Video Games

[Mikael Dez]

The tinier ant warrior that throws blades isn't too bad. Now the bigger ones with the skull helmet......

Yeah that’s the one lmao

 

[mbenigni]

I gave up trying to get past Hunter’s March (I thought that was the next logical area), just beat Lace and that was pretty easy imo.

What/ where is Hunter's March?

I managed to make my way to the Chapel of the Wanderer - earlier than I was supposed to according to the walkthroughs. Couldn't get past the "kill room" (as the kids are calling them these days.)

Then I read that I should have already gotten the wall cling ability, which I hadn't because Lace had scared me off and then I'd forgotten all about her. (Commence with running around in circles looking for anything new for another 20 hours.)

Went back to Lace and remembered why she had scared me off. (Commence with dying for another 2 hours.) Can anyone provide any insights here? Do I just suck too badly at Hollow Knight/ Silksong? Is it hopeless? Team Cherry do seem to have their own unique feel/ rhythm. I play a lot of "hardcore" games - soulslikes, mainly - but this shit is like Kryptonite to me.

I'm just about at the point of uninstalling, just to stop my curiosity compelling me to waste more time and energy. The metroidvania thing has such a strong pull, and this particular game has the zeitgeist factor right now, but ugh. Every time I have 5 minutes of fun I'm rewarded with 5 hours of boredom, tedium, frustration...

 

[Mikael Dez]

What/ where is Hunter's March?

I managed to make my way to the Chapel of the Wanderer - earlier than I was supposed to according to the walkthroughs. Couldn't get past the "kill room" (as the kids are calling them these days.)

Then I read that I should have already gotten the wall cling ability, which I hadn't because Lace had scared me off and then I'd forgotten all about her. (Commence with running around in circles looking for anything new for another 20 hours.)

Went back to Lace and remembered why she had scared me off. (Commence with dying for another 2 hours.) Can anyone provide any insights here? Do I just suck too badly at Hollow Knight/ Silksong? Is it hopeless? Team Cherry do seem to have their own unique feel/ rhythm. I play a lot of "hardcore" games - soulslikes, mainly - but this shit is like Kryptonite to me.

I'm just about at the point of uninstalling, just to stop my curiosity compelling me to waste more time and energy. The metroidvania thing has such a strong pull, and this particular game has the zeitgeist factor right now, but ugh. Every time I have 5 minutes of fun I'm rewarded with 5 hours of boredom, tedium, frustration...

I fought Lace like I fought Hornet in Hollow Knight, let her come to me, attack attack dash away, repeat. I beat her the second time that way. Hunter’s March is above the Marrow and you have to defeat a mini boss to get there. He sucks until you get dash and then I thought he was pretty easy. A lot of this game is patience. I only beat Lace easily I think because both Hornet battles in HK kicked my ass and I had to learn her moves, I feel like Lace is a lot like Hornet in her fighting. Also you can heal in the middle of the air!

 

[mbenigni]

I fought Lace like I fought Hornet in Hollow Knight, let her come to me, attack attack dash away, repeat.

This explains a lot, because my strategy with Hornet was to die a thousand times, rage quit, and then let a friend beat her for me. (And then rage quit again after falling off mushrooms a bzillion times.)

Hunter’s March is above the Marrow and you have to defeat a mini boss to get there. He sucks you get dash and then I thought he was pretty easy.

Hmm. I already have dash, so this may be something I've already done... without the name "Hunter's March" having made an impression.

A lot of this game is patience.

Again, this explains a lot.

I only beat Lace easily I think because both Hornet battles in HK kicked my ass and I had to learn her moves, I feel like Lace is a lot like Hornet in her fighting.

I've been getting in a lot of hits before dying, for whatever that's worth. (OK, nothing.) I've also been using the spiky traps you get from the Forge Daughter - they put on an impressive show but I have no idea how much damage they're doing, or whether they're worth the distraction.

One thing I hate about Silksong is the absence of health bars in boss battles. I know this is a divisive topic, but when you're fighting a boss that goes down in 20 hits and you're dying again and again at 19... You never have any idea whether you're even close, whether your strategy is effective, whether you belong there in the first place. It's not so much "challenging" as demoralizing IMO.

Also you can heal in the middle of the air!

Excellent tip. I only just noticed this last night (watching someone else's playthrough of Chapel of the Wanderer)... and then I totally forgot to use it.

