I liked Hollow Knight, but yes, it kind of was. Frequent destinations were far away from fast travel, and there was a low level area that they transformed into a high level area later in the game specifically so that crossing the map wouldn't be a cake walk. I'd argue that earning the power to make an area like that into a cake walk is a core part of the fun.
It's been a few years, but mostly I just remember needing to go to the shop over and over again from various points in the map and it being a long trek. I don't remember a custom fast travel point, so either I never got it, or it came so late that I didn't remember its utility.
Not putting checkpoints close to boss fights is not difficulty.
You're pointing a finger at the Soulslike genre here, not only HK. Some games may abandon it, but this is common enough to be called a genre stable.
Just like the "hit hit, dodge/parry, hit hit" combat pattern, losing/recovering currency, enemies respawning on bonfire use… etc.
I think this whole genre is wack, TBH. I don't even find it difficult, I just think what they test is perseverance in the face of misery and tediousness, which's a bizarre thing to test in a video game. It's almost as if it's straight up telling you: this is a serious video game, no room for fun here.
Meanwhile, Ninja Gaiden proved you can simultaneously have extreme difficulty AND fun like one million years ago.
Personally I think we'd all be better off not even calling them Soulslikes, for this very reason. Full-blown Soulslikes have so many more nuances and systems that add to the experience.
Yeah, huh, apparently HK is tagged on Steam as a Souls-like, but I disagree... just brutal difficulty in a melee-heavy game isn't enough to merit that badge, but oh, well.
To be fair Ninja Gaiden Black did also have boss runbacks. It's one of a handful of small complaints I have about what is otherwise a very close to perfect game (Chapter 9 in the military base being one of the others).
But NG2 did have boss checkpoints, yes, and was much better for it. Even the notoriously player-challenging Itagaki realised after one game that boss runbacks sucked, and this was in 2008 - Demon Souls wasn't even out.
I was mostly thinking of NG2, yes. I enjoyed NGB, but NG2 is the only one I replay, and it's mostly what I'm thinking of when I bring up Ninja Gaiden.
We can even go back further and bring up Bayonetta (2007), God Hand (2006), or even DMC 3 (2005) All are tough as nails, but super fun.
I think this whole genre is wack, TBH.
Agreed. I'm not sure why I would waste my time with shit like this when it's just objectively not fun for me to play.
Different strokes for different folks, so if you like it more power to you, but I'd rather play games that are fun to play for me.
I only have a certain amount of time to play video games, and if I can't make any progress at all in an hour or two, why would I bother continuing when an hour or two is usually all I have in a day to play your game?
I've decided not to bother picking up silksong because I found HK tedious, frustrating, and unrewarding.
People who enjoy such games are clearly masochist who don't know what a good game is if it hit them in the face. Idk why these sorts of "gamers" even exist. I long for the halcyon era where good stuff like Mario, Zelda and Sonic were the staples of hardcore gamers.
You're pointing a finger at the Soulslike genre here, not only HK
I played some Elden Ring and as I recall there were check points next to the bosses.
Ender's Lilies is a metroidvania listed as a soulslike and always has a check point next to the boss room (highly recommend it btw).
You're pointing a finger at the Soulslike genre here, not only HK. Some games may abandon it, but this is common enough to be called a genre stable.
You should try Salt and Sanctuary, Sekiro, Bloodborne, The Surge, Lords of the Fallen, or Lies of P—all had boss runbacks, and that's ignoring HK, Silksong, and the original Souls games.
Apparently I shouldn't. But if there's a list of soulslike games that do it, and a list of soulslike games that don't, then it is not in fact true for the genre and is instead true for specific games.
You can make the case that it's not a fun use of our time but how is it not tied to difficulty? Being able to get to the boss with enough health or consummables is certainly part of the intended challenge.
I haven't played silksong, but most games like Dark Souls and the like, getting back to the boss without taking damage is pretty easy. It's not difficulty, it's just time.
Also in Fromsoft games runbacks are a deliberate design choice that forces the player to take a quick break after dying to a boss.
I will say the run backs in Silksong/HK are better than, for example, DS1 for the reason you give. In DS you just run past enemies and it's trivial. In the HK games running past enemies becomes a platforming challenge. Yeah, you can still do it, but you still have to engage with the enemy even if that's just jumping over them. DS you just run past them and they almost always too slow to engage with you if you're sprinting.
I'm not really used to metroidvanias having runbacks honestly. Most I've played either have save points close to the bosses or just drop you outside the boss room if you die.
I never actually liked FromSoft’s themselves, but several Soulslikes I really enjoyed did away with runbacks, or always had checkpoints right before bosses.
I really just want people to start evaluating each design decision Dark Souls made on its own - stop worshipping the whole as being perfect, because it most definitely is not. So many of the knowledge checks (poise, anyone?) are just there for experienced players to lord over confused shrubs.
My partner loved that aspect of the game. Each to their own, that's why it's good games have differences.
I wouldn’t mind checkpoints before the boss even if it’s not a bench and more of a “retry” option.
But the annoyance of run backs raises the stakes of the fight a bit. Like, “Please let me win this time so I don’t have to do another run back.”
But I was annoyed at a particular fight that started without warning and I had not really explored the new area yet, so I didn’t have a chance to find a closer bench.
I disagree, runbacks are as much difficulty as having to recover your currency after death, or even having to recover your items after dying in Minecraft. It's a punishment for dying, and a way to make you treat it seriously.
It can incentivise the wrong things, punish experimentation and make players stick with what they know, even if better options exist. You're free to dislike it, and it has downsides, but dismissing it as "not difficulty" is just dishonest.
The crystal boss that you first encounter sitting on the save bench though, that's was just evil 😆
disagree. they are related and absolutely add to the difficulty of learning how to beat a new boss. it’s way easier to develop a strategy and muscle memory if you can retry the boss fight as soon as possible without having to redo other sections of the game first.
I disagree. Having a slight forced intermission between attempts both gives me pause to reflect on what I needed to do better, and presents a risk of not making it back to my death point, which keeps me mindful.
I like Silksong's runbacks a lot more than I've liked the ones in 3d soulslikes though. In Dark Souls for example the risk of losing your corpse felt really high, whereas in Silksong you very often have either a gate that unlocks a quicker route back, or a clever acrobatic solution that reliably avoids all the enemies.
Have you considered that the run back is trying to tell you something? The game doesn't want you to bash your face against the same enemy the same way. It may not even want you to fight that boss yet at all.
The run back is meant to be an incentive to think about your options. Do I have other areas to explore? What do I keep dying to? Am I overlooking an obvious weakness during a particular boss mechanic, or am I not using an ability as effectively as I could be to stay alive?
If you let the player immediately run back into a boss, they will veg out and do just that until they eventually get lucky and barely down a boss by the skin of their teeth. But that's not how you should be approaching these fights.
Sometimes the most productive run back even involves a good night's rest.
I agree with this argument in Dark Souls. It isn't quite the same in Silksong though. Upgrades are very limited. You can't just swap weapons and go farm upgrades for it. You have one weapon and can't upgrade until a few hours into the game, and after the one you can't upgrade again until some future point. Health and silk upgrades are also incredibly limited, and you ability upgrade slots are equally limited.
In DS/Elden Ring, you're supposed to go explore and spend your souls on upgrades. I'm Silksong there are very few real combat upgrades to be purchased. You can't just level up or upgrade weapons to get more powerful.
I will need to play more of silksong to be able to comment fully, but I felt that, even though you could understandably say all the same stuff about Hollow Knight, I still do think that the only times I struggled in HK (on required content) I later found out about an upgrade that was available if i had looked that would have made the fight much easier (nail upgrade, ability, charm, more hp, etc).
No, not to the same degree as Elden Ring, i agree, but I do think HK's exploration played a very similar role as it did in Elden Ring. In both games i would tell people to only bash your head against a boss if you want to hurt yourself, otherwise go explore.
Yeah, I just recently unlocked wall clinging. It feels like now there are several directions to go, but before there was largely just one. Also, because of the way charms are limited (only having two slots for each of three types) finding charms feels much less meaningful. You can only ever have two main combat charms, so you can never find something that'll let you totally change things like you may in HK1.
Maybe it's only the beginning (I'm about 12h in, so not that early) of the game that feels this way, but yeah so far it doesn't feel like extra exploration will bail you out if you're stuck.
Have you considered that the run back is trying to tell you something? The game doesn't want you to bash your face against the same enemy the same way. It may not even want you to fight that boss yet at all.
The run back is meant to be an incentive to think about your options. Do I have other areas to explore?
Would be a lot more effective if I didn't have to go pick up my shade. Which often can't be accessed without locking yourself into the fight again.
Do you believe DS and Megaman could have been even more iconic if they had listened to players and made their runs back shorter?
My point is, it's not like the designers didn't know what they were doing, this is a very obvious aspect of their gameplay. And regardless of how minor inconveniences like this make us feel as players, we don't know that it's not precisely those lows that contrast with the highs to create the intended experiences which made those games cult hits to begin with. You wouldn't look at a Rembrandt and say, "look how much of the painting is just black! You're wasting all this space! You could add so much detail and context in there!"
I'm a firm believer that "given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game". If players weren't complaining about the run back, then they would be complaining about the empty flask drinking animation. Inconvenience is not a convincing argument to me. Just like any art, games are free to evoke any and all emotions. It only becomes a problem if the emotion they keep evoking is boredom lol. But even then, boredom is a valid tool on the artist's palette; sometimes the only ones who are getting bored are the boring people.
I loved Ender's Lilies and it had save points outside the boss rooms. I do not believe the game would have been more iconic if I had to run through several rooms of enemies before fighting a boss again.
The joy of victory came from overcoming a difficult fight, not from avoiding a tedious repeat.
I like the game, but I definitely think it deserves some criticism. I really don't get the thinking behind not placing a bench directly in front of every boss arena. The run-backs don't make the game harder, just more frustrating. It's also something I disliked in older Souls games, but thankfully they realized the problem and fixed it in Elden Ring. And some mechanics are just baffling, like benches that are locked behind a paywall, which you have to pay every time you want to access the bench. Why on earth would they do this, with currency already being as sparse as it is?
like benches that are locked behind a paywall, which you have to pay every time you want to access the bench
I found this in one small area, which was probably done for the flavor, since it makes thematic sense there, but otherwise it's always been permanent unlocks.
Even there it can be made permanent if you pay attention, (and don't mind doing a little light property damage)
So looks like I forgot about at least one bench.
spoiler
First is in a house, that you need to pay to enter, with a bench and vendor inside.
The ones I originally meant are below the Citadel, there are a few rooms, with two or three benches each, but you have to pay 15 every time to use the bench for a short time.
Dunno which one of those you mean, that can be made permanently free, or if there's even others I forgot or haven't found myself.
Ah, I haven't gotten into the citadel yet; I've just beat the Weaver
The paid one time bench thing etc is for a narrative reason, the main point of the story as far as I played is about the church scamming people on every occasion. Money won't be an issue once you reach act 2, I always have more money then I can spend even after buying out all merchants I've seen.
As for no benches in front of bosses it's to discourage throwing yourself at the boss without reflecting on where to improve. The long runs I saw people complain about also were mostly like 2 screens. Worst bossrun so far was probably the judge which was only like 2 screens when you think about it.
I really enjoy the game so far, I'm about half way through act 2 I'd say so maybe it gets super hard later, but right now I think it's very balanced between a bit challenging but not frustrating. I do feel that the game was created with players like me in mind, someone who did all pantheon, steal soul mode as well as all achievements in hk but is a little bit rusty from the long wait.
Worst bossrun so far was probably the judge which was only like 2 screens when you think about it.
