We reach the penultimate door, and good cripes has it been a long time coming. When was the last door? Like 2017? Ah well, surely everyone’s been completely normal about it.
It’s Hollow Knight: Silksong!
James: I promise, hand on heart, I’m not just dumping votes into Silksong because I’ve wronged it twice. Firstly, yes, everyone who commented, I should have given it a Bestest Best. Second, I was hasty in declaring it a safe sequel. Further time in Pharloom’s criss-crossing caves has clarified that it’s so much bigger, smarter, fiercer, and more intricate and ambitious than Hollow Knight that it makes the original – and I know this because I went back to play it after finishing Silksong – feel like an early prototype. Not only is this not a safe sequel, it’s how sequels should be. No wonder the damn thing took so long.
For the second time in a row, it’s also a game where I’m declaring it my personal fav-of-the year in spite of genuine, significant flaws. It is, inarguably, difficult just for the sake of it, a philosophy I normally spit back out like rancid pollock – especially when the soulslikian trial-and-error approach is artificially stretched out by intentionally perverse checkpointing. It’s also telling of how good the rest of Silksong is that I’m willing to put up with that regardless.
Swapping HK’s plinking, plodding Knight for the acrobatic Hornet was a masterstroke; fights still have the responsiveness and high-stakes sharpness of the original, but everything’s faster, snappier, more impactful. And with the addition of crests and tools – one enabling complete overhauls of attack patterns and healing behaviours, the other an off-the-page catalogue of defensive tricks and deployable weapons – you can even the odds with far greater scope for custom builds, some of which may prove the key to unlocking a previously impassable boss fight. It’s not that you need certain items for certain challenges, but turning the tables like this is immensely satisfying, and the breadth of personalisation that crests and tools offer can make clashes with basic baddies all the more expressive.
They also serve as yet more rewards to be had while exploring Silksong’s enormous, carefully interlinked map. Pharloom itself doesn’t tinker much with metroidvania convention, but it’s by far the prettiest, most dizzyingly elaborate world I’ve explored in 2D, and its call to adventure is a constant, howling klaxon. Almost every room seems to have a secret tunnel or an enticingly unguarded side-exit flashing past in the corner of the screen, and just as often, you can be sure that whatever you find down there – new tools, a hidden boss, or even an entire, optional region – is going to be something worth your time.
Going in search of these buried treasures is an adventure in itself, as hard as I fake-laugh whenever I watch Hornet explode for the seventh successive time, I can’t deny that the fighting itself makes for brilliantly pacey, intelligent, all-or-nothing action. Silksong is thrilling and haunting and massive and beautiful and endlessly, wonderfully rewarding, and if I have to suffer a little to bask in the joy that follows, so be it.
Ollie: What an achievement it is, to have your game be so highly anticipated that it becomes a years-long meme; and then to immediately deliver on all promises. There’s such a level of joy to the discovery of each region, each room in Silksong. The world and its people are exquisitely crafted – particularly Shakra, whom I would have died for after the first meeting. It’s quite amazing how many moments of sheer charm you can find throughout the game, especially if you do what the game is begging you to do, and take your time.
