Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist review

It seems like every week there’s another combat-heavy 2D Metroidvania from an indie developer. A few stand out, like Hollow Knight, Nine Sols and the Salt and Sanctuary series, but most blend into a long list you won’t play until they’re free. Skip Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist, though, and you’d be missing a real gem.

Developed by Binary Haze Interactive, it’s the sequel to 2021’s Ender Lilies and improves on its predecessor in nearly every way. The only time it stumbles is when it tries too hard to outdo itself. That leads to a handful of unbalanced bosses that had me struggling for a good hour, some hidden loot that had my fingers playing Twister on the controller, and a bit of ability bloat without enough build depth to make it all worthwhile. Still, for most of my 25-plus hours, it was pure bliss.

The Land of Fumes

Ender Magnolia is set in the Land of Fumes, a beautifully art-directed place with great atmosphere and music, interesting friends and a diverse collection of enemies. If you played the first game, you’ll notice a new protagonist: Lilac, an Attuner who, well, tunes corrupted bosses to unlock new abilities and upgrades. That loop of exploring, opening new areas and beating bosses is the heart of the game.

The world is split into three main areas, the Lower, Central and Upper Stratum, each with a variety of locations: a vast interconnected labyrinth of colorful caves, castles, factories, flowery fields and underwater zones. Many places stay locked until you have late-game abilities or keys, which encourages you to fast travel back to older zones for new paths. Sometimes that’s a piece of loot. Sometimes it’s an entire zone you never knew existed.

Like the first game, every room turns blue on the map once you’ve found all its secrets. That kept me playing and makes 100% completion very doable on your first playthrough.

Important tip: don’t put on the special late-game quest ring you’re given until you’ve beaten the game at least once. If you do, you’ll miss out on two of the possible endings.

Abilities: maybe too many

Overall, I think they went a bit overboard with the number of abilities. By the midpoint I’d settled on my top six to eight and only swapped them occasionally for certain bosses and challenges. My go-to setup was:

• A scythe as my main weapon, for wide swings.
• A flying bird that kept pressuring enemies with automatic attacks.
• An overpowered spinning punch.
• An ice attack.
• A ranged gun attack.

Many abilities are unique and interesting, but a few fell flat for me. The biggest letdown was blocking and parrying. I could never get the timing right, so I spent most of the game dodging around to land good hits.

Equipment and relics

You can equip four pieces of main equipment, bought or found while exploring. Mostly I just used whatever was strongest, had the best stats or gave extra heals. This is where the game could have used more depth: more build types and options to make the stranger, less useful abilities worth using.

The real star of your build is relics. Like in Ender Lilies, there are lots of them with very different effects: defense based on your HP, attack bonuses depending on whether you’re in the air, on the ground or in water, more experience and materials, faster special-attack charging, and utility like extra health or higher jumps. How many you can wear depends on how many relic slots each takes, and you unlock more slots by finding or buying them. I didn’t use half the relics, but I did a lot of situational swapping in harder zones and boss fights to get an edge.

Bosses

There are a lot of bosses. Most zones have one or two mini-bosses, which often lead into bigger, harder fights. Apart from the first skill-check boss, which unlocks the drop attack, most early bosses were pushovers. I was starting to worry it would be too easy.

Then I reached the Central Stratum, and things got much harder. From there you really have to be patient and lean on either parries or quick dodges. Dodge, hit, dodge again, ranged shot became my go-to strategy, at least until some bosses changed their pacing.

Two fights in particular took me well over an hour each: a sluggish underwater sorcerer who forces you to swim and dodge slowly and methodically, and a giant robot with a badly sized hitbox and huge swinging arms that seemed impossible to avoid. I don’t think they were especially hard. They just weren’t well designed, and their pace was very different from the rest of the game.

Difficulty

There are difficulty settings if you’re struggling. I played on Normal and got by fine. It’s not as punishing a platformer as some recent games in the genre, and while bosses can be ruthless at times, they’re beatable with patience.

Verdict: a beautifully crafted 2D gem

Ender Magnolia is a very enjoyable, beautifully crafted 2D Metroidvania. It does enough to stand out despite a few unbalanced bosses, and the build system could have used more depth. But it’s worth your time and your money, and I hope we see more Ender games in the future.