A game about bugs, where your a bug that fights other bugs. The only thing that really bugs me is how long it took for this buggy little bug of a game to finally bug its way onto my screen. 10/10 - No software bugs, just actual bugs.

Crashing entire steam for the first 5 minutes after launch is crazy

Trying to buy this game on release day was the worst and most painful, two and half hours long edging session in my entire life... It was worth it.

This game is full of bugs... and they're kicking my ass It's really, really good

We actually got Silksong before GTA 6 A minute of silence in honor of all fans who didn't live to this moment

team cherry one-upping every other silkpost by actually releasing the game

Lucky enough to buy and install the game before the servers crashed...

If I had a nickel for every time I had to slap a tiny bug for trying to get physical with me, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.

The seal is broken. Dreamers are awakening. Silksong is here! Other studios could learn from Team Cherry. Charging $20 for a game that's been in development for 7 years is generosity that is simply unheard of. I just can’t believe this game has been in development for so long, yet it’s full of bugs!

Every time I think I am getting better, the game reminds me I am not. Thanks, Hornet.

Insert 80 rosaries to get a positive review

Disappointed in the lack of hornet sex scenes

Hollow Knight was hard, but I never really felt like it was "mean" per se. This game is extremely, unbelievably mean. I love it, but I found myself thinking at several points, "Man, there was no reason to do that to me. They just wanted people to suffer, didn't they?" EDIT: To be perfectly clear, I'm apparently masochistic enough to absolutely love "mean" games despite how angry they make me. If you don't like mean games, you won't like this one.

I wanted to write a positive review, but instead of going straight down my mouse went 45 degrees to the right and I accidentally switched the review to negative

Team Cherry typed "Silksong" into the patch notes of reality and rage-quit the timeline. Since then:

• I've graduated college.
• Elon Musk renamed Twitter and then drove it into a ditch.
• The Queen died.
• COVID came and went like a Dark Souls boss fight nobody wanted.
• I changed GPUs three times.
• My nephew was born, learned to speak, and now mocks me daily.
• Skyrim was ported to a smart fridge.
• NASA found water on Mars.

Reality finally patched.

TL;DR: The game is visually amazing, the world is super cool, and the lore is interesting. However, while the gameplay, in my opinion, is fine difficulty-wise (for the most part), the amount of unnecessary tedium is not. Small but impactful issues hold the game back for me and often make the game feel less "fun and challenging" and more "tedious and frustrating" to actually play. I want to love Silksong, but sometimes it feels like it doesn't want me to. This is not a "do I like the game" review, this is a "would I recommend it" review. I do enjoy the game (most of the time anyway), but I wouldn't broadly recommend it in its current state due to the tedium issues I'll outline below, and no, the difficulty is not the main reason why I don't recommend it. Will change to positive if things improve, like QoL changes, more accessibility options, etc. Makes me wish there was a middle ground between a positive or negative recommendation. If you loved the more challenging parts of HK, including the platforming in Path of Pain and/or P5, then you'll probably like this game too. Same thing if Dark Souls 2 is your favorite souls-like. If this is the case, this is not a review for you, but for those who are interested to see what all the hype is about and if this is a game they would enjoy. It's also a way for me to rant, complain and cry about my issues with the game. Two birds with one stone. Wall of text warning. Feel free to skip and just jester award, skonger bros. For some additional context I last played and finished Hollow Knight back in 2018. I have been looking forward to Silksong but have not been counting the days so to say, so I genuinely don't think these issues are due to too high of expectations/hype. Anyway, I'm mostly enjoying the game (when I'm not annoyed with it) as my playtime probably shows. The major problem is that there are so many minor things that make me needlessly frustrated and sours my enjoyment to a noticeable degree, at points making the experience plain tedious and just not fun. From what I've played so far, these changes would take it from good/great to amazing for me personally and let me recommend it to others: NOTE: THESE ARE JUST MY OPINIONS AND NOT GOSPEL

