I think it's the latter but I'm probably about at the same spot you are

i'm not sure how far i am, but getting the monarch wings reaaaally helped out with exploration. i feel like as soon as i found them i almost doubled the map. it also makes playing the game a lot more fun, imo, control-wise.

https://www.reddit.com/r/HollowKnight/comments/8xdhsg/preend_game_checklist/e23da8i/

When you beat the last boss the game will let you continue to use the save that was created at the last bench you rested at. So you don't really have to stress too much about doing every last thing in the game. You can beat the last boss, then load that save again and keep playing the optional content, and eventually beat the last boss again if you want.

I haven't been playing so I'm way behind you all now. I think it's because I'm not sure where to go next and I just need to explore around the City of Tears, so when I only have a free 20 min I'm unlikely to fire it up (compared to having a clear objective like beating a boss).

well, i beat it. the easy version, not the really hard ending. 77%, 38 hours (i am really slow. also i spent about 5-8 hours mid-game just wandering around, unable to find the double jump or other key abilities and just kind of locked into the same few areas)

question: how hard is it to get the "real" ending? i mean, i know it will be difficult. but is this a 9.5/10 difficulty kind of thing or a 9.9? don't say 10, which may never be used so that there is always the possibility of more difficulty

I got into the Black Egg Temple the last time I played, gave what was inside a shot, and was like "I think I've seen enough of this game". I'll go back to it when I feel like just trying hard bosses repeatedly; the last thing I want to do is go hunting for upgrades

the thing i'm worried about is that the real ending is the classic 'beat every boss you ever fought...but this time, all in a row, without ever healing or changing equipment!' style of 'difficult', and i really don't want to deal with that. if, on the other hand, the ending is kind of interesting and it feels like new stuff rather than a remix, i'm game

"I'll go back to it when I feel like just trying hard bosses repeatedly"

lol I have not beaten this game yet, but I wandered into Godhome and was like, game you don't get me

Yeah, I too have kind of left the game alone after I passed my "this is the hard part" saturation point.

I stopped with the first final boss. But what I've seen of the White Palace level, which comes after the first ending, seems so maddeningly frustrating, like Celeste. The farthest I got in the post-game game, which is a lot different from just replaying bosses afaict, is starting to fight the Grimm Troupe, who were haaaaard. Or maybe they're DLC? Regardless, I never fought them in the first place. I never made it to the coliseum either, for that matter, but that seemed fun.

I also reached a point after the “easy” ending where I realized any additional progress (hard ending, hard version of dlc boss, spirit versions of various bosses) was more effort than it was worth

Ah, I skipped the final round of the coliseum, too

I got to what might be the final boss (what you get to when the masks disappear from the map), but I haven't bothered to beat him yet. Don't know anything about different endings. If there's really a boss rush, I'll lose interest just like I lose interest near the end of Mega Man games.

That's a good question, did I beat all the spirit bosses? I can't remember. I think at some point I realized all the dream nail stuff had nothing really to do with the game, as far as I could tell. It was fun and cool, but I don't know if I finished all the related stuff.

this game is haaaaard and so so gooooooood

not quite sure where to go next. I’m avoiding the brooding mawket (?) for the meantime

dung defender down. second nail upgrade bagged. a couple more locations opened. progress

dung defender is my boyfriend

making good progress now. one dreamer bagged. soul master down. the long dash and vertical smash added to my moveset. just need to find another pale ore (for third nail upgrade) and 7 more charms (for last charm slot off the vendor)

did a dozen or so attempts of the boss inside the black egg last night and was making some progress through the phases, I may yet persevere

omw to the watcher knights ;_;

watcher knights buhbye

19h28m in. two masks done... going for the third next

I took a break from Hollow Knight and beat Yoku's Island Express, which is a fun metroidvania that is much easier.

I finally, finally beat those fuckers the Watcher Knights. I took a break from them for a while to take down The Collector, free a few grubs, & get another nail upgrade. The nail upgrade plus using more of my charge attacks did the trick. Had to restrain myself from triumphantly shouting "EAT IT" in my office cube.

I haven't touched this game in a long time (and Bloodborne for even longer), because I don't think I want to deal with the amount of frustration that I'm sure I'd be courting.

I just beat the first final boss (inside the egg), and got the incomplete ending (95 % of the game completed)... And I gotta say, even though I've loved most of the game, that was quite disappointing. Without having read the Wiki for the game, I would have had no idea what the ending was all about, or how to proceed to get the better ending. I mean...
.
SPOILERS FOR THE FIRST ENDING!
.
.
.
...it looks like the dude was sealed inside the egg for some reason? It seemed like he was the source of the orange light that's infected most of the bugs, but clearly sealing him away didn't make the light disappear, so what was the point of that? So I get egg unsealed, kill the dude, and take his place inside the egg? What did that achieve, aren't we just back to square one? Or is the orange infection now sealed away for good? Who knows?
.
.
.
SPOILERS END.
.
And yeah, I was at complete loss what to do next to get the good ending, so I had to cheat and use the Wiki, and apparently I need to collect way more Essence to get an upgrade that will let me move forward? I'm sure I would've figured it out eventually, but that probably would've taken hours, there's absolutely no hint anywhere you can get an enhanced version of the Dream Nail that lets you do other things.

Despite the obvious freedom of exploration, which I love, I feel like up to this point the game has been pretty good at letting you know what the objective is: find the three dreamers, break the seal on the egg, see what's inside. But here they could've at least given some hint how to move forward.

Also, am I the only one who was surprised that two of the Dreamers were protected by bosses while one wasn't? I had saved that Dreamer the last, because based on the area where it's located I was expecting a really gruesome boss fight. So finally I enter the room with the Dreamer's body, all psyched, and... nothing happens? Where's the boss? Did the developers run out of time to come up with one, or what?

Ok, since my comment above I defeated the Traitor Lord and spoke with the White Lady, and her comments made me understand what the first final boss fight and the incomplete ending were all about. But the fact that you can fight the boss and get the ending without ever having talked with her makes me feel this is the one point where the freedom of exploration (which, like I said, is mostly a good thing) in this game makes its storytelling fail.

nearing the end now I think

beat hornet II. fighting ummuu (?)

completed !

65%

amazing game

the hornet battle music really is something else, soundtrack is soooooo good

Can I play this thing with a keyboard and mouse?

technically you could, and i bet you could get pretty far if you have keyboard master dexterity. but you might also get really frustrated and hulk smash your keyboard? depends on your patience level

this game is a stone cold masterpiece in my opinion and everyone who has switch should own it. I can't believe it costs like 20p too - it's massive

things I know I still have to do:
- unlock about 20+ charms
- complete the second trials
- find isma's tear
- do the flower quest
- all of grimm's troupe
- upgrade my nail one more time
- try godhome (lol?)
- get all charm notches/masks

don't think I went to the white palace either

Dammit you guys making me want to try to finish this again.

I know there is a ton of stuff I didn't do, but I loved every second of what I did do.

Played this again last night trying and failing by to beat Zote. Instead, I'm going to try to get more charms to pick up the last notch from Salubra (I've got 24). I also realized that my nail isn't fully upgraded, so I might try the Colosseum of Fools again (I beat the first wave).

Yay! Got 2 more charms, plus a notch from (the second wave of COF), found/beat the Collector (I'd already found the Love Key but had no idea what to do with it), and beat Zote v1.

Also PSA: if you're doing the delicate flower quest, don't think that, because the dreamgate is not explicitly prohibited, it will work, because I tried it and let's just say I had to go back for a fresh flower.

Finished! 89%.

I gave up on the game last year when I was stuck on the Traitor Lord and the HK, but getting the final upgrade for my nail plus getting quick slash makes boss fights way more forgiving.

I will say that I have very little idea of what's going on in the world, which is too bad.

Ha, I think that's yet another element this game borrows from Dark Souls, this mysterious mythology that is as cool and compelling as it is utterly impenetrable.

Hornet DLC!

Ready your Needle!

First look at Hornet's new adventure coming this Valentine's Day, February 14th! pic.twitter.com/LVgKkPYi1U

— Team Cherry (@TeamCherryGames) February 11, 2019

The mythology is not really unpenetrable! If you just explore the world and talk to everyone you meet, it's not that hard to gather what's happening. Though do you need to talk with the White Lady, acquire the Void Heart, and gather enough soul pieces so the moth prophet will give you her final message... Like I said upthread, if you get to the bad ending (defeat the Hollow Knight without the Void Heart), it might be kinda baffling, but at that point the game is helpful enough to tell you you haven't finished it 100% yet, so you know there's more stuff to discover.

For me, I think that I have a hard time digesting story when I have to read it when I'm gaming, and I also took off several months from the game.

Deserves to be here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFAknD_9U7c

it's a whole new game(!!!) not just DLC, apparently http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2019/02/14/hollow-knight-is-getting-a-full-sequel

FUCK ME UP

SO PRETTY.

Live that her moveset seems to be pretty intact, too!

I beat Zote v2, and started on the White Palace! I expected it to be more rage inducing, but then I’ve only lit two of the lanterns.

I totally stalled out on HK, but I'm excited at the prospect of a new game

This game makes me sad because I could never beat the first hornet and I was loving the game up to the point.

Illl buy this obvs

I did manage to beat Hornet, though I gave up on this game toward the end when all my options narrowed to: fight another boss.

My not-a-real-gamer hope is that they offer different difficulty levels this time--I don't really get denying the Chucks of the world the chance to experience the game in full because they couldn't get past one arbitrary checkpoint. But all I want is more levels to explore, so I will also buy this obvs.

I like the setup in Mario Odyssey, where if you're crap at beating a boss, after a few turns an NPC turns up to give you free hearts.

I probably would've managed the boss fight eventually, but I lost patience with all the preamble (after every fight resurrection you have to wander off for ten minutes to collect hearts before fighting).

I finished the White Palace yesterday! It was strangely not as hard our frustrating as I was expecting? Or maybe I've gotten good at the game? (Probably not, I wasn't terribly close to beating Zote 4.)

I've put 60 hours (and counting) into this game! (103% game completion, I think.)

LATE GAME SPOILERS

I'm currently trying to beat the true boss -- anyone else have luck/advice? Incidentally, I love the design: you go into the dream, strike a cool pose, then the screen goes blank except for the name of the boss. Team Cherry's design sense is so beautiful.

END LATE GAME SPOILERS

I beat The Radiance last night (60 hours, 102%). This really is one of my favorite games of all time. Even though it got really unnecessarily hard at times, I love pretty much everything about it.

