There's a lot to like in Ender Lilies, and even though it's unfortunately because most of it I liked in other games, I still had a pretty good time getting through it on the whole. The moment-to-moment combat is alright but the spirit system is fun to mess with and develop favorites. The metroidvania progression is a bit rough at first but really opens up halfway through, and that feeling of a world suddenly becoming completely accessible, when done right, is a thrill I can personally never get enough of. Also, as a completionist specifically with these types of games, I always appreciate some user-friendly indicators that rooms are cleared out, especially when they're not just telling me exactly where the items are. This was an incredibly satisfying game for me to get through, even with a few road bumps here and there.
I largely enjoyed the presentation as well, though I was baffled by the way post-boss cutscenes were presented. These animated sequences have, I guess, monologues to fill in backstory of the enemies you've taken down, but they're not voice acted nor is the text advancement controlled by the player. So basically, any small distraction and it feels as though you will just miss entire chunks of story, and you'll have to revisit them at respites where you can view any previously unlocked cutscenes. Could be a me problem, but this absolutely hurt a lot of interest in the story, and while it wasn't doing much for me when I was "getting it" anyway, I became so easily discouraged from it that I stopped reading a lot of the lore collectibles entirely. I would think either voice-acted cutscenes [which is obviously a developmental expense and I don't want to underplay that] or just giving the player control over when text advances would be easier ways to get involved in the story. I guess it's a good thing the story felt pretty derivative anyway, so I didn't feel too walled by that presentation.
Reviews on here have already gone over how familiar elements of Ender Lilies are to those who have played pretty much any game, and, yeah, like most games, Ender Lilies is an accumulation of homages, which isn't inherently a bad thing. But it's comical just how much of an "homage" this is, like to the point where it can feel illegal? Almost every step of the way not only did something remind me of another game, but it did so explicitly. Hollow Knight, Dark Souls, and Castlevania are probably the most overt, but I just had to laugh when I was greeted with an ending screen where a single letter in a few lines of text was colored differently to indicate which ending I got, eerily similar to the likes of Nier Automata. Everything is so familiar that it can get pretty distracting, but I've certainly played worse games in this style and probably will in the future.
I largely enjoyed the presentation as well, though I was baffled by the way post-boss cutscenes were presented. These animated sequences have, I guess, monologues to fill in backstory of the enemies you've taken down, but they're not voice acted nor is the text advancement controlled by the player. So basically, any small distraction and it feels as though you will just miss entire chunks of story, and you'll have to revisit them at respites where you can view any previously unlocked cutscenes. Could be a me problem, but this absolutely hurt a lot of interest in the story, and while it wasn't doing much for me when I was "getting it" anyway, I became so easily discouraged from it that I stopped reading a lot of the lore collectibles entirely. I would think either voice-acted cutscenes [which is obviously a developmental expense and I don't want to underplay that] or just giving the player control over when text advances would be easier ways to get involved in the story. I guess it's a good thing the story felt pretty derivative anyway, so I didn't feel too walled by that presentation.
Reviews on here have already gone over how familiar elements of Ender Lilies are to those who have played pretty much any game, and, yeah, like most games, Ender Lilies is an accumulation of homages, which isn't inherently a bad thing. But it's comical just how much of an "homage" this is, like to the point where it can feel illegal? Almost every step of the way not only did something remind me of another game, but it did so explicitly. Hollow Knight, Dark Souls, and Castlevania are probably the most overt, but I just had to laugh when I was greeted with an ending screen where a single letter in a few lines of text was colored differently to indicate which ending I got, eerily similar to the likes of Nier Automata. Everything is so familiar that it can get pretty distracting, but I've certainly played worse games in this style and probably will in the future.