Ender Lillies: Quietus of the Knights

A decent Metroidvania. I think some of the earlier previews made reference to Souls and Bloodborne, but there really aren't any Souls mechanics here. It is pretty straightforward Metroid in a fallen kingdom type setting.

You can gain xp from killing enemies but you don't accrue points to spend in stats or currency to spend. You explore and find one of two different resource nodes to upgrade your abilities (there is a third resource but it is only tied to a single ability and somewhat plot related). Killing mid-bosses and bosses gives you a Spirit you can equip that either functions as a main attack ability with infinite uses or a more limited use secondary spell / ability. You also find relics to equip that enhance health, defense, abilities, and loot to increase the number of relics you can equip.

The maps are somewhat well done and flow nicely. I was a big fan of the actual map itself hinting you towards how many exits an area has and using a color system to show if you've completed an area. It made referring back to sections after getting a new ability easy. Fast travel is also open early and makes it easy to bounce back and forth. Really they're just nice QOL stuff that as I'm older I don't want to backtrack and bomb every corner of every screen to find a missing route or item. There are a couple of above average difficulty jump puzzles once you collect the standard movement abilities. Had to YouTube one just b/c I wasn't sure if I was doing it correctly.

Combat isn't bad or good. For the most part it is fairly easy. Decent mob variety with a couple new types with each new area you enter. A few are annoying and really serve more to aggravate you than be a challenge. One complaint I have about combat is the hurt box and collision. This seems like a standard complaint for me now but putting collision damage in a game with close combat melee combined with dash movement + enemy dash movement + multiple enemies on the screen is just dumb. Unless you have a pixel sized collision box like in a shmup you're gonna be bouncing off enemies and taking damage. Plus your attacks move you in whichever direction you're facing. So you can combo yourself in to enemies. It is just tedious and annoying. Probably irritates me more than others and isn't game breaking.

I did find myself using quite a few of the skills though which was good. You have two weapon loadouts that you can switch between on demand. So it is easy to mix and match what you want. There were some good range abilities, damage over time, pets, and defensive ones. No need to min/max or try to be OP. A few bosses took a couple of attempts but nothing to beat your head against for hours trying to master.

Unfortunately can't say much about overall game length. Another one where most of my time was spent on pause on conference calls or running errands. My Steam Library says "70 hours" but my guess is that 20 hours is probably what it was to 100%. Think the only leftover achievement I had was to reach level 100 and that was with finishing the game at level 97 or 98.

Oh, one last thing... the game was very fun right up until the more-or-less last biome, Verboten Domain. It almost wiped out any good will the game had fostered up until that point. Basically it is an area like in any Metroidvania that you don't want to explore until you find the item that prevents you from taking environmental damage. Only in this game once you find that item you still take constant damage, just reduced. And the maps are huge and the enemies are annoying. Not only are they annoying but the environment is filled with pink mist, the enemies are pink, making them hard to see. It was just a fucking worthless piece of shit area and they deserve to be hung for including it.

$25? eeehhhhh it is polished and fun and not bug ridden. 20 hours of entertainment. If you love Metroidvanias catch it on a sale. I don't regret picking it up but am not telling anyone to go get it immediately or anything.

Amod Could we change the title? Put an extra "l" in Lilies oops...