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Silksong and Sonic Crossworlds reviews (Spoilers)
2 days ago
Silksong:
I want to preface this by noting that I never played the first Hollow Knight. The characters and world didn't interest me. I did, however, watch a playthrough of it by
tsuki-akurei so I know all the story in it and did like the character of Hornet, who interested me enough that when Silksong was announced, I wanted to get it to play as her.
Graphics:
The art style is the same as the OG Hollow Knight, however there are more details on things and better shading. That said, characters can vary on how much detail they have. Hornet for example is a literal stick figure despite allegedly having an exoskeleton like the rest of the bugs. This sadly continues into the pre rendered animations and not just gameplay. The game also is generally pretty poor about indications of secret placements as cracked walls you can damage are often nearly impossible to tell apart from other walls.
Music:
Most of the music in the game is very dour and depressing to match the setting and as a result nearly nothing stands out. In fact the only theme I can even somewhat remember is the battle against the boss Skarrsinger. It's fitting for where you go during the game but it makes for a rather unremarkable OST as a whole.
Controls:
While I was playing this on the Switch, I chose to use only the 4 Directional buttons, not the analogue stick since it has no actual function. Items and skills are mapped to simple to remember buttons, however it is very notable during certain fights or platforming segments that the game will randomly mess up your inputs. For instance, you could jump, then press down and attack and Hornet does a standard attack, leading to you dying in the boss fight or failing your platforming. I can confirm that is not controller related as i continually swapped between several controls during my gameplay and this happened repeatedly.
Gameplay:
Hornet is very fun to move around and attack foes and do platforming with and grows more fun the more techniques you learn. HOWEVER... the problem is that the developers don't know how to balance a boss fight. In most cases, a boss is a very powerful foe who doesn't react to your attacks and only leaves specific openings for you to hit that while you carefully dodge their attack in a very elegant type of dance. The issue is that the developers wanted to make the battles "harder", but instead of making the bosses faster with limited tells, they instead often chose to implement multiple mooks in a gang fight. Said mooks will not be synchronized with the boss in any manner. This become so much worse later on in the game as you will have multi stage boss fights that start throwing random attacks from random directions while random mooks spawn in throwing random attack patterns, all while the boss is doing their scripted movements. This often is made worse by making you walk three miles from a bench to even reach the boss again. For the last leg of the game, all the bosses have pre-fight arena fights, often consisting of ten (10) powerful mooks that you must kill before you have a chance to fight the boss and with no breaks inbetween. This often gets squished all together so you will have a mook arena fight, a boss that summons mooks, and when you die you have a 3 mile hike back to the room where you home the RNG gods work on your side. Want to make a Silksong player feel rage? Ask them "So how was Bilewater?"
Story
Taking place about 200+ years after Hollow Knight, the story opens with Hornet being captured and hauled across the lands before she finally builds enough strength to slaughter her captors and destroy her imprisonment, but she's drained of all her energy and needs to slowly regroup. You soon find the area she's in is one of the origin points of the Weavers and everyone is trying to go to the castle-like area at the peak of the lands here for some sort of holy journey. naturally this is a farce as the people here have Thread weaved deep inside of their bodies and the one at the citadel is pulling on said strings. The game initially follows Hornet cutting her way through the processed people to the one who captured her and then killing her. The only issue with that is the being who is doing all this is "The Primordial Silk" and she allegedly made the weavers intelligent in the first place but they abandoned her when they learned she was a corrupt controlling monster. Said monster sent out soldiers to try and capture weavers and bring them back, willing or unwilling, to make them slaves so she could have them around her. In the normal ending, Hornet kills her and absorbs her, something Weavers can do to gain the power of foes. This causes hornet to fully grow into her true six eyed, six armed weaver Goddess form, but the game ends before it gives any clarification on if she would be a positive or negative influence on the world. By doing all the side quests and talking to a specific NPC, you can kill the queen a different way, but this instead causes the Void to come back and use her silk threads. The game proceeds to become about 4x HARDER than it already was. By doing increasingly more bullshit bossfights, you eventually fight again in the void in a supremely bullshit three stage fight. Your reward is an ending that leaves no explanation on where things go or what becomes of the entire place you spent hours trying to liberate. It honestly left me feeling infuriated that i went through that much bullshit gameplay to get such a shitty reward.
