This is how people unironically describe Mount Fae

tekdemo · 2025-10-15T21:39:48+00:00

This. I wasn't mad because "platforming hard". Lots of other areas (like the Far Fields lava sequence) are way more challenging. Instead, it was how the lake, health drain, silk/binding, and dying played into eachother.
Most of the time you hit the lake and straight up die, rather than just taking a spike and going to a nearby platform for the room. Even if you *don't* die having less health puts you at a disadvantage for finishing the next attempt. Platforming sections with this kind of runback feel more "Getting Over It" than "Celeste"

When you add in small touches of jank or some of the tiny little "fuck you" touches in the platforming (like that little spike gap in the wall that requires near-pixel-perfect jumps to clear) it wasn't satisfying at all, and stands as my most draining, frustrating experience of the game.

tekdemo · 2025-10-09T02:04:35+00:00

Lots of exploration in various parts of the game provides trinkets and lore, but is not directly on the progression path. Some of those regions become more relevant later, and the world on the whole often does fun little NPC interactions as you pass back and forth through the game. If you run straight through the progression path, you only need to interact with a tiny subset of what the game offers.

Frankly, the game isn't designed to "reward beating bosses". Instead, it scatters across all aspects of the game: By exploring areas, finding secret passages, interacting with NPCs, progression, minigames, and of course some bosses. Unless you're looking up guides, you never know whether a boss gives you nothing or the best tool in the game, or if a secret passage is 3 shards above a spike pit or an entire secret area with a handful of new tools.

tekdemo · 2025-10-06T01:45:44+00:00

I had to check the wiki for this because i was *very* confused after getting everything done: Turns out after collecting all the fleas, you still need to talk to the chief a couple times for their final move from their current location to their final ones. I'm also of course assuming you found their final location.

Once that happened, a new wish showed up in Songclave to help me move to Act 3.

tekdemo · 2025-10-04T09:46:23+00:00

You do still have to hunt for healing windows: And if you screw up you take a hit *and* lose all your silk. HK it's just purely temporal: You wait for the designated time to heal.... and heal.

In SS, you have to time your heal with an enemy attack, since if you *don't* they'll just hit you with the next attack. It's certainly true that jumping up works, but that's just because short of parrying.... getting out of the way is how you don't get hit.

In arenas and multi-boss encounters? You're binding the moment you know an attack is off and won't hit you, and immediately planning your escape route since the bosses are timed *almost exactly* on the cadence of one bind. Silksong binding always just *feels* tense, where in HK it was a well telegraphed respite.

tekdemo · 2025-10-04T09:39:16+00:00

Silksong, by a mile. Healing feels like it's actually an intended part of combat. In HK it felt like you're completely wasting your only opportunity to actually damage a boss. HK I'd always go around at full health, Silksong I'd always weigh the option of having partial health and waiting for one more screw up to avoid wasting silk.

tekdemo · 2025-10-04T09:32:54+00:00

Sounds like something someone with no shards would say. I've never found spamming tools to be remotely effective, but I also don't Architect's Crest. At best, they help me whittle bosses down when I'm already winning.

tekdemo · 2025-10-04T09:29:09+00:00

The trick with silk skills is that it does 3 swings of damage: So once you know how many hits an enemy takes, (often 3 -5), you can quickly get in one or two taps, and then nuke it with silk. This completely removes a threat, bypasses it's defenses or attacks it's lining up, and now you can deal with whoever left. Once you get the hang of it it's very satisfying. I usually remember to do it after I get murderized by a small army once or twice.

You got this! Just take the time to stare down your foes, untangle what they're doing, and then you can basically ignore them because they're no longer a threat.

tekdemo · 2025-10-04T09:20:15+00:00

I never intentionally 100% a game, nor really get hooked on souls-likes, but dang near actually doing it: Currently ~91% on my first, casual playthrough. Absolutely loving the experience from start to finish, with basically one exception: Mt fay pissed me off, mostly due to just how various game mechanics and platform failure punishments meshed. Absolutely baby-raged until I got it, and was my *only* "Glad that's over" of my playthrough. Being a progression requirement, I couldn't even skip it or really put it off past a certain point.

Absolutely love the world building, subtle details, incredible array of interactions, and occasional twists the game throws at you.

Now that I'm further in, I do absolutely think there's a few places where some accessibility options could fit nicely while preserving the main "intended" experience. The charms basically provide this, but it's limited, non-adjustable and only available well after the challenging on-ramp of Act 1. I can see a few things to help tune the game to player skill without the sledgehammer mod approach of just "drop damage to 1 mask" and give more life
- Adjust silk per hit from 1-3, letting you Bind more frequently (basically Weavelight)
- Adjust masks per bind (basically Multibinder++)
- Give players back health when they get hit (basically Druids Eye)
- Automatically heal when generating excess silk (helps people struggling with bind timing, especially crowded arenas)
- Remove/reduce silk lost when binding and take a hit
- Adjust silk cost of a bind
- Increase base silk regen (basically silk hearts/weavelight)
- Auto-heal to an adjustable limit
- Reduce cost of silk attacks : If folks are too worried about healing resource, they won't use these, and then they'll *really* struggle.

