Hollow Knight: Silksong

At time or writing this review I'm on 96% game completion and have clocked in 56.5 hours since its release. I would've grinded the last 4% of collectibles I'm missing but due to the release of #[game:228525:Hades II] I've decided to stop for now. I've always been a fan of Metroidvanias and while the big boys of the genres were busy trying to break into 3D the indies took it upon themselves to innovate in the design space carved out by Castlevania and, perhaps more importantly, Metroid. Axiom Verge, Cave Story, Ori and the Blind Forest are all great examples of this, but none have managed to top Hollow Knight. I've played it fairly soon after it released and was very impressed. Team Cherry managed to build an incredible and captivating world, populate it with memorable characters, implement all the core tenants of a great Metroidvania while also nailing some of the recent gaming trends popularised by the Souls games. Challenging but fair bosses, hidden secrets requiring community cooperation, punishing but tension raising runbacks, to mention some. It was a runaway hit, selling over 20 million copies, everyone was singing it praises and it had already inspired clones. Even the Ori sequel was being accused of plagiarism and allowing Hollow Knight, which should've been it's peer, to be it's main influence. Silksong was in development for seven years, and while I wasn't one of those guys who just kept playing Hollow Knight forever, I was very much looking forward to it. It started off as DLC, I belive it was originally supposed to be a character swap, playing through Hallownest as Hornet instead of the Knight. It soon grew out of scope and Team Cherry just decided to make it into a sequel. I'm so glad they took their time and decided to give Hornet her own game, world, story and style of combat. While the Knight had to dig deeper and deeper through Hallownest, Hornet instead follows the path of Pharloom's pilgrims to reach the top of the citadel and dethrone the monarch wreaking havoc upon its denizens. Silksong is massive, seeing as Hollow Knight was already massive, I expected Silksong to surpass it and still I was surprised by the fact that it kept on going on and on and on, new areas, new twists, new enemies all until the very end. And yet I still wanted more! You know that feeling you had when you were a kid where you thought if you could somehow break out of bounds you would discover the entire world of that game. I had that feeling multiple times while playing through Silksong, and for some of them my wish was actually granted, and then I would reach another edge of this world and I would yearn for more again! For 20 EUR it's a value proposition that not many can compete with. Exploration is one of, if not the most important aspect of Metroidvanias. And Team Cherry mostly delivers. Entire areas and some of the best bosses in the entire games are incredibly easy to miss. Harbouring it's little lore tidbits, breakable walls behind breakable walls behind more breakable walls. The game invites, or even demands, that you explore every nook and cranny. It demands your trust that being thorough in your exploration will be awarded, in way or another. However it sometimes betrays that trust, awarding you with a small amount of rosaries or shards, which then promptly fall on some spikes and disappesr. And while this might infuriate some players, I think the times that it rewards you far outweigh the times that it does not. And when it does disappoint, it's in service of ludonarrative harmony. Speaking of ludonarrative harmony, the game has been heavily criticised for its lack of rewards, non sensical drop scaling and punishing boss runbacks. And while some of those criticisms are valid, almost all of them are cleverly used to ineractively flesh our the world of Pharloom. The enemies of Underworks drop barely any rosaries despite being a mid game enemy, because they're essentially slaves. The boss runbacks can always be cut short by exploring the area further. I don't think I ever had a runback that was longer than ~40 seconds. Benches in lower levels of the citadel are pay per use to better illustrate the levels of abuse and class differences, to make you feel the pain of thr bugs working endlessly to fund the lavish lives of the castes above, all under the guise of religious fansticism. And little details like these really set Pharloom apart from Hallownest. It's a civilization collapsing, instead of a kingdom far gone. The world feels incredibly lived in. It breathes, adapts and changes according to your actions. Friendly characters will move with you on your pilgrimage, aiding you as well as requiring you to complete certain tasks. Despite limited dialogue and no voice acting I've felt more connected to some of these bugs than humans in most other games. The game goes to great lengths to try and make it's world as realistic as possible and reflect that in its moment to moment gameplay. However some of these choice feel like they're there just to punish the player with no narrative backing. For example, none of the bosses drop rosaries or shards. I don't see an explanation as to why this would make sense in the world. Mastering a boss feels fantastic and having some sort of monetary reward would've been a nice thing to keep the player motivated and pushing through such a difficult game. And yes, the game is very difficult. I'm a very thorough explorer and a pretty good gamer. I was ahead of the curve with my health and nail upgrades and still I found myself really struggling against some of the games toughest bosses. Interestingly, after taking a short break I would beat most of them on my first