ENDER LILIES: Quietus of the Knights

Developer: Live Wire, Adglobe | Publisher: Binary Haze Interactive | Release Date: 2021 | Genre: Action RPG / Metroidvania / Indie | Website: Official Website | Purchase: Steam

There is something inherently unsettling about exploring a beautiful kingdom where almost everyone is already dead. ENDER LILIES: Quietus of the Knights embraces this contrast from its opening moments, pairing delicate character artwork and haunting piano music with ruined villages, corpses, grotesque monsters, and perpetual rain. It is a dark fantasy Metroidvania that wears some of its influences on its sleeve, but the unusual spirit-based combat system, melancholic atmosphere, and intriguing story give it an identity of its own.

The game takes place in Land’s End, a once-prosperous kingdom destroyed by the Rain of Death. This mysterious downpour transformed people and animals into immortal monstrosities known as the Blighted, leaving virtually nothing untouched. Players take control of Lily, a young White Priestess who awakens in a ruined church with little knowledge of what happened. Unlike most Metroidvania protagonists, Lily is essentially defenceless herself. Instead, she possesses the ability to purify the souls of the Blighted, allowing fallen warriors to accompany and protect her.

The first of these is the Umbral Knight, whose sword becomes Lily’s basic attack. Defeating certain stronger enemies and bosses also purifies their spirits, gradually building up a sizeable arsenal of spectral allies. The full game contains eight main skills and eighteen sub-skills, providing a surprisingly broad selection of attacks to experiment with.

Lily can equip three spirits at a time and maintain two separate configurations, effectively providing six immediately accessible attacks that can be swapped between during combat. This is one of the game’s strongest systems because the spirits differ substantially in how they function. Some provide quick melee strikes, others fire projectiles, launch enemies, attack from above, summon persistent effects, or provide useful defensive abilities.

We regularly altered our selection depending on the area or boss rather than relying on the same three attacks throughout the entire adventure. A spirit that seems underwhelming against ordinary enemies might suddenly prove invaluable against a boss with a particular attack pattern. Having two configurations also means players can keep a dependable general-purpose setup while using the second for more specialised attacks.

Most spirits have limited uses between rests, preventing the strongest abilities from being spammed indefinitely. Resting at a Respite replenishes them along with Lily’s healing prayers but also causes ordinary enemies to respawn. Lily herself can heal a limited number of times between rests by praying, with certain flowers replenishing the available prayers while exploring.

Spirits can be strengthened using Stagnant and Furious Blight scattered throughout Land’s End, while the Umbral Knight requires the considerably rarer Ancient Souls. Finding enough Blight to upgrade favourite spirits becomes another incentive to search every suspicious corner of the map rather than simply rushing from boss to boss.

Combat feels responsive and rewards learning enemy behaviour rather than simply trading blows. Lily has a dodge that becomes increasingly useful as attacks grow more aggressive, while enemies possess both health and stagger gauges. Depleting the latter temporarily leaves them vulnerable, and airborne foes even take additional damage when knocked to the ground from sufficient height.

The difficulty is certainly greater than the average Metroidvania, but we never found it unreasonable. Bosses can kill Lily very quickly when their patterns are unfamiliar, yet every attack has enough warning that victories feel hard-won rather than lucky. Most encounters took a handful of attempts at worst, and learning when to dodge instead of greedily trying to squeeze in another attack was usually more important than raw statistics.

The bosses are also some of the highlights of the game. Many begin as tragic figures whose stories are revealed through brief memories after they have been purified. This gives the fights more emotional weight than simply defeating another giant creature guarding the next traversal ability. Defeating cursed bosses and turning their spirits into allies forms the backbone of both combat and progression.

Ordinary enemies can occasionally be more irritating than the bosses, particularly later in the game. Land’s End becomes increasingly fond of placing aerial enemies, projectile users, and aggressive melee attackers together. Trying to fight them properly can be enjoyable, but attempting to simply travel through an already explored area sometimes results in an annoying barrage of attacks from every direction.

Enemies also respawn when Lily rests, so revisiting older regions means dealing with the same inhabitants again. Fast travel between Respite points alleviates much of the problem, but collecting every hidden item still requires plenty of return trips.

Exploration follows the familiar Metroidvania structure. Land’s End is made up of interconnected regions containing inaccessible passages, breakable barriers, high ledges, locked doors, and other obstacles that gradually become traversable as new abilities are acquired. Defeating major spirits does more than provide new attacks; several also give Lily movement abilities required to reach previously inaccessible locations.

The environments are wonderfully varied. Players travel through ruined villages, catacombs, forests, enormous castles, towers, prisons, flooded regions, and increasingly corrupted underground areas. The shift between them keeps the lengthy adventure visually interesting.

Some of the later areas are deliberately unpleasant in ways that fit the story perfectly. The final regions feel less like places people once lived and more like wounds beneath the kingdom. Environmental hazards become more prominent, the enemies increasingly grotesque, and the music downright creepy.

The map is typical for the genre and has its pros and cons. Instead of attempting to show every platform and corridor, it represents areas as connected rectangular rooms. Exits indicate how rooms connect, while colour provides useful completion information. A blue room still contains an undiscovered collectible, while a completed room changes colour once everything currently obtainable has been collected. Unexplored exits are also marked.

This makes 100% exploration considerably less frustrating than it could have been. By the end of our playthrough we knew exactly which rooms still contained something, although actually finding the missing object could be another matter entirely. Some secrets are exceptionally well concealed or require movement abilities obtained much later in the game.