I think you can theoretically get the fleas to move in right before the boss room, but I don't know how many of them you need to find for that to happen. Maybe killing the boss is also a trigger, so in that case this won't work.
I do feel that the game was created with players like me in mind, someone who did all pantheon, steal soul mode as well as all achievements in hk but is a little bit rusty from the long wait.
I feared they might do something like this, but don't think they did. I finished Hollow Knight twice, last time was almost six years ago, never did any Pantheon or challenge stuff, same with other Metroidvanias. The game is difficult, but don't think it's unreasonable (I'm also in Act 2, maybe the beginning).
Oh wow I didn't know the fleas moved there. Mine are still in greymore, maybe I should talk to them again sometime. I did get an achievement that I have half the fleas so I'm still missing a lot.
Ye I also don't think it's unreasonable, like I said I'm super rusty from not playing hk for quite a while. I do feel like a lot of people just forgot how hk played. I'm having a blast with the game so far, it's lovely.
Worst bossrun so far was probably the judge which was only like 2 screens when you think about it.
I found that run back to be infuriating at first, but it quickly stopped mattering once I realized that you don't need to kill everything on the path over and are for the most part better off just running past the enemies.
As for no benches in front of bosses it's to discourage throwing yourself at the boss without reflecting on where to improve.
I like self reflection, especially when I died 10th time from the same boss... Self reflection like why I am torturing myself with this shit?
Not actual cash, but they require in game currency.
I found one so far, pilgrims rest costs 30 rosarios everytime you want to enter, there is also a merchant inside
There is a way to make Pilgrims Rest free :)
Good to know :)
I have been running around the citadel, and with more fast travel options there I've gotten in the habit of constantly going back to belhart and making rosary necklaces. Sekiro had a similar mechanic with gold pouches. Also in this stage of game I'm finding a lot of silkeaters, so if I take a wrong turn at alburquerque and don't want to get locked into a fight or weird platforming area I can just recover my beads. It gets better kids. Keep playing.
We should also talk about how "Difficulty is part of the game and if you find it too difficult then this game is not for you" is not a personal attack, but a perfectly valid response to said criticism.
If the criticism is limited to "It's too hard." then I would agree. But that's not a valid response to criticisms about specific design elements like "these power ups feel like they do nothing", even if it's a perception issue at hand you need to address the actual observation and not jump on with 'git gud'.
I was learning a game a few months ago and struggling with understanding a specific character, so I went to the official discord and asked for advice, not complaining it was too hard, just asking for what kinds of strategies work and I was met with endless 'try harder, scrub' responses and literally no actual advice. I quit playing the game because the community was so up it's own asshole.
And for sake of clarity. I don't play HK, it's not my preferred genre and my favorite game (that I can replay) is Noita so I am familiar with reviews that complain about difficulty. It's fine for games to be hard and it's also fine for people who find the games too hard to leave a review saying they found it too hard. That is part of informing buyers so people can only pick it up if they desire that kind of challenge.
It's just a trend that is all too common in gaming. People like a game or a developer and become incapable of seeing an opinion that they disagree without taking it as a personal slight. It's weird.
Part of that is definitely gatekeeping.
But a lot of it speaks to... people are REALLY stupid these days. You notice it a lot when buildcrafting comes up. If it is more complicated than "raise strength to the soft cap" then people start making up massive excuses on how it is too complicated to explain and you are a fool for asking and MAYBE to go watch their favorite youtuber and so forth. When I feel particularly trollish I make a "like bags of sand" joke but the reality is that they just do not have the ability to actually learn what they are talking about. They can barely even regurgitate what an influencer told them.
And that has more or less broken fighting game discourse online. Because it is no longer "oh yeah, so and so has a super easy 20 hit combo" and inherently has to be "your crouching light jab is a +4 but your crouching light kick is -2" because EVERYONE is an expert in frame counting and so forth.
Souls gamers more or less broke with Elden Ring. The base game is probably the most accessible any Souls game has ever been and most people learned fast they can just beat Malenia by doing an arcane bleed build or getting a big fricking hammer to stunlock her, but they felt like they were super cool for it (which is the point of a Souls game). Then the DLC came out. And people felt the need to shit on the games media folk saying "So... this shit is kinda hard?" before rapidly getting their poopy pushed in by silver knight equivalents.
And it very much broke people. The discourse went from "Git gud. But in all seriousness, Capra is a boss that is designed to make sure you know when to block and when to dodge" into "Git gud you fucking loser. I beat it with no problems". And we are seeing similar discourse with Silksong as a lot of us talk about how some of the runbacks are REAL bad and get responded to with "That is just what Hollow Knight is"... even though there was like one bad runback in the entirety of that game (Mantis Lord... and Radiance is just a different kind of fuckery).
thanks. I hear a lot about this game and was wondering about it but Im a relaxagamer though so its good to know.
This excuse stopped working the day I opened a tough-as-nails game like Furi, saw it had a difficulty menu, said “That’s nice”, and went back to challenging myself against the bosses on default settings.
It’s such a huge cop-out of self control, and especially falls to acknowledge that the forms of difficulty in a game are often varied - and someone might suck at only one of them.
Every time a hard game gets made, we have to have this debate? Maybe the real easy mode is just not trying to please everyone.
Yea. I wont dismiss this criticism as hate, but I will dismiss it as dumb. The game was designed to be a challenge. Not everyone is up to that challenge, that's fine. The game isn't meant for you, then.
My friend can't play the Dark Souls games. He's really interested in the setting and has given a few multiple attempts, but the difficulty curve just isn't for him, so he just doesn't play them.
Not everything that makes the game harder or more challenging to play is good game design though, and a game shouldn't get a free pass just because its developers stated "well the game being hard is part of our artistic vision". It's fine to criticise things, even - or actually maybe especially - things we like. We don't have to be binary about things, we can like something while still recognising its flaws.
Excessive runbacks for example is something that is primarily concerned with disrespecting your time as a player and even FromSoft seem to have realised that they're not a good addition or a fun way of increasing difficulty seeing as they introduced Stakes of Marika in Elden Ring. Hell, even Ninja Gaiden went away from boss runbacks starting from the second game, and that came out in 2008!
I can't say I've gotten to some of the examples people have mentioned as "annoying; bad design", so I'll leave judgement until I get there. But there's nothing inherently wrong with runbacks if it's part of the design and the boss is the culmination of that.
Stakes of Marika are definitely there to appeal to a wider audience. I personally don't care for them, as for most areas in DS I enjoyed trying to claw my way back to the boss unharmed. It was like a puzzle.
It's fine to criticise things, but I personally think "make checkpoint outside of the boss" the criticism is not a good one. At the end of the day, that's all personal opinion.
A lot of DS1 runbacks were true runbacks where you could just run past everything. Once you'd worked out the running, they weren't too irritating, but some were a bit long. In DS3 a number of runbacks had unavoidable enemies on the way where you could mess up and eat a hit and then be down an Estus charge.
The main two problems are:
- boredom. Punishing you for failure by forcing you to walk through a section of level again for a couple of minutes isn't fun for anyone. It's not "stakes"; it's boring. Repeatedly dying to the challenging boss is not boring because you are constantly trying to improve, learn its moves, and beat it. Running through the same path is boring. Anything boring is bad game design.
- Risk of unrelated mistakes. This is more subjective, but for me there should be some separation between different challenges; there should be a feeling that after you have convincingly solved one challenge, you shouldn't have prove yourself against it again too much. Doing so is, yes, boring again, but also frustrating. Things that are frustrating (to some) can be good game design, but I don't want to be frustrated. Whiffing a roll you've done successfully many times and being set back on an unrelated challenge is, to me, annoying.
It's undeniable that the challenge is part of the mystique for some games. I note with great respect the fact that Celeste offers accessible difficulty tweaks. I beat that game and it was a great experience.
Both choices can be good, when made with intention and care, and when motivated by specific goals as a creator.
With dark souls, at least the ones I've played, the difficulty can be tweaked by engaging with the world, learning the progression system and the character options that suit you. For example I didn't beat DSI until I tried playing a magic user, because I'm slightly bad at those games. DSIII was easy enough by comparison to beat as a straight up STR build, but that's beside the point. Difficulty is a design choice, and the conversation around it is tiresome when it ignores the aims of the creators.
well if you buy the game and it’s difficult enough to keep you from playing it all the way through that’s kinda shitty.
The thing is, there is no reason not to add accessibility settings.
Hollow Knight and Silksong are beautiful games with an intriguing world, great characters and lots of areas to explore. There's no reason to gatekeep games like these from people that just can't beat them because they are too hard.
Just add a simple accessibility menu where you can scale health, damage and loot drops. It's almost no work to implement, players can still try the regular difficulty and turn it down when it's too much and speedrunners can make their lifes more difficult. Everyone wins.
In a game like Hollow Knight (and Silksong), I can't help but feel such a crude setting would end up doing more harm than good. I mean, let's take health for example. Increasing your health wouldn't help much if you can't handle what the game is throwing at you; the few extra masks the game gives you only really help if you can handle the difficulty but need mistake tolerance, otherwise enemies will still hit you and you'll still fail at platforming and fall into spikes. Fundamentally the difficulty of a game like Hollow Knight comes from a lot more than just damage numbers, so a naive difficulty scale would only give an illusion of accessibility that would fade away at the first difficult part, and in that case it's better for everyone involved if the inaccessibility of the game is easily apparent.
the few extra masks the game gives you only really help if you can handle the difficulty but need mistake tolerance
Increasing mistake tolerance already increases accessibility, even if you still have to manage a tough platformer part.
Of course the options given are just examples to get it done quickly. Accessibility options can be a a lot more nuanced, even going as far as altering level structures to provide pathways for players that can't platform.
The point of my post was that for all I care the difficulty options can go all the way to invincibility, one hitting every boss and skipping every platformer segment. It does not reduce my enjoyment of these games if other people can play the game in a way they want to.
Accessibility options can be a a lot more nuanced, even going as far as altering level structures to provide pathways for players that can't platform.
Sure, but then we're way past "there's no reason not to add X."
The accesibility is called getting a controller that works for your disability, then training to beat it.
The thing is, I can't personally think of an accessibility setting that would serve the intended function without removing the sense of having finally met the challenge. I struggle with difficult games too, and I don't always complete them. That struggle and uncertainty is part of the journey though to me and if there was a difficulty tweak available as soon as I got frustrated the first time, it would erase those stakes (for me).
I mentioned Celeste as a positive example. I did feel a satisfaction with completing that game, but if not for the highly emotional personal journey of the narrative potion of that game I don't think it would have been as satisfying. At every point I knew there was an easy way out, and staying frustrated and gradually getting better was a conscious choice without any real stakes attached to it other than my own self-satisfaction. The was never any worry that I'd fail to complete the game. Those stakes do make eventually winning feel real.
So I just can't think of any suggestions for this. It's elitist or ableist I realise, and I'm not happy with that. The creator certainly was aware of games like Celeste, and they had plenty of time to consider those options. Before casting any judgment or making suggestions on their behalf, I'd be really interested to hear what they have to say about the choice. Do they think the struggle has to be as firmly set as it is for the triumph to feel as elating? I can't read their minds, so if there's an interview where they address that I'd be all ears.
To each their own, I always think of difficulty and challenge as proportional and relative to the individual. You can just as easily turn the question around the other way: how can you feel any satisfaction beating a Souls game using magic and summons and level ups and items when there are people who have beat it at Level 1 hitless and using a dance pad instead of controller? What's "appropriately challenging" is way too individual for the bluntness of a single difficulty setting.
And coming up with solutions isn't even that hard. Add some sliders to adjust the length of parry windows and i-frames on dodge rolls and whatnot and you're probably a good part of the way there. Gameplay intact, people still go through the same motions they just have a chance now even if they don't have the reflexes or timing for frame-perfect inputs.
