A really good metroidvania, the art direction is gorgeous and the soundtrack is freaking amazing. I had so much fun with Ender Lilies, it doesn´t have a lot of the post game content as something as Hollow Knight has, but the game has more than enough. EL isn´t a hard game, a few bosses can be a little hard, but not by a lot, there aren´t any death penalties, what is a little weird, because if you die you don´t loose any progress, the fast travel system is very forgiving as well, you can fast travel to any save point, and there are A LOT of them, so the exploration and backtracking are really fast and chill.

This game caught my eye at SGDQ this year and learning that it was a metroidvania had me even more excited as I found the gameplay to be interesting. Now, I've played my fair share of metroidvanias of all different shapes, sizes and difficulties. I kind of wished this game had difficulty options because if you choose not to explore and press on ahead, you will be punished, and this game is quite punishing.

I'm all for a good challenge, but it's been a while where I've been nearly in a fit of rage because of some of these bosses. Attack patterns that in the later half of boss battles require precise windows to dodge, hitboxes that don't match the size of the attack, and having low health because I didn't explore the entire map before this. I did my fair share of exploring as I put 20+ hours into this game (Most of it from boss battles), but I always felt I was lagging behind, even if I was collecting things along the way.

I got to the second to last boss and after a certain number of tries, I just sat there thinking that I wasn't really enjoying the game anymore, which is a shame. The game has solid art direction, an interesting weapon and armor system, and a decent OST. The game is exactly how the developers intended it to be, and that's fine. It got to the point where I felt like I was bashing my head against a brick wall. It's not the worst metroidvania I've played, but it certainly was the most frustrating.

Otro intento de emular al fenómeno del momento, ya sea Dark Souls o, en este caso, Hollow Knight, sin contar con la elegancia necesaria para ello.

Pros:
- El sistema de combate basado en espíritus otorga bastantes posibilidades de buildeo.
- Todo va muy fluido. El personaje se controla bien en todos los ejes.
- Las peleas contra bosses son destacables, aunque entre ellas hay que pasar por el peor elemento del juego, explicado en el siguiente punto.

Contras:
- Su forma de introducir dificultad es rellenar todas las ubicaciones con ochocientos cuarenta y tres mil enemigos. Para más inri, el 50% de los enemigos disparan proyectiles de seguimiento.
- El diseño artístico de los escenarios es muy pobre. Si bien al principio parecen destacar por su belleza, se acaban repitiendo hasta la saciedad a lo largo de las zonas.
- Su forma de entender el género metroidvania consiste en permitirte ir constantemente por rutas cerradas para tener que hacer backtracking constante.

Ender Lilies is a game that I had my eye on since it had came out earlier this year. I finally got around to playing it, and I am glad that I finally did as this game was amazing from start to finish. Aesthetically, the games visuals, and music are outstanding. The visuals are amazing to look at, and the music works with the visuals to give it a dark, gloomy vibe along with being appealing to listen to. The game itself is very fun, giving the player a plethora of different weapons and abilities throughout the game to keep fresh. This also goes hand in hand with the new enemies that get introduced throughout the game. This game is a must play for fans of the Metroidvania genre.

Como podes compreender pelo teor da análise até ao momento é garantida a minha recomendação. Não só ENDER LILLIES: Quietus of the Knights é um excelente Metroidvania, como também uma peça coesa em todas as frentes. Sinto-me um pouco picuinhas com alguns aspectos, algo que não merece devida atenção nesta análise, mas senti a falta de outras personagens com as quais interagir durante a aventura.

Seguindo esse mesmo molde, apesar da história ser satisfatória, poderia ser muito mais, bastando para isso apenas expor e simplificar mais um pouco a forma como a narrativa desenrola. Repito, no entanto, aquilo que vieste ler: ENDER LILLIES é merecedor do teu tempo e do teu dinheiro. Ponto final.

