Release: 2021
Developer: Live Wire
Publisher: Binary Haze Interactive
Gameplays Stats: 18 hours, 38/38 achievements, 1 complete playthrough
The sequel recently released so I figured I'd give the original a go. Perfect Steam Deck game while my wife is using my PC to play Persona 3 Reload.
Aesthetics: I think this is where this game shines. It looks great and the bits of music that I remember were very good. Weird audio balance for a game where you need to mash attack so much, but after I changed that for myself it was all good. Lovely mix of 2d and 3d models here to really sell the scenery.
Plot: Basically Hollow Knight but you're a priestess instead of a bug and an annoying edge lord knight explains everything to you. Not a huge deal since that's not really why people generally play a metroidvania, but I didn't really care for this. It has the weighty overly dramatic language that high school Ryan would've loved. Adult Ryan wasn't a huge fan though. I didn't read all of the notes that I picked up but the ones I read seemed to have a similar tone.
Gameplay: Man, I really went back and forth here. I think the movement overall is pretty sluggish and I definitely didn't care for it at the beginning. Once you get a few upgrades it starts to work pretty well though. Something that kind of bugged me throughout though was that you freeze when you attack. I think this can maybe make sense if your character is swinging the weapon, but in this one you are expressly channeling spirits to swing weapons for you. I think it would have been more interesting if the spirit was stuck in place while channeling but if you could move around freely. Felt a LOT like Castlevania Order of Ecclesia except that you have to defeat stronger versions of enemies to channel their skills instead of getting a lucky drop. In Castlevania you used MP to channel the skills and in this game you have a limited number of casts between checkpoints which I do think is an improvement.
This game really struck me as a mix of Castlevania Order of Ecclesia and Hollow Knight. From the theming, the overly dramatic dialogue, and the basic plot. Maybe I was reading too much into it, but when you wear your inspirations so blatantly on your sleeves like this it invites direct comparisons. And I think both of the comparisons are stronger games than this one. Not that I disliked Ender Lilies, just that I don't know that I would recommend it. Particularly not if the person in question hasn't played the games that so clearly inspired this one.
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