Let me start by saying I have a few thousand hours in Hollow Knight and I do for the most part enjoy the Git Gud type of games.
There are entire genres of games that I can't enjoy because they're too open/chill and if they had a hard mode I would probably really like them. This is the same problem the other way.
Maybe wait and some modders might make the QoL parts you want available, maybe never play it, maybe watch a streamer do it. But not every game has to be fun for everyone.
There might also be a generational divide taking shape. People my age grew up with "Nintendo hard" and the industry was all about making games seem longer by making them extremely difficult to beat. Our options were to get better, cheat, or give up.
These days the industry is all about mass appeal, and all the problems that we see with games having massive budgets and having to make sure as many people can like them as possible. Indie games have different incentives, and so when a game comes along that was made with priorities that aren't in step with what we're used to, it tends to ruffle feathers.
I know my kid doesn't have any sense that games should be difficult, or that a challenging game can be satisfying. Even FromSoft games are trending towards less difficulty, despite having the fans who famously chant "git gud". Bigger studios might know something my generation doesn't get about younger gamers - maybe games like Silksong are having their swansong, so to speak. I hope not, but it's hard not to notice once it's been pointed out.
When you're a kid with no understanding of game design, no internet, and no subscription to magazines that explain it, all those dirty tricks that we now rightly put to much rubbish did have the power to make you think "I suck at this". They didn't have to be clever back then to give us this insane need to be punished by game designers just the right amount so that we can finally just try really hard, get really annoyed, stick with it way too long, and eventually get to say "yes, fuck you, I win!" For a certain kind of kid from that generation, that's almost a healing fantasy.
I'm reminded of when Elden Ring first came out and we had a little panic attack about how much harder it was than other souls games.
Then like a year later it was widely considered to be the easiest Fromsoft game (if you're just doing the required content).
Time will tell. These games all have so much talk about how certain builds are "cheese" or how the ashes make the game too easy or whatever - that's all just dumb. The game itself is the difficulty settings, sometimes.
It seems too early to say how Silksong will be remembered, and Team Cherry still only had two games under its belt so it's arguably too early to judge them. Will their next game be totally different and a massive risk, or do we have a Vivaldi on our hands, doing masterful variations on a theme?
I have to agree. Although I would have said "the real easy difficulty is realizing that not every game is for you". And sometimes that includes really popular games, ones that everyone else seems to be enjoying. And that's ok.
That's fair, but I also don't see a problem in voicing criticism about aspects of the game I don't like. Especially if I do like the game as a whole. People should not see that as an attack on their personal enjoyment of the game.
Sure, and as a consumer of a product, you are within your rights to do so. But I think that a lot of times there's an underlying thread of entitlement that comes with a lot of the criticisms. The tone suggests more ,"how dare you make something I can't play" and less "I'm not suited for this challenge". There's surprisingly little in the way of complaints about the game design that read as things that fit the theme and game vision. There are a few, but most aren't.
And full disclosure I'm speaking from the standpoint of someone who while interested in a lot of the "git gud" genre games, can't cut it 90% of the time. It took me realizing that I just wasn't who those games were for before I was able to look at some of my options and realize they were just me and my sour grapes.
if i purchase a game, you bet your ass i feel entitled to play the whole thing.
The runbacks don't bother me too much so far. I do think there's some skills in the runback, but it relies heavily on the level designer as well. An ideal runback:
- is relatively short, you should have time to reflect on the boss, but not get sidetracked
- has enemies that drop currency, so repeated runs slowly build you up (assuming you always collect your shade)
- has enemies that train you on the bosses timings or counters (if the boss is parry heavy, put a tricky-to-parry enemy enroute back)
- has a "speed route" that let's you bypass most or all of the run once you've figured it out
These factors make a run both interesting game play and still a form of progression. A badly designed run lacks these factors, being just a slow slog to get back into the boss fight.
My biggest complaint so far is the double damage. Every boss and so many common enemies do nothing but double damage. Why even have 5 HP instead of 3? And it being 5 (and bind healing 3) have compounding effects with this problem. Taking a single hit on the way to a boss actually costs you an entire "boss hit" so runbacks are worse all around. Trying to heal mid boss only gets you "one and a half" hits back which takes a lot of silk to build up and probably is a worse deal for you than just using the silk to power more attacks.
Double damage would suck a lot less (and be a better mechanic) if you had 6 HP to start, or if you healed 4 at a time, or if bosses didnt always do 2 damage. There's no tension to avoiding punishing hits because every move is equally punishing. It makes fights feel very conservative which is maybe intentionally meant to evoke Hornet as a careful hunter, using traps and plans to take down big foes.
I find the opposite though, she feels fragile and reactive. I wish starting damage was higher too. I had this issue in Hollow Knight as well, everything takes too many hits. Common enemies are spongy, bosses take at least 33% too long across the board. Especially it gets annoying since a lot of bosses so far get spammier and faster towards their final phases, so you spend so much time dodging the same attacks and looking for openings to chip hits in. Skills and traps don't do enough damage to feel especially useful either.
I also hate, and this is another compounding factor, the complete lack of enemy HP bars. On regular enemies this is annoying (gotta count my hits) but on bosses it feels negligent. Bosses have multiple phases and take so long to kill, it would be nice to know if my last run was just a hit or 2 away from the end or if I still had a 3rd phase to plan for. It adds to the poor perception of skills and traps as well. Sting Shard and Thread Storm both seem to hit several times, around a half-dozen, but neither seems to do much more damage than a couple of regular hits.
Overall I'm really loving Silksong, the art and music are top notch. The DLC for HK convinced me that Team Cherry and I disagree about some fundamental ideas in game design, and HKSS bears that out.
I, uh, have kinda given up on progressing for the foreseeable future. I'm bad at platforming, and after struggling for probably around half an hour to get through one aection that was particularly difficult for me, I was met with a surprise boss fight. Nearest bench before that section. It's brutal. It takes me about 5ish minutes to do that section now, but fuck I wish I were exaggerating. None of the other fights have anywhere near as nasty a runback and it honestly feels like they forgot a bench.
The game is hard and that's fine, but that instance I feel ok bitching about and don't feel like I'm a qhiny pathetic fuck for doing so, which is incredibly telling given how easy it is to make me feel like a whiny pathetic fuck.
I'm not entirely sure which part of the game you're talking about but if you're talking about the section I think you're talking about then you're probably trying to go the wrong way as that section get significantly easier once you have more powers.
If something feels unbelievably difficult chances are you're supposed to go elsewhere. There are quite a few points at the start of the game where you get a difficulty spike and that just means there's a different route to take.
Okay. I was thinking of another point. I just got to the point you were describing and after exploring every nook and cranny on the map there really isn't any other route. But I don't think the route to the boss is that dreadful.
spoiler how to quickly traverse it.
You can sprint jump the first 2 platform ignoring the first enemy. You then climb past the first shield enemy but instead of going right you scale the wall on the left. When you get to the top you can sprint jump to the bell that you can pogo off of and get on the platform with the cart in the background. From there if you want an easy passage to the far right wall wait for the black strong gust of wind. You then jump off and use glide. You will glide faster in the black gust of wind and it will skip the enemy there and get you straight in dashing length of the far right wall. Then you climb up and if you're confident with the 2 bell jump just go for that or wait until the enemy below comes up so you could kill it and then you've got all the time in the world to get the two bell jump done.
If you wait for the gust of wind it should take you about 45 seconds to get from the save point to the boss room
Skills and traps don't do enough damage to feel especially useful either.
There's one trap that actually is pretty strong if you know how to abuse it.
I'm not going to spoil where or how to get it, but flying beetles that home in on the enemy and repeatedly bump into it to deal damage can be pretty busted... especially when they still attack during phase change animations that stop the player from moving.
I also especially like a particular early game trap for this:
trap spoiler
the cluster spike trap, because if you throw it well just before initiating a boss cutscene, it can activate and hit them 6-7 times while they are doing their initial taunt.
"Fragile and reactive" IMO is a fair take, but I think what the game is pushing you to do is become comfortable enough with your mobility to be aggressive while still avoiding hits. I don't know exactly where you are in progression, but you continue to tack on new capabilities to your kit that make it easier and easier to avoid things while still laying out damage.
I am sure there is enough room in the game design for people to take totally different approaches here, though. If you know a given enemy's movement well, you can absolutely be confident in using your silk for attacks instead of healing.
I'm pretty early into the game as well, so I almost didn't say anything. But even if theres a charm that adds HP bars later, I would be annoyed about it. Why wait so long? I'm over 10 hours in. Why take a slot with it? I get similar annoyances about the compass, but at least that one I can understand because maybe some people like the challenge of landmark navigation using just the maps. There is a skill there, and it is part of the skillset of Exploration (a major pillar of design in any metroidvania).
The yellow tools, in general, I'm iffy about the design of. So far I only have 3: compass, more shards, and auto-collect beads. Of these, auto-beads is the most obviously useful. You need many beads, and they get lost pretty easy. Shards are super common and don't have many uses. But none of these are essential, and all of them get less useful the later into the game you get. The tradeoff is only meaningful early game, and seems to encourage a balance between memorizing the levels and grinding, neither are amazing activities.
Having the compass charm tied to ALL map markers would certainly up the utility of it, though it's gating another feature behind both a purchase and a charm. I've also only found 1 semi useful trap\red-charm so far. Maybe having more traps and skills that required shell bits would put more pressure on needing them and make the charm that gives extras more appeal for a trap-heavy play style?
Again, I grant that maybe I'm too early in the game yet, but I feel like these systems should be coming together and cohering more after a half-dozen bosses and 10 hours of play.
The game is so much more massive than I ever expected. I can tell you that you're still super early in the game based on what you've found. There are many, many red tools and while you'll absolutely have favorites, there are definitely some that seem underwhelming until you find a specific situation or region where they excel.
There is a crazy huge amount of content and capability in the game, and if it seems like a slow burn for you now, IMHO that's because the game does a pretty good job of pacing new things so that you have time to evaluate and master each new piece of kit as it comes up.
The other thing about shards is that you have to sort of learn to find a balance with how much trap usage you employ; what seems to me to be the intended design (based purely on vibes) is that you mostly only use them against certain bosses/arena rooms or in situations where your needle can't easily work due to the terrain.
I thought similarly to you at first, with shards being a huge surplus and not necessary. I think this is an introduction period of sorts where you can get used to how the controls work and experiment freely. But then there were wide stretches of the game where I had a relative drought of them. Now that (I THINK??) I'm approaching the end, I've learned to use my shards reserve as a sort of measurement for whether I'm comfortable enough fighting in a certain situation. If it dips below half, I'm leaning too much on traps and need to take a step back and think harder about how to approach things with needle combat.
On the topic of yellow tools... I can definitely relate to the compass feeling mandatory, but there were several places for me where I had compelling reason to choose to forego it for something else. That was legitimately interesting and I don't have many other examples of games where that's possible. There are a bunch more yellow tools you'll find with more interesting effects as well. And eventually (being deliberately vague) you will reach a point where you won't feel like you're sacrificing as much to keep the compass equipped if you want. (Though there is also a point where you will have seen enough of the world that you won't need it, strictly speaking, because you either have the areas memorized or can navigate based on room shapes and major landmarks without your precise location.)
Godspeed, fellow hunter
I definitely agree that the constant double damage just feels horrible. Hollow Knight was always about balancing heals versus punishes (one reason I loved Dark Souls 2 so much) but you basically need to heal if you get tapped once and... yeah.
