As usual, I’m a bit late to the party, but I’ve finally gotten around to playing the long-awaited Hollow Knight sequel, Silksong.  This time, we’re playing as the nimble Hornet in the haunted kingdom of Pharloom.  And instead of bugs being infected with a nasty disease, there are bugs being controlled by…some different sort of ailment that I haven’t quite figured out yet.  Because as of writing this, I’m only hours into the game.  Seeing as Hatm0nster’s already written a review, I thought I’d do something a bit different and write about my initial thoughts.

So, to give you some context, I am writing this post after exploring a good portion of Greymoor.  But I get ahead of myself.  Let’s return to the beginning…the game opens with Hornet being held in a cage by these bugs.  She escapes.  And we learn of some sort of pilgrimage the bugs of this land are embarking on to reach the top of the kingdom.  Hornet, too, decides to set out on this pilgrimage, if only to find out why the heck those bugs captured her in the first place.

The game is just as beautiful as last time.  Though I can’t comment on the soundtrack.  I’m playing on the PS4, and most of the time, I can’t hear the music.  Which is a shame, because the first game had an amazing soundtrack.  Also, it’s pretty common for the controller to just start rumbling out of nowhere.  Is that supposed to happen or is it a glitch?  Because I don’t yet know…

I went into the game already aware that money was rather hard to come by, so I’ve been very careful in how I spend my rosaries.  But I’ve already bought everything in the shop at Bone Bottom (including a key that leads to a rather brutal place that I’d better save for later), and I’m currently caught up on maps.  Which is nice.  I love exploring in Metroidvanias, but running around blindly with no map was rather disorienting.  So I was very grateful when I encountered Shakra (this game’s equivalent of Cornifer), who sells maps, alongside a quill and compass for filling in parts of the map yourself and for actually seeing where the heck you are.

This game doesn’t have a bunch of charms to choose from, but rather, a far more limited assortment of upgrades you can equip.  I bought, and then found, two upgrades so far which increase how many of these I can equip, so right now, I’ve got the ever-useful compass, the magnetite brooch for pulling rosaries to me, druid’s eye for regaining silk (so I can heal or use special attacks more often), and the warding bell, which is supposed to protect me when I’m healing, which has had varying degrees of effectiveness thus far.

I’ve also gained the ability to run quickly and drift on air currents and glide, which has made the game more fun for sure.  Hornet is pretty fun to control, and my main strategy involves doing a downward attack on almost any enemy I encounter, which is far more effective than the pogo attack from the first game, as the range seems better, and you can bounce out of enemy range faster.

With all that said, my feelings for the game are…mixed.  I replayed the first Hollow Knight not so very long ago, so it’s still fairly fresh in my mind.  And I felt as if that game was less aggravating.  Maybe that’s because I had already played it before, making the whole experience just a bit easier.  But then again, I don’t recall my first playthrough of Hollow Knight being overly annoying, either.  To explain, I feel like Silksong is more linear.  That’s not to say there’s not tons of exploring and branching passages to check out just like the first game.  Because there is.  But I don’t remember constantly having my progress halted by boss fights.

In the first game, you had less freedom at the very beginning.  And I remember getting stuck on the dang Moss Knight in Greenpath.  But after beating that nuisance and Hornet for the first time, I feel like the game opened up significantly, and I was able to explore all over.  By the time I reached the dreaded Soul Master, I was tougher and didn’t even struggle that much.  Not so for Silksong.  Got stuck on the Bell Beast and Lace, and I had minimal exploring I was able to do before I was forced to just suck it up and defeat them.  Okay, I imagine Lace is this game’s equivalent of Hornet from the last one, so having less freedom up until this point is pretty similar to the first game.  But then…I got stuck in the Far Fields until I beat Fourth Chorus.    I wasn’t even allowed to leave and explore previous locations!  Huff…okay, he was actually pretty easy…  But then, I got to Greymoor.  And it looks like, once more, I have a boss barring my way before I can proceed.  Ah man, not again!

Oh, but Greymoor…sigh…Greymoor…so when I first got here, I went right.  And I made the harebrained decision to drop into an area I couldn’t climb out of.  I hoped the game wouldn’t have the nerve to trap me somewhere.  But it did.  The only way out was by first clearing a room of these awful, bird-like bugs that make horrendous noises and sound weirdly similar to monsters from the first Little Nightmares (most notably, the Twin Chefs).  When you die, you lose your wraith just like the last game.  So if I didn’t want to lose the precious 320 rosaries I had painstakingly collected and cherished like my own children, I had to run back to the “bird room of death” and get my money back.  But this only meant I was trapped again.  Hence, a vicious cycle that lasted about 1.5 hours before I finally defeated those evil, wicked bird abominations.

Silksong is a good game, I suppose.  Way better than most games being released nowadays.  But it also makes me mad.  I don’t mind a game being difficult.  But I miss the freedom the first game had.  I’m not really a night person, but when I first played Hollow Knight, I was playing obsessively until midnight nearly every day.  The game was so fun and addicting, despite testing my skills to the limits.  I loved every second of it.  And when I encountered a challenge I couldn’t quite overcome, I’d leave and explore some more.  And by the time I returned, I’d be equipped with new charms and whatnot that would make the whole fight just a bit more manageable.

But Silksong won’t let me do that!  Every time I encounter another boss, I’ve already thoroughly explored the current section, found very little in the way of upgrades, and am forced to just try to make due with what I have.  It’s frustrating.  It’s confining.  And I don’t in any way have the desire to play this game for hours on end like I did with the first one because, whenever I hit another snag that I don’t quite feel like dealing with at the moment, too bad, I have no choice in the matter.  Hopefully the game will become less controlling later, but for now, I’m not having as much fun as I was hoping.  Which is a shame, considering we waited so long for a game I’m not enjoying as much as the original.  Guess I’d better head back to Greymoor and see how many tries this newest boss takes me…then I’ll get back to you.  Maybe.