Hollow Knight: Silksong Review

In this episode of Game Pass Grab Bag, the hosts discuss Hollow Knight: Silksong, exploring its gameplay mechanics, story, art style, audio design, and their final thoughts on the game. They share their experiences, frustrations, and praises for the game, highlighting its difficulty, visual appeal, and engaging sound design. The conversation reflects on the game's impact and its place in the gaming landscape, especially as an indie title.

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Episode Transcript

(00:06):
Hello again everyone, welcome toanother episode of Game Pass
Grab Bag, your weekly podcast reviewing games with the Game
Pass collection. Bring you through any
perspectives from varying skill range.
I am the Weaver of this episode,Andrew.
With me are Pogo master Keith. Hello.
And the one who's definitely singing a sad song, Aaron.
Hey, hey. This week we played Hollow

(00:27):
Knight Silk Song by Team Cherry.Eight years in the making, but
it's finally here. But I know a lot of people
actually found our podcast from the first Hollow Knight game, so
I'm curious if a lot of people find us this time around.
If so, welcome. But Hollow Knight is a 2D action
Metroidvania where you were playing.

(00:48):
It's a sequel off the obviously first Hollow Knight where you're
playing Hornet, who was a character in the first one.
I'm going to say too much. I want to spoil things.
But you were, you know, in this time around, you know, you don't
know what's going on, but you'rebeing captured by this bugs that
are run by the Citadel, which isthis church that is kind of
above ground. And your V Trench put it as

(01:09):
their prisoner. But you were able to break free.
You don't remember a lot of things, but you are told that,
you know, all the bugs in this area are trying to climb up to
the Citadel. So you decide to join this
pilgrimage to kind of get some answers as to what was going on.
But before I guess we start, obviously if you've seen our
podcast, me and Keith have played the first Hollow Knight.
But I wanted to ask you, Aaron, have you ever played Hollow

(01:30):
Knight? I have not, so I'm coming into
this as a complete newbie, but Iwill talk a little bit more
about that though. So I don't want to get ahead of
myself. But no, I have not.
This is my first foray into the Hollow Knight world all.
Right, And just a quick reminder, please make sure you
go to gamepassguybad.com. Check out all our past reviews.

(01:52):
Also check out our YouTube. I have at least 2 videos of the
playthroughs of me struggling through Silk song, which
actually thought were pretty entertaining.
But anyway, whether or not this is a game or pass, we recommend
this. I will start usually.
So when it comes to a sequel, weusually start of do you need to
play the first one in order to understand this game?
And I'm going to first start offby saying yes, I recommend

(02:16):
playing the first hollow night before you play this, not even
for story wise, but for skill wise.
This game tells you nothing. So I luckily remembered a good
amount of the controls. So I kind of went into this, but
there is definitely some skill checks very early, early on in
this game. And if you did not play the
first one, I think you could easily be lost.
So I'm curious how Aaron struggled with this.

(02:38):
But overall, I'm giving this a game.
This is a ton of fun. This game, Well, I thought it
was a ton of fun. I know my Co host here has some
different choice words but Hollow night silk song is
beautiful. I love the music.
The story to me was way more easy to follow.
It does borrow a lot of elementsof like Dark Souls where you

(03:00):
learn more story through contextbut this one had a more cohesive
story of like I understood what was going on in my objective.
Definitely very difficult. One of my issues with the first
Hollow night was some bosses. The spawn point when you died
was a trek to get back to that boss.
And unfortunately there is stilla handful of bosses that it is a

(03:23):
trek to get back to, which kind of put a little bit of rain on
my parade. But overall I really liked
Silksong. I thought this game was a ton of
fun. So I, I like platformers.
I, I did something I don't really do a lot on this podcast
for, for this episode, I wanted,I wanted to treat this with, you

(03:47):
know, a little bit of journalistic integrity.
I know Aaron, that's probably going to upset you to begin
with, but I went back and I listened to our original Hollow
Night episode. So I was like, I bet you I'm
going to say something like, boy, whatever I'm about to say
about Silk Song and be completely contradictory of
everything I said about Hollow Knight and it's just going to

(04:08):
cook me. And no, it didn't.
I don't know that I like this. I don't get it.
I don't understand it. I and it and it's not that I
don't understand how to play it.It's not I don't understand the
appeal. It's the the big thing about the
hollow night games are that it'svery much like a souls like of a

(04:31):
platformer and true it's punishing.
It has elements of it I but it'sit doesn't do it well.
It's just it's just hard. It's just here's something
that's just unnecessarily hard. We're going to shove that in
your face and oh, boohoo, you can't get it.
And it's got this whole like superiority complex about it

(04:51):
that it it just it turns me off.I don't really care for it.
The well, I'll talk about the other stuff otherwise, but no, I
think I am just going to overallgo over the past, but something
that is noteworthy on on the episode is that is when I first
rolled out my rating of not Ori was when we did hollow night.

(05:13):
That was the first time I I gavea game a not Ori because it is
in fact a not Ori because Ori isa fantastic platformer and that
I understand the hype and love and all of the the praise that
it gets. I don't understand hollow night.
Yeah, if you're new to this podcast, yeah, Keith, I know Ori
is probably one of your favorites.
I felt like you always for the longest time reference to Ori.

(05:36):
I would still go back and play that and have all of the same
feels about it. All right, well I'm going to
start off here by first issuing an apology.
So a few weeks ago me and Andrewdid a side quest episode and we
were talking about Silksong coming out and I made some
disparaging comments about it because I was like, Hollow

(05:59):
Knight feels niche to me. Like it doesn't feel like a a
mainstream thing. So in our in our Spotify
comments, if you haven't commented on Spotify, well, I'm
calling this guy out. So Kinase kinase Kyle too
indicated Hollow Knight sold 15,000,000 copies.
I don't think you could call that niche.
So yeah, I do need to apologize.15,000,000 copies is an insane

(06:20):
amount for that. So you are 100 right?
That was a. Surprising number to me too.
You are 100% right, that is not niche anymore.
So going on to Silk Song here, by golly, this is great.
This is a really, really good game.
Wow. I did not think.
You'd see. Here's here's here's the thing.

(06:42):
I think every once in a while you come along a game that is
not made for you, but you kind of vibe with it still.
It would be like the equivalent of somebody who does not care
about sports but picks up like NCAA Football or college
football 26. And it's like, I get this, this
makes sense to me. I like this.
That's what it would this kind of feels like to me because I do

(07:05):
not like Souls like games. I can't stand them.
I remember when the original Dark Souls came out, buying that
game because it had all the hypein the world and I was just so
frustrated with that game. And this game has those types of
feels, feelings to it. Like you said, I did not play
Hollow Knight, so I went into this one kind of blind.
But I was immediately captivatedby the world, the storytelling,

(07:30):
the characters were so cool to me.
And you know what it was? I know what this was.
It was itching that part of my brain.
Like I really loved, and I stillkind of do Jim Henson puppet
style movies, things like The Dark Crystal or Labyrinth movies

(07:50):
from like the early 90s. And unless you grew up in that
era, I loved those vibes of those movies and this gave me
some of those vibes and I was really into it.
Did I love the gameplay? No.
I mean, I understood the challenge.
Again, it's not really my type, but I I actually was kind of
getting with this thing, like itwas kind of clicking with me a

(08:12):
little bit. It's so much so that I had an
instant feeling of regret about 20 minutes into it.
I almost wanted to just stop andgo.
Crap. I needed to play Hollow Knight
because I kind of want to know alittle bit more before I get to
this point. And I realized I screwed up.
I realized, Oh no, I should havetaken that more seriously.

