With Hollow Knight: Silksong’s huge launch in full swing, community debate about its qualities and flaws has gone back and forth, with some players insisting their criticisms about things like the game's difficulty are valid and shouldn’t be instantly dismissed as "hate."
I’m guessing it’s something like when you lose to a boss you have to travel a senselessly difficult and long way back to the boss to try again?
That’s exactly it. The runbacks aren’t too long in this game despite all the complaints, but some of them are tricky and can get annoying if you keep dying 10 seconds into a fight.
Most runbacks aren’t too bad, but fuck the Bilewater one. That shit was too hard and annoying. I had less trouble with the First Sinner than that boss.
The devs looked at blight town from dark souls 1 and thought ‘we can do worse’. It really is a nightmare but somehow I killed the boss first try in the end
There have been several boss fights so far where I die to the path to the boss more than the boss itself and it takes way longer to get to the boss than actually beating it.
That being said though, I do think there’s some merit to runbacks as an actual consequence for failure. I definitely strategize more cautiously because of it.
This is the only thing I wanted to know from reviews, for whether or not to bother with Silksong. I love difficult boss fights, but cannot be arsed to spend more than half a minute doing a tedious chore in order to actually redo boss fights.
The worst one I’ve encountered apparently has a secret bench somewhere that makes it much better, and the second worst (the runback that I think everyone is talking about) is about as long as the runback to crystal guardian I think.
More like the Dark Souls formula of having to trek through heaps of enemies and traps to get back to the boss. Including the whole “lose all of your money on death” thing.
Modern from games barely have run backs anymore. Atleast in souls game you can bank your currency into stats or buy consumables, you can’t reliably do that in SS.
I’m guessing it’s something like when you lose to a boss you have to travel a senselessly difficult and long way back to the boss to try again?
Exactly. Lots of bosses don’t have convenient save points nearby, so you’re forced to walk back from the save point every time. And many of the treks are either long or just outright annoying (cheesy enemies, obstacle courses, etc). It’s like the 5 Minute Long Unskippable Cutscene’s more annoying older brother, because this unskippable cutscene requires actual gameplay and focus.
Hot take here, but I don’t mind them. Exactly because they take focus. They tell me when it’s time for a break. If I’m not up for the runback, then I’m not up for aother attempt at the boss.
I haven’t played silksong, but I’m just going off other games in the past for my experience.
If you make it through the hallway of meaningless denizens that just waste time and get to the boss, then die to the boss… Why waste time going through the meaningless denizens again to challenge the boss?
I can see it on higher difficulties when you need to make sure you get through the meaningless denizens perfectly in order to preserve your health and resources to have a better chance of defeating the boss.
But when you just want to experience the story on lower difficulty why make the denizens less powerful to make the boss easier when you can instead just put the save point in front of the boss in instead of the denizens? You’ve already made it through the denizens, it’s not like you’re skipping content.
What a weird take. It’s about respecting the players’ time. Making it through the denizens to the boss is not challenging whatsoever. Why would you think it is? It’s just tedious, and bad level design.
It’s a balance between immersion and world building and tedium.
In silksong the run backs never seen so far that it is tedious. The save point is not right next to the boss fights but for the most part they aren’t egariously far. Plus the save points serve as rest spots for the multiple paths you take. A save point at every boss would be detrimental imo.
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is nobody going to define what “runbacks” are?
I’m guessing it’s something like when you lose to a boss you have to travel a senselessly difficult and long way back to the boss to try again?
That does sound annoying and I hate when I even have to sit through a cutscene on each retry of a boss…
Unskippable cut scenes should be dragged into the street and shot.
That’s exactly it. The runbacks aren’t too long in this game despite all the complaints, but some of them are tricky and can get annoying if you keep dying 10 seconds into a fight.
Most runbacks aren’t too bad, but fuck the Bilewater one. That shit was too hard and annoying. I had less trouble with the First Sinner than that boss.
All the homies hate bilewater, actual dogshit even with the shortcut
The devs looked at blight town from dark souls 1 and thought ‘we can do worse’. It really is a nightmare but somehow I killed the boss first try in the end
Lucky! I had to try more than ten times due to unlucky behavior in the waves before the boss, and finally managed to win only by using tools.
There have been several boss fights so far where I die to the path to the boss more than the boss itself and it takes way longer to get to the boss than actually beating it.
That being said though, I do think there’s some merit to runbacks as an actual consequence for failure. I definitely strategize more cautiously because of it.
I mean, there are some really bad runbacks, but yeah most of them are fine.
How is it compared to HK?
This is the only thing I wanted to know from reviews, for whether or not to bother with Silksong. I love difficult boss fights, but cannot be arsed to spend more than half a minute doing a tedious chore in order to actually redo boss fights.
The worst one I’ve encountered apparently has a secret bench somewhere that makes it much better, and the second worst (the runback that I think everyone is talking about) is about as long as the runback to crystal guardian I think.
So it’s basically the standard platformer formula going back three or more decades?
No, just those with bad level design. Nine Sols has plenty of challenging boss fights, zero run back. Same with Sekiro, and most newer titles.
More like the Dark Souls formula of having to trek through heaps of enemies and traps to get back to the boss. Including the whole “lose all of your money on death” thing.
Modern from games barely have run backs anymore. Atleast in souls game you can bank your currency into stats or buy consumables, you can’t reliably do that in SS.
Yes you can! There’s plenty of places where you can turn prayer beads into consumable chains.
Some of these mother fuckers never dealt with nosk and it shows.
Exactly. Lots of bosses don’t have convenient save points nearby, so you’re forced to walk back from the save point every time. And many of the treks are either long or just outright annoying (cheesy enemies, obstacle courses, etc). It’s like the 5 Minute Long Unskippable Cutscene’s more annoying older brother, because this unskippable cutscene requires actual gameplay and focus.
Hot take here, but I don’t mind them. Exactly because they take focus. They tell me when it’s time for a break. If I’m not up for the runback, then I’m not up for aother attempt at the boss.
Eh, make it optional. On hard difficulty make it a thing, medium difficulty allow it to be skipped.
Why? If you can’t get through that, you aren’t going to beat the boss.
I haven’t played silksong, but I’m just going off other games in the past for my experience.
If you make it through the hallway of meaningless denizens that just waste time and get to the boss, then die to the boss… Why waste time going through the meaningless denizens again to challenge the boss?
I can see it on higher difficulties when you need to make sure you get through the meaningless denizens perfectly in order to preserve your health and resources to have a better chance of defeating the boss.
But when you just want to experience the story on lower difficulty why make the denizens less powerful to make the boss easier when you can instead just put the save point in front of the boss in instead of the denizens? You’ve already made it through the denizens, it’s not like you’re skipping content.
Because if you can’t make it through the denizens, you can’t make it through the boss. It’s a filter.
It’s not that you can’t make it through the denizens, making it through the denizens is usually easy. It’s just a waste of time for the most part.
What a weird take. It’s about respecting the players’ time. Making it through the denizens to the boss is not challenging whatsoever. Why would you think it is? It’s just tedious, and bad level design.
It’s a balance between immersion and world building and tedium.
In silksong the run backs never seen so far that it is tedious. The save point is not right next to the boss fights but for the most part they aren’t egariously far. Plus the save points serve as rest spots for the multiple paths you take. A save point at every boss would be detrimental imo.
If it’s not challenging, why are you complaining?