Video Gamers Podcast
[Deep Dive] Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist - Gaming Podcast
Wed, 29 Jan 2025
Gaming Hosts Ryan and Josh are back with a special guest, and boy do we have a great episode for you! We’re covering the recent release of Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist with a full breakdown of the game, along with a few surprises! Join us we chat gameplay, art style, what makes this video game so special, and give perhaps one of the hottest gaming takes of all time. We break it all down in another awesome video game review episode from your favorite gaming podcast! Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Ol’ Jake, Disratory and Gaius Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/videogamerspod Join our Gaming Discord: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/ Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU12YOMnAQwqFZEdfXv9c3Q Visit us on the web: https://videogamerspod.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is the main topic of this episode?
Hello, fellow gamers, and welcome to the Video Gamers Podcast. We've said many times that we're huge fans of indie devs and the incredible, artistic, fun indie games they make. And well, it's time to prove it. So we're going to be starting a brand new series where we cover the wide and wonderful world of indie games. That's right, for the next few weeks...
or maybe longer, we'll be bringing you a jam-packed third episode each week where we cover all things indie, game reviews, news, and more. If you're a fan of indie or just more gaming talk in general, then these episodes are for you.
today we'll be covering the recent hit release of ender magnolias but first some introductions are in order i am your host josh and joining me the last indie game he played was indiana jones in the great circle and when we came up with the idea he asked if he needed to buy a hat and a whip
It's Ryan.
Indie, indie. No. Oh, man. Ryan's face trying to figure out like, wait, oh, I get it. The whole indie thing.
Okay. I get it. Oh, man. It took a second, but you know.
Yeah. And joining us. What? He's the indie master himself.
The man with the beating heart of the indie world firmly in the palm of his hand shouting Kalima Shakti Day. Wait, dang it.
That's the wrong indie again. The man who has been feverishly trying to get Ryan and I to look at and play Tales of Iron 2, it's the one, the only Ace of Shame.
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Chapter 2: Why are indie games important to the gaming community?
It is happening.
I don't care what it takes. I am going to message those devs directly to harass you into playing Tales of Iron 2.
I feel like you with Tales of Iron 2 is like me with Remnant 2, where it's just like, I'm not going to let up until you people play this game. Exactly. I mean, what more do you want? It's got blood, gore, and rats. That's true. That's true. And the ratdom. Exactly. The ratdom. Sounds a little bit too like something else that we won't talk about right now. All right.
Welcome in, everybody, to this very special third episode. We hope that you're as excited as we are. This is something that we have talked about for a while. We're in an awesome groove. We've got our two main shows, our Monday and our Thursday episodes. But it's one of these things where it's like, Man, we know that people want more content. What can we give them?
And one of the things that we feel like we have been rather negligent on is the world of indie games. I know gamers that don't play anything that is not indie. And Ace, I know you're a huge fan of indie games, but you also play a lot of mainstream games and stuff as well. Um, but so this is something that we're very passionate about.
We want to bring you as the listener, more content and, you know, in kind of brainstorming that and thinking about that, we thought, dude, let's really dive into the indie world a little bit more. Number one, we have mad respect for indie devs. Um, the passion that they have for games is honestly something that we are absolutely committed to supporting. Um,
Some of the best games, some of the most fun games have come from indie devs. There seems to be this kind of loss of what gamers want from the AAA gaming world. And so indie devs have really just... It's something that we love supporting and we want to talk more about. And that's why we're doing this episode. And then we thought...
You know, who can talk about indie games all day and knows everything that's going on in the indie world? And then, you know, Ace, obviously you came to mind right away on this. Awesome friend of the show. We met you through the show for people that don't know.
Yeah, man.
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Chapter 3: What makes Ender Magnolia special?
I still did not try it. Despite my insistence, you would not play it. Oh, my gosh. and i've heard so many good things it legitimately is one of those games i kind of have fomo on where i'm like dang it i really did miss out on this so i want to know though speaking of like because it's like souls like so does the crab roll does the crab can the crab roll oh yeah Is that a sushi joke, Ryan?
Is that a really bad sushi joke? Maybe. Oh, man. Come on. I thought, oh, no, I thought that's what we were doing. That was the thing. You know, we're doing horrible jokes.
it's a shells like game is that really what it says oh kudos oh man that's awesome oh we're starting out so well i love it but uh yeah what really resonates with me with indie games though is like when you pick up an indie game like you said the triple a it's failing people a lot it's really disappointing people it's obvious that they're just trying to hit a deadline when you pick up an indie game
you are holding like the heart and soul of someone in your hand. You are holding their dreams and you're, you're experiencing like the heart of a gamer right there. And it's beautiful.