I think a bigger issue is that upgrades feel so much rarer. Part of it is that you have MUCH fewer equipped charms at any given time... so there is much less point in just giving you a new one every 10 or so minutes. And I am not sure if max health is lower but it similarly feels like I find a mask shared maybe every 2 hours or so which further lends itself to feeling weak. And no idea what the deal is with silk but a single pip when it takes like five pips to even do a heavy attack feels pointless?
And while some vendors do sell upgrades, it always feels like a struggle to afford them unless you are actively grinding because of the constant need to buy maps and so forth (something I hated in 1 as well, but that at least had a single currency). Although I did get a nice stretch where I just mopped up and bought out most shops so that is at least nice.
And same with the attacks. Apparently I may have actually ran past Threadstorm while exploring and never even noticed it? And that is the power everyone says to use.
Feels like healing in micro transactions form where you want to buy a thing that cost 3 currency but the shop only sells at five currency.
I agree with a lot of your commentary. A couple times so far a “good run back” has been the grind that let me buy some of the higher-cost items from shops. Sometimes it’s frustrating but usually once you get used to the path it goes quickly. There have been a few times where I didn’t realize there was a closer bench until after I already beat the fight lol.
Double damage would suck a lot less (and be a better mechanic) if you had 6 HP to start, or if you healed 4 at a time, or if bosses didn’t always do 2 damage.
Most of the bosses have 1-damage and 2-damage attacks. Also 6HP and increased healing are available relatively early (still a good way into the game but it’s a long game).
Skills and traps don't do enough damage to feel especially useful either.
I have to strongly disagree with this. Especially when you start getting more traps/tools and upgrades for them, they get very strong and don’t require you to get dangerously close to the enemy like the basic attacks. Some of the bosses and many of the arenas I’ve gotten through mainly thanks to the consumable traps.
Common enemies are spongy, bosses take at least 33% too long across the board.
Like in most metroidvanias, you start off struggling against common enemies but as you get upgrades they become weaker relative to you. However I do agree that the trash mobs are a bit too tanky. Maybe somewhere between 50% and 25% less health would be ideal. I’m not sure I would adjust the bosses though.
I spent 3 hours stuck on one boss fight.
In most games, finally beating it would have me saying "thank fuck its over".
In silksong, I'm saying "fuck yeah that was a good boss". It's a very different feeling, and one that I haven't had the pleasure of enjoying in quite some time.
That said.
I think both hollow knight and silksong should have easy modes. It would be fine. It doesn't hurt me any that someone else can have an easier time. People need to remember that video games are entertainment, and the sweaty "hardcore gamers" can fuck off with their usual judgemental elitism.
This is exactly it. I think the game is a goddamn masterpiece. The most infuriating fights feel like huge accomplishments, not just relief. Phenomenal game all around, but that difficulty curve isn't for everyone. I can say the same about any Soulsborne game, love them to death but it's definitely too much for some folks. Difficulty options are a good thing, if a compromise has to be made just have it disable achievements or w/e.
People forgetting that when you ran out of lives you used to have to go back to the start of the whole game.
To you. It was for players who liked it that way. There are even popular rogue likes today.
Hard to say. We have many examples of games with only one difficulty that are glorified for their challenging combat. We have an example of God of War with cool and challenging combat on max difficulty that for some reason did not receive such status like Souls games. I think Elden Ring can be an example of a challenging game with "difficulty setting" that was did receive other Souls treatment. So I think "difficulty settings" can work if done not as an option at the start of the game but by adding game mechanics or strategies that make it easier. Technically that's what Silksong does for the most bits with a crest for easier platforming, usable tools for combat and boss specific weaknesses(Moorwing fight is trivial at the right corner of the arena, Widow can only hit you with one attack if you stand at the corner, and so on).
People forgetting that when you ran out of lives you used to have to go back to the start of the whole game.
We remember. It was bullshit back then. It's still bullshit now.
Edit: I beat many of those games on three lives. It was still some bullshit.
Why is it bullshit? If you couldn't die nobody would play those games. The stakes were the reason to play.
It wasn’t bullshit. You could get through those games in about an hour and that set of levels was the game. Games like Sonic sunk or swam based on whether playing through those levels over and over to achieve a better run was actually enjoyable. Not to say that today’s much longer games aren’t valid too, but they don’t have to be as tight.
As someone who isn't necessarily big on the notion streamlining is "objectively" good game design... That more or less began to be disposed of the minute we had the technology, minus a few now-niche genres that rely on it. It was gradual, but mass market games as early as Zork in 1981, had save schemes.
After you unlock godhome, you can practice against any boss youve fought once, so practicing against bosses is arguably easier than many other meteoidvanias, which is what you're arguing the run backs prevent you from doing.
Runbacks are a lame attempt at artificially increasing difficulty. I'll happily die on that hill. I love difficult games, but there is a fine line between frustration and difficult.
Elden Ring (at least all the bits I played through) and Sekiro absolutely nailed it. None of the run backs were particularly egregious, and it let me really focus on experimenting and learning to feel out the difficult fights. Celeste is another good example. I have dropped hours on some of the later levels trying to master them, but never once got frustrated.
Hollow Knight I never finished because I got stuck on a boss and the runback was just way too long and annoying. I loved everything else about the game and want to finish it eventually.
Edit: I think they have their place as "mods" that you could enable to increase difficulty, and i'd actually probably enjoy it that way. Just designing the game around them is where i draw the line.
Unpopular opinion but I like boss runbacks.
To me it feels like "if you don’t survive the journey, you’re too weak for the boss itself" it brings me down and makes me calmer until I reach the boss.
I like them because it forces you to try to salvage a fight instead of just conceding after a bad start. The time spent getting to the boss is investment you don't want to waste.
I think this is really just an issue of the tools and abilities not being inherently linked to the related bosses.
FYI quickhop attacking is faster than ground combos and you can weave in the trio dagger throws when you are dodging away from close attacks. Also your attack will negate enemy attacks weapon hitbox(but you still have to dodge bodily contact). The poison tool upgrade is overbalanced and makes a lot of fights a joke.
This is a really good point.
I've also found myself messing up the run back but committing to the fight anyway with a few masks down. You can either heal back up by breaking the cocoon, or practice starting the fight low and keep the silk for later (one of the best changes from the first game IMO is making the cocoon an asset in contrast to the ghost that would harass you).
Another aspect is the run back itself. When you struggle a lot with a boss (as I often do), you will have to do the run back so many times that you passively start getting better at traversing the map. And even if the specific combos you used on the boss itself don't necessarily translate to other bosses, the movement skills likely will keep being useful.
I like them because I will think what I did wrong, not just going to do that wrong thing again until I get lucky with my wrong strategy.
To be fair, From has like many games to learn from that while Cherry only has HK. I'll never forget the sheer pain of the Frigid Outskirts from Dark Souls 2.
At least that's an optional area. Now, the run back from pre-SotFS No Man's Wharf? That was a pain.
The run to Blue Smelter nearly gave me a coronary.
Although DS2 gave us a reprieve with despawning enemies eventually, making runbacks feel rather poignant when you're walking an empty world.
Sigh this shit again, if it's the creators decision to have a game with finely tuned hard difficulty, so be it, that's the creators creative decision and it should be respected
I'm loving it, and the runbacks and difficulty just feel like standard metroidvania to me. Yeah, it takes time and caution, but that's just the genre.
If anything I find the walkbacks much shorter than in the original. There is always a bench 30s/1m away from each boss or tough platforming section. At least so far...
the vastly increased traversal speed also helps mitigate the walkback tedium
It's definitely fair most of the time. There are one or two places I've seen so far where it's deliberately ramped up (or appears that way at first.)
Yeah I am almost at the end of the act 1 (i think?) and so far the impression is that if something seems to have a long walk or having to repeat a hard parcour section, I didn't find some hidden bench or shortcut to bypass said parcour section.
In general I can see this game being started as an expansion for HK, the difficulty is quite high and the curve steeper, but I can't relate with most of the complains so far (the currency maybe a little, but it's normal IMHO you can't just shop everything at once from a new vendor you find).
Initially I was put off by the double damage, but the heal being short and x3 I think compensates for it (plus, you can do it mid air etc.).
Yeah the game's definitely harder than HK was, but by no means impossible. It's not nearly as difficult as say Elden Ring for a recent-ish example. The true ending final boss didn't even take me as many tries as Last Judge or that frog fucker lmao
None of the runbacks are egregious either. There's just about always a bench barely 30-40 seconds away at absolute most.
Doesn't metroid only have save rooms?
I think we don't have enough language to talk about difficulty in a productive way.
You could keep all the boss mechanics the same in a game but add a 1 minute unstoppable cut scene at the start and the game is "more difficult" because it takes you longer to learn boss patterns and experiment with different strategies. But that feels very different to narrowing the windows to react or expanding the move set of a boss which feels different again to changing the values so you need to grind more/fewer levels or resources to pass it.
"Runback too long" and "git gud" sound a lot like people talking past eachother, but maybe thats just an artifact of the journalist reporting rather than the discussion itself
I think we have the language and you just proved it, but often people are just not reading or thinking enough about other perspectives before talking, and so do talk past each other like this.
I like your comparison to an unskippable cutscene; these are, I think, universally reviled at the start of boss fights. For some reason I don't think long runbacks are reviled in nearly the same way, yet repeatedly running through the same area with no challenges (jumping off the staircase for the shortcut to Ornstein & Smough in DS1 does not count ffs!) is not really any less boring.
The ideal runback to me has a few enemies that you can soon work out how to run around. You actually get a feeling of having accomplished something, but don't have to get perfect at defeating those enemies, nor waste time doing so (running will always be faster than fighting, pretty much).
I think "git gud" is just a knee-jerk meme though - there is no reason to believe that someone saying it has engaged in the slightest with what has been said to that point; they're just trolling.
they are related and compound each other. it’s harder to “git gud” if you have to do a bunch of runbacks too.
Add an easy mode just half the boss health and damage. Easy fixed
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..
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.
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.
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 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.
It is slightly worse then HK.
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.
Some of these mother fuckers never dealt with nosk and it shows.
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.
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.
Unskippable cut scenes should be dragged into the street and shot.
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.
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'm in act 2 and while Im in love with the game, I can agree. The game could be impossible for people who aren't already very good at platformers. Benches are very sparse and money is always an issue. I hope Team Cherry make the game more reasonable through updates.
I have no idea what people were expecting to be honest. Hollow Knight was already known for being an extremely difficult game with punishing anti-fun elements like runbacks and corpse runs. Which game had everyone played that got them so hyped for Silksong?
There's a reason I stayed away from HK, and I will be staying away from Silksong too. Game looks great but I won't be able to beat it and I won't have any fun failing to do so.
I think the big difference is that HK had a smooth difficulty curve as you slowly unlock new abilities. Silksong by comparison picks up where HK left off and is immediately hard which makes it hard to approach for new players. Early game areas feel as hard as late game areas from the first game. That's throwing everybody off who is either new to the franchise or hasn't played Hollow Knight since it came out checks notes 8 years ago
Early game areas feel as hard as late game areas from the first game.
Are you sure about that? It's been a while since I played Hollow Knight, but other than Hunter's Marsh I think Sillksong has been comparable to or slightly harder than equivalent parts of the Hollow Knight. The enemies are tougher, but you also get more tools to deal with them so it evens out. Mostly thinking of the projectiles here, but the mobility difference also can't be understated; you can abuse dash attacks in Silksong in a way you never could in Hollow Knight. Also I haven't quite (or at all really) gotten the hang of it but the game might've been designed with parrying in mind, which would allow you to avoid a lot of damage because many of the harder enemies are warrior types.
Are you sure about that?
Ya, Hollow Knight's first areas like forgotten crossroads and greenpath were a lot easier. There werent any mechanics you have to worry about other than jumping and attacking, and most enemies you faced just walk slowly towards you. Bosses were also fairly straightforward.
