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[Synless]

Half the fun in this game is actually getting good at it. However, my time is limited and I will say dying a shit ton and wasting time when really just want to beat the game does put a hamper on my ability to complete it.

 

[deeptech]

SMB on NES is a 30 minutes game, this comparison is strange. 30 minutes and 50 hours are quite different things don't you think?

Idk about that, it's a 30ish minutes game on average if you're good at it, hell it's way less if you're really good. I don't think time to finish is valid here as an argument, rather it's ability to participate, which seems to be demanded alot in video games nowadays. I always like to compare to standard sport games for example or classic chess, if you're not qualified or able for some reason to play vs a reasonable opponent, you're simply out, out, no game for you. I don't know why exactly it should be different with any game, but perhaps that's just me.

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

Looks like they're adding a new easy mode!

 

[TintoConCasera]

Here's the change log for the new easy mode:

Spoiler

 

[Fermbiz]

What a bunch of vagina lords....

 

[TerribleAtThisGame]

Looks like they're adding a new easy mode!

Yup. It fucking worked.

 

[kevboard]

And that's funny because ps1 games were quite easy lol I was thinking of 8 bit and 16 bit era games inspired by Arcade hard

Very true, but I avoid using that era of games as an example, because they were also often really unfair.

for every 1 perfectly fair and well designed game like Mega Man X, there were 3 spammy bullshit type games made by LJN

by the time the PS1 generation came around, most devs tried to make fairly designed games, instead of bullshit like The Lion King that was deliberately made so it's impossible to finish it while renting it for the weekend from blockbuster.
like how fighting games literally just fully cheated against you. not just input reading, but actually have impossible moves/impossible counters happen etc.

 

[ssringo]

there were 3 spammy bullshit type games made by LJN

The LJN punching sound is seared into my brain. Their Wolverine game was one of the few I owned so I put a lot of time trying to beat it. Eventually I tried another LJN game and found so much recycling including that dumb sound. /rage

 

[kevboard]

The LJN punching sound is seared into my brain. Their Wolverine game was one of the few I owned so I put a lot of time trying to beat it. Eventually I tried another LJN game and found so much recycling including that dumb sound. /rage

LJN were very efficient and environmentally friendly! why waste electricity making new sounds when you can just recycle the old ones?

 

[Buggy Loop]

Having gone back and played HK after I completed Silksong, yes, SS is a much harder game and spikes in difficulty much sooner.

It also doesn't require an easy mod to complete and I'm not typically a Metroidvania player either.

HK base game was easy. The hard content was optional DLC

Silksong is in that level of optional difficulty right off the bat. I think it gets easier in later acts

 

[cortadew]

Very true, but I avoid using that era of games as an example, because they were also often really unfair.

for every 1 perfectly fair and well designed game like Mega Man X, there were 3 spammy bullshit type games made by LJN

by the time the PS1 generation came around, most devs tried to make fairly designed games, instead of bullshit like The Lion King that was deliberately made so it's impossible to finish it while renting it for the weekend from blockbuster.
like how fighting games literally just fully cheated against you. not just input reading, but actually have impossible moves/impossible counters happen etc.

Agreed 100%

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

Very true, but I avoid using that era of games as an example, because they were also often really unfair.

for every 1 perfectly fair and well designed game like Mega Man X, there were 3 spammy bullshit type games made by LJN

by the time the PS1 generation came around, most devs tried to make fairly designed games, instead of bullshit like The Lion King that was deliberately made so it's impossible to finish it while renting it for the weekend from blockbuster.
like how fighting games literally just fully cheated against you. not just input reading, but actually have impossible moves/impossible counters happen etc.

I think that's less of an old-school thing and more of a western developer thing. I'm not saying that Japan didn't make any games with bullshit difficulty, but I'd suggest that's the exception rather than the rule.

