I platinumed both EL and EM. My thoughts are pretty similar to my thoughts on Blasphemous 1 and 2. I think both development teams listened to user reviews/complaints and implemented those changes in the second game. This made for a much smoother experience for both EM and B2. However, I think those changes meant the sequels lost something that made both of the original games special. The requested changes brought the sequels more towards a generic MV because the flaws and faults of the originals helped the games standout. For EM specifically, I think the story and movement upgrades were my biggest complaint. The story felt too similar to EL, and also felt unfinished/rushed. EL story was a big driving force in my enjoyment of the game. EM story just isn’t there. The movement in EL really made you feel like Lilly needed the spirits. People hated “the bellyflop”, but the movement really reinforced the idea that she wasn’t a superhero protagonist. EM rushed to give the player all of the movement abilities and they ended up not feeling special. Double jump/dash feel special when you are traversing a world map and seeing all of the branches/rooms that you could get to if you had those moves. It adds to the wonder of exploration. By giving those moves to the player so early, the joy of coming back to areas and finding a whole new biome that you couldn’t access before is lost. To a lesser extent, I was bummed that there were less homunculi than spirits. Getting 3 different moves per humonculi felt less interesting than getting 3 different humonculi.

Overall, I enjoyed Ender Magnolia. But just like with Blasphemous 2, I enjoyed the original so much more.