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Hollow Knight: Silksong
18 Plays21 days ago
Hornet has been abducted!😱
Join Dave and Jake as they get to the bottom (or top?) of the Haunting of Pharloom. Was the 6 year journey to get here worth the wait? Tune in to find out!
FULL SPOILERS: Hollow Knight: Silksong
Intro:
- Hollow Knight: Silksong OST - Lace
Outro:
- Hollow Knight: Silksong OST - Choral Chambers
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Transcript
Introduction and Game Hype
00:00:01
Speaker
you
00:00:19
Speaker
you
00:00:48
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake, and I am joined by my co-host, as always, Dave. How's it going today, Dave? So good. good. This has been a very long-awaited episode. It's true. Long-awaited game. Mm-hmm.
00:01:04
Speaker
It's also like kind of, you know, good fall weather kind hype. That's true. Got a lot of caffeine on drugs. The drug is caffeine. um
Silksong Announcement and Release Expectations
00:01:16
Speaker
But yeah, I agree. Did you know that if you were born when Silksong was first announced, you would be six years old when it actually came out?
00:01:27
Speaker
Um, plenty old enough to play, honestly. so ah Yeah, well, six year olds might be better than me at this point. No, no, no. We're going to work on your coordination kit.
00:01:40
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Um, well, we got to jump into this. Uh, we decided in advance this was going to be full spoilers and I have to drop enough actual spoilers soon enough in it that we don't abort the full spoiler run towards the end. And have to be like, oh, by the way, it's actually not. But if you haven't, if you plan on playing Silksong and you care about anything in the game, um spoiler wise, stop listening. Go back and listen to one of our previous episodes.
00:02:09
Speaker
Yeah. I guess, Dave, you could say whether it's a thumbs up or a thumbs down before they depart. If they're still here, I would definitely say that if you're somebody who likes to discover that type of so stuff for yourself, have your own experience. It'll be so much more meaningful than listening to two guys in their 30s talk.
00:02:30
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. But overall, what would your recommendation be for the game before they ah they jump out? if there're just I recommend. You recommend? Okay.
To Spoil or Not to Spoil?
00:02:42
Speaker
I'll have a qualified recommend recommendation, which is if you enjoyed Hollow Knight, which you should play first, and you're like, I wish that this was harder, then you should play Silksong.
00:02:53
Speaker
And if you don't find yourself in that situation, I don't recommend it. But that is my ah off-board ramp Otherwise, we're going straight into everything.
00:03:04
Speaker
Let's talk about the final boss. I was literally thinking, like, all right, so lost life. Yeah.
00:03:12
Speaker
yeah Where do you want to start for Silksong?
Silksong's Unique Identity and Influences
00:03:14
Speaker
Actually, at the start. Okay. Just because, like, you have that initial... I think they showed it in the trailer. um You're essentially being kidnapped into Farlum.
00:03:25
Speaker
Yeah. The caravan is taking you, gets hit by something, the bridge gets torn out and you fall down and you're at the bottom of like this very green, lush area when you start the game.
00:03:37
Speaker
And just hearing the amounts of sound layering of stuff and the the parallax backgrounds. they do a really good job of making a 2d game, not feel like a 2d game. And it was very immersive. And was just like hearing Christopher Lorcan's music again. I'm like, whoberg it was, it was a nice feeling for me. Um,
00:04:01
Speaker
Absolutely agreed. I mean, that that stays true throughout the game. I found that at times I was kind of like overwhelmed, so I wasn't appreciating the music as much. It just turned its background stuff um because I'm so focused up on what's going on.
00:04:16
Speaker
But there were, you know, I'm going to say like the Green Path-esque moments in the game where it's kind of like it's slowed down. It's coming together. You can appreciate the art and the music and stuff like that.
00:04:28
Speaker
um And no notes i mean it's the team that made hollow knight right like they really excelled at that in hollow knight and they've done a great job here in slugsong as well yeah i mean we always talk about this with sequels uh the fear of what it's going to be because as we always say you don't want to rely too much on The initial game, you want to be like, hey, remember this? you Remember this?
00:04:55
Speaker
um You want to have its own identity. But you still want it to be in that universe. um And I feel that they did a good job with that. It feels distinct to me.
00:05:08
Speaker
yeah Would you agree? i think to a certain extent i would I would qualify it based off the criteria like that you're you're judging it on. In a lot of ways, this game is Hollow Knight. It is Hollow Knight colon Silksong.
00:05:23
Speaker
And and But they did improve some things and specifically the way that Hornet plays um that lend a lot more to the universe.
00:05:36
Speaker
I have a very controversial take. I was going to save it until it was longer. Jake's like, I'm saying this now. This is basically just Dave bait. But Sulk Song is basically the Dark Souls 2 of of Night. Oh, that's some good bait. Uh-huh. Ah.
00:05:52
Speaker
But here's here's my argument, and you can argue against it. like right They experimented with a lot of things in Dark Souls 2, and then this led into Dark Souls 3. So first game, Dark Souls 1, very rough.
00:06:05
Speaker
Inspired. Had a lot of things to be improved on. um Dark Souls 2 was like, okay, building off of that foundation, this tree is going wide. We are doing tons of branches. We're doing so many different ways you can build your character. um We're going to have an even more interconnected world with like this hub space idea.
00:06:27
Speaker
And then Dark Souls 3, they're like... We're actually going to prune some of those branches back in ways. like We liked ideas like adaptability as a stat and maybe impacting your iframes and how to build variety.
00:06:42
Speaker
It's not fun to put have like a stat tax. So they just took it out for Dark Souls 3. I feel like Silksong is that game for Team Cherry where it still has some of the baggage in Hollow Knight.
00:06:59
Speaker
But it absolutely carries like the essence of Hollow Knight and then builds on top of that in some really interesting ways. So, I mean, I agree that they definitely built upon it.
00:07:14
Speaker
Um, Thank you for agreeing. It's Dark Souls 2. dark soul too yeah So, mean, there hasn't obviously been like a Hollow Knight 3 where they would theoretically prune some stuff.
00:07:24
Speaker
um Are there some things in there, HunterCrest, that you would maybe change for the future that you weren't such a fan of?
Gameplay Mechanics and Crest Strategies
00:07:34
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, to be honest, a lot of the things they did that were experimental, I basically still agree with. I think they they they're good in inclusions. So you mentioned hunter crests, right? For people who aren't familiar, these are basically like moveset toggles um for Hornet that let you change the way that you fight.
00:07:51
Speaker
And then they also change the number of um passive slots that you have available to you. And their types for for tools and things like that, um which is a really interesting idea.
00:08:02
Speaker
that i actually think they could actually expand on that even more if they wanted to but at a certain point it's going to turn into like an rpg instead of an action game which you find on that i don't mind personally you know because i really do enjoy uh build crafting as an aspect in games um but really i just found like a simple balance in reaper i was like We don't need more. We don't need less.
00:08:27
Speaker
We probably needed more, honestly, more blues. um But I didn't like the witch crest very much. aha That's the one I'm i'm not familiar with. i will disclaim, so I'm not misleading people.
00:08:39
Speaker
I made it to about the mid game point, I would say. I could have probably with some hours pressed towards the normal ending, the unqualified ending, if you don't meet any other criterias.