By comparison Silksong has you fighting tougher enemies that could deal 2x damage, and quick bosses right off the bat like Bell Beast which kills you in 3 hits. Healing taking your entire bar also makes platforming more difficult because newbies will often be low HP and not have enough silk to heal.
Yes, Hornet is way faster and stronger than the knight but that kinda assumes you're good at dashing and pogo jumping, which many people fail at in the start.
I mean...it's kinda silly to go into Silksong without playing Hollow Knight yeah? Unless Silksong has something at the beginning that sort of catches you up to speed OR is like a Souls or Final Fantasy where it has nothing to do with the previous game entry.
But If I were a fan of the series I would hope the game ramped up difficulty and didn't hold my hand for the sequel. That, in my opinion, would be a worthy purchase. I had playing sequels that kind of "reset".
It's the latter of the two. The focus is on a side character from the original game, but takes place in an entirely different map/kingdom. You don't need to have played Hollow Knight, but there are little lore pieces that tickle the brain if you have (and didn't just skip over all the dialogue). I've been really enjoying the game so far, and there's only one runback that's felt REALLY tedious, but it's on what I'm assuming is an optional boss based on what I've played so far.
Honestly, Hollow Knight 1, and what I've played so far of Silk Song have frustrating runback only if you feel that exploration should carry no risk. And also if you feel the consequences--dropping your resources and needing to abandon them--are game ending.
The devs make no attempt to hide the fact that the father afield you get, the more dangerous it gets, but that you can get stronger if you make the most of what you've already explored.
Resources are unlimited in the world, so you can always get back to where you were even if you abandon your cocoon/shade. You can also go back and spend the resources before you lose them.
Once I realized that venturing too far off carries a growing risk, I started looking out for the telltale signs that I'm entering a boss room. When this happens or even when I just feel like I'm going to lose all health, I just venture back and spend at the nearest shop or just prioritize finding a bench. Where I don't heed the warning and go in anyway, I take it as my fault I can't recover my shade/silk before I once again prioritize finding a bench.
All that said, at least so far I've found that whereas in Hollow Knight, if you die in a boss fight you're not equipped for, you MUST abandon it or try again. In Silk Song, the silk cocoon actually helps with the fight: instead of also trying to kill you, it's extra health that you can save until mid-way through the fight. Also, some boss rooms don't lock the entrance (at all or as quickly) so you can die closer to the entrance and safely recover your stuff.
After starting Silk Song, I went back and started replaying the original and some changes like this are actually actually a quality of life improvement over the first 😂😂😂.
(I'm just irrationally mad that they removed the cheeseable pogoing. It was so cheeseable but I get why they tweaked the mechanic to become harder to use in exactly the same way. I'm actually using the other offensive abilities more.)
(I'm just irrationally mad that they removed the cheeseable pogoing. It was so cheeseable but I get why they tweaked the mechanic to become harder to use in exactly the same way. I'm actually using the other offensive abilities more.)
Minor spoilers regarding crests
There's actually one crest that straight up brings back pogoing and another that give you something similar, but honestly Hornet's default dive is very underappreciated I'd say. It allows you to do maneuvers that you can't with normal pogoing, and even platforming isn't that hard when you get used to it.
I mean personally I don't have any issues with an easy mode in games, casual play is nice when you come back home from work half dead. Silksong is advertised as a soulslike though. Feels a little counterintuitive to take away the aspects that define a soulslike, even if it makes the game accessible to a wider audience.
You can't reliably do that in 2 though with the sheer amount of ganking enemies.
I think it's a great game for veterans who like challenges like myself.
But I have to call out team Cherry for their interviews: They said they wanted anyone to be able to pick up this as their first Hollow Knight game and just start playing... Sorry, but, bullshit. the difficulty ramp is too quick, double damage comes out to early and the boss fights get more challenging quickly. See the weaver for instance, a fight I'd place around the difficulty of Grimm, but there's double damage and you probably only have 5 health.
Also they mentioned part of the game's difficulty was due to Hornet's competence and utility... Ghost is canonically a better fighter than Hornet, so by that logic they should have made the game easier (yes I'm being silly about this part).
I think its fine for a player new to the series but you've got to the type of person that is willing to learn and willing to die over and over. For people who play these kinds of games its not insane to expect them to pick it up.
Didn't personally watch the interview in question (or forgot by now) so I don't know what they meant, but it definitely feels like lore wise Silksong can stand as an independent game with what I've discovered so far.
Regarding difficulty, Hollow Knight isn't the only game that could have prepared you for Silksong I think.
I think what it helps a lot with is familiarity and mindset. The overall game loop is very similar.
That said, I think it's wise to give HK a try before buying Silksong. It's a cheaper game, worth playing through if you're into these kinds of experiences and if you don't enjoy it, chances are Silksong will not be much fun for you either.
something that i think gets lost in the sauce in thrse discussions is whether fun is derived from playing or winning. people are comparing Silksong- and to get ahead of it right now i haven't played and am not criticizing either of the Hollow Knights- to old arcade and early console games and their legendary difficulty, but a lot of those games were meant to be complete and fun experiences even if you game over very early on. they also didn't have levels full of bespoke Stuff in them, it was the same few tiles and entities in different configurations., so being stuck on level 1 didn't mean you were missing out on a narrative and worldbuilding. with how the lines have blurred between games and narrative art forms in the last few decades, there are different incentives at play and someone stuck on world 1 of SMB isn't missing out nearly as much as someone stuck on whatever the first stage of Silksong is. it's all ultimately apples and oranges
I recently started gaming again after a twenty year gap. Back in the day I used to go for high difficulty and complete everything. Now, I'm playing on easy difficulty setting. Partly cos I'm in my 50s, reactions are slower and my hands are a bit fucked up. Partly because I want to enjoy the story and the experience - if I get stuck on a fight and keep dying I get frustrated eventually and angry with myself for not being as good as I want to be. That feeling is not what I'm gaming for, so yeah, easy setting.
I haven't played hollow knight because I'm told it's frustrating and difficult, and, while the aesthetic really appeals to me I don't wanna be frustrated. But I'm so happy for all the people who have been waiting for this and are enjoying it, sometimes we do get nice things!
For me, much of the fun is making progress. i never finished the first game because I kept getting lost and stuck and unable to progress for extended periods. In a From Software game I can spend weeks on a single boss and masochistically enjoy every moment because I know what I have to do. The problem I had with Hollow Knight was I kept finding myself completely at a loss about where to go or what to do. I would spend days retreading the same empty caverns looking for a clue or a new path and not finding any. When I knew what I had to do, I enjoyed it immensely, but progression was often too obscure and my interest slowly evaporated.
This is the “metroidvania” genre part of the game but, it’s not for everyone.
That being said, both Hollow Knight and Silksong make the exploration a lot more streamlined than in older metroidvanias with the map features. When you don’t know where to go, check your map and look for paths that lead to areas that aren’t filled in yet. When you get a new power, see if you can remember any locations where that might be useful.
The problem with “old difficulty” was that in arcades especially, and even on consoles by way of the industry being smaller and the same people working on both, were designed around quarter-munching.
Stuff was hard to get people to pay up.
I would have preferred modern ideas like bosses are hard because you have to learn their patterns- and to be clear, this is also present - but also the feeling that I’m not strong enough to do anything more than chip damage is a bit annoying.
I think there’s validity in all the arguments I’ve seen people making; but at the same time I’m glad the game’s not easy. I just don’t know if it always needs to be punishing through frustration.
(The thing that pisses me off the most are those
Tap for spoiler
Red flower buds you need to pogo off of. Do they REALLY need to be over spikes every time? Does my downward thrust really need to be at an angle to bounce off them?? I started out being ok with that movement and I’ve never regressed so fast or so hard at anything in a game before. I swear I’ve lost more lives and to that than bosses; and by the game’s very nature that means a run back every time! Ugh!
So that’s why I say there’s a difference between “tricky” hard and “annoying” hard.
tip
If you're having trouble with red flower buds, maybe explore a different area.
I found them much easier after I unlocked some other things
Thanks for the reassurance. I was starting to do just that, but I’ve only had about 6 hours in game so far and of that I feel like I’m moving pretty slow. So perhaps there is hope yet!
Might I ask for which boss this applied to you? I only had this for optional bosses for which I was underleveled and never for required bosses.
I enjoyed getting the shit beaten out of me when fighting the Black Gargoyle in Caelid. I never struggled like that with the required bosses, except a bit for the final boss, which I enjoyed.
I can't recall a boss that can't be dealt with just being overleveled? Maybe Malenia? But she's human sized not a giant boss. Yeah the final boss kinda sux though but hey it's the end of the game already might as well power through it.
Hmm maybe the DLC, some of those are damn nasty fuckers.
I know what you mean with the downward thrust. It just fucks with my platforming.
a bit of a spoiler not but not really as I only mention the name of the ability and what it does.
There's a Wanderer Crest that makes your downward attack like it is in Hollow Knight. That was a game changer for me.
Some arcades were actually a bit more manipulative than that in that they'd get harder depending on how long it was since you last put a quarter in.
Mortal Kombat was one. I noticed this pattern on the snes version of MK3 (can't remember if it was ultimate or not that I had): I'd easily win one fight, then get demolished by the next fighter. Then continue and that same fighter would be easy, only for the next one after that to be much more difficult. I didn't have to put quarters into my snes but they just used the same tuning from the arcade machines.
Eventually when I played that game, I was spending much more time on the space invaders minigame lol.
This is to be expected. Silksong gained so much hype that now you have a bunch of people trying it who are finding out it's not their thing.
I know people these days are used to early access garbage being shoved out the door as a full release, and are ready to rush to the comments to explain why the game is wrong, but I promise you this is not one of those cases.
So far, every run back I've experienced in silksong has a purpose. If it's not something you enjoy, I recommend not playing the game. But don't be in that overlap of the Venn Diagram between people who are enjoying the game and people who are complaining they aren't enjoying the game. Either stop playing, or finish it and then we can talk about its design.
Name one with purpose, then. There is the big cave with the boss. It is separated in two halves by a long ass platform. There are no enemies, exploration, rewards or challenges on the platform. The sole purpose of it is to make you run right and then left, instead of just facing the boss right away.
If it's the one I'm thinking of, I barely consider that one a run back. It's like 40s to get to the boss from the bench. And at that point I the game, I noticed myself start hitting the bounce plants much more consistently after having to do this run many times. Up until then I hadn't been forced to repeat the same small section yet.
And (staying vague to avoid spoilers), the bench itself was particularly "surprising" specifically because of the long gap without any benches leading up to it, forcing you to repeat the same long platforming/combat sections over and over. Players would not have been "surprised" by it if they weren't so desperate for a bench.
My biggest complaint is the sheer lack of rewards when I finish a fight. Give me any currency.
I have spent so much of this game broke, unable to buy the things I need to advance any side plots.
I'm currently stuck on the fight for the Music in the top left of the citadel. The double boss at the end is brutal. But because no enemy in that fight drops monster parts, I have to quit to grinding it to go grind more materials to build equipment, despite having slain 20+ enemies each run.
Regarding difficulty: I've lived through the 80's, where difficulty was ramped up to make the game last longer, as you only had precious few kilobytes to fill with content. I've grown to hate difficult games.
It is your right as creator to go that way if you wish, but it is my right as player to hate your guts if I buy your game and it kills me over and over again in the first minutes.
Another 80s child here. The difficulty of ganes of that era was to extend tge game duration and made them seem longer. They were designed that way to eat quarters at the arcade, the original "games as a service". What happened with home computer and console games at the time was that developers used the same paradigms for "buy to own" games that they used for arcade, thus the idea of limited lives, game over screens, high dificulty, etc.