 

[strings2000]

 

[Aleksi]

I reached the Citadel by

Spoiler

going through bilewater and the mist

which was frigging awful but still preferable to fighting the big armor lady. There's another lady to beat but it's an easier fight. As a bonus you

Spoiler

get immediate access to fast travel

 

[Jarick]

Lace was one of the easiest fights I've had in the game because her movement is so similar to Hornet in the first game.

Really the whole premise of HK/SS is that you need to memorize the different boss attacks, identify the tells, figure out where to dodge vs attack, and then execute. I never really played a game like that before HK so the first several bosses took me a long time to figure out and I had to watch videos. I'm not that good of a gamer honestly. But I'm stubborn and don't like to fail.

 

[Aleksi]

Just beat the

Spoiler

Cogwork Dancers

on my second try after exploring the citadel and buying the

Spoiler

piton thing that allows you hang on to the wall.

If you want a nice cheese for the boss:

Spoiler

jump onto the middle of a wall and just stay there. Slash the dancers when they get close enough and throw some tools when there's only one left.

Super easy

 

[mbenigni]

Lace was one of the easiest fights I've had in the game because her movement is so similar to Hornet in the first game.

Really the whole premise of HK/SS is that you need to memorize the different boss attacks, identify the tells, figure out where to dodge vs attack, and then execute. I never really played a game like that before HK so the first several bosses took me a long time to figure out and I had to watch videos. I'm not that good of a gamer honestly. But I'm stubborn and don't like to fail.

I think the biggest challenge for me is the sheer duration of the boss battles. Just chip-chipping away at bullet sponges, eventually a little voice in the back of my head says, “is this what I’m supposed to be doing?”, or worse, “is this really what I want to be doing with my time?” And then boom, I’m dead.

The HK fanatic buddy that bailed me out on the Hornet fight in the first game told me he’d given up on Silksong, so I’m out LOL.

 

[Jarick]

I’ve been exploring a lot and getting quite good at a lot of combat. Sinners road for instance fully explored and no issues with most enemies now.

 

[Aleksi]

I’ve been exploring a lot and getting quite good at a lot of combat. Sinners road for instance fully explored and no issues with most enemies now.

I'm super addicted to Silksong. Outside of bosses and new difficult platforming sections, most of my deaths are due to carelessness. I think the game gets better as you progress and get new tools and upgrades

 

[Aleksi]

Getting the double jump was painful

 

[Jarick]

Just beat the

Spoiler

Cogwork Dancers

on my second try after exploring the citadel and buying the

Spoiler

piton thing that allows you hang on to the wall.

If you want a nice cheese for the boss:

Spoiler

jump onto the middle of a wall and just stay there. Slash the dancers when they get close enough and throw some tools when there's only one left.

Super easy

I just beat that boss last night. Dipping my toe in the next section is another increase in difficulty so will have to take my time getting through. The platforming reminds me a bit of the White Palace in HK, not nearly as bad though.

Spoiler

Good tip on the wall cling, I picked up and equipped that before the fight. I mostly just floated when they did that rapid attack as it was pretty easy to find an open space. Took me half a dozen tries which wasn't terrible, I kept accidentally dashing into them instead of healing during phase 2/3 lol.

I also beat the Phantom yesterday from the Bilewater/Mist path (even though I had beat Last Judge). That boss sucked and took me close to an hour. Stupid parry attack.

I need to figure out how to get that oil to upgrade the needle though. I feel underpowered again.

Also I got a grip case for my Switch 2 which makes it way easier to hold. I love the Switch but it's not made for adult hands at all.

 

[Aleksi]

I just beat that boss last night. Dipping my toe in the next section is another increase in difficulty so will have to take my time getting through. The platforming reminds me a bit of the White Palace in HK, not nearly as bad though.

Spoiler

Good tip on the wall cling, I picked up and equipped that before the fight. I mostly just floated when they did that rapid attack as it was pretty easy to find an open space. Took me half a dozen tries which wasn't terrible, I kept accidentally dashing into them instead of healing during phase 2/3 lol.

I also beat the Phantom yesterday from the Bilewater/Mist path (even though I had beat Last Judge). That boss sucked and took me close to an hour. Stupid parry attack.

I need to figure out how to get that oil to upgrade the needle though. I feel underpowered again.

Also I got a grip case for my Switch 2 which makes it way easier to hold. I love the Switch but it's not made for adult hands at all.

I have to hold the Switch 2 in a particular way to not get cramps. Whenever I can play on the TV I use the Pro controller 1, It's such a great pad with insane battery life.

