Recent reviews by projectZ3R0

I want to like Silksong. I really do. But I have walked away with the feeling that the game doesn't want to be played.

Frankly, I feel the game is unbalanced, frustrating, and actively discourages exploration with many room and enemy layouts. Bosses and large enemies deal double damage (even on contact), meaning that you can take 3 hits at most at the beginning of the game. Despite playing and exploring for 25 hours, I only managed to get one additional unit of health. Unfortunately, bosses dealing double damage means I can still only take 3 hits of damage, nearly rendering health upgrades pointless.

Speaking of upgrades, I feel that unlike Hollow Knight, half the mobility power-ups seem to offer no assistance during combat and tend to get you into more trouble. The dash and wall cling help out like they do in the first game, and the float is helpful against several boss attacks (though not very helpful against normal enemies). However, the harpoon and double jump tend to result in environment or contact damage during combat.

The double damage from enemies and bosses feels like a last-minute addition that wasn't fully tested. However, the healing mechanic can restore 3 units of health. This seems good on paper, but unlike the original, you cannot seem to stop healing until you either recover health or take damage (and healing is, naturally, interrupted). This has ended many attempts at bosses, attempting to capitalize on what looks like a good healing opportunity only to be eviscerated by an attack because you cannot move or interrupt healing.

Even when I try to take a break from the main story to explore, I find my progress constantly thwarted by some enemy layout that juggles me between enemies and finally into environment (and, of course, death). Similar to the first game, you lose all your money on death with one chance to retrieve it. Unfortunately, there are many difficult enemy layouts and many, many flying enemies that shoot projectiles at you, causing an early death. This means that the next save point you come across is unusable because you can't pay for it, which seems to make it harder and harder to make any actual progress exploring unless you spend time grinding easier enemies for money. That's to say nothing of the downright unfair instances of trapped save points, sending you back across the map because you can't escape poverty.

To the game's credit, it is a beautiful hand-drawn world. The characters and story are compelling. It's a continuation of Hollow Knight. Unfortunately some of the design decisions really stick out and bring the entire experience down for me.

Congratulations to Team Cherry on another smash hit. I hope that the next game will be something more comfortable for me to play.