izigame.me

Ender Magnolia is a pretty strong follow-up to its predecessor, Ender Lilies. A great many things were improved and streamlined, which made the experience smoother compared to the previous entry. The adjustable difficulty also lets you tune your experience to your liking. There are almost no bugs or glitches despite the v1.0 release. As a fan of metroidvanias, I consider this an exceptional title. Ender Magnolia might not end up being the GOTY 2025 for me, but it's currently on the list for sure. Overall score: 9/10.
Positives
+ Gorgeous graphics and art style, just like the previous title. The backgrounds alone are a sight to see.
+ The soundtrack compliments the atmosphere really well, and both combine into a very immersive experience. The previous title also had the same composer, and they did a stellar job in that game too.
+ The difficulty is highly customizable thanks to the difficulty sliders. You can make the game unforgivingly difficult if you prefer, or a bit easier if you just want to relax.
+ Movement and combat both feel weighty, which makes them satisfying. Also, there is no contact damage apart from a few select enemies. Refreshing to see it removed, honestly.
+ You get fast travel unlocked pretty early on, and you can fast travel to all discovered checkpoints from anywhere without any restrictions.
+ Points of interests and obstacles get marked on your map, and the tooltip has the required ability if you hover over them. This makes backtracking manageable and somewhat fun, because you don't have to memorize everything or roam around endlessly to find the paths you didn't take yet. Map design is also pretty cohesive.
+ The game is very polished. There are no obvious bugs or glitches.
+ Parrying is not a requirement, but it's very responsive and works really well if you want to use it.
+ The story and worldbuilding are both pretty good.
Neutral/Informative
+/- There are two endings, and you can't miss them because achieveing the second one requires you to wear a certain Relic while fighting the final boss.
+/- There is no penalty for dying apart from having to walk/teleport back to where you were. I find that rather bland, but it sure as hell beats having to run after your dropped stuff.
+/- You don't really "have to" to play the previous title to understand the story in this game. There are just some references and common terminology.
+/- You initiate a dialogue with an NPC if you are carrying the quest item they are interested in. That makes it extremely convenient if you have an idea about where to take a specific item without having to sift through NPCs by talking to them.
+/- You have to use specific attacks or strategies to get a certain currency, but that makes it "limited" in a positive way. You have to play a bit differently to get more of it, and that spices things up.
+/- Enemies only respawn when you rest. They don't respawn when you change zones.
+/- Very grindy if you want to max out your Relic capacity and upgrade all Relics, but there are no achievements related to either of those things. You can just upgrade what you use and call it a day.
+/- Parkour is somewhat bland, but the abilities you get are flashy and feel good to use. Parkour will be easy for you if you played at least a few other metroidvanias before.
+/- Future planned content includes NG+, Boss Rush mode and Boss Rematch. I'm really looking forward to all of those.
+/- Some enemies and bosses share certain moves, which makes it easier to deal with because the timings are the same. Of course, that doesn't mean bosses are unoriginal or anything.
Negatives
- Some sound effects feel "missing" or are straight up missing. Like how the Tuning a Homunculus has a shiny expanding effect, but it's dead silent. Some enemies have attacks that have no sound effects (ex: Homunculus enemies who wield a shotgun and a sword). The previous game suffered from this to some extent, as well.
- No voice acting whatsoever. Even non-verbal vocalizations would have sufficed to indicate the characters are talking, and it would have costed almost nothing to add that in. Even a few grunts, sighs and chuckles would have made a huge difference while interacting with the NPCs.
- The placeable map markers are low resolution for some reason. A minor detail, but I found it distracting.
- You don't get any iframes when you get hit, which means some enemies can burst you down in an instant if you are too close and if you cranked up the enemy damage multiplier.
- Two bosses have long "run back to it after you fail" segments, but it's not as bad as it sounds.
Other Notes:
Alternatives/Similar Titles:
ENDER LILIES: Quietus of the Knights
Ori and the Blind Forest and Ori and the Will of the Wisps
Dust: An Elysian Tail
Sundered: Eldritch Edition
GRIME
Nine Sols
Specs for reference:
RTX 3060 Ti (no overclock)
Ryzen 7 5800X (at 4.4 GHz)
32 GB DDR4 RAM (at 3200 MHz)
A 1080p 144 Hz 1 ms Gaming Monitor
The game was on an NVME SSD
The game runs flawlessly at 144 FPS without any drops or stutters with everything maxed out. Nothing of note when it comes to performance otherwise.
I had to set my Left Stick Deadzone Setting to 60% in the game's own settings, because the default 25% causes the main character to turn the other way for a split second due to stick bounce. Worth noting, because I'm sure some others will have this issue eventually. This is how you solve it.
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My difficulty settings for reference:
Maximum HP: 1.0
Attack Strength: 1.6
Break and Status Effect Resistance: 1.7
Break and Status Effect Recovery Speed: 2
Enemy Attack Frequency: 2
Disable Enemy Attack Tells: On
With these, things don't feel too tanky (unless they can heal) but they can really mess you up if you get hit. Enemy attack tells are red flashing right before an enemy attacks, but all attacks already have enough effects to signify their timing and range, so you'll be perfectly fine if you disable that. Just makes you pay attention to their animations instead of watching out for the flashing.