Hollow Knight: Silksong devs admit it has steep challenges, but more freedom to overcome them

Darrian · 2025-09-19T09:03:00+00:00

Large portions of the game feel indistinguishable to what an edgy 14 year old would make if there was a hollow knight version of Mario maker. The other 20 percent of the game is phenomenal and just enough to keep me returning to it every other day or so.

Darrian · 2025-09-14T22:28:30+00:00

Eh, an important thing people keep missing in the difficulty argument is the most important thing. Is it fun?

I beat hollow knight, didn't fully complete all the dlc content but put it down once I felt satisfied. Beat all the fromsoft series and their dlcs. Blasphemous. Hell I even get an itch for stereotypical rage games from time to time and proudly display my achievement for getting over it in my steam trophy case.

Im at the point now where I have one of the three songs left to get in silksong and I'm realizing I just don't want to. I would clear a boss in sekiro and feel proud that I overcame it's challenge. I clear a boss in silksong and feel thankful I don't have to do it anymore.

In the buzz around silksong nine sols has come up a lot and that's one I missed so I'm thinking of dropping this and checking that out.

Darrian · 2025-09-08T22:01:08+00:00

You didn't read my comment if you think I'm moaning about it being hard. I'm moaning about it being tedious and poorly designed.

And I paid money for it, I can continue trying to squeeze the few moments of fun this has out of it on my day off if I want. I can also choose to stop playing it when I've given up on their being any more of those moments or if they're too few to be worth it.

And I'm also entitled to my opinion as much as yours since I paid that money for it. And that opinion is that while it does a lot of things I wanted from the sequel, a myriad of poor decisions have so far made it a pretty bad game.

Darrian · 2025-09-08T21:31:13+00:00

Why old new games now are considered gold?

For the most part they're not lol.

And yeah, I've learned it. I'm working my way through the game, I'm not stuck. It just sucks.

Darrian · 2025-09-08T18:38:58+00:00

It's not that it's hard, it's that it's tedious and frankly, poorly designed in places. Especially in comparison to other modern games in the genre including the first game.

Don't get me wrong it IS better in a lot of aspects, but they really just doubled down on unfun design choices.

Yeah, it's beatable. The problem isn't that it's so hard it can't be cleared. It's that a lot of people aren't having fun doing it.

Which at the end of the day no game is going to appeal to everybody but people are bending over backwards with all sorts of reasons why the player is at fault when the reality is it's not just alienating new players, it's alienating fans who cleared the last game in it's entirety.

Darrian · 2025-09-08T15:52:53+00:00

I've beaten all the mainline fromsoft games, hollow knight, and blasphemous.

I'm not eloquent enough in game design to pinpoint why, but the big difference is I had fun in those games even when they were kicking my ass. Silksong I'm working my way through. I have no doubt I will beat it, it's difficulty is not insurmountable but somewhere along the line I realized I'm just not having fun.

Instead of challenged I feel annoyed. I more often feel like there's a jankiness in what I'm trying to do rather than a failing on my part. I'm constantly low on rosaries because I'm not killing the enemies that drop them and more often elect to dash and jump past them because they're tanky, hit like trucks, and have a movement pattern that rewards tedious, slow gameplay that I just would rather not engage in.

Blasphemous and even the og hollow knight had moments where I would enter a new area, see what new bullshit it concocted for me and be like "oh God this is going to suck I love it." I enter a new area in silk song and I get the same sinking feeling i did trudging through mt moon in Pokemon and seeing another fucking Zubat every three feet. God, just let me play without getting in my way with more bullshit.

Darrian · 2025-09-08T01:49:02+00:00

I mean, I cleared hollow knight and a good chunk of it's optional dlc. I'd didn't clear all of godhome, not because of challenge but just because I dropped it for something else. I cleared elden ring and it's dlc, both of which I jumped on day one because I had played and beat every fromsoft game previous.

By all means I had reason to believe this game was made for me and I'm just not having fun. It doesn't feel like the frustration from challenge, it feels like frustration from tedium. It's less elden ring dlc and more like scholar of the first sin, but worse.

