ENDER MAGNOLIA: Bloom in the Mist

It’s always a disappointment when a sequel doesn’t quite live up to its predecessor, and unfortunately that’s what Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist is, an incredibly well-polished but ultimately less interesting follow-up to Ender Lilies that, while still beautiful to watch an play, failed to draw me into its steampunk world. The game is set decades after the previous instalment and follows a completely new set of characters. We play as Lilac, an attuner, part of a caste that can purify artificial life forms called homunculi who have been corrupted by the mists. Lilac calls upon the homunculi she has purified to fight in her place, from the enigmatic Nola to the dual pistol-wielding Yolvan. The environments, characters, and animations are still absolutely breathtaking, with most areas filled with colour and detail. The steampunk aesthetic is used to good effect, with towering factory chimneys, robot assembly lines, and art-deco cities. The game is much more populated this time around too, with dozens of NPCs to interact with, including a handful that will send you out on fetch quests. Unfortunately for me, Lilac and the steampunk biomes just didn’t hit the same way as Ender Lilies. Lily was portrayed as an incredibly vulnerable protagonist and that vulnerability made me care for the character. Watching her stumble and fall when she tried to dodge or flinch every time one of her spirits attacked was heart-wrenching. Lilac still carries some of that innocence, but is way more aggressive and confident. I think I also preferred the general atmosphere of the first game, that was steeped in a dark fantasy melancholia, its biomes ruined remnants of towns destroyed by the Blight. Much like Hollow Knight or Blasphemous, this tragic decrepitude gave a sense of urgency to our protagonist’s quest, a harbinger of things to come if we failed. Combat is still fun and challenging in Ender Magnolia, possible more challenging than in the first game, but I’m not sure some of the changes developers Adglobe & Livewire have implemented really work. I enjoyed hunting down minibosses in Ender Lilies to unlock their spirits, but now you only unlock eight homunculi, and the minibosses you defeat drop upgrade materials. It’s a subtle change, but in my opinion it sucks some of the fun out of collecting new attacks and abilities. Speaking of abilities, you can now equip four instead of three, and while that didn’t bother me initially, I’ll admit it did become a bit finicky towards the end of the game. I ended up gravitating towards a ranged build, with two ranged homunculi, a AoE turret, and a melee attack. For the ranged homunculi to be effective you have to hold down two buttons constantly all while moving, jumping and dodging (so that’s two more buttons). Then the AoE turret is another button, and the melee attack another, for a total of six buttons. If that wasn’t enough, you’ll also need to keep a finger free for your heals, and another couple of fingers to input the combo for your powerful SP attacks once the relative gauge is filled. It’s all a bit frantic and doesn’t always work as well as it should. Maybe it’s just because I’m old and dumb, but on some of the harder late game boss fights I lost once or twice due to not being able to dodge out the way fast enough because my finger was on another button. I’m probably in the minority here, but I think I preferred the slower, more melee-focussed combat of Ender Lilies. Luckily, while the game may falter slightly in its combat, its traversal and exploration are still just as satisfying as before. You unlock a slew of traversal abilities from the get-go, including fast travel, and the map is excellent and clueing you in on unfound pathways and collectibles. Ender Magnolia is larger than the first game too, with several optional zones and bosses you’ll have to fight your way through if you’re gunning for the true ending. Now I should be clear: Ender Magnolia is by no means a bad game, nor a bad soulsvania. It’s fantastic environments, beautiful animations and breezy exploration makes it easy for me to recommend. I wasn’t quite as enamoured with the combat and steampunk atmosphere, but fans of challenging boss battles will still find a lot to like here.

