Downtrodden living, robotic creatures that go by “homunculus” have gone mad, and a little boy wakes up in the center of this madness all the way at rock bottom—nothing could be a better sequel to developers Adglobe and Live Wire’s ‘ENDER LILIES‘ than ‘ENDER MAGNOLIA: Bloom in the Mist’. Published by Binary Haze Interactive, this sequel to that enjoyable 2D Metroidvania is back and bigger than ever. I’ve covered ENDER MAGNOLIA briefly a few months back during its Early Access period, which covered but a small portion of the final game, though unfortunately the final game wouldn’t let me continue that bit of progress I had back in August. Oh well, that won’t stop me from explaining why you should definitely give our little protagonist Lilac a hand in his grand adventure to reclaim his memories and save the homunculi.
Things might be looking bleak (again) but light always finds a way.
Only One Way Up
Little Lilac wakes up to find himself in a very odd position: he’s got no memories to call his own, and everything around him is broken and trying to kill him. Upon meeting with a lady draped in black and with a rather unique mask, the pair work together to restore their memories and save the homunculi that have been driven to madness. Like Ender Lilies, Ender Magnolia’s world is desolate, vile, and occasionally veers on the edge of silly as you’ll come across more hangman’s nooses than you can reasonably expect to see in a sewer system. But run past that and you’ll find yourself immersed in a world that slowly changes as you progress through the game, and not necessarily for the betterment of the people and homunculi that live in this world.
Unlike Ender Lilies, Lilac will run into more human beings than ever before. Homunculi, too, as you’ll run into good folk that have yet to go mad and ones that have gone mad and need a good thrashing. Some of these machinations will go peacefully, some will join your party and become a valuable asset—either way, you’re going to run into a lot more cutscenes than the first game. You’ll encounter the very madness seeping into the homunculi and the people who are blamed for it, the terrible experiments and exploitation they have faced, and more as you advance upwards towards the creepy castle in the far distance. You’ll also be given chances to hear the stories of the homunculi that join your party, giving players more insight into the sorrows left behind by generations prior.
But ENDER MAGNOLIA isn’t devoid of colour as all drab and dreary games tend to be. The game world has plenty of biomes you’ll explore that make extensive use of blues and dark reds. From deep-sea caverns to the world of samurai, there’s a surprising number of unique realms and a good amount of enemy variety that’ll slow you in your tracks. Couple in composing unit Mili and your bouts of adventure will be accompanied by haunting piano melodies and signature vocals that the project is known for. Ender Magnolia depicts all this on flat 2D world geometry with excellent lighting, all though at times this does pose a visibility problem, especially when platforming.
Now this being a 2D Metroidvania title, Ender Magnolia will have players explore swaths of rooms—some completely out of sight—as they make the rounds, collecting resources and new skills to continue exploring the labyrinth of rooms lying in wait. This game’s map is fairly large, and sometimes it can be difficult to navigate as you expand it more and more. See, once you’ve exhausted all means of progression in one zone, this is usually a good time to jump somewhere else that you may have not been able to explore previously. And like any good Metroidvania, the game encourages zone and wall exploration to find hidden secrets, some that are also required to advance the main story. This is my favourite part of any Metroidvania, but I did feel like I spent too much time map scanning for hidden walls towards the end of my playthrough.
Ender Magnolia allows the player to freely traverse between rest points at any time, with no loss of progression when doing so. Anything you’ve found will be kept, even on death. Trial and error will be your key to exploring Magnolia’s world, as sometimes the only way forward is to keep chucking poor Lilac forward to get a better sense of a room’s layout. One thing I do love about this game’s level design is that it encourages exploiting its movement mechanics, as you’ll find plenty of moments where you can time your wall hooks and jumps just right to jump into hidden chasms and rooms. It can be really satisfying to pull off a series of jumps just right to skip out on enemies lying in wait or finding relics that’ll help on your adventure.
Going back to the visibility issues, there are times where it looks like you cannot progress forward in a room because of the way foreground and background assets are overlaid. Unfortunately, I had moments of doubt on whether I could press forward until I looked at the map—all because a tower or a pillar stood in the way that looked impossible to traverse. Still, as you unlock new movement skills, that annoyance does get tossed out the window as you begin to zip and slide all over the place. You’ll have your movement options all unlocked around the 18-hour mark of your playthrough, depending on how fast you move, and boy does it change how you interact with the game world each time you pick up a new power up.
The Bigger They Are…
In Ender Magnolia, players have two jobs: protect Lilac at all costs and position him just right so that he can summon his homunculi friends to fight back. Just like Ender Lilies, this game’s unique take on its character controller is that the playable character is a separate entity from the combatants. While you dodge left and right with Lilac, you’ll use your face buttons and right bumper to assign melee and range-capable allies to deal damage or parry and retaliate against the many fists and projectiles that’ll get tossed your way.
Your arsenal is a lot bigger in Ender Magnolia than it is in Ender Lilies, at least from what I can recall. All the homunculi you’ll meet have multiple skill types that can be unlocked with junk and spare parts that you’ll find in the overworld and craft at the town hubs. Depending on how you map out your available attacks, you can keep a barrage of gunfire wailing against opponents all the while slicing them up to shreds for massive damage. Equipping the right relics for your build can also further damage potential or even heal you.
A method I took up was using two range-capably homunculi with a relic that healed me for each attack I dealt. As I leveled up, so too did my damage and keeping my health bar in check rarely became a problem. Later on in the game, you’ll unlock special attacks that can be charged up by filling your SP gauge and fired off by using the left trigger along with the associated face button to dish out some serious damage and screen-wiping effects against baddies that feels incredibly satisfying.
That doesn’t mean you won’t run into nasty foes that won’t keep you on your toes. Ender Magnolia has a decent selection of bosses that take pride in spamming large area-of-effect and other fast-paced actions. Lilac has a lengthy dash with invulnerability frames galore, but you’ll still need to time it just right to get past scores of projectiles that’ll get tossed into the poor kid’s face. Enemies too are placed maliciously, in just the right places, to knock you right back down or nearly insta-KO you as some attacks have properties that can linger for far-too long. Status effects can be life-or-death, but if you like to live dangerously, there are also relics for sharply increasing your attack power while afflicted.
Mind, Ender Magnolia isn’t a difficult game. It has its moments of sudden difficulty spikes, but you won’t struggles for days and weeks to get past a fight. Rest points are always positioned outside of boss rooms, and if an enemy proves too tough, simply run into another direction of the map and find secrets or fight enemies to level up and improve your stats. If that’s still not enough, you can adjust aspects of the game’s difficulty at rest points, including enemy health pools and attack power, at the expense of less fragments earned and in turn, less unlockables like concept art and the like.
Mind, there’s no peaceful option and even setting all the difficulty options down won’t matter if you haven’t been exploring and levelling up. Personally, I love being able to set enemy health pools as sometimes these buggers have far too much health points—and I suggest you set this value lower and maybe bump up the enemy’s attack to make it fair.
Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist is bigger and better, giving the player more combat options and opportunities while offering a map full of movement and combat-based challenges. There’s a solid variety of enemies and bosses along with unique scenarios that keep gameplay fresh and you on your toes. Tie it up with great visuals and music, and you have the best sequel to Ender Lilies that could possibly exist. ∎
ENDER MAGNOLIA: Bloom in the Mist
Played on
Windows 11 PC
PROS
- Great visuals and music score.
- Fun movement and combat system - solid character controller.
- A map with plenty of secrets and challenges to find.
- Good variety of enemies and bosses.
CONS
- Visibility issues.
- End game will have you starring at a map a bunch.