(08:34):
Anytime I saw images of this game, I thought, OK, this is TD
platformer. It looks fine.
I, I get it. I don't understand it.
It's not until you're playing itthat you're like, Oh no, no, no,
OK, I get this. There's a lot to explore here.
I feel like there's a mystery around every corner that I'm
kind of vibing with. I like the feels of this thing.
So I was, I kind of regretted not taking this seriously before

(08:58):
I got into it. But even with that being said, I
shockingly, I'm shocked myself. I actually enjoyed this thing a
lot. I yeah, I really thought you
were like hard hated it. No, because you've been
struggling with like some of. The games you've been doing and,
and I will say that like that isa challenge to this game.

(09:18):
It's not so much like the boss fights.
Like, yeah, the boss fights can be a little bit tough, but much
like with most of these, you eventually figure out the
rhythms and you get it on a goodrun.
You just kind of get in there. You realize you got a bunch of
good hits and you just don't make the mistake and you'll be
fine. Of course, patience is always
what ends up killing me eventually.
I just don't have the patience for it.

(09:40):
And and so, yeah, that's challenging.
I think what actually was the most difficult part of this game
for me, but also kind of the most fun is you kind of have no
clue where to go, which that reminded me of Dark Souls, like
where I could go a million different directions here.
There's nothing telling me go this way.
It is go as far as you can go inthat direction.

(10:03):
And so there are times in this where I'm like, I genuinely
don't know where to go next. And I would sometimes forget,
like I'd be like, oh, I haven't explored this part.
And I'd go up there and realize like, crap, I think I need an
ability to do this. I can't do this yet.
And then I'm like, all right, well, now where am I going?
So I like that about it, but I hate it too because they're

(10:24):
definitely like there was a timeearlier today where I was like,
I'm I genuinely have no clue where I should be pushing right
now. I feel like I've hit gates or,
you know, areas I can't clear. Sorry.
I got a bug flying around in here and that stuff has been a
little bit on the challenging side so that I find a little bit

(10:45):
more difficult than the boss fights truthfully.
Yeah, I mean, this one I actually find a bit more linear.
Like we just recently did kind of a Metroidvania game just a
couple weeks ago with Crip Custodian.
That was a fun episode. Check that out.
But I remember we were complaining about with that
where we were like I there was times I got lost.
I felt like Silk song here was abit more linear and I felt it a
little easier to figure out where to go.

(11:06):
But I agree with you, compared to it was a handful of times
where I'm like, wait, I think I needed an ability here.
Was compared to. Custodian or hollow night I I
compared. To Hollow Night.
Hollow Night was very open, OK. Well, yeah, I and I don't know,
so we can talk about that more when we get into gameplay.
Yeah, like we're jumping really far in I.

(11:27):
Know I'm I'm glad you enjoyed this area because that's exactly
what I felt when I first played the first hollow night like I
heard some people I I had a couple close friends were like
that game's really good and whenI saw it on game pass we were
finally like let's find the cover for this podcast and I
felt the same way where I was like oh I get this this is this
is cool very hard but even but even Liz I remember liked it but

(11:48):
if this game is definitely making splash I kind of wanted
to talk a little bit of news about this game first the steam
charts I know you hate talking about it Aaron have been
absolutely bananas I don't know if you saw the past as of this
record in the past 24 hours thathad over 403,403 yeah 1000
people playing which is. What?

(12:09):
Why? What was its peak?
462,000. All right, Game's dying.
Game is dying. Put it out there.
The Steam charts prove it. It is a dead game.
But have you seen like, developers are like angry at
Team Cherry? Are they though?
Team Cherry figured out this onehack and developers are furious.

(12:31):
I mean, it's I this is great forTeam Cherry.
I mean, this studio is awesome. If you don't know if you're
playing this on Game pass, you probably may not realize this.
This is a $20 game. This game is huge.
Like it's, it has a lot of hoursof gameplay in it and it is a
$20 game. So I've been seeing news
articles where developers are like kind of annoyed with Team
Cherry of like your price of your game too cheap.

(12:53):
It's unrealistic. Like now people are going to
have high like higher expectations and like expect
games to be cheaper. Yeah, well, we're in the age of
the $80 video game. Like we've, we've crossed into
that threshold here. And you know, how often does a
$20 game come out? They are still ultimately an
independent studio, but if you think about these guys
technically broke 2 rules on launch.

(13:16):
One of those is a $20 launch price which is obviously unheard
of. Although I still feel like with
an indie game. But they knew.
They knew the game was going to be wildly popular and they
still. That's why I first didn't make
it more expensive. I I mean, you know, hats off to
them and for doing that. But they also did, they also
broke another cardinal rule. They came out and basically said

(13:39):
everyone said, well, why seven years?
Why did this take seven years tomake?
And they basically said we took our time and just had fun with
it. But that wasn't the rule they
broke. The rule they broke was they
announced a launch date like 2 weeks ago.
So instead of putting out a launch date a year in advance, 6

(14:01):
minutes in advance, they waited till the game was done and they
just said all right, comes out in two weeks.
That doesn't happen anymore. Now it's the pre-order.
It's the hyping up a game and then, oh, we got to delay it
because it's not ready and then it's crunched.
Edition. That's $2020.00 more to play 24
hours early and. Instead, they just said, all

(14:22):
right, games ready, There you go.
It was ready to go. And those, those are two rules
that are just not existing in gaming.
And no, you need games like this.
We've talked about this in previous episodes.
Indie games have been killing itand they've really been eating
the lunch of these bigger studios and not looking at Steam

(14:43):
chart numbers, but if you're looking at total play and who's
playing what right now, indie games are killing it.
They're killing it across the board.
And it's the big guys that are really actually hurting on that
front. So, you know, hats off to Team
Cherry. They didn't, they didn't need to
price at that. They could have charged probably
40-50 bucks and you probably would have still had a great
amount of sales. But I think they genuinely

(15:04):
looked at it, probably said, hey, we'll sell a lot of copies
at 20 bucks and we're going to be fine.
Like that's going to be plenty for us.
And that's probably better for their legacy into what happens
next for them. Yeah, and I bet they've made a
ton of money from Xbox to put this on Game Pass.
And like, I don't know, I could be wrong, but I feel like every

(15:26):
not every game, but you always hear in games like, oh, and you
know, and developing this, we actually like ended up creating
this whole other thing. Like who knows what they have
just not like sitting ready to go necessarily.
But like you said, for for future games, if they want to
branch out from Hollow Knight and create something different,
people are going to have a wholelot more grace for whatever they

(15:47):
put out and at whatever price they put it out at.
You built, yeah, you built a lotof goodwill.
You built a lot of goodwill withwith gamers.
Now you also missed another important part.
They're not not just what the Steam numbers are right now.
When this game launched, it crashed the Steam.
Oh yeah, it crashed PlayStation Sword like yeah, it.

