Great game, confusing in the beginning but picks up the pace quickly. I was annoyed with all the backtracking after getting movement powerups but realized that rooms with all secrets discovered were colored differently, so it was fine after that. The music is amazing, turned it up after listening to it for a while. Art is beautiful, hard to find another game with art direction comparable to this.
Incredibly convenient that you can do all the endings in one run, I really like this solution.
Would replay someday, definitely worth the money.

Fun combat and level design (minus the final area) and some fun boss fights (only the main ones, the side ones are a joke, and there are 2 bad main boss fights). The bosses and combat aren't as good as something like hollow knight but they are fun enough in their own right.

The overall map design is ugly, confusing, not physically possible, and not actually 2D which makes it hard to conceptualize where everything is, which is why it's a god send that there is an easy fast travel system with generous locations. It's also really nice that they let you know on the map where there are unexplored routes you haven't found yet, and color the rooms based on whether you have found all the secrets in them or not.

The game isn't punishing on death like hollow knight or dark souls despite the familiar formula with save point benches.

The metroidvania power ups are cool and enhance the exploration is neat ways, though because I disliked the map I didn't feel the need to find all the secrets.

The story will probably appeal to some people. Personally, it didn't hit me at all, but I don't have any real problems with it.

The art is gorgeous (though some people might find it generic I guess).

The music is very good too.

Overall, it's a decent game. Worth getting on sale if you want to check out a new metroidvania and have played all the masterpieces of the genre already.

Es un metroidvania que como giro los poderes o habilidades no las casteamos nosotros sino unos espíritus que vamos a ir recolectado a lo largo del juego, vamos a poder elegir hasta 3 habilidades en 2 set distintos para ir rotando en medio del combate dándonos un total de 6 habilidades distintas. En un principio los enemigo no tienen ni patrones complicados ni hacen nada extraño pero nosotros tampoco vamos a tener muchas opciones tanto de defensa ni de movilidad, mientras mas opciones vamos desbloqueando mas difícil se va tornando todo hasta que los últimos bosses se complican un poco mas. Hay algunos que tuve que hacer bastantes tries o incluso poner habilidades especificas para poder ganarles. Quiero aclarar que no yo termine el juego, sino que lo deje en el final A, existen dos finales mas pero hay que ponerse a buscar items a lo largo del mapa para poder acceder a ellos y la verdad que prefiero continuar con otro juego. Quizás en el futuro vuelva a intentar pasármelo por completo. Pero lo que e jugado hasta ahora me parecen un muy buen juego.

Um baita de um metroidvania! Impressionante como eu não conhecia o jogo e só de ver uma screenshot já o quis comprar logo de cara, e deu muito bom. Ender Liles é absurdamente imersivo e recheado de inspirações, seu mundo desolado e solitário me lembra bastante Nier Automata, somado por seu lado Dark Fantasy que é bem voltado pra Dark Souls, e indo mais a fundo, da até pra tirar uma pitada de Shadow of The Colossus aqui, visto que nossa protagonista, Lily, está em um mundo no qual ela não conhece muito bem, purificando os Corrompidos, e a cada chefe principal purificado, sua aparência vai ficando mais e mais devastada e corrompida.

Antes de tudo num Metroidvania pra mim, o principal foco é ter um motivo pra explorar, seja achar alguma arma, equipamentos, armaduras, etc. Aqui não usamos armas, já que Lily não ataca, apenas anda, pula e desvia, a função de ataque traz um grande diferencial sensacional pro jogo, que são os Espíritos Corrompidos. Cada chefe do jogo derrotado se torna seu aliado, sendo usado pra combate. Basicamente eles funcionam como stands, equipamos ele num set de skills (no meu caso X, Y e B) e o resto é óbvio. Ou seja, todos os chefes do jogo (com exeção do último) são suas armas, e isso é sensacional, pois tirando os bosses principais, o jogo tem toneladas de opcionais e cada um com uma skill diferente abrangendo varios estilos de jogo e estrátegias, um atira um projétil, outro arranca pra frente, outro ataca em diagonal, outros que combam e por aí vai, a lista é grande e o combate se torna muito varíado graças a isso. O jogo definitivamente não é fácil e exige bastante cautela, os inimigos machucam, e no último ato alguns inimigos te matam com dois golpes. Os chefes variam, eu tive problemas com uns dois, espcialmente o último que tive que ir upado no talo, aí virou passeio.