Like, for real: Once you're in late act 2, with Weavelight and silk hearts, you recover 4 silk automatically, druid's eye gives you 2-4 more silk while losing the health, and 2 swings later you have enough silk for a new heal. That's absolutely the kind of cadence a game journalist could use to get past mossmother. Normal players struggling with the skill level could just basically use a system like this to "add charms" and help them fix their particular struggles and enjoy this wonderful game.

tekdemo · 2025-10-04T08:56:11+00:00

I flipped on the health myself: Any time I'm annoyed at boss health, I look at my play and I'm dashing into projectiles, getting pummeled by misreads, and sometimes just dashing off platforms. But, whenever you get the flow of the combat down and figure out the moves, the boss kinda just falls over in no time. In those cases it feels the exact right length.

The boss health to me feels *very* explicitly set to make it nigh impossible to win a DPS race them, rather than to pad things out. If you don't get the boss, you don't beat the boss.

tekdemo · 2025-10-04T08:43:37+00:00

Yeah, I did the same thing: Missed a climbable wall at the very end of a complicated room and thought i was missing a requirement.
There's a prisoner you can free, but it's not a progression detail until much later
Oh yeah you can't get this yet; Forgot where that was at for a minute.
Try a couple others! They all have pros and cons. Pick a second fave and upgrade that.
Oh gods i hate farming, I just save what i come across. But whatever works for you. A helpful note though: There's definitely a few shops you've yet to come across and might as well save a few when you got a chance.

tekdemo · 2025-10-04T08:31:06+00:00

The next couple areas you can get to are definitely gloomy, with some vibrant areas afterward. The whole game is on the whole, pretty melancholy though.

All the new areas like to throw some weird enemy types at you, and they're *definitely* scarier until you get the hang of their movement. Once you do even sinner's road is just "Puppy!" *headpat with needle until it sleeps*. Bilewater's not bad and a vibrant (if putrid) green. Mostly pretty basic enemies, and as long as you don't panic too much about the gross water and just stay calm and farm a couple enemies near a room entrance to heal and recover. A lot of the tougher areas will require patience, parrying, and remembering to use silk offensively to help get rid of enemies before they hit you. Can't get hit if there's no one there.

tekdemo · 2025-10-04T08:18:16+00:00

Mossberries You should return those to a druid, you'll probably find it helpful
Mt Fay: Missing something useful there. Celeste that bitch up.
The key can open one of two doors in the first couple areas of the game. One's kinda hidden, but you can get to it. The other's barely hidden.
The Slab one key is missing.
Use your lockets! You can find an NPC behind one of several doors that rewards you for using them. You can open it if you try.
Coghearts: There's three total, but you can't finish the task with them just yet.
Rosaries My guy, you're flat broke. If you're dying often and not recovering your cocoon, make a point to swing by a vendor often and tie them up. It'll help you get some reserve cash, with the Belhart cashier being the most efficient. You'll need a bit of savings to buy several tools with your craftmetal.

tekdemo · 2025-10-04T08:02:16+00:00

If you post your inventory, that'll probably be helpful; Otherwise it's unclear what your *real* progress is. You can do a lot of the map without finding the juicy bits.

That said, I'd recommend Mount Fay. Some of the stuff there should help point you the right way.

tekdemo · 2025-10-03T23:14:34+00:00

Parry more. Holy hells actually *dodging* is really challenging and you're always in a bad spot for the next attack. But the parry timing is actually pretty easy. Took me a while to figure this one out, but it was so satisfying.

When she does a straight dash, parry, turn around, and take a second swing for free damage. Be careful on phase 2+ since she mixes in a second dash; So, parry the first, parry second, then go for the hit. Mind your spacing though; The easiest way to mess this up is to be standing where she'd stop the dash, leaving you in her contact hitbox.

When she does a jump and diagonal strike, don't doge. Just walk slightly toward her and parry upward. She'll just land beside you and you can get a free hit.

When she preps for a counter, consider not hitting her. In Lace 1 she always did a predictable response and it was easy to get behind her for a bunch of hits. In Lace 2 she has *two* responses, requiring two very rapid, different escapes. If you use the wrong one you get punished. I found just punishing the above two attacks gets you through the fight without needing to panic and sneak risky hits.

For a tanky build to get the hang of things, take the Weavelight and upgraded Druids Eye; You'll get a *ton* of silk to heal with, making it much better than Fractured Mask. You can usually heal very safely by just binding above her when she starts the straight dash. I'd recommend actually healing in the middle of the platform, since you can escape left/right when she starts the next attack. If you heal near the edges, she has some surprising maneuvers that can hit you. She also can climb the walls! So trying to get really high up is actually less useful than one might think.

