I just played through ELEX & - hell, was this an ambivalent experience. But it was worth it. To give you an overview I will list pros & cons. PROS: - Atmosphere. Oh, it has a LOT of that. The different design of the "worlds". The language, the jokes. There are a lot of easter eggs about the developers' previous works (Gothic & Risen series) & (German) gaming culture. - The "Gothic-feeling". Well. Yeah. You know.... They do this right. - The quests. This is an ambivalent thing because the quests often are "fetching" quests & some players might not like this. Some NPC says "Go to place X & get item Y" or "...fight monster(s) Z". You do just that & return to that NPC & get your reward. And remember "I don't have any money, but you know, the experience is your real reward.". ;) Some players might find this too stupid. But if you are a person with an everyday-job & don't play 12 hours a day every day, you will like this. E.g. in Witcher 3 you start a quest & 20 in-game-hours later you are confronted with an important decision related to that quest. But in real life what you did was 1-2 weeks ago & you cannot remember what the hell all that was even about. In ELEX that will not happen to you because quests are usually done "in one go". But nevertheless this game makes you feel like all you do DOES matter during the main questline & it's really easy to follow the story even if you have a real life besides gaming. - The armours. The weapons. They look really good, they (mostly) feel very good. - The story. - The jetpack. At first I thought it was kind of cheesy, but it really gives the game a new dimension to explore. ...and a way to evade/fight during combat. - NASTY! "Nasty loves you". Better than fighting the Hybrid. I love my little b*tch. CONS: - FRUSTRATION. I chose the hard way - I did not consume any Elex during the whole game. This means that for about 10-15 hours I did not get any "learning points", so I wasn't able to obtain any new skills/get stronger. For the first 20 hours all I did was running away from monsters. But after that (or sooner if you chose to consume said potions) even the combat gets quite entertaining. - The combat mechanics. Seriously, what where they thinking?! During combat there is a really annoying "auto-focus" system & almost all the animations take far too long. Why couldn't they make you focus on an enemy & UNfocus on an enemy by pressing a joystick/button? You get hit/killed so much just because animations take far too long & you cannot evade or cancel the animation. Just...WHY? I died so many times just because Jax wouldn't drink his f******* health potions in time. "Swig that sh**!!!" - Missing effort/ability to polish the game. You get stuck at literally every rock there is. Especially during combat this is really annoying. And during non-combat portions it just takes away all the immersion. It feels like the jetpack was added as an excuse for not polishing the environment (because you can just "fly away" from everything that stops you). ELEX is a really addictive game, the story is engaging & the combat - if you are willing to master it - can even be fun. I am really excited & can't wait for part 2. I'd recommend it to everyone who likes a well-made action/adventure-RPG that focuses on story & atmosphere & is willing to adapt to a rather imperfect combat system. Or if you are a die-hard Piranha bytes/Gothic/Risen-fan - you will love this.
