ELEX II

Other people have already said most of what needs to be said about this game, so I'll just summarize briefly and address some points that I feel are relevant. Graphics are worse than in the first game, particularly the character models. Writing is bad and seemed to get worse as the game progressed. Voice acting is done competently (I think the voice actor for Falk did a particularly good job by making the character sound a bit like a text-to-speech generator). Combat feels more fluid than in the first game, but I still hate how you can accidentally hit neutral NPCs (fighting the same enemies as you) and have them turn hostile. The jetpack now feels like an actual jetpack. Fast travel is good and not having to worry about carry capacity is also nice. Exploration and Companions are fun and hold the game up throughout the first 3-ish chapters. However, towards the end the game relies way too much on repetitive "kill these hordes of enemies" and "raid this former (yet again)" missions, which took a lot of the fun out of the game. The end boss was a joke. And then they pulled basically the same sequel-bait ending from the first game: "impending doom by super-powerful alien threat." There is fun to be had in this game, particularly early to mid game, but definitely wait for a sale before you buy.

...if you played Elex 1. I'm not really sure if the game can be recommended to anyone who isn't a fan of Elex 1 or any game from this studio. But I can tell that not much changed compared to Elex 1. UnfortunateIy, that means this game has less originality and it also lacks the charme of the first one. It's not particularly witty or creative. And also it's not good or bad, it's just mediocre. I must admit that I've been a fanboy of the developers for the longest time, but seeing the general direction of their creative development, I think I won't buy their games anymore in the future.

This is a list of things I actually really like in Elex 2: - the jet-pack is awesome - magic is more interesting and has interesting mechanics (melee fighting with magic fists, sucking elex from corpses to replenish "mana" as an Alb, etc.) - when NPCs are interrupted during talk they acknowledge it and continue where they left off (this a REALLY nice touch) - a good number of legendary items, no too few and not too many Everything else is the same or even worse than in Elex 1: - map is full of wide and open areas that are just empty with no loot or anything interesting besides the landscape, the map not only feels smaller than in Elex 1 but also more empty - performace is bad and weird - faces are just bad - inventory clearly not designed for humans (it's just one big giant list of items) - weird and badly written dialogues, also the translation is probably low quality PB, pls, you need to start learning from your mistakes you keep repeating over and over and over and over and...

Good stuff first. One of it's best qualities is the sense of exploration and adventure. The world invites you to explore. Once you set off on your journey through Magalan, you will almost allways have something new and interesting on your horizon to check out. The jetpack adds another layer to exploration and is very much appreciated. If you like open world games and exploring, you should dig what Elex 2 has to offer. The main story is OK. Where the meat of the game (story-wise) for me lies in ppl's stories in the world. Their inter-personal relationships, their past decisions, conflicts between factions and so on. Since I also played Elex 1, it was interesting to see how the world changed between the two games. I also like the presentation fo the game. The game can look quite pretty at times. The lighting system in particular, mixed with fog and some god rays, can make the scenery look quite striking. Voice acting is done well, making most characters believable. The music, well, it's there. I didn't feel the need to mute it so there's that I suppose. Now for the bad stuff. This game feels very dated. The best comparison I can make is Fallout 4. I said earlier the game CAN look pretty but only from a distance and in specific situations - when there's strong source of light in the scene. Otherwise, the game looks like it's 10+yr old. Same goes for character and facial animations or controls. It all looks and feels janky. The biggest flaw of the game is performance. I can go from 110+ fps in Ignadon to barely 60 in the Fort, what the hell ? It was even worse with the DX11 executable... Dips like that are very noticeable and distracting. I also had a problem where the game would just hang after the first two intro movies. The only way I could make it work is deleting Elex 2 folder from AppData/Local. It was quite annoying. If you are willing to put up with the game's jank, performance issues and other issues, it does offer a captivating experience. You decide :)

I love Elex 1 in almost every aspect of the game. I did wait this for a long time and....i got totally disappointed. 1) The map. How it's possible that I have explored Magalan more than 20 times and in this sequel I can't recognize it ? They cut around Tavar, stretched and deformed it, adding places that never existed before, and call this mess a world. 2) the combat system. What can I say ? totally boring, nothing else. The "Ironman" experience is disappointing, the 2 handed melee weapons are useless, no tactics are required. Just click the mouse fast as much as you can. In elex 1 the Jetpack was well balanced, useful to escape but not too powerful to totally avoid danger. 3) Quests. The quests are stupids, almost useless even to tell a story. The "Crater Siege" is the worst, 1 hour on the mountains to kill 3 animals and walk 3 minutes to reach the next 3, for a total of 100. 4) the technical requirements. Not only the ground seems more fake than Elex 1, it requires a LOT better hardware to run. The game itself was unplayable for months, before they puke out the DX12 patch. In short: Is it so difficult to KEEP the same map and the same mechanics and why not even the graphic models, sparing some time in order to focus on writing a good story, instead of making a mess to improve (and here I laugh) the graphic engine ? Bad, very Bad, useful only to know the story of the comet.