 

[kevboard]

I think that's less of an old-school thing and more of a western developer thing. I'm not saying that Japan didn't make any games with bullshit difficulty, but I'd suggest that's the exception rather than the rule.

that was also an issue for sure. western devs were on average just awful up until the late 90s or so.

but even japanese devs went overboard in some games.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

by the time the PS1 generation came around, most devs tried to make fairly designed games, instead of bullshit like The Lion King that was deliberately made so it's impossible to finish it while renting it for the weekend from blockbuster.

Like what? King's Field and Nightmare Creatures?

PS1 definitely had many stupidly hard games, and not only in its infancy. Some of them were absolutely hard by design. Some would be mitigated by adding some modern features, like checkpoints.

The Lion King's fame as a very hard games is very curious to me. I was around 12yo when it came out, and apart from the fights in the final levels that had some very questionable hitboxes, it was no Earthworm Jim.

Also, what we call "fair" today was mostly considered easy back then. It usually meant the game had no glaring control issues that put the player at a severe disadvantage, and that the devs weren't deliberately out to kick you in the balls with some design choices.

 

[kevboard]

Like what? King's Field and Nightmare Creatures?

PS1 definitely had many stupidly hard games, and not only in its infancy. Some of them were absolutely hard by design. Some would be mitigated by adding some modern features, like checkpoints.

The Lion King's fame as a very hard games is very curious to me. I was around 12yo when it came out, and apart from the fights in the final levels that had some very questionable hitboxes, it was no Earthworm Jim.

Also, what we call "fair" today was mostly considered easy back then. It usually meant the game had no glaring control issues that put the player at a severe disadvantage, and that the devs weren't deliberately out to kick you in the balls with some design choices.

PS1 games were unfair because the devs sucked usually. NES and SNES games were often unfair by design.

that's the difference imo.

Kingsfield was just a really badly designed game. they tried to make a complex first person RPG, but designed it all in a way that's just annoying and shit.

it's known that 8/16 bit era games were designed with unfair jumps and unfair enemy placements to make it harder to finish them in the span of a weekend. so bad design there was on purpose.
while PS1 games usually didn't do that. their unfair design was just a fail by the devs.

 

[Exentryk]

Looking at my thoughts from the original Hollow Knight, it's pretty much all true for Silksong as well:

Spoiler: Thoughts on Hollow Knight

Got the true ending and beat the fool trial as well. Pretty much done everything and currently sitting at 98% completion. I have some random boss left and the journal to fill out.
Anyway, here are my thoughts on the game.

Pros:

• Gorgeous aesthetic! Seriously, this is one of the most beautiful games I've played.
• Immersive world and atmosphere (which is result of everything coming together really well)
• Great tight combat and platforming
• Well designed and fair bosses
• Amazing enemy variety

Cons:

• Poor storytelling. The lore and the world around is interesting, but I don't like the way the story is told, i.e., needing to piece together from boss fights, items, etc.
• Tedious game mechanics. No save anywhere feature, having to backtrack after every death, not being able to change charms (loadouts) anywhere, not having map charm as default passive, far away fast travel points, etc. I feel the game's strength is the exploration of beautiful areas, and adding these tedious elements only discourages exploration.
• Poor Pacing. It took me about 6 hours to get the first two abilities, which is when the game really opens up. Devs need to ensure the game is designed such that a few important abilities are obtained as soon as possible, and that the time it takes for that is the same for every player.
• Minor complaint, but the controls for charged attacks could be better. Perhaps something like hold L2 to charge and then tap the attack/dash/etc button to use respective charged attacks. I mention because it becomes tricky to hold the face attack button, while also trying to jump multiple times via another face button with the same thumb.

Overall though, I loved it despite those complaints. The good stuff is just too good and I can overlook the cons. Looking forward to the content updates now. Be interesting to see what these devs do next as well.

Edit: Got 100%. And yeah, I take my time with games haha!

Apart from that, there seem to be more trolling from the devs in this one (like that boss exploding after dying and killing player, and the fight not registering as completed even though other places it does complete like in gauntlets). Or placing annoying flying enemies on hard platforming sections. The boss health also seem to be higher than it should be in my opinion.

