Ender Lilies is about on par with Hollow Knight in terms of difficulty, meaning that it's extremely difficult. Thankfully, it's more of a Metroidvania than a platformer, meaning that there's never a point at which you're going to have to worry about getting the timing of your jumps correct.
The combat requires decent reflexes, and you'll probably die a lot. The boss fights are especially hellish. What Ender Lilies does well is to incorporate JRPG elements into the action-oriented gameplay. You get EXP from defeating enemies, and (unlike most other Soulslike games) you don't lose this EXP when you die. Leveling up is a great feeling; and, on top of that, the rewards you find through careful exploration can make a huge difference. My own reflexes are laughably bad, but I found that most tricky situations can be navigated through careful strategy and a good choice of special attacks.
Still, Ender Lilies is really difficult. I think it's fair and rewarding, but you have to really want to live in that world and know its story. I love dark fantasy, so it was worth it to me to keep slamming my head against the wall. More than even a Metroidvania, Ender Lilies is a Dark Souls game, and those mid-2010s gamer bros weren't lying when they said git gud.
The flipside to this is that it's entirely possible to git gud. One of the wonders of a fair and well-designed game like Ender Lilies is that it will teach you that your reflexes aren't as bad as you think.
Momodora is inexpensive, beautiful, charming, and relatively short (about six hours), and it also has a non-condescending Easy Mode that makes the game much more chill and enjoyable.
Idk, because everyone is now infected with Dark Souls brainworms, the current trend in platformers and Metroidvanias alike is to make them as difficult and punishing as possible. I really wish that this weren't the case, and that more of these games had adjustable levels of difficulty.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2023-03-21 01:33 pm (UTC)The combat requires decent reflexes, and you'll probably die a lot. The boss fights are especially hellish. What Ender Lilies does well is to incorporate JRPG elements into the action-oriented gameplay. You get EXP from defeating enemies, and (unlike most other Soulslike games) you don't lose this EXP when you die. Leveling up is a great feeling; and, on top of that, the rewards you find through careful exploration can make a huge difference. My own reflexes are laughably bad, but I found that most tricky situations can be navigated through careful strategy and a good choice of special attacks.
Still, Ender Lilies is really difficult. I think it's fair and rewarding, but you have to really want to live in that world and know its story. I love dark fantasy, so it was worth it to me to keep slamming my head against the wall. More than even a Metroidvania, Ender Lilies is a Dark Souls game, and those mid-2010s gamer bros weren't lying when they said git gud.
The flipside to this is that it's entirely possible to git gud. One of the wonders of a fair and well-designed game like Ender Lilies is that it will teach you that your reflexes aren't as bad as you think.
Still, I think a more accessible approach to the Soulslike Metroidvania genre is Momodora Reverie Under The Moonlight: https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/momodora-reverie-under-the-moonlight-switch/
Momodora is inexpensive, beautiful, charming, and relatively short (about six hours), and it also has a non-condescending Easy Mode that makes the game much more chill and enjoyable.
Idk, because everyone is now infected with Dark Souls brainworms, the current trend in platformers and Metroidvanias alike is to make them as difficult and punishing as possible. I really wish that this weren't the case, and that more of these games had adjustable levels of difficulty.