相比于1代，2代改进了大部分问题 1.地图改进了，现在的可以查看地图详情，全收集会变蓝，不查攻略也能正常用。 2.开局就送冲刺，虽然也会有点滞空，但是手感比1代好多了. 3.地图设计更好了，没有塞那么多需要新能力回头拿的收集品，比1代多了上冲和超冲两个新能力，花一点时间就能把收集品拿完。 4.进游戏后就可以在休息点随时调整难度，boss感觉没1代那么血牛了，但是伤害还是很高，小怪也是，B结局的最终boss稍难一点。 5.取消技能的次数限制，改为冷却时间。 6.全成就只需要把商店买完(除了加遗物携带上限的)和收集品收集全即可。

This game was played in its entirety on a MacBook Air M1 8gb ram 7c gpu running MacOS Sonoma. There were no crashes throughout my time with the game. All achievements unlocked at their appropriate times. I encountered a fairly severe memory leak that required me to relaunch the game every two hours or so. It was likely due to my configuration. Every review is going to compare this game with its predecessor, Ender Lillies. I'll try to avoid doing that too much, beyond a cursory better than/worse than for each category. Overall, I liked this game more than Ender Lillies. It has higher highs, but also lower lows, than Lillies. The Positives: The soundtrack is the absolute best part of the game. Nearly every track is an absolute banger. I found myself not wanting to leave certain areas just to listen to the music longer. Similarly, the audio effects are top-notch. Every weapon gets its own suite of sounds, and the way weapons can interact audibly is very neat and interesting. Lillies was excellent in this regard as well, so I feel like this category is a draw. The graphics and animations are incredibly strong. The levels are varied and take the player through quite the plethora of biome conditions. Animations are excellent, and every boss has wonderfully emotive stances and weapon abilities. Some are very fast, but there are no surprise attacks here. You are given the opportunity to learn each attack's "tells", and the game's outstanding quality of life (more on this later) helps in this regard by allowing you to view any enemy and their attacks from any save point. Many players complained about Lillies drab/brown color scheme. I disagree with that assessment and find Lillies to be a well drawn and animated adventure, though I still prefer Magnolia's world. Magnolia wins this one. A special shout out has to be made for the character designs in this game. They are nearly peerless (giving Nine Sols a run for its money!) and that includes both friendly and enemy designs. Standouts include No. 7, Nola, Yolvan, and Lorna. The story is incredibly enjoyable. It does fall into the fairly common trap (at least these days) of trying to be vague enough to not offend anyone, while leaving the ending open enough that any sequels are not hampered. But, it directly expands upon the universe created in Lillies, and deepens the overarcing mystery that is present in both games. The best parts of the story, for me, are the chats you can have at save locations. Every character you recruit is given time in the spotlight, and they are all interesting and entertaining stories, without exception. The quality of the story is very high in both games, so I'll give this one a draw. Gameplay is very good but standard for a metroidvania. Controls are crisp and responsive and I never felt floaty or slow. You are given some very strong powers right at the start, so I was curious how the rest of the unlocked powers would unfold. There are some very interesting ones to find in this game, but not all of them are incredibly fun to use. The protagonist is complex to control nearly from the outset, so most of the newer powers are either button combos, or hold and release style powers. Those are not my favorite, especially in combat, though they do all work as advertised. I felt like Lillies had a tighter control over the powers, so I'll give this one to the original. The difficulty in this game is very deceptive. It starts out very easy. Too easy in fact! Lillies was an easy game throughout, and I was worried that Magnolia would follow the same path. Thankfully, the game ramps up in difficulty quite nicely as you progress. Quiet a few of the latter half of the bosses required multiple attempts, though none were rage-inducing (I enjoyed Velgrynd!). This was an easy win for Magnolia. Quality of Life (hereafter qol) is normally not something I have to talk about at length for a review. It is definitely warranted here though. Simply put, Magnolia has some of the best qol of any MV game (of any game, really) that I've ever seen. The map colors each room as completed, everything not picked up is auto-marked on the map (and you're given tons of map markers if you need them), you can teleport back to a save spot at any time, there are no corpse runs, you can skip (and even auto-skip!) all cutscenes once they have been viewed at least one time, and the list goes on and on. They really made a huge effort to give the players a massive amount of qol in this game. Magnolia easily wins this category, which is why the next bit is so perplexing... The Negatives: Simply put, I don't think Magnolia is tuned very well, at least in this current version (1.1.0). Like its predecessor, it does not require a great deal of backtracking. Most areas can be 100% completed except for a handful of locations, and most of the time they all require a single new power. You get that power, you teleport back to this location, and finish the handful of holdout collectibles, and that area is completely done (no reason to ever return). I mention this because maybe the developers are expecting more backtracking and confusion. Regardless of the reason, I found myself at the end of the game and with very little currency, and tons of things to still buy! I had to grind for a few hours to get enough to complete all of the achievements. I was not able to get enough scrap to enhance more than a third of (cheaper) relics, and I was only able to get enough fragments for a few outfits and some artwork. Even with all of the grinding, I was never able to afford any of the "second batch" of relic slot points. Since none of that was required for achievements, I felt that it was ok, but I would have liked to get more enhancements and extras throughout my run. I did keep the difficulty at its default for almost all of the game. Lillies wins this category easily as this was not an issue in that game in the slightest. Another point of contention here is that each update for the game has patched out the most well-known farming locations/methods of the time. Why?? It's a single player game, why are you forcing us to either grind for hours or go into an NG+ to complete the collection achievements? My final nitpick negative is that this game is almost too polished. The original gave you a lot more freedom in your builds (but to the point where you could hurt your chances of completion). I really enjoyed the tense decision making about what abilities got enhancements in the first game. Here, you get enough to max everything. Some players may enjoy this approach more, but I prefer the near infinite freedom that the first game allowed you. That's my entire review. Thanks for reading this far!

⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⢻⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣆⠻⡫⣢⠿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷⣜⢻⣿ ⣿⣿⡏⣿⣿⣨⣝⠿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⢕⠸⣛⣩⣥⣄⣩⢝⣛⡿⠿⣿⣿⣆⢝ ⣿⣿⢡⣸⣿⣏⣿⣿⣶⣯⣙⠫⢺⣿⣷⡈⣿⣿⣿⣿⡿⠿⢿⣟⣒⣋⣙⠊ ⣿⡏⡿⣛⣍⢿⣮⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣶⣶⣶⣶⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⣿⢱⣾⣿⣿⣿⣝⡮⡻⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡿⠿⠛⣋⣻⣿⣿⣿⣿ ⢿⢸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷⣽⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡕⣡⣴⣶⣿⣿⣿⡟⣿⣿⣿ ⣦⡸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡛⢿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡇⣿⣿⣿ ⢛⠷⡹⣿⠋⣉⣠⣤⣶⣶⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡿⠿⢿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷⢹⣿⣿ ⣷⡝⣿⡞⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡟⠋⠁⣠⣤⣤⣦⣽⣿⣿⣿⡿⠋⠘⣿⣿ ⣿⣿⡹⣿⡼⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣧⡰⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣹⡿⠟⠉⡀⠄⠄⢿⣿ ⣿⣿⣿⣽⣿⣼⣛⠿⠿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣯⣿⠿⢟⣻⡽⢚⣤⡞⠄⠄⠄⢸⣿

전작 [엔더 릴리즈]에 이은, 메트로배니아식 플랫포머 소울(?) 게임 [엔더 매그놀리아]. 전작에 비해 적들의 난이도가 엄청 쉬운 편이며, 플탐 15시간 정도를 갖고 있다. 보스들의 패턴을 파악하고 클리어하는 소울류식 게임이지만, 소울류라고 하기엔 난이도가 상당히 쉽다. 어느 보스도 (막보포함) 4트 이상을 넘긴 적이 없이 클리어가 가능하고, 길바닥에서 죽으면 타 소울류게임과 달리 재화를 잃는다거나 시체를 남기는 정도의 패널티가 전-혀 없다. 일본 개발사 게임이어서 인지, 한글번역이 매우 매끄럽고, 부담감이 없는 플레이를 제공하기에 가볍게 소울느낌의 플레이를 즐기고 싶은 게이머라면, 추천하고 싶다. 전작을 한 플레이어들도 꼭 해보길 바란다.