Depois de tudo, Ender Lilies entrega tudo, o jogo é lindo de morrer, tendo uma paleta de cores bem escura com ambientes de encher os olhos de tão lindos, trilha sonora no piano solene e melancólica que ajudam ainda mais na imersão, uma lore muito bacana com toneladas de arquivos de texto pra agradar todos que gostam de se aprofundar, acompanhado da história linda, e claro, seu combate diverso e divertido. O jogo foi um pouco longo, platinei em 25 horas, embora eu não tenha ficado entediado em nenhum momento, achei a exploração e a progressão bem diversificada e intiuitiva, por exemplo, o pulo duplo é um dos primeiros upgrades, com isso você acha que vai fazer a festa achando novas áreas, já que esse upgrade geralmente é um alívio quando se pega em qualquer metroidvania, mas o jogo consegue trancar bem a progressão pra que tudo pareça orgânico, e a cada upgrade novo, a movimentação acaba ficando cada vez mais divertida, e quando se pega o gancho é a cereja do bolo. Uma coisa meio estranha é que no mapa, a sala não vai se formando conforme você anda, e sim já fica um bloco inteiro representando que você está ali, isso faz o backtracking ficar meio confuso já que o jogo tem várias salas que são gigantes mas em contrapartida, o jogo é bem intuitivo marcando blocos laranjas pra áreas completadas e azuis pra não completadas, sem falar que marca em vermelho rotas fechadas.

No fim mais um jogo indie que deu um verdadeiro show, um joguinho que vai deixar saudades e que definitivamente merecia mais reconhecimento.

Pros
- Nice music
- Combat is decent

Cons
- Poor level design
- Bad map
- Ability collection feels all over the place in relation to the metroidvania aspect
- Takes a while for combat to pick up

I randomly came upon one of the endings after beating a boss and I didn't feel the need to go back and collect the rest of the abilities and beat the remaining bosses. That moment kinda captured how I felt about the game overall.

What a wonderful journey; I'd recommend this game to anyone really, even if you don't like Metroidvanias (although it's an excellent one). The art and music are breathtaking, every single upgrade is fun and gives you plenty of secrets to find. The story is bittersweet and is sprinkled throughout the world, a lot of it is interesting but it does require piecing it together through notes and certain dialogue- Similar to another dark fantasy game which I don't think I need to name right now. All in all, Ender Lillies is a gorgeous game that everyone should experience

Le jeu propose un super système de combat, au lieu de choisir une arme on choisi trois fantômes chacun associés à une touche qui attaquerons à notre place, avec la quantité de fantômes disponibles cela permet d'imaginer pleins de synergies et combos uniques entre les fantômes. Les combats sont donc variés et se renouvellent à mesure que l'on collecte de nouveaux fantômes et qu'on expérimente en plus d'offrir une variété d'ennemis correcte. Le déroulement du jeu est assez linéaire au début mais nécessite néanmoins du backtracking à plusieurs reprises pour avancer dans l'histoire. La mini-map est très mini-maliste mais aussi très efficace pour communiquer au joueur quel endroit il n'a pas encore exploré et indique si l'on a trouvé tous les objets dans une salle très pratique pour les mordus du 100% comme moi. On déplore l'absence d'une ost marquante bien que de bonne facture. On peut aussi reprocher un level design assez banal, le jeu se concentrant bien plus sur le combat que la plateforme. L'ambiance elle est réussie, on se trouve dans un monde en proie au désespoir et cela se ressent dans la musique et la direction artistique. Le lore ne casse pas trois pâtes à un canard mais il est suffisamment intriguant et mystérieux pour qu'on se plaise à découvrir cet univers. Définitivement un jeu de choix si vous êtes en manque de metroidvania et avez déjà touché au classiques du genre.

