“Hollow Knight” is, for lack of a better phrase, a ten out of ten. A masterpiece. A staple of the genre. Well, two popular modern sub-genres mashed together, but still. It’s a magical game with haunting music, an art style that hasn’t been matched nor topped, and enough discoveries and mysteries hidden around that it’s worth diving further into the madness and the fog.

“Hollow Knight: Silksong” is more of that, and that makes it a nine out of ten. But there’s just too many things changed that don’t work, weird design decisions, poor balancing, a broken economy, and enough nitpicks that it means this prequel doesn’t quite live up to the original.

Also using a point system to review art is degrading and incorrect.

I could go on and on about what this game does right, but that would be regurgitating almost all of what the first game does, and almost exactly in the same spots. What I want to talk about are the differences between the two because the things that differentiate “Silksong” make it worse.

The thing most people have talked about with regards to “Silksong” (as you can tell by all the angry YouTube thumbnails in your algorithm and the four Kotaku articles published this week) is the difficulty. The large difficulty spikes, the learning curve to the new platforming and pogo-ing, the placements of benches and lack thereof, the stingy rosary bead economy, and the maddening boss battles have all led to a recent patch by the developers to address some of the issues.

But I’m not sure you can patch some of those core issues like splitting up the currency into two (beads and bone shards) or the lack of benches that cause massive run backs to tough boss fights. Team Cherry could add in more options in the settings for accessibility reasons — that would be nice. They had enough time making this game to toss those in — it’s a pretty reasonable expectation in modern games. No excuse for the entire industry to not throw in some sliders so many more people can just get through these games regardless of their physical dexterity.

Nobody in this discussion needs to whip out their “street cred” on which games they’ve beaten or how many times they’ve gone through New Game Plus Seven of “Dark Souls III.” I just think that evaluating this on its own, and to its contemporary peer group, this game isn’t as special as the first one. If you strip away the memes and the long delays, it’s still a damn good Metroidvania Soulslike, but one that is hardcore enough that only fans of the genre would appreciate it beyond the gorgeous animation and score.

And if you want to suggest that the point of “Silksong” is that it’s hard and rewarding to overcome unfair obstacles and bad odds, then fine. But don’t tell me that having to equip a pin to show you moving around on the map is necessary. It’s not. You get two of those pins per crest, and it’s one of the most inconvenient things I can remember in game design history. It’s not like this is “Resident Evil,” and limited inventory management adding to the anxiety and fear elevates the horror. This is akin to iD Software not duct taping the flashlight to your gun in “Doom 3,” and then later reverting their horribly dumb decision.

It’s this kind of aggravating shit that diminishes an otherwise delightful game.

And don’t get me started on paying for temporary benches! My god, if Hidetaka Miyazaki found out every bonfire in any Souls game would cost $0.99 a pop. “Silksong” doesn’t reward the player for big fights with any rosary beads to pay for the massively expensive badges and pins, most of them aren’t even worth it to use, and there is zero incentive to parry because it doesn’t get you anything. And when you’re trapped in some of these extremely long multi-wave battles that go on forever, it would be nice to feel good after completing hurdles instead of exhausted.

This is a much harsher game both literally and figuratively. The tone, the levels, the story, the music, and the cruel nature of the combat (which is extra hard — did I mention that already?). This is maybe the most challenging 2D game I’ve ever played. I’m struggling to come up with a more brutal example besides NES platformers meant to chew through quarters. But if this is the game they wanted to make, then that’s fine. I just don’t have to love it nor finish it.

And a few quick notes to end on: Why are there two fast travel systems now with one of them being bad? Why is the Y button used for basically nothing besides opening doors, when RB is used for three different attacks? Why do I have to grind and farm bone shards like this is “Bloodborne” and blood vials? And why are there so many obtuse puzzles and gimmicks that I have to Google?

This had the potential to be one of the all-time greats, and so far it is great, but just great. Nothing more. I’ve been playing it non-stop for 30+ hours, looking up all of its secrets, and obsessing over every corner of the map, but it was much more rewarding and revealing with the first game. Mostly because it didn’t stiff arm me at every turn like “Silksong” does.

I’d recommend playing it, especially for such a low price, but just know what you’re getting into. The first game was an easy blind recommend, and this is not.

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“Hollow Knight: Silksong” is available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

Image credit: “Hollow Knight: Silksong,” Team Cherry