If it is clear that the topic is Impressionist art, I would not go. If I buy the ticket to see Expressionism and get Impressionism instead, I would fell upset.
(Actually, I'd go either way, I love art)
Yes.
I think time has made people look at Hollow Knight through rose tinted glasses. When I picked up the game in 2018, I got to the Soulmaster and gave up entirely because of its runback, it was just too annoying.
I ended up finishing the game a few years later and absolutely loving it, but runbacks are to this day my main criticism of the game, and I know a lot of people agree about that.
For this reason I hoped that they’d make things better in Silksong, but at least now I know what to expect so it doesn’t annoy me as much as it used to.
HK can be trivialized pretty early on by stacking charms and upgrades. Silksong spaces out meaningful upgrades in a way that really forces you to learn the ins and outs of the game before you can start buildcrafting.
FWIW, all the final bosses are easier than HK's true final boss. The difficulty scaling starts with a rough curve but evens out over time.
I was all-in on Hollow Knight. Beat it multiple times, including Path of Pain and the Nightmare King. But I'm struggling with Silksong.
I went back and started up Hollow Knight again just to sanity-check myself, and, yes, it's definitely an easier game. Many fewer enemies can hit for 2 health; there's more variety in paths in the early game, so if you hit a wall in one direction you can try another; and you get access to upgrades that actually feel impactful relatively early instead of skills that use up my magic pool that I can't spare because I need them because I'm always one hit away from dying.
My pet theory is that Silksong is actually just exactly what they originally pitched: DLC for players that have mastered the highest skill points in Hollow Knight. And maybe that would be fine if I were coming straight into it off of the back of Godhome. But it's been years since I was playing those areas, and my skills have atrophied. It's okay for a DLC to expect mastery from the start, but a standalone game should have more of a curve.
I imagine a non-insignificant portion of Silksong players never played HK and just jumped on the hype bandwagon. Which makes sense considering it was built up like it would literally pay off your mortgage and reunite you with your high school sweetheart.
I'm about 10 hours into silksong and it's amazing, don't get me wrong. But the majority of the boss fights seem... cheap?
Like, their difficulty doesn't come from their various attacks, or their environment. Instead, it usually comes from the fact that they do double damage, or the fact that they spam the same two attacks over and over way too quickly, or the fact that they can do the same add summon three times in a row and make what was a controllable situation practically impossible
Now, I've 112% the OG hollow knight and beaten true radiance, so I'm not against difficult boss fights. In fact I relish the feeling of learning their moves and patterns after every single death
But when the moves are "ram into wall. Then ram into wall again" it becomes incredibly annoying
Some of the boss fights felt amazing once you start learning their attack patterns, but then others were just... lacking. The savage fly one comes to mind. It wasn't particularly a difficult boss itself. But when it summoned ads, it became a fight around rng. It wasn't a fun fight at all. Felt like the devs realised it was too easy and chucked in ads then left it there.
Separately, why on earth the boss doesn't receive damage for slamming down on the spiky enemy when its spikes are deployed... Missed opportunity!
The Beastfly in the Chapel isn't too bad, since you can leverage its slam to take out any ads, however there is another arena where you fight it again and it spawns flying ads who shoot projectiles which deal double damage AND the boss breaks the platforms you're standing on.
Feels like bullshit fighting against it.
I disagree about the fly that they just wanted to make you die more.
The boss itself is super easy, it has two attacks which are not only easily dodged but also leave a lot of opportunities to attack and move around.
So in essence the boss is a bag with silk to heal or use magic attacks while the real problem you face is using those resources to control the minions it summons.
So yeah if you go with the strategy to kill the boss fast you will suffer but if you act as a hunter to control the fight you will win.
Just my take on this boss after 100+ tries, and do consider it a good and interesting boss fight.
Or you can just rely on luck and brute force.
Don't like it, don't buy it. I'm happy for team cherry and their success. It's not for me but I don't resent them that it isn't. This nothing burger discussion is yet another herring designed to drive clicks and traffic off of the work of people who ACTUALLY create something of worth. Modern parasitism at its best.
I think this discussion has more merit when framing this from an ableism viewpoint. Games having accessibility sliders to either slow down puzzles or enemies helps players who have a disability.
A game that comes to mind is Crosscode! You had options that could change the speed and damage for various things in the game. Was nice because sometimes I'd change the settings when I had been stuck and frustrated on a puzzle which made the game far more enjoyable.
The main goal of a game is to be fun, not to be a bragging right; even more in a single player game.
If someone, for any reason, prefers a more casual experience, let them have it. On the other hand, if you prefer to brag, go for it and cramp up the difficulty.
There us no point of gating a single player game. Single player games should be accessible for all.
A single player game shouldn't be accessible to all. It should be accessible to everyone the creator intends it to be accessible to.
Devaluing and demanding an artist or team of artists compromise their vision and intent is flat out a shit take. You have to be a massive self centered asshole to think it's even remotely acceptable.
Nintendo expects Mario games to be played by everyone, thus it's reasonable to expect accessibility features and difficulty controls. To allow for the widest range of players.
A Mario game with out either implicit or explicit difficulty controls would be a fair thing to criticize when Nintendo's clearly stated goal is to reach the boardest audiences and be a game for the whole family.
But a game made by say kojima IS NOT trying to reach the boardest audience. Thus, expecting any amount of control over the experience is just being an asshole on the part of the player. The game is designed for himself first and foremost. He's making something he wants to make. Tell a story he wants to tell. If the player enjoys it then all the better.
Games are after all first and foremost art. Art can be a product or can be a passion. A product even if art is reasonable to expect it to be made for the consumer first and cater to them But never should any reasonable person. Assume a passion should bend the knee.
Fun is not the same for everyone.
Some people like visual novels. Others prefer games with frame perfect precision that push the player’s reaction, attention and concentration.
Nothing could be for everyone and that’s fine. Something not being for you does not make it a bad design.
The main goal of a game is to be whatever the creators and/or you want it to be. Frustrating difficulty can still be fun, just like feeling scared in a horror game is fun. It simply has to be done right.
Keep in mind it's already very hard to make a good, balanced game. Adding difficulty sliders increases that exponentially. Even if you add a few presets - that's still a lot more work, which indie studios may not have resources for.
There doesn't need to be sliders or options menu settings. Elden Ring handles difficulty settings beautifully: upgrading your flask is optional and increases both the frequency and amount of healing that can be received. Using summons is optional and can make some fights an absolute cakewalk. Same with all the different crafting items. If you want, almost every dungeon in the game can be skipped or revisited if it's too hard.
All Team Cherry had to do was change the timing or location for access to certain tools in the game.
Many FromSoft games don’t strike that balance right. The ones I’ve tried, even the ones I successfully beat, gave me a groan of “Fucking FINALLY, now what mediocre reward and fresh hell do I get for that!? In fact, why am I playing this…?”
Another example, Stellar Blade. I enjoyed the difficulty, and got pretty good at the parries against bosses; but usually only hit about 60% of them. That wasn’t good enough for the very final boss, which takes off about half your health for each one you miss. Only for that fight, I ended up turning down the difficulty - and it was still tough! And, I still felt rewarded at the end.
One final example, Another Crab’s Treasure. It has some hard fights, and many difficulty options. I’m glad those were there…but I also just never used them. Also, it now has a NG+ that gets even harder.
For myself? Definitely! But someone shouldn't be prevented from playing a game because of a disability. Just like how Frostbite engine games have great accessibility options for colour blindness.
Disability, accessibility and gameplay accessibility are two different things and should be treated as such. There is also a very hard line between what is possible to help someone with a disability. Enjoy a medium that requires certain minimal physical traits.
The color blindness deafness rebindable controls as many things that can help the disabled and these should be expected whenever possible. Hell a lot of these are built directly into your operating system and don't require any effort from a game developer. They just need to make sure not to get in the way of already existing tools.
But gameplay accessibility is an entirely different beast and even very minimal. Gameplay accessibility can create an entirely new gameplay experience to the point where it's not the same game. If the developer wants to add those, it should be up to the developer and what they're targeting, both as an audience and as an artist.
We should always demand disability accessibility. We should never demand gameplay accessibility.
Tbh it's a reflex and dexterity game, among other things, so it is not for everyone. In the same way a game that requires memorising melodies is not for me, since I suck hard at it.
I suppose there could be a mod that simply doesn't let you die and you can explore the whole world. There is no other way to make a platforming section easier, unless you add more anchor points etc., which requires actually changing the world (essentially, you remove the platforming section), so those could still be a problem.
Colorblind accessibility is easy to implement and pretty much everybody can do it after reading a wikipedia article on colorblindness.
On the other hand, balancing a game for several difficulties is not easy and takes a lot of time. Plus, it doesn't always make sense. Part of the game is the struggle. If you're skipping the struggle, then you're missing a part of the game.
If you're not able to commit to learning new strategies and using game mechanics to adapt to a game's difficulty, and experience it as the developers intended, maybe it's not for you. You can always watch a lore video or let's play by other gamers to get the story if that's the goal. This is Dark Souls 2 all over again, and I will personally say as someone who initially hated it, then gave it another chance; When you persist and triumph through grit, the game leaves a lasting impression and sense of accomplishment that you cheat yourself out of with a difficulty slider. That's my favorite game in the series now, which is a deeply unpopular opinion, unsurprisingly.
This debate pops up every now and then and my opinion remains the same, there are plenty of games that aren't meant to be a challenge to choose from. Part of games that are built to be a challenge is being able to reflect on how far you grew in the process, and people hate to hear it but 'git gud' is a real thing for those who believe things worth doing are hard.
yea, that's entirely valid. I love these games (Metroidvanias) because of the exploration and worldbuilding. The combat is a way to advance further into that world, but it's just a means to an end to me. Make it too tough, and you're preventing me from enjoying the parts I like.
I played a good 4 or 5 hours of Silksong so far and loving it. It's a little tough though, and I think it could use a nerf.
I haven't played this yet, so I don't know anything about what difficulty settings it may or may not have But in general, I see difficulty settings as an accessibility feature.
I liked the way that Ender Magnolia did it, where, at a save point, you could adjust several settings to customize the difficulty. I was able to temporarily make it slightly easier just for a few bosses that I lost my patience for.
Mandragora had the exact same difficulty system, you could adjust enemy HP, Damage and even Stamina cost at every bonfire. Great accessibility feature.
I personally think Outer Wilds should give you the whole lore as an audiobook, not everyone wants to go hunting for clues and reading a bunch of old conversations between dead people in order to figure out what's going on...
In my opinion, the game is not particularly difficult. That is, if you've played through the original Hollow Knight. Which most people haven't. In fact, it looks to me like a lot of people jumping on the hype don't have too much experience with metroidvanias and soulslikes.
It's a sequel, so intended to be played after the original. Why do we care what people who haven't played the first game think?
There are mods and cheats for this game already—and they even run on Linux. I turn 50 next month: though I'm still playing, I don't have as much time for gaming as I used to and my reflexes aren't what they were. I haven't entirely removed the challenge with mods, but I feel no shame in tweaking this game to go easier on me and chew up less of my time as punishment for failure. I wish they had these as accessibility options built-in, but I'm fine with hacking it.
Anybody telling me I should "git gud" can pound sand: I'm already good at a bunch of things that get me a paycheck. I play games so I can relax and be terrible at something for fun. I'm certainly not playing for bragging rights.
Difficulty is subjective. Creating multiple levels of difficulty either takes tremendous effort to do well or, as is the case with most games, an adjustment to some numbers that is less an increase/decrease in difficulty and more an increase/decrease to the tediousness of combat.
Puzzle games with difficulty settings alter the complexity of the puzzles. Action games can alter the encounters themselves (how many, of what kind of enemies and their placement in the arena), or even changing the enemy behavior to be more/less complex. Yet this kind of difficulty adjustment isn't common at all anymore.
