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Re: Team Cherry Explains Hollow Knight: Silksong's "Steep Difficulty"

Fri, 19 Sep 2025 01:53:07 GMT

Would make sense if you weren't punished severely for not going back to where you died in these games

By Elock

Re: Team Cherry Explains Hollow Knight: Silksong's "Steep Difficulty"

Fri, 19 Sep 2025 01:23:40 GMT

I think the difficulty is very manageable. They did a great job giving the player many ways to tackle the problems. I just got stuck on a boss in Bilewater until I tried using the regenerating health setup and it got me through. Rarely bothered with the Architect crest much before (I tend to stick with Reaper or Wanderer), but it has its uses.

It started out rough, but I wanted to see it through. Now that I have a plethora of tools and equipment, I look forward to the challenges. It's actually getting a lot easier as I go along.

By Dualmask

Re: Team Cherry Explains Hollow Knight: Silksong's "Steep Difficulty"

Fri, 19 Sep 2025 00:33:09 GMT

@Warioware Very well said. Props.

By Lightsiyd

Re: Team Cherry Explains Hollow Knight: Silksong's "Steep Difficulty"

Fri, 19 Sep 2025 00:29:37 GMT

@eldersnake
I felt the same way, everything just feels like a chore. The repetition after you die just got boring for me and I quickly lost interest. I'm happy for people who love it but to me it's no where close to Metroid or Castlevania.

By FX29

Re: Team Cherry Explains Hollow Knight: Silksong's "Steep Difficulty"

Fri, 19 Sep 2025 00:11:04 GMT

The developers are gluttons for punishment.

I was going to purchase this game, but luckily I was able to play it on gamepass for free.

After having a good time exploring and beating the first few bosses; I quickly realized; the developers think memorizing lengthy patterns and dodging attacks for 10 minutes is their definition of 'fun'...I realized have better things I can do with my time.

In my opinion, this could be a great game, but it isn't. With all of the hype, what I think we have, is a case of people jumping on the bandwagon, cause they think it's cool.

By PROPS

Re: Team Cherry Explains Hollow Knight: Silksong's "Steep Difficulty"

Thu, 18 Sep 2025 23:51:52 GMT

Smells like BS. There's nowhere for me to go except one fight I cant win.

Its a down grade in every single way and one of the few games I wish I could refund. Don't see myself coming back after cursing at that slop for a couple hours. Flying enemies on every screen meantto annoy? Artificial difficulty by simply doubling damage? Unnecessary long journeys back to bosses over and over and over? Gtfo with your crap.

The originals difficulty was perfect. They simply wanted to appease they whiney Dark Souls "git gud" type losers.

By itsapossum

Re: Team Cherry Explains Hollow Knight: Silksong's "Steep Difficulty"

Thu, 18 Sep 2025 23:48:17 GMT

Logically explaining to your customers why your choice makes sense, and they should just cope with it. All I'm hearing (reading) is why I should never, ever buy another Team Cherry game in the first week of release, if at all.

By Lightsiyd

Re: Team Cherry Explains Hollow Knight: Silksong's "Steep Difficulty"

Thu, 18 Sep 2025 23:15:20 GMT

I'm playing the original Hollow Knight and am not good at these types of games. If there was an option to reduce difficulty I'd crank it all the way down. Because there isn't I'm having to come to terms with the game and am having a very different (and rewarding) experience than I normally get from games.

By Duck_Farmer

Re: Team Cherry Explains Hollow Knight: Silksong's "Steep Difficulty"

Thu, 18 Sep 2025 22:58:12 GMT

Personally, I think there should either be a boss retry option or a mobile bench that allows you to quick save once between major benches, so you don't have keep going back over certain sections of the map repeatedly if you're stuck on a boss.

At times it just becomes a sanity test, as you have to keep repeating 10-40 second tedious trudges back to a boss, sometimes 20+ plus times. It's a shame as it nearly ruins what is a superb game for me otherwise. I don't mind a game being difficult, but I don't think Silksong is actually that difficult. It just has some design choices that seem to revel in wasting the players time.

There's also some top tier save point sh@thousery going on with a few benches that doesn't belong in a game of this calibre.

By Old-Red

Re: Team Cherry Explains Hollow Knight: Silksong's "Steep Difficulty"

Thu, 18 Sep 2025 22:44:29 GMT

@FX29 yeah I'm forcing my way through Hollow Knight at the moment, but I'm unsure how far I want to go. I understand the game is meant to get better as it goes, but I'm not feeling the same enjoyment I get from a Metroid game. I think it's the same problem I encounter with Souls games - I can brute force my way through the difficulty with enough determination, but the world just feels kinda depressing and empty, so it doesn't always feel worth it.

Still, I'll give it more of a chance, just feels like a chore at the moment.

By eldersnake

Re: Team Cherry Explains Hollow Knight: Silksong's "Steep Difficulty"

Thu, 18 Sep 2025 22:36:49 GMT

@JohnnyMind It's also interesting to me that they chose to just nerf certain areas/enemies (as I understand it, I haven't played the game) rather than just offering a difficulty choice. The former is more likely to inflame some of their difficulty loving fanbase, while the former caters for everyone while still keeping the original game/difficulty. Interesting decision, but maybe it was just easier to code in.

