Was Silksong Worth the Wait?
Posted
Yes. Yes it was.
Okay, that joke worked better when I was originally going to make this into a video. I was going to do a whole cut to the end screen and everything. But I don't like to clickbait by burying the lead.
But Silksong is finally here, after... A while. According to my Steam Wishlist before I bought it, I put it on my list on February 14, 2019. (Video games in 2019 probably made me happier than any other year in my adult life.) So I've been waiting at least six and a half years. Probably longer if it was announced before the Steam Page went up. And on top of that I played Hollow Knight relatively early on - in the first year, at least, playing it in December 2017.
Silksong had kinda become a myth. Like one step more likely than Half Life 3. But now it's real. And you know? I imagine it probably needed this much time in the oven. I consider Hollow Knight the best 2D Metroidvania type game that I have ever played. Yes, that includes big name games, yes that includes Metroid and Castlevania, and yes that includes Super Metroid and Symphony of the Night. That's already a massive challenge to follow up. But it's made even harder because Hollow Knight's success doesn't leave much room for a sequel.
Why a Hollow Knight Sequel is Hard (To Make, I Mean)
If I had to summarize why Hollow Knight is so good, it would be perfectionism and simplicity. It's not that any key mechanics are all that special or unique - though there are some minor mechanics that are. It's that everything it does it executes exceptionally, and nothing it does feels superfluous or tacked on.
To see its perfectionism in action, the best thing to look at is the way you progress through the game. Most Metroidvania games have a very clear "main route." There's an intended order for you to acquire progression items and explore the areas, sometimes with a little room to branch off, but usually only for a short while. Sequence-breaking is popular, but usually not intended. But Hollow Knight's world was so interconnected, that for most of the mid-game there's several ways to get into each area. These aren't sequence breaks. The game is just designed with this much freedom. And there's plenty of optional hidden areas. When I replayed the game, I kept wondering "is this area new?" but usually, no, it had always been there.
As for its simplicity, I would point to the minimal to nonexistent RPG mechanics. Now I love RPGs, and I love action RPGs, and I love action RPGs that are heavy on the RPG mechanics. But I think one of the worse trends of the past decade in games was cramming in RPG mechanics - usually half-assed - that don't need to be there. Games that would be great action games, but for some reason feel the need to complicate it with levels and stats and gear that add complexity, throw off the game balance, and yet add very little interesting depth. But Hollow Knight does little to none of that. There are upgrades to your health, mana, and attack power, but these all function much more like something you'd see in a Zelda game. Attack power upgrades in particular are clearly balanced to minimize your ability to get too far behind or too far ahead, with each upgrade providing the same amount of raw power, leading to diminishing increases in relative power from upgrade to upgrade - the first upgrade makes you 80% stronger, while the last one makes you less than 20% stronger - while later upgrades require an increasing amount of a collectable. The only real exception to this could be seen to be the charm system, but... It's a pretty simple system, and most of the benefits are more interesting and suitable to an action game. It's not a number-crunching sort of system.
And the combination of the two can be seen in the combat. The closest comparison I can think of is probably Megaman Zero - which is quite a compliment. Like that game, combat is very enemy-driven. You have a fairly basic suite of offensive options, and your only defensive option is a dash that eventually is upgraded to have I-frames. The game is mostly about using your platforming skills to dodge attacks, and hitting the enemy when they're vulnerable. It works beautifully, but it's again very reliant on tight design.
And there's still cool touches. Like the map. Oh I love the map. There's no minimap, you have to either pause or hold down a button to view the full map. And your map only updates when you rest at a bench, so once you get into new territory, you have to use your wits and sense of space to navigate, and venturing into a new area gives a stronger sense of stepping into the unknown. And even when retreading familiar ground? You need to equip a charm, which you have limited space for, to have a map marker. So you have to navigate by the shapes of the rooms on your map, and by your familiarity with areas you're passing through. I know some people who hate this. But I adore it - maybe because I'm used to games like Dark Souls that just don't give you any map. But the world is very well-designed, so that it's usually pretty manageable. You're navigating by landmarks and familiar spots, rather than just focusing solely on the map. This isn't the original Metroid, where the lack of map is undermined by the amount of copy-paste rooms. But if you are one of the select few who do like the lack of map in the original Metroid? You'll probably love this. It's a perfect middle ground.
Silksong's Answer
So it's a hard act to follow. The usual expectation for a sequel is bigger and better. But better is hard when everything was already so well done - in fact the first game's execution was so good that it might have been lightning in a bottle, and impossible to replicate. And bigger runs the risk of losing focus and losing what made the game so special. But... Yeah, I think Silksong nailed it. It kept everything I loved while doing enough to make things feel fresh. And yes, that means it kept the map system.
Exploration is still wonderfully nonlinear. Only a few hours in, I found myself having some difficulty on a boss, deciding to go look at other areas for a bit, only to quickly find myself in the area on the other side of the boss arena I was stuck on. And there's plenty of spots where you can get to treasure a bit early with some skilled bouncing.
The most obvious changes are to how Hornet handles compared to the Knight. She's fast and has a lot of momentum: She can chain her dash into a sprint which also provides a dash attack, her bounce attack sends her down at a diagonal, and her heal can hold her in midair. Movement still feels incredible, but it's satisfyingly different. And it translates nicely to combat, which is every bit as good as the first game's was. Combine with further upgrades and Hornet can just fly through areas you're familiar with.
And while the game makes additions, they are considered, and mostly replacements for existing systems. The biggest change is the crest system, which replaces a few things, notably the Knight's Special Attacks and Charms. It's like a class/loadout thing. Throughout the game Hornet gets several Crests she can switch between at benches, each of which can change her basic moveset and add minor passive mechanics. Each crest has slots which she can use to equip silk skills and three types of tools. Blue and yellow tools are passives - blue tools improve your combat abilities while yellow provide utility skills like automatically collecting money that drops or - yes - having a map marker for your character. While red tools provide additional special attacks, more like sub-weapons really, that run off a different system - instead of consuming silk, they have a set number of uses that are replenished at benches using a currency most enemies drop. And there's no point system like the Knight's charms. One slot, one tool. It all feels quite elegant. Plus between the Red Tools and the quality of the silk skills, I find myself making better use of Hornet's skills than I did the Knight's. I really like it, makes her feel more like a clever, cunning hunter.
Also, Hornet talks, unlike the Knight, and she's a very enjoyable character. Serious and no-nonsense, a bit formal, but not uncaring. I find it a treat to see what she'll say.
I'm sure there's things you could nitpick. Like after getting the normal ending, I have found it a little tricky, playing blind, to find what I need to access the route to the true ending in act 3. But maybe that's just down to luck - maybe I've just picked the wrong threads to pull at or overlooked the obvious.
What's Next?
So, we have Silksong. And it's good. And I'm glad to be able to be unabashedly posiitive, after having done a few more negative videos recently over on YouTube. What more is there to say? I'm glad it didn't languish in development hell for eternity. And honestly I'm really glad I had so much fun with it - after Chained Echoes' DLC underwhelmed, I started to worry if the problem was me. But, nah, that DLC just missed the mark. But hopefully Silksong does well, and the creators move on to something else. There might be some free content additions like with the first game. But after that... I really hope they do something else? Look, if they decided to make Hollow Knight 3, then in 2033 I will be all over that. But... I feel like it's love and craftsmanship that makes Hollow Knight special, not any particular mechanics. Not even my beloved hardcore map mechanics. So I would love to see that skill and understanding applied to another game or genre. The world needs more developers like these.