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

TOTAL WEIGHTED SCORE: 100% How's the vibe? 9.5/10 How's it play? 10/10 How's it look? 10/10 How's it sound? 7/10 Attention to detail? 10/10 - Silksong rewards patience, practice, and diligence, and is ruthless in its punishment of hubris. You are given the chance to truly earn victory, with a visceral challenge that has been diligently balanced just barely within your reach. I will be avoiding spoilers as I discuss this game, but inevitably there may be little hints here and there, so be warned. This is a game that captures a feeling of self-improvement to a level that's rare. Challenge, traps, and hostility are to be expected, and this is made clear from the beginning. The difficulty ramps up rapidly, which sets the scene that you will not be able to breeze through areas or bosses without putting in the work. The first way you encounter the game's challenge starting to be mitigated is through the acquisition of tools and abilities: you yourself do get better at the game, but the amount of things you can do, and the damage you deal, are clearly considered as part of the design of not just the world, but also the enemies you fight. This means you are rewarded greatly for exploring off the beaten track and taking on extra challenges: because most of the time, main path challenges and bosses do not give you a reward directly, they simply open the way to a new place to explore. After about three quarters of the game is through, Hornet is as strong as she's going to be, you have all the upgrades you need and have settled onto the tools and abilities that serve you best. But now is when the real improvement kicks in. Bosses keep bringing new levels of challenge, and the only way to overcome them... is upgrading yourself. To get better, to observe patterns, to practice, and to compose yourself in the face of what can often feel insurmountable. You've been trained on this throughout, up until now, for each boss you have learned the lessons anew: when can I strike, when should I retreat, how do I position myself, when is healing safe, what tools will work well, what's the best route for the runback. The game requires you to do this, because if you don't, there will only be frustration to follow. Throughout this game, I have felt rushes of adrenaline, steeled focus, but also rage, dismay, and sorrow. But after every loss, I have been able to pick myself up, take note of what I needed to do better, and eventually, through effort, I was made to earn my victories. That's what makes Silksong great. The onus is on you to improve, because nothing in this game is unfair, and it is your mistakes that lead to your downfalls. When it's your mistakes, you can fix them, and you can earn that win. Let's wrap up with the obvious stuff: this game feels incredible to play. The movement takes some getting used to at the start, but once it clicks, it is incredibly intuitive and satisfying to platform, with controls balanced equally for traversal of the world, and for weaving your way around in combat. The world is designed beautifully, with every area carrying its own distinct style, with Team Cherry's knack for implying the sorrow of a world whose culture and architecture have faded into history. The design language of the buildings and rooms you explore always betray the bugs who built them, and what happened to leave them in the sorry state they now exhibit. The one aspect I found disappointingly underwhelming was the soundtrack. It felt as if much of the personality was missing from the ambient tracks - that they were devoid of flaws, technically strong, and fitting for the setting, but lacking something to make them as memorable as they were in Hollow Knight. The boss themes were significantly better in all of these respects, with some in particular that stand out in a big way. This is a minor issue in the face of what is truly a masterpiece, that I have gained a lot from, and the soundtrack does service the game well despite my wish for more. So to sum up, get gud scrub