Hollow Knight: Silksong Review: Yes, It Will Hurt You. Yes, You Will Love It.

I feel like I've been on this journey for years. I've written about the memes, the agonizing silence, the surprise release date, the day it literally broke Steam, and the predictable civil war that erupted over its difficulty. Now, after a little over 20 hours, with the credits rolled and my hands still aching, it's finally time to render a final verdict.

Let's just get this out of the way: Hollow Knight: Silksong is a masterpiece. It takes the perfect foundation of its predecessor and builds a towering, magnificent spire on top of it. It is a sequel that is better than the original in every conceivable way. It's also a game that will chew you up, spit you out, and leave you begging for more. It is, simply put, essential.

A World That Breathes (and Tries to Kill You)

The first thing that hits you is the sheer beauty of Pharloom. This isn't just a new map;, no, it's a living, breathing world with an amazing atmosphere. One moment you're captivated by the vibrant greenery of Moss Grotto, the next you feel the oppressive, melancholic dampness of Greymoor seeping into your soul.

The hand-drawn art is breathtaking, full of so many small details such as the way a bench sags under Hornet's weight, or the sand piling up on corpses in the Blasted Steps, that it's impossible not to just stop and stare. This is all held together by Christopher Larkin's world-class score. The music is a character in itself, from the fast-paced violins of your arrival to the haunting piano of Bone Bottom, it perfectly dictates the mood of every moment.

The Hunter, Not the Knight

Hornet is not the Knight. This is the most important thing you need to understand. She is a completely different beast, and the entire game has been rebuilt around her identity. She's a fast, fluid, and aggressive hunter, and controlling her feels like conducting a deadly ballet.

Her movement is a revelation. She automatically grabs and mantles ledges, her dash can be held into a full sprint, and her jumps are higher and floatier. Going back to the first game after this feels like trying to run through mud. The entire rhythm of exploration and combat has been accelerated, and it's exhilarating.

A New Arsenal for a New Kingdom

The customisation has been completely and brilliantly overhauled. The old Charm system is gone, replaced by Crests and Tools. Crests are like full loadouts or weapon types that can fundamentally change your entire moveset. One gives you the new angled pogo, while another can grant you a more traditional downward strike, just like the Knight's. It’s a huge improvement, encouraging you to swap entire playstyles rather than just min-maxing stats.

Tools are your consumable side-weapons, ranging from simple throwing pins to deployable buzzsaws that chew through enemies. They're replenished at benches using Shell Shards, adding a new layer of resource management to your exploration.

The Price of Hubris

Now, let's talk about the difficulty. Make no mistake: Silksong is significantly harder than Hollow Knight. The game's economy is stingier, forcing you to farm for Rosary Beads to unlock benches and fast travel.

The most jarring change is the prevalence of "two-mask damage." In the original, this was reserved for the toughest endgame encounters. Here, it's the new normal. Many standard enemies and almost all bosses will slice off two chunks of your health with a single hit. It's a deliberate choice that makes every single encounter, not just the boss fights, feel tense and meaningful yet also overly punishing, bordering on frustrating, at times.

The Agonizing Walk of Shame

This difficulty is compounded by the game's one, universally acknowledged flaw: the runbacks. The "walk of shame" from your last bench to the boss arena can be a grueling trek through tricky platforming and mobs designed to chip away at your health before you even get another attempt.

It’s a design choice that can feel more punishing than the bosses themselves. It's the one aspect of the game that can tip the scales from "challenging" to "tedious," testing your patience far more than your skill.

A Fair Fight, Every Time

But here's the crucial thing about the difficulty: it's (ALMOST) always fair. I was stuck on one boss for over an hour, dying more than thirty times, but not once did I feel cheated. Every death was my own damn fault.

The bosses in Silksong are incredibly designed. Their patterns are complex but learnable. The game gives you all the tools you need to succeed; it just demands that you master them. That feeling, when a boss's patterns finally click and you flawlessly dance around their attacks, is a high that few games can ever hope to achieve.

The Verdict

Silksong is a triumph. It’s a sequel that not only lives up to six years of impossible hype but surpasses it. It’s a more refined, more challenging, and more emotionally resonant experience than its predecessor, and it stands as one of the greatest Metroidvanias ever made. The punishing runbacks are a notable, sometimes infuriating flaw, but they are a small smudge on an otherwise perfect canvas.

Team Cherry has proven that they are masters of their craft. They took their time, ignored the hype, and delivered a game that is dense, beautiful, and built with a level of confidence and care that is all too rare in this industry. For twenty dollars, they have delivered an experience that puts most seventy-dollar games to shame. It was worth the wait.

Score: 9.7/10 A sequel that redefines its own legacy. It's a painful and close to perfect masterpiece.