(16:09):
Didn't crash Xbox, but that's 'cause it was our Game Pass.
So I, you know, probably less people buying it over there.
Although I will add, and this iskind of maybe just again kind of
jumping forward in the future, Ido think if you love this game,
I do think you should pay the $20.00 for it.
I do think that these guys and the rest of the gaming market
needs to know that it's OK to price your game at $20 and it's

(16:31):
still be a good value for everybody involved.
So this is kind of one of those rare games.
I know if I've posed that question before.
How many people do you ever feelcompelled to buy a game that you
play on Xbox or Game Pass that you loved?
This feels like this. This deserves it because the
company, the developers, actually seem like they're worth

(16:51):
it. Yeah, which piraters are
actually I've seen on like Twitter where people are like,
oh, here you can download Silk Song for free.
Here's the pirate version. And you click on it and it just
says just buy the game. Yeah, like even piraters are
like trying not to pirate the game because they're like, no,
it's cheap. I've even heard people saying is
there like a tip tab? Because I feel like I owe this
company more money than just $20, which that's actually

(17:14):
something I I would advocate. I think a lot of developers
should have like a $5. Tip, who was that?
A game developer said this like a year ago and he got roasted
for it. But that was that was his
suggestion is at the end of a game, they should have the
ability for you to tip the developer if you really.
Like unless your full on model is a full blown freeware option

(17:39):
that is like hey pay us if you want to, but otherwise here is
our free product. Cause 'cause you know, you know,
that would be exploited like crazy.
And and like, let's say you're playing Call of Duty.
I love this Call of Duty. Let me send you a tip for this
Call of Duty. Who's taking that Activision?
You think that's going to go to the developers?
No, that's going straight to theCE OS pocket.

(18:01):
So that was the slip. That was the slippery slope is
how would you even know that that would go to the developers?
And then how does that assure that they're not going to get
fired or, or, or the layoffs, a part of all those layoffs that
we've seen for the last few years?
So I understand what you're saying, but this happened last
year. It was.

(18:21):
I forget which developer it was.I forget what company.
It was the gaming industry. But he posted it out there and
everyone just was like, yeah, OK, that's that's going to be
definitely going to the developers it.
Was just. It was just there like.
I don't know. It's terrible.
And Gibbs? If if you want to tip the
developer, buy the game for friends and and just gift it to

(18:44):
people. That's how you can tip the
developers. Yeah, but there are some gross
publishers that have like taken the full rights of games and
none of that money is going to the developers and stuff.
Like that tip would be the same thing right?
But just steal the tail. That's true.
But anyway, anyway, so let's getinto the the story of Silksong.
So as I said at the beginning ofthis game, you know, you are
playing as Hornet, which is, youknow, so this is, I should

(19:07):
explain, this is a world of bugs.
You know, everything you're seeing, you're kind of like
loosely based off of bugs. Some of them I was like, I have
no idea what kind of bug this issupposed to be, but everything's
supposed to be kind of microscopic.
You know, this is a whole world done like run by sentient bugs.
You're playing as Hornet, who was captured by these kind of
religious bugs. You don't quite know the whole

(19:28):
context, but you're in a cage. The cage ends up, you know,
getting deactivated. You're able to break free.
You fall through a massive pit and you find some other bugs
that are making a pilgrimage to go up to the top of this pit to
go back to the citadel. And so you got you figured, hey,
I'm being captured by those bugs.
I want to figure out what's going on.
And you see that some of the Pilgrim bugs are being possessed

(19:51):
and start attacking people. So you're trying to unravel the
mystery of what's going on around here.
The story in this in Silk Song, as I said, you know, if Aaron
hasn't played Hollow Knight, butif you've played Hollow Knight
before, it's very kind of confusing.
You know, this is the first thing that the you know.
Team Cherry really took from like Dark Souls.
If you've ever played a Dark Souls game, the story is just,

(20:12):
you have no idea. If you're just playing the game,
you don't really know what's going on.
But if you read like the items or you, you know, see the
background, you get context clues, you can kind of piece
together a story. And that's how Hollow Knight
mostly was. Hollow Knight was much more
gloomy, much more dark, much more kind of death and decay.
This already seems much more bright and vibrant to me.
I felt like I was meeting way more NPCS I could talk to.

(20:34):
Your character actually talks because in Hollow Knight you
don't really talk. And so I was able to follow a
story way more on this, which iskeeping me more interested.
Like, I liked playing Hollow Knight and I was like, oh, you
know, I think I get what's goingon.
And then I'm like, Nah, I have no idea what's going on, but I'm
just having fun, you know, enjoying the ride.
But this actually kept me, you know, intrigued.

(20:54):
I mean, your character talks, but it I figured it out.
But if unless you're really watching, the only way you know
who's talking is there's a tiny little icon at the very top of
the dialogue box that kind of indicates who it is and you can
kind of figure it out contextually.
Otherwise I didn't have a lot ofstruggle figuring out who was

(21:15):
saying what, but and. Voices.
There's no exact voices. It's noises.
Yeah, they do the noises, which,yeah, we'll get to that.
Yeah. I don't know.
I thought the story was fine. I still didn't think there was
really much revelation as far asanything that was going on.

(21:35):
It was here's a cause, here's what your end goal is.
And everything that happened in between was just kind of like
maybe like kind of spur the moment things like when you free
the bug from the web in the Bellarea.
But that wasn't story I I wasn'tlike, oh, wow, now I know what's

(21:59):
going on in this world. I just knew that I still needed
to get to the Citadel. Yeah, to me, it's like a
painting that's slowly coming into place the further you go.
So, you know, when you think about it, at the beginning, you
literally are at the bottom. You know nothing.

(22:19):
And then you're slowly introduced to new characters,
you're introduced to new areas. Like when you get to that first
grotto area, kind of where people are starting their
pilgrimage and there's people you're learning from there.
And then you meet the map person, and then you meet the
persons that will help craft things for you.
And you start to then paint thispicture a little bit more, or

(22:39):
you run into the fleas and. Or the bug with the the chime.
Yeah. Oh, I love that.
Oh, gosh. All right.
I, I think what Keith is going to criticize, I'm going to
actually push so hard against because I love it so, so much.
But I, I just starts to paint itself out a little bit more and
more as you're starting to get your abilities, you're learning

(23:00):
a little bit more and more. And so it just slowly starts to
come together as you're going. It's not just immediately
presented to you. It really does to me a good job
of kind of, you know, like a, a strand of silk just slowly
unraveling. It's just a I I I I I personally

(23:21):
liked how it was laying out the story, the, the, and like I
said, the thing was bumming me out is like, gosh, I kind of
wish I had the hollow night background to this, because I
think if I could expand this world even a little bit more,
I'm into that. Like I'm into to to seeing that
a little bit more. So none of the, correct me if
I'm wrong Andrew, 'cause I you probably got further than I did.

(23:41):
I think in both instances, outside of Hornet and some of
the enemies looking similar, none of this was like, oh, I
remember that from from the lastgame.
There's just I remembered mechanics and how the game
played. I remembered those elements from
the first one, but I didn't remember like storylines like I
I'm really this isn't me even trying to be critical.

(24:04):
I mean I guess it it is but I'm genuinely curious outside of
game starts get to citadel. Like what are some story plot
elements that actually happen? I I can't think of any
genuinely. Well, not much.
Well, that's why at the beginning I said I recommend
playing Hollow Night more for skill and not so much story

(24:27):
because so I'm like right at theend of act one, I was really
hoping to play more. I'm like, I'm 90% sure I'm on
the boss at the end of act one, which is just the last judge is
the boss. And it's it's driving me bonkers
because you have to do a very long trek every time you die.
But as far as like story, like as far as I've seen, I haven't

(24:48):
really seen any returning characters, you know, besides
obviously the character you're playing as as Hornet.
But besides that, no, like as far as story goes, like you got
a little bit of world building and understood of like the
Kingdom, but you're in a completely different land at
this time because as you're getting abilities, they even
call you, Oh, a night from a distant land.
So you this isn't even like youroriginal like home world.

