Board 8 > Silksong Topic Act 3 - Everything I wanted it to be

(+) Yeah! (+)

I definitely jumped during Juggle, I mained Jigglypuff in Melee back in 2005 and air mobility feels more natural to me

also
[sees a review that said 96% in 44h first playthrough]
cries in 93% at 90h

Lolo_Guru posted...

So uh. Beat the (true ending) final boss last night. Something like 89%

Wow. Beautiful.

So can someone help me get to the slab proper during act 3, it's where my last flea is.

Did you get the Apostate Key? It's after you fight Groal in Bilewater.

I'm not sure if you have to open the Slab from the inside or outside but the entrance is to the mid-left of the Citadel.

The journal will update itself to remove any enemies you miss (so I think technically you can miss the entry itself if you don't kill an enemy in an area you won't get back to, but you can never lock yourself out of being able to 100% it).

In terms of unique gameplay, you can miss some things, but they won't count against you anywhere:
Duels vs Shakra and Garmond/Zaza
A unique way of entering The Slab

There's also an achievement tied to killing the Act 2 boss in a certain state (infested with a parasite) because you get a unique ending

I missed all of the above

Hey I missed the good ending of Act 2 and jumped straight to Act 3 when I finally reached it. Didnt even realize there was one!

_Blur_ posted...

Hey I missed the good ending of Act 2 and jumped straight to Act 3 when I finally reached it. Didnt even realize there was one!

Uh...what exactly are we defining as the "good ending" here?

VintageGin posted...

Uh...what exactly are we defining as the "good ending" here?

Oh after looking it up, I think I had it right the first time and there are indeed only 2 endings for act 2 (the other not really being an ending, but a lead in to act 3). I was thinking there were 3 different endings when I posted that.

E: wait no 4. Forgot about the Twisted Child ending. So yeah, I got all 3 my first playthrough. Good to know.

VintageGin posted...

There's also an achievement tied to killing the Act 2 boss in a certain state (infested with a parasite) because you get a unique ending

Ah, right, this is missable. Although even then you can restore your auto-save from before you resolved this situation after you beat the game to do it (this is what I did, but the tradeoff is you lose your completed save - but then there are ways to work around that depending on what platform you're on).

I firmly believe the boss runbacks are good, even the ones people complain about most of the time. By the time I beat Last Judge (took me I think six or seven tries) I had that route memorized. It also serves a purpose because it makes Courier's Rasher easier later.

The other runback people complain about, in Bilewater is kind of a punishment for not finding the hidden bench, which isn't too bad of a runback either

Some of the runbacks for gauntlets are way worse.

2 mask thing never bothered me either. I'm probably a slower/more cautious player than most though. If I was more of a face tanker it would probably bother me.

Last Judge would not be hard without the runback

there's also the accessory that makes the fire attacks just do one mask

that's definitely their most dangerous attack. it teaches you to stop jumping carelessly.

edit: also, you are not the first person I've seen compare a main story Silksong boss to Pure Vessel or NKG and I want to assure you all that none of the bosses in the game except for maybe the true final boss are actually as difficult as those bosses. People just got really good at HK, and SS isn't HK.

colliding posted...

The other runback people complain about, in Bilewater is kind of a punishment for not finding the hidden bench, which isn't too bad of a runback either

Eh, even with finding it, the runback plus gauntlet sucks.

I think there's fairly few runbacks in the game that I thought were too much, but the runbacks in Bilewater and Sands of Karak stand out as excessive.

UltimaterializerX posted...

Yeeeeah, doing much better after not jumping. Team Cherry just does not want their players airborne.

For that boss in particular, yeah, you get punished hard for jumping. Other bosses later on you definitely want to be airborne.

I beat the game finally, or at least I got and ending (beat Grand Mother Silk)

That was my favorite boss in the game and I wish all of them were designed like that. Mostly that she actually has to attack to damage you and just touching her doesn't hurt you. Makes it a lot less annoying to fight.

Honestly the game has a lot of good points but also a lot of flaws and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I can say with confidence I much prefer Hollow Knight though

MZero posted...

I beat the game finally, or at least I got and ending (beat Grand Mother Silk)

Well, the good news is: you didnt beat the game, so theres still plenty of game left to inform your opinion. Might want to google how to unlock Act 3.

Kotetsu534 posted...

The journal will update itself to remove any enemies you miss (so I think technically you can miss the entry itself if you don't kill an enemy in an area you won't get back to, but you can never lock yourself out of being able to 100% it).

More specifically, regular enemies auto-complete when they're truly cut off. Missable bosses plus the Steel Soul fight add to the maximum number of entries if you beat them. DLC presumably will do the latter as well (HK worked that way).

JackMan posted...

Well, the good news is: you didnt beat the game, so theres still plenty of game left to inform your opinion. Might want to google how to unlock Act 3.

Reached an ending and saw the credits, counts as beating the game imo

everything beyond that is optional content as far as I'm concerned (especially if I need to google how to even unlock it lol)

Suit yourself, but its like a third of the game.

MZero posted...

Reached an ending and saw the credits, counts as beating the game imo

ertyu?

