Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist

Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist was provided by Binary Haze Interactive for review. Thank you!

There's no shortage of Metroidvanias out there these days. Indie studios, in particular, seem to be producing them quickly, so you have to make something special to stand out from the crowd. Does Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist have what it takes? I definitely think so. This sequel to the well-received Ender Lilies is worth your attention if you're looking for a challenging Metroidvania experience.

While Ender Magnolia is a sequel to Ender Lilies, it is set decades in the future. Having never played Ender Lilies myself, I feel like you can play Ender Magnolia as a stand-alone game and still find it wholly enjoyable. Apparently, Ender Lilies is a great game, though, so it might well be worth checking out, too.

In Ender Magnolia, you'll play the role of Lilac, a young "Attuner" who finds herself beneath the surface of a kingdom where "the fumes" have driven the Homunculi (artificial life forms) insane. While the vast majority of Homunculi that you meet truly are insane, some have managed to retain their sanity, such as those found in the underground havens where the last humans in the underground cling to survival.

Lilac, with her ability to Attune, can save certain Homunculi from their madness, which is one of the key gameplay mechanics in Ender Magnolia. Once a player defeats a boss, they can often form a bond with the defeated Homunculi, and they will join your team. Other times, you can simply find Homunculi in the world that have not yet gone insane and will join you on your journey to leave the underground and find out what happened to this kingdom.

This forms the basis of the game's storyline, with each rescued Homunculi boss rewarding the player with a short (often 30-60 second) drawn cutscene that portrays the distant memories of the Homunculi, allowing the player to gather a picture of what life was like before the apocalyptical setting they now find themselves in.

When it comes to the game's combat, Lilac does not participate; rather, she can summon the Homunculi she has saved, who will fight for her, using various skills you can select and unlock, each mapped to a different face button or R1. Although the system might sound strange, you play the game like Lilac is your fighter, and the summons abilities execute immediately. Lilac's position and direction determine where the attack is directed as if she were the fighter herself.

The combat is fluid and, while not particularly fast-paced, can often require quick reaction times to respond to enemy attacks. The game is classed as "souls-like" by many users, and it reasonably fits that description. Getting hit by your standard enemies generally takes 3-4 hits to defeat you, whereas bosses can often defeat you in as little as 2 hits. Thus, recognizing and dodging enemy attacks and patterns is crucial if you want to survive. The game's dodge mechanic provides a small window of invulnerability, which you can use to protect yourself from an attack or simply move far enough away to protect yourself.

Each Homunculi you attune with will offer you a basic skill that you can use, some Homunculi have a basic attack like a sword, others allow you to hold a button and they'll continuously fire for you, another one can be a simple summon that will follow you that is fire-and-forget. However, you can only have 4 Homunculi equipped, and there are more than 4 in the game, so you'll eventually have to pick and choose your desired loadout for your playstyle.

As I'm not particularly skilled, I went with a more "idle" loadout, which favored having a "familiar" summon out and one that simply required holding a button to fire while keeping the beginning "sword" summon, which functions as a basic attack.

You also have healing items that get restocked at resting places dotted around the map, which is perhaps another nod to the "souls-like" genre. Using a healing item takes a couple of seconds, which makes you vulnerable to attack, so like everything else in the combat in Ender Magnolia, you have time to use it well.

As you progress through the game, you'll be able to find items hidden around the map that will let you unlock additional skills for your Homunculi and boost Lilac's health. This rewards exploration and makes it a treat to find hidden items when you can.

Fortunately, the map in Ender Magnolia is laid out well, with areas separated and clearly marked. Pathways between areas are signified with a line. The world is almost on a sort of "grid" where the entrance and exit of a pathway are always on a horizontal or vertical line, meaning if you need to find a way into an area, you can probably get a good idea of where you need to go. This is helpful in a Metroidvania title, especially a reasonably large one like this. You can also fast-travel between all of the "respite" points around the map that you find.

Visually, Ender Magnolia is largely subdued as a Dark Fantasy game. There's plenty of opportunity for OLED users to enjoy inky blacks, though, and on the odd occasion, certain pieces of scenery really stand out with vibrant colors. Despite this, the world blends together well, with the scenery elements detailed and fitting for the environment.

As for the game's sound, it's serviceable. Nothing stands out as far as sound design. Music tracks change per region you're in, and if you've spent a while in a region, you can notice the music getting repetitive. It's largely piano music, which I'm normally a fan of, but certain note patterns start to stick out after a while.

At the end of the day, Ender Magnolia is a Metroidvania that presents players with a challenge, which can be adjusted up and down depending on player skill, as well as having a tight combat system, all set in an interesting and unique world. If you are a fan of Metroidvanias, particularly ones on a larger scale that are more difficult, then Ender Magnolia should go near the top of your list of games to try.

Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist - Steam Deck Performance

Ender Magnolia performs excellently on the Steam Deck, with only a few graphical options at your disposal, and the default settings work just fine for me. The game chooses to disable Anti-Aliasing and keep the Post-Processing and Effects settings on high, which helps save a little bit of power without compromising visual quality, as Anti-Aliasing doesn't do much here. The controls work very well with a gamepad, including the Steam Deck.

A TDP Limit of 7W seemed to suit the game perfectly and gave me a locked 90 FPS framerate during gameplay, which only dropped to around 60 FPS for very brief periods when attuning to creatures, which only happens in cutscenes. If you play at 60 FPS, a TDP Limit of 6W should suffice.

On my Steam Deck OLED, I could run the game at 90 FPS and get a power draw of around 9-11W, or you can lower that to 60 FPS to save a watt of power. Steam Deck OLED users can expect around 4.5 hours of playtime. Steam Deck LCD owners around 3-3.5 hours.

Temperatures generally ranged around 55-60C.

Accessibility:

Ender Magnolia is a difficult game, and it has various difficulty settings you can adjust to make it easier or even harder. You can also disable the camera shake and rebind the controls.

Conclusion:

Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist is a game that Metroidvania fans won't want to miss. The tight, fluid, and challenging combat rewards skill and offers a variety of abilities that can be deployed in various ways to win a battle. Those who like to explore every nook and cranny will find that their thoroughness pays off with secret passages and items hidden away in various parts of the map, giving the adventurous player certain benefits. All of this is topped off with an intriguing story in a dark fantasy setting wrapped in a well-formed world that is as dangerous as it is mysterious.

As if that weren't good enough, the game performs brilliantly on the Steam Deck. The default settings offer great visual quality and a long battery life, and the controls also work perfectly. Ender Magnolia is a great experience on the Steam Deck.

Our review is based on the PC version of this game.

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