(25:08):
So that's why I think for story wise, I don't think it matters
too much because also at the end, I'm not going to spoil
things, but the original Hollow Knight had five different
endings. And I, I actually saw a report
somebody said, so which ending is Canon?
And one of the developers is kind of like all of them are
Canon, like they all kind of explain things.
That's not how Canon. Works buddy, I know because also

(25:30):
too how the endings work is likeyeah that doesn't make much
sense but he didn't really give an answer.
It's like, oh, ending 5 is the correct one.
Well, so that's why I'm like, I don't think it mattered too
much. It makes me wonder if when they
made the first game, if they really thought of an expanded
universe at the time or if that's something that came in a
little bit later, because those are probably, those are

(25:51):
important things to people that care about that type of stuff.
When you're trying to debate over what is Canon, only a nerd
really is going to care about that.
And that's probably, I would just venture a guess that they
weren't necessarily thinking of an expanded world that probably
came later. So they're kind of like, Oh
yeah, they all are well. Did you see where this game
started? Wasn't it just two college

(26:13):
students? Yeah, it was a new ground game.
Do you remember that? Website.
Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, it originally was called
Hungry Night, which I think you actually could still play it.
Yeah, I actually saw somewhere there.
It's like a screenshot of a Reddit post where someone was
like, hey, my friend, you know, quit his job and just like went
all in on creating this game. I think it's going to be really

(26:34):
cool. I think you guys should all go
play it. And there's just it was Reddit.
So just the worst comments. Like your friends should just
keep a job. Like it looks like it's going to
be the worst thing, like just terrible comments.
And yeah, I but like you, still haven't really answered my
question, Andrew. Like outside of those two-story

(26:57):
elements that you're given in the 1st 5 minutes, how many
hours have you played and how many story elements that have
actually given you? Any context as to why you're
trying to do this other than your characters?
They were trying to capture me. So I'm curious why.
Let me go out there. I'm 10 hours in and and like I
said I'm still the first act andsee.

(27:19):
What? This is where I'm like, I'm
genuinely confused. Then I'm cutting you off because
I don't get this where people are like, Oh my God, Hollow
Knight. Oh my God, Silk.
So what's the story? What am I invested in?
What is my emotional tie to all of this world?
It is cool visually. It's cool.
The picture that Aaron's talkingabout that I'm painting is

(27:39):
visually very cool. What is the story that I am
painting a picture of outside ofthose 22 elements that I learned
in the 1st 5 minutes of the game?
Well, you easily see that you have this like weave the silk,
but you're also noticing that these silk strands are appearing
and possessing people that are like they're possessing the
people right in front of you to attack you.

(28:00):
So there's clearly someone with an ability like yours that is
trying to basically turn people against you.
And then you're trying to figureout there's.
Some real stretch, but I'll giveit to.
You even when you start out, you're kind of like affected by
something, like something is bothering you.
You know how you kind of go slowand you're like bothered, Like
there is some other presence there.

(28:21):
I think again, when you talk about the tapestry, it starts to
show a mystery and like Andrew had kind of alluded to here at
the beginning, the the whole pilgrimage process and then the
people turning against people asthey're going through the
pilgrimage. You know, I think there are
story elements that are startingto reveal themselves as you go

(28:42):
along. I understand what you're saying.
I'm OK though, with not like an like, I'm OK with it not
necessarily laying out. This is a revenge tale.
This guy wronged you, you want to kill him.
That's that's the story. It's not necessarily laying it
out that way. It is laying it out as in, hey,

(29:02):
these people wanted me. Well, I want to know why they
wanted me. And then it's laying out the
you've got something that's affecting you.
There is some other presence that is affecting you that is
leading you on. And then there is the additional
mystery of what is happening to the others on this pilgrimage.
So you're a spider, right? Is that they they call you a
spider at one point. That's in the whole silk thing.

(29:26):
You don't have AI. Don't know 'cause your name is
Hornet. But they keep.
But at one point I. Think you're supposed to be?
I swear at one point someone, one someone refers to you as
little spider. I could be completely making
that up. It's like, it's like one of the
the skill tree things that you bind with, which I guess again,

(29:46):
if we're talking kind of like underlying context of like a
mystery, which I'll give I'll, I'll, I'll give Aaron this, you
know, kind of mystery they're painting.
You know what, what is it that I'm binding with?
I don't know like I just I don'tfor me personally, and this is
not just my my normal I don't like story.

(30:07):
I don't think the story offers much, at least in the 1st 10
plus hours and. I don't think it's, I don't
think it's straightforward. I'm like, I, I do think this one
requires you to pick at it a little bit.
So I I think that's totally fine.
If you're somebody that kind of needs this plainly laid out for
you, I know Andrew kind of alluded to that too.

(30:29):
It's that's not there. You're going to learn things as
you're going, but you're going to learn them in pretty tiny
tidbits. I'm OK with that personally.
And again, I think it was, it was a mixture of that.
I was OK with that mystery, but I was OK and the vibes added to
it on top of it. I hate to say that I liked this
game so much for its vibes, but this was just one of those

(30:50):
instances where it just it it worked for me.
Oh, it definitely works because I mean, we'll get into it even
with like the music. Like I fully agree with you with
the vibes. Like like I said, with the
story, as Aaron is saying it does, it is painting you these
little pictures because not onlythat, you're getting a lot more
snippets of like local stories. So the pilgrimage, like that's

(31:11):
not something you really, you'renot actually participating in
this pilgrimage. Why do you care about any of
these bugs, any of these stories?
And you just, but you're helpingthem and you're kind of learning
more about them later on. I'm assuming you haven't got to
it, but you go to a town, Belfast, and it is a town where
everyone's living in Bells, but they're all possessed.
They're all kind of in the suspension.

(31:32):
And you are unraveling this mystery as to why, what's going
on, who's who's pulling the strings here.
And it just these little storiesthat I put it in there.
I'm really digging it because Hollow Knight was just you
figuring out this grand picture as to what's going on.
I didn't feel like there was a lot of smaller ones, like
everyone. So yeah, you got like a little
town there and you kind of pieced together what's going on.

(31:53):
But it wasn't as cut and dry. Like there's way more side
quests, way more like people you're talking to in this one
that to me just really built thelore.
I mean, I, well, I did see that's the thing.
So I didn't get to any other world or towns or anything.
So that's, that's probably one part of it.

(32:14):
I didn't interact with any more NPC's in the first like 4 that
you you talk to and their dialogue changes slightly or so.
But like, I don't know. I think that also just leads
into kind of some of my issue with it that I don't know, I'm
probably got to be close to 10 hours into the game and
scratching the surface because I'm just beating my head against

(32:36):
the wall trying to slog my way through the actual gameplay.
Which I will say this is a little bit of my gripe too.
I I do think this game needs a little bit of accessibility to
it because there are moments arethat are just brutally hard like
Hunter's March. Anybody who's played probably

(32:57):
play this game probably already knows Hunter's March.
It is an area where you, you know, the platform is all
pogoing. It is to me just very difficult.
Like you had to do pogoing in the first hollow night, but it
was like mid to late game. This is early game.
It is expecting you to do this pogoing and it's like this is.
Very hard for early, so hold on,Are we shifting into gameplay?

(33:18):
Yes, OK, 'cause so I do have some questions here now is where
you're doing the Pong wing, those red flowers, yes.
So that thing next to you there in that video, is that what you
have to like dive at? Yes, see.
Because I never played Hollow Knight, I didn't know.