Ender Lilies es un metroidvania asombroso que ha pasado bastante desapercibido, pero eso no influye de ninguna manera en su calidad, porque creo que entrega una experiencia muy disfrutable.

Lo más destacable de Ender Lilies es su combate, que se siente bastante medido, variado y complejo. Te permite equipar hasta 6 habilidades que vas obteniendo al derrotar los bosses y semi bosses, creando una buena sensación de progresión constante. Dichas habilidades son muy diversas e interesantes de usar, adaptándose a tu forma de jugar o zona y enemigos que vayas a enfrentar. Porque parte de la grandeza de su combate está en el diseño de los enemigos, que junto a su dificultad te obliga a aprender a jugar frente a cada uno de ellos, volviendo el combate mucho más satisfactorio una vez lo entiendes. Hago especial énfasis en el diseño de sus bosses, que me parece sublime. Todos te fuerzan de nuevo a aprender bien sus mecánicas, de forma que sientes que has perfeccionado su combate cuando los derrotas finalmente. Se sienten variados y muy divertidos en general. Todo lo bien construidos que están los 8 iniciales , lo tiran por la borda en el boss final desgraciadamente. Una batalla totalmente soporífera y muy lejos del nivel del título, haciendo bastante decepcionante el final.

Por una parte, su diseño de niveles a nivel jugable está bien. Sus zonas se sienten bien interconectadas como esperarías de un metroidvania, aunque hay una que no me gustaron mucho sus mecánicas. Por otro lado la ambientación de esas zonas está muy bien lograda, con una banda sonora asombrosa, que con sus canciones transmite sentimientos similares a lo que el lugar representa. Su apartado artístico en un inicio no me convencía, recordándome un poco a esos gachas japoneses típicos de dispositivos móviles, pero con el tiempo lo fui apreciando más y me acabó gustando bastante.

Por último sus historia cumple, tomando lugar en un antiguo reino en ruinas asolado por una enfermedad que convierte a sus huéspedes en cuerpos desconectados de su mente. Es simple pero aporta a la ambientación dándole significado a los lugares y personajes que enfrentas.

En definitiva, Ender lilies en un buen metroidvania con un combate sensacional , sobre todo en el diseño de sus bosses, que te hará disfrutar descubriendo su mundo.

Ender Lilies proving, once again, that the summoner class of any fantasy setting is overpowered.