Unfortunately, the map does not permit custom markers or notes. This becomes annoying when encountering something obviously inaccessible and wanting to remember why. Games such as Hollow Knight allow players to annotate areas indirectly with purchased markers, whereas ENDER LILIES expects players to remember which suspicious wall, ledge, or barrier they intended to revisit.

There were several occasions where we knew a newly acquired ability must open a route somewhere but could not remember exactly where that obstacle had been. The coloured completion system helps tremendously with collectibles, but it cannot distinguish between a room containing an unreachable item and one where the player simply failed to notice something.

Exploration is still highly rewarding because collectibles affect more than a completion percentage. Amulet fragments increase maximum health, Chains of Sorcery provide additional slots for equipping relics, and numerous relics modify Lily’s statistics or abilities. Relics can only be changed at Respites and have different slot costs, forcing players to choose which bonuses are worth fitting into the available capacity.

There are also written Findings scattered throughout the kingdom. These letters, reports, diary entries, and notes gradually explain how Land’s End fell apart and what various characters were doing before the Rain of Death. The story is intentionally fragmented, so anyone who ignores these documents will understand the broad events but miss a lot of the context.

The premise becomes increasingly intriguing as the pieces fall into place. Lily initially knows almost nothing about herself or the kingdom, and the game is careful about how quickly it reveals answers. We will not spoil the discoveries here, but the narrative becomes considerably more complex than the straightforward “find the source of the curse” setup initially suggests.

There are three endings, and thankfully the game does not require three complete playthroughs to see them. After reaching an ending, players can load the same save and continue from the last Respite before the conclusion. This allows the remaining requirements to be completed and alternate endings reached without starting over.

This is particularly welcome for completionists. We spent around thirty hours obtaining every Steam achievement, finding every secret, clearing every room, and seeing the available conclusions. The game contains 38 Steam achievements, and reaching full completion provides a satisfying reason to explore optional portions of the map.

Anyone interested only in reaching an ending can finish considerably sooner, but chasing 100% reveals how cleverly some collectibles have been hidden. The map prevents the task from becoming completely unreasonable because unfinished rooms remain clearly identifiable, though the final handful of secrets can still require some serious searching.

Visually, ENDER LILIES is beautiful. Lily’s delicate sprite contrasts wonderfully with the ruined kingdom and grotesque creatures surrounding her. Spirits flash into existence to perform their attacks before disappearing again, creating combat that looks dramatic without keeping half a dozen permanent companions cluttering the screen.

Backgrounds are equally impressive. Crumbling architecture, flooded forests, torch-lit crypts, enormous towers, and corrupted caverns create a strong sense of place while maintaining the bleak fairy-tale aesthetic. The environments occasionally resemble illustrations rather than conventional game levels, which suits the melancholic tone extremely well.

Comparisons to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night are inevitable because of the interconnected castle-like exploration, RPG progression, equipment-style relics, and constant acquisition of new abilities. However, ENDER LILIES feels far more sombre and fragile. Lily is not a warrior carving through monsters herself; every attack reminds players that she survives only because the dead continue protecting her.

The Hollow Knight influence is similarly easy to see in the ruined kingdom, melancholic storytelling, challenging bosses, and Metroidvania structure. Yet ENDER LILIES distinguishes itself through the spirit system and a map that is much more explicit about completion.

The audio may be even better than the artwork. Music was composed by Mili, and the soundtrack is hauntingly beautiful throughout. Quiet piano and vocal pieces accompany exploration, while boss battles introduce more dramatic arrangements without abandoning the melancholy tone.

Environmental effects are equally important. The perpetual rain outside gives Land’s End an oppressive presence even during moments where nothing else is happening. Water drips, enemies shriek, attacks strike with enough force to make combat satisfying, and ruined interiors frequently sound as lonely as they look.

The music in the final region deserves particular praise. Without spoiling the location, the soundtrack becomes genuinely creepy and helps transform an already disturbing environment into one of the most atmospheric sections of the game.

Controls are excellent with a controller. Movement, jumping, dodging, switching spirit sets, healing, and activating the six equipped abilities quickly become second nature. The responsiveness is essential because later bosses demand precise dodges, and we rarely felt that a death was caused by the controls rather than our own mistake.

If there is one substantial criticism beyond the occasionally irritating enemies and inability to annotate the map, it is that determining where to go next can sometimes be difficult. New abilities frequently open several potential routes across different parts of the world, and the game does not always clearly indicate which one advances the main story.

For players who enjoy getting lost and exploring, this is part of the appeal. Others may spend a while jumping between Respites and checking unfinished rooms until the correct path becomes apparent. Fortunately, even these detours usually yield Blight, relics, Findings, or other useful collectibles.

Overall, ENDER LILIES: Quietus of the Knights is an exceptional Metroidvania that combines rewarding exploration, challenging combat, a surprisingly flexible spirit system, beautiful artwork, and one of the most haunting soundtracks in the genre. Its melancholic world remains compelling from the first ruined church to the unsettling final regions, while the gradual revelation of what happened to Land’s End provides plenty of incentive to keep exploring.

Later enemies can become irritating when revisiting areas, and the otherwise excellent map desperately needs a way to place custom notes. However, these complaints feel relatively minor after thirty hours spent uncovering every room and earning every achievement. The fact that we still wanted to track down the final collectible after finishing the main adventure says plenty about how enjoyable the exploration remains.