00:08:52
Speaker
or criteria. um But you played a bit further than that, didn't you, Dave? Yes, I played through everything, but definitely probably skipped over some optional content.
00:09:03
Speaker
Right. But you got a hundred percenter. You got a true ending. um And so I didn't get to the point of the rich witch crest. um If you would like to describe it and how it plays.
00:09:17
Speaker
That was the end of my line. So basically, after doing this little side quest thing, um you essentially get this debuff curse, which sucks. It sucks so bad.
00:09:28
Speaker
So you're like, I want to finish this quest, get my stuff back because it's even it essentially puts the crest on you. So like you can't use other stuff. Right. um It says it kind of has like a whip like attack.
00:09:42
Speaker
Mm hmm. Um, and it also was saying something about life steal, but I didn't really get to play around with it too, too much. Right. I needed to go back to my Reaper and just the occasional big hit and the, uh, the shore you can dig. Yeah.
00:10:00
Speaker
Cause if I am looking this up, I was like, if I would call correctly, so it starts as the curse crest. And then if you get it, uh, cleansed, you unlock it as a uncursed crest.
00:10:12
Speaker
Um, But yeah, i from what I saw, you're talking about Reaper. um
00:10:20
Speaker
That seemed pretty popular in the player base, um probably just because it's consistent. And a lot of its moves, you're not putting yourself in undue danger or it's really your down air is attack underneath you. So what a controversial takes. The easiest one for like spacing and like mechanics.
00:10:42
Speaker
Uh-huh. Because like you said, you are just kind of doing a hitbox yeah versus moving into a hitbox. And a lot of the other different crests will have different down airs and they will typically not go straight down.
00:10:59
Speaker
Yeah. So if that's what you're expecting, And everybody just flashes back to the ant area. Yeah. um Yeah, it can definitely be some actual getting used to when you start out because you are expecting down air to work like you remember from Hollow Knight.
00:11:19
Speaker
um And then I believe also Hunter Crest has like a dash attack where you go up, you hit him and then you essentially go up, you get pop ups. You can then theoretically down air them and hit them again very quickly.
00:11:33
Speaker
ah But the whole thing with hunter crest is being rewarded for not being hit, like getting a lot of hits in very mobility. And I can tell you that ain't me. ha I mean, it's not me either.
00:11:44
Speaker
Cause I, for my time was spent almost entirely on the beast crest. Um, which I still think is insane. Um, I mean, based off the number of tries it's taken me to beat some bosses, it probably is not the correct option. Even for me, I'm not going to pretend it's ideal.
00:12:01
Speaker
um But there are certain aspects about it that I really enjoyed. And I think that's the important thing, right? Taking a step out of my playthrough and talking about the crest in general. they're implemented in such a way that I think that you could pick out one of your friends that's played this game and be like, which crest did you use?
00:12:18
Speaker
And what, how do you justify that? Why, why did you play that one? And their answer is going to sound insane to you because it's going to be like fundamentally missing some aspect of how you used your crest, right?
00:12:31
Speaker
Like, um, because they're very different, right? They're not all just, Oh, here's a minor variation. You do, you have different animations for your moves. Um, like ah the Beast Crest, for instance.
00:12:46
Speaker
Its downside is you don't heal when you like channel your bind, which would be a focus in Hollow Knight. Um, you just get lifesteal for the next three hits and you you'll heal up a full mask for each hit.
00:12:59
Speaker
Um, but it only lasts like five seconds, six seconds, something like that. So if the boss is like doing a phase transition or something like that, it's invulnerable or you just can't safely close.
00:13:10
Speaker
You actually didn't heal at all. Um, but That's my issue with it because um for anybody who hasn't played these types of games, ah bosses do not have obvious health bars.
00:13:22
Speaker
Yes. You don't know if you're like, oh, they're three hits away 17.
00:13:28
Speaker
So sometimes you're like, I'm just trying to be consistent. Dodge attacks, get a attacks in. and then you're like, all right, I'm gonna do my thing. I'm gonna get my life steal. And then they're like, ah, you're like, oh, you're just counting down the time where you don't get to use it. And it's gone. And it's yes.
00:13:43
Speaker
I do think that um the other upside to it is you get like double attack speed, basically, or pretty close to it. You attack very, very fast when you're in this kind of beast mode and Hornet just like growls at them whenever you attack like she's frustrated.
00:13:57
Speaker
Um, But I completely believe that if I was like to, I haven't looked at like a speed run for this game, but if you knew all of the boss movesets, I'm sure you could absolutely destroy them with Beast Crest because it's just so much potential damage.
00:14:18
Speaker
It's just if you don't know the boss, if you don't know when it's safe to go in, if you don't know when it's safe to activate lifesteal, you could be making the game for like a lot harder for yourself. um and I don't think its moves are generally as adaptive and good as like Reaper or even Hunter,
00:14:37
Speaker
um in my own personal opinion. I got used to the fact that it's kind of like... The down air is like a diagonal sonic spin dash sort of thing. But the thing that I never completely learned is like the active frames on it.
00:14:53
Speaker
So even to the point when I largely stopped playing the game yesterday, um i still was like jumping onto spikes, expecting to get pogo bounce and failing because like I didn't have active frames for the ah the attack portion of it.
00:15:12
Speaker
Yeah, i I like at least with um Hunter's down air. You know it's fairly short, but also if you did it really high, they would just be like, oh I'm no longer attacking. So it looks different. You're like oh, it's about this range. It's very obvious. Yeah.
00:15:27
Speaker
You're not like recovering out of a spin animation or something. And I assume that the Reaper is also really good for pogoing. Probably like not for distance in a way that I assume the Hunter would be, but consistently pogoing on spikes or something like that.
00:15:42
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's like a heavier down air and smash if you want i mean it's like a Ganondorf down air. Yeah, where there is just the briefest delay before you hit. um And I do mean like minor frames, right? um Yeah, it's definitely enough to space and work with your actionable pretty fast out of it. So you could do an air dodge if you need to.
00:16:05
Speaker
um Yeah, it's just really nice having options and yeah being able to play around with it versus essentially the Sekiro design of everybody has this one weapon.
00:16:18
Speaker
Go. Uh-huh. Yeah. Did you hear about the ah the other crest that we didn't mention? So we mentioned Hunter, Beast, Witch slash Cursed, and Reaper. Yeah.
00:16:35
Speaker
Um, you you mentioned this one to me previously. i don't know what it is. What's the what's the Wanderer? Oh, there's not even that one. OK, OK. Wanderer, though, plays kind of like original Hollow Knight where you can get like a lot of it's very swift and you're pogoing.
00:16:56
Speaker
Like you're just hitting directly under you very quickly. It doesn't pop you up that much. Okay. um But if you like fast gameplay, I think Wanderer is pretty good for that. um The one you can get later on is a I think the Architect Crest.
00:17:11
Speaker
Okay. And its thing is it has i think three red slots. Okay. So you put various tools there. ah Tools are things that you essentially can use ammo for, um which you'll refill at benches if you have the materials.
00:17:28
Speaker
And it's like, oh, I could throw out a trap, throw out spikes, throw a dagger, that type of stuff. yeah But when you bind with Architect, you essentially generate more charges.