(33:39):
See I I did play Hollow Knight and it took me.
Still, I've ran past those things probably 15 times until I
got to this actual area. And that's when I and once I got
to this area, it immediately clicked with me.
But the first time you see them,yeah, it I, I, I don't even
think get you into an area that you can't get to.
They're just kind of there. And so I couldn't figure out

(34:00):
what to do with them until here.But here I put used context and
like, I kind of figured out context now it's awful.
And I think you're going to see here.
Yeah. Is that diagonal dash?
So. So if you're not watching the
video, Andrew's playing a clip of his gameplay right now and
you have this diagonal dash. And personally, as we also just

(34:22):
saw in Andrews gameplay, it is so stinking hard to line up and
bounce on. There's ways to change it.
It makes it slightly easier. This area still sucks so so bad.
So I, this is one of those examples where right there at
the beginning where Andrew started, I did not know this

(34:43):
mechanic because it doesn't tellyou that mechanic.
You're just presented with theseflowers.
And I remember like trying to like shoot my thing at em.
And I was, And so, oh, here's what I assume in a moment like
this, Oh, I'm missing a skill. I'll probably get that skill
later and I need to come back here.
So I never went up here, which which everyone says you don't

(35:05):
have to. Everyone says like you probably
should avoid this until later. Yeah, if you've seen this
footage, I do not have dash. Keith was doing this area with a
dash, and I would say a dash would make this drastically
easier. Like I fought the there's a
minibus before this area and I was just beating my face into
that guy. I just kept getting wiped.

(35:26):
And even in the video, if you watch it, I'm like, I feel like
I should have a dash for this fight, but I was like, I'm just
going to keep going. I'm going to keep trying.
That, but so that's another gripe I have and I it's cold.
What it is the so you have this natural ability of bind that
allows you to heal and it takes so stinking long to go off and I

(35:48):
know just time it yadda, yadda, yadda, But it makes it so like
annoying in boss fights, though,because it's I so I understand
this, but this is my gripe with the game is it's just throwing
this like handful of just elements at you to just make it
hard. It's not like interestingly hard

(36:08):
in my opinion. It's you get hit and it's a
millisecond recovery time. Everything is contact damage.
There's no dash where you can dash through an enemy.
It's all like it's, it's basically they just turned on
every single difficulty option of a game and they were like,
here you go and, and you can't turn any of it.

(36:29):
Off Good luck the you know oh again, cuz we're kind of
watching Anders gameplay here. One of the things Ander did
screw up on in that last video as you combined while you're in
the air, so he probably would have been better in that last
fight. Literally just jumping.
In which I didn't know I could at.
That time and hitting Bind instead of actually landing next
to the enemy and hitting Bind because of that timing.

(36:53):
Like, yeah, I think the game's difficult, don't get me wrong,
but I, I don't, I don't know, itnever real.
I never really hated that. Like there were plenty of bosses
that, you know, I had to fight, you know, 8-9 times to, to, to
be able to finish them off. But I.
Generally found the optional bosses to be the hardest.
Oh and like the thing I've been already seeing people modding

(37:15):
which I think should be an accessibility option alone is a
lot of enemies in this game do double damage when they hit you.
They take two of your health bars and hollow Knight.
I don't think any enemies. Know they there is a mod for
that they also the developers did come out and say that some
bosses would be toned down so they.
The last judge should be one of them.

(37:36):
I, I forget the two that they said on there, I hadn't run into
those two bosses yet, but they, they had listed the two bosses
that would be getting a, a nerf.So it looks like they are
listening to some people kind ofmention.
But just keep in mind again, this is the reason why souls
games never really worked for me.
It's it's why I knew I wasn't going to like Eldon ring because

(38:00):
games that are usually like thisdifficult, I, I end up usually
feeling the same way. I usually end up feeling like I
hate that I'm not responding at the boss fight.
I'm responding a distance away and that just feels like you're
just putting me through a chore for the sake of putting me
through a chore here like that. Yes, I get it.
That stuff does kind of drive mea little crazy.

(38:21):
But again, I was just vibing with this game that it just, I
was like, I'm willing to look past it because you know, I,
I'm, I'm liking this game. So like the one we're watching
of Andrew right now, The run isn't that bad, at least as far
as getting. Back to it, this one was pretty
close. And maybe I'm just completely
wrong on this because I don't play enough souls like games

(38:42):
because I think I complained about this.
Well, actually encrypt custodian, which wasn't the
souls like at all, but the absolute lack of patterns in the
bosses and and I think you're seeing it here like.
She's telegraphic, yes. She is telegraphic.
I understand she's telegraphic, but I'm talking about like a
pattern of like they follow likethe, you know, they, they follow

(39:04):
the same 4 attacks in a row typeof thing.
It's, it's all like, I don't know, sometimes she dashes
twice, sometimes she jumps twice.
I get that it's telegraphed. I, I do understand that.
I just, there's no pattern to itand that's what kind of drives
me nuts. Well I I think this is since you
say you don't normally play souls like.
This is something you usually see in souls like games.

(39:25):
You usually can figure out what a boss is going to do usually
depending on how far you are from them.
So like this, I'm showing the fight with Lace.
I think this is my third attempt.
I I beat her in like 3 or 4 tries.
To me, she wasn't too hard, but like she has like a dash
ability, which you can tell she will do if you're pretty far
away. If you're close, she puts her
sword up, which, you know, if you hit her, she'll do a repose.

(39:47):
So you don't want to hit her. So you can kind of figure out
like kind of how she's going to react depending on your
distance. Yeah.
And so like, I think since you don't play souls like, you
probably just don't understand that.
But like, that is a very typicalsouls like kind of thing where
you can kind of bait a boss to do an attack that you want him
to do. Yeah.

(40:08):
Yeah, I don't know, it just it drives me nuts.
I I get it like A cause again, Keith, generally speaking, I'm
I'm a hunt everything out with you.
I know I'm the noob on this podcast.
So that's kind of my role anyway.
And I clearly have not gotten tosome of the harder bosses 'cause
this one, she does look like she's taking a massive beating
and it's still kind of. Oh yeah, some fights take so

(40:31):
long and. That's kind of my other gripe,
especially with no health bar orany indicator, like even in a
lot of games that don't give youa health bar, you'll kind of see
like the boss will start to havesome visual cues.
This is just like they she gets stunned and that's how you know
she's going into the next one. But you're just like I, I'm just
going to keep hacking away like 1 little dink and dunk at a

(40:52):
time. But the thing I so like is to
me, the boss fights are a ton offun, But the thing that I really
just enjoy with this game is theplatforming.
The platforming of this game is so tight.
It feels so good. As Keith said, I will agree the
your diagonal like Pogoing, which is really in Hunter's
March, like you get a little bitmore farther on, which is also

(41:15):
why I thought Hunter's March wasso weird to have so early on
because like I was like, oh, they're introducing this because
it's going to be like very important.
You're going to have to do this all the time, but not really
like there was like a one other area where to do the platform.
You need to do it if you're goodat pogoing, like you can
actually skip a lot of platforming stuff, but I just
the the platforming and getting the skills in this game it it

(41:37):
just feels so good. It feels just like everything
just works so well. I love the exploration in this
game. The, the exploration, I like the
reward of it. Again, I, I had a lot of, I had
a lot of moments where I did feel pretty lost on where I
needed to go. But clearly, again, like you
just pointed out, there was a whole mechanic I didn't know I
even had. I, I just didn't know it was

(42:00):
there. I'd again, never played Hollow
Knight. So I don't know if that was
something you saw on Hollow Knight before and that's how you
kind of figured it out. I just, I didn't know that that
was the case. So yeah, those type of exploring
things like those are the types of moments where I, I at least
wish when I got there, it at least said, hey, by the way,
this is how you use that. Yeah, exactly.

