Spoilers. Obviously. I mean they aren’t that bad but like of course I’m gonna reveal some stuff about the game, how else am I supposed to talk about my experiences. I’ll hold back any story spoilers at least, so I hope you’re happy enough with that.
I’m not a pure Hollow Knight fan. I didn’t play the game when it first came out, and I didn’t even finish it on my own when I first picked it up. I got through the first boss and then called it quits shortly after. I was eventually tempted back by the promise of playing the multiplayer mod with the boys, but I still feel it would be wrong to call me a true fan of the original game. I was even slightly sad when the release date of Silksong got announced cause I couldn’t laugh at the believers anymore. But you are reading a review for the second game in the series, so I’m hoping you’re catching the hint that something clearly must be different about this one.
You’ll have to forgive me for jumping into the second game without having a review or any mention of the first, but Silksong is in many ways the same game as Hollow Knight. It’s got the same bones, the same guts, the same other weird human internals or whatever. It’s clearly a game that was built to be more of what so many people loved and what the developers clearly loved to make over 7 years. But it’s just so much better. Everything from the map design to the tools at your disposal to the characters you encounter along the way feel like they were somehow massive improvements to an already solid formula. Other than the several instances of double damage that were quickly patched out, the game feels refined. I suppose that’s only natural for a game that was cooking for so long, but the level of refinement is definitely worth a note. The map design was maybe the most notable improvement for me. Whereas in Hollow Knight my interest petered out as I felt directionless in the mazelike map of Hollownest, the lands of Pharloom felt much more natural to move through. At the beginning of the game you are told you are climbing up and for the most part that’s how the map progresses. Some (losers) may criticize the objective markers for the main quest but holy shit it felt so nice to know where I was supposed to be moving towards. Just having somewhere you know you could go to progress the game is huge and knowing where not to go so I could avoid progressing the game was even better. At the end of act 1 (by the way there are 3 acts, but the third act is kind of hidden, and you can get an ending in act 2 blah blah blah) I wanted to explore everything before I progressed and because I knew how to stay in act 1 by avoiding the main quest marker I ended up exploring so hard that I found a secret entrance into act 2 and it was the coolest fucking thing ever. It led to maybe my favorite moment of the game (and some of my favorite zones (and some of my least favorite zones)) and I really feel like it was created by the improvements to the map design and how you progress through the game.
I also want to give a special shout out to the tool system. Another of my big complaints from Hollow Knight was how lackluster a lot of the charms felt. I had my go to build of strength + quick slash + mark of pride + longnail and the only other builds I was even remotely interested in were total memes. In Silksong there were so many cools builds that I literally sat there paralyzed on the bench sometimes cause I couldn’t decide which of them to use. They really change up how you play the game too. Crests change up your whole move pool with all sorts of crazy pogos and dash attacks and the tools do so many cool things that can be really busted if you get the right set up going. Ahhhhhhh I just want to play around with it all more. I cooked up like 8 different builds but the end of it and there just wasn’t enough time to have fun with all of them. And that’s why I am playing the game a second time. And why I will probably be playing the game several more times after that.
All right, enough with the glaze. Just kidding it’s time for more glaze! Fuck you, this game is awesome and I’m not gonna complain at all about it. People complained a ton about the difficulty of this game, but I loved the challenge and it was part of the fun for me. It’s so satisfying to face down these tough bosses and difficult parts of the map and feel yourself getting better as you try to overcome them. There are a few parts of the game I had to run back through so many times that I worked out the perfect pathing for doing so. It felt so bad sometimes, but when I learned how to do it, I felt like a fucking god dacing through the air as I beat the shit out of these annoying ass bugs. The depth of combat in Silksong is so great that it felt like there was always something I could be doing better in a fight and always a way to for me to hone my skills beyond just not getting hit. It is a very hard game and for me that’s OK. If you are a Hollow Knight fan who finished the first game and are feeling discouraged about the difficulty of Silksong, just keep getting back up. I’m not gonna shit on you for struggling but surely you can muster up enough grit to overcome the difficulty if you really like the game. I never even beat some of the hardest bosses in the first game so Silksong couldn’t be thaaaat much harder if I still made it through.
All right, that pretty much wraps things up. I hope you give Silksong a try and have fun cause I think this game is awesome. I really enjoyed the whole experience, including the story that I didn’t talk about at all here. I’m gonna include some of my builds at the bottom here cause I was so addicted to cooking these up and I neeeeed to share them so maybe leave now if you are not into getting spoiled on some gear set ups. And if you did happen to catch a glimpse of them before this warning, uh, sorry?
I’m not going to go into too much detail; just want to share the three builds I used for most of the game. First up is AFK Reaper, which was very funny even if it wasn’t always effective.
Witch crest is by far my favorite crest. The pogo is so good and the whole playstyle of bursting enemies down with the massive bind damage is a lot of fun. Just couldn’t resist running Cogflies no matter what I was doing.
Architect is such a silly crest. Dumping out Pimpillos and Voltvessles into a boss and watching them explore was a true treat. Shitting out an army of Cogflies to back them up was equally entertaining.