So very reassuring to read this thread and realize that the consensus is that the plot is pretty impenetrable.

Managed to mostly avoid spoilers before I caved and looked up all the stuff I was struggling with towards the end and was relieved to realize that it was either stuff that I was never, ever going to figure out (how to open the lifeblood door on the way down to the Abyss) or stuff that wasn't really worth doing.

Now I have to convince myself not to start buying Hollow Knight merch.

I love how instantly iconic Hollow Knight has become, just the design alone.

If you're into collectibles: https://www.fangamer.com/collections/hollow-knight/products/hollow-knight-switch-ps4-pc-collectors-edition-game

I still think about this game a lot, just the mood and style of it. Can't wait for the sequel.

Man, this Hornet is really really really really hard for a second level Boss

― Chuck_Tatum, Saturday, 1 September 2018 14:56 (nine months ago) Permalink

Beat the hornet!!!!! In just NINE MONTHS.

Fourth level boss to complete by 2021, I reckon

I don’t know what happened to me, but some SM3, and some Celeste, and nine months later I seem to be um much better at video games?

SMB3 is core platform video game training imo

SMB3 is too fucked up for my baby mind and I cleared a lot of Celeste B sides

I watched a couple of minutes of one of those E3 Silksong playthroughs, and given how the visuals and sound and music made me feel, it really made me consider that Hollow Knight could be my favorite game of all time.

Didn't notice, but apparently there was a big interview with the Team Cherry people at the end of December. No "Silksong" release date, but as I understand it they claimed to be almost done. Also hinted at a totally unrelated game they may have in the pipes. It's kind of remarkable how quiet they've been about "Silksong," but on the other hand it's a nice respite from relentless hype. I'd rather they take their time and get it right than overpromise and underdeliver or, worse, rush a release (though they're clearly not running the risk of the latter at this point, lol).

I just hope they had second thoughts about every single jump being slightly out of reach, requiring the new mechanic of grabbing onto the edge of the platform you're trying to reach and pulling yourself up that was present in the preview they showed a few years back. That didn't look very fun...

Radio silence for "Silksong" remains. First announced back in February 2019 but probably started well before that, there's been basically nothing since that announcement trailer three years ago. Hmm.

Yeah I watched that whole Geoff Keighley thing yesterday in hopes of hearing something about Silksong, but nope. Apparently the pandemic hit development extra hard on this one. Still, maybe something will turn up in the coming weeks.

Speak of the devil

https://kotaku.com/hollow-knight-silksong-xbox-game-pass-team-cherry-gamep-1849051064

I sat down to watch Giant Bomb talk over the Xbox thing yesterday, and I actually *screamed* when I saw the Silksong announcement. And I never even *beat* Hollow Knight, I'm such a poser

I never beat it after the first ending, iirc, when the difficulty spikes to perverse levels (buzzsaws and boss rushes!), but I had so much fun with the game I may just play it again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_lMn6nalqM

video games are hard to make dude

If that were true, then why are there so many of them?

🤔

Eh

I mean, I’ll buy it but I can wait

This video is pretty jerky

Heh, I agree it's pretty lame. The lack of updates from Team Cherry has been equally mysterious and maddening, though, so I took it as more funny than frustrated. Personally, I kind of admire TC's restraint/radio-silence for going on four years without more than the barest of teases. The last glimpse of gameplay was ... three years ago? Is that right?

60 hours in, i’m probably almost done right? still have at least 10 charms to collect. right now the plan is to finally beat this third colosseum challenge and then go fight the final boss.

loved the experience tho, this game is really impressively deep

I don't know/remember where you are at, exactly, but I believe there is a bit more to do ...

I recommended this to a friend that likes Metroid and Castlevania and generally all points in between, but he found it too oppressively lonely to get into. I don't think he made it far at all, though, so I should pressure him to try again or follow a guide or something.

I loved almost everything about this game, but still ended up bailing after a few (?) bosses due to all the backtracking, getting lost and not knowing where I hadn't been and where I should go, etc.

Yeah I got stuck in the maze after two bosses, but fun while it lasted

I’d love to start from scratch again but there’s no point starting another big game when Zeldas out soon

For a first level boss Hornet was freaking hard a fuck

*er, as fuck

Ori: Will of the Wisps scratched all of the itches of a Metroidvania for me. Hollow Knight felt too monochrome, convoluted, and overly challenging for me and I stopped playing it after about 5-8 hours in. Loved the style, atmosphere and mysteriousness of it, though.

Both Oris are beautiful (in every sense). HK is pretty bleak, though nonetheless pretty cute in its own way.

I think I’m gonna play HK right now. Good plan!

Kind of having my mind boggled that people are calling HK monochrome and too hard when they also play From games.

I loved the bosses and the aesthetic, it was really just the way finding. I think I'm over the Metroidvania thing, it would just stress me out to go past all these areas that were obviously inaccessible until I got some upgrade, then would have to find them all again.

Feels very different from the "aha!" moment you get in a From game when you find the shortcut in a winding level and realize how everything connects.

Just got this game. Died to the first boss

But also I'm playing Ori and they feel quite similar?

I also got stuck/lost and bailed a few hours in. People do love it, but it never really clicked with me. Which is odd cuz I like From games and metroidvania stuff generally. Maybe I’ll give it another spin sometime down the line.

I don’t recall how the map and navigation system works exactly but yeah, I think that was part of what kind of threw the wrench into the works for me.

felt like the first few map areas took me forever to get through but then once i reached the city of tears, the game totally opened up for me. i started navigating and conquering the areas in much shorter times. there is very little hand-holding tho, and it's not always clear where to go (took me forever to find the kingdom's edge smh)

i still haven't mastered the nail arts (rarely use them, prob should use em more), but i've definitely progressed a lot. now i can just demolish that soul warrior guy who it took me something like two hours to beat when i first encountered him in the soul asylum lol

Reportedly Team Cherry quietly changed the "Silksong" domain, which means 6 more weeks of winter.

Been revisiting this in anticipation of whenever Silksong decides to appear. About 15 hours in, just finished Deepnest & Herrah. Is it an unpopular opinion to say this game is maybe *too* big? On my first playthrough, I clocked close to 40 hours and never even finished it, because I just burned out after a while. It makes me wonder if Silksong is going to be even more sprawling, and IDK if I have the stamina for that.

Also I learned recently that there is now a fan-made full voice acting mod, which I just do not understand at all. The gibberish voices are already perfect! I can *kinda* get it from an accessibility standpoint, but from an aesthetic standpoint...meh

I burned out too, the thought of all the Metroidvania backtracking began to feel like a chore. But I really loved the look and feel, and the boss fights, so I'm kinda hoping Silksong will be a tighter experience? Although after all this time I suppose they're going to want to deliver something really big.

i finally got access to the white palace, once i clear this, i think i'm finally ready to fight the knight.

i am def sympathetic to the "too big" feeling, but i have a tendency to completely bury myself in games, so the bigger the better imo. i've clocked close to 100 hours, ready to stop just in time for zelda to take over my life.

Hey gang, just a quick update about Silksong.

We had planned to release in the 1st half of 2023, but development is still continuing. We're excited by how the game is shaping up, and it's gotten quite big, so we want to take the time to make the game as good as we can.

Expect…

— Matthew Griffin (@griffinmatta) May 10, 2023

*gang gets sad*

Ok I'm psyching myself up to get back into this. Curious if it will be possible to get back in the swing of things on my old save, given that I have no memory of anything.

That's sort of a weird waking nightmare I have, that I will be mostly through a challenging game and then get distracted by something else, and by the time I get back to it I have forgotten how to do anything.

Haha. Ok, it took a few bumbling deaths and accidentally selling something for a few hundred currency units and dying again, but I'm back in! Apparently I'm at the Royal Waterway, and I've found two bosses there.

Lol, yesterday I beat the infamous Dung Defender, then in the next area I threw all of my money in a fountain just before running into the map seller and the paid bench unlock for the area. I guess I thought it might function like a bank? That one is really on me.

i love the dung defender

I'm fully committed now, but I've seldom had less idea where I'm supposed to go in a video game.

I've got the super dash and the double jump so now we're fully ready to wander.

I accessed the 'dream nail' version of one of the bosses (Broken Vessel/Lost Kin) for the first time, did you all do those? Is it worth it? I like the boss battles but I'm not especially compelled to repeat them, but maybe it's something you do later on when you're fully powered up?

It's been too long to remember the details, but I don't recall a clear incentive to do all the dream nail battles. But I didn't do all the post-game/deep endgame stuff, either, so maybe it has something to do with that?

Lol, yesterday I beat the infamous Dung Defender, then in the next area I threw all of my money in a fountain just before running into the map seller and the paid bench unlock for the area. I guess I thought it might function like a bank? That one is really on me.

― Random Restaurateur (Jordan), Thursday, May 11, 2023 3:08 PM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

If put 3000 geo in it gives you a vessel fragment, which I only discovered after looking at a guide and trying to figure out how I'd missed so many upgrades

I'm currently playing on the Switch which I'm convinced has some control issues over the PC version, I've played both now and I don't think it's just me. It just feels like something is slightly off and they aren't tight enough to pull off certain moves with confidence every time. I find I'm constantly ending up diving straight into the ground when I should be going left/right, and it feels the game only randomly decides when you've successfully pulled off a downstrike or not leading to some sections just being absolute misery. Trying to obtain the vessel fragment in Deepnest is the worst so far, total hell.

Supposedly there's been some movement on the Silksong front. Has there ever been a game that missed an entire console generation between announcement and release?

duke nukem forever was announced in 1997 and released in 2011. and wow was it worth the wait!!!!

Def the Chinese Democracy of games. That Bethesda game that came out last year was under dev for at least 10 years, but apparently only announced 5 years before it came out.

When did half life 3 come out again?

When it finally drops, I'll be curious what the story was that drove development to take so long. I don't care if they're a small studio, the first game took a small handful of people only 3-4 years to create. 7+ years is a long time for this genre, even if a solo developer was putting it together. I'd be willing to bet the pandemic and lockdown had a huge negative impact.

Though perhaps it will be like 2-3 times the size of the first game; an Elden Ring style expansion over DS3?

I assume they calculated their days-cash-on-hand and decided to blow up the scope

Delays are understandable, but I wonder what accounts for Team Cherry's near complete radio silence?

