Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The elegance of movement in Silksong

theahura.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 358 posts

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#221

Post by slightwinder »

sfn42 wrote: post #214
slightwinder wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you went to Hunter's March as soon as you found it you probably had a bad time but going in there later on was honestly pretty easy. That's probably a significant part, too. Silksong is more open than HK, where the lack of abilities put a natural wall around the areas which are too hard at that point of time. But in SK you can easily stumble into areas where you are not supposed to be, which can be frustrating.

Yeah, that might be a potential improvement. They did put a really big and mean doorman outside which worked on me, but putting another obstacle there as well like an air vent or climbable wall might have been better. You can go there before you even get the hover ability, and I totally see how that would be demoralizing.

Yes, that doorman is a pretty bad Idea, because you can beat him. And beating him is not even a matter of skill or ability, but more about luck and whether you can figure out the trick fast enough before you are losing motivation.

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#222

Post by Moomoomoo309 »

SyrupThinker wrote: post #150
marginalia_nu wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You arguably shouldn't be grinding a boss for several hours. The game is taxing and bashing your head against the wall for several hours will just mean you get sloppier and prolong the losing streak. Take a 15 min break, either go somewhere else in game or better still, in real life. It really makes a world of difference. Dying over and over again from increasingly sloppy mistakes is not anyone's idea of fun. This is…

> You arguably shouldn't be grinding a boss for several hours. I agree, unfortunately I'm not even grinding the boss, I am grinding the path to the boss. > Learning to identify this as a sign to step away is a very good life skill. Which is why I stopped playing the game instead of letting it waste my time, like many others :) > Take a 15 min break, either go somewhere else in game or better still, in real life. It r…

Something I think people don't realize is why there's a runback. Primarily, it's there to teach you how to counter enemy attacks, especially common ones, and it helps you stockpile money so you don't need to farm for it. Usually, on the runback, there's enemies that drop rosaries. If you kill them every time, you'll get really good at fighting them and you'll get money each time, so the more you die to the boss, the more money you build up, which means when you do finally beat the boss, you'll have lots of money saved up, and can buy some stuff.

And don't feel bad if you are at 1 health and you have tons of money and you save scum and quit to go back to the bench and try again so you don't lose the money - it's okay, having to grind that money again is silly.

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#223

Post by npteljes »

rkomorn wrote: post #209
npteljes wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same for me. I appreciate stories and standard gameplay loops more than bossfights. I did stumble upon a game where I enjoy the bossfights though - in V Rising. There is a TON of bosses in the game, but the game is so full of quality of life stuff that even dying repeatedly is not a big deal. I generally dislike when my time is a stake in the game. I have so little of it in the first place, I don't like risking it in…

Yeah. Although maybe I can't say my time is that precious because I'm somehow pretty happy to grind through hours of quests. Heck, I even seem to like job-like games (Hardspace Shipbreaker was amazing to me). I guess the "if you don't pass this, start over!" aspect of boss fights is the thing that irks me.

Yeah... you're right. Ultimately it's not that my time is precious, it's that I get no satisfaction of beating a boss. I hate how overpowered are with scripted stuff, for example, and how they break most game mechanics introduced so far. And so, my time spent seems to be wasted.

Looking at how other people describe their experience, it seems like the figuring out part brings them joy. I usually have that with the core game mechanics themselves. The "knowledge" I get seems useful here, because I get to apply it to the rest of the game, but learning the boss mechanics seems like a throwaway thing, and I think this bothers me.

I also don't enjoy replaying parts of the game, especially as a punishment, especially when the replayed part had nothing to do with the my failure itself - like clearing the trash before a boss, or replaying parts of the bossfight before the crucial part, or getting back to the boss' place from a checkpoint. Such a slog!

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#225

Post by throw4847285 »

I guess somebody found a way to get the Silksong controversy onto Hackernews. Can't say I'm surprised.

My take is, it's a good game and I'm enjoying it. I suspect the only reason it's generating so many takes is that it was so spectacularly overhyped that it cannot possibly live up to how much it has been built up. And that enthusiasm, which started within a specific niche fanbase, has spilled out onto the internet at large in such a way that that is unsustainable.

I bet if we all wait a year, the back and forth will die down and we'll be left with a game that gets similar acclaim to Hollow Knight. People subconsciously think about hype on the same 1-10 scale as a review, but hype can drive a video game score well into the teens or 20s. Then even a 10 feels like a disappointment.

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#226

Post by Konnstann »

dfxm12 wrote: post #203
furyofantares wrote: post #81

> Silksong as a game should not exist. It is so brutally difficult that it stretches the very definition of the word "game". Games are supposed to be fun. They are meant to delight with their whimsy. Sometimes, yes, they are meant to be challenging. But that challenge is in service of fun. Games, more than any other form of entertainment, offer skill challenges. As they've become more popular they've gotten better ab…

After reactions to Elden Ring, I can't blindly trust people saying a game is not enjoyable because it is too "difficult".

Elden Ring is a great example of a game where the difficulty is largely self-imposed, if you play using all the tools the devs give you like summons, magic, certain weapons, etc the game becomes almost trivialized. Not saying that's a bad thing necessarily, in fact the opposite, I think FromSoft's "difficulty slider" replacement is one of the best ways of going about it, however I think the difficulty overall is overstated by the "real souls players" who hamper themselves so as to experience all of the mechanics.

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#227

Post by Levitz »

cainxinth wrote: post #201
Miraltar wrote: post #197

> The only other videogames that have this much focus on movement alone are the Mario 3D platformers — Mario 64, Mario Sunshine, Mario Galaxy 1 and 2, and Mario Odyssey. Right. Cause you know all the games that exist. I know it's meant as a superlative and not to be interpreted literally but I hate this type of statements.

As soon as I read that I thought: this reviewer hasn’t played the Ori series.

Well I have, I don't think there is as much focus on movement there. Ori relies a lot on the grapple dash, there's way WAY less freedom in terms of movement, which is what the writer is going for when talking about 3d mario games, which are known for that.

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#228

Post by FumblingBear »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #187
pharrington wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope! Alot of people just really love the game. I'm one of them! I only heard about the game after its release, and the first time I played it was in during the end of 2017. The only expectations I had for it were that it was a difficult exploration game. What captivated me was the music, the level design, getting lost before realizing what exploration options were available to me - I could go on forever about the ga…

> Nope! Alot of people just really love the game. I'm one of them! I only heard about the game after its release, and the first time I played it was in during the end of 2017. Considering it released a couple of days ago, I don't see how this can be true.

They're referring to Hollow Knight, not Silksong.

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#229

Post by rkomorn »

npteljes wrote: post #223
rkomorn wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. Although maybe I can't say my time is that precious because I'm somehow pretty happy to grind through hours of quests. Heck, I even seem to like job-like games (Hardspace Shipbreaker was amazing to me). I guess the "if you don't pass this, start over!" aspect of boss fights is the thing that irks me.

Yeah... you're right. Ultimately it's not that my time is precious, it's that I get no satisfaction of beating a boss. I hate how overpowered are with scripted stuff, for example, and how they break most game mechanics introduced so far. And so, my time spent seems to be wasted. Looking at how other people describe their experience, it seems like the figuring out part brings them joy. I usually have that with the cor…

I think we are 100% on the same page, but I wanna share one last pet peeve for the road. :D

You beat the boss! BUT WAIT!!! It's not actually dead!

And then you say "wow, no way!" ironically as you watch its health bar refill.

Who could ever have expected this?!

Post reply on HN