Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights

I’m a bit torn on Ender Lilies, it is harder to shit on an indie title, with the devs not having as many resources to polish each part of their game. I do however feel like with a lot of similar titles, the game drops of in quality after the first third. Technically all the ingredients are the same, in practice a lot less polished and balanced. You can read even on this site how lots of players simply stopped playing at one point.
- At some point I feel like the level design goes by the numbers with just the art changing.
-The difficulty ramps up significantly, regular enemies become just damage sponges. To up your damage you either grind levels, or explore levels to gather upgrade materials. Both require you to face spongy enemies that deal too much damage.
-The new abilities you get after the boss encounters serve as a glorified keys. The abilities are barely utilized in gameplay/combat design, this is why the gameplay remains a bit stale and monotonous
-the boss design is pretty good though, with some usual exceptions (mob boss & one-hit-kill boss) and is the best part of the game
-the spirit system is pretty neat too and gives for a lot of variety in combat. Shame there is no way to respec the upgrades in game (or at least I have not found one)
-I also like the exploration aspect and the map system.

So overall…it’s ok I guess, I got my millage, they can’t all be Super Metroid’s or Hollow Knights.

So far the best metroidvania this year had to offer, and considering how great 2020 was in this department, it still manages to hold its own compared to last years crop. Its definitly more on the castlevania side rather than metroid, holding a lot of similarities to symphany of the night, including getting enemy souls to use as your own pets (but in here they are acquired by between mini bosses instead of beating RNG).

Its a game that definitly sticks very close to the established rules of what works within the genre, and thats just fine by me when the execution is a great as this. The main gimmick is that the protagonist equips spirits, and in effect its these spirits that do all the work in terms of combat and transversal.

The world map is interconnect is that very satisfying way, not to mention that its chock full with secrets. Enemies are also quite varied, and for the most part satisfying to fight. Likewise for bosses. Its an easy game at the start, but it gets exponentially harder as you unlock harder areas, which actually makes the late game feel harder than the early game (which is very rare for a metroidvania).

Ender lilies features a bleak disgraced world, but its animation is fluid and gorgeous to look at..
In terms of sound its fine. I muted the soundtrack early on so i cant comment on that.

Storywise its short and to the point, but there are a lot of spread notes that give depth to the lore they created in here. It has some emotional moments, but for the most part it can be ignored.

Overal its got great visuals and atmosphere, and gameplay to back that up. It feels like Symphony of the Night 2.0 at times, but its hard to fault it for that when the concepts work so well.