Ender Magnolia

(available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, Nintendo Switch, and PC. Nintendo Switch version used for this review.)

Ender Magnolia is the sequel to indie Metroidvania, Ender Lilies, which I previously reviewed and put in my top five games of 2021. Ender Magnolia once again has the exact same studio making it and was announced during a Nintendo Direct earlier this year when it was released on early access via Steam and had a release date of Autumn of last year – that didn’t happen due to internal delays – and has since come out this January.

If you didn’t play the last game, it’s basically a Metroidvania where the bosses you defeat become spirits that you can use in your own attacks, mapping them to different buttons, and each one could come with a different attack. It kind of plays like a Souls game, since you wouldn’t get the whole story, but you get it through flashbacks and holes in the ground. The first game conjured up images of Bloodborne, this one however feels closer to something like Lies of Pain, in fact that’s quite apt since you’re swapping from spirits to homunculi. Lily is out and Lilac is our main protagonist of this game, with a very similar story of a small boy who has to defend himself in a world that has gone horribly wrong – though I won’t give anything away, I will say that it’s a more engaging story this time.

If you like good Metroidvanias, this has the same deal. You unlock new abilities and new areas, and like before you can fast-track to any rest stops which are also used to equip relics or any abilities that you pick up. Other than that, there’s not a whole lot of difference, this is a whole bunch like Ender Lilies, but I wouldn’t call this glorified DLC.

PROS

• Combat

The combat is still great. As I mentioned, you’re collecting homunculi this time, not spirits, and that’s a funny thing – this time, there are a lot more bosses that unlock abilities instead of combat, so there is a little less mixing and matching, since when you collect certain materials, each homunculi gets three special attacks, and there are a lot of options to mix and match, as well as upgrading them, depending on your combat preference. 

Even the starting homunculi comes with three different attacks, which I would recommend trying each one out just to see which one suits you more. As before it’s very quick-paced combat, though boss fights and many creatures will telegraph attacks very heavily, so you have to keep a close eye on what enemies are doing to time your dodges.

Lilac has a much better dodge move at the start of the game compared to Lily in the previous game, which really comes in handy and is a massive improvement.

• Story

As I said before, this one is more engaging. This is mostly because unlike Lily, Lilac isn’t a silent protagonist, he does have dialogue and more of a personality. There is obviously stuff that you have to uncover via memories from beating bosses, but you also have more interaction between Lilac and the various homunculi, even unlocking extra conversations at rest spots which adds a lot more character to these characters! It’s not much different from what Ender Lilies was doing, but I think many people will appreciate the in-depth plot.

• Visual

I already thought that Ender Lilies was a beautiful looking game, and Ender Magnolia is no different. I think it’s fantastic. They have certainly created more variety in the locations and creature designs this time, in fact the design work certainly feels more varied – even though they were trying to get away from Bloodborne I could definitely see the influence. The environments also have some interesting contrast, they actually put in places that are similar to the first one; the gardens where they have a lot of poisonous plants feel similar to the last game, but the area that was similar to Feudal Japan felt really different than anything I saw previously.

I won’t sugarcoat it, I think that this is a really good looking indie game.

• Soundtrack

I liked the first one, and this one is no different. It still uses a lot of great piano pieces and it especially sounds great when you get to some of the boss fights. It’s amazing what the team can do with a very minimalist soundtrack and it still sounds amazing! As we pointed out on the Professionally Unprofessional podcast, don’t buy the soundtrack on Steam – it’s available on both Apple Music and Spotify.

• Difficulty Select

This is actually a new feature that has been added, and it’s available at any rest stop, and I would recommend switching it back and forth since some of these bosses are really damn difficult! The difficulty selection doesn’t really change too much, mainly just how fast the enemies attack, but the fact that it’s here is a good addition since I think that it makes the game more accessible.

CONS

• Not Many Fixes

I looked back at my Ender Lilies review, and I found it interesting that they haven’t actually improved in many areas. One of the problems I had with Ender Lilies was that it was quite short, and to their credit, this game is longer than that one, but it doesn’t feel like we fixed the other big issue that I had, which was there doesn’t feel like there is much of an issue with dying. You don’t lose any of your materials which you use to buy upgrades and equipment from the shop, which by the way, it doesn’t take much effort to grind! If you keep going back and forth between rest stops, you will have enough materials to buy whatever you want for an upgrade. 

Frankly, I think that the game needed that. I put this issue in the Mixed category last time because I was glad that the game wasn’t being too punitive to its player base, but I think that they should have included something in the upper difficulty levels to balance this out.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Ender Magnolia is a really good follow on from Ender Lilies. In most areas, I would say that it completely improves on the previous game. The one thing I thought through this was that despite the fact that it innovated from the last game, it doesn’t always feel like it. It feels like a bit more of the same, and while I was glad that we got more of that, I don’t think it hit me in the same way the first one did.

Don’t get me wrong, I think that this game is fantastic, this is in no way a downgrade, if anything, you’re getting more bang for your buck, but I will stress that in some instances you are going to need a guide if you want to 100% this game, but the map is also very good in helping you to figure out where you missed stuff. 

I will say that I think it hasn’t improved on some of the issues of the previous one, and that I think it’s not an incredibly long game even though it is longer, and some of the issues haven’t been fixed, I’ve decided to give it the exact same score that I gave Ender Lilies, since while I think it has improved I don’t think it has the same impact as that game.

FINAL SCORE: 9.5/10