Silksong is Everything I Hoped it Would Be: How Team Cherry Won Me Over

Hollow Knight is a game that never "fully" clicked with me. Now, before everyone grabs their pitchforks and bashes me, let me explain!

From a critic's standpoint, I see Hollow Knight as an amazing Metroidvania made by a team of dedicated fans. It's a love letter to the genre with top-notch art, great sound design, and an extremely memorable OST. The game has so much going for it and offers a real challenge. Rather than relying on stats, the game is all about pure skill, and it takes quite a bit of practice before players truly get the hang of it.

Related: Hollow Knight: Silksong Review 

There will be a lot of deaths, a lot of getting lost, and quite a few frustrating moments before the game truly shows where it shines. The thing is, this can take anywhere from 5 to 10 hours for a first-time player, and the game can be quite slow until you at least unlock the dash. At that point, the game also becomes much easier exploration-wise, with its challenge mostly being reserved for the bosses—until it picks up again in the end.

Overall, there's nothing wrong with how Hollow Knight handles things, but it was clearly Team Cherry's first game, and some of their early design choices are what I personally struggled with. The lack of initial direction, the slow movement for the first chunk of the game, very few and far between save points and shortcuts, a lot of backtracking, and general world exploration that felt like it could be more. It was a great start for the series, but it was clear Team Cherry could take this series to even greater heights. They had an award-winning formula down, and all they had to do was touch it up slightly... but instead, they refined it into an even brighter gem.

That being said, Hollow Knight: Silksong is everything I had hoped for and more, and it has finally made me a full fan of the series.

Shortcuts, Save Points, and a Faster Start

While the original Hollow Knight had a crawling start, Silksong avoids this and throws players directly into the action. As a sequel, it expects players to already be familiar with the original, but it also eases new players into the action. The level design is much more linear in the beginning, with fewer branching paths. The few that do split off ultimately unlock shortcuts back to the first save point.

Everything feels so much more connected here. Following these handful of paths will eventually lead to completely new areas—some of which are harder than others. If you take the right path, you can actually unlock the dash ability within the first hour of the game, and that alone is a massive game-changer. Team Cherry knew that fans wouldn't want to wait, and thankfully they didn't make us!

Of course, the dash isn't required to advance into the more challenging areas, but it does make your life a lot easier. Some fights and enemies are clearly designed with this enhanced movement in mind, but it still isn't impossible to win. It just takes a different strategy and a little bit of patience. But what if you do fail? Well, thankfully save points or shortcuts aren't too far away.

This speedy intro and generous save point/shortcut system really help with the flow of the game, and they respect the player’s time. Although some sections will still require backtracking from time to time, some points are as close as 20 seconds away, rather than five or more minutes away. This means players can spend more time learning the bosses than simply running back to them, and that goes a long way to further improve progression. However, there is a trade-off for this, and honestly, it may be the thing I like the best about this game. 

Controlling Hornet, and a More Challenging World:

Hornet is a very different character from the Knight in the original game, and even her basic controls fundamentally change how the game is played. Controlling her feels more like a Castlevania game, which is great for fans of that series. Her down attack is a diagonal strike that also bounces off enemies and other objects. This is similar to the Knight's down attack, which could be used to hop across spikes and enemies, but Hornet's attack is much faster and requires more precise aiming to actually pull it off. Early on, this skill is mainly used for boss fights or on specific enemies, but after clearing the intro, it becomes key to navigating the stages in general. This adds a different type of challenge to exploring the world, but it also feels great once you master it. 

Bouncing across platforms that require the strike, only to then combo it into Hornet's float ability, and then top it off with an air dash to land on another platform where she just barely is able to grab hold and pull herself up—chaining actions together like this is exhilarating. It shows just how much the level design has been improved. Rather than putting all the challenge into the fights, navigation itself keeps you on your toes, and the boss fights become just the icing on the cake. But even the standard enemies are much more of a threat this time around.

As with the first game, Silksong's enemies are a unique mixture of bugs and other creatures, and they all have unexpected attack patterns. The first time you encounter something new, you have no idea what you are about to face, and you will often get caught in their traps. This means death awaits you at every step of the way, and you can never truly relax unless you are 100% sure everything in the area is dead. Awkward attack patterns that have seemingly unnatural delays before striking will catch you off guard. Sometimes, even stepping in the wrong spot on the map will actually aid the enemy in killing you (such as triggering a cage trap you must then bust out of). All of this increases the game's difficulty in ways the original didn't fully, and it is just another example of how Silksong elevated itself above the original release. Will it be frustrating at times? Sure. But even the original Hollow Knight had a learning curve; it's just that now fans are so used to how it played.

Because of how different Silksong feels, it forces players out of their comfort zone and requires them to adapt to what may feel completely alien to them. It is still Hollow Knight at its core, but it is Hollow Knight in a new light, and there is a learning curve once again. Once again, this is just one of the many reasons this game shines. It is something new, and the gameplay is fresh. It isn't a rehash of the original, and it has learned from the previous game's missteps. It is a refined experience shaped by years of fan feedback and by the developers' own growth as a team, and it is exactly the game I had hoped Hollow Knight would one day become.

The Future Looks Bright:

As I continue to work my way through Silksong, I can't help but think of the future of this series. Where will they go from here? What will come next? Well, I obviously can't know the answer to either question, but the further I progress in the game, the more I want a Hollow Knight 3. I am loving every second of Silksong, and while I have a lot left to work through, I am also already at the point where I really don't want the game to end. I want this series to continue, and I want to see Team Cherry take what they learned this time around and somehow make it even better yet again!

Honestly, outside of a few bugs (as in, actual glitches and crashes, not the enemies), this is one of the few games I might consider "perfect"—a title I wouldn't give to the original Hollow Knight, but I can also understand why so many loved it. Of course, even Silksong isn't going to be for everyone, and there is no denying that there is a difficulty curve one must overcome, but those who do will be in for quite the treat and will be able to experience one of the best love letters to the genre to date.

That being said, I am not the one handling the review of Hollow Knight: Silksong for the site, but I still wanted to share my feelings on the game. It is rare for a game in a series to win me over like this one has, and now I'm considering going back to the original once everything is said and done. It has been quite some time since I've played the original, so my memory of its map is pretty hazy, and the newer Hollow Knight: Voidheart Edition sounds like a good reason to replay it as well. Yes, I'll come face to face with my old criticisms, but it's okay. I know I'll want more Hollow Knight once Silksong comes to a conclusion, so I'm willing to go back to where it all started. (Not Hungry Knight!)