This is a game I really, really wish I could enjoy more. I love high-APM, high intensity games with sharp rises in difficulty, and Silksong is a grand slam in all those criteria, but I just cannot get past how absurdly punishing the game is. The game falls into design traps all over, with combat that ruthlessly punishes simple mistakes at a high frequency, content that incentivises you to not engage with it and an economy that's simply mind boggling.

This will be my attempt to review it from the perspective of someone who's waited ever since February 2019 when it was first announced - as someone who's played Hollow Knight for hundreds of hours across multiple platforms and control schemes, torn the game apart and finished every challenge it had to offer. I have been waiting for Silksong ever since I was in grade school, and not being able to truly recommend it is something I thought would never happen to me.

Thank you in advance for taking time out of your day to read such a negative review. I promise, the conclusion will be worth the read.

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As much as I dislike comparing sequels to their predecessors, I feel it's fairly apt here given the relative similarities in exploration and combat. Hollow Knight does most of what it sets out to do near-perfectly, having a relatively deep combat system, a world that gets you hooked effortlessly after City of Tears, interesting side characters, consistent upgrades, well designed shops and a by all accounts genius charm system that offers truly great amounts of gameplay variance.

Silksong has a mere three of these in my eyes - the combat loop is extremely satisfying, the world of Pharloom always offers something new around every corner, and Sherma has my heart tied up in silk. What it more importantly lacks, however, is consistently making you feel like you're actually making progress. I have gotten an astonishing 3 base kit upgrades: one mask upgrade, and two spool upgrades. Neither one has impacted my experience in any meaningful way, as every other enemy deals 2 masks of damage rendering the sixth mask fairly irrelevant, and it takes too much effort to actually generate silk to even have enough to heal, let alone save it in the extremely small extra space the spool upgrades give you. Even when you do and you're playing well enough to use it for Silk Skills (this game's equivalent of spells), they make you so vulnerable that you can't spam them, meaning you'll be throwing in normal nail swings between them to reposition, which generates silk for you anyway. Not only that, but the aforementioned genius charm system featured in Hollow Knight has been substituted for low-impact modifiers to your builds that fight with quality-of-life effects, can't be customised very deeply and aren't generally felt when playing well. In other words, the best tools are crutches and quality of life effects while the ones with actual utility are too low impact.

The feeling of not making any progress goes deeper, though. One of the most commonly cited criticisms of the game by far is the unbalanced economy - there are two currencies in this game, and only one of them can be used for trading with shopkeepers. Sounds alright so far, until you realise that only about 30-40% of enemies actually drop the right currency, meaning that in many cases, killing enemies has no real function. It gets even worse when you realise that, despite this limitation, you have to spend exorbitant amounts of currency in order to buy items.

My biggest economy-related blunder is buying a key for 500 rosaries (the currency) and using it on a door that led to an area that was a path entirely bereft of rewards and leading to an area I had already discovered. I wasted so many rosaries on an area I was intending to explore anyway, and I got nothing from it whatsoever. In a similar manner, my second biggest economy-related blunder occurred not long after the start of Act 2, where it costs 30 rosaries to spawn a bench that disappears after you sit on it. I felt genuinely pissed off when I saw 3 of these machines lined up, broke a necklace to have enough to use them all, then as I was investing in the third machine, the first one closed. I cannot for the life of me justify this decision in a game with such a stingy economy.

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This is not to say Silksong doesn't do many things incredibly well. I was one of few who didn't really care for Christopher Larkin's work on Hollow Knight, but I believe he's stepped up his game massively in the years since, having composed a soundtrack that heavily features strings that sets the stage for acrobatic fighting absolutely perfectly. Said fighting, of course, is also extremely satisfying, despite how hard you get punished for simple mistakes - this is a testament to how truly fantastic it feels to do the diagonal pogo in all crests I have and attack while repositioning so effortlessly.

The crest system, too, is nothing short of genius. By finding corpses in remote areas Hornet can bind their essence to herself, gaining a new moveset that alters every single damaging move she performs with her nail. Every crest I've found feels like it could truly be its own game, they're all viable anywhere and I love swapping between them whenever I have the good fortune to come across a bench.

In the same vein, Pharloom is a fantastic setting for a Metroidvania like this, with secrets around every corner and an interesting overarching antagonistic force you almost feel stalked by, ideal to provide a contrast to Hornet stalking you in the original Hollow Knight.

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There used to be the groundwork for a genuinely amazing game here. This game was in what can be described as development heaven for 7-8 years, with three incredibly passionate people working on it with by all accounts infinite funding. As one put it before the game's release:

"Indie devs stop making their game when they run out of money. We have given Team Cherry infinite money."

With this in mind, as well as the lengthy development time, just the groundwork for an amazing game is not sufficient to match the expectations set, nor is it excusable that the game simply drops the ball as you get further and further into it. According to William Pellen the last year or two was focused on polish and detail, when what the game needed was to be tested, placed under a microscope, probed and reviewed from the perspective of someone who had not played the game since its inception for the better part of a decade.

I have given this game time. I have given this game several patches. I have given this game 8 chances to truly get good, for some area to not have glaring issues. I have given this game my best attempt to rationalise any of its decisions. I have even given this game a chance to show me the true ending. And yet, despite all of that, despite just how many second chances this game got from me, the instances in which I enjoyed my time with it are few and far between.

The game has punishment layered on top of punishment from the very first few hours, small upgrades, a padded map, several useless abilities and tools, a combat system you're explicitly encouraged to not engage with and a disappointing selection of bosses. What it does well, that being the crest system, the soundtrack and the character writing and worldbuilding, does not compensate for the very lacking moment to moment gameplay when simultaneously so much focus is placed on making that gameplay feel great. As much as I hate to say it, I cannot recommend Silksong. I wish I could, from the depths of my heart, but I simply cannot.