A giant game in all aspects that conveys the sensation of influence on the virtual world. Some failures in control are the most negative point, but ELEX is a new vindication of Piranha Bytes.
In its best moments Elex sucks you into its beautifully weird world like Fallout. But in its worst it feels like a relic from a past long gone. Almost every design element offers something to praise, but also something to condemn. But nonetheless I wanted to dive in deeper.
Elex might be the most underrated game I have ever played.
If you can look past the chunkiness and relatively bad graphics(and the fact that it takes a while before you can actually start killing something), you will find one of the most unique and immersive game world ever created, a great story and amazing progression mechanics.
I'm going to give a good review score because I want to say good things about Piranha Bytes. They build some of the best open worlds there are. This is the central reason I play their RPGs. When you play a PBRPG, you really feel like you're living in a well designed world. That said, you can't ignore the landslide of issues facing PB that make their work seem AA rather than AAA. This is hardly a surprise but there is so much they need to improve. The voice acting is awful and the translation of the dialogue from German to English is embarrassing, causing the story to make almost no sense. The combat is rough, the character animations are awful, the cold/warm system is ridiculous, the ending is poor, and the initial learning curve makes the game unattractive to new players. I should hate this game but I don't. If it wasn't for the amazing environments that they create, I'd be a lot less forgiving. One of these days, I hope PB does a good job again, putting them on the level of what they made with Gothic, Gothic 2, and the first Risen game. This isn't it, but I'll throw them a nice score in hope that they get it right again at some point.
Elex is not an accessible game and doesn't make a great first impression but it deserves more than one chance. Fans of Piranha Games should prepare themselves for more of what they love (but they must accept a strange fantasy & sci-fi mix). The final grade could have been higher if it weren't for too many technical issues.
Elex has, somewhere, a good game under all the apathy on its surface. There are some good ideas that one can easily miss because of its poor narrative, gameplay and aesthetics.
Aliens, armored knights, mechs, mutants and dinosaurs with laser beams, spells and machine guns: whatever you saw or played in a videogame, just name it, and you'll probably find it in ELEX. A potpourri so weird it could have been amazing, ruined by an uninspired main quest and the usual, flawed combat system by Piranha Bytes.
ELEX is a broken, messy game that might have some interesting ideas deep down but they won't save it. Honestly you are better of avoiding or waiting for the developers to maybe save this title.
Elex is a juci Game! As Gothic and Risen Player, i can say Elex is a greatful and good Game with Atmo, GOOD Dialogs, Greatful Landscapes and some little special Things u dont wanna miss in a RPG. We have May´22 and i played again. Questions ?
I had fun playing the game. It is a good, solid game with minor flaws like clunky combat. But you will get used to it.
Pros
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- Beautiful world
- Fun, weighty combat
- Good story
- Cool companions
Cons
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- Same faces/voices used for multiple NPCs
- Combat sometimes unprecise, clunky
- Some quests not triggerung, but not game breaking
This game is euqualy as bad as it is good. :D
If not clunky disconnected unimpactful and somtimes frustraitingly broken combat system and skill system which does not feel like it does much (key word feel)- game is great :D
I liked the game, it could be 8 or 9/10, but because of those lacking points objectviley can not give to it more than than 6.
Pirnanha Bytes fans- you know what you are getting into, it is worth it. For all others- buy it at your own risk. But it is not that well known rpg gem.
This feels more like an unfinished MMO than a proper RPG. I got to 15 hours in, fruitlessly hoping to reach this alleged part of the game past which it's supposed to become fun. I have spent maybe 90% of this time running boring errands for NPCs that all have the same 3 faces and 5 hairstyles and talk waaaaaay too much while saying nothing, fruitlessly hoping for the story to get interesting, and fruitlessly hoping that my character would become strong enough to actually navigate this generic open world without being attacked at every step by creatures that can kill me in 2 hits and chase me across half the map, which has been my experience the other 10% of the time.
For whoever might be a PB fanboy thinking that I just don't get it, I'm familiar with all their games, the first two Gothic series being among my absolute favorites. This game here is more comparable with Gothic 3, which was only okay, because of flaws very similar to what I mentioned above. The key difference is that G3 was released in 2006, ELEX in 2017. A Gothic-style steep progression curve is no longer enough to make me defend this game, my standards have changed, unlike those of PB.
Five Word Review: Promising setting, crushingly disappointing gameplay.
Favorite Thing: I love post-apocalyptic. I wish the game had drawn me in enough to see and explore more.
Least Favorite Thing: I really hate moving around in this game, it's so rigged and sluggish. Try running down a hill. Every bump locks you into this terribly slow recovery animation. They even ruined the jump jets. If you're running and you jump then jet it slows you down. GAH!
Date Dropped: 2018-06-20
Playtime: 8.5h
Enjoyment: 4/10
Recommendation: No. =(
SummaryAdvanced in technology, civilized and with a population of billions, Magalan was a planet looking to the future. Then the meteor hit. Those who survived are now trapped in a battle to survive, a struggle to decide the fate of a planet. At the center of this fight is the element "Elex". A precious, limited resource that arrived with the m...