Team Cherry | FourofFiveWits

Books – Blood for the Undying Throne by Sung-Il Kim, translated by Anton Hur

Now that I’ve gotten the Silksong obsession out of my system, I am going to spend the time between now and the end of September catching up on some books I’ve been meaning to finish, including ones mentioned here, and starting the sequel to last year’s Blood of the Old Kings (which the first book is out on paperback now if you want to pick it up yourself). I have my copy of Blood for the Undying Throne, but I haven’t started yet. I’m literally planning to sit down and start it as soon as I finish this book, but what I expect is more of the mystery of how the Empire in the book got its iron grip over this world, and more resistance against it. The Bleeding Empire series so far somehow feels like a throwback to the late eighties – early nineties style of fantasy books, and also a breath of fresh air. One of my cohosts of No Page Unturned, our book podcast, said they can’t wait for me to read this book, as the new country they go to will remind me of Jorat in The Name of All Things by Jenn Lyons, which is one of my favorite books.

Just a little plug, we did do an interview with the author and the translator, who were both a joy to talk to, and I learned a lot about translations and other subjects from them. If you want to check it out.

Games – More Hollow Knight: Silksong and Hades 2 1.0 announced.

I have been positively obsessed with Hollow Knight: Silksong. As of writing this, I have done everything to do in the base game one hundred percent, except for one optional boss I missed in the middle part of the game, which I didn’t know was available. I have every mask, every skill, every tool, every crest, and beat the final boss literally like thirty minutes ago. This is definitely one of my top Metroidvanias of all time, and might be one of my favorite games ever. There was only one boss that I became frustrated with after completing Act I, but it always felt like it was on my part rather than the design of the boss itself. I don’t know if others are the same or different, but the patterns of bosses often take me multiple times to catch up, I think perhaps due to my not-so-great eyesight. Like, first try, I’ll see oh this attack causes this attack to pop out, oh I can pogo that I didn’t know that, or I can deflect this attack and get under them, and so forth. The last last boss definitely tested me a lot, and it took quite some time for me to finally beat them, and even then, I think I just barely squeaked by. When I beat them, I didn’t go, “Oh, I’m so glad it’s over.” I wanted to try again and see if I could do it better with different tools and different crests. No such luck so far, but like I said, I just beat it not that long ago.

I don’t want to go into detail about the story or the ending, but I do think I love the story and the characters more than the first game. Hornet’s dialogue is so good, and her interaction with the characters nails what I think her character’s voice and personality based on what we knew of her from the first game. Without spoiling the ending, I do think Team Cherry isn’t done with this franchise or Hornet, and I am looking forward to what they do next. The story of difficulty continues to be a discussion, and I’m firmly in the camp of, just like the FromSoftware games, that difficulty options should be in the games, especially accessibility options. Easier modes should be an option, but if you are able to, normal mode should at least be tried, even if you go through the game on easy mode first. That being said, I am forty now and definitely have had to take breaks from Silksong to rest my hands so they didn’t hurt later, and anyone with accessibility issues should be able to enjoy a game like this with the options available.

Anyway, I had to open my big mouth. I believe I mentioned it here, but as soon as I said Silksong was going to be my game of the year, a Nintendo Direct aired shortly afterward and announced that Supergiant’s Hades 2 was coming out of early access and into 1.0 on September 25th. That’s just next Thursday already, after Silksong has just come out on the 4th! That’s absolutely crazy, but I don’t think personally it’s going to topple Silksong or Donkey Kong Bananza from my top 2 games simply because, quite frankly, I don’t really care for roguelike games in general. There are only two I’ve liked, Hades and Dead Cells, and Hades 2 is about to become the third, most likely. Meanwhile, Metroidvanias and 3D Platformers are some of my all-time favorite genres, but my heart is open to Hades 2 being number one.

I meant to mention this last year, but some games had to get their releases out of the way when Silksong came out, and to be honest, some of them I had not heard of before it was reported about their delays. The one that stood out to me was called Demonschool, sort of Persona 1–2 meets Fire Emblem kind of deal. I think it looks really cool and just wanted to give it some love since they had to delay til November.

