Metroidvania 2D Action/RPG Catch-All

Stele, nice job getting me to fire up Ender Lilies again, after I think almost a year away? Took me a while to regain some understanding of how to play (I had 6 spirits already), and where to go next. I defeated the next boss last night after like 30 attempts, and then realized I completely missed a mid-boss by stumbling into it, low on health, and got it on the first try! Im lost again though, with no idea where to go next.

I looked at a walkthrough but it wasn't complete. I need to find another to share. But it did help just pointing out the order things were meant to be on the map. Although apparently you can sequence break a bit, I don't think I did.

Once you get each main boss power it is somewhat obvious where to go but only if you've been paying attention. Double jump is an early one that lets you get vertical. And then air dash let's you cross horizonal gaps. And so on. If you know what ability you got I might be able to point you since it was recent enough?

I just got the swim underwater (witch’s bubble) ability. I don’t have air dash yet.

Oh well that one is easy. Find water, jump in, haha.

I'm pretty sure the

Spoiler:

Bridgehead respite

is the one you're after though. I just passed through there backtracking and feels like that was an really underwater spot.

Stele wrote:

Oh well that one is easy. Find water, jump in, haha.

How did I know this was going to be the response?

I checked out the Respite you mentioned and did find a watery path into a new room, but sadly it hit a one-way door pretty quickly. I think you have the right fundamental suggestion though - I’ve been spending so much time exploring the voluminous waters around the Witch Respite that I’ve largely ignored dowsing the earlier sections. I think that’ll be my next task.

Edit: Yup, not long after, I discovered the Bottom of the Well Respite. Onward and upward downward!

I got a few more powers and then suddenly watched Ending A out of nowhere. I reloaded my save from the title screen and am now continuing on, de-bluing rooms and finding exits that I wasn’t able to reach before. Looks like there’s still quite a lot of content left to go - I even just found a brand new biome.

Yeah that's how I found ending A too. Was missing a key power even. Plus a whole 2 other sections of map. Getting closer to ending B now.

I had to look up requirements. There's one thing that you collect for ending C and if you get all of them before B, you could miss it.

I got another movement ability - one I was expecting to get, given what I could see in the environment. It’s the one that uses the left trigger on the controller. That opened up quite a few places for exploration.

I think the only two things I’m missing, as far as environment traversal are:

Spoiler:

1) some way to bust through those horizontal orange eye-doors
2) a key or something to open the locked doors

Yeah spoiler 1 is what I just got the other day. And some of them are tricky. I could not get one open and found a YouTube video and I think that trick applies to a couple now. It's really neat though, beyond a few of those obstacles there are stashes of 800 items to upgrade spirits. So finally 8 got a couple of my favorites maxed

Spoiler 2 is related to ending C I think. I still haven't opened any.

FIST: Forged in Shadow Torch was a freebie from Epic over Christmas and I've had my eye on it as it's on the fairly short list of games that support ray tracing.

Turns out it's pretty great. Not gonna be many peoples GOTY but it's well worth a look-see if you're after a combat-focused 'vania.

Right, I had the FIST demo a bit ago on Steam and put it on the wishlist. Free is nice. It's installed and up soon for me.

Stele wrote:

Right, I had the FIST demo a bit ago on Steam and put it on the wishlist. Free is nice. It's installed and up soon for me.

Same. Looking forward to it. 2021 was full of Metroidvanias for me, 2022 not so much. Hoping to get some more that in 2023.

Ender Lilies

I got the two powers in my spoiler, and I’ve started getting achievements for “get all of the X” things, so I assume I must be in the home stretch. I still have a good bit of the map in blue, despite my best attempts to orangeify the rooms.

I’ve now seen Ending B, and I have all the pieces I need for C. I’m just doing some de-bluing cleanup work now.

Well you passed me then. Got sucked into a different game last night. Maybe I'll catch back up today.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/FwXou9m.png)

I am satisfied.

Nice!

Ender Lilies ending B complete!

25 hours whew

Those last 2 underground bosses were much easier than the last couple above. Like 3-4 attempts instead of 20+. Much better.

Time to hunt for ending C since I'm so close. B was better than A but still sad.

Congrats! Ending C is right around the corner, and worth it.

Best Metroidvania games of 2022

Only seen a couple on that list in this thread. Anybody played the rest?

Quick list:
Haiku, the Robot
Salt and Sacrifice
Ghost Song
Moonscars
Infernax
B.I.O.T.A.
Islets
Supraland: Six Inches Under
Imp of the Sun
Souldiers
REDSHOT

I played Moonscars, Ghost Song, Infernax, Islets, Supraland, and Souldiers.

Of those, I think the only one I finished was Islets.

I've played Salt and Sacrifice (the sequel to S&Sanctuary), Infernax, and Supraland. All of these stuck with me for a few hours, but then something shinier came along and stole my attention. Note that I bounced HARD off S&Sanctuary, but S&Sacrifice was working a bit better for me.

Ghost Song was great and on game pass. Keep in mind that it has some slight Souls influence.

EvilDead wrote:

Ghost Song was great and on game pass. Keep in mind that it has some slight Souls influence.

IMAGE(https://media.tenor.com/x8OXNmhgqvAAAAAC/the-office-michael-scott.gif)

Edit: Aw heck, that looks delicious. Installing now.

For what it's worth Ender Lilies also feels Souls-ey at times, but it's extremely generous so as to not be painful. No corpse runs (nothing is ever lost on death), and teleportation between "bonfires" is free and unlocked right from the start (including warping back to your last bonfire). Plus the map literally shows you if you've missed anything in each room, so no guesswork needed.

When you die you lose your currency at that spot so that could be a locked off boss fight. You also lose a little bit of health bar but you can "buy" that back. However, as far as I know the currency never disappears no matter how many times you die.

It has some traditional RPG mechanics with upgrades in melee, projectile, and energy powers as well as special ability items that take a certain amount of energy. You can use as many of them as you like as long as they add up to or below your max energy amount. I found the poisonous wasp grenades particularly fun and effective

Nice! If you enjoy the alien world feeling from Metroid, or even Ori, it has a lot of that going on for it too.

That Ender Lilies map also has a red dot if there is another exit from a room that you haven't explored yet. So when you get a new power you can go check the dots if you don't remember exactly where to go.

Pretty sure getting lost on the map is one of the reasons I quit Hollow Knight. It's really great how Ender Lilies helps you throughout the game. I love it.

Stele wrote:

Pretty sure getting lost on the map is one of the reasons I quit Hollow Knight. It's really great how Ender Lilies helps you throughout the game. I love it.

Yeah, Hollow Knight really pushed hard for that endorphin rush of finally finding/buying each map segment after wandering around "lost". I did end up finishing that game, but the periodic lack of map was quite a turn-off for me.

Yup. Every time i try and play Hollow Knight my interest gets killed at one of the "run out of map" parts of the game.

It's BS design.

merphle wrote:
Stele wrote:

Pretty sure getting lost on the map is one of the reasons I quit Hollow Knight. It's really great how Ender Lilies helps you throughout the game. I love it.

Yeah, Hollow Knight really pushed hard for that endorphin rush of finally finding/buying each map segment after wandering around "lost". I did end up finishing that game, but the periodic lack of map was quite a turn-off for me.

I spent a week or so away from Hallow Knight then couldn't figure out where to go so I gave up.