I beat two pretty hard optional bosses today. The fights take patience, which I don't always have. So I die.

One oil is pretty easy, just keep you eyes open. The upgrade is pretty modest. I'm working on getting the second one, but holy shit

 

[Jarick]

Too many hours on Silksong yesterday but tons of progress. I got the double jump and I think I reached the boss of Act 2?

I decided to stop banging my head against a wall and start looking things up when I'm stuck. I figured over 30 hours into the game I can't just wander my way through it and struggle. Found a few extra mask pieces so now I have 7 and also got the second weapon upgrade which helps massively.

Spoiler

Fuck the Forum gauntlet though. Holy crap that sucked. I kept working at it off and on to get to the 10th wave and got my ass kicked. So I looked up a way to cheese the fight and just barely got through it. (Use poison traps and cling to one spot of the wall they can rarely hit you).

 

[Mikael Dez]

Too many hours on Silksong yesterday but tons of progress. I got the double jump and I think I reached the boss of Act 2?

I decided to stop banging my head against a wall and start looking things up when I'm stuck. I figured over 30 hours into the game I can't just wander my way through it and struggle. Found a few extra mask pieces so now I have 7 and also got the second weapon upgrade which helps massively.

Spoiler

Fuck the Forum gauntlet though. Holy crap that sucked. I kept working at it off and on to get to the 10th wave and got my ass kicked. So I looked up a way to cheese the fight and just barely got through it. (Use poison traps and cling to one spot of the wall they can rarely hit you).

If I'm stuck for like 30 minutes to an hour I'll concede with "ok this isn't fun anymore, where do I go" lol

 

[Jarick]

If I'm stuck for like 30 minutes to an hour I'll concede with "ok this isn't fun anymore, where do I go" lol

I really thought that since I beat Hollow Knight so many times and could breeze through playthroughs that I'd be able to work my way through Silksong without much difficulty. But it's such a big sprawling and frankly difficult game even for an experienced (though mediocre) player like myself.

I'm coming around on the difficulty, I still think it's very challenging and much harder than Hollow Knight was. But it's not quite as punishingly hard and not fun like it was early on. I think the early game difficulty is too high (say mid/ate Act 1) and you should be able to get more power ups early to make it more manageable if needed. In HK you could generally kill enemies without really stopping the flow of your movement but with SS most encounters are small battles. Especially the g.d. flying monsters.

But the game is so much bigger than HK...I'm 35+ hours in and haven't finished Act 2 where I got 100% in HK my first playthrough in under 20 hours. At this point I'm pot committed so need to power through it.

Once I beat the game I'll start to watch some speedrun videos and playthroughs and see how others are attacking things. I saw that the new record is just over an hour so I bet someone will beat the game in under an hour in the next week. That's insane.

 

[Aleksi]

Too many hours on Silksong yesterday but tons of progress. I got the double jump and I think I reached the boss of Act 2?

I decided to stop banging my head against a wall and start looking things up when I'm stuck. I figured over 30 hours into the game I can't just wander my way through it and struggle. Found a few extra mask pieces so now I have 7 and also got the second weapon upgrade which helps massively.

Spoiler

Fuck the Forum gauntlet though. Holy crap that sucked. I kept working at it off and on to get to the 10th wave and got my ass kicked. So I looked up a way to cheese the fight and just barely got through it. (Use poison traps and cling to one spot of the wall they can rarely hit you).

I've found two oils in the citadel. Finally beat the last judge I've also had to google some stuff.

Spoiler

Fuck the bench that breaks under you in blight town... Errrr bilewater. I wanted to cry at that point.

The forum gauntlet is insane. My last try I got to the two big things and just lost all hope. Reddit told me about a secret room where you can disable the silk sucking things, which should make it a little easier I guess

 

[Jarick]

I've found two oils in the citadel. Finally beat the last judge I've also had to google some stuff.

Spoiler

Fuck the bench that breaks under you in blight town... Errrr bilewater. I wanted to cry at that point.

The forum gauntlet is insane. My last try I got to the two big things and just lost all hope. Reddit told me about a secret room where you can disable the silk sucking things, which should make it a little easier I guess

Yeah I had to do that as well. I ended up beating them on my first try after I looked up the tips. I hate using tools so it's weird whenever I have to use them.

 

[Mikael Dez]

Yeah I had to do that as well. I ended up beating them on my first try after I looked up the tips. I hate using tools so it's weird whenever I have to use them.

I don't like the tools aspect either, but then I didn't like using soul magic or whatever it was called in HK lol