Wrestling – AEW All Out 2025

AEW’s All Out is this weekend, and I am excited, as 95% of the time, AEW pay-per-views are outstanding, with the occasional, but I won’t deny the build for some of the show has been a little wonky. I feel bad for Wardlow who was injured on his return and was penned in to get the AEW Men’s World Heavyweight Championship match against Hangman on the PPV, but as someone who was down on Wardlow after Double or Nothing 2022 the guy is a TV defense at beast. I much prefer the idea of TNT Champion Kyle Fletcher challenging Hangman as a fun parallel to last year’s Jack Perry (TNT) vs. Bryan Danielson (World) match. Not only that, but I’ve liked that they played with the history of Hangman at All Out by bringing up his championship match against Chris Jericho at the first All Out. Honestly, it only occurred to me this week, but the list of top heels available right now to challenge Hangman seems kind of thin, almost to a point I understand why they didn’t pull the plug on MJF’s contract for a world title match, but it doesn’t change how I feel about how dogshit that angle was before Forbidden Door.

Likewise, the build to this four-way for Toni Storm’s AEW Women’s World Heavyweight Championship has been kinda thin, especially for Toni Storm. However, women’s fourways in AEW have a long history of overdelivering, and it is another parallel to how Toni Storm won the title for the first time at All Out 2022, which also included Jamie Hayter. I’m always rooting for my girl and Long Island’s own Kris Statlander, but I am not quite sure if this is how I want her to win, nor am I too keen on her turning heel again and joining the Death Riders. Her face turn last year was badly done, but it felt like she was gaining momentum as a face after facing Mercedes Mone twice for the TBS Title in some outstanding matches from both of them, then they spent months of Kris trying to find some resolution with Willow Nightingale that never went anywhere. So, it’s not like the heel turn wouldn’t turn out well, it’s more like I feel like they’ve wasted the potential of what they were building with her as a face the past year, after an unnecessary face turn. I’d almost be more excited if it turned out Jamie Hayter was the one turning heel and joining the Death Riders, as she is hard-hitting and has a lot of history with Toni Storm. Just in general, I’d like them to do more with Statlander and Willow for the next year.

I’ll have more on All Out in next week’s post, but I will tell you that I have absolutely not given a shit about this Cope and Christian reunion against FTR. Christian is the only person in this match that I care for. Cope has been so uninteresting since his return at last year’s World’s End, and while much more entertaining as heels FTR still only does so much for me. If this match is the main, I’m going to be annoyed as either of the world champions are much more deserving, although I do prefer it being Hangman vs. Fletcher, we’ll see what happens.

Books – Green Bone Saga Gold Edition by Fonda Lee

I’m still reading through those two Anthony Ryan books from last week. I won’t like, I’ve only had Silksong on the brain since it released.

Not only that, but I will say, I splurged a bit and bought these fancy hardcover editions of Fonda Lee’s Green Bone Saga that just came out. Jade City was a book I’ve owned since it came out, but kept putting it off to my to-be-read pile until, I recall, 2021, when the final book in the series, Jade Legacy, came out. Urban Fantasy is not usually the flavor of fantasy I’m into, but this is one of those series, like A Chorus of Dragons, The Murderbot Diaries, or The First Law, that instantly clicked, and I knew instinctively, “Oh, this is going to be one of my favorite series ever after this.”

It’s a family crime drama with magical Jade that gives you superhuman abilities that result in some of my favorite fight scenes in fiction. The characters are beyond flawed, to put it more bluntly, they’re fucked up, and you’ll love them even when you hate them or the decision they make.

Wrestling – Third Stretch is the Charm for Kenny Omega

All the complaints about the closing angle for Kenny Omega this week on AEW Dynamite, I read, were fairly on point about not having good payoffs. The Elite sent him home last year, with Jack Perry bragging about it. Kenny returns and doesn’t immediately retaliate against the Elite. Jack Perry is also nowhere to be found. Okada and Don Callis attack him again before their match at All In brutally, with blood coming out of his mouth, Kenny ends up losing and taking about a month and a half off. Last week, it was hype city for a Hangman and Kenny reunion. Now, the Don Callis family, namely Kyle Fletcher, beat the shit out of him, and he’s stretchered off with Hangman distraught. I am unsure of where this is leading for Kenny Omega, and yet, I must admit, I still remain invested in this one, probably because Hangman was involved, to be honest. Will it have a proper payoff? I’m not sure, but if All Out ends up being AEW World Champion Hangman Adam Page vs TNT Champion Kyle Fletcher, it’d be a funny little parallel to last year’s AEW World Champion Bryan Danielson vs. TNT Champion Jack Perry. I think, if they had set this up maybe a week or two before the reaction, it might have been better because more time for Hangman and Kenny to really be seen together, maybe more than one match with some talking segments, whether backstage or in the ring, would really have had people on the hook. If Kenny comes back and does not interact with Hangman upon his return, I’ll likely be more critical of this whole scenario. We will see.

