hollow knight: silksong
Hand on heart, Hollow Knight was never on my radar.I do not enjoy dying in games. To die is to fail, and whilst I like metroidvania's, I don't enjoy the soulsborne formula of hitting the boss over and over again where dying is kind of the point, as the idea is that with each death you learn and get closer to victory. I have much slower reflexes these days, I'm sensitive to unpredictive or unexpected visuals and movement on screen, and if there was one thing I knew about Hollow Knight is that it is hard. Like, super hard. I'd already vetoed it from a list of claimed monthly games I had from many years of PS+. Surely nothing would change my mind.
Around Silksong's release, my stance towards soulsborne games had softened a smidgeon. I watched the youtube highlights RTGame made for Elden Ring - one of perhaps four creators I watch content from - as a few years back I watched his Bloodborne LP and enjoyed it just as much on a second outing. What surprised me for Elden Ring was the scale... it encouraged exploration. You weren't locked into something, it wasn't a typical JRPG roadblock of if you don't beat this, you ain't going nowhere. If you found a boss you conceivably couldn't defeat it, even if you had figured out the strategy, it was okay to leave it and go somewhere else until the next boss, which might be something you have the gear for or are better suited to fighting at your current power level. This changed my opinion somewhat. Stepping away wasn't a terrible thing. Returning later to something previously struggled against even gave me the feeling of secondhand success. For a brief while, I thought about playing Elden Ring - it passed - and then I went, yeah, let's watch Silksong.
I then discovered my fatal downfall. Her name is Hornet.
Hornet is very me-coded. She's a princess who fights, guardian of a kingdom long dead, likes to help but doesn't come out and directly say it, is no-nonsense, driven, powerful, and uses my favourite colourscheme of red and black. At this point in time, I didn't know much about the bug lore. I didn't know what a Hallownest was because as usual I went for the sequel with the woman in the starring role first and twelve year old Rems is so proud of me that this is her legacy. But I really liked what I was seeing; Silksong is a very beautiful game, from the visuals of the backgrounds, and the enemies, to the animation, and the score - seriously, go listen to it - and the fights just seemed to flow. There's something very satisfying about the Needle as a weapon. It's great to combo with. Hornet's movement is so clean and you can do all these hyperspecific micro jumps and wall clings and mid air dashes and mid air floats and the scope of it is really good. I liked the use of Silk, I liked the charms, I liked the crests, there was ways to bulk up your playstyle based on your personal strengths and genre experience and you were not locked into one way of playing this game.
That said, I could tell it was extremely difficult to master. Silksong pulls no punches with the amount of damage you take and I don't have great spatial awareness and next to no-depth perception so wandering into enemies for double contact damage is rough. I still don't think I'm going to play this game. I'm mostly just reacting to bosses. I'm not learning anything by proxy. Early into Act 2, in the Choral Chambers, Hornet encounters the Cogwork Dancers. I surprised myself by predicting the mechanics of the fight as I watched, anticipating what was next. And something in my brain clicked - much like Final Fantasy XIV bosses, every boss teaches you its moveset first for the first thirty seconds or so. And whilst there may not be lines on the floor, there's walls and platforms in suspicious arrangements. There's a lot of rule of three. For souls games, they usually have a clear visual transition where something changes about the fight for the second phase of their boss bar. Silksong kind of does the same thing. Sometimes it's sped up. Multiple mechanics happen at once. A new gimmick may be introduced whilst all other mechanics are ongoing. And I suddenly realised watching Cogwork Dancers... actually, I could play this game.
And I loved the lore. Silksong is a game about love, about mother's and daughter's and the lengths you'd go to. About that you cannot save everyone - but still you must try. You can't always predict it, but boy did this game get me. I wanted to know more, the Abyss stuff fascinated me, so I watched Hollow Knight and that was, pun intended, the nail in the coffin. No voice to cry suffering. How desolate it is. That The Hollow Knight has kept to their duty this whole time, despite imperfections perceived. And right after, I watched Silksong again and cried through the Act 3 ending. And still the bugs would not leave.
So I went and played Hollow Knight. Which was very hard (in some ways I think Ghost is more difficult to move with than Hornet, it's more unforgiving), and I had so many hand issues from every jump of normal height requiring a long press that I remapped my entire controller and pulled out my handsplints because the bugs would not leave. I have a crippling phobia of spiders but I still did it. Weaver's have such good lore. I love Herrah. I made sure Hornet was there for when she was no longer dreaming for maximum later payoff. And then I played Silksong over the 2025-2026 new year and I had the best time ever.
Ninety hours later, the bugs hadn't quite left, but it was so important to me to go and do it myself: if a story is this compelling and hits so many of my favourite tropes and themes, I had to be there. I'm glad I persevered, even through some of the really difficult stuff it made me do, such as, you know, one of the final bosses mostly hitless. I wrote about my experience with the bosses in each Act as I came to them, so if you're interested, Act 1, Act 2, and Act 3. The only thing I haven't done are the speedrun trophies, and I can safely say I'm contemplating doing so in advance of whenever Sea of Sorrows releases. Partly to refresh myself on how to play the game, but because I am more than happy to do it again.
So, yeah. Watch out for the bugs. Go play Silksong, it's on most platforms and costs about $20.
