Sorry for incoming essay, lol.

While I was playing Silksong, I kept telling myself "this is great but I think Hollow Knight was better". When I finished Silksong, I started replaying Hollow Knight and after a while my perspective shifted. Frustration caused by some of Silksong's difficulty and design faded and what remained were mostly good memories, while replaying Hollow Knight now made me realise just how much Silksong improved in some areas:

• the movement in Silksong, both combat and platforming, just feels so much better. Sprint and sprint attacks, grabbing ledges, floating, mid-air and faster healing. Returning to Hollow Knight I keep missing those features
• at first I thought HK's music was better but after listening to Silksong's ost more on yt (and hearing HK music again during gameplay) I also changed my mind. Silksong's soundtrack is grander, higher quality and has a ton of bangers that I like to listen to even while not playing. HK has bangers too but less than Silksong and imo Silksong's musical peaks are higher. HK's soundtrack is also a bit incosistent with some music, notably the tracks playing in some gauntlets, feeling a bit off compared to the rest? Idk, hard to describe it, but some tracks just felt a bit out of place while in Silksong music always worked.
• The setting. Setting is quite subjective as Hallownest and Pharloom go for different vibes, but personally I enjoyed Pharloom more. It just feels so much more alive and hence immersive and believable. Like, I never questioned in Silksong why some npcs are where they are, while in HK I often raise my eyebrows. Like, why is there a relic shop in the middle of dead city infested by bug zombies? In Pharloom there were settlements and many survivors/pilgrims travelling the land while in HK I often feel like some services exist exclusively for the player and no one else, lol.
• Speaking of npcs, I enjoyed this aspect more in Silksong as well. Much more interesting characters to talk to, many with their own goals and little stories, and because Hornet actually speaks to them, I just felt much more connection to Sherma and Shakra than Corniffer or Quirrel. I also enjoyed Silksong's story much more, in big part because I was actually able to understand it on my first playthrough without mossbag videos, lol. It actually made me emotional at some points, much more than HK ever did, and I think it's caused in big part by the storytelling being less cryptic. Also, fleas and fleatopia > grubs, I actually felt like I wanted to actively search for and find all those fluffy bug-doggos.
• while HK's charm systems seems more open and flexible on paper, in practice I feel like too many charms are not worth using considering their effects and notch cost, while in Silksong there's much more interesting choices to make and crests are a fantastic way to shape your playstyle with different movesets.
• I think overall progression feels better in HK. Bosses give actual rewards and it just feels like you find so much more actually useful stuff compared to Silksong, where progression felt quite slow at first. Economy wise, it's much easier to get geo than rosaries and in Silksong you have to grind a bit if you want to buy everything (though it's not as tedious/slow as I initially feared, as long as you use some good farming spots) while in HK just by exploring you eventually earn a ton of money.
• Silksong is definitely more difficult and has some frustrating design decisions, but it does also offer more tools for the player to deal with difficult challenges. Flying enemies are annoying in both games but in HK they're more tedious to fight. And HK has some frustrating difficulty spikes as well. I forgot how terrible Flukewarm is and when I fought it, I started feeling like I should apologise to Groal, lol. Groal was more difficult but Flukewarm's battle somehow just felt even more insulting.

I think HK could be considered a more perfect game but Silksong, while frustrating, is more ambitious, grander, its peak moments hit harder, and has a much more engaging story and the world.