Author: Shea Layton
Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights is one of the first games published by Binary Haze Interactive and one of the first games created by Adglobe and Live Wire. A game full of lore that eases you into a troubled world and a dire situation, the beauty of the combat and art direction shines through, begging the player to explore every nook and cranny.
Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights: (Switch [reviewed], PS4, Steam, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One)
Developer: Adglobe and Live Wire
Publisher: Binary Haze Interactive
Release Date: January 21, 2021
MSRP: $24.99
The player controls Lily, a young girl in a shining white dress, which sticks out as a symbol of grace and hope against the gritty, dark tunnel she awakens in. She is greeted by a knight spirit that quickly discovers that she has lost her memory. He tells the young girl that the world has fallen to a calamity called the Blight, and she must restore the world.
Lily and the spirit, called the Umbral Knight, travel through landscapes as she fights creatures called the Blighted. She comes across multiple notable Blighted abominations, which have a sort of significant relation to the world. As she defeats and purifies them, they impart some of their memories, giving her more context to the world she woke up in. She also finds documents and notes spread throughout Land’s End, giving both her and the player clues about how the Blight started and Lily’s origin. Getting into the story starts slow, but it culminates into a rewarding conclusion that you may or may not see coming.
The boss abominations are a ton of fun. There is some comparison level to a Dark Souls-style game; each boss has a set of moves and patterns that you must memorize to defeat the roadblock before you effectively. When you defeat certain mini boss and boss Blighted, you are gifted a spirit who will lend you their abilities. These range from a heavy hammer that doubles as a floor crusher to allow you to access secret areas to a hovering crow that periodically shoots out homing orbs that hit your enemies to a toxic cloud that causes unblockable damage in an area. The sheer amount of abilities allows you to tailor how you approach combat with Lily. You also come across relics that will boost Lily or give her some special ability, but there are only so many available slots. You must often test out different spirit abilities and relics to see what optimizes your chances in an area or against a boss.
The player is also tasked with some platforming elements, figuring out how to navigate vertical or horizontal challenges while dodging enemies—some of the abilities that Lily has access to allow her to reach new areas. There are items to discover in each unique room or area you enter that will either give Lily more power and capabilities or give you more lore about the Blight and Land’s End. The levels are well-designed, giving you opportunities to use different strategies while also not forcing you to play only one way. Some of the areas are difficult, making you earn every centimeter of progress.
Despite being a 2D game, there are many layers to the backgrounds, genuinely immersing the player in Land’s End. Each area feels cohesive and connected to the overall world. Part of this is the lore that Lily finds, but a large part of it is the meticulous care that Adglobe and Live Wire took with the art direction, having some areas act as a transition to the next central area. The Blight infests each area Lily comes across, but it never feels like it is the only element of Land’s End. I loved exploring the environments, never tiring of it.
Another critical element of Ender Lilies is the music. It is haunting and well-used whether you are watching one of the FMV memories after purifying one of the Blighted abominations, fighting the bosses, or traversing through Land’s End. Mili, a Japanese indie music group lent their hands to the soundtrack that ebbs and flows with the story.
Ender Lilies is not afraid to wear its influences on its sleeve, looking to Dark Souls and Hollow Knight as a template to carve out its niche. The difficulty can be grueling at times, making you feel the same level of anguish of a Dark Souls-style game. The way the game rolls out the history and lore of Land’s End harkens back to Hollow Knight. Not the only influence from Hollow Knight, Ender Lilies’ combat style and item system also resembles the 2018 masterpiece.
Verdict: Ender Lilies takes key elements from other Metroidvania games, making them its own. The story that unfolds is simple in content yet elegant in how it is told to the player. The gameplay balances exploration and action well, neither overpowering the other. At its cheap price and its high replayability, there is no reason to miss this underrated title.
Buy it
[This review is based on a retail build of the game purchased by the reviewer]