The silver lining about forced downtime one is confronted with in games, especially the moments of disappointment after losing to a boss, is that anyone who’s lucky enough to have an animal in their life just got an extra minute to enjoy some fluffy company.


I’m imagining many Silksong players with cats have spent similar moments in their post death malaise

I didn’t mean for yesterday’s post to come off with a “contractual obligation” kind of vibe, but the “phoning in” process was regrettably the only choice I had in the face of the lack of time to spare. With each passing day, I understand more and more developers who have to make drastic cuts to games they’re working on to meet deadlines. To wit; Halo 2’s (lack of) ending makes a lot more sense to me.


Of course Master Chief isn’t going to “finish the fight” in the second installment of a trilogy you self-important clowns

Ironically, Halo 2’s (lack of) ending I cite as more of a legacy meme reference of sorts more than any truly lasting feelings of being burned from all those years ago, as I (personally felt that Bungie editorialized the end of that game appropriately enough for what they had left, in relation to the time crunch they faced. In very much the same way as this callout to Halo 2, I make similar references about the Water Temple being difficult: it’s not that I didn’t get lost in the aquatic depths of madness that the dungeon represented, mind you, but I don’t remember throwing as much of a shit-fit about it that so many other people did at the time, though the core memory remains for most, so the callback remains appropriate.


My head canon is that when Navi was saying this, it was a diss to the whole temple, in talking about what an absolute bitch the water temple was being

I think those feelings of turmoil that I’ve transformed into jest does kind of segway perfectly into more thoughts I’ve had on Silksong, in spite of my continuous verbalization of not wanting to “spam articles” on the matter, but here we are. I know people are still playing the game, but I feel as if the launch window’s fever pitch energy has died down a bit. Whether or not this is due to the notion the few who would have beaten the game have, and those who bounced off this one much like I did the first have already moved on. I don’t necessarily blame them, not so much because Silksong does demand more from players than most other titles, but it’s been a busy season for game releases, so it is as if people don’t have choices in the matter when it comes to games to play in September alone.


A ridiculous cornucopia of options, as Gamespot points out for those not keeping track

I’ve been trying to focus my efforts on where I want to take my analytical prowess in terms of Silksong, but I must admit, this weekend was a draining one for me, which is weird, as it was severely low energy, so I’m not sure where all of this aimless thought and subtle perturbation emanates from, but it is here, and it is a strong force to contend with. That of course doesn’t make the efforts of getting through Silksong any easier, but I’ve a good grasp on the title thus far, so I’ve been able to keep pace as I march my way headlong to the Citadel. I have only been able to put about an hour or so into each session since the games launch, so only a handful, but riveting hours non the less. Not that I think the game is very long, but it is at least longer than the 8 hours I have put into it, which leaves a bit more to go. I’m much further along than most judging by achievement percentages, being right at the doorstep of entering the Citadel itself, and the boss I’m currently on it says only around 10% of gamers have beaten it, so the vast majority of players are behind me in this regard. Based on reports that the first patch is going to nerf two bosses, MoorWing and Sister Splinter, I’m guessing many get stuck on those, which interest me so, as I personally found them to be two of the more engaging bosses in the game thus far. But as I’ve discussed before, one players shit-fit is another player’s contentment.


Sister Splinter seems appropriately named, as she is certainly “splintering” the fanbase’s opinion on just “how difficult” a boss should be

I spoke yesterday of the main character’s (Hornet) “Sting” attack, which is just an aerial downward stab of sorts, something many side scrolling action games sport. It is not really necessary for any of the boss strategies that I’ve encountered (thus far), and as mentioned, since I’m basically ahead of about 90% of the player base in reference to achievement progress, using inductive methods of reasoning, I would say this truth is evident for most others who have strategist similarly. I’m sure you can use the Sting for bosses, but it’s not required. I maintain a kind of stalwart, thorough repetitious posture with the bosses, kind of mimicking a short hop zig-zag pattern I utilized when playing Castlevania games. With Hornet’s movement mirroring that of Alucard’s from Symphony of the Night, something I alluded to some articles ago, this approach makes sense.


Much like Alucard, death is also a constant specter of annoyance Hornet has to contend with

Without turning this into a super dry dissection of the problems players run into, and using some of the “here and there” prattling’s I’ve viewed online, in combination with the proposed patch addressing both MoorWing and Sister Splinter, I’m just going to rapid fire the shit out some random thoughts I had dealing with the proposed complaints against the difficulty of the game. This is not an attempt at admonishment of players having trouble with theses issues as a quick clarification, though I do like to understand where the line is between earned griping and gratuitous bitching as best I can.


The confrontation with the concept of death acts as if a metaphysical mirror reflecting the content of character one possesses back at them

I want to say first and foremost, one of the things I’ve noticed the most about how one can design a boss encounter to be more difficult, and in the same manner, platforming sections, is by making the flow of actions on some level, to be polyrhythmic, which ends up being a fitting critique of a game named Silksong that often times evokes a sense of melodic gesturing in its moment to moment gameplay. I’m sure I probably noticed that this was the case at some point long ago in the past of my gaming career, as three decades brings much in the way of encounters with it, but I most certainly started noticing this with Souls games, which is appropriate, as Silksong borrows heavily from the series in terms of boss design approach. Just as a clarification, polyrhythmic for those who don’t know, merely means an irregular pattern or where beats do not align in a predictable way.


A picture of Neil Peart (Rush) doing a polyrhythmic section on the drums (trust me on this)

I remember really observing this strategic happening earlier this year, when I was still making my way through Shadow of the Erdtree, the DLC for Elden Ring, as many of the more troublesome bosses of note who would throw me off somewhat, would be polyrhythmic themselves in their approach of an ass-whopping. This can usually boil down to something akin to…instead of a boss going something like: Duh-Duh-Duh-Duh….the boss ends up doing it like this: Duh-Duh-Pause-Duh. This may seem obvious, or silly, or like I’m chugging stupid juice in explaining this, but this definitely got me enough times to lead me to believe it definitely tripped up other people, too. I truly think, based on the bosses we are talking about, those in other games, and my own experience, the polyrhythmic nature of their movements throws many for a loop. I think it is a super easy way to immediately subvert player expectations, as there yet remains a rhythm and flow to the fight itself, just a bit off kilter, and with enough of a curve ball thrown your way as to be an effective approach to disorient a player ever so slightly, When one is a mere hit away from certain doom, and the boss changes it up at the last second, maybe just on account of a polyrhythmic movement, but perhaps, possibly in conjunction with both RNG (random number generation) and or multiple things moving on the screen at once, it is easy to see where one goes wrong in the heat of the moment, falling whim to folly, with weightless death on spread wings swooping down swiftly to claim it’s helpless prey.


Like this, but way scarier

I have more I wish to speak on with this thought, but I will have to continue my preponderance tomorrow.

~Pashford