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The elegance of movement in Silksong

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Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#271

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 a…

> 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.

Sounds great, because I think it doesn't get much better than that.

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#272
post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are welcome to your opinion. If you don't like Hollow Knight, that's fine. I was just pointing to proof that it is widely regarded, by most (but not all ) people, as one of the best video games of all time, hence why the sequel got so much hype.

> I was just pointing to proof that it is widely regarded, by most (but not all ) people, as one of the best video games of all time, hence why the sequel got so much hype. My point is exactly that I don't think most people think of things being "the best" in terms of lists that large, even most people who review things for a living. I'd be fine if you used that list as support for most people considering it to be on…

100 games over 40 years is not a lot. There's 23 games over the past decade on that list, Hollow Knight being one of them. If being one of the top 23 over the span of 10 years of something doesn't make it "one of the best"[0] in your book, you are entitled to think that. I'm just pointing out that most people believe it was one of the best. You can argue that you are right and the 500,000 concurrent Silksong players on Steam, plus the millions more on Switch/PS/XBox, are wrong, but frankly you're unlikely to convince me.

[0] By comparison, the Pro Football Hall of Fame had 28 inductees since 2022 -- are you willing to argue that being in the HoF doesn't make you one of the best?

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spoilers: Silksong has arenas with 3 mobs that throw discs plus you. Idk about you, but I can't track 7 things moving at once. This isn't fun. Nor is it challenging, you just have to get lucky. I like Silksong, but the only way some the bosses were made challenging was because of constant adds. Hollow Knight rarely had this.

The older I get the more I find boss fights off putting. I get literally zero satisfaction out of learning whatever pattern you have to learn to perform whatever correct action, at the correct time, you need to defeat a particular boss. It's just a time consuming chore. Edit: the "boss" escape sequences in the Ori games were also entirely frustrating and and unsatisfying to me.

Yeah.. I've actually stopped playing games because of boss fights. In fairness, I generally don't like Single Player games, so the threshold for me to just quit one is actually pretty low, but an annoying Boss Fight is a surefire way to do so.

I played through Cyberpunk, and for each boss fight I just flipped the difficulty to the easiest possible setting. It's just not fun to me.

EDIT: apart from the bossfights in Cyberpunk, I actually did enjoy the game. Took me about 6 months to finish it though lol. (no DLC, and started about a year ago so when it was actually stable & playable).

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#274
post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was just pointing to proof that it is widely regarded, by most (but not all ) people, as one of the best video games of all time, hence why the sequel got so much hype. My point is exactly that I don't think most people think of things being "the best" in terms of lists that large, even most people who review things for a living. I'd be fine if you used that list as support for most people considering it to be on…

100 games over 40 years is not a lot. There's 23 games over the past decade on that list, Hollow Knight being one of them. If being one of the top 23 over the span of 10 years of something doesn't make it "one of the best"[0] in your book, you are entitled to think that. I'm just pointing out that most people believe it was one of the best. You can argue that you are right and the 500,000 concurrent Silksong players…

> 100 games over 40 years is not a lot.

You continue to miss my point, as your comment about concurrent player count indicates. I think when you ask people to come up with a list of what they'd consider the best of something, most would max out somewhere between five and ten. Most people don't think of things along the lines of the AFI 100 Best Films list. They think in much smaller categories.

> If being one of the top 23 over the span of 10 years of something doesn't make it "one of the best" in your book, you are entitled to think that.

That article doesn't include any ranking as far as I could see, and your use of that article is specifically the thing I'm taking issue with in this thread. Are you referring to a different source?

> By comparison, the Pro Football Hall of Fame had 28 inductees since 2022 -- are you willing to argue that being in the HoF doesn't make you one of the best?

I'm willing to argue that judging something as being "one of the best" because it's in a list of a hundred things isn't very different from saying something is one of the best because it's in a list of a thousand things. I think most people--critics included--don't rank things in such large numbers, and as the numbers get larger then what little meaning the term had to start with diminishes even further.

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?!

Yeah, I hate that shit as well. It's one of the reasons why I feel no satisfaction after beating a boss. I had so many experiences where they have pulled a "Somehow, Palpatine returned" that I just don't trust the happiness sequence that usually follows a bossfight.

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#276

> 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…

I think if you place games in the category as tourism in so far as the "safari experience", then it makes decisions clearer that the difficulty is part of the experience as the artist's intention. Silksong is not particularly that hard either with retrospect to the wider genre with staples like Megaman.

Is Mega Man a metroidvania? I could kinda see it.

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#277

> 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…

> some games, like Hollow Knight and Silksong, achieve excellence at both.

I disagree. I appreciate the skill that went into making Hollow Knight, but to me it felt too much like work, too repetitive, too grindy, too difficult. Not an enjoyable experience for me at all :(

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#278
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I played Hollow Knight. I don’t recall if I defeated a single boss. I must have done a couple but several of the first you were meant to defeat remained unchallenged. There are non boss fights that get more elaborate as you go, and let you pick up some new skills and abilities. Another one like this that shouldn’t have been was Orie and the blind forest. If you play it on story mode, which I did because it was great…

Regarding controls, I have to play precise 2D games with a d-pad or I get immediately frustrated— that said, it was odd playing most of Celeste that way and then having to switch back to the thumbstick for the section at the end with the bubble comets.

Precision platformers are generally _much_ easier with the d-pad. Since hitting some such parts in Silksong, I've exclusively switched over to it.

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#279

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…

I'll echo how good V Rising is. I don't even like this entire genre (base building grindy survival), but I had a blast in this game. I eventually gave up when managing my castle became too much of an annoying chore (omg I have to tear everything down and rebuild it all AGAIN because now I don't have enough space in the required room to place this new crafting bench or whatever ... OMG PLEASE NO) but the world explora…

Yeah, I play with my friend and we had good luck with the castle placement. First castle was of course in the first zone, and when we proceeded into the second, we settled in basically the very center of the map, a bit toward the top. That turned out to be a fine location, as on horseback, nothing was too far. Castle size as well, initially I built is to just fit the existing infra, but when I sensed that there are going to be additions, I built it a bit larger than it needed to be, and now we can fit everything, especially with the little in-house teleports.

I totally feel your way of beating the game on normal, and the bosses on easy. I did that with Persona 5 at points, and Unicorn Overlord as well. I really appreciate that games provide this option.

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#280

I won't play action games without an easy mode anymore. I've beaten all Dark Souls games and I just got tired of proving myself over and over. Nowadays I just want mild challenge and the certainty I will win after trying a couple of times.

I want either an easy mode or just let me skip a boss battle after a few tries. There’s also an accessibility aspect to it. Accommodation for players who may have different physical capabilities is just the right thing to do.

Does James Joyce's Ulysses need an easy mode too?
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