00:17:42
Speaker
without needing to go to a bench. Oh, okay. So this can get a little nutty. You can have a caster or something. yeah Yup. You can have some pretty interesting builds. um There also is essentially like a way to get blue hearts for temporary health.
00:18:03
Speaker
So you could add some hearts, hit a boss, be like, I need extra over heal, please. Mm-hmm. That's really interesting. I mean, this goes back to something you said, which is basically if they go too far in this route, it's going to become like an RPG. And it sounds like you do essentially essentially have like build crafting decisions by the end of this, which was true of Hollow Knight to a certain extent, like which types of talismans or whatever charms you're equipping.
00:18:30
Speaker
But it sounds like they've gone even more in that direction in the mid and late game for Soap Song. I partially want to agree with you. Partially want to disagree in that.
00:18:42
Speaker
You can switch between these at any time on a bench. So you might have one like, hey, I'm just going to use this crest because it's laid out for. Here's a way of tracking me on the map.
00:18:53
Speaker
This is going to make me run faster. um This will make me do harder harp jams. And like maybe that's like your run back crest.
00:19:05
Speaker
which if you're going to another bench to then change it out, why are you going to a previous not a back anymore, right? Yeah. Yeah, you might have one that's like, ah this is pretty good for me clearing bosses. So I'm going to switch to that and give that a try first.
00:19:19
Speaker
Yeah. I thought about that and I didn't make that optimization, but that's probably just really good advice is you have a crest that has a bunch of defensive options or has a movement set that you're really comfortable with for traversing like jumping puzzles and stuff like that and then another one that you know you're just like okay this is my this is my rushdown set where I can just destroy a boss in a way that I feel comfortable and you can also essentially build for farming a little bit so if you have a place where you like to get rosaries and you feel comfortable killing the enemies to get them
00:19:57
Speaker
You can equip a charm that when you die, you don't lose all of your
Tools, Charms, and Resource Management
00:20:01
Speaker
rosaries. You lose about half. um And magnet for like anything that's dropped ah that ah essentially it gets magnetized to you unless it falls on spikes.
00:20:14
Speaker
But essentially, then if you like keep doing that, you're going to be generating a lot more money in the long run. Yeah. which ah Which is entirely fair. and it like I think if you use tools a lot more than I did, you're probably going to run out of resources pretty easily.
00:20:31
Speaker
Especially if you're just trying to boss over and over and over again. That's a situation I found myself in. yeah Which is why like I tried out some tools early and then i just didn't have enough beast shards. I'm like...
00:20:43
Speaker
I don't want to farm to buy these. but I also know that like anytime I sit at the bench, it's going to go in somewhere. i'm like, I might as well throw out some stuff. Right. There were there were some other options that seemed like um they could kind of like balance the tool economy a little bit so there was there was flea brew you could get for um helping out the ah the flea troop the wandering fleas flea master um and that one had something like 50 sips you could do you could only hold three sips per rest like at a bench but the effect is it like increases your attack speed and your movement speed um
00:21:23
Speaker
And then the next time that you rest, or if you die, it'll replenish based off of your reserves. It would take some of the 50. um And then all you needed to do to replenish the 50 in your reserves was spend 30 rosaries at the flea troop um to like basically fill up your flask or whatever. which i mean I think it's 20 or 30. 50 seems very high. ah Yeah, i'll I'll look it up while we're talking. Yeah.
00:21:54
Speaker
Because it did seem it's 30. It's 30. Okay. okay Yeah. But um it was nice because. um oh okay. I actually missed this last thing.
00:22:07
Speaker
I'm just going to read this from the wiki. After you're using the last charge of flea brew, using the tool again causes Hornet to throw the empty bottle, which deals a small amount of amount of damage and breaks the bottle.
00:22:17
Speaker
And she'll repair the bottle with 10 B shark or shell shards ah at a bench the next time she rests. Oh, that's so funny. Which is very funny. I didn't really do that because, again, I really wasn't using the tools that much.
00:22:30
Speaker
But this is a way if you didn't want to, like, burn through all of your shell shards, um you can kind of, like, put other things in those tool slots yeah that might not be as expensive on that resource. so I was a big fan of any of the blue slots because those were usually modifications on your bind or your attack range or getting silk when you get hit.
00:22:57
Speaker
Right. Yeah. No, I unfortunately for my time playing this, um I really shouldn't have stayed on beast. I should have switched to other crests because beast only has two yellow slots.
00:23:11
Speaker
So there are a lot of um ah a lot of tools and like talismans or what are they called charms I think that um I just never even tried using because I couldn't equip them at all um I can't really blame anyone else but myself for that one either and to be fair the hunter crest um even though the down air is a little bit weird since it's a diagonal it lets you try out everything right you get like um
00:23:42
Speaker
I think once it's fully unlocked two red, two blue, and two yellow, um which is pretty excellent. I wish it would just be all blues.
00:23:55
Speaker
Fuck this. Yeah, that's fair. ah Reaper also had two blue. Yeah, that was the other thing. was once I got to Reaper, i was like, isn't this kind of just like I was expecting another like side grade type thing because I had been using the um ah the Beast Crest.
Boss Battles and Learning Curves
00:24:10
Speaker
And then I saw Reaper and he's like, this one has the same unlocks as the Hunter crest. But it also seems like it just does more things um and that you get like that passive silk generation, ah the orbs that you can like pick up when you bind.
00:24:24
Speaker
um oh yeah. Yeah. um That is Reaper. Yeah, that comes from Reaper. So yeah. um So Reaper already hits this. all right. I'm just going to sell you on the build.
00:24:39
Speaker
Reaper hits harder in general, attacks a little bit slower because of that, the balance. The down airs are a lot easier, as we were saying. um The dash attack is the shore. You can where you kind of like go and just do this uppercut attack.
00:24:53
Speaker
but You can also pull back on it, so it's really easy to poke with it. Right. And then you bind and it heals you. But it then it also gives you this buff that like, hey, if you hit somebody, you can knock some of the silk out of them.
00:25:07
Speaker
And each one's a bar. And when you're hitting, you're getting a bar. So it's really easy to build that up to either have heals on a reserve or you can use your bind abilities.
00:25:19
Speaker
Yeah, it seems pretty good. Honestly, it seems pretty good. Looking at the wiki, there are some things that like I couldn't quantify, like the Reaper Crest attacks 18% slower than the Hunter Crest.
00:25:33
Speaker
um But it has more knockback. um The Beast Crest I was talking about is basically the same thing as the hunter crest for like a attack speed. But then it had the other effects we were talking about TLDR without like just going through all of the build options in the wiki.
00:25:50
Speaker
um You might, you should try these out in ways that I didn't. And you'll probably find something where you're like, I think I can just play the game better like this. I think I can be successful because like one of the things that hollow night and silksong basically share with the,
00:26:09
Speaker
A lot of games, a lot of people might attribute this Dark Souls, but it's been around for a lot longer than that. It's like boss fights are learning the move set. um It's been around on platformers, Mega Man, everything. It's like, OK, the first thing you need to do to understand the enemy is understand the enemy to defeat the enemy enemies, is understand them. Right.
00:26:32
Speaker
And sometimes you can get through this in any sort of game like this. If the boss just isn't tuned that hard, you don't have to fully learn them. You can just defeat them. But increasingly in Silksong, the fights have enough phases. They go on long enough.