Games – Hollow Knight Silksong

It’s finally arrived, Hollow Knight Silksong is real, it’s finished, it’s released, it’s everything I wanted from a sequel to Hollow Knight, and it’s difficult as hell. I thought, hey, I’ve played a fuck ton of Hollow Knight, how hard could the sequel be? The beginning of the game does not ease you in but throws you into the deep end. I really don’t want to go on and on about the difficulty, because that is what so many people are talking about. Act I is difficult because you start with basically nothing, but you get new upgrades and new abilities and learn the patterns of the enemies as well as your own combat. It’s kind of like learning a fighting game in that way. Bosses doing double damage, something only late-stage Hollow Knight bosses did in the first one, was rough, as well as those rooms that were basically a gauntlet of dudes. In fact, I find those gauntlet rooms far tougher than the bosses. I don’t know what it is, maybe it’s my horrible eyesight, but I’ve always had trouble seeing the whole screen. It’s why I have such trouble with that piano mini-game in Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth. Wait, no, it’s probably not an issue of seeing the whole screen but having to be closer to the screen because my vision is not great. The platforming, though, specifically the red flowers in Hunter’s March, that’s the kind of thing in Hollow Knight that I loved. Sure, you might mess up and die, but once you find the rhythm, especially with Hornet’s diagonal down attack, it’s really fun. I’ll tell you now, you’d better learn to do it because you’re going to be doing it a lot and in far more treacherous areas than Hunter’s March.

“This is probably my game of the year,” he says about Silksong, like he said about Deltarune Chapters 3+4, Donkey Kong Bananza, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves. The First Berserker: Khazan, Monster Hunter Wilds. I probably would have said it about Shinobi: Art of Vengeance too, if I hadn’t already known SIlksong was coming out. However, I will say, more than any other game I’ve just mentioned, except for maybe Donkey Kong Bananza, Silksong has caused me to lose time in the joy of playing it. I’ll sit down and be like, I’ll just play for an hour, and suddenly the sun has gone down, and my stomach is rumbling for some reason. People hate this, but like Dark Souls, both Hollow Knights have this atmosphere of melancholy and a society decaying that draws you in, but the bugs are all so joyful, cute, and bring a smile to your face plus, and I love the stories of FromSoftware games don’t get me wrong, the stories of both games are much more straightforward with all this lore underneath you can choose to what level you want to engage in. Silksong‘s plot is basically Hornet gets kidnapped, taken to this far-off land called Pharloom, and has to find out who and why by ascending to the Citadel above. It’s much more complicated than that, but that’s basically all you need to know to start the game. The NPCs in this game, I love them, all these little bug friends of mine, especially Sherma, whom I just want to make all their dreams come true. His little song for the gate I will never forget.

Metroidvanias (No, I will not nor will I ever call them Search Action games) have to be one of the best genres of video games, top 5 easily. The satisfaction of finding a secret, beating a boss, getting a new upgrade, discovering new areas you didn’t know about before, and going back to areas with secrets you couldn’t get before is one of the most satisfying things in video games. Games are all about the illusion of achievement, and Metroidvanias nail that to a T. I know that now that I said Hollow Knight: Silksong is my game of the year, I just know Supergiant Games is going to announce Hades 2 is coming out of Early Access and into version 1.0 before the year ends. Still, I think, as of right now, Hollow Knight Silksong might be one of my favorite games I’ve ever played. No doubt, I will still be playing it and talking about it next week.

If you want to see my current Games of the Year + games of 2025 I want to play, you can check out my full Backlogged list here. My Top 10 is as follows

Hollow Knight: Silksong

Donkey Kong Bananza

Deltarune: Chapter 3+4

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Shinobi: Art of Vengeance

Doom: The Dark Ages

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered

The First Berserker: Khazan

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4

Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii

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