By eldersnake

Re: Team Cherry Explains Hollow Knight: Silksong's "Steep Difficulty"

Thu, 18 Sep 2025 22:05:15 GMT

Difficulty is just right. I’m at the Last Judge (having found the other entrance to the Citadel), and it’s a tough but fair fight (tonight’s the night I take you down). Maybe I’ll feel differently later, but I doubt it. The game is obviously meant to be challenging, like a FromSoftware joint; half Metroid, half Dark Souls. If it’s too hard, that’s okay, there are other games out there to enjoy.

By ear_wig

Re: Team Cherry Explains Hollow Knight: Silksong's "Steep Difficulty"

Thu, 18 Sep 2025 21:56:39 GMT

I tried to get into Hollow Knight but the back tracking and difficulty just got annoying for me so I dropped it. I understand why people love the game but it just isn't for me.

By FX29

Re: Team Cherry Explains Hollow Knight: Silksong's "Steep Difficulty"

Thu, 18 Sep 2025 21:19:58 GMT

I got past a boss yesterday because I just happened to be trying out a tool it was vulnerable to. It still took several attempts, but I don't know if I could have managed it without that, or how many similar weaknesses I've missed. Meanwhile the next boss was pretty easy, but just getting through its area might have taken me forever if I didn't half-remember something from a wiki about another piece of equipment being slightly useful there. The game definitely gives you all the tools you need to succeed, but it rarely tells you how to use them. You either need to explore and experiment or follow a guide if you don't want to keep bashing your head against every wall until you break through.

By Anachronism

Re: Team Cherry Explains Hollow Knight: Silksong's "Steep Difficulty"

Thu, 18 Sep 2025 20:12:37 GMT

I'm nearing the end of act 2 and honestly, the game needs some balancing. It does't feels like I beat the boss because I learned the mechanics most of times, it feels like I lucked out and got a good pattern.

I won't complain about the damage because honestly bosses doing 2HP damage is fine, but them jumping from animation to animation with little to no breathing room is annoying, increasing the transition from animation to animation by half second would help a lot. A little telegraphy would also help too but that's a problem they had since the first game so I doubt they'll fix on this one.

By CielloArc

Re: Team Cherry Explains Hollow Knight: Silksong's "Steep Difficulty"

Thu, 18 Sep 2025 20:09:38 GMT

Brutally difficult games aren't for me, so i skipped both HK games.
JOMO.

By MindfulGamer

Re: Team Cherry Explains Hollow Knight: Silksong's "Steep Difficulty"

Thu, 18 Sep 2025 19:11:16 GMT

If the talking point about Silksong is difficulty, it says more about the audience than about a game.

By Dalamar

Re: Team Cherry Explains Hollow Knight: Silksong's "Steep Difficulty"

Thu, 18 Sep 2025 18:51:42 GMT

I haven't played the game yet (I'm waiting for reasonable, level-headed opinions on it to rise to the surface instead of the extremes that have been aired since its launch.)

From what I've seen and heard, however, it does seem as though the game does have genuine difficulty problems, though. Its all well and good providing players with an open world to tackle as they please (I'm always a fan of giving players opportunity to break games if they have the skills or resiillience to overcome the challenges needed to do so.)

The issue here, however seems to be that players who attempt this or just those who wander into areas outside their skill level are unfairly punished, increasing the difficulty in other areas of the game whilst not providing sufficient rewards for those who decide to power through.

The most compelling aspect of Metroidvanias and Soulslikes is the gradual sense of empowerment the player feels as they progress. Not one of the FROMSoft titles leaves you feeling weak or underpowered as you progress, even as the difficulty ramps up and challenges become harder.

Likewise with any good Metroidvania: You are constantly moving onwards and upwards.

Silksong, however, seems to take the survival horrow approach: constantly leaving you at a disadvantage and screwing you over at ever opportunity it can.

And that would be fine if it were a surival horror game...but it's not and that makes it a problem.

By DreadfulDragon

Re: Team Cherry Explains Hollow Knight: Silksong's "Steep Difficulty"

Thu, 18 Sep 2025 18:31:19 GMT

There seem to be some pretty mean-spirited retorts from the hardcore "git gud" brigade. I don't think that the majority are asking for the game to be watered down, just for there to be accessibility options. As your praise of the difficulty is valid, so too is the criticism. And as for the "artistic vision" do you also feel that movies shouldn't have subtitles for deaf people? That books shouldn't be available in braille for blind people? That you should have to learn Japanese to watch anime? Because the accessibility options made available in these formats interfere with the artist's integrity and vision and therefore if you need assistance in these mediums well, too bad, this just isn't for you. Maybe you should "git gud"? Again, most people are not asking for the game to be nerfed down to one easy option, just for there to be more accessibility. That's all. The fact that many seem to want this suggests that they don't hate the game at all, in fact they want these options so they can dive deeper in. They also paid money for a product that was marketed as a sequel to Hollow Knight and didn't come with a warning saying "don't buy if you don't want an experience way harder than Hollow Knight".

And I say all this as somebody who doesn't currently have much issue with the difficulty, only the time wasting (in my opinion) of the runbacks. Both the praise and criticisms seem valid to me.

By Warioware

Re: Team Cherry Explains Hollow Knight: Silksong's "Steep Difficulty"

Thu, 18 Sep 2025 18:26:28 GMT

@Dark_Isatari personally, I appreciate when any game has adjustable difficulty. I would be fine with Yoshi to have an instant death mode just like I would appreciate Silksong to have a story mode. Devs can peg the difficulty at whatever level they wish so that it can deliver the experience they choose, and end users can adjust if they choose. I don’t expect that with Silksong (or Yoshi), but it is nice when devs offer the option…

By raymond23