00:26:45
Speaker
um ignorance and uh aggression um like aggression in ignorance uh lend to just getting wiped out um especially with how much damage you take which we haven't really touched on but you generally take like twice the damage you would take and i think anytime a boss hits you it's two yeah just flat out yeah um which sucks a little bit um I don't hate it necessarily.
00:27:18
Speaker
Like I know there's a discussion around a silksong harder. Everyone's like, yes, definitely. I feel like that's the given is that it is harder. It's just, is that a good or bad thing?
00:27:30
Speaker
Yeah. Or neutral for me? I didn't mind it. Like I definitely got checked and wrecked at some places. Yeah. ah The final boss took me.
00:27:43
Speaker
Three or four hours of attempts spaced out over ah couple of days. Yeah. Um, but it felt fair to me. im like, I can interpret these moves and where they're going to attack.
00:27:58
Speaker
I just need to actually react and respond to them correctly and dodge out of the way um and not play sloppily, which I just did so many times. Right. um So it also feels really good when you then beat it too, because it was difficult. It was kicking your ass.
00:28:17
Speaker
Yeah. sense of pride and accomplishment as as ea would say i don't want no nintendo you hit him three times poke him in the eyes type of boss you know uh-huh yeah there's not that much there's not many of those bosses and silksong there are some that are definitely easier all right we're talking about the difficulty the bosses the scaling all that stuff right um I would say my my opinion is that the boss balance is kind of just all over the place in Zulksong.
00:28:49
Speaker
um There are some bosses you can encounter really early that are just punishingly difficult um for me. um I can't speak to other people's skill levels.
00:29:00
Speaker
um Dude, there's literally a subreddit called Fuck Savage Bees Fly. Uh-huh. Yeah. Well, the thing is, like, So in retrospect, you have to be a little bit Zen. you You can't get too upset when playing games like this because you will be upset all the time if you get upset when you die in Silksong.
00:29:22
Speaker
But also, literally my first piece of advice when I talk to people who are going to play Elden Ring is like, if you find a boss that seems really difficult, just don't. Just go somewhere else. Just do something else.
00:29:35
Speaker
There's so much stuff to experience in the game And there's a good chance that this boss is not like a door boss where they are actually obstructing your progression forward. There's something you can come back to once you know you've unlocked your next level of Super Saiyan and ah it's not going to be nearly as bad.
00:29:55
Speaker
And the developers probably set the difficulty in such a way to incentivize you to go off and do something else. um Now, in that game, you can kind of just scale up ad nauseum, basically, to make the game as easy is as easy as you want to a certain extent um with all the tools that are available for you and the leveling up and stuff like that.
00:30:15
Speaker
Silksong doesn't give you as many of those options, but I did find if I was really, really struggling against a boss, um most of the time they weren't a door boss. They were not the boss that I actually had to fight at that point. I could have left and done something else.
00:30:30
Speaker
Yeah, but it's the bloodlust in all our veins that makes us say, no, no. Yeah. They must die. And I think part of that is also present if you're playing Silksong, right? Like you recognize you already know that this is a difficult game.
00:30:44
Speaker
Like you said, it's common knowledge that it's more difficult than Hollow Knight. If you didn't want to rise to meet the challenge of beating the boss, you're probably not even playing the right game.
00:30:56
Speaker
Right. So, yeah, it's very much about it's difficult to disengage right combat. Do some huge part of it. Yeah. um But yeah, in a traditionally, i would I would say like traditionally textbook balance video game, you would have easier bosses near the beginning and then you increase the tools that are available to the player and you have like middle bosses in the mid game and then you get to the end game and it's like, hope you mastered everything. here are all the hard bosses.
00:31:25
Speaker
um In my experience, Soksong doesn't really work that way. It's kind of like a sine wave of, I don't know, you showed up and these bosses are either going to take you two to three attempts or they could take you 40. And that's just kind of the way the game is.
00:31:42
Speaker
um Which I wasn't the biggest fan of, but I think it's probably tied to the you can access a lot more initially than like in the hollow nights design, you had to go through green forest, green path. Yeah. Green path. Oh my God.
00:32:03
Speaker
Me using such human terms. Think like book. ha But yeah, like they do funnel you a little bit or they will put like certain, uh, kitty gates up of like, not right now. Good. Oh, come back.
00:32:18
Speaker
Whereas a lot of time in Silksong, it could be like, a hey, the door is locked from this side. or it's just a, hey, this is very challenging and I'm struggling.
00:32:34
Speaker
But you notice there's several open points on your map connected somewhere else. You're like, oh, let's go peeke those peek those quick. Right. Yeah, I think to a certain extent, I agree.
00:32:44
Speaker
But at the other point, mike but The part place where I disagree is I do not... Several points of the game, it felt like I was doing what I needed to do to progress because I didn't see the other path I could take.
00:32:58
Speaker
Right. So I was um fighting a Savage Beastfly, which I think is in Farfields. Yes. um And the other option that I saw available to me was to progress through Hunter's March, which...
00:33:15
Speaker
Also just had a very lengthy um jumping segment. um And I was like, both of these seem that and then neither of these seem like the easier path that I'm kind of being like funneled into.
00:33:30
Speaker
and Instead, it's just struggle somewhere. So in that case, it's kind of like a coin flip. And ultimately, I pushed through Savage Beastfly. It took me a long time. um And then the reward was a crest and no other forward progress. And I was like, gotcha. I failed the coin toss. This was not the forward progress path.
00:33:52
Speaker
I'm going to use this out of spite for the rest of the game. Yeah. I will say in general, ah they do at least keep structures consistent.
World Exploration and Design Choices
00:34:02
Speaker
So every chapel you go to will have crest in there.
00:34:06
Speaker
And then all of the
00:34:10
Speaker
Spider shrines. don't know what you want to call them are typically going to give you silk abilities, right? Which is fair. Um, But I mean, that's not something a new player would know.
00:34:23
Speaker
Right. um So how this is something you might realize by the mid game. These this this if I see this architecture, they they hit some ability in here. If I see this architecture, you know, I'm getting a new move set.
00:34:36
Speaker
But um if you're not the most observant player, you might not even realize that the mid game, if you're not paying that much attention, hopefully you are. um This game kind of demands it. um But yeah, as a new player,
00:34:50
Speaker
You don't know, right? It's just exploring a direction until you hit some sort of Metroidvania gate where you don't have the ability to progress or you're missing a key or something like that. And then go in a different direction.
00:35:02
Speaker
Oh, key part after you go a different direction. Forget this place ever existed. I didn't think you were ever here. Don't mark it on the map. Just go off. And then 10 hours later, you'd be like, oh, fuck.
00:35:15
Speaker
I did not do that. I had a very. You had a system, It was beautiful. I did have a system. So I had um you can get multiple pins, which is perfect, by the way.
00:35:26
Speaker
i so something I've been criticizing a lot of recent games on is like they don't let you mark the map at all. And all I'm going to do when I play a game like this is take screenshots and then write on the map.
00:35:39
Speaker
Um, because you just didn't provide the function that everybody else should like can and should be providing, uh, in the gameplay. But to silk songs credit, they give you the option to buy a bunch of pins that you can put on the map. So I had, um I know there's more available later, um, but I had bronze, silver, red pins.
