ENDER LILIES: Quietus of the Knights – Review

One of the biggest conventions of the Metroidvania genre could be summoned in Natalie Babbitt’s quote: “Like all magnificent things, it’s very simple”. ENDER LILIES: Quietus of the Knights follows this tradition, with its straightforward, easy-to-understand but hard-to-execute gameplay. To top it off, it is all delivered in a beautiful dark fantasy style, making it particularly hard not to fall in love with the game.

Story

Darkness spread across the lands in the fantasy world of Land’s End, as cursed rainfall transformed its inhabitants into undead monstrosities. These creatures are now known as the Blighted, and they roam the devastated land, destroying everything in their path. You start ENDER LILIES: Quietus of the Knights playing as Lily, a young girl who awakens to this reality, lost and confused. As you progress, you slowly understand she might just be the world’s only hope, as she is a Priestess from an order that can cleanse the ones afflicted with the Blight. However, Lily is just a child – so she must rely on the Umbral Knight and other companions for protection and support. Fortunately, they will guide her (and you) throughout the trials to come.

Graphics

ENDER LILIES: Quietus of the Knights’ kingdom is absolutely stunning, packed with interesting characters and pleasant background details. It is focused around a coherent theme, framed by gothic and bleak visuals. Nonetheless, even in that theme it offers enough variety and draws quality to keep the player engaged. Many games with undead monstrosities feel boring and repetitive after a while, as you fight grey enemy after grey enemy, making this title is especially worthy of commendation for its very unique 2D art. The concept of the player crossing all of these different areas of Land’s End, from sunken dungeons to mythical forests, with the pure light emitted by Lily always in center stage (while the background is shrouded in darkness), is equally compelling.

Sound

One of the best aspects of ENDER LILIES: Quietus of the Knight is its musical score. There is no voice-over for the characters and yet you never miss it as the melodious soundtrack will ensure a very atmospheric experience by itself. Its melancholy is evocative of games such as the NieR series, while being varied enough for the different aspects of the game, including the different areas and boss battles. The game’s Steam page points out that the artist behind the soundtrack, the musical group Mili, was also responsible for anime franchises such as Ghost in the Shell, which explains the tone similarities to other Asian titles.

Gameplay

ENDER LILIES: Quietus of the Knight is a dark fantasy 2D action RPG characterized by its Metroidvania-like style, focusing on combat maneuvers and map exploration. While you play as the child Lilly, she is as innocent as she looks: when attacking, she is actually summoning the Knight that will fight her battles for her, and so it is through him (and later, through others) that the player fights. Exploring the map and fighting the different enemies and bosses will reveal new powers (called “Spirits”) that you can equip and level up, customizing your fighting style and boosting your stats. Similarly, you will find additional lore on the game’s true story as you progress, and you can backtrack through the kingdom’s different areas as soon as you unlock fast travel. There is even more than one potential ending, but we prefer not to spoil that for you.

Is the gameplay of ENDER LILIES: Quietus of the Knight worthy of the compliments addressed to its other elements? The answer is a resounding yes. The combat is fluid and will keep you on your toes, while the difficulty of the encounters raises steadily as you get stronger and explore further, resulting in a very well-accomplished and balanced sense of progression. The Metroidvania genre is known to fall for the trap of repetitiveness but this title manages to successfully avoid it. It keeps players entertained by a smart combination of ambiance and diversity, in both the enemy types and available fighting strategies. The map is big and labyrinthic, offering extra content to those who are patient enough to fully explore it, and the option for fast travel helps a lot when getting lost or trying to go back to certain areas.

While some players might say that ENDER LILIES: Quietus of the Knight is Souls-like in its difficulty, that is not exactly true. Not only will you not lose too much of your progress while dying, but saving points are also available in generous amounts. There is also extra help in collectibles throughout the map. You can always choose between progressing without fighting every single enemy, and the map colors will change to help you identify when you have found everything in that specific zone.

If we are being picky – and we have to be, to find fault in this game – we can point out that the gameplay does not offer any super original mechanics or anything out of the ordinary for the genre. Instead, it focuses on polishing tried-and-true mechanics.

Conclusion

ENDER LILIES: Quietus of the Knight achieves every goal it sets out to do. The game offers an extremely entertaining and atmospheric experience through its gorgeous 2D art, evocative soundtrack, and fun fighting mechanics. We wholeheartedly recommend playing this title if you are a fan of the Metroidvania genre or want to try something new and unique.

ChiChi

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Freelance writer and translator who likes to feed in her free time. If you'd like to chat, send me an e-mail to ritajbp@gmail.com!

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