They don’t owe you shit is what

For sure. That's why they don't *have* to do it. But they do have a web presence - twitter, facebook, youtube, website - just not one that's updated. At this point I'm honestly more worried for the team than anxious for a new game.

You think this team of three people who made bank with their first game are struggling to keep the lights on?

No, I was thinking more mentally/emotionally.

Yeah true... I imagine they won't be rushing into Hollow Knight 3 after this one drops.

@griffinmatta I just want to know if the game is progressing in its development or if the team has given up on the project, please i only need a: yes, the game is real and someday it will release", PLEASE 🙏🏻😭 https://t.co/Uyki85Zpc6

— Leo (@Leo_C007) January 18, 2025

Of your like me and have been ignoring the Switch 2 stuff:
https://www.pcgamesn.com/hollow-knight-silksong/launch-window

sure

the official switch account tweeted about it, if that means anything

It was in an official Xbox thing in 2022, when the Microsoft guy said next 12 months, so no later than June 2023. I haven't watched this, but there was virtually no footage, right? And no new footage? Not saying it's not coming out this year, but it has been announced before.

Oh I know, this could be another false start, but there was skepticism about the XBox showcase thing IIRC.

lol well plenty of people are skeptical about the Switch 2 thing now, so I guess I'm not going to hold my breath.

Apparently the Summer Games Fest (?) trolled Team Cherry hard enough that one of the devs actually broke radio silence and responded. I guess there is an Xbox thing tonight, too?

https://www.eurogamer.net/hollow-knight-silksong-release-once-again-confirmed-2025

No actual date yet, it's still just a vague release window.

https://preview.redd.it/ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-v0-va8eg0cq0r5f1.jpeg?width=1080&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=0027769cb39e0ffcb3f8b1f2e94d6725719999f0

https://preview.redd.it/thank-you-leth-v0-c1oykj2u4r5f1.jpeg?width=1080&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=718692cb1b9c9451e751669ccf3c151aa38a59d1

NOT A DRILL:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XGeJwsUP9c

never thought i’d see the day

haven't had a chance to watch that, do they give a date? or has it been suddenly dropped?

that video isn't live yet, it's still 42 hours away from the premier.

what if after all this, it’s… like, bad… ?

HERETIC.

if this game is shit, call me dung defender

its going to be hollow knight but with a different map and moveset. hard to imagine that landing too far above or below hollow knight in quality. maybe the extra time has gone towards some big cool setpieces idk. it still looks like hollow knight in the new footage though

yeah I fully expect it to be great. it’d just be funny tho, after such a long wait, if it stunk

didn't they mention an insane number of new enemies or something?

TWO WEEKS!

um holy fuckin shit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XGeJwsUP9c

psyched. how much?

was fully expecting to see "2026" pop up after the "September 4"

are you really going to turn your nose up at the price at this point?

guy who feverishly waited 7 years for the game but decides not to buy it because it's $25 instead of $15 this time

if you equip the defender's crest, they might sell it to you for $20

also sounds like the reason it took so long truly was because they were enjoying making it and had the financial stability to take their time and make it without staffing up from the hobbyist level of the first game. no drama or setbacks

https://bsky.app/profile/jasonschreier.bsky.social/post/3lww5zc46522y

Hollow Knight has always been a bargain, just wondering if they're still bucking trends and pricing low. I'll pay whatever, lol, support indie games, etc.

“What is Jira?” Gibson said when I asked if they used the task-management application.

“Is it a software?” Pellen said, adding that they’d briefly used Trello before their account was deactivated because they didn’t use it enough.

lol

what’s another two years’ wait for it to drop to £6.99 on the eshop at this point

lol, I'll probably end up buying it more than once, again.

also sounds like the reason it took so long truly was because they were enjoying making it and had the financial stability to take their time and make it without staffing up from the hobbyist level of the first game. no drama or setbacks

― ciderpress, Thursday, August 21, 2025 12:27 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

read some thing that said that a lot of successful indie games never get follow ups because their authors have enough money that they can just keep working on them forever without ever releasing

lol

“There was a period of two to three years when I thought it was going to come out within a year.”

holy shit

When the studio announced Silksong in February 2019, Hollow Knight had sold 2.8 million copies. The game has sold another 12 million copies since then

salute to team cherry for living their best lives

yeah the classic "# of steam reviews * 30" estimator would suggest its sold ~4 million just on there. and it was a big early Switch game too, freaking Reggie introduced it in the E3 nintendo presentation the year it came out

taking seven years to make silksong was a genius business decision

probably the 2nd biggest hit all-time in indie games after stardew valley? hades is up there too but supergiant is like 50+ people, not 1-3, feels like cheating

Bloomberg article on archive.is:
https://archive.is/20250821173550/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-08-21/why-silksong-team-cherry-s-sequel-to-hollow-knight-took-so-long-to-make

The end hints at a Stardew Valley like process of bonus content

Gibson and Pellen say they’re happy that the game is finally coming out — and even happier that they will get to keep working on it, which they still find enjoyable even after seven years. They haven’t burned out or shown any desire to take a break. Instead, they’re already making big plans to add extra content to Silksong in the months and years to come.
“Launching it is obviously quite exciting,” Pellen said. “What comes after for us is equally as exciting.”
“The most interesting thing now is what can we add to it next,” Gibson said. “We got a plan. Admittedly, some of the plans for that stuff are kind of ambitious as well, but hopefully we can achieve some of it.”

We'll see if they learn the lesson of Silksong being a "DLC" for Hollow Knight, and have a piecemeal approach for content they add, but who knows with these guys. They're living the dream down in Adelaide.

hollow knight got a bunch of dlc even before they spun off the hornet dlc into a full game

i think it was already packed in by the time of the console releases so people might not know it as DLC

aha - good to know, I never finished HK, played it for a few hours on the Switch during lockdown (so well after it was "completed") and got frustrated when I had a huge quantity of "souls" vanish on a run and then forgot wtf to do or where to go. I should go back and start a new game but tempted to try out Silksong instead. I adore a good Metroidvania, but HK's Soulslike elements threw me off when I first played it.

Yeah, the hybrid nature makes it pretty tough! iirc I followed a guide for at least some of it.

xp yep i had the same experience and bounced off it back then. but i think i'm less sensitive to that type of friction now, at least in 2D games

yeah the classic "# of steam reviews * 30" estimator would suggest its sold ~4 million just on there. and it was a big early Switch game too, freaking Reggie introduced it in the E3 nintendo presentation the year it came out

― ciderpress, Thursday, August 21, 2025 1:07 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

billboard article says 15 million copies sold

xp yeah same. This was before I got into Elden Ring (the first Fromsoft game I played and beat), which also kinda threw me off for a bit when I kept trying to bash my head towards Stormveil until a friend told me to head south first and clean out the Weeping Peninsula. I'll definitely do that for HK and/or Silksong if I get a bit stuck next time.

i'm still so highly amused by that article, the degree to which they didn't scale up at all just kept happily making their cute bug game with 3 guys in a grungy office as millions of dollars poured in year after year. miraculous stuff

probably the 2nd biggest hit all-time in indie games after stardew valley? hades is up there too but supergiant is like 50+ people, not 1-3, feels like cheating

Minecraft is technically an indie game isn't it?

I guess they were bought by Microsoft

yeah i guess that might count

hollow knight is clearly the greatest game of its type ever made so i'm delighted that the sequel's almost here

as far as 'best-selling indie game' goes:

terraria has sold 64m

minecraft had sold 54m by the time it was sold to microsoft (it's currently 350m)

stardew valley has sold 41m

phasmophobia has sold 25m

there's a few more (the forest, don't starve together, valheim, lethal company) that have clearly sold somewhere in the ballpark of hollow knight based on steam stats but no exact/recent figures are available. the games industry is incredibly opaque with sales figures in general, except for a few of the big publishers (capcom and nintendo are the ones that come to mind) which are fairly open. hades was very successful but it doesn't seem have sold as much as hollow knight (the only figure available is 'more than 3m' and it has 1/3 of the steam reviews as hk, which is an ok proxy for steam sales)

other indie hits: among us, five nights at freddy's, human fall flat

Among Us is f2p though.

oh yeah i forgot about human fall flat which has sold 55m

the five nights at freddy's franchise overall seems to have sold a lot (mostly on mobile?) but there's no exact figures and it doesn't seem like any individual game has sold particularly high numbers

most of these ultra-successful games got mobile ports which is probably where a large amount of their sales came from but mobile games are just a different world really to the point it makes comparisons a fair bit less like-for-like

mobile games are just a different thing entirely yeah

playing through hollow knight again and it's still the best. this time i'm going to try to do the white palace and some of the other ultra-hard bullshit (one of the few negatives really) i never managed originally, we'll see. it's kinda wild that out of all the indie metroidvanias released since then i can only think of one that really feels indebted to hollow knight's very open design, which is one of its great strengths

the large amount of optional ultra-hard bullshit is pretty cool the arena where you fight waves of enemies, the second end boss, the pantheon where you can fight all the bosses and fight all of them in a row

and the white palace of course

i did the white palace but not the path of pain

It's gonna be $19.99. I actually saw a few people complaining that it should cost more!

$20 is pretty standard for the type of game it is. did people think elden ring or baldurs gate 3 fucked up by not pricing at $100?

The two arguments I've seen are that Team Cherry *deserves* to charge more, and that setting the price so (relatively) low hurts other less rich indie devs that want to charge more. Both arguments are pretty silly.

https://i.imgur.com/WqD9K4b.png

I was pleased to hear they priced it at $20. Given the amount of time they put into it, plus inflation, it wouldn't have surprised me if they priced it closer to $40. But they'll make money hand over fist either way. Presumably being such a small core team allows them to keep costs low compared to AAA devs and even some indies

switch eshop has wet the bed

steam too apparently

Not on PS5, yet, either. Lol, after all that ...

Maybe Team Cherry forgot to set their alarm?

