Hollow Knight: Silksong
I have definitely not played enough of this to review it properly, but I need it get it out there for it to be included in my games of the year list for 2025 and I know enough that it's definitely in there. After years and YEARS of waiting, Silksong is finally out and naturally, sold over 6 million copies in 2 months. It's beautiful, responsive, tough as nails, and pretty much everything I expected it to be.
Pros
- More beautiful music
- New gadgets
- You automatically grab the edge of ledges and pull yourself up
- You can talk!
- Objectives and quests
- This game's equivalent of badges are divided into categories where you can only equip limited amounts, instead of costing different amounts to equip
- Woven obstacles
- Definitely much harder than Hollow Knight
- Interesting bosses so far
Cons
- The angled downward attack is an unwelcome and unnecessary obstacle to jumping puzzles
- Not sure why they give you 5 hp at the start of the game if they're going to start taking 2 hp with one hit about an hour into the game
- Losing all your stuff if you die twice in a row is still a bullshit mechanic
- Traps. And speaking of which, much as the world felt dangerous in Hollow Knight - in Silksong I get the distinct feeling that the developers are trying to kill you. Enemies right after difficult jumps, TRAPPED BENCHES, jumping puzzles where you have to jump somewhere that you can't see. Overall the world feels full of annoying death traps rather than fair challenges.
- Two currencies, and most enemies drop the worthless one
- Benches often cost rosaries to unlock
- It’s definitively harder than the first game, and Hollow Knight was pretty hard for most people to start with. I played HK 4 times (which is incredibly unusual; I usually don’t play anything more than once), so I’ve got a lot of practice, and Silksong is still very hard.
And it feels less fair than HK. If I died in Hollow Knight, it was because I screwed up. If I die in Silksong, it’s often because there’s some bullshit trap in the environment again that I missed. The game is out to kill you.