I sometimes like to look at the fall-off rate of players by looking at the global achievements.
With Silksong as an example, for the first few months there was a pretty big drop in “Defeat the Last Judge” achievements from everything else in Act 1, but surprisingly very little drop-off after that, which suggests that was a major wall for people, and many quit at that point.
I bet for some of the drop off, it’s because the Last Judge explodes after being defeated, and if you die, you have to battle them all over again. This almost got me to rage quit all together. I finally got to Act 3 but didn’t have it in me to get to the end.
I dropped off there, but not because they explode, which I didn’t know. For me it felt like I got an idea of what the game was going to be like, not really going somewhere new compared to Hollow Knight and being a slog with long annoying runbacks.
Not sure if that feeling is accurate for what it would have been like to continue, but importantly for the analysis it was a culmination of everything that came before.
The fake bench before him that forces you to get diseased
was so offensive I almost quit, but I kept going on, determined to reach the end. I was nearly at the end of the game when I reached Crust King Khann.
Tap for spoiler
I miraculously cleared the first three gauntlet rooms on the way to him before dying in the fourth. When I went back in and realized it was going to make me start from the beginning each time, and that it may take me ten or so times after I finally reach the boss to finish, I immediately uninstalled.
People who love the runbacks will say things like “Once you’re good enough, the runbacks aren’t a slog they are just time consuming.” That’s exactly what a slog is. If the game made you put in the first 100 digits of pi every time you died, no one would play it because it was wasting your time. Punishing you for dying by burning a significant chunk of your real world life span is not something I want to encourage.
My disdain for games that have no respect for the player’s time seems to be uncommon. I criticized Blue Prince for the same reason, and people strongly disagreed.
it was going to make me start from the beginning each time
that’s actually not the case, after the third gauntlet room there’s one of those giant drill spikes you have to hit that falls and breaks through the floors below, letting you skip all 3 major gauntlets, only leaving the short 4th one
regarding runbacks, imo they’re fun, so sure, they take time, but anything in a game takes time to do. And all but one of the runbacks are less than like 40s long, I see them as a phase 0 of boss fights, and greatly enjoy them. They also change things up so it’s not just permanently fighting the boss itself the entire time. My caveat here is that the movement system being fun adds to that a lot, so in things like the 3rd person Souls games, if it’s just a long sprint, it’s not as interesting, whereas Silksong has one of my favorite movement systems in gaming, so I even looked forward to the runback when I died against Last Judge.
It’s a matter of taste. The runback is as exercise in speedrunning which allows you to sharpen the core skills until you can pass everything fast without losing HP. At the point where you pass everything with full HP it’s not a slog anymore, just going through the motions.
Holy fuck did that fight annoy me the first playthrough. Once I figured out the trick to it, it became easy as hell, but until then I almost put the game down entirely.
spoiler
Balteus felt like the real noob filter, though. Holy shit, that fight took me SO LONG the first time through before I had unlocked the Songbirds.
Oh, and then Sea Spider. Fuck that guy right in Balteus’s ass.
Oh fuck, and then you had to remind me of THAT guy…
Man, as hard as they were, some of those bosses really are staggeringly good. Once the bugs got fixed, I never really felt like the fights were particularly unfair, and some of them like STRIDER were downright fun. Then again, STRIDER reminded me so much of AC4A that I couldn’t help but adore it. That whole mission felt like a love letter to 4A.
It’s funny how fuzzy my memory is about this game, but I know I haven’t played it since right after it came out. I remember that I did multiple playthroughs to get the true ending though, if that counts.
Yeah that’s what I was wondering about. The multiple endings are so fuckin worth it.
I really hope they do a sequel to this one, because I rank it second best out of the whole series (behind AC4A, of course). Hopefully, that sequel brings back weapon arms and the ability to equip multiple melee weapons, but even if it doesn’t, I’d still play the shit out of it.
I sometimes like to look at the fall-off rate of players by looking at the global achievements.
With Silksong as an example, for the first few months there was a pretty big drop in “Defeat the Last Judge” achievements from everything else in Act 1, but surprisingly very little drop-off after that, which suggests that was a major wall for people, and many quit at that point.
I bet for some of the drop off, it’s because the Last Judge explodes after being defeated, and if you die, you have to battle them all over again. This almost got me to rage quit all together. I finally got to Act 3 but didn’t have it in me to get to the end.
