Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist review – A solid improvement
After a little under a year, Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist’s full release is upon us. Steam Early Access was handled in a different way from most games, mostly existing as an extended demo to gather feedback (with a discount over the full release thrown in.)
Ender Magnolia’s Early Access version was enjoyable, offering some noticeable improvements over its predecessor Ender Lilies. This full version continues that strong start, iterating on Ender Lilies in most ways, even if the story feels a little more rushed this time.

Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist is set in the Land of Fumes, a new area in Ender Lilies world that makes use of machinery and automation in day to day life. Beset by artificial lifeforms known as Homunculi that have lost control, and a deadly rain that corrupts humans, the land has fallen into repair.
The young Lilac wakes up at the bottom of the kingdom, with little memory of who they are or what happened before. All they really learn is that they’re an Attuner, someone who can calm the rampaging Homunculi and make use of their abilities.
Lilac’s journey starts at the lower stratum of the city, as they find new Homunculi and explore new areas. It’s a familiar gameplay loop, having you obtain new abilities that both progress into new section of the map, while also finding new goodies in existing ones. You even have a proper map this time (a pain point in Ender Lilies) which makes backtracking far less painful.

Unlike many other metroidvanias, you gain access to a lot of your movement abilities early on. Double jumping and air dashes unlock within the first hour, with things like wall climbing coming shortly after. I actually don’t mind this, since there are still enough unlocks along the way to look forward too.
Combat also sees a few tweaks, removing the limit uses that the Spirits had in Ender Lilies. Instead, abilities are now split into four categories. Primary abilities work like the main Spirits in Lilies, having unlimited uses and progressively longer combos. Cooldown Homunculi work as you’d expect, while Pressure ones can be held down to act continuously.
Rounding them out are Auto Homunculi, which function without user input once summoned. With the ability to equip four at any given time, you general have enough options to deal with any situation. Each Homunculi has access to three separate attacks, which can be further upgraded via items you find or buy.
There’s a little more weight to combat as well. Ender Lilies felt a little floaty due to its animations and hit effects, as if you were just hitting air. It’s still somewhat present in Ender Magnolia (mostly due to the sound effects), especially for many of the ranged attacks.

Part of why combat feels more “weighty” is due to the break meter that most enemies have. Once emptied, enemies can be staggered for a brief amount of time. This also applies to bosses, giving you a window to deal significant damage.
What works well about the break system is that you can still deal good damage outside of when enemies are broken — this isn’t something like modern Final Fantasy where your damage is essentially lowered otherwise. It’s satisfying being able to juggle around a boss for a few seconds, while still not needing to rely on break to succeed.
Exploration in Ender Magnolia on the other hand is mostly the same as Ender Lilies. The aforementioned map removes most of the frustration of figuring out where to go next, and you can set a few custom markers (though I never needed this.)
You generally always have a few places to go during the two main chunks of the story, giving you freedom to choose your next destination. Making sure to thoroughly explore is rewarded not only with new upgrade items, but also extra story events that lead to a second ending. Again, very familiar when compared to Lilies, though that’s far from a bad thing.

The story is the one area that I’d say Ender Magnolia deviates a fair bit when compared to Ender Lilies, to middling success. There are far more living characters this time, which also leads to an increased amount of dialogue. The problem? It’s actually not enough dialogue to cover everything the game tries to tell.
You’re introduced to a lot of characters, but many only end up getting a few scenes before they’re gone from the story. The Homunculi that join you generally fair a little better, since you get short optional scenes at save points. Even then, some of the later Homunculi barely get any time either.
Some of this can likely be attributed to the runtime, which isn’t too different from Ender Lilies. My complete 1.0 run of Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist (Early Access saves aren’t compatible) took roughly 15. This includes full map completion and all Steam achievements, with the latter requiring you to grind a little for shop items.
This is around how long I like metroidvanias, as it stops them from outstaying their welcome. Ender Magnolia also speeds up the process of 100% completion by unlocking fast travel early, and clearly marking areas that you’ve missed something in.
It’s just a problem for Ender Magnolia specifically, since a relatively condensed playtime doesn’t mesh well with a narrative that’s trying to be something more. At the very least, I don’t think it was a good idea to introduce more named characters in such a short space of time.

Granted, I don’t think it completely ruins the narrative. Some scenes still work well, and the overall story is easy to follow and fleshed out by extra notes you find scattered across the land. But this attempt to bring in a greater cast of characters, combined with fairly weak endings, do put a slight damper on an otherwise solid package.
Back to the more positive side of things, Ender Magnolia is another great looking game. Its grim world is interspersed with brief patches of vivid colour, with characters and enemies avoiding the puppet-like animation that you often see in other games with a similar style.
Japanese group Mili makes a return as well, with a few notable vocal tracks that steal the show. I do think a few tracks get muddled together, though they generally do a good job at setting the tone and providing atmosphere (even if I would have preferred an increase number of vocal tracks overall.)

Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist Review – Final thoughts
Despite a few stumbles with its narrative, Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist is still a noticeable step up from the already good Ender Lilies. You get a metroidvania without much fluff that rewards exploration and actively encourages you to do more than just the critical path. Instead of waiting for something like Hollow Knight: Silksong, give this (and Lilies) a try instead.
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