全成就完结撒花，mili的音乐依旧好听，战斗及探索的体验都还不错，总体来说是款不错的类银河恶魔城游戏。 与一代相比而言，战斗的手感提升很多；取消了碰撞伤害，对玩家更为友好；小地图的显示不再是一代的小方块，地图显示更有辨识度了；主副技能都有三种形态，技能选择更加丰富；取消了一代技能的次数限制，使得战斗的节奏更加紧凑；背景音乐依旧保持保持高水准，就是跟一代的曲子相比，没有那么令我印象深刻，但总体来说还不错。 剧情方面感觉到后期推进的有些仓促，不知道是不是后期赶工的原因，剧情刻画没有一代那种末世救赎的苍凉感让我感触那么深刻，也许是本作活人有点多了。本作中也会出现一代的主角莉莉，相遇时会响起一代主题曲，情怀拉满了。 我在游玩的时候选择的是自定义难度，前面四个难度选项拉到顶了，开了敌人双倍血量伤害、增加敌人的攻击频率等，难度拉满了，当时就想看看难度拉满了体验咋样，给自己上点强度。在这个难度下刚开始时还不太适应，血量感觉就是假的一样，随便被敌人攻击打到就是掉大半血到甚至直接暴毙了，后面熟练了就感觉可以接受，比玩魂游还刺激。后面在这个难度下全收集全成就我打得时间就会长一些，有些地方的推图会有些恶心人，点名批评最后的上层区域给的篝火少，中间堆怪多，跑图久，体验很不好；然后有些boss要练习很久，boss战中令我印象深刻的是魔女，那个魔女召唤出来的回血机器人，开了敌人血量翻倍后要打很多下才能打死，打不死就一直回血，当时卡了好久，还有那个工厂的大摆锤，被它那个机械臂打到一下就直接暴毙，几乎没有容错率，以及最终形态的吉尔罗伊，打真结局的四个阶段，伤害很高，如果没有带减伤护符的情况下被飞剑、贴身的延迟爆炸命中，那就直接没了，还有他三四阶段几乎零帧起手的防反也是难顶，被他防反震一下直接没了。当时玩近战的镰刀被打破防了，简直防不胜防，打他的攻击还不能快，攻击得一下一下的按，听到打他的声音不对，就得立刻停手闪避，注意力得高度集中才能躲得掉，练习了好几个下午才最终拿下。如果是玩轮椅的远程流派那就只需要在安全距离一直输出就完事了，那要好打很多。 总体来评分的话，满分10分我会给8.5分，喜欢2D类银河恶魔城的、喜欢一代白毛团子莉莉的粉丝值得入手体验。

After finishing up both Ender Lilies and Ender Magnolia at 100%, I thought I would give Magnolia a review here to sum up my thoughts. Generally speaking, I think Magnolia is a better game than Lilies, albeit there are a couple of things it doesn't do quote as well as its predecessor. Starting off with the few negatives (or rather, something that it just doesn't live up to compared to Lilies), I think the atmosphere is not quite as good as the first game. While the steampunk-fantasy hybrid world it tries to sell is quite beautiful in its backgrounds, it doesn't feel as immersive as the post-apocalyptic wasteland that is in Lilies. That being said, it's still a really nice setting, it just had the disadvantage of needing to live up to what the last game had to offer. The other problem I had with the game is its attempt to actually provide some amount of narration and dialogue to the story. I think they should have kept the Dark Souls-esque exposition of the first game and not given this much dialogue to everyone. While the conversations between characters may seem nice at first, the way it's carried out feels rather flat at first, as the characters and their interactions are just not interesting whatsoever, even in the exposition that they some times offer. While the story of the game is about as good as Ender Lilies, the way it's presented through these interactions makes it feel inferior to the first game, where you were able to quietly take in the world around you and observe Lily's story. All that aside, however, as I mentioned, this game improves in a lot more aspects than it does not. Gameplay has been polished up - while you have less abilities and slots to use them in, there isn't a disproportionate number of useless abilities as there were in the first game. While the choices are more limited, surprisingly, the (worthwhile) build variety you can create feels a bit more expansive. In addtion to that, there is a lot more variety in enemies and bosses feel more dynamic than in Lilies (Particularly that disappointment of a final boss that was in Lilies) I saw some reviews mention that gameplay in Lilies is better and that just completely baffles me as gameplay is exactly where Magnolia improved the most compared to it. Exploration is probably where the game stands out the most compared to Lilies; you get to make use of all the exploration tools a lot more than you did in Lilies by the time you got them, plus level design overall has been improved dramatically, especially the mid-late game sections. I don't want to make the review too long, so to sum it up: game doesn't quite live up to the last game in terms of atmosphere and story presentation (through the use of dialogues and character interactions), but improves in pretty much all other aspects, except maybe music, which is about as good as in Liliies. If you liked the first game, absolutely play this one.

