Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights

Genre: Metroidvania

Players: 1

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Review:

Ender Lilies is a Metroidvania released on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch in 2021. Two years after Blasphemous asked the question “what if Metroidvania… but more like Dark Souls?”, Ender Lilies asks the question “what if we also did Metroidvania… but more like Dark Souls?”.

Joking aside, Ender Lilies is very different from both Blasphemous and Dark Souls, yet the inspiration is very clear here, in everything from the bleak world and focus on lore to the unforgiving combat that makes evading enemy attacks absolutely vital. Even small things like enemies staying dead until your save revives them take pages right out of Dark Souls’ playbook.

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A Return to Soulsvania?

However, this effort is not in vain, nor a pale copycat – Ender Lilies is absolutely genuine about its world-building, with players taking the role of young priestess Lily as she awakens from a slumber to find the land covered with a zombifying blight that turned the population into mindless monsters, with the unkept buildings now rotting and falling apart and overgrown, a clear indication the calamity that befell this place happened some time ago. As players work their way through the decimated land, they will come across writings of those who lived there, and brief memories of the spirits of the dead, which will help both players as well as the amnesiac Lily piece together just how human civilization fell, and whether or not there’s any way she can still save them.

While Lily herself is unable to fight, she retains the ability to purify a select few of the undead to enlist their spirits to fight for her. Most of the game’s major upgrades work in this manner – players will fight hordes of enemies, but occasionally encounter a stronger variant, or at times a boss. Upon defeating this blighted enemy, players can purify that enemy to enlist their spirit, with normal spirits acting as support attacks and projectile weapons, and bosses usually offering a new skill that also helps with traversal.

If we were judging Ender Lilies purely on its merits as a Metroidvania, it would be a strong entry in the genre, but a bit lacking in that new attacks and abilities are spaced fairly far apart on the map, and that map is not as interconnected as ideal Metroidvanias tend to be. Also, the actual map in your menu screens is woefully unhelpful, showing you how areas are connected, but not giving you a clear indication of their individual layouts or what parts of an area you have and have not visited. Also, there’s not much that this game does mechanically that wasn’t already done in earlier games in the genre, most notably a few of the handheld Castlevania games that featured a similar soul-equipping mechanic.

However, that brings us back to the Dark Souls-inspired elements, which are a major part of this game. The combat in Ender Lilies is excellent, really making players get a good feel for the timing of attacks, recognizing enemy attack patterns, and especially learning how to make proper use of the game’s dodge function. Fighting any new enemy when you’re far from the last save point is a nerve-wracking endeavor as you try to learn their attack patterns and how best to dodge their attacks, and bosses are particularly enjoyable to fight, especially once you finally learn their attack pattern and take them down, it makes for this immense feeling of accomplishment.

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Decayed Beauty

I’ve gone this far into the review without discussing the presentation, and that’s in part because it’s the presentation that steals the show right from the start in this game. Ender Lilies uses absolutely beautiful, extraordinarily well-animated 2D characters, moving in a world that is truly gorgeous and filled to the brim with detail in both the background and foreground, wonderful water effects, and little bits of animation that really bring the world alive. Every once in a while, you’ll happen upon a new area that is just so stunningly-rendered that it’s hard not to admire its beauty, and seeing this game’s gorgeous decaying world in full is one of the great reasons to keep exploring it.

These wonderful visuals are backed by an absolutely beautiful somber soundtrack with wonderful songs like Main Theme, Rosary – Intro, Holy Land, and Harmonious, to name a few. This game’s generally quiet themes (outside of boss fights, anyway) really help to sell the feeling that you’re wandering in a once-great country now lost.

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Would it Be True to Call Ender Lilies an Ideal Soulsvania, or is that Blasphemous?

Honestly, I don’t think it’s entirely fair to either Ender Lilies or Blasphemous to be comparing them this much. As I’ve said, the two are entirely different games, and play very differently. Each one takes different elements from the respective genres and brings them together well, and honestly I think that if you’re a fan of Metroidvanias or “Soulslike” games, both are well worth getting. However, I would argue that Ender Lilies thrives most in its absolutely gorgeous presentation and its truly excellent worldbuilding (though that’s not to say Blasphemous fares poorly in those areas), and while its Metroidvania elements are spread a bit thin and are lacking a little here and there, overall this game thrives by mixing its respective inspirations well, resulting in a truly excellent game that should be considered a must-have for fans of any of the games that inspired it.

tl;dr – Ender Lilies is a Metroidvania that has clearly been strongly-inspired by the Dark Souls franchise, and the resulting mix of elements is fantastic, with the “Souls” side of things helping to make up for a few elements that are a bit lacking on the Metroidvania side of things. The comparisons to Blasphemous are inevitable, but this game mixes its two inspirations differently, with some of its stronger points being its absolutely gorgeous presentation, its strong worldbuilding, its excellent combat and its fantastic boss fights. In any case, if you’re a fan of any of the games that inspired Ender Lilies, consider this game a must-have.

Grade: A-

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2021 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Best Graphical Style, Best Metroidvania

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