Here we have another Metroidvania, which will certainly be a turn on or turn off for you right of the bat. You like map completion? Finding every secret to make yourself stronger? Obtaining major abilities to revisit previously inaccessible areas for more power-ups? Utilizing that power to fight tough bosses? Then this, among many others, are for you.
Of course that's the absolute basics of the genre, so what does this game do to itself differentiate from others? It's primarily related to spirits. You play as a young girl who by herself can't do much, but by purifying bosses and mini-bosses she can have those souls as equippable attacks. They range from sword slashes, to ground slams, throwing knives, homing fireballs, claw swipes, poison gases, spear lunges, parries and counters, volley of arrows, autumonous minions that shoot nearby targets and so forth. You can equip up to six. Most spirits have limted uses and short cooldowns, but few have infinite usage. Honestly I could count the amount of times I ran out of a specific spirit attack on one hand. Breakable objects and red lilies replenish their usage, which are plenty common to come across. As long as you integrate one or two unlimited spirits in your roster you should be good... at least in terms of spirit management.
You kind of need as many variety of attacks as possible since this game ain't easy. I wouldn't call it brutal (with one or two exceptions) but everything here hits like a dump truck. If you're use to more easy-going Metroidvanias, do not tank hits in this game. You do that and you'll be wasting your healing prayers very quickly. This game is at it's best when you crafted a specific move list of spirits to more comfortably clear a area or boss that have been giving you shit. There's at least two or three spirits well suited for each enemy. Some enemies fly overhead, but by depleting their stun bar they will be knocked out of the sky and splat when they hit the ground. Shield enemies need to be dodged behind them during their attacks, or you could use a poison gas spirit that ignores shields, or use a spirit that leaps over their shield and hits them from behind. This game does encourage a lot of cheesing strats. Can't count the amount of times I killed a enemy through a wall by using a long-ranged attack to chip at them from safety, though thankfully the reverse doesn't happen. It's also important to note what spirits keep you in place and what ones you can use while keeping your mobility up. That's the major downside of the unlimited spirits, they require you to stop in place and attack, whereas the limited use ones (mostly) allow you to set them up and keep on the move while they do their thing. In fact, you can summon multiple spirits at once under most circumstances, perfect for when a boss is stunned and vulnerable. Even with these capabilities of your main character, I still feel one or two enemy deals a smidge too much damage. If you aren't finding enough health upgrades then some of these will just two shot you. The ones that come to mind are these enormous mounds of flesh that swipe with a tentacle slam, which I swear that hitbox is way bigger then the animation. And it doesn't help how fast and large that attack is on top of its power. Though in fairness it isn't rare for any hard game to have at least a few of those enemies that are a pain in the ass to deal with. Some might even argue that we need those obstacles that are obnoxious as hell, it creates memorable moments and keeps you on your toes. I suppose I won't forget those mounds of flesh, but I also won't ever forget my embarrassing moments from High School and I don't associate them with the best feelings to put it very mildly.
Exploration is pretty solid all around. Though to get a nitpick out of the way, the game tells you want room you're in on the map, but not it's exact location of where in the room. Say in Castlevania, you have a long vertical room about three blocks tall on the map. Castlevania will adjust your player marker on the map depending on which third of the tall room you're in. Ender Lilies doesn't do that and it can make it difficult to remember where in that specific location you have, and have not been to. Thankfully the map is otherwise very generous. It will change color depending on if there's a item there that you haven't found yet, and it will also show how many doors are in a room even when entering it the first time. It makes it pretty easy to look over your map to find places that you missed or haven't explored in full yet. Makes using a guide less of a requirement, and the few times I did use it was for last minute cleanups by the end.
In fact it was such a smooth ride that I got all 38 achievements in 15 hours. Bearing in mind I knew very little about the game going into it, I bought it on a whim during a sale, so I feel that speaks volumes of it's solid design.
That all said, I believe the visuals and setting of this game are easily it's strongest quality. It's a dark, lonely world. Everything you meet is either a hostile blight, corrupted corpses angry at past trangressions, and sorrowful souls whose regrets chain them to living world. Well "living" ain't the right word here. Every spirit you obtain has a small story of who they were in life, and the major ones even have cutscenes to show more of what the world once was before it all went down hill. Notes that litter the world go into further detail on what has happened, most of it amounting to "We done goofed, yes we sure did". In fairness, when the rain itself carries a infectious blight things are kind of fucked from the get-go. The beautiful 2D visuals really nails the tone. The designs of your spirits range from cool but damaged knights in armor, horrifying creatures with a subtle amount of cuteness, and mutated corpses hanging on by a thread of humanity. The areas you comb are big yet hostile. Corpses contain valuable items for upgrades, but they'll also mutter their last words as you approach them. Mostly their final regrets. Yet like any sorrowful-filled story, it has just enough hope for it to not be too overbearing. Also helped by the short length, since anything that you experience too often lessens the affect they have on you emotionally in time (this is not a life lesson fyi). Even in the most dire of circumstances, hope is always there, even if it takes a lot to realize it.

I enjoyed my time with this game. Maybe not enough for a replay, but I'm plenty satisfied with what I did play. With a few exceptions, I think the difficulty is a good high that requires effort but rarely crosses over to annoying. And while the tone is not something I'm interested in usually, it's no less engaging wandering around a diseased, desolate kingdom as a small defenseless girl... who would actually be defenseless if it weren't for her army of ghost friends.
Now give this game a try before another one of my agonizing High School memories comes out of nowhere to cause psychic dama- AH OH GOD!! WHY?!?

