A few years ago, developers Adglobe and Live Wire (which, fun fact, also developed Harvestella) released a Metroidvania called Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights to high praise. Combining a heavy atmosphere with tough, Soulslike combat in a dark fantasy world, it stood out as a notably quality addition to a genre that feels like it gets at least one new entry every week. The sequel, Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the mist, is a strong iteration on its predecessor’s formula. It’s everything a Metroidvania should be and, even if it’s not exactly revolutionary, it executes its vision well.
Ender Magnolia is set a number of years after Ender Lilies, placing you in the role of Lilac, a young girl who awakens from a long slumber in a strange and decaying world. What’s left of society is occupied by two different races: humans and the creepy machines called Homunculi. Some Homunculi could easily pass as human while others have much more monstrous or animalistic traits, and all are susceptible to corruption from a mysterious mist called fumes. Luckily, Lilac happens to be an Attuner—someone who can directly purify corrupted Homunculi—so you set out on a journey to uncover her lost memories and do what you can to set the world straight.
Much akin to genre peers such as Hollow Knight, a lot of the story here is inferred and pieced together via environmental clues and item descriptions. Some may wish for a more straightforward narrative, but we felt that the developers did a great job of balancing the worldbuilding here—the world always feels mysterious, but not to the point of being completely unreliable.
The only point against the story, and really this is more of a nitpick, is that it can feel a little too angsty at times. You can only encounter so many NPCs that are either cynical, self-loathing, or utterly depressed before the melancholic atmosphere starts to feel a little too heavy-handed. Still, it’s an enjoyable enough narrative that perfectly supports the excellent game design.
Gameplay is nothing you haven’t seen before, but what it lacks in innovation it comfortably makes up for in polish. The standard Metroidvania structure is played straight here, tasking you with exploring a sprawling, nonlinear world stuffed with all kinds of collectibles and upgrades that grant boons to your combat or exploration abilities.
While exploration always feels like the main focus, combat notably plays more of a role when compared to many genre peers, with a Soulslike tinge to the way you’re encouraged to approach each conflict (more on that later). It all comes together impressively well, making for an addictive and rewarding gameplay experience that stands out in this crowded genre.
Much of what makes exploration in Ender Magnolia so enjoyable is its focus on mobility and true nonlinearity. It’s not a game where you can easily get lost, but you’re usually given more than one route to follow, granting options if the enemies and bosses of a given area are above your current skill level. Wherever you choose to go, there’s always something worthwhile to ferret out, whether a flat upgrade to your health or a new relic you can later equip when you find the next checkpoint.
Naturally, you acquire more movement abilities as you progress, giving you new ways to traverse obstacles and granting you some additional combat utility. You unlock a double jump and air dash relatively early on, which can be used both to help you reach distant ledges that were once beyond your reach and give you more manoeuvrability in combat.
That combat takes a rather measured approach that favours learning your opponents’ moves and waiting for openings to present themselves. Most enemies’ eyes will flash red to tip you off that an attack is coming, and you have a wealth of attacks to respond with that can be somewhat stacked to maximise damage. Alongside your typical melee combo, you can also trigger cooldown attacks, lay down some support fire with ranged attacks, and have a hovering satellite nearby that independently dishes out some pain.
It all lands right in that sweet spot of feeling suitably challenging without being overly frustrating or discouraging. You have all the tools you need for success, but just mashing and refusing to learn a new boss’ attack patterns will almost always result in getting sent back to the last checkpoint. Even outside boss rooms, common enemies hit hard and can gang up on you if you’re not careful, making the push for the next checkpoint fraught with tension as you eye your dwindling potion supply.
Character progression is handled via a mixture of RPG-lite elements and simple exploration, giving you a decent amount of agency to work out a build. Levelling up from combat will give you simple stat buffs across the board, and you can bolster this by finding more pickups in your travels or donning relics that give you passives on top of minor stat boosts. Considering the limited space for equippable relics, you have to consider your playstyle and what abilities will give you the most utility.
Each weapon also has a few different forms, such as your primary being either a slow and heavy axe, a quick and scrappy scythe, or a sword that falls somewhere between the two. New forms are unlocked through pickups as you explore and defeat bosses, and your favoured forms can then be upgraded to increase their potency. We appreciated the flexibility that this character growth system offers, as it caters to a variety of playstyles without bogging you down with too many distinct options.
Part of what makes Ender Magnolia so enjoyable is the attention paid to various quality-of-life features that make the gameplay flow much smoother. Backtracking as you gain new powers is a feature of the genre and Ender Magnolia supports you by allowing quick and generous fast travel and by colouring in areas of the map which you’ve already fully emptied of secrets.
Features such as this may not sound like a big deal, but they make it clear that the developers put a lot of thought into the end-user experience and worked to reduce or eliminate as many friction points as possible. This is the sort of game that you sit down to play for 15 minutes and then realise an hour has passed, and much of that comes down to its ability to minimise frustration and keep you immersed.
As for its visuals, Ender Magnolia reminds us a bit of a grimdark take on Vanillaware’s iconic art style, seen in games such as Unicorn Overlord. The hand-drawn nature of the cutesy-but-creepy graphics stands out among genre peers, and though many environments can get a little too similar with all the takes on the smoggy, decrepit aesthetic, some biomes find colourful and interesting ways of bucking the trend. Perhaps best of all, everything runs at a buttery smooth 60fps in both docked and handheld, an absolute must for a game that demands this level of precision in combat.
Going right along with the dark and sad vibe of the visuals is a soundtrack that equally sounds heavy. The soft piano notes and strings present in most tracks maintain an atmosphere of contemplation and mourning, as you explore this ruined world. Some of the tracks naturally play up the wonderment or ratchet up the energy a little bit, but the audio makes it clear that this game isn’t meant to have a fun vibe in the same way as something like Guacamelee or one of the Shantae games.