• Contact damage should never be more than 1 mask of damage. I get taking two mask of damage from a direct hit, not so much for just gently grazing enemy's back. Are they made of lava? Because they both deal the same amount of contact damage.
• Downed/stunned bosses should not do contact damage at all.
• Reduced run backs. Fighting and learning a boss is fun, running back to it perfectly, so you can fight at full health, is not. From Software already figured this out years ago with Stakes of Marika, and so did Metroid Dread too by letting you respawn outside the boss room. Probably my biggest issue honestly. Even with no enemies on the way it's just tedious and a time waster to run back and it adds up quickly.
• Make bosses give more rewards, even if just beads. Being showered in geo after a boss fight in HK felt great and I don't understand why they would remove that reward.
• More health/tool upgrades to find to incentivize exploration. Far too many times have exploring hidden crannies given me 20 beads, half of which promptly fall into spikes. Oh, what's this? Another Shard Bundle? Great. Speaking of shell shards...
• Why make tools use resources to recharge in the first place? They are already limited in usage per bench visit. Makes me not want to use them as to not waste resources, similarly to ammo in Bloodborne.
• Compass should always be on after buying it. For me, playing without it is out of the question so it just feels like I have one less tool slot by default as a result. This point is very subjective though and I can understand why someone would disagree. Maybe making it toggleable or give an achievement for playing without it would be a good middleground, I don't know.
• Flying normal enemies are annoying as hell and never fun to fight. Reduce their health so they don't all require 4-6 hits to kill or tune down their input readings.
• Remove or reduce bench cost. Find a bench in an area that does not give beads from enemies? Sucks to be you. Travel all the way back to an area that does and grind and then return, bitch. (edit: seems like bench costs are being reduced in a patch)
• No/fewer boss summons, especially RNG ones (looking at you Beastfly). (edit: at least Beastfly is getting nerfed in some way, hopefully the sums)
• Level hazards that deal two masks of damage, just why? (edit: getting patched to deal one mask instead)
• Enemy swarm rooms just suck.
• Bilewater.

There is so much to love about this game which makes these things sting even more. The music, the level and character designs, the movement, the bosses the exploration, the satisfaction of beating a difficult fight, all amazing. I like the difficulty but not the unnecessary punishment and tedium. Probably could have used more playtesters (only had 8, and that's including the leads, according to the credits). When I first played HK I didn't really like it at first. It took until the Mantis Lords for the game to really click for me and after that I loved it more and more the further I got. Silksong feels like the opposite, where I loved it in the beginning but the more I play the less fun I'm having with it, partly due to the earlier reasons adding up over time. Again, I want to love the game but at times it feels like it doesn't want me to. All of these things have probably been pointed out a ton by now but I just wanted to write out my feelings and give a heads up to the average "casual" player (as I've seen them be referred as). In the end, these are just my opinions and completely subjective. If this review of a video game felt like a personal attack that's your own issue to deal with. I just want the game to be in the best possible state and hopefully that will be the case eventually. Edit: Comments were a shit show and have been disabled. Personal insults over a video game will never stop being pathetic. Thank you to those who contributed to the discussion though, agreeing and disagreeing. Shame the small minority has to ruin it.

After so many years of waiting, it's finally here. Everything feels just as good as the first game. this game is still full of bugs

I'm silking it I'm silking it I'm silking it I'm silking it I'm silking it I'm silking it I'm silking it I'm silking it I'm silking it I'm silking it I'm silking it I'm silking it

A game about bugs, where your a bug that fights other bugs. The only thing that really bugs me is how long it took for this buggy little bug of a game to finally bug its way onto my screen. 10/10 - No software bugs, just actual bugs.