(42:21):
Like there's one ability. Did you guys ever click the
right stick? No.
The right stick you do, you sendout your weave a little bit, but
I have no idea what it does. Like it costs silk to do this
ability, but I'm like, what am Idoing?
I like, I don't even think it damages enemies.
I tried hitting people with it and I'm just like I don't know
what this is. I didn't I do a thing but I

(42:43):
don't know. What it is, I got the dash, so I
I had the dash which that's right, Trigger, yeah.
Which they explain that when youget an ability, hey, that's how
you do that ability. Now that's yeah.
But then you had abilities apparently the whole time again
that I just didn't know were were there because I kept
swinging at those Dang red things like I'm like, well, this
has to do something. I just don't know what it does.
That's why I just, I literally walked away from it like oh OK

(43:06):
well I guess I'll learn that later.
But the other big like change mechanic wise compared to this
to Holla knight, because you know, some people are saying
like, oh, this is actually feel like a completely different
game. And I'd say yes, you now get
crests. So in the first game, you kind
of got these items, these trinkets that are kind of like
perks, you know, that'll you know, oh, you don't move if you
swing your weapon, you know, maybe you take less damage or I

(43:29):
don't know. They were just obviously
different kind of purchase equipin this game.
In Silksong you have crests which have certain slots.
You know, oh, you can put 2 blueCrest on here or or two blue
tokens or a yellow red are your tools.
But depending what Crest you're quipping drastically changes how
your character acts. You know, I have Thor, you know

(43:52):
one of them I swing slower, but it hits harder and you gain more
silk. There's another one where you,
your range is way shorter, but you swing faster and you have a
chance to crit. So you kind of can change your
gameplay around and if you're fighting a certain boss, you
could be like, oh, I want to do a slower, heavier hit.
I'll switch this Crest. But also the trade off is, oh, I
really want, you know, some of the blue tokens, but this one

(44:14):
only lets me have one of the blue tokens.
So I really like this game lets you makes you change your
gameplay around as to what weapon kind of you're, what
style you're doing and what tokens you're taking with.
I will say, like the tokens, thetrinkets you get are way less
than this one. Like by the I swear by like the
10 hour mark on hollow night. I had like 20 different trinkets

(44:34):
and this I have like 8. Which I think is fine.
I think it's fine. Yeah, give give you 8 useful
ones as opposed to 10, but I'm only interested in using four of
them anyway. Exactly.
That's what I did with Holland. Yeah, there was only a handful.
Like that that are worth it and the rest will just kind of get
tossed to the side. So to me that makes sense.
Just narrow it down to what could likely be used.

(44:56):
So with good pros and cons and then just leave it to that.
I think that makes sense. I mean, you're only an act one.
I'm sure you'll end up with a bunch more.
Yeah, which I was sitting, I'm like, I had to look it up
because I'm like, how far am I? So I looked at an overall map
and man, I am like 1/3 at best. Way done.
And like I said, I think I'm like 11 or 12 hours in.

(45:17):
Hey, I have a friend who's actually beaten the game.
Already seven years to make it so.
I mean, I guess they're working on something.
Yeah, but you definitely could see the seven years, I got to
say in the art style because this game is gorgeous.
I, I love the art style. The world just feels so fleshed
out. It's a 2D game, but literally

(45:38):
the environments, the background, you know, the just
the this landscape that's going on is just absolutely gorgeous.
You know what I love so much about this art style?
I actually love how like your character model, if you look at
Hornet, is super simple. Like even I feel like I could

(46:01):
probably freehand draw her pretty closely, but like, the
environment is crazy detailed, the bosses you're fighting are
crazy detailed, but even the characters you run into, most of
them are very simple designs. They're very clean, simple
looking characters. I love that contrast a ton of

(46:22):
these kind of simple design characters, overly vibrant
environments around them. I I don't know why.
Again, that was just another thing that just really popped
out to me and how good this gameactually looks And and to me, it
looks better than what I ever seen of Hollow Knight.
Hollow Knight always kind of seemed kind of just to me.

(46:43):
It's very. Dark.
Yeah, this one. This one.
'S way more. Vital this one just like oh, OK
again, I just immediately was hitting me how much I was
enjoying even just the way this game looks.
Yeah, love the designs. Yeah.
Well, so you like pointing out the like the design of it.

(47:04):
I don't know if either of you had seen this, but someone
actually pointed out that it's like the model and design, like
everything that they, the way they book and move is almost an
exact replica of. I can't think of the character's
name from Castlevania. Oh yeah.
I'm just I'm trying to. Card.

(47:24):
Yeah, yeah. There we go.
I have it up here. I was.
It's Dracula backwards. OK.
Yeah, yeah. It's like, almost.
It's like. Identical again, that is some
some grade A gamer knowledge right there that somebody
figured that out even designing that.

(47:45):
But then I'm also like, I don't know, like, I guess it's just
like a cool nod, like, I don't know.
Yeah, no, I like that. But it's you're talking about
simple design that I unfortunately didn't have.
I didn't save my screenplay of it, but there is a significant
section where Hornets naked. She literally loses her cloak.

(48:06):
So, and it's like a very simple design, but that's literally she
looks like, it's literally like a black stick figure with a
massive. Whitehead But I I love that
though. For whatever reason, though,
it's a simple design, but it's super recognizable.
Like you see. It feels like a Saturday morning
cartoon. Yeah, I, I kind of hate that
too, because as I'm playing the game, I was, you know, because

(48:28):
of how the world is built. And again, because this was kind
of scratching that itch of like a Jim Henson style thing.
I'm like, oh, I wish this was a show.
I wish they were. I I want to know more about
what's going on. I want to more, I want to see
more of, you know, kind of the political structures of these
systems. Like I want to know about this

(48:49):
again, I that stuff just startedclicking with me, but I I agree.
I was like, oh, why hasn't this got a Netflix series already?
I I would love that it. Wouldn't surprise me now
honestly at this point. One thing that Andrew did point
out in our original Hollow Knight episode is the designs,
at least in Hollow Knight, looked a lot like Invader Zim
and I yeah, I think it's still kind of sticks out in this one,

(49:12):
but I can see the Jim Henson designs too.
But I see that's something it's like, I'll, I'll rag on this
game is for the gameplay, but mostly because I'm just so bad
at it. But I do love the art.
Like, and I actually was liking watching Andrew play because I
could actually sit back and like, watch the backgrounds.
Because when I'm not actually inthe midst of trying to stay
alive myself, I can look and appreciate what's going on.

(49:34):
Yeah, yeah. It is very true, but the other
thing that just works so well isthe audio.
I the audio in this game. Oh well, I have the footage up.
There's so much little details that they put in the art style
of this game that is is wild. Like I'm in the lava area when
you hit a body and it actually does like a flame spout of it

(49:56):
consuming the bug that you put in there.
In Hunter's March, you may notice there's tiny little red
ants. Yeah, they'll carry something.
They'll drop something, they'll carry it away.
You'll literally see them carrying beads away and they'll
end up burying it in the ground.There's just so many tiny little
details in the game. Heck, I'm jumping on the
platform and dust is. Kicking up a, a stupid little

(50:16):
detail for me when you would hitthe rosary beads on something
and they would be tactile like how they would fall and have
their own little like gravity asto where they fell.
It was this natural feel to it. That tactile feel was like, oh,
that's a nice little touch. That's not just like a, hey, you

(50:38):
hit the rosary bead, you got them.
It was like, no, they fall to the ground.
They dribble all over the place.You got to go collect them.
And I, to me, I, I again, those were small little details.
I'm like, oh, I like that. I like that a lot.
Because I like somebody said of like, which I thought was a
funny statement of like, oh, this game's been in eight years
of development hell. And someone said, no, no, no.
This is development heaven. Yeah, no, it's what Team Cherry?

