As I slowly work my way through Hollow Knight: Silksong, I find myself having a love/hate relationship with the game.  There are lots of good moments, sure, but there are also plenty of very, very annoying ones that test my patience to the limits.  I especially loathe every time I get stuck on yet another boss, or room full of wave after wave of foes, unable to progress the story or move on to the next section of the map until I’ve finally prevailed.  But there are occasions where a boss bars my way forward, and I don’t really mind.  The first time this happened was with the Widow boss fight over Bellhart, which was fast-paced, but also good about giving me ample warning.  The second instance was the Cogwork Dancers, which was a fun challenge like the Widow, but with an extra special something that makes it a worthy topic for today’s post.

The Cogwork Dancers are a pair of dancing, clockwork bugs that move in unison with each other.  They can be found in the Citadel and fighting them was actually quite a treat.  Each movement is preceded by a line showing where they’re going (not unlike the paths of the bells in Widow’s battle).  Much of the battle sees them simply dancing around the battlefield, though there will occasionally be lines all across the screen, and you must quickly move to a safe spot between them before they zip to and fro.  There are some other exceptions to their movements, as well.  Never stand too close when they move to the ground because they will slash their arms upward, and you must always retreat to the side when they meet in the center, as this causes an attack with a wide range before they join hand-in-hand, staring lovingly into each other’s eyes, Hornet completely forgotten until the dance continues anew.

The battle consists of four phases, a slower initial phase, followed by a faster version of the same thing.  Then, the Dancers get out of sync, their movements no longer in perfect unison.  This is the point at which I started throwing projectiles like crazy.  Last of all, one Dancer is destroyed, leaving the other one to dance completely alone, even meeting in the center on occasion, but with no one to embrace.  Had they not been lifeless machines, it would have been almost…sad.

This battle is one of the most unique I have ever seen, and I absolutely loved it.  Even though you still need to be on your toes, as with any major foe in this game, I really appreciate how the Dancers’ movements are not random and chaotic like with some of the more annoying bosses.  Even the music feels more like I’m watching a ballet performance than playing a difficult video game about bugs.  As I move forward, and Silksong returns to being a big, ol’ pain in the butt, my brief time with the Cogwork Dancers has made all the aggravation that came before them seem so much more with it.  Well done, Team Cherry, for creating one of my favorite, and most unforgettable, boss fights in the series.