What happened with the launch was dangerous and unacceptable and can NEVER be allowed to happen again. It is up to all of us to leave negative reviews on this game to send a message.

team cherry replaced my pillows with bugs and set fire to the fridge DO NOT PLAY

No matter who you are — Denier, Doubter, Accepter, Believer... In the end, we've all won No more silkposts No more silksanity Silksong is real Silksong is here! Shoutout to DSN, you will never be forgotten

Alright, hear me out. I'm basing this review off the question asked at the top: Would you recommend this game to other players? Keep that question in mind. Silksong is a cool game. A labor of love, obviously. Years and years of work went into this, and it really shows! The art is stunning. The music is amazing, of course. The enemy designs are interesting, the area aesthetics are delightful, the NPCs are cute. I've been playing it for a little bit now. Am I going to keep playing it? Yeah! Am I having fun? Sort of! Would I recommend this game to other players? ...no. No, I wouldn't. Team Cherry originally said back in 2020 that they wanted Silksong to be something anybody could pick up and play. They wanted it to stand equal to Hollow Knight, and they wanted it to be an equally good introduction to the world as Hollow Knight is. It is not. While the lore is very cool, and the story (what of it I've managed to uncover) is also cool, the game itself is viciously punishing. It is LEAGUES harder than Hollow Knight is. It is brutal. It is unforgiving. It is unfair in places. It is frustrating, it is agonizing, it is grindy, it is tedious, in some places it is straight-up just not fun. Maybe that's your thing, and if it is, that's great! But for the vast majority of people, it is not. If Team Cherry really still was trying to make something beginner-friendly, then they totally failed. This is not beginner-friendly. Under no circumstances would I tell someone interested in the Hollow Knight games to try this one when they could instead play the original Hollow Knight and have a kinder, more friendly, more fun experience overall. Maybe Team Cherry will issue some balance patches or something to make the game less horrific for the vast majority of players, and if they do I'll revisit this review. As it is, though, I do not recommend just anybody pick this game up. It seems to me like they've taken their hardcore fanbase for granted and forgotten that MOST players will not perfect a game. Most people are just going to do the parts they enjoy and leave a lot of the harder, less fun stuff alone. Unfortunately Silksong seems to be mostly the harder, less fun stuff. I'm often pushing through my playthrough to try and find the next fun thing when the rest of it is pretty grueling and unrewarding. That's not something I would recommend to people. It's a shame, because like a lot of people I was really excited for Silksong and I hoped it would be, well, more fun than it is. I AM going to keep working through it -- and the wording there makes me cringe a little. Working through it, like it's a job instead of a game, something I want to play for FUN. I want to see more of the world. But I don't feel the same drive to explore and complete these challenges as I did in the original Hollow Knight, because the game does not reward me for my time. A few specific points I'm editing in: - Even very early on, basic enemies will deal double damage. That kind of thing was reserved for big-name enemies, bosses, and explosions in Hollow Knight. It's wild to have it stripped of all meaning and just made into mostly a frustration mechanic here. - Boss designs are cool as ever, and some of them are fun. Fourth Chorus was amazing, I really loved that fight! However. HOWEVER. Pretty early on they start dropping in bosses that are just things that fly, deal ridiculous amounts of damage and contact damage, including contact damage when they're in a stunned state, and MOST IMPORTANTLY: have swarms of adds. Nothing can ruin a fight more than having to track three extra little annoyances around the stage when I could be focusing on the rhythm and choreography with the boss. In other words, the art. The