Summary:
While i applaud Team Cherry for only charging $20 in a day where $70 is the fucking norm for games, don't get this game unless you're a masochist. You put in a ton of effort and a ton of pain for extremely little reward.
---
Sonic Racing Crossworlds:
I've played Mario kart since 64 days all the way up to Mario Kart 8, and the best one was Double Dash as driving was more important than spamming items. The best mario kart game after double dash was actually Sonic Racing Transformed. After seeing the stupid "Open World" aspect of Mario Kart World that is filled with nothing and no reliable tracks with laps, I had no interest in it, but Crossworlds did interest me. So... how is it?
Graphics:
This game is freaking gorgeous. While retaining the typical sonic style, lots of color is in every track and every racer. Every car and board is wonderfully detailed and even has custom decals you can apply as well as mix and match parts. it's honestly lovely to look at. I never had any issue of not seeing where I was going.
Music:
Me oh my the music in this game is just excellent. Remixes of well known tracks as well as all new tunes are a treat to listen to. They also have sped up lap 3 remixes and have really well done transition points for when you slip into a crossover world.
Controls:
Oh so simple yet slick, anyone who ever played a kart racer will pick this up with no issue. Accelerate, break, drifting, item usage, all super simple to use. This goes for aquatic and air portions of maps as well.
Gameplay:
So as soon as you boot up the game, you can choose a racer and their vehicle and right away you see the freedom given to you. NO racer is locked to any "type" of vehicle. Want to play as Eggman, a power character, but use a Speed vehicle? You can. Characters and vehicles are split into 5 different types: Power, Speed, Acceleration, Handling, and Boost. The boost types are the Extreme Gear air boards and get the most from drifting, speed pad, and other boosting methods. next, you likely will go to a grand prix, which will have 8 cups you can go to. Each cup has 3 tracks on them and when you pick your character, you'll be given a rival. Said rival will have much higher abilities than the other racers and will share a banter with your character before the beginning of the whole race. A race on a track consists of three laps, however after the first lap, you will be sent to a crossworld. The person in first place will get to choose. While there are many places that only exist in this one lap crossworld, there is the ability to go to a Random selection, which will pull from ANY course for the second lap. After you complete the one lap in the crossworld, you'll come back to the original track which in some later cases can have some modifications, mostly rings being worth more or some elaborate jump. The fourth and final race of a grand prix is a crossworld event where you start in the first course of the cup, do lap two in the second course, then do lap three on the third course, so I hope you know the best places to do tricks. Speaking of, while drifting can build a boost, you also can do tricks off of jumps, all of which give boosts upon landing, and no you can't flub a trick. The items are very wild but easy to understand. There are in fact 2 "blue shell" items, but they are vastly more destructive. The first are the Gold and Silver weights, which crush first AND second place. No more sandbagging to steal an easy win. The most powerful is King Boom Boo. "But doesn't he shrink into a shadow during the daylight?" He has a fancy set of shades and proceeds to smash first place with five pillars of fire, which will destroy anyone and everyone around first place and down the track. There ARE ways to counter this with a couple defensive items, but you gotta drive well in first place in order to keep it as being hit by an item causes you to DROP your items to disable mario kart's style of constant backlash item fests. This is also only one mode as there is an entire area dedicated to gimmick type races, even team based races. All events will net you tickets, which are used to buy new car parts, decals, horns, and the ability to RETRY A RACE MID GRAND PRIX THAT YOU GOT ROBBED IN. The only penalty is that it will say you won with a little ticket item by the cup showing you needed to retry, which goes away if you win it with no retries. You also can spent tickets on a "friendship" function. This is where you donate tickets to a character and they complement you and give you things such as their name tag, decals, and other amusing things. There is also going to be free updates adding more sega characters over time. You also upgrade a "plaque" that allows you to bring specific abilities with you for different races. Things such as boosting when you touch another car, get a boost when you respawn after falling off the track, don't lose your items when hit, but also goes more in depth with more powerful abilities. Sadly online is the worst place to be as you often end up in lobbies with 2 players who have already blown the game open and 9 other racers who are just trolls and will somehow target YOU, despite you never getting above 5th place. if you get into first somehow, expect all hell to rain down on you. Stick with friends.
Story:
Dodonpa invited everyone here for a virtual reality race. The only deeper story is the personal interactions in the Rival mechanic or a quip certain characters will say when you use them on specific courses.
