Hollow Knight: Silksong

Type: Game

Score: 10/10

Date modified: Dec 27, 2025

I've put off giving Silksong a proper write-up despite it being my favourite game to be released this year and probably top two of all time, switching its position depending on the day, but that transgression is being taken back today. In the art and gameplay department, I think Silksong is a straight improvement from Hollow Knight. I've seen some people complaining about how the brighter colours make Silksong less atmospheric than Hollow Knight and I can certainly see why people are upset by that, but personally I don't think it's even a fair comparison. They both fit their respective games pretty well. Hallownest was an already dead kingdom, so greys and blues made a lot of sense, but Pharloom isn't dead just yet, and as it gets closer to its demise in Act Three you can even see the vibrancy being sucked out of the kingdom, which is a super cool touch. On top of this, Ari Gibson popped off detail-wise in this game, not to say he didn't in Hollow Knight but it feels like every hall in the Citadel that I sprint down has an intricately drawn background that almost nobody will ever even see properly.

Silksong took another step up from Hollow Knight in the insane fluidity of its movement, replaying Hollow Knight feels painful (a little hyperbolic) now. Playing as Ghost which I always thought played really great, is near incomparable in enjoyment when up against playing as Hornet. Running around as her makes me feel like some sort of Olympic gymnast and it's very freeing. This is obviously helped by the wonderful unique animations for each crest but also the gameplay additions, like Hornet's ability to sprint and then chain that into an attack and then perhaps even chain that into a Clawline, charged attack, silk skill, or red tool. Hornet has so many options when getting into a fight that it never felt dull to me to same enemy for the hundredth time as I run down a corridor. I never felt the urge to avoid a fight to save time like I have in other games. Many enemies in Silksong seem to also have more complex attack patterns than in Hollow Knight (not really in the first couple of areas, but things really ramp up when you get to the ants) and fighting these little critters, exploring new areas and finding new upgrades was a gameplay loop that never got old. The new healing in the air and three masks at a time is great too and opened up Silksong for more ferocious boss fights with more unique arenas like Nyleth's. It can even be used to dodge some attacks when you need to stay above the ground, and I felt like a genius when I used that to narrowly dodge an attack from Widow I didn't think I could dodge otherwise (I hadn't realised you could pogo off the bells). I even liked some more controversial changes like the removal of iframe dashes and a general decrease in iframes after being hit. It forced me to fight in a more interesting way than just dashing through enemies or spamming descending dark. I did have one singular issue with the movement in this game: the way double jump and hover fight each other for priority. Like, sometimes I just want to hover, but it won't let me. I feel like they could've set hover to activate when X is held and double jump to activate when it's just pressed, but that's just me I guess. I suppose you get used to it after a point but I'd rather it just didn't exist.

Crests are also a really cool system, even if I stuck with mainly Hunter and then Witch once I got it. I just like being able to have the option to play the game in a different way, even if there are crests like Reaper and Beast, which actively make it harder. I also quite liked the tools system, more than charms at least. I never felt like I just needed to fill a slot like I did with charms and ended up putting in random bullshit to fill a spare charm slot. The fact that tools are separated by their general purpose helps too, even if some of the grouping choices felt bizarre to me. Like why is magnetite dice not a blue tool? It feels like the only exclusively combat-buffing yellow tool, not that I'm complaining because the best tool in the game being basically free to include in any build is pretty rad. I will complain for a minute about my main issue with this game, however, which is how red tools were handled. I don't know if Team Cherry were coked up like crazy or what when they decided to add shards because their addition seems to be only to slow down the game (or maybe to balance the Architect Crest, not that it worked). I never really used tools (aside from in boss battles that I knew I could win because I was worried about wasting my pretty limited amount of shell shards even when their capacity was maxed out). On top of that Bone Bottom had a few quests that required me to give up 400 or so shell shards, which made me assume I'd need to conserve them in case of more quests like that, but nope. I might be misremembering, but I'm pretty sure those were the only times shell shards were used in this way. I wish they just made the red tools recharge at benches for free because then I'd have freedom to experiment and try out different red tool-based builds, but shards aren't a deal-breaker, just a pain in the ass. Needing to go to specific places to recharge Plasmium and Flea Brew was a real pain too and just led to me never using Flea Brew; it just felt so unnecessary.