Yeah. I agree with you. It's one of those things where we have, as we have seen the failure in a lot of the AAA games and seen the success from indie devs. And Ryan and I have said this many times on the main show that, you know, the, the future for the indie world looks very, very bright. Oh yeah. Because,
As we get into these mega studios like EA and Blizzard and Ubisoft, and I think this is not to pick on Ubisoft again, which I know you've been a huge fan of, Ace. Not anymore. But I think they lose their way. Legitimately, I think it becomes about profits and money over the passion of games. And with indie devs, the passion of their game is what is going to determine their success. Exactly. Yeah.
Yeah. And so I am with you on that. And this again, one of the reasons that we want to start doing this this show weekly is to really focus on that and support that because they're the ones that are pouring their heart and souls into these games with the hope that people discover it and people have fun with it. And we want to help when we can on that. So. Okay.
So, I mean, you know, that said, that's the goals of these episodes, right? We want to cover all of the things indie, you know, we will talk about just general gaming, apparently some really bad sushi puns along the way too. But if you are a fan of indie or just gaming in general, these episodes are absolutely going to be up your alley and we hope that you look forward to them.
And in case you missed it, this is an addition. To our normal Monday and Thursday episodes.
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Chapter 4: How does music enhance the gaming experience in Ender Magnolia?
Is there a happy Metroidvania out there?
Nobody can be happy side-scrolling like that, man. Okay, see, I'm with you, Ryan.
Or getting lost in a giant map where you have no idea what you're doing. If you put it down for three hours, you have forgotten what you were doing and where you are.
A thousand percent. That's my biggest gruff with Metroidvanias. I still love them. But, yeah, that whole kind of layout of the maps and the sequence there is a little tough. But, man, yeah, I'm excited to learn more about this, man. This is sounding pretty good, though. Yeah.
I am excited because I know, Ace, you have played this, beaten it, and 100%ed it, if I am correct. Is that true? I've 100%ed both. Both games. Yeah. Okay. So, Ryan, watch out. We've got an expert on our hands here. He said he's an expert. That's why he's here. Time to get serious, man. We can hold up to this, Ryan.
It'll be all right. I played one or two Metroidvanias in my time.
Back in my day, Metroidvanias had vampires.
They had Metroid in the name. There you go. All right. So, Ace, you've been a fan of this series. We usually start off these kind of game deep dives, so to speak, with the, what is the thing? The one thing. And I know this is hard because when I asked you to think about this, you went, come on, man. Yeah. What is the hook, so to speak?
The thing that stands out to you the most above all else in this game? To give people an idea, when we covered Astro Bot, Ryan and I said, it's the audio. Like, as great as the gameplay and everything in Astro Bot was, the audio in this game is second to none. You know, with Space Marine, it was just the kind of visual grandeur of that game. So every game we feel like has something special.
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Chapter 5: What are the unique graphics styles in Ender Magnolia?
So, you know, Ace, you said it's the hook. You said it's great. Does this game use music in its kind of standard gameplay? Like, do you get that that music that kind of amps up as you're you have a boss fight? I mean, is it more just that it's beautiful, haunting background music? Does the music in this game like accentuate the experience? Like, give us a little bit deeper on that.
It absolutely accentuates the experience. Depending on what areas you're in, if you go into a hellish, terrible area, not only will you have the backing piano and the harsh violin, you'll also have maybe something in the background giving you deep, raspy breaths to accentuate that you are in a bad place. Oh, man. There's no happy place in Ender Magnolia, but there are safe places.
So when you're in a safe place, that's when you actually get backing vocals in the back of the music.
Oh, that's kind of cool.
And that's the only dialogue in the game. Everything else is quiet. There's no dialogue. So the only time you're going to hear voices is if you're hearing the vocals of the music.
And I, I love when, and this is the other thing you got to think these are indie devs, right? Like, like where do they find these composers? Like how do they afford these composers, man? Like, I don't know. This is something we know very little about as far as like, you know, getting a soundtrack for a game, the OST, the original soundtrack, you know, professional musicians ain't cheap, man.