A high difficulty is not inherently good game design. Making a game more approachable through lower difficulty settings with additional checkpoints doesn't make it worse for people who like a challenge. It just makes it enjoyable to more people.
Claiming it's down to "artistic vision" just feels dishonest. You could claim Studio Ghibli movies should never be dubbed or subbed. You just have to learn Japanese to enjoy them, just don't watch them if that's not for you... but why? How is it a bad thing if more people can enjoy something?
Cup Head is a great example. It's a fantastic game with an art style that younger kids love. But it's too difficult for most kids, which doesn't make the game better, it just locks them out from a game they'd otherwise love.
Studio Ghibli movies should never be dubbed or subbed. You just have to learn Japanese to enjoy them, just don't watch them if that's not for you...
I feel this is a false equivalence.
If you wanted to make a movie analogy, I'd say it's more like a movie having subtle subtext or context which would make it's message or intent more difficult to comprehend.
Imagine if someone watched The Cabin in the Woods (satire movie about horror movies) and said it was a bad movie because it wasn't scary.
I think its fair to say that person would have low film literacy at least.
How do we compensate for that? Should movies start offering accessibility features so every viewer can have the ability to know foreshadowing, film cliches, or meta-narrative devices?
I feel like giving viewers an option before a movie to say "i have low media literacy", which would result in popups during the movie to say "hey, this is a callback to the Hellraiser franchise" would be insulting to the creators.
The film wasn't made for casual movie viewers, it was made for a specific audience. The creators aren't obliged to make it more easily digestible.
Edit:
Satire falls apart when it's spoon fed.
If difficulty is part of the games design, then reducing it is functionally similar to explicitly stating irony to a viewer.
I can't tell if you're being ironic or not lol.
I'll write my response as if you're being sincere;
Cabin in the Woods is one of my all time favourite movies, but the entire premise is built around horror movie tropes.
The "gods" mentioned at the end of the movie are the movie viewers themselves. They "demand blood" (watching a splatter movie for the sake of watching people get killed).
It's a requirement that "the virgin" be the last one killed, but the death is optional (this is a staple of horror movies; the 'Final Girl')
One of the literary devices the movie toys with is the idea that ALL the horror movies we've seen are part of the same universe, and the guys in the offices are the ones pulling the strings to entertain us.
The entire movie is one giant nudge-nudge, wink-wink for people who love to get meta with horror movies.
If you enjoyed it regardless, that's fine, but my point was that it would be a bad product if it tried to accommodate for viewers such as yourself.
But The Cabin In The Woods is exactly what I'm talking about. A product with mass appeal that still caters to a small group of people. Much like Paul Verhovens old movies. You can watch them as dumb action or social criticism.
And movies have several accessibility features. Things like subtitles, which often translate cultural references or jokes that don't directly translate to viewers from foreign countries. Descriptive audio tracks for visually impaired, directors commentary to learn things behind the scenes. Many services and devices also allow you to even out dynamics and enhance speech.
The problem with games that have a too high difficulty threshold isn't that you're missing out on some hidden subtext. It's that you will never get to see 70% of the game, for absolutely no good reason.
Cuphead is such a good example of this, according to xbox achievement stats 31% never made it past the first part of the game, 72% never got to the end of the game.
Accessibility in film delivers the same work to more people. Accessibility in games can cross the line into creating a different work entirely, because the interaction itself is the art, not just the visuals or sound.
Saying “most players never saw the end of Cuphead” isn’t proof of failure; it’s proof of selectivity. Just like not everyone finishes Infinite Jest, but it doesn’t mean Wallace failed as a writer.
Cuphead was made to invoke arcade game feelings. The gameplay is brutal by design. That's the point.
It's like watching Terrifier and throwing up half way through, storming out of the cinema and saying "the acting was good but it was too violent, I wish I could watch a version of the movie without the gore"
But it doesn't, accessibility in film does not deliver the same work to more people. Films are translated, dubbed and subbed to be approachable. Adding voice acting from talent that were never involved in the original film. It's all about adapting the film to fit a wider audience.
The fact that gamers think games are somehow different and the "git gud" approach is just pointless elitism. How would Cuphead, Super Meatboy or Silk Song be a worse game if they had an easy game mode where you had more life and/or checkpoints? How does that setting change the experience of someone playing in normal, veteran or hardcore mode?
Why everything should be for everybody? And why artists should care about your opikion when they are creating what they want to create.
Cup head is great example. Everything in the game is meticiusly hand crafted. The big part why its so popular is the difficulty that forces you to focus on the aninations and sprites. The difficulty also is economical in game as labor intensive as cup head. Because every sprite was hand drawn devs could not just churn unlimited levels and the games lenght came from the difficulty. Making the game easy would ruin the pacing of the game.
Games are art form like any other. There are mainstream movies, plays, songs, paintings and games etc etc etc. that try to reach as large audience as they can. But there is also obscure art pieces that only small group of people can enjoy. And both ways are fine
I find it obnoxious when people bitch about desing choices that devs have consciously made. Its not like they have any obligations to make a game in one way or another.
Is it not fair for the game developers’ artistic vision to not be accessible to all? Accessibility is nice, expands the potential audience, but if it compromises my artistic vision and I’m ok with giving up reach and money to preserve it, that doesn’t make my game bad or my vision invalid.
It would be ridiculous to call up the bar or the ama and complain to them that becoming a lawyer or a doctor is not accessible to all.
One last addition, adding control remapping, color options, and text to speech are true accessibility. Easy mode is fake accessibility
Easy mode is not fake accessibility. Celeste has the correct idea in allowing players adjust the difficulty for accessibility purposes. Not everyone has the same reaction speed, same cognitive abilities, same eyesight. There are people who can only use one hand and that automatically makes reacting to attacks many times harder, should they be excluded from being able to enjoy the game because they are not physically capable enough for the boss fights? And boss fights are probably 5% of the game anyway!
That's an interesting take. You think game developers should not make games that require hands, vision, hearing, etc to enjoy them?
No, I think if something can be done to allow more people to enjoy the game, then it should not be considered a bad thing to do it. You can not make it accessible to everyone in the world, but if there are time and resources to add accessibility, it should not be neglected.
And I don't agree with the use of artistic intent as an excuse to not include specific accessibility options: take closed captions for example, they are made to allow deaf and hard of hearing people enjoy the content even when they can't hear the sound. A lot of media is built on sound being a cornerstone of the experience, and people who will use closed captions will have no notion of it, but does it mean that they should be excluded completely?
Just because people who use the accessibility options will not experience everything in a way the author intended does not mean they should not be experience it at all, and in this day no one really complains about game including captions or colourblind options, but anything that might affect difficulty is, for some reason, out of the question and is only subject to the artist's vision of it.
I agree with making accessible controllers with special layouts and allowing custom control bindings to accommodate those who are differently abled.
Those can be accommodated without meaningfully altering the game. Changing the gameplay is different however. Not that adding more difficulty options is a bad thing, I don’t mean to disparage anyone by calling it fake accessibility, just that I don’t think it’s the same as other options because it fundamentally changes the experience compared to other options that I considered “real”
I think the game is difficult, probably a bit more difficult than the first game (which I haven't played in over 5 years, so I might be wildly off), but I don't find it unreasonable.
I know a lot of the time it's my fault that I died, because I'm someone who likes to trade damage with enemies, which just isn't really possible in this game, but I can't stop doing it.
As for runbacks, I think there are a few weird ones, that can be terrible, depending on if you found/unlocked the nearest bench, but otherwise I don't remember anything truly awful.
spoiler
For example the Chapel of the Beast in Hunter's March I think, if you didn't unlock the trapped bench, that's pretty close (even then it's still kinda long, although you're basically just running).
The fight against the gatekeeper, at the entrance of the Citadel, can have a long runback from the worm area. But the fleas, along with a bench, also move directly in front of the boss room, theoretically you might be able to do that before you fight the boss.
So glad they fixed the slow/boring difficulty curve the first game had. I shouldn't need to slog through 20 hours of gameplay before I feel challenged.
Binged it all weekend, it's a great game, but folks whining about some of the game's earlier challenges are unlikely to finish it.
Silksong sparks debate about git gud and scrub
I dont think there is any conversation to be had about an easy mode or boss runbacks. Any time this small dev team spends on an easy mode is time wasted IMO.
If its to hard you can play another game. I see this the same as people demanding a complex movie be changed to be easier to understand. Its just a dumb complaint and im sick of seeing these people flood every comment section of every slightly challenging game.
The difference between "I don't like this" and "this is bad" is too often overlooked
I’m ok with there being a conversation on this topic, even if the arguments devolve to ‘waaah’ vs. ‘git gud’.
Ultimately though, I agree that a small dev team shouldn’t have to focus on a game-mode outside their vision - and any such demand for an easy-mode or other additions can and should be left up to mod makers.
It’s a single-player game, so in the end how the individual user wants to play is how they should be able to play.
They’re saying your taste in games isn’t valid and shouldn’t be catered for. Instead, theirs should be in every case.
I don't mind difficult games. I recognise that they exist as a kind of pushback against mobile games and casual games that have risen in popularity. I don't mind that they exist. Likewise, I strongly believe that gaming is for everybody, but not every game has to be for everybody.
I think it's perfectly fine, though, to ask the question: if the game — any hard game, to include the Dark Souls game and its spinoffs (e.g. Elden Ring) and knockoffs (e.g. Breath of the Wild) — had an easy mode, where virtually anyone could win it eventually, would that truly make the game less fun for people who like hard games? What if the game were hard by default, and easy mode cost $5 extra? That way, you would never be presented with the option, but those who want it can get it for a slight upcharge. (Maybe less on a $20 game, I'm thinking the $5 would be for a $70 game.) Case in point: Final Fantasy XV was never hard. But for 49¢, you could buy a "DLC"/"mod" that made gas cost half — 5 gil instead of 10 for any fill-up — and also made hotels (which give a big XP buff) half price. So one early-game strategy was equipping a ring that would not pay out experience when you camp, and saving your XP (which is normally paid out every time you sleep) until you could afford a room at the XP-doubling Galden Quay resort hotel, gaining you several levels by then. With the DLC/mod, you could afford it much sooner, and you could actually do it a few times, setting you up for later parts of the game. It wasn't an easy mode, but it did soften the grind a bit, and it wasn't presented as an option in the game. You kinda had to know about it and go look for it.
I actually think there's something to that. Making a game and selling parts of it never really goes down well with players. But most players can't beat hard games. So what if instead of new games being $70 or $80, they were $50 or $60 still, but people who want help can buy things that will make the game easier. Let those players subsidize the ones who are good enough to beat it without them, incentivising them to get better. Ideally, to get better at that game so they uninstall the helpers, beat it without them, then when the next one comes out, they're ready.
I don't hate hard games. But I'm not going to pay for them. If they make their money off people who have that much time on their hands, that's fine. It's a sound business decision. But I also think a game can't say "we wish we made more money" while intentionally excluding players who maybe have full-time jobs, families, or other valid reasons to not learn the perfect button combinations and ultra-precise timing some of these games require. I think if they could find a way to include those players while not putting off their base, they'd have a winning solution on their hands. And no, we're not gonna quit our jobs or neglect our families to "git gud" like we live with our parents and are half our age.
I agree with most of it, except I think it's fine for developers to make a hard (or very hard game) if that's their vision. Not every games is for everyone. And if developers are fine with targeting just a niche, there is no issue with it.
That being said, I do have issue with players / gamers saying there should be no easy mode. Adding an easy mode doesn't take away anything for anyone who isn't playing easy mode. All it takes away is their ability to brag that they finished a game half the people can't finish. There are ways for developers to handle even that. Give some special achievement or something for those who finish on non-easy mode, but that's again up to developers, and I am fine if there isn't one.
