Wow it's like the game is badly designed and expects you to read online what path to take, or alternatively just throw yourself against challenges until you win.
No.
I've never read anything online except gossip and tips on here and in a grill chat. I got
- one content hint (that there exists a permanent solution to the silk stealer question)
- one rule hint (it turns out crest upgrades are granted depending solely on the number of unlocked crest slots, which means I should've used the lockets I'd hoarded to unlock "useless" crests)
- and one outright answer (where the second silk heart is)
I sadquit over the latter because the game BETRAYED ME, it's too well hidden in an area you won't go through. But it's not a structural program with the game:
- I didn't actually need it, I needed to stop bashing my head against that one arena fight and go to Mount Fay.
- It's not a structural program with the game: to fix the silk heart problem the devs need to put some light effect on that one secret.
The game expects me to do whatever I want, and if I'm not having fun with a challenge, it expects me to leave and do something else.
I'll summarize the rants I posted here:
attempt 1
The very first time I played, I had some sort of visual glitch that wouldn't display the area of Lace's area attack. I got
really good at fighting Lace, but when phase two started, I was being randomly hit for two masks and didn't know how to avoid it. I thought it was intended and the game wanted me to finish the fight asap (or maybe get some sort of quest item?). I tried and tried and kept failing.
Then I saved up for the key and unlocked the door to the assrape area. Currently I'm at the end of act 2 with 2 sword upgrades, full tools, and 8 masks, and I still can't beat it. Back then I was trying to do it with 5 masks and nothing else. I didn't manage to kill much there, but I broke through to Far Fields, was very happy, and praised the game's design: I thought it was awesome to make the player traverse a hard area with no expectations to fight the enemies there. Wrongly, it turns out. There IS a place where you aren't supposed to fight much (Far Fields stronk ants, grab the beads and run) but it's just two guys, not a whole dangerous area.
Then I got trapped there by the big robot and ragequit because the rollback was to before the assrape area.
Then Sea of Sorrow was announced and I came back to look, and wow, Lace is easy!
attempt 2
Most of my initial problems with the game stemmed from
- not trusting the game to have fair challenges
- and not trusting myself to git gud good at the fair challenges.
Every time I thought "this is ass, I should go elsewhere", I should have actually dropped what I'd been doing and gone elsewhere.
- Assrape area I already mentioned. There's a tranny item there. I'm not a tranny, it has negative value for me except to contribute to game completion, it's useless and takes up a slot that can go to boomerangs or pimp pillows.
- Fighting the ants without a sword upgrade after Poshanka left: there's nothing particularly necessary in there.
- Tackling the big fly with no sword upgrades: the reward is a power I can't use.
- Fighting the two ants nearby was likewise retarded: the reward is money.
- I thought Mount Fay required a cold protection item and wished the devs had gone for the much better alternative of moving between safe warm areas. It turned out it was exactly what they'd done, I should've gone there immediately instead of waiting to find an item that doesn't exist.
And positive reinforcement:
- There is a training sequence to learn the angle jump, and I started out thinking "wtf this is torture, I wish I could've refunded that shit" but kept at it and completed the first challenge after 10 minutes or so.
- Scissor bugs were hard but got me an at the time necessary crest. (Now that I am better at the game, I don't need to go there straight away.)
- Crows are annoying, but the piss easy crow collection quest where you can kill one and quit to bench, rinse repeat, gives an amazing reward which helps to properly clear them for good.
- I dropped down an incandescent shaft expecting an arena ambush battle with lava in it and got the other half of a zone and a movement ability!
- Lots of quests (including multiple hunting/tracking quests, and the flea map) exist partially to guide the player to overlooked places.
Every mainline boss except Bell Beast is easy. (Whereas Hollow Knight did actually expect me to bash my face against the fat fuck and its fat minions; the easiest fight in Hollow Knight is so optional that you need to literally pick it every time.)
Wait, how do you tell which bosses and fights are mainline? It's all in the game!
A lot of weaver spires are labeled on maps. You see one, you have to go there. It's guaranteed that when you see a weaver spire, you will have everything required to easily win.
The Underworks spire is not labeled but instead shown to you in person behind a wall as you pass by, and you're directed there from Songclave
twice.
Songclave is on a map, you emerge into the citadel proper and
immediately get a massive detailed map of the citadel with Songclave labeled on it.
And there are mainline quests:
In the first act, going up into the citadel is easier than literally anything else. Tin Can is easy, Splinter is Easy, Hair Pick is easy, Roastie is easy, Double Faggots (technically act 2 but part of the same "going up" quest line) are easy.
In the second act, some optional quests are "required" but signposted.
For example, Cock Core all but requires Cling Grip (which you don't know about), but you go there through Songclave, which gives you the merchant quest, which gives Cling Grip. It also gets much, much easier with the double jump, which I avoided getting because I wrongly thought the devs were stupid and unoriginal (see Mount Fay, above).
Now, Mount Fay doesn't require a second sword upgrade directly (there's no fighting), but it all but requires the souffle, which I had to beat the two Moss Mothers for, and
that wasn't easy (or Trash Can's silk heart, which you have to beat Trash Can for, fiddly shit in the dark, I hate the dark). I think this is good, actually: good at jumping? do Cock Core; good at fighting? do Mount Fay; good at nothing? go
kill yourself play Life is Strange.
(I did Cock Core first on my second attempt and Mount Fay first on this third run.)
I also complained about the lack of money and the need to grind. I was wrong, I take that back. It turns out the not-retarded path balances money gain and there's always enough money.
# hecking valid
Some of my earlier complaints are still valid.
A few of the design decisions are "we need to do the opposite of what everyone loved in Hollow Knight", some changes are very welcome, others are neutralish, but the sum of them is conspicuous and contributes to my annoyance with changes for the "worse".
- dark wasteland to bright green area
- blue to red
- talking Stag to not-talking Bell Beast
- cautious male cartographer humming a pleasant tune to annoying fighting female niggerbug singing the equivalent of a Beyonce song
- undead infected corpses to enslaved living bugs
- journal Hunter to journal pooner
- recurring girl fencer boss: graceful Hornet to asshole Lace
- random pissfucks hitting for two masks (mostly good but tardrage-inducing)
- need a full bobbin to heal, healing is more strategic (good but tardrage-inducing)
- angled downward strike by default
- note: I don't think even a single angled strike is necessary to get a downward strike that's actually downward, but you don't know it on the first playthrough, this is the "do what yo're doing and go elsewhere" that's true but not believable
- some of the upgrades matter more the further you are in the game:
- one heart prevents soft locks, two hearts are ok/required, three hearts are awesome, four hearts are unstoppable
- one spool is nothing (and you almost always get them in halves), five spools are great
Murdering pilgrims for their beads (Poshanka) and clothes (fellow pilgrims) is tonally weird.
The Bell Beast is unjustifiably fucking hard for a mandatory boss and not learnable, you can get pushed aside by two balls falling your way in phase 2 and have the boss appear under you, with little time to evade. (It's not learnable because you soon get a movement ability and learn to rely on it, in the Bell Beast fight you're forced to walk.)
Fag mantises are grosser than xenophilic dykes, but on the other hand, the hardest ending in Hollow Knight centers on these dykes. On the third hand, an ending in Silksong centers on the rape baby. I'd say both games suck equally.
moar complaints:
- I fucking hate darkness
- Hornet's fits in the first area are extremely annoying on restarts
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Newish thing: I just noticed it was Hornet who goaded Sherma into going to the hospital. Sorry, Sherma, hang in there until I get another sword upgrade or two and the slicy wheel.