00:35:57
Speaker
And I was just like, Oh, okay. If I put a bronze and a red pin, um, Then there are rings here, which I know means something because I've seen these rings in multiple places. So I'm probably going to need to come back once I have some way to interact with the rings.
00:36:11
Speaker
If I have two reds, then it looks like I just can't jump high enough. So there must be some sort of double jump or something that I'm going to get later. And then I was literally just marking them like this on the map. And then once I got the ring tech, I was like, gotcha.
00:36:24
Speaker
And went back and checked those areas. You have double jump now, right? I didn't get it in my ah playthrough. I saw that it's available eventually.
00:36:36
Speaker
But... um I never got here if I say no you go for it I mean this is all spoilers yeah um so for me I played through the entirety of act one and act two ah basically just defeating grandmother silk and i was like hey you want to continue your your save file and I'm like all right so never found that double jump that apparently was somewhere and then I actually explored um i thought mount fey was essentially checking me like we were talking about kind of uh dissuading me from going there because it's like hey you're gonna freeze to death i'm like oh i'll come back and then i did and went through the platforming stuff and just skill and timing based yeah can i platform to get here without freezing to death to do the next challenge
00:37:25
Speaker
And actually went out that way. They're like, hey here's double jump. I'm like, God damn would have been nice to have. Grandmother Silk, from what I saw, had a lot of moves where it's like, specifically if you double jump, you can avoid this hitbox easier. Dude, any of hitboxes where it's like, hey, we're going kind of cover this little puzzle screen.
00:37:44
Speaker
It's like, you got to go where there's not one. I would just hit jump again, just to like hover in the air for a sec. And then you have time to glide and you're It feels very good to have extra movement options. Oh, yeah.
00:37:59
Speaker
How did you like the the spear? Oh, ah yeah. the um So this is the move where you use some silk, ah throw out the spear in front of you, and then ah Hornet is pulled to the spear. So it's just like um horizontal mobility, basically.
00:38:18
Speaker
um It's very strong. um I really enjoyed that. It made... um What was interesting is that until I got it, i for the most part, I didn't really see that many places in the game where it was necessary it was necessary for a jumping puzzle.
00:38:35
Speaker
And i don't think until you get to the end game, that really seemed to be true at all. um A lot of times, just like an air dodge ah was enough. Or a run and then a jump into an air dodge would be enough.
00:38:48
Speaker
I would say typically, yeah. Yeah. um Or you know you could pogo on spikes or something like that. There were other ways to get through it. Um, but it turned all of those situations a lot easier.
00:39:00
Speaker
um one particular example is sometimes there would be like a spiky terrain or something like that, that you're able to pogo on like it's spikes, but it's not like a bed of spikes. It's just like a ball of spikes in the air or something like that.
00:39:14
Speaker
Um, And I was using beast crest. And so I was not super confident in my ability to like pogo. And the spear mobility, if I hit that spike had the exact same effect. You'll jump off of it after you spear to it.
00:39:31
Speaker
um And so it was just like it took something that was technically possible before, but had a higher skill cell ah ceiling ceiling. And it kind of like brought up the floor.
00:39:43
Speaker
by giving you a tool um that accomplished the same goal. And i i I really like that from a game design perspective. I also like that if you're trying to go quickly on a short section, like obviously jumping, you're floaty.
00:40:01
Speaker
um But you do the spear and you're just like going that way now. Yeah. Yeah. um Also, I did not use it enough for this, but I think it's insanely strong against flying enemies.
00:40:14
Speaker
Right. Because I'm sure, as you know, they're little fuckers and they will throw things at you. then you're like, come here, I'm going to hit you, son of a bitch. And they're like, no, no, no. And they fly a little bit further back.
00:40:24
Speaker
Yeah. So you're like, it's like some AI sense. so They're not just, ah I'm going to get a hit. But it's a really nice way to close the distance and be like, no. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And the game as a whole just has a lot more mobility. I don't remember all of the movement options that the knight got.
00:40:43
Speaker
But the main one that I remember was basically. frame Dodge in shade form ah um that you you would end up using against bosses later.
00:40:55
Speaker
I think that was a trinket. That probably is. Yeah, it it modified something to give you like actual iframes. Everybody used it. It was fine. um But but ah Knight also had the crystal dash, which was his going lock here to point charge and then yeet off in a whichever horizontal direction. Right. You'd use it to like dodge through things and whatnot.
00:41:21
Speaker
um But as a whole, the knight was far less mobile than Hornet is, especially with all the abilities they added in this game. um I didn't see many options to like, I frame through things like the night could though.
00:41:39
Speaker
And this is where I think one of the big design decisions was probably made for silksong. So it songs like we're going to give you so many mobility options that we are expecting you to do a lot of inputs in a fight.
00:41:55
Speaker
Um, but you're going to be using those mobility options. Whereas hollow night was like, You have a couple options to avoid damage. And so if you learn those couple options and then you learn the boss, then you're good.
00:42:11
Speaker
um So the the skill ceiling for Silksong seems way higher. um I misused the term floor earlier. I usually do. Lowering the floor is allowing more people to do something.
00:42:24
Speaker
um So in Silksong, it feels like they pushed both up. like It's harder to get in and just play the game and be bosses um compared to Hollow Knight.
00:42:36
Speaker
But if you're good at the game, then the skill expression for like what you can do in a boss fight is pretty insane. Yeah, yeah I completely agree.
00:42:47
Speaker
It's just more difficult across the board because you have these other things you can play around with. They can essentially bring the challenge up to hey, this possible threshold.
00:43:00
Speaker
Right. It's just like, we've given you a lot of abilities to stay in the air, to attack from different angles. to Hey, do you want to just heal in the air? Go nuts, dude. Yeah, you can heal in the air in this one, yeah.
00:43:14
Speaker
it's It's so, honestly, just healing versus focusing is um just a perfect example of the design decisions that went into Silksong. If I recall correctly, and you can correct me if I'm misremembering, if you were focusing in Hollow Knight and you got hit, then it just interrupted your focus um and you took damage.
Challenges and Healing Mechanics
00:43:38
Speaker
I don't think i don't think you lost it.
00:43:43
Speaker
different Maybe you do.
00:43:46
Speaker
I assume that you do. You might. I'll look this up while I ah while i talk. But um and the way it works in Silksong is if you're binding, which is the same button to to heal, either in the air or on the ground or whatever, and you get hit, you're going to have...
00:44:07
Speaker
A very bad time. Because you take the damage. You lose the silk resource. That is necessary to bind. To heal in the first place. And you get knocked back.
00:44:17
Speaker
Generally. um And so it's literally just like. No you suck. ah What you just did. That was bad. You should not have done that. um So. Yeah. um I looked it up.
00:44:37
Speaker
Uh, so yes, there's no special, uh, uh, function basically. Um, so it says getting hit by an enemy interrupts casting. This is for focus for hollow night.
00:44:50
Speaker
Um, ah or having the damage negated, whatever, then you you still get interrupted and waste any soul used during the incomplete cast. But the way that focusing worked in Hollow Knight was you channeled it and then every 1.141 seconds, which is very specific, um you would regenerate one mask per 33 units of soul, which is not a number that's presented in the game. But obviously, yeah um the idea was you're channeling to heal.
