Hollow Knight: Silksong has proven to be one of the last decade’s most polished and remarkable experiences, managing to generate sensations very few video games have been able to in my entire life.
However, even the most refined title can have flaws, especially when it comes to a work like Team Cherry‘s sequel, whose dimensions in every sense, including the number of bosses, are surprisingly large.
This extraordinary Metroidvania’s overall quality is extremely high when it comes to its main enemies, but after reaching 100%, I can confidently tell you that not all of them offer entertaining combat.
In reality, many of these threats border on tremendous vileness due to frustrating executions or bland designs, which I’ve decided to compile in this list of the ten worst boss fights in Hollow Knight: Silksong, ranked.
10 Crust King Khann
Incredible but Easy
|
Location(s) |
Sands of Karak |
|
Drop(s) |
Encrusted Heart |
Silksong‘s difficulty curve follows an uneven trajectory, leading many of its Act 3 bosses, such as Crust King Khann, to be much easier than they should be.
While I don’t like to link a boss’s quality to how much it took me to defeat it, this magnificent warrior offers a shallow fight in terms of mechanical demands, preventing it from taking full advantage of its magnificent concept.
The idea of him fighting by summoning coral stalactites is exceptional and extremely attractive, but you never feel threatened or forced to adapt to the special circumstances of his fight, which is even easier than the waves of minions that precede it.
I get the impression that the boss fight was part of these ambushes in a single large sequence, but lately they decided to separate them to make it less difficult, forgetting they should have increased Khann’s difficulty respectively.
I don’t find him a bad boss per se, but rather disappointing, so I sincerely hope they will give him a more powerful version in future expansions, since the basic idea is phenomenal.
9 Palestag
A Minor Boss for an Outstanding Area
|
Location(s) |
Verdania |
|
Drop(s) |
n/a |
If you’ve played Hollow Knight, you’re likely familiar with the Dream Warriors: enemies from a dreamlike realm whose fights consisted of a couple of basic moves that grew in number and speed, but never in complexity.
Verdania‘s Palestag faithfully follows said structure, offering a combat where all you have to do is dodge horizontal projectiles while chasing the boss across the arena to deal damage, so it doesn’t feel engaging at any point.
Although it’s a minor encounter and not even the main attraction in the area, it feels completely different from the rest of the place, where fast and agile enemies fight in close combat with considerable skill and agility.
It’s incredible to think all the content in Verdania is hidden behind a simple key used in Sinner’s Road, and while the Palestag’s mere existence is valuable because it’s purely additional and optional, it falls short of what it could have been.
8 Disgraced Chef Lugoli
Smough With Maggots
|
Location(s) |
Sinner’s Road |
|
Drop(s) |
Pickled Muckmaggot |
Although my impression of the boss is conditioned by encountering her much later than I should have, Disgraced Chef Lugoli is as annoying as the area she belongs to.
That means she’s consistent with her surroundings, but ludonarrative coherence doesn’t add any quality to her fight, which boils down to a series of extremely basic movements adorned with the game’s worst mechanic: maggots.
Aside from her body slams in all directions, including reminiscent moves from Dark Souls‘ legendary Smough, the only thing Lugoli offers that’s different is summoning spheres of poisoned water that, if they touch you, prevent you from healing, which is already annoying enough when it’s only there as an environmental hazard.
The most significant aspect of her encounter is that she gives you a key piece to obtain the Pale Oil that allows you to upgrade your needle; from then on, it’s a meaningless fight I hope to avoid in subsequent playthroughs.
7 Broodmother
A Party of Filth
|
Location(s) |
The Slab |
|
Drop(s) |
Broodmother’s Eye |
Even though many of the bosses on this list are minor encounters that aren’t meant to be anything more than supercharged common enemies, it’s impossible to meet creatures like the Broodmother and feel anything.
These enemies’ formula is very flat and predictable, with slow projectiles, minion summons, and attacks that simply consist of throwing the full extent of their hitboxes at Hornet in a confined space, completely wasting the title’s complexity in terms of gameplay.
While the context adds value and the act of finding her is interesting, the fight itself is over in a matter of seconds and forgotten as soon as you collect the quest reward, also making poor use of the muck mechanic unique to these flies.
How bad a boss is can be determined not only by what it presents but also by what it fails to present, and Broodmother’s missed opportunity further detracts from an already trivial fight.
6 Gurr the Outcast
Two Attacks and That’s It
|
Location(s) |
Far Fields |
|
Drop(s) |
n/a |
Following on from what I mentioned earlier regarding Act 3, many bosses in the game’s latter portion feel like they belong in the campaign’s early hours, though few are on Gurr the Outcast’s level.
The buildup to this fight is too remarkable to just find a boss who only fights with a couple of gadgets and horizontal dashes, totally missing the point of fighting a master trapper.
It’s difficult to believe one of the most visually outstanding ants in the whole game can be so simplistic, especially since I spent every hour waiting for a memorable representative of its species, given the quality of its basic enemies.
