Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist - The Old City music is still in my mind. Lilac!

Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist is a 2025 platforming game developed by Adglobe and Live Wire. The game is a sequel to Ender Lilies (another game from the same publisher), although there isn't any strict requirement to play them in that order because the story stands on its own.

My experience has been directly with this one, so I don't know any information about the original yet, even though I plan on giving it a shot in the future. The story follows an amnesiac named Lilac as she ventures around a dilapidated world, collecting Homunculi and trying to find the woman who saved her, Lilia. The world is under the effect of toxic gas rising from underground, which corrupts the Homunculi and makes them violent or insane.

The group around Lilac continues to grow as you explore the map and recruit more Homunculi. Every time you defeat and recruit one of them, you get to see a short cutscene showing its past, providing information to help you connect the dots in the story of this world.

Don't expect them to explain much in the cutscenes, it's mostly connected by small information and you need to try and guess yourself.

The rag-tag team of homunculus helping Lilac along the journey. They grow and become an entire brigade by the end.

I'll be honest here: the story itself is straightforward, but putting all the pieces together is less so because the game only "vagueposts," providing very small hints or ambiguous scenes. It's a type of storytelling I don't exactly enjoy, but it works in the context of these low-budget games.

The game is divided into three main areas: the lower stratum, which is the largest area where a good 60% of the game takes place; the central stratum, which is unlocked by activating the great lift and where the mid-to-late game occurs; and finally, the upper stratum, which is only available on the true route where you get to face the real final boss of the game.

The gameplay is a platformer with plenty of bullet-hell segments where you need to avoid the special moves of the boss and learn their patterns until you manage to defeat them. Think of it like Mega Man, for example: you enter an arena, fight the boss, and move along toward the next objective.

Some of the stories are terrifying, the world really has no mercy for anyone. Even with the little information given it felt bad

Reaching the central stratum is one of the biggest achievement because it means you learned more or less all the basic mechanics of the game. Then you fight for the first time him and...

The protagonist, Lilac, can equip up to four skills obtained from the Homunculi, allowing her to perform various melee or ranged attacks by commanding them. You can also equip items and artifacts that improve stats and make certain areas easier to traverse.

Progression in each area is usually thwarted by the lack of a particular exploration skill (the ability to break walls, break floors, or attach to walls) that Lilac needs to learn from a Homunculus, forcing you to continuously move between areas to explore after unlocking new skills.

I deliberately lowered the difficulty to the bare minimum to avoid spending tens of hours against one boss, as I'm not really a great player at these games. Even so, the game was unforgiving, with some bosses nearly one-shotting you during battles. You can easily take 30+ attempts at some bosses before you get everything aligned, but it's quite satisfying.

Art wise it's great, but the use of bloom and filters in the movie is a shame as I wanted to see the art CGs without the effects.

The spider boss with three phases was something I was not exactly expecting and killed me once in the third form

The music was probably the highlight for me in this game. Most of the background songs are really well made and evoke that sense of foreboding and decay. I can still hear the track in the Old City in my mind, and I find myself humming it from time to time. The name is "Symbiosis" by Cassie Wei, and you can find it on YouTube.

Overall, I can suggest Ender Magnolia as a game to play; the gameplay is solid, and the overall quality of the production is high enough that you'll find it a compelling experience all around. Of course, have patience when it comes to difficulty, as some of the bosses can be quite challenging.