00:45:21
Speaker
Yeah, the downside, though, it was very slow. Yes. none Because I think binding, it still obviously is a chunk of time, which is why you don't want to do it next to an enemy. You want to wait for a window to do it.
00:45:36
Speaker
Yeah. But it then it gives you three masks. Mm-hmm. So it's nice to be like, I'm doing a heal button, not a heal channel and sit here type thing.
00:45:46
Speaker
Yeah. Because it never felt good to channel because I'm like, there's no way they're going to just... Watch me do this. Well, it was just a difference in um it was a difference in when you would use them, right? Because like or how you would use them, because in Hollow Knight, you could focus for like a second and change and heal one mask and then you're fine.
00:46:09
Speaker
The trick would be, do you overextend, right? or You're like, oh, I want i actually want to try to heal for multiple masks. But the boss hits me because I got greedy in my heel window. Right.
00:46:20
Speaker
Whereas Silksong is like you either have it or you don't. Right. You either have the time to channel for the full three masks or um you shouldn't have hit the button. And your punishment for hitting the button is um you will lose everything. You lose everything, basically. um Whereas, yeah, in Hollow Knight, again, since you're healing mask by mask, if you got hit and you you do waste that soul, you are wasting a relatively small percentage of your um your focus ah bar because it was only going to heal one mask once that ran out. So it doesn't take the whole thing. like in so on
00:46:56
Speaker
That's what I was thinking of when I was like, it's more punishing. um That being said, I actually think it's perfectly fine. um I have no gripes with the ah the binding ability in Silksong. And every time that I got interrupted, I was like, yeah, I was greeting anyways.
00:47:13
Speaker
I could have just waited until it was a safer point to heal. um Or I could have just been in Beastcrest where it takes like half the time and you don't heal at all. You just get lifesteal. Yeah.
00:47:27
Speaker
I did want to ask you about NPCs a little bit. Sure. Game has them. Do you have any of that stood out to you? I mean, I know Sherm is in everybody pick.
00:47:40
Speaker
Yeah. That was taken over Instagram for me. Just sitting there ringing bells, singing to people. um Yeah. Sherm is definitely um really good. As I meant as i mentioned in the the the pregame talk for this, but the... um ah I think overall, i like the I also like the fleas um and the flea master.
00:48:06
Speaker
um I'm kind of sympathetic to the characters that are just um friendly, despite everything that's going on in the world. They're kind of just like, they're not really paying enough attention to be as distraught as they should be.
00:48:20
Speaker
So because of that, you know, Sharma is a high candidate there. Or I think it's like Zuzu or Zoo or something like that. The one who wants you to fill out the the journal for all the monsters. Oh, yeah. the Basically, a little mouth gnat thing.
00:48:38
Speaker
What was that Nickelodeon show? Something monsters? Oh, ah ah real monsters. Yeah, that's that's what the design rev reminds me of. It's kind of a little disconcerting. I'm not saying I'm in love with the design, but I do like the idea of just...
00:48:55
Speaker
I don't know, kind of innocent bugs that have. They're paradoxical, given like the overall stakes of everything going on in the story in the world. They have to be ignorant, ah basically.
00:49:07
Speaker
But I'm a sucker for those characters. um I also liked I like lace. Hell yeah, dude. Very sassy.
00:49:19
Speaker
Yeah, it's there's an exact term for it. i think some of it is soon there a little bit. Yeah. Some of it is also another Japanese thing for like bratty.
00:49:33
Speaker
But love her theme song. Really good. Like the fight, like the style. She laughs at you in the middle of the fight. That's a great sign. Yeah. But it's one of those like tilts head back and like cover his mouth. Yeah.
00:49:47
Speaker
Over the top type thing, which is great. uh trobio classic pulls up notes um
00:50:00
Speaker
ah did you ever meet the what do you call them like the merchant bugs the traveling merchant bugs yeah yeah i like them um I love when you meet the first one. he's He's very... Like, you're expecting these kind of upbeat bug English simlish voices.
00:50:21
Speaker
And he just is surprisingly like, david the b to be and I wasn't expecting that from him. And then you're going through the dialogue and he's like, all right, I'll see you later. And then just kind of like lightly jetpacks off. He just flies off. Yeah, you're like...
00:50:36
Speaker
And he has like a massive pack on too. That's the funny thing about it is he's a he's a courier bug, right? He's yeah bringing deliveries to the shop cubes. um I was just like, dang, I wish I could do that. But this also explains why this bug has the job to be a courier in a absolutely desolate, dangerous world.
00:50:54
Speaker
um If you just fly around with a massive pack on your back, yeah, I guess you're fine. um That was very funny. Did you get a chance to complete Bell Horns?
00:51:07
Speaker
Bell Homes? No.
00:51:11
Speaker
I have it literally open here. It's Bell something, right? yeah the The Bell settlement. Bell Heart. Wow. bell heartt Yeah. H-I-R-T.
00:51:22
Speaker
I did. um think I did most of the wishes there. um and And including the improvement one, I believe. Um, is there a particular wish you were talking about?
00:51:36
Speaker
Did you unlock Bell home? Oh, yeah. Oh, wait, Bell home. Oh, yeah. So this is the one where you start building the settlement up to like the top right of the map near the. ah
00:51:48
Speaker
The actual end of the game, like spatially, it's close to the end of the game, right? No, no, not at all. Am I thinking of the first chapel?
00:51:59
Speaker
I think you're thinking of the fleas. There's another area that's like you ring the bell and then start establishing a settlement. That's the one I'm thinking of. Oh, no, that's that's for Shrine.
00:52:11
Speaker
Oh, for first Shrine. Yeah, yeah. um Then I have no idea. OK, so Bell Home, if you kind of climb up Bell Heart, you'll see some other shops and buildings there, of one of which looks like broken and fallen over.
00:52:27
Speaker
But they're like, hey, thanks for helping out a lot. Do you want to live here? um And essentially, that becomes ah your home that you can go and enter. And then you can upgrade it to be like, oh, I want to have a bed.
00:52:40
Speaker
i want to have a spa. I want to have my collectibles. Oh, OK. And again, kind of similar to Dark Souls and having Firelink Shrine be that here's my little safe hub.
00:52:53
Speaker
I think they do a good job here of, hey, this is a very desolate environment. Shit's real bad. But it's always nice to come home and just like... ah here's my fa la la, si la la, guy who's a welcoming me back. And then I go up and have a soak. And then it's that nice little respite from the world.
00:53:16
Speaker
Oh, yeah. That's fair. Yeah, I didn't experience that. Can't relate. It was just the world. no respite. um um That is cool. And I mean, certain things like this. I think this is the reason the game
Development Time and Game Quality
00:53:30
Speaker
took six years.
00:53:30
Speaker
Oh, you're like all right let's give people a personal home they can customize apparently um but i mean i'm not opposed to it right it's like i'm not i'm i'm joking when i say this is kind of the reason it took six years i do believe to a certain extent they really just couldn't determine when they were done working on it and they didn't want to disappoint people so they kept adding things that's the other aspect of dark souls 2 to be completely honest there are a billion bosses in this game um which was one of the notable things about Dark Souls 2.
00:54:04
Speaker
um But yeah, unlike Dark Souls 2, which was rushed and was done in like a year and a half or some nonsense like that. It was crazy. um Silksong, I really got the im impression that they put a lot of thought into all of the decisions they made for it.