I don’t play a lot of metroidvania games, but Ender Lilies looked beautiful with its gothic fantasy style, and that along with its unique combat mechanic hooked me immediately. You see, the player character—a young girl—could only jump and evade, instead the spirits of defeated enemies were utilised as weapons. There were many to collect, offering a range of melee, ranged and magic skills that could be swapped out and tweaked. I had a good time finding out what build worked for me; I preferred ranged and magic.

It wasn’t without its frustrations as some of the maps were just horrendous to get through, and with it jumping on the souls-like train the difficulty spiked. The bosses, though, were enjoyable and fun to learn, and I consider that an important factor in games like this. Overall it was worth it, the atmosphere consistently moody and enhanced by the excellent music.

Casi no lo jugué porque la estética anime me tira mucho hacia atrás, pero la banda sonora me hizo replanteármelo. Y doy gracias por haberlo hecho, adoro este juego, sus jefes, sus coleccionables, su mapa, su todo. La banda sonora es la única que me ha hecho sentir tan a gusto y a la vez tan... ¿Asqueado e incómodo? La variedad que tiene es sublime y va desde canciones tan agradables como las de la zona de la bruja a tensión por algunas peleas de jefes a desagrado por lo que siento con la banda sonora del abismo, que es obviamente lo que pretende transmitir, la sensación de peligro y repugnancia por lo que te rodea. El lore también me pareció bastante bueno.

This is my second time through this game. My first time through, I only obtained one ending. (the default ending), and went on with my life. I did enjoy the game back then, all the same. But going through it again? Knowing what I'm doing, getting to see every nook and cranny, and besting every obstacle to finally, FINALLY, after more than 2 years, get all of the endings?

Even though my experience with this second playthrough is very skewed with personal anecdotes, I can safely say that Ender Lilies is now my new favorite metroidvania, unfortunately dethroning Momodora: RUTM. This game has so many things coming together to weave the perfect storm, and it's truly beautiful. Musical composition, gameplay, an immaculately perfect blend of difficulty that I wouldn't change if I could (and I can, if I wanted to, another nice thing to note that the devs threw in for finishing the game.), an enthralling plot that evokes deep emotions and powerful melancholy...

It really is worth all the time that it asks of you. Check it out if you even have an inkling that it might be your style, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

I might come back to this later, but I couldn't really get into this one. Combat is weak, with your attacks having pretty poor feedback and lacking any impact. Level design is pretty uninteresting, consisting almost entirely of rectangular rooms that tend to be bigger than they need to be. The only thing that makes the game difficult is how janky dodging feels. You just kind of flop onto the ground and the animation makes it difficult to tell when you're invincible and when you're vulnerable to damage. The whole game, despite having great art and music, has a feeling that I can only describe as something that would have been on Newgrounds in the early 2000s.

You get a bunch of different combat abilities that you can mix and match which is neat, but there are just way too many other metroidvanias out there that do what I think this game is trying to do way better. Good presentation and atmosphere can only get you so far.

With that said, I did only play about 3 hours. I've heard it gets better, but I'm not willing to sit through mediocrity for the chance of quality at the moment.

So before I moved to Southern California I almost never ate fast food. Living in New York if I needed something cheap and fast in the middle of the night I'd just get a slice of pizza, or maybe Chinese food, hell maybe even a bodega sandwich. Then I moved out here and started grad school and found myself eating Taco Bell or Jack in the Box 2 or 3 nights a week because it was the only thing open at 1 in the morning. I guess it became a habit because now getting fast food and eating in my car in the parking lot next to the drive-thru is like a weekly occurrence. My go-to spots are Taco Bell, Wendy's, Popeyes, and In-N-Out, and I can't really eat at Jack in the Box anymore cause I had too many of the gnarly 2-for-a-dollar tacos and now everything from there makes me nauseous. (Psychosomatic?) When I first moved here I'd never tried Del Taco before, and my first experience I remember being like "this is awful, it tastes like nothing." The mild sauce tastes like someone literally just squeezed a tomato onto your food and the hot sauce tastes exactly the same but it makes your tongue tingle. The ingredients are all pretty fresh. Unlike Taco Bell it doesn't feel like you're eating a simulacrum of human food. It just kind of feels like someone made one of those Old El Paso taco kits, but they somehow lost the seasoning packet so they had to raid their own spice cabinet but all they had was salt and some cumin powder that expired 3 years ago. After that first experience I figured I'd never eat there ever again. But every once in a blue moon I'll find myself getting a craving for it. I eat at Del Taco probably once every 3 or 4 months now, and it's nice. I wouldn't say it's "good" or "tasty," but in some weird way it hits the spot.

