Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knight

Smol girl with big スタンド.

Why

Why not

Impressions

For some reason I went into this one with kinda low expectations, and man was I wrong. The first hour or so pulled me in with the visuals, music and concept, then the remaining 25 hours kept me coming back until this became the first game I ever platinumed. The way the game drip-feeds new abilities, traversal mechanics, relics and lore is spot on; I even ended up only 2 levels below the level cap right before the final boss.

You play as a tiny, helpless girl in a fallen kingdom, accompanied by an undying knight and expanding roster of other summons to compensate for Lily's abundant combat and movement related weaknesses. As you explore further you'll wonder what you're even fighting for, since you seem to be the only 'normal' human left in the world, but it all pays off satisfyingly at the end of the journey.

There's a reason this one only has one copout of a 'Why not'. Ender Lilies knows what it wants to be and does it spectacularly; offering enough quality of life features to respect the player's time without detracting from the challenge, rewarding exploration, challenging but fair combat and an interesting narrative to tie it all together. The post-game is also really cool, offering a boss rush mode, custom modifiers for challenge runs and NG+.

*Skip this paragraph to avoid spoilers*

This game has multiple 'endings', and I strongly recommend you at least continue past the first one. The first 'ending' is more like the halfway point of the game; there are 4 brand new areas/bosses after that point, and they're the best in the game.

*Spoilers end*

Metroidvania Stuff

The first thing you'll notice (if you don't accidentally toggle it off) is the map. Blue rooms still have secrets to be found while yellow rooms are completed, and red dots mark the rough location of potential exits. Typically for a metroidvania you'll leave quite a trail of blue rooms and red dots in your wake, but coming back to explore them later is often meaningfully rewarding. For me this strikes a good balance between the FromSoft frustration of not knowing if you accidentally missed a major questline (crazy that Ranni's whole deal is optional in Elden Ring) and Ubisoft's habit of whacking gigantic objective markers all over your field of view.

Upgrades to your combat and traversal abilities come through defeating both main and mini-bosses, and the core traversal upgrades still apply even if you don't have the relevant spirit equipped, avoiding 'HM Slave' conundrums. Some areas can be reached early with creative use of your spirits and a keen eye for fake walls, while others are hard-gated behind certain upgrades (the grappling hook being the prime example).

Combat

Combat is somewhat soulslike, in that you have a dodge roll (more of a dodge flop initially since you're a small child) and there are patterns to recognise in enemy attacks. There's quite a bit more variety to your combat tools than are really viable in a typical FromSoft game though, with each spirit offering a new set of combos or tradeoff between damage/speed/defense.

Regular enemies strike the appropriate balance of threatening but not frustrating; and while some of the early bosses are a bit of a pushover they really pick up in challenge toward the end. The turning point for me was a certain mad knight at the top of a castle, whose third phase introduced some truly satisfying moves to overcome. Switching to different spirits for a certain boss fight is a valid and probably encourage tactic, unless you want to handicap yourself. Some fights lend themselves to parrying, others will be about applying consistent damage while focusing on dodges and others require identifying short windows to dump a burst of damage.

Conclusion

Definitely go play this if it looks at all interesting to you. I consider it in the same tier as Hollow Knight; with the main differentiator being that a sequel exists and is actually availble rather than being stuck in purgatory for years on end. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to dive into that very sequel.