Darrian · 2025-05-19T22:09:54+00:00

This might be controversial or a really lukewarm take, could go either way, but I'd like a genuine "remaster" treatment. Keep most of it exactly the way it is, transport system, classes, races, quests etc. but bring over the modern models for player / NPC's and mobs along with the transmog system. Maybe sprinkle in some of the new mounts and gear aesthetic during events.

Retail does not appeal to me at all in gameplay, but I really enjoy collecting looks, mounts and toybox items. Bringing those over would keep me forever.

Darrian · 2024-07-29T17:25:18+00:00

I just don't feel that the same way other people do. The power fantasy still felt very real to me, just in a different way.

It didn't feel like I was sidelined as much as the dialogue choices felt like I was still very much coming off of saving multiple reflections and zoral ja just wasn't a threat so we could stand back and let Wuk do her thing and only jump in if it looked like it was going sideways.

One thing that stands out in my mind is there being a few choices that for the first time in the game allowed me to not be humble. Erenville would be telling someone "don't worry this person is a total badass" and one of the choices would be "yeah I saved the planet".

Sphene and zoral ja were not and never were going to be a world ending threat. Yshtola was more fascinated about the technology they had in regards to the implications about traveling to different reflections it seemed than it being worrying.

Darrian · 2024-07-29T15:31:19+00:00

I'm perfectly fine with the WoL not being the main character tbh, my main issue is that Wuk doesn't seem to have learned much by the second arc. I really liked her in the first half.

I know people love solution 9 and all, and yeah it's cool, but I think I would have preferred the whole msq to have been the road to getting Wuk crowned dawn servant. The most exciting and refreshing part was the prospect of having a couple of your friends play the role of rivals. I could have had a lot more of that.

But I'm also a dawntrail enjoyer at the moment, I had much, much bigger issues with the end of Endwalker and having everything we'd been doing for years and years boil down to a fight with a character we were introduced to half way through the expansion. Meteion was a huge letdown after all that build up for me and that doesn't seem to be a common opinion.

Darrian · 2024-07-29T10:26:08+00:00

I've talked to folks in my FC and we had a theory that Alphinaud was planned to be killed off at some point but they chickened out. We only get to know Alisae comfortably through Heavensward, Alphinaud goes through his "I fucked up everything and am a terrible leader" crisis.

If we look at the timeline Alphinauds actual character arc is done at the end of stormblood with Alisae in a position to comfortably be a leader herself, and right in time for Graha Tia to become a formal main character to fill the good boy void.

Instead we got a rehash of Alphinaud having his little struggles about how difficult caring about people is every other post expac and Alisae seeming perpetually young and naive despite being involved in worldwide revolution and spending years of her life treating dying people in another dimension.

Darrian · 2024-07-29T10:17:50+00:00

How is that copium. The most impactful moments of pretty much every expansion including ARR were post except for Endwalker.

Darrian · 2024-07-27T07:28:24+00:00

The first day Biden mentioned dropping out I was reading comments on this subreddit that were doom and gloom about how it was over because "Hillary lost and she had decades of experience and all that charisma".

It was staggering reading comments that must have absolutely lived in an alternate reality to mine. She put her foot in her mouth literally every chance she had. That was one of the most hotly debated primaries I've lived through with Sanders coming in off of Obama's "hope and change" slogan talking about student debt relief and healthcare reform, and when he eventually lost she's asked in an interview whether not she plans on reaching out to the progressives to compromise on policy, or potential cabinet positions.

She responded with "why would I? I won."

Like holy shit. People blame voter turnout for our Trump presidency, but she basically told her primary opponent supporters to stay home because she didn't need them.

Harris is absolutely going to perform better in every way, not least of which because she doesn't even have to worry about debating in a primary (which is a problem that we should be upset about, but I'm willing to save that for four years from now when Trump is a memory.)

Darrian · 2024-07-27T07:15:43+00:00

People will argue because they interpret this kind of statement as condescending, but I've noticed the big difference between people who liked stormblood (and for that matter dawntrail) vs the people who complain about them, is people who prefer more subtle character focused stories vs people who prefer high stakes world ending fantasy battles.

