5/5 ★ – Smabbott's review of Hollow Knight: Silksong.

A Muddled Masterpiece Hollow Knight: Silksong is a work of art. For a game with the hype of this scale, this had to deliver and for the most part it does. The sheer scale of this game is stupendous. It’s in my honest opinion what FromSoftware was trying to achieve with Elden Ring. Silksong is triple the size of Hollow Knight. I’m not being hyperbolic when I say the game is huge. This is a caveat on two fronts. On the one hand you have a game which is a marvel to witness with the amount of creativity in level layout, art direction and vast variety of the game. Unlike Elden Ring though, the game never feels as if it’s running out of steam. On the other hand, the size welcomes empty rooms and some mediocre bosses. The art direction is hard to comprehend. What Ari Gibson was able to achieve with the elevated aesthetic built upon from Hollow Knight is ridiculous. Every single room is painstakingly realised in this beautiful exaggerated art style. Gone is the blocky flooring and shape of rooms from Hollow Knight. Rooms are filled with intricate detail, both in the foreground and the background. Every area tells the story of Pharloom. Variety is the key to how this all works. Yes, the amount of areas can be daunting. But through the masterful connected sections, no placement is ever too far away from a station. The geography of the map is insane for how well it all weaves together. Hornet unlike the Knight has a voice and as such speaks her mind to everyone she meets. This allows the story to take a more direct approach in how it’s structured. There was never a point where I was lost in what was going on. The story is truly fantastic in how it tells the next chapter in this universe, it’s better than Hollow Knight purely through its complexity. NPCs you will meet along the way have so much intricacy, not just in how they look but how they speak. No NPC could be confused for another, which is crazy to see. The minimalistic art style does not detract from this whatsoever, instead it welcomes the challenge. It’s incredible how nearly every character is a single colour with a black body and yet, they’re all memorable and unique. Particle effects are flooded throughout rooms and regions of the map which add to the atmosphere. My jaw dropped when I encountered the harp room in Shellwood. The leaves falling, this thin layer of fog painted across the floor, the greenery weaving in and out of the background. It’s stunning. Combat has seen a major improvement over Hollow Knight. Hornet is a skilled fighter and as such plays as one. The emphasis on movement compared to the Knight leads to some incredible acrobatic moments. Hornet’s arsenal is the result of implementing charms from Hollow Knight into the base move-set and it’s a welcomed edition. Charms are known as tools in which amplify certain abilities of Hornet, the use of crests which represent class systems show a vast variety of builds for the player to use. The tools are both a benefit and a hindrance to the game. Depending on the tool in question, they can drastically change the rules of a fight. Many tools can make encounters trivial and in turn the problems of some bosses can be waved away with, ‘use this tool.’ Bosses are only part of the package, the other is gauntlets. Gauntlets suck. For an evolution of the Colosseum of Fools, the gauntlets are a test of patience rather than perseverance. This simple change makes nearly every encounter annoying to fight. This is mainly due to flying enemies. Flying enemies are never fun. They’re some of the biggest frustrations of Hollow Knight through their sporadic movements and small proportions. Silksong cranks these features to eleven; incorporating techniques like back-stepping when you’re just in reach of the enemy. Unlike Hollow Knight, there is no knock back from your weapon, resulting in you hitting the enemy for crowd control and then they throw a projectile or dive bomb leading to a death. The random pathing of the enemies makes them incredibly difficult to read, this is a big problem in gauntlets. Especially when incorporating the double damage. The main discourse on the game is the insistence of nearly every enemy being able to hit you for double damage. It’s a valid complaint. Double damage was reserved for very large enemies or elite bosses and as such was a rarity which even in Hollow Knight was questionable. But here, it’s every other enemy. This makes your limited five heals at the beginning very punishing for new players. The argument could be made this is a sequel and as such you shouldn’t play it before beating Hollow Knight. I would argue it’s still a new game you’ve just picked up. Three hits and you’re dead is very punishing for a game which requires fast reaction time. This approach also makes finding a mask and upgrading it rather disappointing, because gaining six masks is still dead in three hits. The exploration also hits a snag through this change. Upgrades do not