ELEX

The game is a huge step forward for Pyranha Bytes in many aspects and the best game of theirs since G2: NoR. It took much time for them to find the true path after failing with G3 but finally they are on the track again. So why do I think so? 1 - apart from npc faces the graphics is an outstanding part of this game. It's not just about modern shaders, FXAA and so on. No, I mean the graphics suits the vibe and mythology of Elex. Breathtaking locations, landmarks and views. You're just gonna love exploring all game zones for hours and hours. 2 - quests and characters is what really makes Elex one of the greatest rpg ever. Characters feel "alive" and organic part of factions and post-apocalypse world. You meet noble warriors, filthy thieves and rogues, preachers and greedy merchants who offer you to complete decent quests with many options to solve the problem. Actually, nearly every quest has 2 or 3 variants of completing it and each of them holds a certain consequence from death of a character to exiling you from the city at all, from making cruel profit to destroying the whole settlement. Even a simple dialog line can affect on your storyline in future. 3 - amazing music in the bundle as well. Not great as it used to be in Gothic series but still you're gonna enjoy it while explore the locations. 4 - change of setting turned out only for the best. New post-apocalypse setting of Piranhas looks incredible and can surely compete with Fallout series (in some point even overrunning it). So that comes the game feels not a remake of Gothc but truly a new project with nostalgia references to Gothic. 5 - the way you talk to npc-s and complete the quests changes the end of the game. Not many rpg's bring the same. What is bad about this game? Technical part of the combat system. You may enjoy playing for a cleric with energy weapon and go through all the circles of Hell if you pick a melee combat berserker, for instance. This part should really be improved in Elex 2.

Elex has the Piranha Bytes trademark inverted difficulty curve: very difficult at the beginning, but becomes rather easy once you find the OP guns that stunlock enemies. Even then, you can still get smashed in melee combat if you relent on self-discipline. The RPG rules are fairly familiar to anybody who has played a Piranha Bytes game, where stats gate use of stronger weapons. If you don't meet the requirements, you simply can't use a weapon. I'm not sure if higher stats increase damage dealt by weapons. The world is large and detailed with four distinct biomes. Exploration is worthwhile, and there are a few secret areas to find. Graphically, Elex was not spectucular when it was first released and even less so now. However, it's colourful and easy on the eyes. Voice acting is serviceable. I don't recall it crashing much, if at all, so technically it's pretty good. Whereas many games have a simplistic choice to be made near the end of the game that determines the ending, dialogue choices throughout a given playthrough of Elex are what determine the ending, by essentially shaping the personality of the main character. I don't why I enjoyed Elex so much, but I suppose it has most of what I personally enjoy in a game. As such, I recommend Elex without reservation.

This game has only one flaw, the usual PB politic that you MUST join a faction (which does not change a bit to you). Except for that, you play in a fantastic post apocalypse world, what remains of the old world is stunning, full of recorded stories of the people that didn't survive, their belongings etc... plus, magic ! Everything is really cool but totally unbalanced: The monsters are everywhere, and not located according to your level. You can find big trolls and cyclops near the walls of a city or a main road or a simple rat in the woods because they live there, not because you must be cuddled. It's up to you to understand where you can survive and how...and of course it's up to your equipment and your skills. And here comes the big news in this game....the JETPACK. With that and a smart brain, you can explore the entire map even if you can't slay a chicken, and there is a lot to see.

Mechanically, this game just feels really, really bad. The game is extremely difficult but not due to complex enemy mechanics or anything like that. Mainly because it controls like crap. Also because a lot of the enemies I came across (even near the start) basically do the same damage to you as you do to them, meaning that when you're surrounded or being attacked by multiple ranged attackers, you are often killed faster than you can kill. Dodging just didn't work sometimes even when I had stamina. Bow combat is terrible. I just repeatedly got swarmed by multiple melee based enemies making it basically impossible to pick them all off while avoiding fatal damage. This forces you to make use of melee, magic or guns, making bow-only builds pretty much non viable. Moving around feels sluggish, especially the jetpack which seems to move you forward at about 5 kilometres per hour. Dodging uses so much of your stamina bar that when you're in combat with multiple enemies at once, you basically have to regularly un-lock on and run/fly away just so you don't die. The voice acting and dialogue is mostly hot garbage. The protagonist (who you'll obviously hear more of than anyone else) has pretty atrocious voice acting and a lot of the writing for his dialogue lines is laughably bad. NPC AI is really bad, especially when they're supposed to be protecting you. When I was following Duras near the start of the game, I would be attacked by something while I was maybe 3 metres behind him and he would just keep running. When following someone, if you go a few metres off the road to pick a plant they stop and EVERY TIME you come back towards them they will say something like "Let's keep going!". If you walk more than a couple of metres ahead of a character who is taking you somewhere, they just stop until you walk back into range. There's much, much more I could critique, but this is the max length of a review. So basically, unless mechanics don't matter to you, don't buy this.

As a huge fan of the Gothic series, this game scratches that itch for exploration, looting and environmental story telling very well. The feeling of barely surviving, until you manage to climb the ladder, explore, do some quests etc. from back in the day carries over very well (at least on the hardest difficulty). There is some jankiness, souring the experience a bit for me, which is why I can't give it five stars. Also, maybe you need to detract another star, if you didn't enjoy the Gothic series or similar games. Combat: Very imbalanced: Weapons and powers fluctuate between useless and overkill. World geometry sometimes interferes especially with melee combat - as you shove an enemy around, it suddenly becomes impossible to hit, due to being slightly above/below you. Very annoying when every hit counts. Story: The main story is alright, but it is told in a poor way. Sometimes Jax will just start monologuing crucial story beats when you hit a certain point in a quest or a place. "Show, don't tell" should apply. The developers know how to do it better, with mini-quests, recordings, letters etc., but the main story seems to stumble and then try to catch up at times. Bugs: Usually regarding flags in conversations: Responses and reactions would imply I finished a quest one way, when I had done something else. Had one crash in 50+ hours, so it's quite stable. Really problematic is that the Cold status (see below) has display problems, showing the wrong level. Very slight spoiler regarding Cold: There's a sort-of-but-not-really morality system with Cold. Choices, dialogue options and consumption of certain items affects your Cold status. Be aware that your Cold level affects much more than just flavour text: Some of the quest paths depend on it, not on your decisions as a player. Not being aware of this, you may feel railroaded in certain quests and especially towards the end of the game. Overall: Great for fans of the genre. Probably just above average for others.