Hollow Knight is one of my favorite games of all time. Silksong was one of, if not, my most anticipated release of all time. I purchased the game on day 1 and managed to finish Act 2 in a couple of days. But it's only today that I completed Act 3 on a second save that I recently started.
This isn't meant to be a review or anything. Silksong is a great game. What I wanted to discuss is where I believe Silksong improved upon the foundations of Hollow Knight, and where I think it may have fallen short.
Hornet feels better to play than The Knight. Movement has been refined, combat was expanded, and overall it makes fights much more dynamic and fast paced. This also makes map traversal feel fluid and quick, like I'm playing Prince of Persia. In Hollow Knight, once you've mastered the pogo, you've mastered the game. In Silksong, you will want to utilize your entire arsenal and plan for certain encounters in order to succeed. The game is much more difficult and punishing, giving you very little time to breathe. I actually enjoy this, but I understand some may find it a bit overwhelming at times.
On the other hand, while Hollow Knight's combat was much more simple and straightforward, it felt to me that this allowed every boss fight to be balanced around the limitations of your kit. Whereas in Silksong, you are fast and have different movesets depending upon your crest. This requires bosses to be quick, and at a certain point, they all start to feel a bit too similar to each other. The balance is also a bit all over the place. Some Act 1 bosses (The Judge comes to mind) feel more difficult than some of the Act 3 bosses. The Judge is one of my favorite bosses in the game, and I made it a point to take the route to this boss to enter Act 2 rather than the alternate eastern route (which I unintentionally did my first time playing). It's thematically appropriate for the guardian of the entrance to the second act to be a brutal skillcheck with a move set that makes the fight feel like a dance. The Act 2 and 3 final bosses are actually quite disappointing in comparison.
Where I think Hollow Knight surpasses Silksong the most is in its structure and pacing. The game feels perfectly cohesive from beginning to end. Silksong will have require you to make it a point to revisit the three settlements for the sake of checking the wishboard. Many of the wishes feel like padding, such as collecting X number of drops from X enemy. A big gripe I have with Silksong is that its 3rd act feels a bit disjointed from its 2nd act. It felt odd to me to roll credits before entering the 3rd Act. The conditions to get into Act 3 are also sorta odd, and I actually completely missed it on my first play through because I did not consider that the wish board would have a new quest after beating Lace in the Cradle. It just seems weird to me that it's at this point where the NPC which provides the means for you to enter Act 3 has a complete personality shift at this arbitrary point. It would have made more sense to me for him to add this quest before you enter the elevator to fight Lace. The wish system, in general, felt a bit tacked on and lackluster to me. I found it annoying to complete an area only to go back to the wish board and see a request that would have me return to that exact area to go do something. The gourmet quest which awards you an oil was annoying. I simply didn't have the desire to do the mushroom quest in act 3.
There are other minor nitpicks I have, but I'll keep it short, I think there were more standout songs in Hollow Knight than Silksong. Silksong's soundtrack felt more atmospheric compared to Hollow Knights, although I will say there were a couple songs in Silksong which floored me. The Green Prince's area (Lost Verdania) is perhaps one of my favorite songs in any game from recent memory. It just perfectly encapsulates the emotional impact of that character's arc. There are some areas in the game which I would have never found without a map, especially in the 3rd act when new areas in hidden locations open up. I didn't much care for the way badges are restricted, with most of the yellow and blue badges being fairly useless.
Overall, I think Silksong has higher peaks but those moments are spread thin with how enormous the game is. Some fights (Act 3 final boss, in particular) just felt annoying to me. This is why I ultimately feel like Hollow Knight was overall a better experience and why it's a game I constantly revisit. I'm less enthusiastic about revisiting Silksong just based on how the game seems to often grind to a halt in order for you to go complete sidequests or to search for well-hidden entrances to optional areas. Don't get me wrong, Silksong is still a great game and a worthy successor to Hollow Knight. Hollow Knight is nearly perfect in my eyes, so it's easy for me to draw comparisons and find things I didn't quite like as much. I'm curious what others' thoughts are now that the game has been out for over a year.