feel as rewarding compared to Hollow Knight. The fleas which replace the grubs do not have the same impact. You gain nothing from gaining more fleas except from your first five. There’s thirty. Upon returning to the flea masters, there is no reward throughout your efforts unlike the grub father who would shower you with geo, charms and mask shards. The incentive is lost to find them all through the lack of rosemary beads. Rosemary beads replace geo and there is not enough of it to warrant the amount that is needed. Benches cost beads, stations cost beads, beads cost beads. You lose all beads upon death until you pick up your cocoon. The lack of a soul creature to fight was a good idea when it comes to collecting your gear again. You can chain beads together, but that costs more beads to make than what it carries. Beads also disappear when you kill an enemy over spikes. I’m not sure why this is, Hollow Knight had geo linger if it fell in spikes allowing you to collect it. Beads delete when they hit spikes, leading to enemies who drop beads (because not every enemy does) becoming a dangerous encounter when over spikes. Side missions or wishes are a mixed bag. Some promises lead to intricately crafted visual storytelling which 9/10 times will lead to a boss. They’re great. However, there are side quests which amount to collect items until you’ve collected enough. It’s rather boring and tedious. I wish they weren’t in the game. I don’t mind the ones that are needed for the main campaign. But I could live with them not being in it too. It’s more padding for a game that doesn’t need it. The sheer amount of enemy variety is staggering in the game, leading to some beautiful animations which show off the skill of Team Cherry. No enemy felt like a reskin of another like Hollow Knight did, each enemy moved and felt unique in their own way. Bosses are included in this too. Structured to take the philosophy of Pantheon bosses and double down on the speed and mechanics. Even the first boss has five moves, two more than Hollow Knight did. The spectacle in three quarters of the bosses blow Hollow Knight out of the water. Unique encounters which incorporate size was new for the game. I wish it was used more often though. The one-on-one duel fights are masterfully crafted which reward aggression and precision. However, due to the size of the game, you also encounter bosses where it’s clear the team didn’t know what to do. It’s a shame, because if you were to remove them, the game would be better for it. Telegraphs range from fantastic to too subtle throughout the game leading to frustration as you gamble on whether you’re safe in the air or not. This is increased exponentially with the insistence of contact damage. I get the reasoning for contact damage, it stops the player from being ultra aggressive and makes them aware of their positioning. But this becomes an issue when you pile on the double damage, move-sets that can overlap trapping you in corners and while they’re staggered still apply this rule making it difficult to be too close to them. Some of the bosses also will appear in front of you resulting in damage that was completely unavoidable. Making the frustration even worse. The music is absolutely amazing. Christopher Larkin tops Hollow Knight’s score entirely. The game tells the tale of the Weavers which harness silk, as such, strings are front and centre which add this beautiful light melody to Silksong which I feel is the polar opposite of Hollow Knight’s more bombastic score. There’s a subtlety to the music which allows for the bombastic moments to stand out more as the build up is gradual. It’s incredible. I don’t think there’s a track I didn’t like and pieces such as Lace’s are on repeat in my head. Love it! The addition of music being a core theme of the game also adds to the character of the score being felt throughout the game. It’s woven beautifully through every facet of the world. Hollow Knight: Silksong is an absolutely incredible game with few flaws. But those flaws are big. It’s hard to critique due to the sheer mastery on show within cutscenes, presentation and mechanics. This makes the product almost impossible to give a fair score. Because it is a 10/10 through the beauty and ambition in which Team Cherry clearly developed over the 7 years they worked on it. However, the issues impound throughout the game resulting in moments of total frustration which was never present in Hollow Knight. Elements of difficulty such as the double damage or boss run-backs I can see turning people off to the game. But I cannot ignore how captivated I was in the game. Over my 56 hours, no game bar Elden Ring has enveloped me in their world such as this. I love Pharloom as a world and the feeling of exploring it felt as if I was really there. There’s something to be said for how intricately and effortlessly the game manages to tie you in and bind you there until you’re done. Hollow Knight: Silksong is a masterpiece. But it is a muddled one.