Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights Gameplay & Features Overview

Te gorgeous Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights by developer Live Wire and Adglobe released for PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S back in June, and will release on Playstation in Q3 of this year. In this article we are going to look at the new Metroivania dark fantasy 2D Action-RPG and what it has to offer in terms gameplay, combat, story, customization and overall features.

Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights Gameplay & Features Overview

What is Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights?

Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights is a Metroidvania-styled Action-RPG that is presented in a 2D art style that mixes a dark fairy tale-like world with combat that is very addictive. If you have played titles such as Bloodstained Ritual of the Night or Salt and Sanctuary you’ll feel very much at home. And while things do feel familiar, in Ender Lilies you gain new abilities after defeating challenging bosses, with each foe having their own unique combat style as well as wonderfully hand-drawn design.

In true Metroidvania fashion, you will encounter areas that at first are inaccessible, only later being able to backtrack to them once you unlock an ability such as double jump to traverse the area. Ender Lilies also has some of the “Souls” formula, where you wage risk versus reward, and it’s about progressing through the mysterious lands as well as upgrading your skills. While you do get to replenish your health and combat abilities when at a rest area, it respawns enemies meaning you will have to decide whether to continue with low health or to fight your way through enemies again you’ve already faced.

General Overview & Setting

Ender Lilies follows the journey of a young woman called Lily who wakes up in the depths of a church. She must traverse Land’s End to unravel the mystery of why the kingdom was destroyed by the Rain of Death. Along the way she is faced with monstrous undead, known as the Blighted.

The setting is fairy tale-like but with much darker overtones and locations are very ethereal looking, while there are quite a variety of enemies to face, from blighted spores firing mushrooms to underwater creatures.

Lily teams up with a cursed knight as well spirits that lend their abilities to fight alongside her. But these Spirits are granted from enemies, or friends that have been cursed with Blight, making victories bittersweet.

Ender Lilies Combat

It may seem simple at first, since Ender Lilies doesn’t have a stamina bar to limit your dodges, it doesn’t have traditional parrying or back stepping and you don’t have to worry about fall damage. A lot of the strategy comes from your positioning and choosing the Spirits you wish to invest in with spirit residue to enhance them, such as a shield parrying ability. This makes for some flexible gameplay, tackling bosses with your preferred playstyle and coming up with strategies that work best with different movesets.

What’s interesting about certain Spirits is they have a limit to how many times you can use them, meaning these you need to use them sparingly. When they run out, you have to either return to the Respite to regenerate them, or hope to smash open a barrel to regain some uses.

Respite is similar to games such as Salt & Sanctuary where you can rest up, also gives you a chance to enhance your Spirit abilities, and slot Relics which are permanent buffs while slotted. However, unlike Salt & Sanctuary Ender Lillies doesn’t have a massive Skill tree to worry about which keeps the gameplay a bit more straightforward, but still with solid customization through these features.

Even though some enemies aren’t particularly fast in their attacks, they can be quickly joined by more foes, making some areas particularly challenging. Bosses have phases, triggering new attacks and even speeding up their moves which can make for some nail-biting moments. The only gripe I would say while playing was that Ender Lilies is quite directional when it comes to attacks. For example, trying to hit an enemy while you’re in close proximity but facing away from them won’t cause them any damage. As it is a 2D-scroller of sorts no backswing damage can be forgiven, but just watch out the enemy backswings, because these DO cause damage to Lily.

Ender Lilies takes light inspiration from souls-like games allowing players to heal a limited number of times, but you will need to hold down the heal button in order to recover, meaning timing those heals just right or face death. And, just as you would expect, enemies hit hard and are unforgiving. But with a number of ways to play, you can mix in ranged attacks with some more close-ranged ones such as a shield for parrying or even a bird that will fire projectiles when you’re within distance of an enemy.

Ender Lilies Exploration

As with any Metroidvania game, the fun is unlocking new areas once you receive new abilities and figuring out how to proceed. The world is stunning, with a number of ways to explore whether through fast travel by horse and carriage or traveling up underwater waterfalls while avoiding threatening sea creatures. You will unlock more Actions as you progress, making more ways to traverse the world around you, as well as giving more moves when it comes to combat. These actions also come from defeating bosses so you will have to be up for the challenge in order to open up more levels.

Audio & Visuals

Atmospheric piano music plays throughout the game, which is slightly sad in places but does well to enhance the overall experience of this fantasy title especially in cutscenes. It’s the soundtrack that really pulls you into the immersive world, complementing the hand-drawn looking visuals, and the bewitching settings that only get better as you continue to explore. While Ender Lilies doesn’t have any voice acting, this isn’t missed as you will be spellbound by the captivating music that accompanies you as you delve deeper into Land’s End.

What’s interesting about the game’s visuals is the contrast between the cute main character, and dream-like setting, compared to the ghastly enemies. For an indie title, its visuals have a lot to offer and invites players into an eye catching world that makes you want to keep exploring. The Spirits you collect will appear as you use their abilities in combat, or when you take a rest at the Respite areas, which is a nice bonus as you can see your collected abilities visually as characters. Locations range from dank dungeons to glowing underwater areas, giving quite the variety of settings.

Summary

Ender Lilies Quietus of the Knights is now available on PC via Steam, Nintendo Switch and on Xbox, with a Playstation launch later this year. It’s one of those titles where you can easily sink hours into just exploring and getting lost in its dark fantasy world, as well as finding it hard to put down your controller as you challenge yourself to another boss. While Ender Lilies doesn’t offer voice-acted characters, usually a huge negative for me, it’s not really missed when the game is accompanied by such a stellar soundtrack and well-put-together visuals.

If you’re a fan of Metroidvania games such as Salt & Sanctuary, Hollow Knight or Bloodstained Ritual of the Night, Ender Lilies should fit right into your collection. Ender Lilies only costs 19.99 USD, which is in the range of the games I just mentioned as well, and is about right. It currently has a 94% user review score on Steam, and if you want to go ahead and pick up the game, use the link below to support the channel!

If you enjoyed this article be sure check out more Metroidvania games in our Top 10 Metroidvanias To Play In 2021. You can also check out recent preview fresh out of E3 for Stranger Of Paradise: Souls-Like Final Fantasy Impressions: Combat, Story, Customization And More.