This is an amazing game and at the top of my favorite Metroidvania list together with Hollow Knight. What you need to remember is that is not for everybody, it has a greater focus on platforming challenges so imaging a Hollow Knight-type game with platforming challenges at a level closer to Celeste.I played it fully on the hard mode (Noctis) which was the original vision of the game and I would strongly urge people interested in this game to put the effort in trying it in Noctis mode, only if it really feels like an impossible hurdle then you should switch to the easy mode that was added later.Time to beat was about 50 hours, there's one end-game boss left at this time of review but I beat the final boss and the boss that is considered the hardest boss in the game. It's a really long game and the bosses are very challenging, but the real star is the platforming. The platforming is really fun and while it can be extremely challenge, it always felt fair. There usually are plenty of checkpoints and even the hardest challenge of the game only lasts about 40 seconds. I found it extremely fun to learn these sections as they always felt doable and never unfair to the player. I think the combat with regular enemies is the weakest part and it detracts a bit from the platforming near the end of the game. But the bosses are fun with patterns to learn and execute correctly in order to not get hit and kill them.There are two parts of the platforming that I've seen people not like as much. One is an ability you get near the mid game that re-contextualizes platforming in a way that people found challenging and not fun. I thought so too in the beginning, but you get some some gems (optional limited upgrades) that can make using this ability a lot easier. After getting used to it I really enjoyed this ability actually.The second is one particular section of the game pretty near the end of the game which has confusing movement from what you are used to. Personally I had no problems with this section as in my opinion it was just like a new challenge you had to learn to overcome, it wasn't as hard as I'd imagined it from the complaints and didn't take me especially long to get through.Finally there were some bugs that were pretty annoying, one is the fact that if you press down on the controller then you cannot double jump, this makes some sections harder than they should be. Luckily this was only a real problem in one particular platforming section near the end of the game which has you pushing the stick down a lot. The second is that the leech gem (which lets you automatically recharge a resource for special attacks and healing) doesn't work with a specific upgrade that put you at full health once if you die. While this is annoying there's a "fix" in that it still works if you only spend that skill point on the screen where you want to use the ress. Which means you will have to redo your skill tree for every attempt at a boss where you want to use it, this takes a bit of time because as far as I know you can only fully reset your tree and not some of the nodes. From what I read these bugs will be fixed in the next patch, but that might still be a couple of months away at this time. All in all, even with the negatives I really enjoyed this one, it's a flawed masterpiece in the genre that goes all in on its specific niche, challenging platforming. Looking forward to the patch with new content and the sequel!

One of, if not the very best, metroidvanias out there. The world is beautiful, large, and fun to explore. The challenges are tough, but not usually beyond the point of satisfaction (Playing on Noctis Mode). Having the ability to turn it to Aeterna Mode whenever I felt overwhelmed is a wonderful accessibility option that I very rarely used, but was always glad to know there would be a way through it.

Honestly this game deserves all the praise in the world, and although there may be the odd bug here or there, the game shines beyond this. There are secrets to be found, hidden bosses, incredible design choices, and epic battles. Puzzles may be long and span the world, but it's fun to make you think about where this random item you got should go, or who you should talk to about it.

I will support Aeternum Games for all there future games now, because if they are even a fraction of the quality of this masterpiece, it will be a mesmerizing experience.

Also, I am probably way to skilled at platforming for Silksong to be a challenge anymore :D