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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   1940 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for September 5, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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After seven long years, Hollow Knight: Silksong released and people could finally play it crashed Steam for several hours after which people could finally play it.

You'll remember that Dark Souls (2011) started a storm of Dark Souls buts -- Dark Souls but Scifi, Dark Souls but Roguelike, Dark Souls but Cooking Mama, etc. Of these, to my knowledge, the only pure success was Hollow Knight. (But Metroidvania.) It captured Dark Souls 1's best feature, which was a feeling of going on an expedition into the deep unknown, with no idea how to get back home. Likewise in Hollow Knight, very commonly players clear the game's tutorial zone and end up falling into a late game spiders' nest a hundred miles underground. Or swim through a hole in wall, but get lost in a complex sewer system with an abandoned city underneath. Or mess around platforming and find a secret level hidden above the cliffs of the starter village. The story, vibe, and lore were also very Dark Souls, although this is mostly because Hollow Knight just plain ripped it off.

Five hours in, I'm enjoying myself but I'm disappointed. It's ironically the exact same disappointment of Dark Souls 2. Silksong is much more linear and railroaded; the difficulty, even in these early areas, is a step up from the original, and this is mainly accomplished but lower player health, higher enemy health, and the liberal use of gank squads. And I suspect Silksong won't pull off a nifty meta-narrative like DS2 did, or at least not with such gravitas or panache.

We'll see if the game opens up once I reach the citadel, or once I finally get a freaking health or damage upgrade. Anyone else playing this? (Or any other Soulslike or Metroidvania, I guess)

I'm playing (have just defeated the Fourth Chorus and made my way up, where I am now up against the owlmoth thing), and finding it pretty enjoyable so far. The differences in locomotion from HK don't particularly bother me (the diagonal plunge is easy to get used to), and I don't actually see the game feeling too linear (I felt a fair bit of freedom regarding the order that I could do the early bosses in, to the point that I actively backed off of one in the hope that I could find some movement upgrade first). Some complaints I have would be that

  • the early areas somewhat lack distinctive personality

  • the whole trap/consumable mechanic, so far, feels insufficiently impactful to waste precious middle-aged neurons on developing muscle memory for

  • BGMs feel more ambient, while HK had some songs that stuck in my mind

  • I agree with the sentiment below that many enemies are pointlessly damage-spongey (looking at you, red ant tribe).

  • So far the driving plot feels too similar to HK, what with the collapsing bug kingdom suffering from a mind control zombie plague that the protagonist has some mysterious existential connection to.

On the other hand, things that I feel are an improvement over the predecessor:

  • The graphics and level design feel more polished. HK had some areas that looked pretty monotonous.

  • Every boss fight so far has been great: they are unique, inventive, and the difficulty feels fair. HK suffered from the problem that a lot of the bosses were just finicky - you needed to learn the exact timing and hitboxes for their attacks so that you could get out of the way and strike back, but the mechanic would often just be "dodge this massive club swing by between 1 and 4 pixels and then run towards the enemy to get in a hit".

  • It has doubled down on HK's strength of having an endearingly quirky NPC cast with funny fantasy-language exclamations and songs announcing their presence.

  • I found the FOMO (what if some other set of powerups would have trivialised this boss?) of HK's knapsack-based badge/upgrade system to be more annoying than anything. The new one has less of that (though that might just be because so far I have found hardly any optional powerups that feel meaningful).

  • I'm obviously not far enough in yet, but the narration of the main story feels more tight.

One thing worth noting is that I tried to play the game with my recently-acquired Switch controller (having been a keyboard gamer all my life, but finally folding because of some games requiring omnidirectional movement/aiming), but went back to keyboard after the first few bosses which immediately gave me a massive power spike. I am not sure the controls were optimised for gamepads.

the diagonal plunge is easy to get used to

I envy your neuroplasticity.

You eventually get crests or something that alter your attack moveset (but require you to unlock equipable slots all over again) and the first one i got changed the downward plunge to much more forgiving hitbox that's slightly slower but you get it after you've probably gotten used to the fast diagonal or at least had to use it for four to five hours.

You move in the direction of the needle, which helps.

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