To continue my hating, I'm going to talk a little about bosses. I was disappointed by many of these guys, but not for the reason you think (or maybe it is the reason you think, I wouldn't want to assume). Lots of people had issues with the difficulty of Silksong, but personally, I never had any issue with it. Silksong is the sequel to Hollow Knight so I don't think it's all that far-fetched for Team Cherry to have expected the players to beat Hollow Knight before playing it and built the difficulty around that expectation. I'd have actually been upset if the game was any easier to be honest, because if I didn't struggle with bosses like the Last Judge or Lost Lace it'd have lost that satisfying feeling I get from games like this. My actual issue with this game's bosses was that they didn't feel like they were pushing far enough. Like I mentioned, this game was a sequel to Hollow Knight, so why didn't Team Cherry take this chance to make super inventive and different bosses than were in Hollow Knight? This isn't to say there weren't any unique bosses, Silksong had Father of Flame, Fourth Chorus, Voltvyrm, Bell Eater and Nyleth just off the top of my head, but there were also a fair few that felt really reminiscent of Hollow Knight's bosses. I mean when I first fought Moss Mother, I was like, "Oh, this is a green Vengefly King." When I fought Bell Eater, I was like, "Oh, this is Massive Moss charger but with bells". When I first fought Lace, I was like, "Oh this is Hornet". Those were the first three bosses (or you could've fought Skull Tyrant who was Brooding Mawlek), that's not the impression you want to send. Not to say these were bad fight, hell, all of them were better than their Hollow Knight counterparts, but I'd personally have liked if they went a little wacky with it, even if it ended up being the worst thing ever. Lace did fortunately split off from the other two, however, and her second and third battles were some of the best in any game I've ever played and fairly distinct from Hornet's fights, so it wasn't a full loss, but I'll talk a little more about the follow-up Laces in a minute. Before I talk about the best bosses however, I'd like to talk about the worst. There were a couple in this game (Palestag and Plasmified Zango) that I'm not sure are even bosses, and Plasmified Zango didn't even give me anything for beating him. It was all very confusing. Gurr the Outcast was also in a similar situation. He was a little more of a boss, but he had like a single move, gave you a huge window to attack, and all the fun was actually tracking him down and the surprise of being dropped into his arena. It was the same with Skull Tyrant, who didn't really have any redeeming qualities at all except for that surprise when he jumps you in Bone Bottom. Aside from those guys who didn't even feel like Team Cherry tried with, there were a few who did feel like attempts at being real bosses that just fell short, these include Phantom, Shakra (tragically), First Sinner, Pinstress and Seth. I'll explain my reasoning on Phantom, First Sinner and Seth because I don't think anyone's going to fight me over saying Shakra or Pinstress aren't all that fun (though you can just replace every time I say Seth with Shakra because he's basically just a reskin of her).