Wonder why they didn't have pre-orders/pre-loads?

was just trying to buy a game on Steam but it kept erroring out
was wondering why Steam was broken, guess I know now why lol

Purchased and (waiting for it to start) downloading for PS5. Will probably wait to finish a few things before diving in, though.

very much HK 1.5 so far, about two hours in. looking forward to it opening up - already encountered my first soft lock boss

How does Hornet handle compared to the Knight? The trailers all make it seem like she's much faster and more fluid, but trailers can never really translate a game's kinetics

was wondering the same hollow knight had a sort of old school floaty feel compared to say metroid dread that was super sharp and fast

about an hour and a half in, first thoughts:

control/handling: so far, very much like hollow knight! i love the hollow knight feel so cool with me

i’m wondering if there are some bugs? i’m playing steam/mac, but a number of weird things have happened related to the map and crests/tools. like, i bought a bunch of map enhancement stuff, including a compass which was supposed to show me where i was, but it just doesn’t work. same with buying tokens to mark the map - you buy them, but you can’t use them(?). and biggest problem, same with the tools you find. you’re supposed to be able to change them out at the rest benches, same as hollow knight. the very first time i tried, i saw the word “tools” (i think?) when i sat down at the bench, but i couldn’t select it. and then, i’ve never been able to access it ever again - in fact now it doesn’t even say “tools” (?) when i sit down at the bench, or show it as an option. i rebooted a few times, no luck.

so basically i think there will probably be a little patch soon to fix stuff like that, i’ll probably resume my journey then!

i have purchased the game

i’m wondering if there are some bugs?

lol

ha

lol

Oh, also something I love - in this game, you, the main character, “talk” and say things! You have a personality and you don’t just stare blankly as bugs (and fleas and ticks) talk to you! Very nice

I was able to equip the compass at a bench

I love the map salesman’s vibe

The voice acting is low-key Hollow Knight's greatest contribution to the canon.

Map salesbug is a great one

And thanks ||||||||, yeah I can’t access the equipment (or anything, like the menu) at the benches, weird

(just in case someone reads this has my issue, i’m using an old ps4 controller via USB, and it still doesn’t access some of the menus, but you can use the mac keyboard (like Q) to access the menu

the red flower platforming sections are going to rip some people’s knitting

(mine)

the diagonal pogo spacing is tricky

Beat what I assume is the tutorial boss on my second try, these old fingers need to some practice.

do think the controls are a lil snappier in this that diagonal attack is fast the lil flip jump off of a platform corner is slick wonder what youll be able to do with more abilities

the red flower platforming sections are going to rip some people’s knitting

(mine)

― ||||||||, Thursday, September 4, 2025 4:39 PM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

these are so good

this game is absolutely excellent but it's so fucking hard lmao, it's a significant step up from the first game. it is just brutally punishing and money is much tighter (not helped by only some enemies dropping the main currency)

How does Hornet handle compared to the Knight?

the basics are very similar but she has a bigger moveset & the dash upgrade comes alongside a sprint which opens up a lot of options. so, like the first game but faster & more fluid is otm

(just in case someone reads this has my issue, i’m using an old ps4 controller via USB, and it still doesn’t access some of the menus, but you can use the mac keyboard (like Q) to access the menu

the button for the menu on a ps4 controller (which i'm using) is the left of the touch pad. maybe try rebinding the controls if you're having trouble with that button?

yeah it’s brutal - the red flower sections are kicking my arse

those sections are much more manageable if you get one of the crests that have a pogo like the first game's. there are two i've come across so far that have this, they're available relatively early but not right at the start

that run from the bench through the red flower platforming sections to the first colosseum-style mini-boss fight gave me no amount of trouble

it’s so satisfying landing a combo of in-air pogo attacks on an enemy without touching the ground

talk about cost of living crisis - everything is quite expensive, and money quite scarce (and easily lost)

also there's Souls-like opacity with the game mechanics- should I buy that crafting kit to upgrade my needle, or is that just a waste of my precious ball bearings?

in general i've found that if a shop's item description is incredibly vague, you absolutely want the item because it will be an important upgrade in a way that was not at all obvious from the description

the movement in this is so good once you add a few powerups - you basically turn into a ninja

It's been a while since I played the first one, but iirc, as with most of these sorts of games, you can never go wrong with upgrading health/healing and weapons, esp. early on. Other important progression stuff, like double jumps or zipping or whatever, seem gifted to you at the right point.

team cherry have done it again. masterpiece

how's the music? in some ways that's what I remember most about the original

That and the rain/nature sounds combo, just so moody and evocative.

music is just as strong as last time, and much much more of it is live instruments this time (although sadly not all)

the art is clearer in this one more delineation between the foreground and background

having said that i need to figure out how to upgrade my sword i got to a too hard area

awesome, thanks. I will almost certainly buy this, but ufo's comments about the difficulty were giving me pause. the only bad thing about the original was that, because I played it after not playing any video games for a decade, it made me think I liked metroidvanias (or w/e) in general, rather than HK being a unique aesthetic achievement where I could tolerate the difficulty because I loved the visuals + sounds

also there's Souls-like opacity with the game mechanics- should I buy that crafting kit to upgrade my needle, or is that just a waste of my precious ball bearings?

― Critique of the Goth Programme (Neil S), Friday, September 5, 2025 6:19 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

im enjoying the opacity tho i did get to some lil kiosk that asked for 80 units and i deposited it and nothing happened it just asked for more, also the store you have to pay to get in cmon

fuck birds

nonces

every flying enemy is a hard-coded wee arsehole

otm

I was about to post those exact sentiments. I guess an ignoble HK tradition.

Beat my first real boss, I'm starting to cook!

tho i did get to some lil kiosk that asked for 80 units and i deposited it and nothing happened it just asked for more

check your inventory

re: difficulty, it starts out somewhere around midgame hollow knight and escalates further, though it's not really that linear. broadly it just gives you less room for error

a lot of the worst of it is optional fights that are really brutal early on but become manageable much later than you can first encounter them

Iirc isn't there one NPC in the first game that steals your money?

check your inventory

― ufo, Saturday, September 6, 2025 5:56 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

what does it do

Iirc isn't there one NPC in the first game that steals your money?

― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, September 6, 2025 8:27 AM (fifty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

the banker but then you catch her in the hot tub

if it's the thing i'm thinking of it should have given you a rosary string which will give you 60 rosaries when used, so in effect paying 20 beads so the other 60 can survive dying while your cocoon is out there

ah so ty

savage beastfly is owning me

money is much tighter (not helped by only some enemies dropping the main currency)

― ufo, Friday, September 5, 2025 2:57 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

found a good money farming spot on the border of mosshome and the marrow where theres two connections between the areas one right above the other and theres a bench on the marrow side if you start at the bench go into mosshome via the top entrance and loop around through the lower entrance theres five enemies along the way that each drop five beads takes about 30 seconds to get 25 and the bench is handy for not worrying about taking damage

i managed to get through the diagonal-pogo sections, and i get how this is going to be a core mechanic (useful for bopping enemies multiple times and doing clever shit in combat), but maaaaaan honestly the pogo-shovelknight-ducktales mechanic is not one of my faves. it’s like parries. as much as i want to like a game that’s all about the parry, i know it’s probably not gonna work. silksong has plenty of other shit going on so i’m not too worried but maaaaan i find the pogo physically unsatisfying, like it makes me grimace when i do it

there are things that make those sections easier imo - principally by removing need to pogo at 45 degrees, which I find hard to space

yeah i got the thing that lets you do the direct down slash and its way easier but still not easy

there’s some diabolical celeste-esque platforming sections in this

That's kind of scary to hear. The first game, I recall it only got really bad at that very end game part.

they’re optional - though result in goodies

the harder ones are optional. there are some tough platforming sections that aren’t optional tho

there are things that make those sections easier imo - principally by removing need to pogo at 45 degrees, which I find hard to space

― ||||||||, Saturday, September 6, 2025 12:19 PM (forty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah i got the thing that lets you do the direct down slash and its way easier but still not easy

ok i can deal with this - need to find the direct down “tool” asap, i think that’ll help

Just spent probably 30+ fighting one boss only to realize he's not an official boss, AND the next section has hard platforming.

phase 2 widow is a wee fuck

defeated. that was hard

Aaaaand I just kissed 200+ beads goodbye.

So I'm finding the pogoing is a little easier with analog sticks as opposed to the d pad, even though I've seen an article recommending that latter. I'm getting much finer precision with the stick (even if I had to reaclimmate to using it), and probably just a importantly, easier on my thumb!

People are not exaggerating the increased difficulty. Two questions about Hunters March: Are there any benches in the area before the arena? So tired of going through that pogo gauntlet every time I did. Also how tf do I beat the arena? I can barely see what's going on for all the characters onscreen and I tend to die to an attack I don't notice.

on my map in that area, I can only see one bench unlocked

there are a lot of tanks in this game. feel like I need to up my dps

there's a single bench in hunter's march which is clearly marked by a sign outside

if you're struggling there you should just come back later, it's an optional side area and is much easier later on. the only thing there that's any use early on is hidden past the room with the bench and doesn't require clearing the toughest fights

I’m nearing the end of act 1 and the runback for the last judge is some bullshit

Man, I am so torn, because I want to jump right into this game ASAP, but as someone who generally doesn't replay games I also kinda want to wait for everyone to figure everything out so that I don't miss too many things the first time around. Not least because as I understand it the map is bigger than the first game (and that map was huge). Though playing blind can be lots of fun, too.

haha, i love reframing of “quests” as “wish granting”. makes me feel much better

Apparently there is some debate about this game's difficulty. As in, it was created so hermetically that no one had a chance to tell the team when or where to tone things down a little.

I spent three hours on Moorwing last night, and finally beat the fucker, apparently it's one of the easier bosses?

maybe theyre fromsoft pilled

if you get far enough it becomes very clear that the difficulty is intentional, though it's mostly not that bad except for a few specific areas. it is a noticeable step up from most of hollow knight and it's possible to make things worse for yourself by trying to do various fights/areas too early

One description I saw said this feels like a DLC only in the sense that it sort of assumes your hands and fingers are already in shape after recently beating "Hollow Night."

Bosses!

Beating Lace was a lot of fun!
Fourth Chorus(?) killed me in I think 20 seconds.

I've come to the conclusion that this game is a rhythym action game with some platforming and exploration interludes

rhythym action game

Ugh, please don't say that.

It's a rhythm action game in the same way that soulslikes are.

BTW patch next week is going to make parts of the early game easier: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1030300/discussions/0/595159519774039622/

I just encountered one of the bosses that are getting nerfed, I wonder if I'll be able to beat them before the patch.

the flying boss that’s getting nerfed was a right pain. I didn’t think the other boss was all that bad (except the adds were annoying)

I just managed to beat Sister Splinter today after a long time trying, I just couldn't get the hang of dealing with the Groot minions

i’m watching my roommate play it but i like how hard it is lol

It's a rhythm action game in the same way that soulslikes are.