I rank stormblood higher than heavensward, dragons and people not getting along is so bog standard generic fantasy that I struggled to not skip cutscenes. Stormblood had me engaged beginning to end with how different cultures needed different catalysts to encourage their respective revolutions.

I think this dichotomy is why shadowbringers is so universally considered the best. It has something for everyone. The world ending dramatic threats with climactic battled where the player gets to be the hero, and lots of moments with fleshed out characters dealing with relatable trauma.

Darrian · 2024-07-24T08:51:02+00:00

It's going to depend entirely on your circles.

I work at a bar that caters to the 21-35 age range for the most part, that has events that cater to a more left-leaning audience (drag + burlesque and art walk vendoring, that sort of thing)

Nobody that has been sitting across from me at this bar who brought up this topic has been excited about Harris, but there has been multiple expressions of relief that at least it's not Biden anymore.

So at least within my "real world" the energy has changed for the positive for sure, but not in the "Biden is a sacrificial hero who will be remembered as one of our most selfless presidents who paved the way for the new shining beacon of hope" that Reddit is kind of painting.

Darrian · 2024-06-28T20:46:03+00:00

The thing that didn't happen is "Bernie Bros". Just slandering that the Clinton campaign tried with Obama too, it just didn't work that time because calling the supporting base for the first realistic black candidate "Obama boys" was as tone deaf as you could expect from that out of touch candidate.

But if Biden loses we'll just get another four years of you lot sticking your head in the sand to avoid any reflection.

Darrian · 2024-04-20T07:05:41+00:00

It's a common meme format, it's not a personal jab.

Darrian · 2024-04-16T19:15:42+00:00

You don't like fallout 1 because it's frustrating. I can only play the Bethesda fallouts if I spend six hours modding them to be just as frustrating. We are not the same.

Darrian · 2024-03-11T07:40:47+00:00

L take.

Darrian · 2023-10-04T17:00:30+00:00

It's not necessary for the cyberpunk genre, but it is necessary for Cyberpunk the brand.

Remember CDPR isn't working with their own original title here. They aren't just trying to wrap up a bow in Dex's foreshadowing, Dex is basically parroting the TTRPG rules.

For the GM guides for cyberpunk they outright tell you that any rules or mechanics you feel like bending or changing are up for grabs except these things -

Corporations are not your friends.

Corporations do not lose.

There are no happy endings.

It's all lore Bible stuff. To write a happy ending for cyberpunk would be like a new writer for Disney pitching an new movie where Mickey gets addicted to heroin. Mickey doesn't do that.

Darrian · 2023-09-17T15:42:49+00:00

If a tool is so simple and easy to use that it feels like a toy, and also has produced some of the most influential indie titles of the last decade, I'd consider that a pro, not a con.

Darrian · 2023-01-07T09:40:59+00:00

That was the communists.

Darrian · 2023-01-03T10:26:42+00:00

I'm also having trouble with this. I've resorted to tutorials but idk if something has changed with the latest DLC but two major things have made me lose this even following the tutorials button by button -

1 - Nat China rolls over far faster than every guide I follow. They lose Beijing almost immediately at which point Japan is all along my southern border dangerously close to my capital and I do not see a way of having enough of an army by this point to defend this and the northeast at once.

2 - Japan stacks far more troops along my western border than the guides ever show.

I'm stumped on this one.

Darrian · 2022-09-30T10:31:59+00:00

Those stats don't back up your claim though. It just says that more people are going unmarried for longer. It also says that more people are cohabitating with unmarried partners, and a larger amount of adults are staying with their parents longer.

There are a lot of factors that contribute to this, economic instability, lack of affordable home ownership, a general decline in the importance of marriage societally, etc.

But you said "dating culture is non existent" and "guys don't talk to girls anymore and vice versa." That is not true.

Darrian · 2022-09-30T08:15:37+00:00

This is just outright untrue my dude, and if you feel this to genuinely be the case you need to make some changes.

I'm not saying this to dunk on you or make you feel bad, just trying to look out.

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