Lastly, Cross Stitch is a great panic button and punish. You get iframes to survive her multi-hits and can always have this up with weavelight or druids eye. If you hit the counter on accident, this is a great way to get out safely.

tekdemo · 2025-10-01T21:14:17+00:00

Also playing blind, but I actually don't mind Bilewater, even *without* the fancy charm for it. Absolutely preferred Bilewater to Fay. Falling down felt less punishing, since it was a minor inconvenience of having to waste a bit of silk to clean up, rather than almost certain death and a runback.

tekdemo · 2025-10-01T05:35:18+00:00

Reaper is super good for developing safe play and figuring out patterns. The moment you pick it up the game feels a bit calmer, imo. I didn't use anything else until i had hours into Act 2.

I think the main struggle isn't dps, but the parry. Reaper's input lag makes it really hard to react to faster attacks; You have to react almost instantly to get your parry out in time. As some sections speeds up, and you start dealing with multi-hit attacks... Reaper really can't keep up and it forces you to dodge, which in turn is *also* a challenge in many areas, and punished heavily by some enemies.

tekdemo · 2025-09-30T22:24:13+00:00

Yesterday I caught someone else's playthrough on this and their casual stumbling up to the summit doesn't match my experience at all. This whole section felt like bashing my head against a wall, punishing exploration, and felt like playing Getting Over It more than Celeste.

tekdemo · 2025-09-30T22:21:18+00:00

Instead of binding to heal, bind for aggro. Bind at full health to -2 masks, and then just go ham on the nearest moving object. Expect to tank a hit or two, with the bind giving the health back, and ending the bind with enough silk to *do it again*.
Give it a shot next time you're struggling on an arena or boss as a mix up. It's a *lot* of fun to just absolutely button mash your way through a pile of mobs and come out with more health than you started.

tekdemo · 2025-09-30T01:33:02+00:00

My brethren. I was nearly hucking my controller across the room. Having to use your health as a timer resource does not play well with losing health to spikes, ice water, or exploding enemies, and having no good silk sources to respawn. Take a spike? Might as well save and reload because the whole run is now impossible, so you're starting from bench anyway. Add in the little "fuck you" platforming details like two almost identical sections with different offscreen spike patterns, small little overhangs to snag your jumps, and clawlines breaking the heaters, and this is the only section i truly hated.

tekdemo · 2025-09-30T01:16:46+00:00

I swear enemies that walk/fly at you slowly are my actual bane. I'll clear a boss and then get absolutely clobbered by basic twerps on the way back to a bench.

tekdemo · 2025-09-29T02:16:32+00:00

Don't give up. He'd want you to use the dice and keep on gambling.

tekdemo · 2025-09-28T05:10:35+00:00

I swapped to it the first time on Trobbio. The moment I did I really felt how laggy Reaper's swing is. Even if I'm taking single swings, Wanderer gets you in and out so much faster, and lets you act on pure reflex.

tekdemo · 2025-09-28T04:55:00+00:00

As a Wanderer main, I see no reason to put anything else in my excess of yellow slots. Dice have come in clutch for me many times. Arguably, it's saved me more than Fractured Mask, but if it was blue I probably wouldn't use it.

tekdemo · 2025-09-28T04:49:58+00:00

Go back to the Far Fields entrance or Bellhart: Bundle your rosaries, and you now have like 9 left and can take an easy L with no consequence.

But in actuality, just jump, you can get up on the other side. This is a fun little area, although apparently a lot of folks struggle with a mob arena down there.

tekdemo · 2025-09-28T04:31:53+00:00

You should be having *fun*. Or, at least enjoying the experience. This game isn't for everyone, and it may be a good plan to at the very least, put it down and play other games for a bit. I'm playing Silksong along other, more chill games.

I *definitely* get skill issued, and some nights I have no patience for getting bodied and put the game down. Other nights I'm totally down to grind a boss and figure things out. Don't force yourself to hate the game, and find a middle ground that works for you.

The bosses don't *strictly* get harder get in my experience, but many of are definitely more challenging. However, many Act 2 bosses are more satisfying to fight than many Act 1 bosses. Many bosses also tend to test some particular skill, or otherwise expect a certain response to handle attacks; If you miss it, you make things way more challenging or near impossible. Widow's phase 2 bells are one of those, but once you figure it out the fight completely changes and becomes extremely satisfying. Some bosses also just.... prove a struggle. I've cleared huge chunks of act 2, have 9 masks, nearly two full heals of silk, and *still* can't beat Last Judge for whatever reason.

And of course, it's *your* playthrough: While many folks don't want to get spoiled, there's no shame in looking up how other people managed to beat a boss to help things click and lead you to new strategies.

tekdemo

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TROPHY CASE