At first I was unsure. Similar but somehow very different from Hollow Knight. Felt uneasy in both senses of the word. Was I enjoying it? Hmmm. Trying to figure out what I thought.
As I found my footing I settled in and as things progressed the mercury in my enjoyment-o-meter started to rise, and it hasn't stopped rising even as I approach end game. Actual end game, if you know what I mean, beyond Act 2 kind of end game. And I'm deliriously happy at this point. It gets good and then it gets better and better.
All those design decisions you cried about early on - the runbacks, the lack of benches, the rosary economy, the double damage, the constant adds and hellish combat gauntlets - are all very specifically there to create a very singular type of game that knows exactly what it is doing at every turn. The cruelty is almost comical at times. Oh you thought that fake bench and that runback was bad? Here's one that's much worse! And now here's one that's MUCH MUCH worse (true explorers will know what I mean). But it's just so good. You can do it. You can live in that panicked state of a single flashing heart, stranded and surrounded, no bench to be found and a pocket full of rosaries. You can embrace it. It's exhilarating to feel like this. Don't be scared to feel like this. It's a rare thing in a video game to make your heart pound this way. You come to realise that all those things that made you feel so uneasy at the start of the game and made you question whether you were enjoying it or hating it are because you're experiencing something that most modern video games simply cannot conjure up no matter how hard they try, and you're not familiar with the feeling any more. The feeling of playing a truly great game that will challenge you, drive you crazy, show you wondrous things and snatch them away, taunt you, give you mobility and power and complete control, slap you about the face and laugh about it, before finally deferring to your mastery and revealing itself completely.
Comments 1
Re: Poll: What Review Score Would You Give Hollow Knight: Silksong?
10/10
At first I was unsure. Similar but somehow very different from Hollow Knight. Felt uneasy in both senses of the word. Was I enjoying it? Hmmm. Trying to figure out what I thought.
As I found my footing I settled in and as things progressed the mercury in my enjoyment-o-meter started to rise, and it hasn't stopped rising even as I approach end game. Actual end game, if you know what I mean, beyond Act 2 kind of end game. And I'm deliriously happy at this point. It gets good and then it gets better and better.
All those design decisions you cried about early on - the runbacks, the lack of benches, the rosary economy, the double damage, the constant adds and hellish combat gauntlets - are all very specifically there to create a very singular type of game that knows exactly what it is doing at every turn. The cruelty is almost comical at times. Oh you thought that fake bench and that runback was bad? Here's one that's much worse! And now here's one that's MUCH MUCH worse (true explorers will know what I mean). But it's just so good. You can do it. You can live in that panicked state of a single flashing heart, stranded and surrounded, no bench to be found and a pocket full of rosaries. You can embrace it. It's exhilarating to feel like this. Don't be scared to feel like this. It's a rare thing in a video game to make your heart pound this way. You come to realise that all those things that made you feel so uneasy at the start of the game and made you question whether you were enjoying it or hating it are because you're experiencing something that most modern video games simply cannot conjure up no matter how hard they try, and you're not familiar with the feeling any more. The feeling of playing a truly great game that will challenge you, drive you crazy, show you wondrous things and snatch them away, taunt you, give you mobility and power and complete control, slap you about the face and laugh about it, before finally deferring to your mastery and revealing itself completely.
God I love it so much.