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The elegance of movement in Silksong

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Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#321

Post by rkomorn »

Balinares wrote: post #302
rkomorn wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I had a sobering experience with one of the Hollow Knight optional bosses, Nightmare King Grimm. After a few tries, and getting demolished in a few seconds by its relentless onslaught of attacks that span much of the screen, I realized that I'm simply too old and too slow to beat this boss. No regrets, I've had a great run -- my gaming life started back in the days of analog TV Pong "consoles". But my reflexes just a…

Sun?!

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#322

Post by rimunroe »

mjr00 wrote: post #313
vunderba wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I wouldn't necessarily consider it better, the sequel to "Ori and the Blind Forest", "Ori and the Will of the Wisps" is easily on the same level as Hollow Knight.

Ori + its sequel are not on the same level as HK, in my opinion. The combat in the original is really bad/way too easy, and the exploration is just okay. The sequel drastically improved the combat, but the map is significantly worse; it's essentially just a "hub and spoke" where you go to one of 4 (IIRC) separate disconnected areas, grab the powerup which does more or less nothing in the other areas, use it to finish…

> The combat in the original is really bad/way too easy, and the exploration is just okay

Personally I find combat to be one of the less important aspects of Metroidvanias. I prefer the main source of difficulty coming from platforming around environmental hazards.

I felt like exploration in Hollow Knight was a bit too broad, and lead to too much unnecessary backtracking. Backtracking is a balance. It's a staple of Metroidvanias, but if the backtracking search space is large enough and places aren't distinctive enough then the search for a previously insurmountable obstacle can start feeling like looking for a needle in a haystack. That was my experience in Hollow Knight, and something I felt like the first Ori game did better.

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#323

Post by criddell »

buellerbueller wrote: post #280
criddell wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Definitely! A story mode in a game lets everybody play through the same way that a braille or audio edition of Ulysses makes the text of Joyce's book available to people who can't see.

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#324

Post by sfn42 »

ziml77 wrote: post #312
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.

What's also frustrating is not knowing if I've walked into an area that is hard because I'm not really supposed to be there yet or if it's hard because I'm just trash at the game. I ran in circles for way too long at the start of the game because I kept thinking I was going the wrong way due to entering a different named zone without finding any objective in the first zone and also due to the enemies in that new zone…

That's kind of just how the genre is. You don't really know where to go and what to do, that's part of what makes it magical. You just explore. If you hit a dead end you turn around and go somewhere else. If you get to a spot that's really hard it's up to you whether you want to push on or look around elsewhere. That's why I turned around when I saw the big guard, I figured I have easier places to check out first. And then I found new zones and new abilities and stuff and then I went back.

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#325

Post by [deleted] »

mjr00 wrote: post #319
rimunroe wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel like you're being pedantic here and transforming the statement "X is one of the best of all time" into "X is one of the top N of all time", where N is a number you've arbitrarily picked to exclude X. > Like, yeah your statement may be true. I, too, can pick N such that Hollow Knight is not in my top N games A) I haven't chosen a specific number. I've even been deliberately hazy about the range because that's…

> I think that list is probably a decent predictor of what people would respond with if you asked them for the best game in a specific year, but that it would do a much worse job of predicting agreement across all time. You must have missed the criteria for inclusion that list, which states that games are only eligible if they appear on "all time" best lists, e.g. not just "Best Game of 2017" or "Best PC Games". > Th…

[deleted]

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#327

Post by whatevaa »

andrewingram wrote: post #278
mikepurvis wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Meanwhile I'm still pushing with thumb stick and sometimes miscasting skill or doing a side slash instead of downward.

It would take many hours to get used to dpad so I'm sticking to what I know, but it's definitely not ideal.

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#328

Post by whatevaa »

Insanity wrote: post #273
rkomorn wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 C…

Yeah, boss fights in Cyberpunk didn't even fit the vibe. Kinda forced in.

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#329

Post by whatevaa »

mock-possum wrote: post #286
whatevaa wrote: post #196

I found Act I not harsh but full of frustating elements. Traps in piss you off locations, 90% of flying enemies who dodge and are tanky for some reason. Like that one particular fly which spawns in exact precise location in runback to boss for you to collide, unless you are sprinting. Bullshit like this. Act II get's better as you unlock more movement and the lore develops. There is some unique stuff there. Boses are…

> unless you are sprinting So… why not just sprint?

You need to figure that part out. It's a jump platform in the middle of sandworms, not just straight runway.

Re: The elegance of movement in Silksong

#330

Post by whatevaa »

quchen wrote: post #215
whatevaa wrote: post #196

I found Act I not harsh but full of frustating elements. Traps in piss you off locations, 90% of flying enemies who dodge and are tanky for some reason. Like that one particular fly which spawns in exact precise location in runback to boss for you to collide, unless you are sprinting. Bullshit like this. Act II get's better as you unlock more movement and the lore develops. There is some unique stuff there. Boses are…

I’m curious about those traps. I used to hate Soulslikes, Elden Ring made it click, and I binged them all on PC. Traps became part of some twisted humor, I started waiting for the (literal) punchline. I missed traps, or as I started calling them, »FromSoft bullshit«, when there weren’t any for a while. I’m super careful and alert in all games now. I wonder whether Silksong’s traps scratch that itch, or whether they’r…

This game has plenty of traps, including booby trapped save spot after a dificult section which has claimed many lives.
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