With Hollow Knight: Silksong’s huge launch in full swing, community debate about its qualities and flaws has gone back and forth, with some players insisting their criticisms about things like the game's difficulty are valid and shouldn’t be instantly dismissed as "hate."
Well, some opinions are more valid than others, even when there is subjectivity… of course, I would say that.
“Design intent” is not an excuse for unfun mechanics. Design intent matters - for example if you’re complaining that it took you 50 attempts to do a boss and you’re frustrated, but other people are completing the same bosses in fewer attempts and enjoying it, the intent of the designers and the spectrum of opinions is absolutely critical. But this isn’t that.
Someone else in the thread made a great example: would you be so “design intent is all important” if the designers put a 1-minute unskippable cutscene before the boss? To me, and I think to almost everybody, that would be fuckin awful. Everyone hates unskippable cutscenes you have to sit through repeatedly. How does that differ, really, from a typical 1-minute runback?
Well, some opinions are more valid than others, even when there is subjectivity… of course, I would say that.
“Design intent” is not an excuse for unfun mechanics. Design intent matters - for example if you’re complaining that it took you 50 attempts to do a boss and you’re frustrated, but other people are completing the same bosses in fewer attempts and enjoying it, the intent of the designers and the spectrum of opinions is absolutely critical. But this isn’t that.
Someone else in the thread made a great example: would you be so “design intent is all important” if the designers put a 1-minute unskippable cutscene before the boss? To me, and I think to almost everybody, that would be fuckin awful. Everyone hates unskippable cutscenes you have to sit through repeatedly. How does that differ, really, from a typical 1-minute runback?