A Journey Through Toxic Fumes That’s a Breath of Fresh Air

It wasn’t supposed to, but Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist made me snicker. This generally inventive, risk-taking game occurs below ground in the Land of the Fumes, which made me think about gas jokes. In reality, what lies within the often-melancholy surroundings is a complex tale about the ravages wrought by an unseen dictator or a poisonous environment, probably both.

Lilac, a young girl in a black-and-white school uniform who reminded me of a nicer Wednesday, is an Attuner, a magical being who can absorb the essence of the stronger enemies she has subdued.

To get to them, she battles enslaved robotic creatures called Homunculi. Toxic gas has made them lose their minds, and the big ones are terribly violent. But they willingly let Lilac be their host. It’s safe there. She’s an innocent, and though they have to fight through her, they’re happy to be part of her. Lilac’s essence is like a sanctuary city.

Bloom in the Mist, part of the Metroidvania genre, is the sequel to Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights, from 2021, an equally dark tale of blight that deranges the world’s inhabitants. Throughout Bloom in the Mist, Lilac accrues a variety of abilities. The defeated battle ardently, emerging ghostly from her body with, say, a gun that emits blue bullets or a slashing sword.

The gameplay can be difficult, even early on. The Shackled Beast, a cigarette-puffing human-rhinoceros hybrid, whips around a deadly lantern on a chain like Roger Daltrey of the Who used to wield a microphone on a cord. If that weren’t enough, the beast’s head is also a potent battering ram.

Once it is defeated, Lilac moves closer, slowly raising her left arm as if to cast a spell. Then his powers become yours.

Along the way, you’ll fight strange beings like a giant shrimp/jellyfish thing that hangs from underwater cables, recharging. This purple-robed robotic sorcerer with a crown tried to spike me with a sharpened appendage. Then he shot thick red-and-white rays and killer bubbles. Each boss is more creatively imagined than the last.

Much of Bloom in the Mist is a triumph, with considerable work put into the game’s enemies, set pieces and environments. While the art is in 2-D, layers make it come alive. While peering through trees in the Crimson Forest, I could see endless swaths of red-tinged branches and leaves.

The design for the bird-headed Ulysses butterfly mutants is a stunning mix of purple, blue and brown. While the floating, fiery orange baubles they shoot don’t do much damage, they can throw you off your rhythm while jumping from platform to platform.

Although the mazes you must navigate to discover the next land aren’t that complicated, there’s an unexpected challenge. When I was stuck without an exit, a button acted as a portal, sometimes moving me to an area I had traversed before. I sometimes felt as maddened as the Homunculi, repeating the same paths in a crazy loop.

While each character has its own version of woe, the story is dragged down by the dialogue, which doesn’t evoke compassion in its translation from the original Japanese. Near the end, when Lilac meets the levitating Gilroy the Administrator, he declares, “I shall not yield … until this body is naught but a rotting husk!” I rolled my eyes.

What does evoke mystery and occasional sympathy are the memories given as a reward when you triumph over a boss. These manifest themselves in lovely black-and-white filmic snippets. They are as befuddling as the TV show “Severance,” but every fragment made me want to learn more.

The music sometimes takes up the narrative slack, or at least the lack of emotion. The game’s main theme, by the Japanese indie pop classical group Mili, enhances the dismal journey with a simple piano and a plangent tune.

In the sooty, Dickensian Old City, I paused to listen to the complete song. The vocalist Cassie Wei intensifies the grief-filled resignation that many of the land’s inhabitants must feel as they languish underground. It could be Lilac herself singing, dealing with misery she sees before encountering robotic wolves and dangerous flying insects.

Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist was reviewed on the PC. It is also available on the PlayStation 5, the PlayStation 4, the Nintendo Switch and the Xbox Series X|S.