{"id":43156,"date":"2025-01-24T12:24:49","date_gmt":"2025-01-24T03:24:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=43156"},"modified":"2025-01-24T12:24:51","modified_gmt":"2025-01-24T03:24:51","slug":"ender-magnolia-dev-explains-why-they-lowered-the-sequels-difficulty-you-only-need-one-soulslike-a-year-that-should-be-a-fromsoftware-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/ender-magnolia-dev-explains-why-they-lowered-the-sequels-difficulty-you-only-need-one-soulslike-a-year-that-should-be-a-fromsoftware-game\/","title":{"rendered":"Ender Magnolia dev explains why they lowered the sequel\u2019s difficulty- \u201cYou only need one soulslike a year. That should be a FromSoftware game.\u201d\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Released on January 23, <strong>Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist <\/strong>is the sequel to 2021 metroidvania hit Ender Lilies.<strong> <\/strong>Talking to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.famitsu.com\/article\/202501\/30562\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Famitsu<\/a> recently,<strong> <\/strong>Binary Haze Interactive\u2019s CEO Hiroyuki Kobayashi explained why the indie label and their developers made Ender Magnolia easier than its predecessor. He revealed that a single comment from a programmer on the team changed the way the devs looked at Ender Magnolia\u2019s difficulty level.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" src=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/20250124-43156-001.jpg\" alt=\"Ender Magnolia\" class=\"wp-image-43163\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/20250124-43156-001.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/20250124-43156-001-380x214.jpg 380w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/20250124-43156-001-768x432.jpg 768w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>First of all, Kobayashi looks back on the first game in the series, Ender Lilies. He mentions that when making Ender Lilies, the fledgling game company had all kinds of ideas for the game, including sandbox elements, but ended up looking to Dark Souls developer FromSoftware for inspiration. \u201cFrom around that time, FromSoftware\u2019s games were becoming popular all around the world, so we decided to take our cue from their stance,\u201d adding that \u201cEnder Lilies was the result of pursuing a cool look, including the movement, with a perfect level of difficulty.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-video\"><video controls src=\"https:\/\/video.fastly.steamstatic.com\/store_trailers\/257003673\/movie480_vp9.webm?t=1708960862\"><\/video><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>However, he adds that \u201cAlthough Ender Lilies is often referred to as a high difficulty \u2018soulslike,\u2019 I don\u2019t think it is really a \u2018soulslike\u2019 (\u2018death game\u2019 in Japanese). Rather, it\u2019s more like an entry point to the metroidvania genre.\u201d Kobayashi goes on to explain how Ender Lilies maintained a balance between being difficult but beatable, with the emphasis on the game\u2019s lingering motion and distinctive 2D graphics. But what about its sequel, Ender Magnolia?&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe had many discussions about Ender Magnolia\u2019s difficulty level.\u201d Kobayashi reveals. \u201cPersonally, I thought it would be best to make it more difficult. I didn\u2019t want people who had played the previous game to feel that this game was \u2018lacking\u2019 or \u2018easier than the previous one\u2019 when they played it. But the main programmer said to me, \u2018Why don\u2019t we stop making everything a soulslike?\u2019 and this stuck with me. He said that \u2018As a player, you only need one soulslike a year. That should be a FromSoftware game.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" src=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/20250124-43156-002.jpg\" alt=\"Ender Magnolia\" class=\"wp-image-43162\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/20250124-43156-002.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/20250124-43156-002-380x214.jpg 380w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/20250124-43156-002-768x432.jpg 768w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Looking back over the feedback on the Early Access version of Ender Mangnolia, Kobayashi observes that comments ranged from those who were happy that it was easier than Ender Lilies, to those who were disappointed with the lower difficulty. Regarding the final game, Kobayashi adds that \u201cThere is a selection of difficulty levels, so I hope users will be able to play on the difficulty that they prefer.\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist is available for Nintendo Switch, PS4\/PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC (<a href=\"https:\/\/store.steampowered.com\/app\/2725260\/ENDER_MAGNOLIA_Bloom_in_the_Mist\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Steam<\/a>).&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Binary Haze&#8217;s CEO Hiroyuki Kobayashi explains why they ended up making Ender Magnolia&#8217;s base difficulty less tough than Ender Lilies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":43160,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[62,3],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-43156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-indie-games","category-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Ender Magnolia dev explains why they lowered the sequel\u2019s difficulty- \u201cYou only need one soulslike a year. That should be a FromSoftware game.\u201d\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Binary Haze&#039;s CEO Hiroyuki Kobayashi explains why they ended up making Ender Magnolia&#039;s base difficulty less tough than Ender Lilies.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/ender-magnolia-dev-explains-why-they-lowered-the-sequels-difficulty-you-only-need-one-soulslike-a-year-that-should-be-a-fromsoftware-game\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ender Magnolia dev explains why they lowered the sequel\u2019s difficulty- \u201cYou only need one soulslike a year. 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