(51:00):
Cherry, when they asked Team Cherry, they were like, you know
what was going on? They were just like, we were
just having a good time putting it together.
It it sounded like that we're just in no rush, Just make the
game we want to make and take your time building it.
So yeah, it sounds like the complete opposite.
Sounds like they weren't bothered at all.
No, because I mean, Hollow Knight kept selling copies so

(51:23):
they're like, well, we have the funds, but yeah, the the the
music in the the sound effects is so.
Good music rules, the sound effects are super good.
I don't care what Keith says, the characters communicating are
awesome. I love it.
You know what gets me every time?
You know what just immediately made me feel so Dang good?

(51:46):
Was every time I heard the map lady singing.
Oh, I got sick of her song a little bit.
No IA chest and it would get stuck in my head.
I don't know why I freaking loved it and I was like that
rules. I like even just as a character,
it like I kind like I'm like, oh, I kind of get her like she's

(52:08):
a warrior and it, you know, she's singing a song of her
people. And I was like, I'm into this.
Like it was just a nice little added detail there.
But the one hitting the bell trying to open the gate,
awesome. I'm like that song rules.
I'm I don't know all this stuff.So these little guys, the ones
that dive at you would crack me up too 'cause they do the me

(52:30):
too. They go cracks me up every time.
I was like, that is hilarious. I love it.
But yes, sound, music, character, voices, I loved it
all. I love that there's a little
language happening here. I'm Indian even though Keith no.
Truthfully, no. My only complaint is the

(52:50):
character, and it was, and it was, you know, again, skill
issue. It was me dying every time she
died. That noise she makes, Yeah.
It's so annoying. And even just truthfully a
little bit of the traversal like, hey, hey.
Hey, it's. Really annoying after you're
running around like back and forth the same areas and you're

(53:13):
already studying. Get a little on edge because you
just died like your fourth time and.
Having so it's just taunting you.
Oh, it's just the just absolute.There's a reason that you can
turn off the character's voice. I swear for that reason.
Like there's a specific option in the audio just to turn off
your character's voice. They knew people were just
getting enraged. It absolutely.
And I swear they did it on purpose because it is just, it

(53:36):
is a triggering noise. Just that that was the one that
got me more than any other noise.
Because I agree with you. The character noises are fun.
They're like the enemy noises are fun.
They didn't really bother me. I liked the songs because what I
like about them in particular ishow they do it.
I don't know what the right termis spatially where like the

(53:59):
further you get from how they start to just distance out a
little bit so you can a, it helps you find them a little
bit. But also it just makes it a
little bit more interesting because at first you just hear
it and you're like, what's that eerie little like noise off in
the distance? And then it grows and you're
like, that sounds friendly. Most times it is.
Sometimes it's not though. That's another thing.
Sometimes you hear those things and it's not friendly.

(54:20):
Speaking of, Speaking of, because that actually reminded
me that was actually kind of twothings to add to that.
I fought 2 guys in kind of like a smaller tight corridor and it
echoed. So I would play this with
headphones and you could hear itkind of echoing in there as
you're fighting them and it's like oh that's really cool.
I even like how when you're walking into an area, you can
hear a character in another roomdoing something, so you know

(54:43):
you're close to something because you can hear the.
Yeah, you can hear the and you're.
Like, yeah, what is that? Where is he?
It's. A shaman or the druid?
Yeah, the mossy Druid. Or whatever.
That's one you can hear. There is one that I can hear,
but I don't know where he is. Like there's one where it like
kind of brings you up to a wall again that I can't climb.

(55:04):
I don't know unless do I have a climb feature yet or do I get
that later? You get that pretty.
Later. OK, I figured.
So I can't climb up. I'm assuming he's up there
because I can hear him up there working on something, but I
don't. I don't know.
I think that's probably the blacksmith.
There probably is. No, I met the blacksmith.
I met him. Is it?
Is it in the fire? Area.

(55:24):
No, it's not the fire area. It was it was.
It was an area before. That, yeah.
It wasn't, it wasn't him. Because obviously you can hear
them Ding Ding, Ding, working onstuff.
Is it something yelling and banging on a wall?
Maybe. Because there is a gate that
took me the longest time where like it sounds like there's a
monster behind it. I actually just recently beat

(55:45):
that fight. It was the Chapel of the beast.
That fight was a bit rough. Yeah, I mean, it's not, it's not
an easy game. But there's.
There's. But like Aaron said, it's
patience. It's all about patience.
Yeah. Like, because a lot of times
when you're seeing my footage, you can just see I'm just
rushing. Oh, that's my biggest issue is I

(56:09):
just try to rush back to where I'm going and I'll try to skip
past enemies, take a couple dumbhits and I'm like, then I'm
scrambling and it's, it is all about patience.
And that's absolutely one of my biggest personal issues with it
or skill issues with it. I, I guess I should say, but on
the audio, I still, I, I wish I could remember was I should like

(56:29):
take a note of it, but there's one place in particular where
the music just cuts out and it'snoticeable.
It was just like 1 section in particular I was going through
where I know it was like there'sjust no music.
It's dead silent and then and then it kicks back in.
But I think that plays into how they do really well with the
audio aside from the character voice.

(56:52):
Yeah, which I wanted to look up the There is an original
soundtrack. There is one for Hollow Knight.
Oh yeah, yeah, here's one Silk Song.
OK, Yeah, Silk song has an original soundtrack as well.
You are looking at 80 songs, almost 4 hours of music.

(57:14):
Now, how would you compare this to Halo Andrew?
No, it's definitely I wouldn't. I mean, it's good.
Is that iconic? I don't know.
I don't know if I would listen to it because I mean, there's no
lyrics to it either, but it is it's a vibe.
A lot of the songs though, are just a couple minutes long.

(57:35):
So I don't know, to me, it's just it it to me, it just didn't
hit as hard as, you know, a Haloor an Expedition 33.
But the soundtrack is very good though.
Yeah. I think in the achievements
though, achievements I would notrecommend for achievement
hunters if you want to fasten this game because there are some
Uber hard achievements which thefirst one did as well.

(57:57):
There's like a very super hard like I think solo like one life
mode. And you know, if you want to be
that sweaty person to try to getthat achievement, good luck to
you. But a whole lot of these
achievements are just tied to a boss.
You beat a boss, you get an achievement.
Thank you Dolphin. I appreciate you feel hurt.