00:54:23
Speaker
And I don't agree with all of the decisions. But I understand them and I don't think they were made under like duress or because they just didn't have time to do it right.
00:54:35
Speaker
um I do basically think that this is basically the best that Team Cherry can do, ah which is good. Yeah, i I think it's doing pretty okay review wise.
00:54:49
Speaker
um i posted the link. So that that's not that's underselling it enough. All right, 91 top critic average, 97% critics recommend, and 100 player rating. I don't know how they calculate player rating. I did see there were some negative player reviews there, but I think it's overwhelmingly people.
00:55:10
Speaker
Yeah. appreciating the game. That's the reason it shows 100 for open credit.
00:55:16
Speaker
So yeah, the game's pretty good. Yeah,
00:55:21
Speaker
yeah yeah they definitely have a fuck ton of polish on this.
00:55:29
Speaker
Yeah, no arguments. I think it suits it for like how immersive it is. They definitely added more cutscenes too. Yeah, the cutscenes are really nice. They're like...
00:55:41
Speaker
grab the Grab the final fantasy Advent children people. Made them make this one, I guess. um No, even the opening cutscene where it's like ah hornet's abduction and like the inspelled bell carriage thing.
00:55:57
Speaker
It's not like a bell. It's more like a pumpkin-esque. I don't know. It's like a ah large ornate cage. Yeah, yeah. Spherical nature.
00:56:09
Speaker
Even that was like very high quality. And a lot of the boss designs are ah pretty high quality. like We've come a long way from like the first Hollow Knight boss, which was just a guy with a big hammer and armor. It was like Dark Souls, basically. um like There were some very, very cool bosses in this game.
00:56:32
Speaker
I think... that it's an excellent game for what it is it's just the question of whether you recommend it to a certain person or not yeah it's like jake was saying earlier with his ah clarification i think you do need to like challenge because there's not a a happy path to go through there will be the hard gates where you just get checked um and i entirely understand if you get to buy a water and you're like fuck this i'm out um i think buy a water is the most hated area from people i've talked to and one of the worst runbacks too
00:57:19
Speaker
yeah Which i do want to I do want to talk about this because this is actually my biggest gripe basically with the game is if I clear an area in any game, I want a checkpoint.
Checkpoints and Game Balance
00:57:31
Speaker
if i If I clear any struggle, give me a checkpoint. You can call me a casual. You can say not all games should work that way. I understand. I respect your opinion. I disagree with it, though.
00:57:43
Speaker
Give me a checkpoint because I never want to do the same challenge twice just because... you think that I should. Um, that is not interesting gameplay for me.
00:57:55
Speaker
Um, and so there, when we're using the term run back specifically for this game, usually that entails, you have a respawn point, usually a bench. And from that respawn point, you have to go through ah gauntlet or you have to go through a jumping puzzle, uh, a challenge of some sort, and then get to your destination.
00:58:20
Speaker
um And specifically in Silksong, there are several runbacks where it's like you're going to be spending a minute, which doesn't seem like a long time, but it's just it's tacked on to every single boss attempt.
00:58:34
Speaker
Where you need to do this before you get back to the boss and this is a conscious decision on their part because again six years they're not like oh crap we forgot to put like benches outside of every boss arena like um and Hollow Knight to their credit did this as well like it had run backs as well but those bosses were easier so I was spending less time running back and Hollow Knight there.
00:59:00
Speaker
um So the really the question I think comes down back to what what do the runbacks add to Silksong to justify their inclusion?
00:59:11
Speaker
Because we already know... The only one I could remotely try and argue as devil's advocate is... is
00:59:24
Speaker
essentially like warming you up for the boss. Right. Because if you keep going in, you're obviously going to keep slamming yourself in the same moves. um But having the run back a little bit reminds you like, hey, this is how my character moves and attacks.
00:59:41
Speaker
before you're forced in to figure that out on the fly during the fight. Right. But again, that's my stretch case. Uh-huh. Being very generous.
00:59:52
Speaker
Yeah. And I, I do think that's fair. I've thought of a similar sort of devil's advocate take, which is basically, it's a forced cool down period to prevent like a Zerg rush.
01:00:03
Speaker
Um, um, And i think that someone can make an argument for that. I just disagree with it because the number of times I made the exact same jumps, the exact same wall clings, you know, jumping over your spikes, running past enemies.
01:00:21
Speaker
Well, we had the lies of P episode. i remember highlighting this because any other souls like that I've ever played in my fucking life. There's the run back. yeah it's hey you died you spawn here get back there try killing that thing again and then lies of p i remember like in the demo i went up to like the the boss store where i died i was like oh this sucks oh oh look my stuff's here outside the door did they fuck up yeah it's but it wasn't a bad design choice it's something i really liked having um
01:00:59
Speaker
And it's interesting, like, how do the contemporaries handle this? Right. Because you mentioned run back exists in like all the Souls games. That's true. and Until Elden Ring. Elden Ring introduced the Stakes America and very few of those bosses have any real run back at all.
01:01:16
Speaker
Like you can almost retry any boss in that game pretty quickly. There's a couple that have like, you know, a little bit of a run back. um But again, overall, Elden Ring is easier than Silksong.
01:01:27
Speaker
Um, it's kind of just the way it is. So it's like there's a combination of they're reducing the amount of time spent between attempts and then the attempts are less difficult. Silksong is kind of there in a space where I do not think it's the sweet zone, the sweet spot, which is if you suck at this game, as I consider that I do.
01:01:46
Speaker
And sometimes I get stuck in my head or I'm not like playing at my best performance for the game. i'm making dumb mistakes and things like that. I'm just running back and running back and running back and running back.
01:01:59
Speaker
and In this scenario, it's just not fun is basically what it comes down to. I'm just not enjoying it. It's the reason I'm taking a break from the game right now is I'm just tired of redoing the same segments because this is a challenging platforming section. And I hate platforming. Like if if you guys recall when we were talking, I have bad news for you. Well, when we were talking about Hollow Knight, I was like,
01:02:30
Speaker
This is my favorite platformer of all time. I still consider that to be true. It's been a while since I played it. Hopefully my opinion hasn't changed so much, but it's because like the platforming. Was largely optional path of pain and Hollow Knight, not mandatory.
01:02:47
Speaker
um There's a bunch of stuff where you just didn't have to do it if you didn't want 100% that game. And if you were in it for the story and you you're in it for the boss fights pop off, it's it's right there in front of you. It's going to be accessible.
01:02:59
Speaker
Because they've raised the difficulty in Silksong, it really feels like the entire game is maybe not the entire game. I'll take that back. So much of the game is pushed into that path of pain territory where it's like these are meant to be massive challenges.
01:03:14
Speaker
And if you want to just kind of be challenged a bit, but see progress. um You have to have gotten better since Hollow Knight, if you expect to ah see that same level of success.
01:03:29
Speaker
And so this is why they should have put a bench outside of every boss arena. Don't make me redo the segment. We've moved so far since checkpoints in first person shooters, you know, 20 years ago.
01:03:43
Speaker
Honestly, if it's not already there in the forum, you could post something in the community that be like, hey, I need a quick mod. Just benches outside every boss. So it does exist.
