Hollow Knight: Silksong – The Perfect Sequel

Source: u/ReFlectioH

Hollow Knight: Silksong, a game by Team Cherry that spent seven-years in development, has proved itself as far more than merely just a sequel but a significant evolution of its predecessor, Hollow Knight.

In this game, you play as a swift and strong-spirited bug called Hornet, who was captured and taken to the new, unfamiliar kingdom of Pharloom, a land suffering from a “Haunting” caused by the silk produced from the sealed god-like being, Grand Mother Silk. After escaping her captors, Hornet begins an ascent to the Citadel at Pharloom’s summit to uncover the reason for her kidnapping, discover her own deep connections to the kingdom and its history with her ancestors. By helping people along her journey, she eventually gathers the power to confront Grand Mother Silk herself in an attempt to seal the source of the Haunting forever.

Silksong stands as a shining model of a Metriodvania, masterfully building upon the genre’s core concepts of exploration, platforming and ability-gated progression, and elevating them to whole new levels of depth and scale. Although the game’s high difficulty has prevented some players from giving it a good rating, it still resonates with many players, hitting an outstanding 87.72% positive reviews on Steam, praised for its worldbuilding, soundtracks and fluid gameplay.

Worldbuilding and Navigation

Hollow Knight: Silksong’s world design builds on the success of its predecessor, incorporating even more intricately interconnected areas, with rich lore told visually through outstanding layered background art and environmental storytelling.

Source: Lost Verdania in Silksong, taken by u/Lost_Sherma

It also presents a world twice the size of the original, in addition to sweeping improvements in art, music, and sound design. With each area featuring meticulously crafted soundtracks that perfectly set the tone, players are fully absorbed into the haunting yet vibrant kingdom of Pharloom.

Source: Map size comparison by u/Xancrim

True to its Metroidvania roots, Silksong intentionally encourages a sense of wonder through getting lost in its world during exploration. While I personally enjoy this, there are also players who desire more structured guidance for direction and game progression.

The game manages to masterfully balance both sides with key improvements such as waypoints for main objectives, glimmering quest boards in hub areas for side content, and a detailed quest log, all while preserving the joy of exploration by having waypoints only reveal your final destination, leaving the path to get there yours to discover. These enhancements ensure players experience a smoother progression from start to finish as compared to Hollow Knight.

Source: u/Trigon05

Gameplay

Gameplay has to be one of Silksong’s biggest strengths, this game features the main character, Hornet nimble and diverse skillset and a very interesting core mechanic called the “pogo”.

Using a downward slash, the player can bounce off enemy hitboxes and environmental hazards like saw blades, thus giving it the name “pogo”. This mechanic was kept the same between Hollow Knight and Silksong, as it is a perfect way to provide players with an open-ended way to tackle the games’ platforming and combat. This can be seen as it is always used in some way or another in almost all skips in speedruns of the game.

Hornet is also nimbler than the main character from Hollow Knight, the knight. She can pull herself up ledges, heal in midair and gain more traversal abilities such as sprinting, grappling hook, and gliding in addition to part’s of the knights moveset like the double-jump and wall jump. With so many extra options in combat, there is more potential for skill expression, making both combat and platforming feats more satisfying to pull off.

There are also crests and tools, a system similar to the charms from Hollow Knight, giving useful abilities to alleviate the games’ difficulty. For instance, there’s the Wanderer’s Crest that changes Hornet’s moveset to a style more comfortable for older players of Hollow Knight and tools like the Cogfly that can attack from a distance, assist in clearing bosses faster.

However, nothing in Silksong informs you to search for new crests and tools. So many players may go into bosses with less upgrades than others, making for very differing experiences and frustrations.

Source: https://gam3s.gg/hollow-knight-silksong/guides/hollow-knight-silksong-complete-crest-collection/

Boss Fights and Difficulty

The boss fights are consistently exceptional, with encounters like the Cogwork Dancers and Skarrsinger Karmelita that are so brilliantly designed and exhilarating that I often found myself wanting to replay them immediately. They even make use of their dynamic soundtracks to help dictate the tempo, providing a rhythmic guide to the fight’s pace and even intensifying to signal a boss’s heightened aggression.

While the boss fights are good, they can be really hard. Throughout my first playthrough which lasted a bit under 70 hours, some bosses must have taken me at least 30 attempts or more to clear. This experience is similarly shared by many and has caused the game’s difficulty to develop into quite a controversial topic and a source of frustration for lots of players.

There are also fewer benches and larger areas meaning each respawn typically results in an eventful trek back to where you last died. If you were killed by a boss without a nearby bench, the environmental hazards and minor enemies chipping away at your health during your journey back to the boss arena can prove frustrating.

However, a big part of why Silksong works is because it embraces difficulty. While this high barrier won’t be for everyone, the act of finally clearing a difficult boss through strategy and perseverance transforms any prior frustration into a deep, singular feeling of accomplishment.

Overall, Hollow Knight: Silksong is a triumphant sequel that refines and expands upon everything that made the original a classic. It offers a stronger narrative focus, more intuitive exploration, a vast world, and a far more agile and enjoyable protagonist. It stands as a prime example of a high-quality, deeply engaging, challenging and rewarding game, which many other games should aspire to achieve.

Source: https://www.teamcherry.com.au/blog/silksong-available-now