(58:23):
All right, but I guess we can get our final thoughts here of
Silk song. So as I said, the beginning for
me, Hollow Knight Silk song, I'dI'd say this is a game.
I don't know if I'd say a definite game because there
definitely is a skill check withthis.
You definitely need to have the patience.
As I said, I recommend playing the first Hollow Knight just so

(58:43):
you could learn how some things work as far as story wise goes
if you don't care. Like there's not much for story
of like from the first to say atleast one I've seen.
So I don't think you're going tobe completely lost.
But holiday night silk song is ablast.
You know, I'm 100% with Aaron. There were times where I just
got so frustrated a boss I put it down next day I'm like, I

(59:06):
want to do this, I want to play and I just would get so just
wrapped up in this game. It's super fun.
Don't know if I'd recommend it for a cloud play.
I didn't have too much latency issues.
Like the controls of this game are very snappy, but you need to
be very quick. I was playing on my main TV for
a little bit, which my TV has a little bit of latency and I was

(59:28):
struggling. So it's like, OK, I can't play
on this TVI got to play on my monitor.
So yeah, you definitely cannot have play this game with
latency. So I wouldn't recommend it with
Cloudplay. But yeah, Silksong is great.
It's 20 bucks, which I my other theory as to why they did 20
bucks is if you bought this gamethen went no, this game's too
hard. I feel like there's a higher
chance you won't refund it because it's 20 bucks.

(59:50):
Whatever you'll just like. Maybe I'll pick it up later.
I don't know that's just a conspiracy theory thought of
mine, but it's great for me. I'm giving this a 90.
I know a lot of people are, you know, saying this is easily
their game of the year. I can see why it is don't know.
It'll definitely be on the list for me for game of the year, but
I don't know if it'll be my gameof the year at the end.

(01:00:13):
So Aaron issued an apology at the beginning of this episode
that, you know, for things that we said about all night and it's
selling 15,000,000 copies. I'm not going to issue the same
apology. I, I still stand behind that.
Yes even at 15,000,000 copies there is niche might not be the
right word and I will admit that, but I I still think that

(01:00:38):
at the end of the day it as someone who likes metroidvania
games, who likes platformer games that I'm not saying this
makes me an expert, but at leastwho generally likes the style of
game. It's not that I hate it, I just
don't necessarily see that it does anything genre breaking
that I haven't seen across a lotof other games outside of adding

(01:01:01):
the souls like element. Which for me, again, this is
where the personal element comesin and like, cool, I, I can, I
can basically be shut out to this game because you've added
an element that just makes it way too hard for me and
inaccessible. The art style is fantastic
though. The music is great.

(01:01:21):
Can't stress enough how much I can't stand the the character
voice. But otherwise all of the sound
effects are great. Everything's really great about
this game and it is a good overall great game.
I just don't know, I don't understand.
I truly just do not understand the love fest for it because I
don't think it does anything that defines the genre or or has

(01:01:42):
shaped or molded or changed it in any capacity.
It is just a very, very good game in it and that's all it is.
So for me personally, it's past.I get it, I do.
But I, I, if someone can explainto me really what, what this
does different, I, I, that's what I want to know because I

(01:02:03):
don't get it. I think I gave the first one an
81. I think I'm going to give us an
80. I don't think this game needs to
do anything different, it just needs to affect it, and I think
this gets as close to perfectionon that front.
Now, this is a weird year for mebecause this is the year of game

(01:02:25):
types that I've never cared for kind of get into me a little
bit. And obviously we have not
mentioned Expedition 33, so turnbased RPGs, not my thing, but
that one worked. That one worked.
Here we've got a Metroidvania souls like those are two words I
really do not want to ever say again because those are not

(01:02:46):
games I enjoy. And yet this one works.
And I think what it takes for meis to come across something
where I say, oh, This is why people like it.
And again, even though it's not for me, I still had a good time
with this one and I still wantedto go further into this game.

(01:03:07):
I wanted to keep going. And I was frustrated when I was
lost because I just wanted to keep finding progression.
I keep wanting to find what is the next thing I want to see as
this thing goes on. What else can I find?
I was just so drawn into the world.
I was so drawn into these kind of bread crumbs that it was

(01:03:27):
leaving for me. It's hard.
It's a hard game. It is.
And I totally get, oh, that's that's an such an appeal and a
draw for so many gamers. It's why games like Elden Ring
and Dark Souls sell bazillions of copies, because that's what
people want. And I get, I get it now.
I can kind of see it here and I can see the appeal of it.

(01:03:52):
So I don't I don't think I will love all of these types of
games. I think I will like this one
because this one to me, it just it hits in that right spot and
it makes sense to me. I again, it is difficult.
I didn't like getting lost. I didn't like that there were
mechanics in this that it just it didn't tell me I even had.

(01:04:13):
I know we've gone over that a little bit and for that I've
just got to knock it down a little bit.
I would give this one an 88. I am.
I'm. I'm really glad you liked it,
Aaron. I thought for sure I was gonna
be the only one in this boat that I was just like that, you
know? I dug.
This, if you told me before thisprocess, what I was gonna think

(01:04:34):
of it. I mean, obviously again, we did
a, we did an episode a few weeksback, a side quest episode.
And I didn't dock this down because I was like, I don't
understand why everyone is that hyped over this.
Like who? Like it's a 2D platformer and
everyone is acting like this is game of the year, like this is
GTA6 or something. And then I got here and I, OK,

(01:04:55):
I, I think within 15 minutes I was like, I, I'm getting this.
This is making a little bit of sense.
I still just you keep the more you just keep talking about like
you like the environment though,like and I get that, but it I
don't see how this perfects the Metroidvania and and I still
don't truly kind of get outside of the overall look of the

(01:05:15):
environment. I kind of don't get that because
I still, if you want a story andand like something involved, go
to Ori. Not to make this like about
because they like they really are just completely different
games, but it's just I don't know in terms of of of that.
I just I don't I don't understand it.

(01:05:36):
I really don't understand. That's still say they're pretty
close. Either way, I just.
It's a little more forgiving. I just don't think that this
perfects anything. I don't know.
That's me personally. Come fight me in discord.
That's I'll. I'll, I'll stay.
Write a comment on Spotify and maybe I will apologize in a
future episode. I won't.

(01:05:57):
I don't apologize. Along with journalistic
integrity, regret is something Ihave nothing of on.
I'll apologize, Keith's. Behalf.
I won't. I won't endorse it all.
Right, but I think we'll wrap itup here.
Thank you all so much for joining us.
As I said, go to gamepassgrabag.com.
You know, as you can see our past reviews of games that we've

(01:06:18):
covered, make sure you go to ourYouTube channel.
I've been trying to do playthroughs more of the games
that we're playing. I've been trying to stream a lot
more. I might be streaming tomorrow.
By the way, what are you streaming?
I really want to download Borderlands 4 tomorrow, so yeah,
I might stream up some of that tomorrow.
I want to get back on to streaming work is kind of
leveling out a little bit right now, so I do have a little bit

(01:06:40):
more free time. So yeah, I might, I might jump
on at some point tomorrow. Yeah, I've been trying to do
the, you know, the games that we've been covering.
I've been trying to stream more.Dark Side Phil has been a big
inspiration to me. That guy is absolutely awful and
if he can stream, I'm like, you know what, I can stream.
I was going to say, how is that guy inspiring to you?

(01:07:01):
Okay. That guy is a personality of
curdled milk. That guy somehow.
Making it and if he can make it,so can I.
Something for that. Played a little bit of Silk
song, it is a delight. Yeah, he's known for being
really bad at video games and hating them because he's bad at
them. Yes, he's very his.
Personality is, is like the way I've heard described.

(01:07:23):
He is the reason why developers put yellow paint everywhere.
Yeah, and that isn't the perfectdescription.
So yeah. Anyway, I've been your hardware
gamer host to Andrew. You can find me on Xbox Live at
Firebird 01952. Make sure, like I said, make
sure you join a Discord as well.Me and Keith are quite active on
there. So yeah, come say hi.

(01:07:43):
Ohh boy, bye. I said.
Bye, see. You next week.
See ya.