最适合没玩过类银恶魔城的新手体验的一款游戏 , 这款游戏拥有最简单易上手的探索难度 , 开局解锁二段跳，并且二段跳可以刷新冲刺和普攻，空中普攻可以滞空，这就意味着可以在空中飞行很长一段时间；隐藏墙壁容易发现 , 全收集分区块提示有没有收集完成，非常容易全收集，成就党也可以轻松完成，真结局打通关之后一般剩下的成就只有刷钱买东西。 但是我认为这款游戏似乎有些过誉，地图设计充斥着大量的无意义设计，看起来像是类银恶魔城的设计，实际上是个线性游戏，拿了新能力回头补收集物的时候会发现有非常多的魔质（交易货币）和废品（升级货币）和部分有用的“装备”，特别是中后期解锁的新能力，回头拿的时候发现根本不需要这些货币，经历了一些跳跳乐或者是层层机关小解谜之后还塞一堆这些小垃圾收集，真的玩无语了。 还有战斗方面，闪避无敌判定长并且近乎无缝，技能使用只需要等待几秒CD，没有任何消耗资源，没有碰撞伤害，防反技能全方位判定，甚至还有接近全屏的冰冻防反，这就意味着战斗也毫无深度，轮椅搭配非常之多，在这种情况下，制作组想提升一些难度，他们选择了直接给怪物增加数值，在中后期尤为明显。这就导致了如果我选择拼刀的战斗，那我可能就经常被秒杀，如果我选择加入轮椅，战斗就是纯粹的站桩挂机浪费时间。破韧之后仅仅只是多打几个普攻。 对我个人来说就是一款地图设计垃圾，没有一点探索深度，战斗深度也没有，整体玩下来16小时全收集，觉得纯粹的无聊之作。唯有画面美术和音乐比较出众。总体让我有一种我玩这款游戏是为了什么的想法。只推荐想入门类银恶魔城这个系列的玩家游玩。

一頻りやったため感想 前作が良かっただけに残念といった感じ。 前作の欠点だった「そんなん分かるかアホ」というアイテム回収がなくなった。 代わりにダークな雰囲気、ストーリーの良さ、豊富なアクションを失った。 死にゲーでなくなったかというと微妙。中盤過ぎたあたりからしっかり死にゲーしてくる。ただし、死にゲー特有の「慣れると楽しい」がなく、敵の火力が高いからただ死にやすいだけになっている。 音楽の良さだけは変わらず引き継がれている。(外部に委託しているからそりゃ変わらんわ) 前作がこってり濃いめオリジナル味噌ラーメンとすると、今作はあっさり薄めよくある塩ラーメンといった感じ。それならマグノリアでなくていいし、あっさり薄めの中に雑味が入っているためむしろ他作品のほうが良い。 前作やったことある人にはお勧めできない。 前作やってない人は今すぐそっちに行ってくれ。