The atmosphere and aesthetics are still absolutely amazing though. I am having the best time when I am just exploring the world and filling out the map, same as Hollow Knight. The tedious elements do try to hamper this enjoyment, but the highs are higher than the lows, especially on PC.

And talking about PC, for others that are playing on PC that want to reduce tedium, try the following mods:
- Teleport: This lets you create your own "teleport points" while you play and return to these points with a press of a button. Very useful to set points just before boss fights to cut out the runbacks.

https://www.nexusmods.com/hollowknightsilksong/mods/33

- Bonfire Teleport: This one lets you open the map and select a bench and immediately teleport to it. Saves a bunch of time.

https://www.nexusmods.com/hollowknightsilksong/mods/156

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

PS1 games were unfair because the devs sucked usually. NES and SNES games were often unfair by design.

that's the difference imo.

Kingsfield was just a really badly designed game. they tried to make a complex first person RPG, but designed it all in a way that's just annoying and shit.

it's known that 8/16 bit era games were designed with unfair jumps and unfair enemy placements to make it harder to finish them in the span of a weekend. so bad design there was on purpose.
while PS1 games usually didn't do that. their unfair design was just a fail by the devs.

Ah, I see what you mean now.
But good intentions made little difference when controls, animations, hitboxes, camera and framerate usually worked against what the player wanted/was supposed to do. Even if the level design was fair, some jumps were still a nightmare and combat never really worked as intended. At that point, the difference with an intentionally punishing NES game was negligible, imo. That's why I didn't get what you were saying in your previous post.

On the other hand, Silksong is a game so polished (save for some really questionable collisions) that one can definitely attribute some hard passages to deliberate trolling from the devs. The abundance of dark places with spikes/blades just beyond your area of vision. The falling boulders or the flying enemies above some tricky jumps. The enemies and projectiles that visibly change trajectory when you're 99% committed to a jump. All of this is intentional.

 

[Seomel]

From what I hear so its bad checkpoints for boss rooms mostly? Runbacks are bane of any boss heavy game, one of main reasons ill likely never touch dark souls 2 again

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

From what I hear so its bad checkpoints for boss rooms mostly? Runbacks are bane of any boss heavy game, one of main reasons ill likely never touch dark souls 2 again

it's a few little things that when combined become annoying at some points. The game is very long and keeps being on the hard side most of the time so it's normal that in occasions it crosses the line with some frustrating segments.

I wouldn't touch the difficulty at all, because it would impact negatively the whole experience, just some minor tweaks on enemy and bench placement (just 5-6 in the whole game).

The hysteria about its difficulty is mostly overblown, though. And I say this being stuck at the final boss after +40 tries.

 

[asdasdasdbb]

It's not just the runbacks. Ideally you would start the boss fight with full silk and tools. Having to grind to get enough shards to refill the tools will probably get old at some point.

And before you say "buy the shard bundle"... you're pretty much going to go broke buying everything else that costs rosaries.

 

[Fbh]

From what I hear so its bad checkpoints for boss rooms mostly? Runbacks are bane of any boss heavy game, one of main reasons ill likely never touch dark souls 2 again

Pretty much. I'm almost done with the game and overall loving it, but the runbacks are definitely a lowpoint of the experience.
The game has an oldschool (one could argue dated) approach to checkpoints that often punishes you for dying at challenging sections by forcing you to go through a tedious process just so you can try again, with things like unnecessary runbacks and a couple of instances of mandatory multiphase battles against regular enemies that you need to do every single time you want to challenge certain bosses. There's also a couple of parts where they get a bit too cheeky, like this big annoying poisonous section where they hide the only save spot behind a missable breakable wall.

The whole thing about the double damage from bosses though is pretty much a non issue IMO. I've found most bosses to be well balanced and fun, and the double damage is partially offset but the more versatile healing IMO (particularly being able to heal mid air).
I think people are focusing so much on the double damage simply because the runbacks are making everyone needlessly frustrated. For comparison, another awesome recent metroidvania, Nine Sols, has arguably harder bosses than Silksong (at least IMO), yet they feel less frustrating because when you die you can basically just try again right away.