artistry of boss fights is completely lost in pointlessly inflated damage and really, really, really, really annoying bonus enemies, and they are reduced to a stressful, frustrating slog with no triumph at the end, mostly just relief and irritation that it's finally over with. I don't understand this choice. It makes the fights more difficult, yes, and also more frustrating and annoying, and at the cost of letting the player view and experience the boss. What was the motivation here? I don't understand. - Arenas. In Hollow Knight, occasionally you'd have arenas. Areas that locked you in and made you fight some normal enemies. Okay, fine, I can deal with that. They weren't super frequent and they weren't super awful, they were doable. Not so in Silksong. They are more frequent and they are NASTY. I have zero interest in four waves of basic enemies, all of which have different movesets, some of whom do double damage for no reason. And for what? A reward I won't use? Cool, thanks. Second chapel I found, I just walked right back out. No thanks. I'm not doing that again. - Bench and bellway costs were, of course, a thing in hollow knight. However, there was only one currency there, not two, and the costs varied. Additionally, many benches were free. A free bench is a rare sight in Silksong. Everything needs you to pay. - Following from above: Grinding. Currency grinding. I don't remember ever really doing that in Hollow Knight. Maybe once or twice? But I never needed to. There were all sorts of neat things to buy, and all enemies dropped the same currency. In Silksong I've already spent a couple hours literally just grinding the same few enemies for currency. Not fun. Not great. Though you CAN bank one of the currencies with yourself (for a steep price), which is nice. That's a good change, I wish I could've done that in Hollow Knight. Ah well. - There are no charms in this game, only tools that you can add to your crest, and precious few of them. Many of them don't seem to do much. This system does not feel as versatile as the charm system, nor as fun. The game doesn't offer you much chance to play around, either, because if you make any mistakes it'll kill you with random enemies that do two masks of damage. And kind of black your screen out, too, so it's hard to see what's going on. Side note, that one. - Mask and nail upgrades are nonexistent. 28 hours in and I've gotten neither. I have no idea how. Apparently I just have to wait til later and the upgrades have no real feel to them anyway. - Crafting. This is a lie. You do not craft anything. You do not collect materials to craft things. You collect a currency that refills your tools. You have a 'crafting kit' and all that means is that when you collect more of those, it ups the number of little traps you can hold and the damage they do. It is not crafting, sorry. - the quests. I don't know what it is about the quests, but they feel really... strange. Off. Empty. Perhaps that's just coming at it from a Hollow Knight point of view where they didn't have any quests or markers, and in that case, the quest system is an upgrade. Now you have reminders of where you want to go and why. But it does feel a bit hand-holdy (not something I thought I'd ever say about this game lol) in that it doesn't require the player to think at all about what something might be. Finding the grubs for Grubfather was a fun little thing to figure out. You have a similar (but harder) quest here and the giver just asks you to do it. That lacks whimsy. Let me use my brain to figure that one out, TC. There aren't very many quests, and so the world feels a bit empty once you've completed them. I haven't even gotten to some of the nastier things that I know are coming up, like constant hidden traps everywhere and punishing deceptive platforming. That sort of thing is making me reconsider continuing. BUT i'm out of characters lol TL;DR: game is really cool and beautiful and clearly had a lot of work put into it, and it is a high-quality game, but is way too unfair and hard to the point where most people won't enjoy it, and consequently I'd say pass on this one. Don't play this, play the first game instead.