Gotcha. I was worried it would be like some of those legit rhythm games, where you have to memorize certain patterns and parry timing to get everything just right. I hate those. Soulslikes, I can handle them (with a Sekiro sized asterisk, though even that one I more or less finished).

its hard but not crazy im def getting better at it than if it was easier like i wouldnt have bothered with bouncing off a flower to dash to bouncing off a flower if i didnt need to but now i can do it

I just managed to beat Sister Splinter today after a long time trying, I just couldn't get the hang of dealing with the Groot minions

― Critique of the Goth Programme (Neil S), Tuesday, September 9, 2025 10:45 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

the minions are assholes for real

i like the round slow armored guys with spears in the deep docks. they remind me of tick-tock from the return to oz

I'm trying not to spoil the game by looking at comments, so maybe this was mentioned already.

In the early game at least, it seems like the game is constantly forcing hornet into a small area with a boss and forcing the fight in order to get the next progression skill to leave. It's kind of annoying. Super Metroid did this only once, with the walljump aliens! At least the optional upgrades are pretty worthless so far.

Is the boss being nerfed moorwing, the one you fight with an assistant? That's what i'm currently stuck on.

yeah that one and another one

man the reaper crest makes jumping on the flowers etc so much easier theres levels to the jumping on flowers game

Further fixes are already being worked on for a second patch. If you have an issue and you don't see the solution in the list above, we may be working on it.

about 12 hours in now! i can confirm that the pogoing thing is much less of a big deal, difficulty-wise, after a couple other skills are unlocked. it’s interesting, in that they force you to git gud with pogo skill though, before they let you go easy on yourself

late 90s alt kid what’s on your skip-proof cd player in the alt universe where silksong came out as the sequel to super metroid?

wish fulfillment

you really need to get good at the pogoing because there’s some gnarly “path of pain was a piece of piss” platforming sections coming up

I discovered the worst place in the game, bilewater

Oh is that the version of Deep nest in this game? This time with horrible giant screaming rats? I probably need to explore some more because I'm going commando i.e. without a map.

no map thats crazy

going commando is actually when you wear no underwear without a map

whats it called when you wear a map as underwear

oh that’s going private first class

ah very good

Turns out I missed the map yesterday because I turned left instead of right.

high halls arena fs

Just a couple of animation touches that have yet to stop amazing me: Hornet's cloak spinning around her when she walks, and the way she somersaults if you jump again after she catches onto the corner of a ledge.

every time I think I’ve discovered the biggest bullshit this game has to offer, it serves me up some even bigger bullshit. celeste C sides have nothing on mount fay

hornet is not a never nude

insanely good game. it’s massive - I’ve gone from “how can it take team cherry so long to make this” to “woah they made all of this, in that little amount of time between the three of them”

Exploring Shellwood: pogoing (UGH) through that one bouncy flower/spikes platforming section, I saw a side cavern and got my fourth mask shard, so now I have 6 hearts! But then on my way towards the trapped flea, I get ambushed by some "flower" that spits projectiles at me and kills me. Decided that'll be it for now and am done for the day.

God I just do not like these games at all. As utterly tedious and full of “where the absolute fuck do I need to go now?” as the first. On paper for me. Was able to dig the thru and enjoy the esoteric depths of Animal Well, play every From game. But these bounce off so hard.

On paper for me *in my wheelhouse

God I just do not like these games at all. As utterly tedious and full of “where the absolute fuck do I need to go now?” as the first. On paper for me. Was able to dig the thru and enjoy the esoteric depths of Animal Well, play every From game. But these bounce off so hard.

yeah i recognise. just find the mechanics very… well, what a former gf would have described as “niminy piminy” (no, no idea, might even be deeply offensive, wouldn’t have a clue - but it just *fits* here)

u gotta love to backtrack to play metroidvanias which tbf is a normal thing to not love doing

I don't think you have to live it because I certainly don't, but some of it is mitigated by unlocking fast travel points.

I'm not sure but I may have beaten Moorwing because they're no longer at that location, but that could also be because freeing a certain number of fleas cause them to travel there and moves the Moorwing fight to Act 2 if you haven't beaten them yet.

The "run" is a big part of Souls games too. though I don't think anybody complained about Elden Ring making it a lot easier by putting those Stakes outside boss fights.

i love backtracking to find new areas in metroid, the dark souls corpse run isnt the same thing as that, it's redoing rather than progressing. these games have both

I kind of agree, on paper I should love this (have finished every Souls game multiple times, etc) but I bailed on Hollow Knight too. I had a really hard time keeping the map in my head or feeling the desire to go back and explore, which was not a problem at all in the recent Prince of Persia or Blasphemous 2 (the last two Metroidvanias that I really got into).

I normally hate backtracking which is why I bounce off metroidvanias but the moment to moment gameplay in this is so satisfying, just exploring is generally pretty fun

Agreed with everyone on the adds in the Sister Splinter fight, I think I kind of lucked into beating her a bit, but who cares, I can put that fight behind me now.

I also found my second spool fragment so now I have incrementally more silk to spend. Saw another hateful platforming section and noped out of that.

I’ve beaten - by most accounts - the hardest arena in the main game. the final wave was brutal

The patch is released already, exactly when I'm not sure, but I want to believe I beat Sister Splinter pre nerf (yesterday).

I just waded through 2 unmapped areas without any save spots. I got as far as possible and received next to nothing for it. grrr.
Also I used my one key on the door to the west. I received a subweapon I never use, because I always go with venom, and if you combine it with venom they cancel each other out.

which areas? you very likely missed a map and some benches at least

think I’m on the act 2 final boss

difficult sections ranked
1. high halls arena
2. lace 2.0
3. widow
4. mount fay climb
5. just bilewater generally

ufo: it was the areas to the right of sinner's road. bilewater and the mist.

https://www.eurogamer.net/what-weve-been-playing-enjoy-the-rest-of-your-evening-going-around-in-circles-and-dying-lots

The other night, I let my children watch me play Silksong before they went to bed. They probably sat with me for about 20 minutes before I paused to tuck them in. "Goodnight my love, sleep well," I said to my daughter. She replied, with complete sincerity: "Goodnight Mama, enjoy the rest of your evening going around in circles and dying lots."

She wasn't wrong.

I'm banging my head against the Widow fight now, and I feel this sentiment acutely.

i got to the widow fight and just noped out ill come back when theres nothing else i can do

That might be the right move for me but think I'm being overly attached to the 40 rosaries that are now stuck in her arena.

Won't get to play this for a couple of weeks I think, but I'm both intrigued and scared by the diverse opinions. I've heard some people say this is harder than Hollow Knight. I've heard some people say it's just as hard, not sure I've heard anybody say it is less hard. I've definitely heard some people say it's harder than Sekiro, for example, but I've also seen people say it's a lot easier. Sometimes I will play a game somebody considers difficult and it's not that bad, sometimes I will play a game others consider easy or manageable and I find them super difficult. The only games I think I've bounced off of for being too difficult either I find super boring in terms of repetition or I get worried I will break the controller, not by throwing it or anything like that but just the way I play, I'm worried about stick drift and damage. Celeste was a pretty dramatic combination of the two, super difficult and twitchy and also potentially controller damaging. At least Hollow Knight and I presume this game looks cool and has good music and atmosphere, that counts for a lot.

much to consider

josh if you liked hollow knight you’ll like silksong

I'm sure! I remain super psyched and frustrated that I am away from the console!

For what it’s worth, i found Sekiro to be so difficult (for me - I hate parrying) that i was not having fun. My biggest thing is just “am I having fun”. Silksong can be difficult, and I have let out the fuck word a few times, but in general I can’t wait to get back in there and explore

Yeah, can't wait. Hollow Knight, to be honest I didn't bother with a lot of the very end or post game, it just seemed way too hard. But the game that I did play, the bulk of it I assume, was a blast, so I don't feel bad about not 100% completing it. Similar Sekiro, I did make it to at least the first ending, then didn't have the energy to continue (because I hate parrying, too) but generally appreciated what I did before that.

i never beat hollow knight. i don’t beat most games, actually. i just play until it’s not making me feel good anymore. i loved hollow knight because i felt that way riiiiiight up to the end, the final boss run (or not ‘final’, i know there’s lots of post-game contents challenges etc), i died like 10 times in a row and thought “what does it matter, to actually ‘beat’ this. i played through like 90% of the game and it ruled”. then i offered a prayer to the sun gods and meditated in the woods for 4000 days until silksong came out

I've got news for you, Silksong has a parry mechanic (which I only gradually learned about through repeated moments of fanfic button mashing). The actual good news is that it doesn't seem to be essential during most combat AFAICT.

oh, i mean, i’m parrying in silksong! on accident, most of the time, but yes it’s there. and i bet there will be a parry-specific boss at some point and i am going to hate that shit! but luckily i am enjoying most of the rest of the game (and finally got the crest that lets you do the down-pogo motion, which also seems to freeze you in the air for a moment, too, which helps when you’re trying to do hunter’s march pogo-heavy core, which has made life much easier

so consider the news ALREADY digested! lol jk <3

Hell you're ahead of me! I'm still diagonally pogoing, though I've gotten ok at it.

you can unlock a more sophisticated parry too

i am NOT ahead of you! every time i check your hide tags i’m like whoa leeee is way ahead of me

but for real i’m still in the early goings i think, like i just defeated BEAST for possibly the first time? thinking beating beast might be related to that other part where i can see and hear a giant beast trying to break through a wall? although, when you talk about “arenas” do you mean those battles where several different waves of the area attack consecutively ? because at first when i saw those mentioned i was thinking it was like postgame content lol.

btw how “long” is this game? i hope i can beat this one

you can unlock a more sophisticated parry too

*gen z stare*

silksong? completed it, mate

though I see someone has completed it “steel soul” already

41h58m to clear

niiiiiiiice congrats!! holy shit, ok, so based on my usual pace compared to others, i expect 80-100 hours for me on this

speaking of steel soul, xposts to balatro thread but the developer said that they just recently got 100% of the achievements!

love that

steel soul speedrun seems like…where some people will go and never return from

still got act 3 to do but end credits rolled once silk motherdefeated

i got to the final boss of hollow knight, died once, decided to stop playing. i wasn't interested in the boss fights apart from the techniques they teach you. and i had a nonsense weaversong build going just to spam my way through bosses.

you guys shouldve just beat the hollow knight he wasnt even the hardest boss not that hard really hes still there waiting for you

hollow knight had parrying too tho i never did it on purpose

lost the save game, and i just can’t go through it all again. plus silksong

parrying too tho i never did it on purpose

only acceptable kind of parrying imo

I kind of agree, on paper I should love this (have finished every Souls game multiple times, etc) but I bailed on Hollow Knight too. I had a really hard time keeping the map in my head or feeling the desire to go back and explore, which was not a problem at all in the recent Prince of Persia or Blasphemous 2 (the last two Metroidvanias that I really got into).

