I discovered Hollow Knight: Silksong‘s parrying by accident, and I wish to the Pale King that I had remained ignorant forever. It’s fine, as parrying maneuvers go, but it’s not good enough to justify how often Team Cherry evidently wants you to use it.
“Why are you being so harsh on Silksong’s parrying?” I’m glad you asked. Parrying’s become more common in action games as a result of the enormous popularity of the skill-based combat in FromSoftware’s Dark Souls trilogy and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and combat designers across genres are using it in inventive ways to add strategic depth to fights. But Silksong’s riff on the formula doesn’t quite measure up to those inspirations. Not yet, anyway.
Parrying in Nine Sols, a 2D action platformer from last year, puts you out of an enemy’s reach and sets up a powerful counterattack. It isn’t always foolproof, since you’re prone to hits from other enemies while parrying, but there’s a clear benefit to doing it — and an expectation that you’re thinking on your feet about the best strategy in a given situation. Souls games make parrying optional, with a reward (breaking the enemy’s stance) that’s equal to the effort it takes to pull the move off. Just as important, though: They let you not parry and still find a way through both standard and tough fights. Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 takes a similar approach, where the force of parrying an enemy’s attack knocks them off balance for a moment. It’s a nice skill to have, but not essential to progress.
Then there’s Expedition 33, which toes the line between excellent parrying and an obnoxious over-reliance on the mechanic. Alternative combat strategies and a generous helping of style keep it from going too far over that line. Dodging is (almost) always an option, and even if you mess up the parry timing, you have dozens of ways to recover and turn the battle in your favor. Sometimes screwing up is more fun than getting it right, depending on which Pictos you’re using. I was also willing to forgive some of Expedition 33‘s overly demanding battles after I realized the dodge and parry windows are often in time with the soundtrack. That’s a fabulous style touch, period. But it’s also intuitive and approachable game design. The sound design is there to help you if twitchy timing isn’t exactly in your wheelhouse — and why should it be, in a turn-based RPG?
On the other hand, Silksong wants you to learn perfect timing for a handful of attacks and then execute that perfect timing repeatedly, every time you encounter that enemy (which is a lot of times). You parry. Nothing happens. Yeah, you take no damage, but your foe is completely unfazed by your well-timed rebuff of their efforts and keeps on with what they were doing. A generous take might be that Hornet’s strength is so depleted for story reasons that she’s not quite her usual, powerful self, but no. Hornet can parry blows from tiny helmet-wearing bugs and giant bosses alike.
It’s nice when you do get the timing down, but is it worth the fuss? I don’t think so. When these situations are so common with no reward, no stylistic flourish, no real point to the challenge, they start to feel like artificial difficulty, something to keep you from pushing ahead too quickly — and to prove this Isn’t Just Hollow Knight Again. Team Cherry didn’t even add a satisfying parry effect, like that spectacular, dissonant clang in Elden Ring that instantly says yes, you beautiful badass, you did it.
I understand you don’t have to parry in Silksong, but once you know you can, it’s hard not to see that most enemies are designed with parrying in mind. I realized this after reaching Hunter’s March, where I just about left Silksong behind for good. The ant soldiers are more agile than Hornet, move faster, jump higher, and control the angle of their descent more capably than she can. Their litheness and the cramped environment mean you usually can’t rely on normal movement to evade incoming attacks.
You can evade with the dash skill, but it just prompts them to use a different move. This is true for most bipedal enemies, even outside of Hunter’s March. If you jump, they jump too, or throw something at you. If you sidestep, they dash forward or burrow underground and pop up next to you. The only surefire way of staying within striking range and not taking several minutes just to defeat a single foe is parrying. The same goes for most flying enemies and the ones that spew things at you. Annoying grass snails in Mosshome? Smack the mossy puke balls back at them. Flying pot-wearing guys in Deep Docks? Parry their exploding fire balls!
In contrast to all of Silksong‘s visual splendor, it’s a disappointingly dull way to do battle. I think back to Hollow Knight, where even standard, early-game enemies make you think and react in a variety of ways — avoiding the toxic gas from Volatile Mosskins, getting rushed by camouflaged moss chargers, panicking when the jellyfish-like Uoma home in on you and blow up half a second later.
Maybe this is just a “me issue,” or one that’ll resolve itself later in the game, though I’m starting to suspect it’s the former. Even past Act 1’s mid-point, there’s still a frustrating number of scenarios that seem designed to push you to parry, like the Sister Splinter and Moorwing fights. Still, I’m pressing on, hopeful that new combat styles and fresh tools might give me the variety I’m longing for on Silksong‘s pilgrim path to the Citadel.
