ELEX II

I really enjoy Elex and Elex II - no other game essentially plays as "Conan the Barbarian found jetpacks and laser rifles". After the novelty wears off, though, there are some things I hate. First, everything single thing is STILL stat-locked like the last game. You can get the best weapons in a couple hours of new start, but it will be a month of grinding before you have the stats to wield them. Second, by the time you can wield the best weapons you have stats that allow you to essentially one-shot just about everything with a broken rusty hat pin. BORING. Clerics were my favorite in the first game. They've essentially sacrificed everything and are a depressing, dying breed in this one. MAGIC STILL SUCKS HORRIBLY. Outlaw skills still suck, Clerics literally have NOTHING now but a Last Stand and Resistance skill, Albs and Berserkers rule overall. NO SUMMONING. At least you can kind of renew magic in the field without potions. Finally, things just seems a lot more empty and depressing than the last game. I really enjoyed Elex 1, as I have Aspergers and I really felt like I could connect to Jax on feelings. I loved a "Cold" playthrough, being "Emotional" for no apparent reason really seemed like art imitating life. I also remember the levels, hunting in desert, lava field, the frozen North, seashores, etc. Elex II feels different. More compressed. Ruins don't feel handcrafted and are smaller, I don't get the sense I am running through a post-apocalypse, just copy-paste buildings and environments. Hell, even the first game had irradiated apartments that had gotten partially submerged in a swamp along with a factory at the bottom of a waterfall in a giant sinkhole. This is: fields with grass (Berserker everywhere), fields with snow (the North which is like 45% of the game), and a pile of scrap (Outlaws). That's the entire game. THERE ALSO AREN'T ENOUGH MONSTERS! Elex 1 was special, even the desert was interesting. This... got the jetpack right.

Piranha Bytes have effectively abandoned Elex 2 before they resolved any of it's glaring issues. There are some promising combat and QoL changes that made this game promising, however, the performance issues combined with the massive downgrade in human models and the horrid camera make this a pass. PB have basically admitted they're done supporting this game, it's not worth bothering with unless the community fixes it. And it's too broken to draw enough of the community to bother. RIP PB

The first one had more to offer. This game feels empty and there are only 3 different biomes (forest, snow, wasteland). The game heavily implies that you should join berserkers, they have the most interesting story, most story time overall and best magic (fireballs from the sky are OP). The real alternative to the Berserkers are Albs (Skill wise). Every other faction has more or less nothing to offer to the player. The story is "meh" but so was the first one. Also, there are constant crashes, when I try to open my inventory or a trader's inventory. I feel like the patches made it worse over time. Items are sometimes labeled lazy (standard, excellent and so on) instead of what rank they represent. Shields are useless. Why block when you can jump away and get no damage at all? AI is really dumb. Get the high ground and kill them with a ranged weapon. Half of them can't even do anything if you do that. I get that this isn't a AAA game, but this game feels like a unfinished beta, if I'm honest.

I bought this at a discount and I recommend you wait for that opportunity, too. I wouldn't be so generous at full price. This sequel plays much better than the first game, while still feeding that itch for exploration and looting. Especially the melee combat system is improved. Boosting your character to maximum power is also far easier, which takes away some of the challenge, but the overall flow is much better. The environments vary from very pretty to desolate. While it's nice to see how places from the first game have evolved, some of the new areas are too dull. The factions and their quests are nice and varied: Berserkers haven't just invaded but melded with the Outlaws (some interesting internal conflict), Albs have become a shady group you can join and Morkons are far more complex than their spiky death-cult image would suggest. The "proper" Outlaws and the Clerics have been downgraded to secondary factions, but are still worth getting into. Staying neutral/not joining any faction is also an option now. Where the game starts to lose me are your companions: Some of them are just unbearable now and a lot of their quests are sadly very formulaic. I did these more out of a sense of obligation than enjoyment. The same must be said for many of the main quests in the game. Especially towards the end, far, far, FAR too many quests are a simple "go here and kill 10-30 marked enemies", with barely any flavor text or proper reason given: Attacking armies and hordes of creatures just... show up. And while I really enjoyed the various optional missions, the main story feels cobbled together and is again poorly told through monologues and stilted interactions. Events that are meant to be tragic fail miserably to evoke a reaction. Others are nonsensical. I can forgive much of this, since the main part of the game - exploration, side missions - are really well done and enjoyable. Just be prepared for a bit of a nonsensical slog towards the end. Oh, and bring a shotgun.

The terrible performance and the total silly, zooming camera is hindering me to enjoy the game at all. I get 40-65 fps, 1440p on a 8700k / 3070 / 32 gb ram.