01:03:54
Speaker
um I actually know this exists. I didn't install it, but I read about it. um It's called Stakes of America. And it literally let literally lets you put down a respawn point.
01:04:06
Speaker
You're just like, well, however you want to use this to cheese challenges or whatever, it doesn't have to be outside of a boss arena. It could just be before a difficult platforming section or something.
01:04:19
Speaker
You can just set your own respawn point. And... That's fair. ah Sucks if you're on consoles. I mean... That sucks if you did it weirdly ah right over spikes. Yes, right? Like, it does seem like something you could you could cause issues with, but...
01:04:37
Speaker
um I mean, yeah, obviously i can't judge that for within the context of the overall game because you don't judge a game based off the
Mods and Difficulty Adjustments
01:04:47
Speaker
mods that are available. Right.
01:04:48
Speaker
True. um But. Yeah, i was just saying for your own your own personal thing. And this is currently blocking you on the thing. This is the issue, though, right? This is the same reason was fighting the savage beast fly for so so long.
01:05:07
Speaker
It's like losing. right You install this mod and yes, it's going to make the game easier. But you've now lost because all every one of your friends that's completed the game that didn't use this mod has completed it at a higher difficulty than you did.
01:05:22
Speaker
And I'm never going to be like Lando. Right. I'm not going still soul anything. Don't touch that with a 10 foot pole. um But I would still like to at least clear the expected difficulty someday.
01:05:38
Speaker
mean, you can have that be on a a later run too. That's true. It is true. Like, I really like it as like a personal achievement thing because it's nice to be like, I beat Genichiro um type things. Like, i've I've conquered this game. Yeah.
01:06:00
Speaker
But
01:06:03
Speaker
I mean, outside of that, I always assume that Landon's going to do so a more challenging version of something. Yeah, and that's fair. i think I think beating the game as it was intended, at its intended difficulty, there is some amount of personal accomplishment and prestige in that.
01:06:20
Speaker
If you start cheating or using mods that make the game easier, um obviously, you probably if you're a competitive person, you're just not going to be as fulfilled. right That's basically all I'm saying.
01:06:33
Speaker
Um, and that being said, if you're just interested in playing through like for the music and the atmosphere and seeing the boss fights and stuff like that, then you could just use one of these mods and play through it. and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
01:06:48
Speaker
Um, but you could also just like watch it on YouTube. Like I, I watched a story recap that explained a lot of things. And if you're not interested in the gameplay and,
01:07:01
Speaker
pi pushing yourself to beat these bosses um it's probably just not the game for you and yeah I don't think I've ever had that type of experience where i was like oh I want to play this thing but this thing in the game is preventing me from that versus I just that's not the type of game that I enjoy playing or I'm not interested in the theme or what they're trying to do so much right I just wouldn't get it versus everyone says
Player Adaptation and Recommendations
01:07:34
Speaker
this is good. I'm going to get it.
01:07:35
Speaker
This is not what I want. Right. And I think this is the difference between, um something like the stakes of America mod. And then just to yourself, you're saying, I'm only going to place this before a boss start trigger.
01:07:50
Speaker
Um, Or being like, OK, this is the Stakes America mod and I'm going to place this every time I'm in a so a safe spot between jumps in a platforming section or something like that. Right.
01:08:02
Speaker
um There's a difference, I guess, in like how you're using it to mitigate the game. Because in my in my mind, skipping a run back that I know I can do. That doesn't matter.
01:08:13
Speaker
Right. I I've done it. um I'm just saving myself time. But like turning on invulnerability in a boss fight, that's a different thing, right? home I mean, yeah, I feel like, oh my, my dog apparently needs so much attention. So if you guys are having trouble hearing me, it's because my right my entire right arm is now busy.
01:08:38
Speaker
More than usual. yeah if All right. I haven't pet her as much. I'll admit it. um What was this saying? We were talking about the difference between boss respawn points and cheating overall.
01:08:56
Speaker
But yeah, it's who who the fuck cares? Yeah. playing game Enjoy the game, ah whatever you want to do with it or whatever you want to set for your own enjoyment. By all means.
01:09:06
Speaker
um I'm somebody who likes to do stuff without help in a run as well, which is why for Elden Ring, I played through initially just trying some NPC quests and And then I'm like, OK, let's do it without anybody. Anybody's help. Sets aside mimic tear while crying. I think it's a Bible verse, right? It's like and part of ah growing as you leave your family and you ah leave the mimic tear behind off and mature.
01:09:37
Speaker
oh I will go purvey my own. But
01:09:43
Speaker
yeah, like I like that as a personal accomplishment thing. um So I try and do that for any type of Souls-esque like game or this type of game where it's more boss focused.
01:09:56
Speaker
I still haven't done all the bosses even. There's a lot. There are so many. Some of them you can actually lock yourself out to if you progress the main story too far. um Love that. No, I don't. But I mean, it's not a massive impact to me right now.
01:10:10
Speaker
And these are all games where like you could play through it again, right? There's a speed runner achievement for beating the game in five hours. So yeah, there's a different holiday as well. yeah God bless him for that.
01:10:23
Speaker
But yeah, I
01:10:27
Speaker
It's not something I want to ever be good at. i just want to be like, I made, I made it to the other side. Yeah. You, you completed the intended challenge, right? Yeah. I think that's entirely fair.
01:10:39
Speaker
I think we're all just trying to get to completion. Speaking of the completion of this episode sponsored by, ah man, we really should get sponsors. Anyways, if you're interested in sponsoring, reach out socials in the description.
01:10:51
Speaker
Thank you guys for waiting six years for this episode. It's been, it's been a long time. And the crazy thing is... We had the podcast before Silksong was announced.
01:11:04
Speaker
Um, but ultimately we made it right. This was the episode we were going for. um let us know, you know, how, how are you guys enjoying Silksong? If you bought it, have you played it?
01:11:15
Speaker
Are you part of this? If you bought it and you haven't played it, what's up? How's it going? What's wrong? I did. take I actually bought it like the day it came out and I didn't play it for like, there's a lane party that weekend. It took me a while to launch it.
01:11:29
Speaker
Um, Are you part of the 60% of people who played like the minimum amount of time on Steam to be counted in statistics that beat The Last Judge?
Closing Remarks and Community Engagement
01:11:39
Speaker
um This many weeks on? Are you part of the 40% of people who did play it long long enough and then has not beaten The Last Judge?
01:11:48
Speaker
he ah but yeah By the way, you don't have to beat The Last Judge. Just saying. um Crazy game. um But yes, hats off to Team Cherry.
01:12:00
Speaker
Did a great job. And yeah. Also, I want to say again, if if the whole universe interests you and you're like, hey, honestly, this difficulty thing, not my jam.
01:12:15
Speaker
Find a YouTuber or a streamer you like. Oh, yeah. Or just watch a friend play it because you can still appreciate a lot of the work they put into the art design, the sound design.
01:12:26
Speaker
hmm. ah The lore too, which we didn't touch on at all in this entire episode. um But there is a lot going on in the Hollow Knight universe. and i So anyway, there's Silk.
01:12:39
Speaker
And then there's Song. There you go. Not there's Silk in my Song, you know? o jesusez Let's look up in the Song. But anyways, thank you guys for listening. And as always, we'll see you in the next one.
01:12:51
Speaker
Have a good