attempt. In fact, I had died to Trobbio probably more than 30 times in a row and then I beat him without taking a single hit or using any tools. It goes to show that locking in, and honest boss design make reaching that flow state feel incredible. There are a couple bosses that felt unfair, specifically Savage Beastfly flooding the screen with enemies and the final boss blending in with the background too much (I can't really tell if this is an intentional design choice) felt unfair. Other than that I think every boss has clearly and well telegraphed moves that can be learned and mastered with a bit of focus and discipline. Speaking of combat, Hornet feels incredible to pilot. The movement additions are so much more fluid than the Knights. All of them are applicable in combat situations but they also require a certain amount of commitment. You can't just dash for no reason against most bosses, they will punish you. This makes every decision feel consequential and stringing together 5-10 movement inputs and attacks, dancing around and bouncing off the enemies is a feeling not many games can even begin to replicate. Throw in a couple of creative tools and silk skills and you've got yourself an incredible combat system. There are also crests, which serve as ways to change Hornet's attacks and movement options. For example, she starts with a diagonal downward slash, but some crests allow a more traditional vertical pogo option. The reaper's crest gives her slow but sweeping attacks. The wanderer's crest is the opposite, with quick and deadly but short range slashes. Each has a unique flavour that I haven't gotten around to play with too much. Certain encounters had me sit down at the bench and completely re-do my build using a different crest to make tackling that challenge easier. I think this is a sign of fantastic game design, where preparation matters just as much as execution, where online boss guides often out emphasis on Hornet's loadout, as well as attack telegraphs and how to avoid each one. Hornet is also much more of a character than the Knight. While his personality, or lack thereof, makes sense in the game's narrative and story, the opposite is true for Hornet. She was already given some personality in the first game but Silksong really excels at crafting these little cute character interactions to flesh her and her allies out. The hunter's journal is also written from her perspective this time and in there there's tonnes of her personality woven through, I was actually looking forward to completing a journal entry so that I can get another look into her past, preferences or diguist towards certain species of bugs. The atmosphere is also phenomenal, the art and animations are a gargantuan upgrade compared to it's predecessor but it manages to retain that simple charm that made the first game aesthetically special. Some of the backgrounds and environmental art is stunning, further contributing to the worldbuilding and story. The music is also great, but the game does tend to turn the music down a bit too often, especially while exploring. I'm usually a fan of diagetic music, but Silksong's soundtrack is so good that it's a shame that it's not used a bit more outside of boss arenas. The addition of wishes, which are essentially quests, is another mixed bag. Some of them are pretty cool, furthering character storylines or requiring us to go on a quest of exploration collecting vaguely hinted at resources for a powerful reward. Most are pretty boring and simple. Kill 25 birds and collect their feathers. Go fight Savage Beastfly again, except this time it's on fire and all its friends spit fire. I think it would've been a better addition had some of them just been cut. In a similar vein combat gauntlets are numerous of frequent. You get locked in a room, you fight waves of enemies, die or defeat them all to keep exploring. I personally find them fun, and the runbacks are never too long or boring, but I can totally see why people don't like them and they don't make too much sense in the game's world. Why would these enemies not respawn? Why would the door open after I kill all those enemies? For a game that goes to great lengths to achieve ludonarrative harmony, it sure makes a couple of pretty large and "gamey" concessions. Another hot topic is the damage that enemies deal. Many basic enemies will do two masks of damage from the very beginning of the game. I'll ignore the narrative implications of this, whether Hornet (this ancient demigod) is so fragile, or are Pharlooms bugs all on roids, and tackle it primarily from a gameplay perspective. In my opinion it's an unnecessarily steep start to the game. I had more trouble getting through act 1 than the rest of the acts combined (excluding the final final boss). I think most of this can be fixed by just reducing the contact damage of most early game enemies and bosses. This would encourage players to experiment more and get more comfortable trying to stay in close range of enemies to land as many hits as possible. Silksong isn't perfect but most of its flaws are by design. It's appropriate that both the first game and Silksong begin with poems. The way that characters talk is often poetic. The way that the lore is woven through every element of the game, often left open to interpretation, is poetic. The way that Hornet leaps and weaves through enemies during combat and the way that the entire world connects, forming a beautiful cohesion between the physical space and the game's mechanics is really something to behold. This is definitely one of the best games I've ever played and one of favorites. I excitedly await Team Cherry's next project, no matter how long it takes.