Rockband was a good example of achievement-gating the higher difficulties. You got an achievement for beating the game on Medium, Hard, or Expert. And doing it on one of the two higher ones would unlock the ones below if you didn't already do it on those difficulties. So if you were good enough to beat it on Expert, you got three or four achievements. Now I know you're probably thinking "wait how do you beat Rockband"? By completing the Endless Setlist, which is unlocked when you beat the story mode. The story mode just unlocked the higher tiers of difficulty. The Endless Setlist was all the songs. Six hours and 20 minutes minimum. Oh, and when I said "three or four achievements"? The fourth one is if you do it without pausing or failing (at any difficulty Medium or higher). That one was called the "Bladder of Steel Award." Yes, I own it. You food prep in advance, you do it on vocals, and you time your bathroom breaks very carefully (and drop a deuce in advance as well). But those three achievements for beating it at difficulty? Those are per instrument. I only have the gold (expert) vocals award. I may have the bronze (medium) bass award, but I never got any for guitar or drums.
That's just one example of difficulty and incentives. I like how Deus Ex 1 did it, too. On Easy, you did more damage and took less. On Hard, you did less and took more. On Medium, it was balanced. On Realistic... everyone takes more. That was how I played. I wasn't getting hit. I played a sniper. Even on Easy it was hard to one-shot enemies with a good gun and a headshot. For some reason that didn't kill them. On Realistic, a shot to center mass with my .30-06 will drop any human enemy. A shot to the head will drop the augmented ones. So that's how I play... played. It's not on Xbox and it's not on the Mac. My Mac can run it through Whisky, but I haven't played much more than parts of the first level, so I'm not sure what the compatibility looks like later.
Wow, that's some dedication. Salute to you for actually getting those achievements.
That's an interesting way to play Deux Ex, never tried the sniper walkthrough, will give a try if I went back to it.
Well, you know the 30.06 ammo is kinda hard to come by, so I didn't use it all the time. I'd avoid combat on Liberty Island and just hoard ammo. I modded a mod for it and made a few changes — like after UNATCO "cuts through" the NSF "like a hot knife through butter," with my mod, they don't loot the bodies. So I do. Bit of a reward for getting through without being detected. So then I trade the pistol for the silenced version. The mod that I modded, Shifter, makes unique versions of each guns with a stat or two buffed. I could tell you where the pistol is (Lebedev's bed on the plane) but I forget where the silenced pistol was. May have been in the canals in Hong Kong — so, not worth waiting for. I mean as opposed to slapping the weapon mods on the regular one. So for most guys I'd shoot with the silenced 10mm. Sniper's really only good at range. But, that one mission, where they drop you on top of the 'ton (the hotel in NYC, supposed to be Hilton, but... copyrights) I take everybody out with the sniper rifle (it's like 8 guys tops) before dropping down to street level. I can't remember if it's when you go to Dowd to get the plans to scuttle the freighter, or when you go back to NYC to send the singal from NSF HQ. Been way too long since I played, but really only a year or two. I wish they'd put it on Xbox.
I don't mind difficult games. I recognise that they exist as a kind of pushback against mobile games and casual games that have risen in popularity
You got that backwards: difficult games are as old as arcades. If anything, casual games exist as pushback against difficult games, not the other way around.
Yes indeed, when arcade games were the norm devs specifically designed for absurd difficulty ramp ups and cheap deaths to finagle another quarter out of you.
I grew up with Atari and the NES. I think it's actually both ways. I don't think casual games were ever really a pushback against difficult games though, I think they were just trying to reach a wider audience. Take Subway Surfers for example, it's probably the best example of the casual (phone) game. Anyone can pick up and play it, and if you fail, you just start over. IIRC you had to watch an ad first though? I dunno, I got hooked on it and I bought the coin doubler for $5 which also removed the mandatory ads (not the ones you can opt to watch to double some prizes or open ad-gated prize boxes though). That's all I ever paid for it — far less than any paid game. Of course you can't "win" at it either, it just goes on forever. On consoles, you also have Animal Crossing and the like. Games that never end but you can't lose, either. Like you can get stung by wasps or scorpions or bit by tarantulas (though the latter two encounters are rare), but you just pass out and wake up in front of your house with nothing lost. But no, I don't think casual (e.g. Animal Crossing) or accessible (e.g. Subway Surfers) was an active "push back" against the "NES Hard" trend of hard gaming.
Of course, arcade games weren't just hard to be hard — like Subway Surfers and other phone games, they exist to get you to spend money. An arcade game that isn't generating revenue isn't desirable to people who operate arcades.
I haven't played Silksong yet, in part because truthfully, Hollow Knight was alright but not my favorite Metroidvania. The one thing I really disliked about the original was the runbacks. I remember getting stuck on one platforming section, and I could easily get to the halfway point where I kept dying to retrieve my money, but then drop it again because there was no turning back from this halfway point, had to keep trying to finish it. I wanted to just explore a different part of the map and come back to this section later, but sunk cost fallacy forced me to keep bashing my skull against it.
Which then felt like this mechanic conflicted with the exploration I expect from a Metroidvania. That's the real problem IMO.
You yourself admit it's a fallacy! This isn't exactly a "skill issue" situation, but in future efforts on these kind of games you might try being more thoughtful about when to take a break and spend accumulated currency.
Although as others have pointed out elsewhere in the thread, learning to accept not retrieving your stuff is sometimes necessary too. I lost around 1500 at a certain boss by getting too cocky trying to fight enemies on the runback instead of skipping them, and it took me a while to make peace with it lol.
If you do end up playing Silksong you should know that there is a mechanic specifically addressing this, where you can convert your currency into consumable items at a bit of a loss to keep them across deaths.
There are mechanisms in both games that allow you to remotely retrieve your body if you are desperate not to lose it. Hollow Knight is definitely less forgiving than Silksong in this respect though.
I am returning to Hollow Knight thanks to the Silksong hype. I had dropped it before because I was unsure where I needed to go to progress and was getting sick of running around the map trying to figure out which paths were actually available to me and which needed some equipment I didn't have. Well, I did figure it out and basically have everything important unlocked so now I am enjoying it again.
If you do pick it up again, I have some advice. First, there's a relic in an area called the Hive that will give you passive health regen if there's a long enough gap between instances of damage. This means you can keep messing up a platforming section and as long as you don't rush it you can heal back after messing up without needing new sources of soul. Second, there are some sections that are traversable with minimal equipment but become trivial with more. Deepnest was really annoying to me when I went through it and I frankly would have probably enjoyed it if I had one really helpful item unlocked (or even just a bit more health). Third, don't worry too much about money. Normal enemies don't give you much from farming and I think I've run out of stuff to spend it on mostly from other sources. So don't be afraid to let it go. If you've unlocked the fast travel thing, just head back to vendors when you've noticed you accumulated a decent amount.
Like I said, I'm enjoying the game again after years away, but I really wish they had a better way of letting you know where you should go next and what isn't available to you. Needing to go through zones again to check if something is now unlocked or not is tiresome. The pins help but they are not enough, and I didn't think to reserve certain colors for certain types of obstacles the first time.
The game was designed for people to have played the first one first. I think the difficulty curve works best if you consider Silksong as a direct continuation of the first game, picking off where the main story left off rather than the extra challenges they added through updates like godhome.
glad poe 2 added sprinting
Tangentially related but I agree. It makes the long run through sections of the campaign more bearable.
On a more related note, POE2 has checkpoints practically on top of the bosses during the story so you can bash your head against it as much as you want. The only time you're punished for dying is endgame bosses.
yea agreed. in general though our attitudes with gaming have changed due to how many titles are available (over abundance) and the history of gaming, etc. we’ve become spoiled in ways. there needs to be a ‘penalty’ of sorts to encourage trial and error growth. get some true dopamine overcoming a trial.
there’s a place for all types of games and difficulties though. let the artists create their vision.
So far I have only found two or so runbacks that really bothered me. One is THAT BOSS (TLJ...) which isn't actually too bad (once you figure out the safe path) but a single missed jump or tag by an enemy is 2 masks of damage. So just spend all your souls ahead of time and if you flub, end it all and respawn.
The other is a much earlier boss in Widow (?). The runback is actually zero danger and just a matter of holding R2 and running. My big issue is that there is an elevator right next to the bench. So you start the sprint back because you want to get it right this time and slam into a cage and have to wait for it to reach the top then hop back in to get back down and it just feels horrible.
But yeah. I actually like a good runback as a way to reset your brain and avoid getting on tilt against a boss. Elden Ring very much spoiled people by putting the bonfire right outside the fogwall for effectively every single boss and it just leads to making the same mistake over and over again until you warp away to do something else. But Silksong's balance is definitely rough.
And all music should be under three minutes long. Every book should have page numbers. Photographers should have familiar subjects. Paintings should have a full explanation by the artist telling you exactly what they meant to communicate. /s
If the game isn't for you, just move along. There are tons of games out there.
are you aware of the meaning of the word "setting" in this context?
Just in case I can explain:
It means you can switch something from one behaviour or effect to another, basically giving you a choice of how something should work.
So, adding a difficulty setting changes nothing about your experience of the game.
do you need more words to explain this simple thing?
I can try to use simple language and shorter sentences if you require it?
In this thread: people complaining who are apparently bad at game mechanics and can't or won't learn to improve.
Just beat Widow second attempt.
The run back has you start on one screen, traverse two screens, and done. I got as high as 12 Mississippi counting during it.
Once you
Tap for spoiler
Get the run/dash ability
, none of this is even a problem. You can jump and glide over any normal enemy in the game back to a boss room in about two to three minutes.
The game screams passion and devs spend seven years making it the way they like it. It is also a dirt cheap.
Critisism is fair and everybody has right for opininion. My opinion is that people who are bitching about the boss runs can shove it up to theirs.
People have nothing better to do than complain, I suppose. Don’t like the game? Don’t play it. The game is good, imo.
What about people who like the game but have criticisms? This is the time to discuss it.
That’s alright too but every time there’s a hard game, it’s always the same old complaining. It’s tiresome.
Hollow Knight, the first game was hard too with some bosses.
I think it's fine to litigate that again if the same criticisms go unaddressed in a sequel. It took how many souls games before From ended up putting checkpoints right before bosses? When they finally did it, they had their most successful game to date.
Every single game that’s hard, gets the same “it’s so hard” complaint. Well of course it is, isn’t that one of the appeals of the game? Reminds me Sekiro when it got out.
Anyway, we both got our own opinions and that’s that. Lets agree to disagree, I suppose.
git gud
Why are these side scrollers premium price?? Seems like such a cash grab. That’s why franchises are going backwards into side scrollers, easy money, i avoid them
Why people resort to insulting anyone who criticizes things they like
It's not about me liking it or not. I don't even have that game. The point is that one should play games fitting ones abilities. There are people who will master this game, like I mastered Elite about forty years ago. Complaining about a game being difficult is either they overestimated their abilities, or they lack perseverance.
For the rest, there is always tictactoe or animal crossing.
Well whether you like it or not, you're just insulting people for criticizing a game. Not even just for it's difficulty, so you couldn't be more off base.
Legitimately this mindset is why most gaming forums are so toxic. It makes it difficult to actually discuss problems with and opinions on games without people basically going "git gud."
There is room to bring up the fact that some games are just not for everyone, but that also doesn't invalidate the criticism they have.
Seems to me it’s usually “kids” that don’t mind difficult games. I’m in my 40s and I don’t have the time or inclination anymore to replay a boss for hours on end, but when I was younger I loved a challenge like that and would usually set difficulty to hard.
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