Same. Play a good bit of Metroidvania stuff (Blasphemous 2 included). But for whatever reason, likely map related, I get stuck/lost/frustrated way more in these games.

I recognize their quality though. Enough so that I’ve given HK like 3 honest-to-god multi-hour attempts over the years.

I've gotten to the boss at the end of the game's first quest. It's harder than anything else so far. I don't enjoy spending a minute getting to the boss followed by dying after seeing a few of his patterns, rinse and repeat. I think I'll look at a video to get past this one, although I haven't done so yet.

Hmmm wonder what y'all think of this fairly critical review that focuses on the game's difficulty level and accessibility

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/review/hollow-knight-silksong/

i think they gotta cowboy up

complaints about the money and losing it are kinda silly its easy and quick to farm it and put it on strings so you dont lose it ive bought everything possible in the game to the point im at and it wasnt hard

only problem i have with it is its a bit too many bosses for my taste but that is a matter of taste

i agree with the part about there being a lot of natural friction between an adventure game structure (which is what 'metroidvania' is) and high difficulty. havent played silksong so i dunno how strongly it applies but i've definitely felt it in other indie games

Isn't that hybrid nature (metroidvania plus souls) partly what made Hollow Knight different?

The only modern games i’ve really fucked with have been Zelda: BOTW and Hollow Knight. I didn’t think HK was that bad until after the end and you could fight ghosts of the old bosses and didn’t care enough to keep going. Back in the day, the Mega Man games were my favorite so maybe my muscle memory is still there. I’ve been more interested in the production of Silksong than actually playing it.

re: difficulty - the early game is much more punishing than in the first game (though they've toned that down a bit in the first patch, in ways that sound reasonable) which is where a lot of the difficulty complaints are coming from. there are also boss fights that you can encounter fairly early that are absolutely brutal if you don't decide to come back later (thinking mostly of savage beastfly). by the midgame the difficulty evens out as you're able to reach a lot more upgrades etc. which make things much less punishing. it ends up only a bit harder than the first game on average, and there aren't any bosses comparable to nightmare king grimm. the platforming is overall harder than in the first game, but it never comes close to path of pain (some stuff approaches white palace but that's it), and a lot of the movement abilities you get make the platforming more manageable compared to the options you had in the first game.

it's not harder than sekiro, not harder than nine sols. the hardest fights in elden ring (malenia etc.) are harder than anything in silksong

its hard but getting good is actually not that bad like youre all oh god jumping on the flowers but then you just get the hang of it get the upgrade to do it easier and youre doing it without thinking about it i appreciate how well done it is in that sense

I'm reminded specifically of a game like Ori, which I loved and I didn't think was that bad, but a good friend of mine bounced off pretty early because he found it too difficult. Different strokes, etc. Me, I'm stoked to get home, finish the mediocre game I started, then get right into this.

I've gotten to the boss at the end of the game's first quest. It's harder than anything else so far.

do you mean a side quest boss or a main quest boss? because if it's a side quest boss you absolutely should come back later

a lot of stuff in that review is just wrong and it seems the reviewer got to the point where they were too frustrated to really approach anything in good faith

(discussion of a particular trap relatively early in the game)

The infamous bench within Hunter’s March is a microcosm of Hollow Knight: Silksong’s uniquely tiring brand of deliberate cruelty: a safe refuge after an extended series of increasingly difficult platforming and combat challenges ending in a tough gauntlet that likely leaves you with low health — except, unlike every other bench in the game, this one breaks Hollow Knight: Silksong’s own rules of safety and swings a deadly spike trap at you upon sitting down. It’s not reactable unless you know it’s there, and it’s very unlikely for a player to be looking for the well-hidden trap mechanism amongst the greenery in the ceiling.

it is a fairly mean trap but it's also completely avoidable if you're observant, it's not unfair but it is teaching the player that the game rewards being observant and exploring. maybe i'm just immune to being mad at that sort of thing because i love la-mulana but idk it's really not that bad

Others, such as enemy contact, almost every attack, and most environmental hazards dealing two masks of damage — Hornet starts with only five precious masks of life — alongside the arduous, several-minute-long runbacks to several bosses due to cruel bench placements, are closer to making the player suffer just for the sake of living up to the ‘Soulslike experience’.

there are certainly more enemies & bosses that do two damage in silksong, and that does make the early game particularly punishing, but it's not "almost every attack" and not contact with most enemies. they did nerf most of the environmental hazards in the patch to only do 1 damage and that was a good change. there are no several-minute boss runbacks. the one everyone's heavily complaining about is 30 seconds with all enemies being easily avoidable, it's nowhere near as bad as a large amount of fromsoft runbacks. there's a single one that's genuinely pretty frustrating but it's still not that bad compared to a lot of fromsoft ones.

Unless you’ve stocked up on strings to keep your loose currency together, the fear of losing them all by dying on your way back to a cocoon will be at the forefront of your mind, especially with how few are given out for the majority of the runtime (without grinding, of course).

there's a few areas where the game doesn't give you many beads, which can feel a bit frustrating, but they've adjusted the economy a bit in the first patch & as they say it's possible to mitigate your losses by buying the strings, it's just not that big of a deal. once you're in act 2 proper the game is throwing beads at you in huge amounts and you can grind for them pretty quickly if you really need to, so "majority of the runtime" is just totally incorrect and only makes sense with the later revelation that the reviewer gave up on it early into act 2 for an extremely stupid reason.

Aspects auxiliary to the main exploration and combat loop, such as side quests and Hornet’s customisable equipment, are also a little underbaked. Side quests come in the form of Wishes, requests from various bugs and pilgrims for Hornet to help out their corner of Pharloom. The small bits of characterisation and humour that these grant to the citizens are the highlights of Team Cherry’s writing, but in practice, they’re often little more than ‘Kill x amount of this enemy’.

On your travels, you’ll acquire various tools and Crests, either through finding them in hidden rooms or as Wish rewards, to make Hornet’s playstyle your own. Offensive tools offer variation and ranged utility in combat, deploying gadgets like floating spike traps or firebombs alongside needle and silk attacks, but for every Warding Bell that substantively alters the risk-reward of healing mid-combat and creates interesting player choice, there’s a Compass.

It’s a baffling decision to include in a toolset with limited slots, as there is no reason you would ever unequip it, effectively removing one customisable slot from Hornet’s tool pouch entirely.

the side quests that are just 'kill x of this enemy' are total filler and a clear weak point, but thankfully there's not very many of them. complaining about the compass is ridiculous though - it takes up a yellow slot and there's really not much competition for yellow slots once you get far enough (not that far) to have unlocked a single extra slot. i understood the complaint a little more about the first game, where the charm slots were all general-purpose so there were interesting trade-offs and i'd usually have one build for exploration and one build for boss fights, but in silksong there's not usually anything i want to replace the compass with, even for boss fights where it does nothing, it's kinda the opposite problem.

After all of this, with the end in sight, Hollow Knight: Silksong threw a curveball that ground the pace to a halt and destroyed all excitement I held to complete the game. A sudden, mandatory fetch quest drags Hornet around mostly the same area Act 2 has been limited to for the past five to ten hours, just to earn permission to reach the final boss. It’s a disappointing pace-breaker to close an already inconsistently paced game out on, and recalls the much-maligned Artifact hunt at the end of Metroid Prime — a mistake that should never be repeated.

this is just completely wrong. once you beat the first main quest boss in act 2 (which is pretty early in act 2), you are told you need to collect three things to reach the final area and the locations are marked on your map. these are found in sizeable new areas that were previously inaccessible before that boss, and that makes up the bulk of act 2 (though there are a lot of other optional areas too). it's not at all like the artifact hunt in metroid prime which was entirely lengthy (it didn't have a fast travel system) backtracking into previous areas to find hidden items with only vague clues to help you, which has been pretty fairly criticised as tedious padding. it seems like the reviewer just gave up at this point, early in act 2, because they made a bad, completely groundless assumption about what the rest of the game was going to be like? makes it clear it's not worth taking seriously at least

I've beaten Widow! The best part of which is progressing obviously, but the next best is not having to hear her horrible vocalizations anymore. I heard on a podcast that one of Hornet's tools is really useful against bosses, which I'd been sleeping on prior. Something interesting too is that even though she is a typical boss in that you react to openings instead of charging in, you can still be relatively aggressive in attacking her, at least in her first stage. In her second stage, my winning run was extremely cautious, just trying to avoid her attacks and the bells and only trying to land a single hit when she charges by, and then throwing traps during breaks.

Interestingly, I felt incredible after defeating her, a feeling I never got beating bosses in Bloodborne. I'm trying to think of why and the only thing I can come up with is that the atmosphere of decay and oppression added to my discomfort, while so many characters in HK and Silksong have cute designs.

started playing this weekend. is the map lady giving anyone else q lazzarus vibes? i keep expecting her to break out into “goodbye horses”

so close to act 3 - just need to find a few more fleas, I think…

I started replaying Hollow Knight and it's easier than I remember. I remembered the "wave" boss rooms being grueling but they are so simple compared to Silksong's.

Also, Hollow Knight's dash is far worse than Silksong's. Silksong's complex dash is one of my favorite parts of the game.

uhhh act 3 is nails

seems like another step change in difficulty - not sure how far in I’ll get

ufo I think that your points largely stand, but AFAIK Team Cherry didn't send preview codes out to any reviewers, so I expect that the VGC one was written with more haste than usual.

think I’ve died more to the first (seemingly more trivial) boss in act 3 than I did in the others combined. feels that way at least - lack of readable tells, some very cruel pinches, and homing missiles… not fun. may be reaching end of road sooner than I’d though

and I think my architect crest is bugged - it won’t let me re-craft tools so I can’t just cheese it with drones

lol, i spent the last 4-5 hours of gameplay trying to figure out how to double jump or wall climb. i thought i’d explored absolutely everywhere i could access, and then of course i finally consulted a video and saw there there was this wide open door in shellwood i was supposed to go through a very long time ago

turns out the answer was ‘git gud’

finally went to the abyss to obtain the farsight so can now see I’m at 72% completion

I was stuck vs Moss Mother so I decided to give Hunter's Match another shot, and the arena fight is completely different now!