I like just about everything about Phantom apart from her fight; the Exhaust Organ is great, her lore is too and "She spun us to fade... She spun us to break..." are some of the hardest lines in this game. Her music is so good I've been listening to it in the background while just doing other things, the organ sounds so fire in it, and the way she can be fought instead of the Last Judge as an alternative way to get into Act 2 is super cool, even if I didn't do that on my first playthrough. My issues with her come down to her fight, of which I have two main issues that ruin the whole thing for me. Firstly, her parry is an unsatisfying piece of shit attack even when you properly counter it, I don't like the sound she makes or the way she moves at all. My other problem is the way the steam starts really bellowing out in the second phase, which makes following her movements a real challenge for me, and I don't really care that other people don't have this issue. Buy me new eyes and we can see how the situation changes. Next is the First Sinner, who I'm sure I'll get the most shit about not liking out of any boss here because for some reason I can't comprehend why people think this is an all-time great boss. I can promise you this isn't a skill issue either, I beat Lost Sinner. I'm a pro gamer I promise. In fact, part of my issue is that she might be too easy; on my first playthrough, she died on my second try in under a minute. I didn't even need to heal. The crux of my issue with her, however, was that the only real way to fight her constantly teleporting away is spamming the Clawline or sprinting into her or both, and while I like sprinting and love the Clawline, it never felt all that fun on this boss, more like she was constantly running away and I was catching up to her and getting a single hit in before doing it again. Her attacks were so easy to dodge too because it felt like they almost never hit in the right spot to punish me for running over and hitting her. I'd have liked to say that her soundtrack made up for this because I love her boss music, but she shares it with a much better boss, Widow, much earlier into the game. I get that it's because they're both weavers, so it makes sense, but when I got to Last Sinner I wasn't thinking, "wow, these guys must have the same boss music because they're related!!" I was thinking, "wow, they reused Widow's boss music". The one positive I can say about Last Sinner is that breaking her heal is extremely satisfying. For Seth, no, I don't "hate dead kids" as a lovely comment put it, I just think that fighting Seth is a real pain in the ass, as he teleports around even more than First Sinner and unless you're using the Architect or the Wanderer crest, which both make short work of this guy, you're going to spend more time chasing this bastard than actually damaging him. He's also using Nyleth's theme, and you fight him literally right before Nyleth; it's so odd. He barely feels like he fits there and was just put in last minute, and this fucker also ruined my high scores on the Flea Games (except for juggle because I'm the goat), and for that, he cannot be forgiven.

Alright, now onto talking about a few bosses I loved, and holy fuck, I'm just now realising how long this is going to end up being. I still haven't even said anything about the way areas were done, nor talked about the story, but I digress. Silksong has a shit ton of really fun bosses, even if many aren't super unique. I had an especially great time with all the Laces, Widow, Last Judge, Savage Beastfly 2 (I'll explain myself later, I promise), Cogwork Dancers (Clover Dancers too), Grandmother Silk, both Trobbios (gay Grimm), and Nyleth. To avoid making this apparently already 10-minute-long write-up even longer, I'll avoid talking about them too much and just talk about Savage Beastfly 2 and Nyleth because I've had death wished upon me for liking them before, so I think I'll need to do some explanation. I'll also talk about Lost Lace because she's the best boss I've ever fought, and I still get the tingling feeling I had when I beat her for the first time when I think about her even months after the fact. Savage Beastfly 2 is peak, and I'm tired of hearing him being slandered. He's a great positioning challenge, and it's so fun dodging his summon's lingering attacks while simultaneously avoiding falling into the lava and getting hit by him. It's a real testament to the gameplay of this fight that I can love a boss without meaningful lore, an interesting unlock or a memorable soundtrack this much, but even as I write this, I'm practically drooling at the thought of fighting this fucker again. Less controversially but still far from universally loved is Nyleth. I've seen just about as many people love her floor-dropping-out gimmick as I've seen absolutely despise it, but personally I think that and her beautiful OST that was stolen by Seth and I unfairly called boring the last time I talked about Silksong on here make Nyleth one of the most interesting bosses in Silksong. I love the panic that sets in when you see that yellow AOE attack and have to use Clawline to barely get out of the way in time; it's an orgasmic feeling, the same as when you manage to hit those spiked balls out of the air back at Nyleth despite it never being worth it. I just do it for the love of the game. Lastly, Lost Lace, the goat of Silksong. I've seen one too many people complain about the final boss of this game being a third Lace, but I simply cannot get behind that when Lace is so great, especially once you get to the second fight with her. The first fight, you could kind of wing it because she was so slow, but being forced to read the position of her needle and properly counter her parry, which goes from a dangerous attack to the best way to get in damage after you realise you always just have to jump and dodge towards her is super satisfying. Lost Lace just ups the ante, though; she's absolutely brutal and took me almost two hours to beat, and yet now I can beat her back to back without breaking a sweat. If that's not the mark of a good boss, I don't know what is. Her being a good boss isn't even the best part of the boss fight, though; it's the beautiful ass atmosphere. It has by far the best boss soundtrack in this game and probably any game; it's so grand and atmospheric and just the whole build-up to that moment just makes it feel so epic (I feel so silly saying epic but that's really the only word to describe it).

