ELEX

Fantastic game. It's like Morrowind with swords and guns. Parts of the map are like medevil enclaves then you'll come across abandoned houses. It's really cool, and the combat is good. It's more old school style realtime rpg combat like Morrowind but not nearly as annoying—not bad at all like some reviews claim. I sat on the fence with this one for a while and bought it on sale. I'll be buying Elex 2 full price.

I really enjoyed this game. it felt like a cross between Witcher and Fallout. There are a few things that were a tad rough and could have used a bit of polish, but none of these were gameplay related. The world is very well realized and feels great to walk around in. The characters feel more-or-less fleshed out. progression felt rewarding. good storyline. definite recommend. If you buy this game, I recommend you watch a tutorial on melee. they don't do a good job of explaining it in the tutorial.

ELEX feels like it had plenty of potential, but a lot of things make me uncomfortable while playing it. Dialogue is weird at best. Conversations don't really have any flow to them and some things have really strange names, as if poorly translated. It feels like NPC's have no real purpose apart from few exceptions. They're just dolls that hand out quests or attack you. I like how enemies control areas and don't change or level with the protagonist. This is also what I really liked about Gothic games. However, combat against them is not very well executed. Monsters don't actually need to physically hit you to actually cause damage and due to that dodging feels completely unnecessary option as very often it does absolutely nothing for combat. This makes combat frustrating. It's not a bad game, but way too many little, annoying things that add up.

It's a Piranha Bytes game with all it's flaws. A lovable game, that will have some bugs, sometimes frustrating game design and not the most amazing graphics. You will realise the low budget and that there were merely 20-25 people working on that game all the time. Taking that into account, it still has a wonderful world to explore, some Piranha Bytes humor, factions, choices and everything that makes me somehow attrackted to those games. But somehow this one is still the weakest start of a franchise in Piranha Bytes history. If you love their games, you'll probably like this game, but compared to the first Gothic, or first Risen it just falls behind.

I bought this on sale. It's ok. I would not recommend paying full price for it though. It is very, very rough around the edges. First, there is no character creator. That would be fine if the main character wasn't so flat and generic, but he is, so this game could have really used that personalization aspect to counterbalance the lack of uniqueness, charisma, and personality. The movement controls are so, so awfully clunky. Either you don't move at all or you bound 6 feet in any direction, which is obnoxious when standing next to a ledge. There is also a "context sensitve" climbing feature that is so spotty it becomes frustrating. Looking at a ledge should prompt you to press a button to climb that ledge, but half the time it doesn't appear or is so overly specific on where you have to point the camera that it becomes a hinderance. Combat is ok. A strange blend of Witcher 3 and Dark Souls with the stamina management. Not terrible. Decently tactical. No real complaints there. Voice acting is... well, it isn't going to win any awards any time soon. What this game does well, though, is it is very reminiscent of old school single player RPGs. It does not "hold your hand" at all. This is not a game that is simplified for the masses. It is meant to be nuanced and give players impactful choices.