Moss Mother down! (An interesting side note is that on the way there is ran by a couple flies because I didn't feel like spending time fighting them, and after the arena unlocked the flies were still there and in fact flew in!)

I've also beaten the mini arena in Hunter's March and unlocked some shortcuts into it, so now I have the Savage Beast Fly to look forward to. Am I actually gitting gud??

depending on what upgrades you have - SBF might be relatively straightforward. SBF 2 is the real fun

Saw a bit of Jacob Geller's take. He really likes it but says that while he would recommend Hollow Knight to pretty much anyone that likes video games, he thinks Silksong has a much narrower appeal because, in his words, it's "unbelievably hard." I'm further intrigued that he implies (as did this other guy) that the difficultly level is sort of ... thematic?

Anyway, can't wait! (though for me it still has to wait a bit, lol)

lol pls no

Hello Team Cherry
I would like to apply for the position of designing boss fights for the pantheon in silksong pic.twitter.com/sipAsi4vJO

— Pingi🐧 (@pingi_pro_max) September 18, 2025

lol

Sinners Path: so far my most reliable tactic against those damn roaches is to jump into their jaws to ragdoll me and then spam attacks while I still have i frames.

i just tried to avoid them

what were TC smoking when they came up with those lads

that biome rivalled only by stinking bilewater in the main game for annoyance levels

area in spoilers is up next for you, leee, after SR. enjoy…

I'm already there and I hate it too.

lol

what about

I'd like to suggest one change pic.twitter.com/2JvdgYOjZO

— Kuuhaku (@Kuuhaku3993) September 18, 2025

some aspects of the difficulty are definitely thematic, some are just that the early game was a bit overtuned, and some are just the game being balanced around hornet having a lot more options than the knight in the first game

Starting the game out now, think I'm 3-5 hours in, bosses so far have been challenging but quite reasonable, with Lace being the most recent and hardest. She was kinda fun though, and it was clear you were supposed to use your new move set to beat her. Does the difficulty ramp up in a big way after that?

The hardest bosses for me have been when they spawn minions or arena fights. I've just finished Act 1 and being disciplined about waiting for an opening and not getting greedy made the fight straightforward.

BTW now that I'm in Act 2, I'm still missing a map for Bilewater -- is that to be expected?

minions are the worst

the early game bosses people seem to struggle the most with are after lace (well, you can get to some of them before lace but most people aren't going to), though some of them were nerfed in the first patch

you need some movement upgrades to get to that map

FWIW I am really enjoying the aesthetics and gameplay a lot more than the original Hollow Knight, whose early game felt very limited in its color palette and seemed harder to navigate

discus
https://aftermath.site/silksong-problems-runback-criticism

Second patch just went live, iirc.

Couriers rasher you've got to be kidding me. Hated this in the first game, I'm sure this will be utter Hell.

lol - it gets a little easier once you optimise your route and get the movement speed charm. another thing you can do is on a failed run retrace your steps clearing out all enemies. as long as you don't rest at a bench, only the minor bugs will respawn next time through

my one tip in hindsight would be do not rush into act 3. the game gets significantly different (and harder)

I'm going to have to wait quite a bit of time before I can actually tackle that quest, since I apparently haven't gotten certain movement skills yet, nor have I opened all the paths in.

Bit stuck on multiple fronts.

In the High Hall, I've gotten as far as the arena, and I was getting wrecked by that big guy. I beat him, thinking he's surely the last one, then I get another way of manageable guys, then TWO big guys. Cherry are sadists.

Mount Fay; I resent having gotten decent at the first half(?) (God I hope that's halfway) with the bit outside, but getting back inside, I think I'm missing another skill, or something.

And then Sam Bankman Fried, of course.

courier's rasher is nowhere near as bad as it seems, you're not really expected to be able to do it asap. it's much easier once you've upgraded movement abilities and fully explored (there are some alternate routes to the obvious one), and clearing out enemies beforehand is pretty essential.

high hall is a 'come back later' thing - you don't have to do it immediately so may as well leave it until you've got less to do. there are other some unrelated quests that can make it easier, but in general the trick to making the last fight possible is saving some strong tools to rapidly spam at one of them.

you can definitely do mount fay with the abilities you have

having completed celeste (through the C sides) stood me in good stead for mount fay

then TWO big guys. Cherry are sadists.

― Lauren Epsom (Leee)

i was upset about this too and turned to the internet and there is a way to cheese them

i do really like the citadel overall tho pretty cool how the game starts out very hollow knight then switches aesthetics

Yes and the soundtrack, especially in Choral Chambers, is gorgeous.

I beat Hollow Knight including the second boss. Once again I lost most interest right when I reached the end.

I restarted Silksong. I beat most early bosses on the first or second attempt. I even beat the moorwing and savage beastfly which I had given up on before. early silksong boss/horde hint: the air and ground traps are excellent for killing off lesser enemies during fights. Now to fight the act 1 boss again.

Me currently on my way to mount fay, stopping every few minutes so that my papa can dry.

Took like 3 hours but I finally reached the summit.

I see the Last judge run back (which I did do after getting the double jump which obviously made it easier) and raise you the Bilewater one.

made so much worse by the pre-boss gauntlet

I think act 3 effectively killed my enthusiasm for this game. too spartan, too hard

Going to dive in pretty soon, but part of me wants to wait a little longer in case they make it easier.

I've taken a break to play Hades, which has instantly gripped my attention far more than Silksong has

I'm deep into act 2, I think. 2 new abilities, 2 pin upgrades, 1 new heart/vessel. It's a decent level of challenge right now, with new areas coming up at a decent pace. Some of the optional items are useful now, unlike in act 1 where every optional area was barren of value. The game is growing on me.

Well, the first 10 minutes and first/tutorial (?) boss weren't too bad!

Played this a bunch, I know it's early going but there's a good deal that's kind of a PIA from the first minute.

I'm a bit past Moorwing, in the Wormways now, and honestly it's not that much outside the norm for an "old school" style Metroidvania in terms of challenge and PIA qualities. Brings me back to Castlevania 2, Metroid 1, Game Boy era challenges in spots, but with much more modern control sensibilities.

That said, one of my favorite features of Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown was its ability to tweak some of the sensitivity of its controls (in addition to adjusting enemy health % or damage intake %), it's ease of movement around the map, and ability to retry bosses immediately after dying.

Yeah some difficulty tweakability would be nice, finally got to Act 2 via the alt route after noping out of the main path and flinging myself against the other boss for several sessions.

Really enjoying the aesthetics and general vibe, but suspect I'll bounce off Act 3 if the difficulty spike is as steep as reported.

That's sort of what I did with the first game, iirc. Hit a point where everything was ramped up to Super Meat Boy or whatever levels and decided, nah, not for me.

This one, I've beaten a couple of the relatively easy early bosses, but I'm still getting the hang of the controls, so I think I'll explore a bit more. I'm sure I missed a lot already so don't want to speed ahead. I did reach a point with lots of bouncing off those red buds/flowers, and ... what a pain that is.

This game is great, but I wish I was half my age and sharper, because there is so much to explore and remember, especially as the map gets bigger and bigger. It is much less forgiving than Hollow Knight so far, with bits here and there that more or less demand get good or give up, and yeah, everything costs too many beads. But I just got my sprint, and I feel that gives me a little much needed boost.

I loved the first 2 acts but I’m not having as much fun with act 3. It really ramps up the difficulty on an already very challenging game.

yeah I bounced hard off act 3

I might go back to it but even if I don’t I still loved the game and got about 60 hours of fun out my 20£

Even early on, where I am, I wish there were some QoL adjustments. I don't remember how it worked in Hollow Knight, but it's definitely annoying that the compass takes up that slot (at least for now), which makes going to a bench to swap things out feel a bit like busywork, especially since aiui the game will eventually give you lots of crests and tools to play around with. And the high price of certain items, at least at this point, almost implies you're encouraged to grind, and that's also busywork, especially early game. And then, yeah, losing two health bars to pretty much anything and everything makes margins of success super slim, which is fine but also frustrating; the first definitely did not have it, but boss health bars would at least let you know what progress you're making. A lot of these built-in challenges echo Dark Souls, right down to basic enemies that can still kill you if you're not careful, but of course Dark Souls doesn't usually also include crazy pinball platforming on top of it all.

Regardless, the game is good, and I know I have a looooong way to go and it won't get any easier. In that sense the design inconveniences are actually well considered, in that they force you to practice different fighting or traversal techniques, as trying as that may be.

Cruising right along, I've been exploring Hunter's whatever and Greyworld. Greysmoor? Both have some real PIA platforming, lol.

I don't remember how it worked in Hollow Knight, but it's definitely annoying that the compass takes up that slot

This is exactly the same as Hollow Knight.

And the high price of certain items, at least at this point, almost implies you're encouraged to grind

You do need to grind a bit, but there are plenty of places to farm without too much trouble, and they're usually reasonably close to the vendor.

What the utter Hell at Sands and also the Raging Conch Fly ha ha ha very funny.

I'm late in act 2 and in the game so far, yellow items are the worst tools, other than the compass. The bead collector seems useful at first, but it's faster to find a grinding spot and ignore the beads while exploring. The weighted belt is the one I equip the most, although every enemy in the game is designed to be fought without it.

Basically yellow items are the 1-pointer pins in Hollow Knight. You aren't missing much by losing a yellow slot to the compass.

just totally noped out of the widow fight lol. went through wormways instead

Yeah, I don't feel bad about the compass being there, per se, I just feel like the game gives you lots of tools (and Tools) but makes it hard to use them. At least so far. I do appreciate how the different crests (I think I have three so far?) have their pros and cons, though any crest that helps with pogoing (for platforming and attacks is a major pro in my book.

But yeah, tbf, so far I haven't found anything else I'd really want to put where the compass is, though that is almost a reason why the compass and slot combo feels pointless. It would be like having a cape slot and the only thing that goes there is your cape.

FWIW once you have better tools and start using them more (esp in boss fights), you're going to want shards and beads are only going to be useful for buying shard bundles.

I think I'm at the first place where I need to take a break, lol. Hunter's whatever? What a pain. I'm at the battle royale and I think you're supposed to get Shakra as a helper, except I explored some other place first and because of that she's not there, which means I have to do it solo, and I'm already sick of the run back through the thorns and annoying ants. And it's not even a real boss, sigh.

