Hollow Knight: Silksong Review
Have you ever seen a non-live service game have 95,000 concurrent players six years after release? Well Hollow Knight did. Hollow Knight was an indie game which is a metroidvania, a game like that of Metroid games, 2D platforming and boss fighting game. The development team around it announced a new game in development on February 19th, 2019, titled Hollow Knight Silksong. Hollow Knight Silksong is one of the most anticipated indie games of the last 6 years since its announcement. The development team, Team Cherry, has spent these years making and expanding the story and world of their original game Hollow Knight while giving us absolutely no information about it besides a single trailer and a couple of gameplay screenshots. Then out of nowhere they gave us the release date of September 4th. Their explanation for them taking this long was that they enjoyed making the game too much. The game on release crashed main gaming platforms such as Steam, Xbox, PlayStation, and Switches e-shops. So, did the game live up to everyone’s hope and excitement? Well, I’ll separate it into 3 different categories: difficulty, atmosphere/worldbuilding, and affordability.
Starting off with difficulty, at the beginning, the game is excruciatingly difficult with enemies dealing two damage to your 5 health at the very start of the game. They also altered the move set of the playable character which was a culture shock to those people who had played the original Hollow Knight game due to them making it have more mobility. The platforming aspect of the game is moderately difficult but nothing too difficult unless you’re trying to do something you don’t have the proper tools or abilities for yet. Overall, the game’s difficulty is balanced besides a rough early game.
The atmosphere and world building in the original game was nearly perfect; the only negative thing was deciphering the story of a game where the main character never talks. Silksong not only improves this but did it in the proper way. Not just the story being spelled out for you but woven into the game itself with the main character reacting to new story plots just like the player. The blending of different regions in the game is flawless; I notice the gradual change of the mossy first area to the hard stone into the magma and bones wasteland of the second main area. No area looked like it didn’t belong where it was placed, and every area looked absolutely stunning.
The affordability of the game is great. In a market where games can be upwards of seventy dollars for a new game but only costing twenty dollars is such a nice refresher and puts pressure on the triple A studios for charging as much as they do for games of less quality.
Overall, I would rate the game a solid 9.5 out of 10. It’s an affordable game that is very enjoyable and fun and has clear effort put into the story and gameplay. The developers clearly enjoyed making it, and it shows with the quality of the game.