And really good ones that can, that can give you, like something memorable like that that fits your game is even harder still. So it really does make me curious like where these like music composers are and how they go about capturing the emotion and the feel of a game like Intermagnolia, man. It's like, so if you're a music developer or a dev that's dealt with one, reach out to us, man.
We'd love to hear about it. Like, honestly, I'm very, very curious about that.
that whole kind of development process especially when it just it's the hook like we talked about ace this is the thing oh you know what i mean like you think about primarily with endermagnolia and so it just it really kind of gets me curious but i also love hearing it now i'm gonna have to go listen to some endermagnolia sound you're gonna have to run the soundtrack you absolutely should
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Chapter 6: What is the hot take about Ender Magnolia?
One more time, Ace. One more time. All right, number one. I will do it again. I love steampunk stuff. I'm a big fan of steampunk. I don't know why. I just think it's a neat mashup of stuff. And then Studio... I say Ghibli. Is it Ghibli? I looked it up. I said Ghibli.
I wanted to get it right, so no one made fun of me.
No, that's good. Well, I got it wrong. I'm an idiot. I say Studio Ghibli. But, dude, I mean... Oh, my goodness. I love Studio Ghibli movies, dude. So... Okay. I just needed a minute for my brain to process that awesomeness. So steampunk studio Ghibli mashup for inner Magnolia. Yes. That is what Indermagnolia is.
I'm going to say no more.
I'm sold, right? Right there, man. If you think of Studio Ghibli films like Castle in the Sky or these ones where you see the robots and things like that, it's absolutely what you're feeling when you're walking through Indermagnolia, especially because everything is hand-drawn.
I know it's not feasible for every developer, indie or otherwise, to do hand-drawn graphics, but man, does it make a difference.
I'm sure it's going to give that kind of almost... Like we talked about the hook and then what's going to draw people in. They obviously don't have the budget and they don't have the title to make it be a big thing. What is going to be that characteristic that really brings people in? And for the graphics, if they're not as good, it has to have some sort of little bit of hook to it.
And to have that... that look is, is something that's really unique and something so cool that, um, I love with the, with the, uh, I mean, shoot, you know, I know Josh is a graphic snob and I'm a little bit too. I love looking at beautiful games, but lethal company is one of my most favorite games in the last two, three years. Like, and that looks like it was made on a potato.
So like graphics do not make a good game. Like, a fun game makes a fun game and and so you know if you can tie it in with amazing music and composition of of awesome stuff and then and then a great art style dude all the better man so this i mean this sounds cool you don't need realism to get immersion is exactly it is absolutely like
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Chapter 7: How does Ender Magnolia compare to Hollow Knight?
I have said, I think Valheim is one of the most beautiful games that I've ever played. And Valheim looks like it's made in 480p. It's really very low polygon. But the atmosphere in that game and the beauty of the game is second to none, in my opinion. It really does kind of touch me in a way that it's like, how did they do this? Because graphically speaking, this game is not...
It's not graphically intensive, but the world and the way that they incorporate weather and music and just the wind blowing through the grass and stuff like that, I've always said is absolutely a masterclass in how you make a game beautiful without needing cutting-edge graphics. This hand-drawn art style, I absolutely love.
I have said this, and please, I know there's people out there that are going to gasp, but I'm not a fan of 8-bit graphics. I don't like pixels. Pixel graphics. Celeste, one of the best platformers ever made. I did not play for years and years and years because every time I went to buy it, I would look at the graphics and I would just go like, I can't do it. I can't do it. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
You know, and then I finally did it. And then it's one of the best platformers ever. And it's like, you kind of get past it, but there's something in my brain that just goes pixel graphics. Yeah. hand-painted, hand-drawn graphics. Like, all right. So I have seen, I watched a few reviews and some gameplay stuff.
You actually clipped some gameplay of a boss fight that looks pretty crazy that we'll get into here in a little bit as well. But I do have to say, as somebody that knows nothing about this game, the art style in it is genuinely beautiful. All right, Ace. Now, you said you have a hot take for us. Mm-hmm. And I've been wondering what the heck this hot take is.
I've been thinking about it all day long. I've been holding it in.
Okay. I could tell because you were like, even when you said, like, I have a hot take, it's like you could see it, like, bubbling up. And it's like, so this is your chance, buddy. You know, we won't say that we won't mock you for it. But what is this hot take?
Ender Magnolia completely and utterly eclipses Hollow Knight as the best Metroidvania we've ever had.
Whoa.
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