Edit: I progressed most of the way through the 2nd act and even the mandatory progression platforming becomes so tight, timed and frustrating I had to give up. Its a crying shame that all the amazing artistic features of this game have to be saddled with intense difficulty that only really succeeds in excluding anyone who for any reason can't meet that excessive challenge. And I've completed everything in Hollow Knight, bar Godhome. Silksong is just a whole other monster and its deeply disappointing after a near decade long wait.

This game is way too difficult for its own good, to the point where it becomes frustrating. Enemies do 2 masks of damage basically from the word go while you start with a whopping 5 masks (meaning you can survive at most 3 hits in a fight without healing, and will still only be able to survive 3 after gathering 4 masks fragments) and the "advantage" of Hornets more mobile moveset is pretty quickly rendered obsolete as the game starts dishing out enemy types who can easily outmanouvre the player with dashes, dives and the ability to fly on top of all of the above. Enemy placement is very often set up to make fights as hair pulling as possible.

All the issues Hollow Knight had are also still here, on top of the new frontloaded difficulty spike, slow as molasses power progression for the player and the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ contact damage on every enemy while you're forced to get in close and personal with everything.

Basically the game is just flat out unfair unless you're a hollow knight god, and even then every other enemy is on par with the likes of the Primal Aspid, a universally despised enemy from HK. TC basically made this game solely for people with photographic memory and speedrunner reflexes, everything I feared it would be after the nightmare that was Godhome. What a colossal waste.

Edit: I progressed most of the way through the 2nd act and even the mandatory progression platforming becomes so tight, timed and frustrating I had to give up. Its a crying shame that all the amazing artistic features of this game have to be saddled with intense difficulty that only really succeeds in excluding anyone who for any reason can't meet that excessive challenge. And I've completed everything in Hollow Knight, bar Godhome. Silksong is just a whole other monster and its deeply disappointing after a near decade long wait. This game is way too difficult for its own good, to the point where it becomes frustrating. Enemies do 2 masks of damage basically from the word go while you start with a whopping 5 masks (meaning you can survive at most 3 hits in a fight without healing, and will still only be able to survive 3 after gathering 4 masks fragments) and the "advantage" of Hornets more mobile moveset is pretty quickly rendered obsolete as the game starts dishing out enemy types who can easily outmanouvre the player with dashes, dives and the ability to fly on top of all of the above. Enemy placement is very often set up to make fights as hair pulling as possible. All the issues Hollow Knight had are also still here, on top of the new frontloaded difficulty spike, slow as molasses power progression for the player and the god damn contact damage on every enemy while you're forced to get in close and personal with everything. Basically the game is just flat out unfair unless you're a hollow knight god, and even then every other enemy is on par with the likes of the Primal Aspid, a universally despised enemy from HK. TC basically made this game solely for people with photographic memory and speedrunner reflexes, everything I feared it would be after the nightmare that was Godhome. What a colossal waste.