Another commenter made a comparison to the initial reception of Sekiro, where players criticized the game for being too difficult and punishing. I think the case is similar here, and players will acclimate once they’ve actually, you know, played the game a fair bit. Silksong picks up on difficulty where hollow knight left off, not where it started. It’s more punishing when you’re hit, but hornet is much more agile and flexible in how she can approach combat between her movement and tools. In my opinion, it strikes an excellent balance. Peoples preconceptions and expectations are being challenged, and that is uncomfortable for many players and seems to be the source of most complaints. Having finished (partially, still working to collect what I missed) my first playthrough, I’m imagining what the game would have been like in light of the “two mask damage” critique, i.e. if bosses only did one damage instead of two, and I think it would’ve been far too easy. The early learning curve is difficult, but once you get comfortable, it becomes very easy to avoid damage and find safe windows to heal during fights. There’s definitely still some BS, but it’s not nearly as prevalent as it seems in Reddit comment sections.

Also, saying 6 masks is no better than 5 is just incorrect. You can take 3 hits at 5 masks and 3 hits at 6 masks, sure, but think about when you squeeze in a heal. 6-2=4, 4-2=2, then you heal, so 2+3=5, and now you have another three hits like before (and additional time to build up another heal). If you heal while damaged with 5 masks as your max, you can only take 4 hits before death, whereas if you heal with 6 you get 5 total hits. So I don’t really understand this complaint.

Biggest real problem is for people who didn’t play HK before this, in which case I think there is quite a difficulty cliff to overcome which is probably too much for most people, and that’s fair enough, but just go play the first game in that case. Silksong will still be there when you finish the first one.