NM, I figured it out. Just had to be more patient. If there's one lesson Dark Souls taught me (that I didn't learn), it's to be patient, ignore the chaos and noise, and just look for openings.

that area's completely optional at the moment so come back later if you're finding it to be a pain, there's some stuff there that's an absolute nightmare at the point you're at

What should I be doing instead? I think the only other area I have unlocked and mapped but haven't entirely explored is Greymoor and the pogoing is even worse there, because you literally have to do it to get out!

OK, making progress, but this game is huuuuuuge. Just did some exploring in worm world, and then dipped into Bellview or whatever.

it’s probably even huger than you think at this stage

i have zero issue with the pogoing, it’s a fun mechanic

the fake bench in hunter’s march is diabolical

Yeah, that got me. But at least you can deactivate it. I've been wasting my time on the annoying (optional?) boss in that area. A lot of this game feels very troll-y, and in that sense very indebted to From, even more than Hollow Knight, imo. Maybe Dark Souls 2 specifically?

I remember how big the first game is, and I knew this one was bigger, so I assumed I was still at the top of the iceberg. Another quality of life adjustment that would be nice wood be to be able to toggle maps, but I get it.

Oh, and pogoing is fine and fun, but I find it very stressful, so I in turn put a lot of stress on the controllers.

I'm at the end of act 2 I think (the lace fight), but i'm doing all the odds and ends I can find first.

I'm only now noticing that enemies have similar attacks: sword thrust, double slash, parry, item toss, divekick. They are better at teaching tactics to use against bosses than I had thought.

That sounds like a little bit further than I am -- I just finished the couriers rasher quest and upgraded my nail again. I'm also working on the first sinner and as hard as it is so far, I'm having fun with it! A video I saw explains why, because this is one boss fight where you really want to be fast and aggressive, unlike most others where you kind of have to play defensively and wait for openings.

Someone beat Mount Fay in 12 minutes... without having the claw line.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BC9LS9KuCJo

I've been wasting my time on the annoying (optional?) boss in that area

this is exactly what i was thinking of when i said it was a nightmare, it goes from being absurd to extremely manageable as soon as you get a needle upgrade.

Ironically, I think I'm pretty close to beating it. I have an OK approach, and I've been following the Dark Souls strat of muting the sound and focusing on the fight. But my thumb hurts and I think I'm moving on instead. Unlike Dark Souls, these bosses don't seem to drop anything of value, so avoiding optional bosses seems like a fine choice.

I did beat the optional boss in Greymoor by accidentally stumbling on a cheese strat that was *not* the common (and encouraged?) cheese strat I've seen online. I'm very proud of myself.

Beat Sister Splinter, I always appreciate when a tough game throws you a relatively dopey boss.

Now I'm fighting Widow, which I believe I need to do to progress. I'll get there, but it's a pretty annoying fight; the RNG of the bouncing balls isn't as bad as the bugs in that optional boss battle I'll come back to, but it's close. Definitely need to play with the sound off. Getting a little worried about the damage I'm possibly doing to my left controller stick and/or thumbs.

i didn’t struggle with widow as much as i thought i was going to when I started fighting her

widow is a fun fight. I think there's some clever enemy programming that prevents boss randomness from ever trapping the player. similarly, most bosses with a running attack won't do it if you're stuck in the corner.

I am currently in act 3. It's odd that the game has 1 minigame in act 1 (the knife shooting range), then nothing else until the final third of the game where I've found 4 so far.

The first couple of Widow phases (or however you want to divide it) are relatively straight forward. She telegraphs her moves, but it's still challenging, since it's fast and there's enough going on that you really have to pay attention; getting greedy with hits or in particular bumping into the enemy have been the literal death of me in this and multiple fights so far. But the final phase, that's just kind of crazy. There's so much to focus on, which is one reason I've been playing with the sound off.

ready to go to act three went back to mop up acts 1 and 2 before moving on as per the advice itt, looked at a map and there were multiple areas i hadnt even visited yet, this game has a lot of stuff

Widow down.

josh did you buy a gaming chair recently or what

Would a gaming chair help? I have a gaming couch, lol. Which is also used for watching TV, reading a book and/or general sitting.

even though i didn’t get “stuck”, i haven’t played in a couple weeks and i’m scared to go back

i have been playing these horrible free to play idle games. one of them has a little peggle side hustle where you can watch a couple ads to charge your pegs and maybe score some bonus shards which can be used to merge and upgrade relics all the way up to legendary status

silksong bring me back. hopefully bring me back at that one spot where you’re all tied up in silk when you start at the bench

just got captured and sent to the slab. and then escaped from the slab and immediately got eaten by roach dogs

FINISHED ACT 2 OMFG HOLY BUGS!!!! What a finish!

99 hours, if you were wondering (I died lots obv lol).

This mountain is a bit annoying eh

OK, cruising right along, and here are some thoughts:

1) As with From games there is no way I could play this without a guide. Not just for tips and help, since they only go so far with a game this innately challenging, but for all the hidden secrets and NPC quests and all that good stuff I absolutely would have missed.

2) Even as far as tips and tricks go, this game is indeed still absolutely a PIA, lol. I was in The Slab, and there was this one jump I spent soooo many attempts on. I just couldn't do it and was worried, well, that's it for me. But after a bit of googling it was explained that part of me was apparently hitting a little piece of the room that jutted out, which was bouncing me into spikes. I don't think I *ever* would have noticed that. There are also some standard QOL annoyances as well. I've gotten used to some, like everything hitting for two masks, but some are just a waste of time, like having to constantly farm (or buy) shells, since everything from your tools to some (?) benches require shells. It's not hard to do at all, which is why is feels so pointless.

3) At least in the first Act (which I believe I'm mostly through) too many of the boss battles (big and little) are just boss+plus little guys+rocks falling from the ceiling. It was getting a little monotonous, so that when I did the fight for my stuff in the Slab I actually smiled, because it was actually *fun* for the first time in a while. Not that the other bosses haven't been fun, per se, just kind of weirdly similar.

Anyway, game is beautiful, and I do think they justified the wait by offering more than just more of the same. My quibbles are just that. I am curious to read stuff from people that have never played Hollow Knight or any From games before, though, drawn in by the hype before drowning in the deep end.

With at least 3 required bosses to go in act 3, I'm taking a break. One of the bosses requires you to fight two gauntlets before every attempt. I'm not interested.

I think I've got the boss at the end of Act 1 coming up soon. Maybe another optional boss to hit beforehand? Anyway, it's kind of exhausting to think there is a ton more, but I worry that if I take a break I'll both lose interest and my muscle memory.

I was feeling like that too but the boss at the end of act 1 was a breeze and act 2 has been going at a brisk pace, mount fay speedbump notwithstanding (and it was actually a perversely fun change of pace with no enemies and the cold mechanic). The dancers were such a cool boss fight as well.

the boss at the end of act 1 was a breeze

Uhhhh ... I have yet to face a boss in this game I'd call a breeze, lol, not even the "easy" ones. (Sister Splinter aside.) I'm king of panic dashing/jumping, and it takes me several stabs at everything before I chill out enough to win.

One of the bosses requires you to fight two gauntlets before every attempt.

I assume worse than the one in Bilewater?

there is one pre-boss gauntlet in act 3 that is diabolical. in the coral tower

I think it can be skipped after clearing it once though

the gauntlets are before karmelita.

I take it back, btw, the (optional?) double carrot/drill guys in Blasted Steps were pretty easy. Good morale booster!

Act 3 Abyss: You thought you hated flying mfers before?

OK, I've fought the Act 1 final boss a few times, and while I'll get there eventually, just *getting* there is such a drag. It doesn't take a long time, but the platforming and enemies (however few) is still just so tedious.

Yeah, I think I'm going to take some time off, at risk of bouncing off the whole game. I love the design, but I'm not sure how much it's really clicking. In fact, this boss fight, it kind of feels like the *opposite* of clicking. That first bird that fires a rocket at you on the runback, so you're all but guaranteed to get hit, or worse? Just lame. And it sounds like things only get more frustrating and challenging from here.

If you sprint forward straight away and jump the gaps you’ll be gone before the bird attacks. That runback took a while to nail down but should be doable without taking much damage - also it’s easy to get hits in on the boss so you don’t need to go in with loads of health. But I mean it’s definitely not a game for everyone!

You can skip all the enemies up to that boss. The bird is the hardest to avoid.

Here are the bosses that I didn't manage to beat:
Shakra
Pinstripes
Trobbio 2
Krust King Krabs - didn't seem that hard, but i was giving up by this point
Karmelita - the gauntlet and boss that broke me

and here are the bosses that I found annoying:
Moorwing
Savage Beastfly
Groal
Nyelith (the wall boss), which I cheesed with the boomerang and triple knives

That runback took a while to nail down but should be doable without taking much damage - also it’s easy to get hits in on the boss so you don’t need to go in with loads of health

See, this is what I mean, why even have an enemy positioned there, then, let alone *that* enemy, to more likely than not damage you, unless you're just being a dick designer? The game is hard enough without flinging superfluous shit at you. Because I agree the boss is pretty easy to hit and gain back health, but that begs the question of why even engineer it to make you lose health on the way there anyway? It's just a nuisance, and nuisances are not fun, they're aggravating.

It's been a while since I played Dark Souls 2, but iirc one of the criticisms of that installment was that it was annoying just for the sake of being annoying, which, yeah, is a bit less fun. It's been a long time, but I remember Hollow Knight being tough but fair, but really only kicking into twitchy hair-pulling gear after the main game. Same with Sekiro, I think. In both cases I hit that wall and thought, sure, eventually I'll probably get this, but it wasn't satisfying enough to continue. This game, the headaches seem to be arriving earlier. (I think I've put 35 hours into it.)

Anyway, my backlog is huge but there's nothing pressing, so maybe a brief break is all I need.

It’s a shame but nothing is really persuading me to buy this.

Did you play Hollow Knight? It's basically more of the same, in every sense, for better and for worse. But if it follows the Hollow Knight pattern, it should be less than $15 sooner or later, or eventually even less than $10, and it's probably worth that. Heck, it's worth $20 - it's well made and creative - it's just a really challenging game with relentless and evolving skill checks. Which the first game had, too, just that this one seems more self-aware and sometimes sabotages expectations, imo. For example, I'm almost done the first act, and it still hasn't given me a double jump, which is a Metroidvania staple. I know it's on the horizon, but I also know when I get it, if I get it, the game will adjust accordingly and get even more difficult.

its worth $70 at least