Summary:
I want to preface this by noting that I never played the first Hollow Knight. The characters and world didn't interest me. I did, however, watch a playthrough of it by
tsuki-akurei so I know all the story in it and did like the character of Hornet, who interested me enough that when Silksong was announced, I wanted to get it to play as her.Graphics:
The art style is the same as the OG Hollow Knight, however there are more details on things and better shading. That said, characters can vary on how much detail they have. Hornet for example is a literal stick figure despite allegedly having an exoskeleton like the rest of the bugs. This sadly continues into the pre rendered animations and not just gameplay. The game also is generally pretty poor about indications of secret placements as cracked walls you can damage are often nearly impossible to tell apart from other walls.
Music:
Most of the music in the game is very dour and depressing to match the setting and as a result nearly nothing stands out. In fact the only theme I can even somewhat remember is the battle against the boss Skarrsinger. It's fitting for where you go during the game but it makes for a rather unremarkable OST as a whole.
Controls:
While I was playing this on the Switch, I chose to use only the 4 Directional buttons, not the analogue stick since it has no actual function. Items and skills are mapped to simple to remember buttons, however it is very notable during certain fights or platforming segments that the game will randomly mess up your inputs. For instance, you could jump, then press down and attack and Hornet does a standard attack, leading to you dying in the boss fight or failing your platforming. I can confirm that is not controller related as i continually swapped between several controls during my gameplay and this happened repeatedly.
Gameplay:
Hornet is very fun to move around and attack foes and do platforming with and grows more fun the more techniques you learn. HOWEVER... the problem is that the developers don't know how to balance a boss fight. In most cases, a boss is a very powerful foe who doesn't react to your attacks and only leaves specific openings for you to hit that while you carefully dodge their attack in a very elegant type of dance. The issue is that the developers wanted to make the battles "harder", but instead of making the bosses faster with limited tells, they instead often chose to implement multiple mooks in a gang fight. Said mooks will not be synchronized with the boss in any manner. This become so much worse later on in the game as you will have multi stage boss fights that start throwing random attacks from random directions while random mooks spawn in throwing random attack patterns, all while the boss is doing their scripted movements. This often is made worse by making you walk three miles from a bench to even reach the boss again. For the last leg of the game, all the bosses have pre-fight arena fights, often consisting of ten (10) powerful mooks that you must kill before you have a chance to fight the boss and with no breaks inbetween. This often gets squished all together so you will have a mook arena fight, a boss that summons mooks, and when you die you have a 3 mile hike back to the room where you home the RNG gods work on your side. Want to make a Silksong player feel rage? Ask them "So how was Bilewater?"
Story
Taking place about 200+ years after Hollow Knight, the story opens with Hornet being captured and hauled across the lands before she finally builds enough strength to slaughter her captors and destroy her imprisonment, but she's drained of all her energy and needs to slowly regroup. You soon find the area she's in is one of the origin points of the Weavers and everyone is trying to go to the castle-like area at the peak of the lands here for some sort of holy journey. naturally this is a farce as the people here have Thread weaved deep inside of their bodies and the one at the citadel is pulling on said strings. The game initially follows Hornet cutting her way through the processed people to the one who captured her and then killing her. The only issue with that is the being who is doing all this is "The Primordial Silk" and she allegedly made the weavers intelligent in the first place but they abandoned her when they learned she was a corrupt controlling monster. Said monster sent out soldiers to try and capture weavers and bring them back, willing or unwilling, to make them slaves so she could have them around her. In the normal ending, Hornet kills her and absorbs her, something Weavers can do to gain the power of foes. This causes hornet to fully grow into her true six eyed, six armed weaver Goddess form, but the game ends before it gives any clarification on if she would be a positive or negative influence on the world. By doing all the side quests and talking to a specific NPC, you can kill the queen a different way, but this instead causes the Void to come back and use her silk threads. The game proceeds to become about 4x HARDER than it already was. By doing increasingly more bullshit bossfights, you eventually fight again in the void in a supremely bullshit three stage fight. Your reward is an ending that leaves no explanation on where things go or what becomes of the entire place you spent hours trying to liberate. It honestly left me feeling infuriated that i went through that much bullshit gameplay to get such a shitty reward.