Its a lie, silksong is still not real.

I'm not even sure where to begin with Silksong, since it seems that pretty much everything that can be said about it has already been said by other players, reviewers, and fans. It's a beast that's difficult to assess, because in many ways it was never meant to exist in the state we received. It's part DLC, part sequel, and part solitary title, with a bumpy and meandering development that makes it challenging to track what the vision for this product really was as it went along. In nearly every review of Silksong, positive or negative, "difficulty" seems to be an omnipresent feature of discussion, and that's not for no reason. The game is hard, full stop. Most players will never finish it. Those who do are determined to, and of those players I suspect a non-zero percentage will experience multiple episodes of intense frustration and bewilderment at the design choices made by the developers. For those who aren't aware, Silksong was originally intended to be DLC for its predecessor, Hollow Knight, with the expectation that players will have already been invested in the end-game mechanics and challenges of a typical playthrough. This is significant, because as Silksong continued to grow far beyond the scope of a single DLC package, my suspicion is that the developers struggled to maintain a holistic view of the project. This results in what I think is Silksong's biggest roadblock to players: pacing. There is no "ramp" for players to acclimate themselves to Silksong's expectations, because that ramp was (presumably) the entirety of Hollow Knight and all of its associated DLCs. If Silksong was a fairly small project, this would be atypical but understandable. But Silksong isn't small; it's massive, and it will only grow larger from here as additional content is released for it. I like to think I'm in the upper quintile of Hollow Knight players. I've done my 112% playthroughs, grinded all of the Pantheons, and familiarized myself with (most of) the platforming techniques the game requires. That said, I'm still not great. The Path of Pain took me (many) hours, and I'll never attempt Steel Soul or any% speedruns, because those are simply beyond my capacities or interest. Put me in the middle of the bell curve of the "People who have completed Hollow Knight" standard deviation. Not amazing, but not bad either. That said, I found Silksong to be a complete slog nearly from start to finish. Whatever appreciation I wanted to have for the setting, narrative, environment, or soundtrack was repeatedly hampered by the frustration of combat, traversal, and exploration. In Hollow Knight, challenges imposed at parallel points in a playthrough (whether platforming, arena battles, or bosses) would give me satisfaction at their completion, a sense of "Yes, I did it!" Silksong does not give me this feeling with its challenges, instead replaced by a sense of "Thank God that's over." And no matter how incredible the soundtrack is or how brilliantly designed the best bosses are, 60+ hours of "Thank God that's over," will wear on any player, regardless of their enthusiasm going in. The examples here are endless: Finally beating the Last Judge and never having to retrace its benchrun. Finally beating Groal and never having to retrace HIS benchrun. Finally defeating both Savage Beastflies. Finally receiving the Conductor's Song and never having to redo its requisite Arena Battle. Finally reaching the top of Coral Tower and never having to redo its gauntlets. Finally reaching the surface above Pharloom and never having to platform all the way back up. Again and again, I found myself saying "That's it, it's over, I don't have to do it anymore." Of course many other have already listed complaints regarding the omnipresent design choices in Pharloom. Flying enemies are more frustrating then ever, countless bosses that summon adds, basic enemies that are tankier than half of HK's bestiary, way more double-mask damage attacks, more unforgiving environmental hazards, greater distances between benches (that you need to buy), etc etc. These are all minute design decisions on their own, but in totality these coalesce into blanket frustrations that exacerbate the pacing problem. Yes, it's all more challenging, but it doesn't feel satisfactory. It feels hostile for the sake of being hostile. This is disappointing, because there are moments where the game absolutely astounds with its boss encounters. Widow, the First Sinner, Skarrsinger Karmelita, Trobbio, Cogwork Dancers, Phantom, Seth, Lace (all versions), more amazing bosses than not. These fights make me wish Silksong launched with a Godhome feature, just so I can fight them over and over. The problem is that in-between all of these memorable and exhilarating bosses is a world that feels like it doesn't want me to enjoy it. It wants me to fall into trap benches or die to explosive projectiles from airborne mobs or repeatedly lose masks to platforming meat-grinders so the game can say "Haha gotcha!" until I get past it. It's incredibly hard to recommend this game to new players. I have multiple friends that have voiced interest in Silksong, both because of the mystique behind its extended development and the overwhelming enthusiasm that came with its release. But I haven't been able to tell even a single one of them that they should play it without delivering a list of disclaimers. And frankly that feels bad. For all the work and passion put into this project, I should be able to say "Yes absolutely, this is a must-play for anyone, the challenge enriches the experience." But instead I find myself saying "Well....how about you give Hollow Knight a try and see how you like that first?" This is not to say that Silksong does not have its strengths. Hornet's movement, controls, and abilities make her more fluid and acrobatic than the Knight could ever be. Christopher Larkin's work for this title absolutely dwarfs the original game's soundtrack in both quality and scope. The visual designs for the environments (especially in Act 3) are more stunning and impressive than any biome in Hallownest. Sherma. Unfortunately, these strengths have to compete for cognitive supremacy with the numerous frustrations listed above. And the ground-level psychology of people being what it is means that even minor negative stimuli can often leave deeper impressions than major positive ones. I'll keep my current save files and participate in the DLCs as they inevitably arrive, but I struggle to envision where Team Cherry can go from here for this title. In a strangely analogous way that FromSoft devs released Elden Ring's DLC, I feel the limits of what players can reasonably execute for challenging bosses and platforming puzzles have been dangerously brushed against by Silksong, and future iterations on this formula will have to be very carefully managed.