 

[Fbh]

Edit: Sorry, double post

It's not just the runbacks. Ideally you would start the boss fight with full silk and tools. Having to grind to get enough shards to refill the tools will probably get old at some point.

And before you say "buy the shard bundle"... you're pretty much going to go broke buying everything else that costs rosaries.

Yeah the shards system is another unnecessary mechanic.
IMO the game would work just as well if tools simply recharged for free at benches. What ultimately gives balance to the tools is the limited number of uses before you need to "reload", no the shards system. Though removing the shards would mean they'd have to change up the architect crest (because if you could reload endlessly it would be OP as fuck)

 

[kevboard]

it really comes down to this: if you're good at the game, none of the "issues" will ever cross your mind.
if you aren't good at it they will stand out

 

[asdasdasdbb]

and a couple of instances of mandatory multiphase battles against regular enemies that you need to do every single time you want to challenge certain bosses.

Ooh that would be interesting. So far the multi phase common enemies has been a one time thing. And yet all of them have taken me multiple tries.

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

It's not just the runbacks. Ideally you would start the boss fight with full silk and tools. Having to grind to get enough shards to refill the tools will probably get old at some point.

And before you say "buy the shard bundle"... you're pretty much going to go broke buying everything else that costs rosaries.

There's a tool/mechanic that makes you get rosaries/shards by the passing of time. However, you get this so late in the game, near the end, that it doesn't make an impact anymore. It will only become useful in the next DLC.

 

[TintoConCasera]

it really comes down to this: if you're good at the game, none of the "issues" will ever cross your mind.
if you aren't good at it they will stand out

I agree. But the player not being good ain't the fault of the game, but the player.

Complains like "the economy sucks" don't make any sense if the player that says that dies 10 times in each area and never gets the cocoon back.

 

[Aldric]

The discussion about the game will be centered around difficulty but I think it's missing the point and the usual "git gud" dismissals don't really address the biggest issues IMO which are:

-A lack of meaningful progression through finding upgrades. The core movement mechanics are spread way too thin (if you explore fully without rushing the main story it's not rare to wait 5 hours before you get a new move that fundamentally changes the way you play the game) and the number of health and damage upgrades you can find haven't been changed to reflect the vastly more massive explorable space as well as the higher difficulty. The new abilities also tend to be very basic and for some of them quite underwhelming (the last one has zero synergy with everything else and basically feels like a glorified key to some parts of the map which is the worst thing a Metroidvania upgrade can be). This leads to the player not feeling like he gets any stronger until way too late in Act 2 and this only takes the form of the multiple tools and crests that can greatly help against tough combat encounters but don't really have much more utility outside of those specific scenarios.

-Far too many pointless wastes of time and needlessly frustrating "gocha" moments that have nothing to do with "getting good" as they require no skill and can't possibly lead to failure once the player has experienced them once. In certain situations this sort of treacherous design also exaggerates the first problem since you can't really use your new movement abilities to traverse environments you've already visited quicker as you can in Metroid games for ex, the pacing still has to slow down to a crawl because Team Cherry really love their cramped corridors and ventilation shafts where you can't see shit and have to slide along the wall slowly while waiting for steam to stop blowing to proceed. Also I'd hoped they wouldn't pull off a NKG pre fight section again but they somehow managed to make it worse here with the need to play the song to visit memories every single time you lose against a boss. Worst offender being the coral tower where you have to charge a vertical shinespark on top of it, again no skill required, no possibility for failure, just pure tedium.

I still like the game a lot and it does a ton of very impressive things outside of these blunders but it's obviously a pretty flawed game and you can't simply shrug off every criticism with "skill issue", even if bosses and platforming sections were easier these problems would persist.

 

[kevboard]

I agree. But the player not being good ain't the fault of the game, but the player.