I'm just saying if I didn't look at the internet there would have been no indication that wasn't the end. I even unlocked Steel Soul mode and got a congratulatory message from the devs!

imo if someone playing the game normally can miss it completely (which isn't even just me as several people said they had to look up how to unlock act 3) it's not part of the main game and is optional content but to each their own

MZero posted...

I'm just saying if I didn't look at the internet there would have been no indication that wasn't the end.

You're in Act 2. That's a pretty strong indication.

a lot of stuff only has two acts

catesdb posted...

a lot of stuff only has two acts

The two act structure is a thing, but it's pretty atypical for something that gives you an actual title card. I can't actually think of a video game example that isn't the most blatantly unfinished game of all time.

kevwaffles posted...

The two act structure is a thing, but it's pretty atypical for something that gives you an actual title card. I can't actually think of a video game example that isn't the most blatantly unfinished game of all time.

Fallout 3, Tales of Berseria, Tales of Graces, Cyberpunk 2077, KH2, Final Fantasy 1... I dunno if it's that uncommon.

Okay I know for a fact some of those do not have title cards.

Or at the very least they have prologues and/or epilogues.

There's also the whole "lack of completion percentage" aspect. Although people probably forgot that HK didn't tell you that until you unlock it.

I have wondered how many people beat the game in Act 2 and moved on without any knowledge of Act 3. I'm sure they find out about it eventually if they're online enough but are there are actual hints for Act 3 in the game?

The questboard I guess

This game's popularity is inextricably tied to being a certain level of online. So I doubt it's very many.

If you went for 100% quests then you would naturally find act 3. But there's no clear list of quests so you might easily stop too early.

kevwaffles posted...

You're in Act 2. That's a pretty strong indication.

I mean maybe I don't know enough about story writing but that doesn't mean anything to me! Two acts sounds reasonable to me

kevwaffles posted...

The two act structure is a thing, but it's pretty atypical for something that gives you an actual title card. I can't actually think of a video game example that isn't the most blatantly unfinished game of all time.

Also can't say I've ever considered whether or not title cards exist or it's impact on how many acts to expect. I can't imagine many people would finish Act 2 and think "Wait a minute there were title cards there should be an Act 3"

There's also the achievement list. I don't know how much it actually shows. Presumably endings are hidden. But you could see a lot of hidden achievements and guess that there are quite a few boss fights left to do.

Once again, SOTN is the reference here. If you beat Richter and claim to have beaten SOTN without getting to the reverse castle, that's pretty much what you've done by beating Act 2 of SS

There's really only one less than obvious aspect to reaching Act 3, and it's one the game doesn't strictly indicate. Missing an area where Shakira sells a map.

Maybe obvious is the wrong word, but something you're liable to miss while trying to full clear.

Like it's not at all obvious that Lace 2 is a requirement, but that's also an inevitability.

foolm0r0n posted...

If you went for 100% quests then you would naturally find act 3. But there's no clear list of quests so you might easily stop too early.

Yeah I can't really decide how I feel about it in terms of design because there's upsides and downsides. Playing with a completionist mindset guarantees you will eventually stumble on it, and it's a Metroidvania so it's a reasonable assumption to make about the audience. The requirements are busywork but also ensures the player has achieved a certain amount of progress and upgrades before going to the next set of challenges. But I also see plenty of people who are just not into that and want to move on to the next part of critical path (and it's also hell on speedruns but can't really account for that).

I did trigger it myself without looking it up, so I think I'm okay with most of it except the flea requirement is a little egregious and unintuitive but at least the game offers hints for those.

Yeah, see I knew about Act 3 since I started after release and people were talking about it online (though I didnt know that it was hidden), but I like to try and do as much as I can before hitting the next big story beat in case there is anything missable and I still had to look it up because of the stupid flea requirement.

I think most people would agree that how Team Cherry handled Act 3 was unnecessary and doesnt really add anything to the experience, especially considering how much more of the game is actually left to do.

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

(and it's also hell on speedruns but can't really account for that).

I mean True Ending is already down to nearly 3:30 AND they're removing RNG from pins and fixing the bells. It's not that bad.

TC is pretty speedrunner friendly.

Also I would care more about Fleas if it were all of them. It's only 20 out of 30.

The bigger issue is you have to find the area they go to last and then know to go back and talk to them at that point.

JackMan posted...

I think most people would agree that how Team Cherry handled Act 3 was unnecessary and doesnt really add anything to the experience, especially considering how much more of the game is actually left to do.

Then media literacy is dead because there is a clear thematic reason for it that is outright told to you by the NPC who gives the quest for the true ending

You can still say it's bad or annoying but it definitely adds something to the experience!

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

Then media literacy is dead because there is a clear thematic reason for it that is outright told to you by the NPC who gives the quest for the true ending

You can still say it's bad or annoying but it definitely adds something to the experience!

I mean I don't think getting to Act 3 is that bad but story structure and game structure are not the same thing.

Exactly, the problem isnt the quest itself or the plot justification, thats fine, its that even getting that quest to show up is in no way signposted. In hindsight, it makes sense why certain things need to be done before it does, but until then youre just stumbling in the dark.