I dropped off there, but not because they explode, which I didn’t know. For me it felt like I got an idea of what the game was going to be like, not really going somewhere new compared to Hollow Knight and being a slog with long annoying runbacks.
Not sure if that feeling is accurate for what it would have been like to continue, but importantly for the analysis it was a culmination of everything that came before.
The runback for the Last Judge wasn’t even that terrible, just annoying and time consuming. There’s another one called Groal The Great which is:
spoiler
not great at all
Especially if you don’t know about
Tap for spoiler
the secret bench, and even than it’s still not great. Fuck Groal
Tap for spoiler
The fake bench before him that forces you to get diseased
was so offensive I almost quit, but I kept going on, determined to reach the end. I was nearly at the end of the game when I reached Crust King Khann.
Tap for spoiler
I miraculously cleared the first three gauntlet rooms on the way to him before dying in the fourth. When I went back in and realized it was going to make me start from the beginning each time, and that it may take me ten or so times after I finally reach the boss to finish, I immediately uninstalled.
People who love the runbacks will say things like “Once you’re good enough, the runbacks aren’t a slog they are just time consuming.” That’s exactly what a slog is. If the game made you put in the first 100 digits of pi every time you died, no one would play it because it was wasting your time. Punishing you for dying by burning a significant chunk of your real world life span is not something I want to encourage.
My disdain for games that have no respect for the player’s time seems to be uncommon. I criticized Blue Prince for the same reason, and people strongly disagreed.
that’s actually not the case, after the third gauntlet room there’s one of those giant drill spikes you have to hit that falls and breaks through the floors below, letting you skip all 3 major gauntlets, only leaving the short 4th one
regarding runbacks, imo they’re fun, so sure, they take time, but anything in a game takes time to do. And all but one of the runbacks are less than like 40s long, I see them as a phase 0 of boss fights, and greatly enjoy them. They also change things up so it’s not just permanently fighting the boss itself the entire time. My caveat here is that the movement system being fun adds to that a lot, so in things like the 3rd person Souls games, if it’s just a long sprint, it’s not as interesting, whereas Silksong has one of my favorite movement systems in gaming, so I even looked forward to the runback when I died against Last Judge.
It’s a matter of taste. The runback is as exercise in speedrunning which allows you to sharpen the core skills until you can pass everything fast without losing HP. At the point where you pass everything with full HP it’s not a slog anymore, just going through the motions.
You know, that makes me even happier with my decision not to play HK/Silksong.
I like to do the same. I remember it especially with Armored Core.
Holy fuck did that fight annoy me the first playthrough. Once I figured out the trick to it, it became easy as hell, but until then I almost put the game down entirely.
spoiler
Balteus felt like the real noob filter, though. Holy shit, that fight took me SO LONG the first time through before I had unlocked the Songbirds.
Oh, and then Sea Spider. Fuck that guy right in Balteus’s ass.
It’s been long enough that I can barely remember the specific bosses, but some of them took me forever!
Just looked him up, and I remember Balteus too. Yeah, that was a learning curve.
This was the one that I had to grind out over and over and over…
Oh fuck, and then you had to remind me of THAT guy…
Man, as hard as they were, some of those bosses really are staggeringly good. Once the bugs got fixed, I never really felt like the fights were particularly unfair, and some of them like STRIDER were downright fun. Then again, STRIDER reminded me so much of AC4A that I couldn’t help but adore it. That whole mission felt like a love letter to 4A.
I was using the shotguns a lot, and I think a balance patch nerfed them later, so maybe I got by easier than I should’ve.
…talking about this is making me want to replay.
Same lol. I just reinstalled it. Time for playthrough number 4, I guess.
Have you done more than one playthrough?
It’s funny how fuzzy my memory is about this game, but I know I haven’t played it since right after it came out. I remember that I did multiple playthroughs to get the true ending though, if that counts.
Yeah that’s what I was wondering about. The multiple endings are so fuckin worth it.
I really hope they do a sequel to this one, because I rank it second best out of the whole series (behind AC4A, of course). Hopefully, that sequel brings back weapon arms and the ability to equip multiple melee weapons, but even if it doesn’t, I’d still play the shit out of it.
I think it’s funny that I didn’t even find the Last Judge until the end of act 2, so it was a pretty easy boss in my playthrough