Complains like "the economy sucks" don't make any sense if the player that says that dies 10 times in each area and never gets the cocoon back.

indeed.
many have been conditioned by AAA games to expect a game to have basically zero resistance.

this is contrary to the entire design principle behind the "souls" mechanic. it's fine if that mechanic and the game being a souls-lite isn't for you, but to play a game with a souls mechanic and expecting it to not punish you for dying is kinda insane to me.

the entire concept of the souls mechanic is that it forces you to always stay on your toes, and to not make careless decisions.
with the reward down the line being that after you get good at the game and as you go back to an area you already know, you feel empowered as you easily do things you previously were scared of doing as to not get yourself killed.

this whole dynamic of risk, reward and the feeling of mastering parts of the game before even finishing it, can not work if you remove the friction... and part of that friction is the runbacks, the economy, some backtracking and the high difficulty.

 

[Danjin44]

I can't believe you people still complaining about difficulty.

There are 1000 up on 1000 games out there with easy difficulty, go play those games.

It's like going to horror movie and complain why it's scary, for fuck sake accept the fact not every game is for everybody and devs have no obligation to cater to your needs.

Devs will make the games they want to make and you are free to like or dislike what they make.

 

[Timberwolf25]

The discussion about the game will be centered around difficulty but I think it's missing the point and the usual "git gud" dismissals don't really address the biggest issues IMO which are:

-A lack of meaningful progression through finding upgrades. The core movement mechanics are spread way too thin (if you explore fully without rushing the main story it's not rare to wait 5 hours before you get a new move that fundamentally changes the way you play the game) and the number of health and damage upgrades you can find haven't been changed to reflect the vastly more massive explorable space as well as the higher difficulty. The new abilities also tend to be very basic and for some of them quite underwhelming (the last one has zero synergy with everything else and basically feels like a glorified key to some parts of the map which is the worst thing a Metroidvania upgrade can be). This leads to the player not feeling like he gets any stronger until way too late in Act 2 and this only takes the form of the multiple tools and crests that can greatly help against tough combat encounters but don't really have much more utility outside of those specific scenarios.

-Far too many pointless wastes of time and needlessly frustrating "gocha" moments that have nothing to do with "getting good" as they require no skill and can't possibly lead to failure once the player has experienced them once. In certain situations this sort of treacherous design also exaggerates the first problem since you can't really use your new movement abilities to traverse environments you've already visited quicker as you can in Metroid games for ex, the pacing still has to slow down to a crawl because Team Cherry really love their cramped corridors and ventilation shafts where you can't see shit and have to slide along the wall slowly while waiting for steam to stop blowing to proceed. Also I'd hoped they wouldn't pull off a NKG pre fight section again but they somehow managed to make it worse here with the need to play the song to visit memories every single time you lose against a boss. Worst offender being the coral tower where you have to charge a vertical shinespark on top of it, again no skill required, no possibility for failure, just pure tedium.

I still like the game a lot and it does a ton of very impressive things outside of these blunders but it's obviously a pretty flawed game and you can't simply shrug off every criticism with "skill issue", even if bosses and platforming sections were easier these problems would persist.

There's a mechanic in Act 3 that lets you teleport to fast travel stations so it does allow you to traverse the different areas a lot quicker.
Also, the last ability you obtain is key to reaching areas you haven't been to before and allows you to get extra masks, memory lockets and silk skills.

There clearly are ways to beat the game that require more skill, but there are also ways to make it easier on yourself with builds that almost do the work for you. It won't work on all bosses as it shouldn't.

For sure there are areas that frustrated me, but I overall, I think the game is excellent and the best game I played this year. And that's even after having played Expedition 33.

 

[Aldric]

Also, the last ability you obtain is key to reaching areas you haven't been to before

Yes, I know that, that's what I said. It doesn't address the issue which is that for a core ability it doesn't meaningfully change your gameplay because it can't really be chained with your other movement options. It's particularly disappointing because it's the last major upgrade you get.

 

[Timberwolf25]

Yes, I know that, that's what I said. It doesn't address the issue which is that for a core ability it doesn't meaningfully change your gameplay because it can't really be chained with your other movement options. It's particularly disappointing because it's the last major upgrade you get.

That's fair