ANYWAY! This was like... fine? Got to the final boss and kind of just didn't feel like finishing. But it wasn't a bad experience, just kind of a bland one. If they ever make a sequel I'll probably play it.

The controls are tight. Cool, diverse skill set. The enemy and level design are nothing special but aren't terrible. Some decently challenging boss fights. Lots of goodies to collect. A little on the linear side for a Metroidvania. The art is really well done, if not exactly my taste.

Does not tug on the heart strings or 'make ya think' as much as it seems to think it does. There's an area of the map filled with poison gas that quickly kills you if you don't have a special mask item, and it's straight up called "The Verboten Domain." That's the level of poetry we're talkin' about here lol

Also: Games have GOT to stop doing the Dark Souls "have a bunch of flavor text vaguely point toward a story rather than just telling you a story outright" thing unless they actually know how to write evocatively and have a lore that's WORTH BEING CURIOUS ABOUT!! Like idk, I'm an obsessive completionist so I picked up all of the notes or letters or engravings or what have you and what I can tell you is that this game is about princesses. Who are sort of like clones, maybe? And there was like a plague or some shit, for sure. Turned people into zombies, sort of? A king went mad at some point, definitely. I don't know who "The Ancients" are but they're definitely important. And some well meaning (?) wizards did some evil experiments or something? Whatever, who care.

✨𝒄𝒖𝒆 𝒕𝒘𝒊𝒏𝒌𝒍𝒚 𝒑𝒊𝒂𝒏𝒐 𝒎𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒄 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒈𝒍𝒐𝒘𝒚 𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒍𝒆 𝒆𝒇𝒇𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒔✨

M.I.D

Metroidvania
Inconvenientemente
Dgenerico

All-round a very solid soulslike/metroidvania. And this game deserves those two genre labels more than most. Ender Lilies is so heavily influenced by other games in those genres that it almost comes off as some hybrid or compilation. The theming and enemy design is very Dark Souls, the story is very Hollow Knight, the boss design is very Bloodborne and the art style reminds me of Salt and Sanctuary, albeit a fair bit better. Don't get me wrong, Ender Lilies is good or great in almost every aspect, but it can feel like it isn't bringing a whole lot new to the table.

I guess the main innovation/gimmick that EL:QotK does contribute to the genre is the spirits system, where you unlock new moves by beating associated bosses / minibosses and recruiting their spirits to your side, and then equip up to six of these at each bonfire/bench/respite. I do quite like this system, it leads to a lot of build variability, but it does feel a little out of place alongside the other RPG elements (a copy of the charms system from Hollow Knight and a character levelling system that... I never worked out what it was doing). It makes combat pretty fun and varied, and some of the most satisfying I've played in the genre (at least once you get the dash, because the basic dodge kinda sucks to use).

I'd say the game probably puts the most effort into building its atmosphere; but I think it perhaps goes a little too hard too fast. The first couple of levels of this game are just so damn sad, and not really in a good way. You're thrown in at the deep end with an extremely bleak and hopeless seeming world before you have any time to get invested in anything, and the game doesn't offer any NPCs to talk to to show any faint sign of life or reason this world deserves saving. I dunno, I didn't feel this way by the end once the game had earned my engagement at a story and setting level, but this kind of thing has completely thrown me out of other Metroidvanias before now (main example being Ori and the Blind Forest), so I think the feeling of 'unearned atmosphere' I got from the start of this is worth a mention.

But yeah, other than that and its lack of originality at times, Ender Lilies is just good all-round. Beautiful art, great music (I particularly like how it dynamically changes between different rooms in an area), spot-on difficulty curve and no major glaring issues to point at. Pretty much the exact definition of a 4/5 game to me.