ENDER LILIES: Quietus of the Knights by
developers Live
Wire, adglobe and publisher Binary Haze Interactive—Sony Playstation 4 review written by Richard
with a copy provided by the publisher.Estimated reading time: 8 minutes
Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights is a
Metroidvania with souls-like aspects. A tale of a young girl in a destroyed
kingdom looking for answers and salvation. With the help of the fallen souls at
her side, she might fight for her place in the world she finds herself in.
Ender Lilies is about a young mute girl
with amnesia who awakens in a dilapidated lab. A death-bound knight, who's soul
is tied in service to the girl, informs her that she must venture out into the
kingdom to restore her memories, and to find a way of purifying the Blight that
is causing the inhabitants of the kingdom to become deformed monsters. Much of
the story for Ender Lilies is told through scraps of paper and notes that you
pick up along your journey, as well as memories recovered from the souls of the
powerful warriors you defeat.
At its core, Ender Lilies is a sort of
souls-like metroidvania hybrid, with the heavy focus on the metroidvania
portion and sprinkled with light souls-like concepts. As a 2D exploration
action-platformer style, you will be traveling through the kingdom exploring
areas, collecting items and upgrades, and then returning to explore areas after
acquiring new abilities, such is the metroidvania style. Unlike traditional
metroidvanias however, Ender Lilies displays its reference to the souls-like
genre by having you earn experience through defeated enemies, and upon death
you get returned to the last checkpoint. Thankfully you keep everything you've
earned before being death, as some of the items you can get are basically
"one-way" roads.
So how does Ender Lilies play out? Well,
a major focus will be on the combat, which is performed in a Castelvania
Aria/Dawn of sorrow style. You have two sets of three abilities you can equip
as attacks, some which consume "uses" (such as a firebolt) and some
that are infinite use (such as the starting sword attack). These abilities are
tied to the bosses and powerful enemies you defeat, and instead of attacking
yourself, you summon the souls of the purified bosses to attack for you. These
abilities can be set at rest points and uses restored, as well as upgraded with
any souls required for the upgrades you may find on your travels. These may be
found in breakable boxes and jars, but are found in larger batches by
collecting items and purifying the remains of dead monsters.
In addition to the six possible abilities
you can equip with your acquired spirits, you also have the standard jump, as
well as the dodge from the souls-like style. In fact, head to head combat and
boss fights play a lot like the souls-like style, as you must dodge attacks
while getting your own in, utilizing your invincibility time while dodging to
avoid getting damaged. If you do get hit, it's usually for a pretty big amount.
If you're having trouble getting through an area or beating a boss, it might be
a good idea to explore a bit, find some upgrade materials, and maybe reconsider
your equipment. While you do earn exp and can level, increasing max health and
damage, most of your damage output will likely be a result of upgrading spirits
or equipped relics helping in battle.
Relics are accessories you can equip that
may be discovered as you explore, occasionally located in some really
horrendous locations. Amongst items you can find while exploring, you can acquire:
upgrade materials, health increases, relics, capacity increases, and healing
upgrades. Yes, that's right, souls-like healing as well. In fact, it might be a
good idea to think of Ender Lilies as a metroidvania exploration with
souls-like combat, especially given that common enemies respawn when resting at
a save point. A good fit, I must say. So, capacity upgrades you may be
wondering about. This is actually for the relics, as all relics have a cost,
and you cannot equip more relics than your capacity allows. While you can build
a fairly sizeable capacity, you do have o pay attention to whether you
remembered to remove the utility effects in exchange for combat use relics
before bosses. Guess who accidentally had half their capacity filled with exp
increasing and water movement relics for the final boss fight? Yes, it was me.
At this point in my review, I want to
impress a few things upon you readers. First up is that the game will let you
know quite blatantly if you're missing something. Each "room" or
"area" on the map shows how many exits there are in the room, as well
as if you've entered or exited them. Additionally, the map is colour coded for
your convenience, with blue rooms indicated items you haven't picked up or
optional bosses you haven't beaten yet. Major bosses are a "little"
more mandatory, although it is possible to do minor sequence breaks.
I'm fairly certain the boss I beat second
last was not intended to be fought so late in the game. Second thing to note is
that you are never locked out of anything. Multiple endings? Can be acquired
any time you want as long as you meet the requirements. Items and collectibles?
Always accessible if you have the right movement abilities and relic
combinations equipped. Enemies too tough? Well, git gud scrub. Everything is
always available to you, and with rooms indicating "completion", it
becomes easy to work out where a possible item of optional boss you're missing
is.
This is also extremely convenient as you
unlock a fast travel option early on, allowing you to travel between rest
points, and there are a fair number of them. While you are out exploring, you
also have the option to open the menu and simply select the option to return to
a rest point, keeping everything that you've collected. This was really handy
when I was going for the 100% map completion, walked into a room fairly out of
the way, collected the items I needed, and then could instantly return to the
rest point. Very handy. Accompanying you on your journey, you will find both a
plethora of environs as well as suitable soundtracks to accompany. Or in less
poncey terms, nice art and good music.
One of my key gripes with any
Metroidvania style game is the soundtrack. If I'm stuck in an area for five
hours trying to solve a puzzle or find a hidden item, the soundtrack better not
make me want to murder somebody whenever I hear it after I'm done. Thankfully,
Ender Lilies has a really well crafted soundtrack, and some stunning visuals to
pair with it. Ender Lilies has some really nice music pieces, some of which
have a wonderful piano accompaniment. When played along with the visuals of the
world you are exploring, the presentation paints as much of a picture of the
world as the scattered notes you find throughout your journey.
As much as I fell in love with Ender
Lilies almost instantly, there were a few faults that I noticed through my time
with it. The first, and arguably most important, has to do with the movement
mechanics. Well, sort of. When you unlock the ability to move freely in water,
you can also swim up waterfalls/water columns. Water columns that I thought for
the longest time were just background decoration. Similar, there are these
chains in the sunken coven that I thought were background but really weren't.
Literally me not noticing this added about two hours to my play time of trying
to figure out what to do.
The next issue I discovered had to do
with attack timing. Some of the bosses have moves that have a big wind-up, but
no real tell as to when it's releasing the attack, meaning you'll probably
dodge too early or too late until you learn the moves. Some moves, however, hit
you before the attack animation actually plays. The boss of the catacombs is
particularly egregious for this, as I died a few times, and watched the attack
play out AFTER I had already died. While it isn't too hard to adjust for since
the move has a clear tell, it is a little frustrating. Finally, I did have an
issue with the camera twice, where I either fast traveled or returned to a safe
area, and the camera was off in left field for some reason. Returning to the
rest area again or leaving reset it, but it was interesting. Only happened
twice though, and never in an area with enemies, so that's good.
Summary
Overall, Ender Lilies: Quietus of the
Knights is an absolutely stellar hybrid of 2D Metroidvania exploration and
souls-like combat rolled into a wonderfully artistic package. With tough but
smooth combat, exploration that feels both fulfilling and challenging, a
beautiful art style and soundtrack, as well as an endearing story, Ender Lilies
really captures a lot of great aspects. It's incredibly hard to pick out any
real issues with Ender Lilies other than personal preference, but it is really
easy to recommend to anyone looking for either a Metroidvania or Souls-like. A
great package that has come together magnificently, Ender Lilies will not leave
you disappointed.
Score: 9 / 10
