I'm turning 40 next spring and I think a good goal for the next decade of my life would be getting the any% ending of Hollow Knight: Silksong. (I was gonna say beating act I but let's dream big.)

Important update, I beat him before my next flight took off! My reward was the red boingies yaaayyyy ☺️💢

Ahh you are totally right, I was thinking that any% doesn't need tear but yeah that's with acid skips. My bad!

I know it's beside the point but I don't think that's true; you can pogo the durandoos to get in from greenpath.

And yeah I completely understand people's complaints about the punishing damage and general difficulty. I just people saying it's linear aren't doing enough exploring. 😅

Hmm can't you get there via greenpath? In any case yeah it may be fewer areas but to me the feeling of the exploration and backtracking is very similar.

It's definitely true that Hornet's quest is "get from point A to point B" (in act 1 anyway) while the knight's is "get from point A back to point A but after you've done a bunch of stuff" and I definitely take your point that that automatically gives the exploration a different vibe.

That's not really true in HK, if your goal is to get the dreamers and defeat THK you don't need to bother with exploring kingdom's edge or hive or howling cliffs or even waterways. There's a lot of HK's map that's just for exploration and leveling up. (Slightly less so for TE obviously.)

Hopefully you'll get that experience more in act 2, whatever it is (don't tell me!) 😊

(Okay only one of them actually had the ice thing but you get the idea)

Mmm yeah that's a really interesting point. But I'm so curious which biomes you did in what order before reaching the citadel because there really are so many areas that had that "wait where the hell are we, why are we taking ice damage, wtf is happening uhhh run away" sort of feeling. 😂

But... that's happened to me like five times lol, we keep stumbling into biomes and being like uhhhhh are we supposed to be here. 😅 I won't name then 'cause spoilers I guess but that's been a huge part of my experience so far.

Yeah I'm expecting it to open up even more after act 1 (I have literally no idea what act 2 is, no spoilers!) but how much backtracking did you do? If your only goal is to get to Citadel there's probably a pretty defined path to follow but if your goal is to explore the map there's so much to find.

Rosaries are mostly useful for benches and bell stations and maps, but if you're exploring all the crevices/breakable walls etc you'll get most of them from caches you find there; grinding enemies for resources hasn't felt necessary. (Paying for benches is bullshit though lol, sheesh 😅)

But basically everyone I've watched play Silksong has discovered things in vastly different orders. Silksong is bigger and more complex than HK but progression doesn't feel fundamentally different to me.

Yeah lol I saw people complaining in a steamer's chat literally Thursday at like 2pm that the map was too linear... guys it's been out for four hours. 😂 Backtracking is insanely fruitful.

I think contact damage should never hit for two and I agree about bench placement, but I don't understand the idea that it doesn't play like a metroidvania. Each movement ability opens up so many new things in old areas and overall the game feels even more movement and platforming based than HK.

Thank you for this story, it injected much-needed pure joy into my soul. Peri is literally the best I love it so much. 😭💕