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See more @ https://squared-potato.pt/ender-lillies-quietus-of-the-knights-analise/
Written in European Portuguese
Played on Xbox Series S
Published on 16/08/2021

Currently my favorite metroidvania game out there :)
Beautiful story and soundtrack.
Gameplay great too, big recommend to souls-like fans :3

My only issue with it is that the sound design feels somewhat incomplete, like cutscenes and dialogue in general.

Didn't really enjoy this game very much. I came into this game hearing a lot of people say that the combat might seem a bit difficult at first. However I never really got that impression. I love challenging but rewarding combat. This was not that. This game has tedious combat. All the enemies are relatively easy once you figure out what they do and what attack pattern to use to defeat them. After that you just repeat against that enemy as many times as they pop up. It's not challenging, it's just time consuming and not very fun. The only gameplay I really found myself enjoying were the multi-phased boss fights, where the process of figuring out what attack patterns you need to use to defeat an enemy actually becomes exciting and strategic rather than repetitive and boring. Unfortunately this is not what the majority of the game is like. Players may get drawn in by the wonderful atmosphere, art, and music of this game, but the actual game is incredibly lacking. I feel like the world of this game was quite interesting, but the way the story was told through flashbacks and scattered notes was really not very engaging or interesting. You really only need to buy this game if you're a hardcore metroidvania fan or you're able to sit through a lot of boring gameplay to be able to look at some cool environments.

Se devo essere completamente onesto forse il gioco ha nei suoi pregi anche i suoi stessi difetti, mi spiego: diamo per assodato che l'ambientazione e i vari design siano indubbiamente validi e che le boss fight sono perfettamente pensate per farti via via migliorare va detto che da cima a fondo è come se mancasse una reale identità e sia un omaggio (o un copia e incolla) a tanti metroidvania moderni. La trama è ben scritta, il gioco è piacevole, ma è come se l'appartenere a questa categoria ad oggi sia inevitabilmente un malus perché dubito profondamente che si possa creare qualcosa che non sia sui soliti binari.
Anche se ne ho apprezzato la trama l'ho intuita subito e ho capito che non mi andava di starci a spendere un'altra decina di ore per finirlo 100% facendo il solito backtracking

A solid Metroidvania with beautiful art and music. The combat seems pretty tough at times, and there are a few difficult bosses, but for the most part, the difficulty seemed pretty fair, especially if you hunt everything down like I did. The story was the only kind of bland part of the game; most is delivered in notes you pick up, so be prepared to do a lot of reading. If that's your thing, then all power to you! But during the last rooms of the game, my eyes were glazing over starting at walls of exposition. I wasn't the biggest fan of that.

It took a while for me to really get sucked in compared to similar games in the genre, but it was very similar to Hollow Knight, which is great!

Difficulty: 5/10
Time to platinum: 30-35 hours
Platinum N°: 112

A metroidvania game that puts us in the shoes of Lily, the last maiden of a kingdom ravaged by an eternal rain that turns people into the undead. We must explore the corners of this kingdom, try to figure out what happened and find the source of the rain.

The art of the game is beautiful and exudes an air of melancholy thanks to its music and the images of the devastated place.

Trophies are what you expect in a game like this: go 100% around the map, find all the relics and all the notes. But You also have to reach level 100, purify all the heroes, raise 5 skills to the maximum and see the 3 endings (it is not necessary to play it 3 times), among others.

It is not a revolutionary game or anything like that, but among so much game of this style, it is definitely one that is worth playing.

Ender Lillies wears its influences on its sleeves. The gameplay is more combat focused than I like in my Metroidvanias, but the various abilities and challenging boss encounters kept my interest. The visuals and music are exceptional, with inspirations taken from a variety of sources including Castlevania, Nier and even Metroid Prime (looking at you, Phenandra Drifts sounding track that plays in the Verboten Domain).

The games starts off fairly slow, but picks up in the second half, with more interesting locales, additional movement mechanics and some vicious bosses. I had a good time with this, it's definitely worth going for at least Ending B; if you stop at Ending A you'll likely miss 50% of the content.