Obviously, Karmelita fulfills any wish in that regard, but the ants were worth much more than just a great boss, and Gurr the Outcast fails to represent them as the honorable warriors depicted in Hunter’s March.
5 Lost Garmond
An Unfair Resolution
|
Location(s) |
Blasted Steps |
|
Drop(s) |
Hero’s Memento |
After several encounters with Garmond and Zaza, every ounce of my being was certain they would have a sad ending, but I didn’t expect it to be mechanically sad as well.
That being said, expecting too much from Lost Garmond is naive, considering the moveset he displays when he helps you. However, Shakra is also an NPC, and she does offer a completely memorable fight, so confrontations like this one are even more disappointing in comparison.
Despite being among the game’s most memorable characters, he’s completely reduced to being just another void vessel, repeating the same attacks he had before but with the abilities dozens of basic enemies already have in Act 3.
While he’s more difficult and has a deeper moveset than many on the list, Lost Garmond feels worse due to expectations and circumstances, even being frustrating due to his ability to deal tons of void damage within his tiny arena.
4 Groal the Great
Team Cherry is Diabolical
|
Location(s) |
Bilewater |
|
Drop(s) |
n/a |
Team Cherry has its moments of pure evil, throwing players into godforsaken places, though I’d argue they’ve never been more vicious to their community than with the creation of Bilewater.
Thus, Groal the Great is merely the tip of a spear whose entire composition is demonic, cramming everything you could possibly hate about a fight (waves of minions, traps, giant hitboxes, maggots, etc.) into a single, lengthy sequence.
Since Silksong is a Metroidvania, considering the runback part of the fight seems valid, though I decided to skip it because otherwise there wouldn’t be a top spot sufficiently representative of how detestable Groal is.
Of course, as I said when mentioning Bilewater in the list of the title’s worst areas, its frustrating design is conscious, so I find it difficult to hate it. I don’t want to fight it again, not even in my imagination, but I’m sure I won’t forget it.
3 Voltvyrm
A Boss to Forget
|
Location(s) |
Sands of Karak |
|
Drop(s) |
Volt Filament |
Hollow Knight: Silksong has rarely disappointed me, but I can’t explain the shock on my face when I encountered Voltnest and the sadness I felt when I fought its boss.
A partially static enemy whose only damage output is slow pillars and orbs of electricity is perfect for a tutorial, not for providing additional challenges to players who explore intensively.
The game doesn’t shy away from offering incredible fights whose only reward is the act of having them, but in the case of Voltvyrm, it seems more like a punishment for those greedy people who, like me, wanted a boss per square meter.
Far from speculation, the truth is that the existence of this vyrm depresses me, and just the thought of encountering it again in a hypothetical Pantheon makes me feel discouraged even now.
2 Plasmified Zango
The World’s Biggest Damage Sponge
|
Location(s) |
Wormways |
|
Drop(s) |
n/a |
Ever since I finished Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, I’ve had a deep and irrevocable hatred for bosses whose only strength is being able to withstand millions of damage, as is the case with Plasmified Zango.
Honestly, I don’t know what was going through Team Cherry’s head when they turned this abomination into a boss, which literally only has one attack that’s as easy to dodge as simply standing still.
Even with the needle at full power, it takes too much time attacking this supercharged NPC to defeat him, and it’s an effort you’ll make just for the sake of it, since there’s no reward for the victory.
The only remarkable thing about Zango’s existence is finding Wormways filled with lifeblood, but the combat itself is horrible. In fact, I’m going to convince myself it doesn’t exist because I don’t want Silksong‘s boss quality rating to drop that much.
1 Savage Beastfly
Encounters of Pure Pain
|
Location(s) |
Hunter’s March, Far Fields |
|
Drop(s) |
Beast Crest |
It pains me to acknowledge that, in a game with bosses as impressive and demanding as Phantom, First Sinner, and Trobbio, Savage Beastfly is among the ones that have been able to defeat me the most, and not for positive reasons.
Giant hitbox in a small arena? Check. Annoying minion summoning? Check. Predictable movement pattern that nevertheless hits you due to the sheer number of things on screen? Check. Simplistic design that you’ll overcome more through brute force than skill? Check… It’s utterly detestable.
As if it weren’t enough, the studio decided to exhaust players’ patience and send them to a second encounter in an arena with falling platforms, lava, and minions that deal two masks of damage, taking the fun to a level completely unknown to humankind: the one that doesn’t exist.
Dedicating 30 attempts to Lost Lace is something I can happily handle, but even attempting the Savage Beastfly fights 10 times is a waste of life and sanity, leading me to think maybe the game should have taken eight years of development instead of seven.
It’s not as basic as Zango or Voltvyrm, nor as repetitive as Lost Garmond, but it’s worse: it’s a Hollow Knight boss shoehorned into Silksong with more damage, durability, and importance than its boring concept should have, consequently making it the worst in the entire game.
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Author: 360 Technology Group