Another improvement I think Silksong makes upon Hollow Knight's formula is the narrative. Hornet is so much more of a character than Ghost, and being able to see her actually interacting with the other characters instead of just being talked at makes me like the other characters and her more. I cannot overstate how much Hornet being able to talk improved this game. I also love how the journal is written by Hornet this time around; it's so cool finding out she loves fluffy creatures or how she's fly racist (understandable considering what they put her through). The characters are just more interesting to me in this game. I liked Quirrel and all, but Garmond > Myla, and Flick clears everyone. I almost cried when he gave me that little statue, and the description had "inexpertly but painstakingly crafted", it was so sweet. I loved how Hornet and Shakra were proper friends, how Hornet (and everyone) wanted Kratt dead and how Sherma was just an innocent little guy running about. There were moments in this game, like Shakra's master's funeral, that just wouldn't have worked in a game like Hollow Knight but work here to great effect. The same situation applies to the Red Memory (though more so because Ghost never really did shit; what memories does he have?). I will say, the Nailsmith has way more swag than the Pinmaster. Also, fuck the Green Prince. I got you out of prison, man. I'll go into your mind whenever I want. I didn't even need his heart, but I don't regret killing him. Silksong also added a proper quest menu to track what you're doing and to give you a goal other than just wandering randomly, which I think is a good thing, but what I don't think was a good idea was these stupid fetch quests, which seem like a leap back game design-wise. Like, I'm sorry, but I don't want to collect bells, nor do I want to collect robes from dead guys, nor do I want to kill a bunch of birds (that was the worst one; it took me like ten minutes). I know I talked about how good the movement and combat was and that I didn't mind fighting the same guys over and over but that was when I was running about, being stuck in the same area, loading and reloading rooms to respawn enemies just to kill is such a boring waste of my time. I'm fine with going places and talking to people, but once I start needing to farm things, I think we have a problem. It's not like I could've just skipped doing this either though because I was worried I'd have missed the true ending which remains nearly as convoluted to get to as it did in the original Hollow Knight. The story itself is pretty alright, though saving a kingdom from a powerful being controlling the minds of the citizens isn't exactly breaking new ground for Hollow Knight.

One last thing I want to write about (I promise): the areas. This game has so many secrets; it feels like every second wall I hit has some cool stuff for me inside (or a frayed rosary bead). Hollow Knight had them for sure, but Silksong made it so every area was a secret room inside of three different secret rooms. Silksong also felt like it had a lot more variety in areas, and I loved how each place almost always had its own gimmick. I don't know if there was a single bad area in this game, not even Putrified Ducts because I liked the parkour you had to do by getting caught by the ceiling plant guys, maybe the Abyss, but you aren't there for long, and the parkour escape sequence from there is a great section. My favourites were probably The Citadel (which is so big it feels like its own game), Mount Fay and the Far Fields, which really gets into its stride in Act Three. I've heard some complaints about an overuse of gauntlets, but I didn't really feel that. To me the only hard ones were really the Choral Tower gauntlet and the High Halls gauntlet, both of which I thoroughly enjoyed, so it seems to me these people had more of an issue with the combat of Silksong than the gauntlets themselves.

TLDR: It's like Hollow Knight if it was bigger and better.

Thanks for reading; make sure to smash the dislike button. I'll be sure to update this once the DLC releases, I hope the final boss of it will be a third Savage Beastfly.