Summary:
While i applaud Team Cherry for only charging $20 in a day where $70 is the fucking norm for games, don't get this game unless you're a masochist. You put in a ton of effort and a ton of pain for extremely little reward.
---
Sonic Racing Crossworlds:
I've played Mario kart since 64 days all the way up to Mario Kart 8, and the best one was Double Dash as driving was more important than spamming items. The best mario kart game after double dash was actually Sonic Racing Transformed. After seeing the stupid "Open World" aspect of Mario Kart World that is filled with nothing and no reliable tracks with laps, I had no interest in it, but Crossworlds did interest me. So... how is it?
Graphics:
This game is freaking gorgeous. While retaining the typical sonic style, lots of color is in every track and every racer. Every car and board is wonderfully detailed and even has custom decals you can apply as well as mix and match parts. it's honestly lovely to look at. I never had any issue of not seeing where I was going.
Music:
Me oh my the music in this game is just excellent. Remixes of well known tracks as well as all new tunes are a treat to listen to. They also have sped up lap 3 remixes and have really well done transition points for when you slip into a crossover world.
Controls:
Oh so simple yet slick, anyone who ever played a kart racer will pick this up with no issue. Accelerate, break, drifting, item usage, all super simple to use. This goes for aquatic and air portions of maps as well.
Gameplay:
So as soon as you boot up the game, you can choose a racer and their vehicle and right away you see the freedom given to you. NO racer is locked to any "type" of vehicle. Want to play as Eggman, a power character, but use a Speed vehicle? You can. Characters and vehicles are split into 5 different types: Power, Speed, Acceleration, Handling, and Boost. The boost types are the Extreme Gear air boards and get the most from drifting, speed pad, and other boosting methods. next, you likely will go to a grand prix, which will have 8 cups you can go to. Each cup has 3 tracks on them and when you pick your character, you'll be given a rival. Said rival will have much higher abilities than the other racers and will share a banter with your character before the beginning of the whole race. A race on a track consists of three laps, however after the first lap, you will be sent to a crossworld. The person in first place will get to choose. While there are many places that only exist in this one lap crossworld, there is the ability to go to a Random selection, which will pull from ANY course for the second lap. After you complete the one lap in the crossworld, you'll come back to the original track which in some later cases can have some modifications, mostly rings being worth more or some elaborate jump. The fourth and final race of a grand prix is a crossworld event where you start in the first course of the cup, do lap two in the second course, then do lap three on the third course, so I hope you know the best places to do tricks. Speaking of, while drifting can build a boost, you also can do tricks off of jumps, all of which give boosts upon landing, and no you can't flub a trick. The items are very wild but easy to understand. There are in fact 2 "blue shell" items, but they are vastly more destructive. The first are the Gold and Silver weights, which crush first AND second place. No more sandbagging to steal an easy win. The most powerful is King Boom Boo. "But doesn't he shrink into a shadow during the daylight?" He has a fancy set of shades and proceeds to smash first place with five pillars of fire, which will destroy anyone and everyone around first place and down the track. There ARE ways to counter this with a couple defensive items, but you gotta drive well in first place in order to keep it as being hit by an item causes you to DROP your items to disable mario kart's style of constant backlash item fests. This is also only one mode as there is an entire area dedicated to gimmick type races, even team based races. All events will net you tickets, which are used to buy new car parts, decals, horns, and the ability to RETRY A RACE MID GRAND PRIX THAT YOU GOT ROBBED IN. The only penalty is that it will say you won with a little ticket item by the cup showing you needed to retry, which goes away if you win it with no retries. You also can spent tickets on a "friendship" function. This is where you donate tickets to a character and they complement you and give you things such as their name tag, decals, and other amusing things. There is also going to be free updates adding more sega characters over time. You also upgrade a "plaque" that allows you to bring specific abilities with you for different races. Things such as boosting when you touch another car, get a boost when you respawn after falling off the track, don't lose your items when hit, but also goes more in depth with more powerful abilities. Sadly online is the worst place to be as you often end up in lobbies with 2 players who have already blown the game open and 9 other racers who are just trolls and will somehow target YOU, despite you never getting above 5th place. if you get into first somehow, expect all hell to rain down on you. Stick with friends.
Story:
Dodonpa invited everyone here for a virtual reality race. The only deeper story is the personal interactions in the Rival mechanic or a quip certain characters will say when you use them on specific courses.
Summary:
