3.5/5 ★ – bokonon764's review of ENDER LILIES: Quietus of the Knights.

Another game from my back log of on sale/free games, I was charmed by Ender Lilies instantly. Of course, I came right off of dumping Mighty No. 9, so it didn’t have much competition. It’s been, what, a few months since I played a metroidvania? Why not, I love these games. Right away, Ender Lilies had me. Medieval fantasy is probably my favorite setting for video games, or at least the most common. It’s relatively short, so I kinda put every other game on the backburner to run through this; when these types of games are done well, it just keeps you wanting more. Players step in the role of Lily, a young girl with the ability to call on spirits to aid her. She’s some kind of priestess, I think? I never did completely understand the lore of this game. That’s not to say it’s uninteresting, great deal about clones and shit. The world feels special, so that’s what’s important. Anyways, Lily has to purify blighted servants of some lord, something like that, I don’t know. The Blight, as it were, causes people to become hostile monsters, and Lily has to put a stop to it. She uses spirits that are acquired from beating bosses; smaller attacks limited to a certain amount of uses attained from mini-bosses, main, infinite use attacks from the tougher, main bosses. Also from the main bosses, you unlock movement abilities, in true metroidvania style. Being a modern metroidvania, of course there’s the eventual comparison to Hollow Knight. You get the moves almost in the same order as you do in HK, but despite that, it’s still so satisfying unlocking shit like the double jump, wall grab, and that almighty air dash. Ender Lilies’ tone is also similar to Hollow Knight. A solemn, silent protagonist traverses a ruined world, searching for answers and a cure a sickened world. The 2D art is excellent; paired with a haunting score Japanese classical group, Mili. One big way in which it does deviate from HK, is that it removes the Souls-like experience punishment; no retrieving lost experience on death. That aspect alone made the game so much more fun. Don’t get me wrong, Hollow Knight is a masterpiece, but I just felt such drudgery playing, having to go aaaalll the way back to get my…souls? I can’t remember what they’re called in that game. It’s not as much of a problem in 3D games, but the 2D games that use the Dark Souls death punishment (Hollow Knight, Blasphemous) feel unnecessarily cumbersome at times. In terms of difficulty, Ender Lilies is on the easier end of the spectrum until maybe the third act, when the difficulty to sky rocket. Especially the poison cloud area. Fuck that place, it’s easily one of the most frustrating videogame levels I’ve encountered in a while. Part of me feels like it’s the easier parts of the early game that made me feel like I could breeze through the whole thing, only to get swatted constantly in certain areas; or it’s just difficult, I don’t know. Either way, should be a fun challenge for most players. Yeah, solid metroidvania, if not a bit derivative. I’d revisit this world, I think there is a sequel. Maybe I’ll give it a try sometime.