Elex really is just Gothic with better graphics. Gothic had its charm back in 2001 and players put up with the clunky combat and buggy, unbalanced mechanics and gameplay because we didnt know any better. But there is no excuse for this broken mess in 2017/18. The combat is worse than Witcher2 on release day, every single enemy will kill you with a few attacks or directly oneshot you. The animations are so bad, you cant predict movements, you cannot reliably evade, parry or attack. The shooting and magic is still on a level of quality you would find in steam asset-flip games. Like every Piranhabytes game you have to spend HOURS upon HOURS stealing and pickpocketing everything you can while evading oneshotting enemies until you have enough money to buy fighting capabilities. And then still with lvl20+ and badass weaponry that you spent 30h to get, your ass gets handed to you by random enemy groups because good gear doesnt fix your broken fighting and enemy AI. This is not good nostalgia, just 16 year old mechanics and animations packaged in a nice wrapping. At the very least, watch some gameplay videos before you decide to buy.
So Witcher 3 definetely has its problems by the time I write this. There are bugs and glitches (though nothing gamebreaking), the controls are sometimes really frustrating (especially near anything that resembles water) and the menu interface is consolized and pretty uncomfortable. However, the positives outweigh the negatives by far. I've played about 124h and seen probably the major chunk of side quests this game offers. It is the most immersive, best written and voice-acted RPG I have ever played and dethroned the Baldurs Gate series for me personally. Even little choices you make have an impact on other little things, that more than often dont reward you anything, but simply adds to the feel that you - as a player - matter in this world. The amount of attention to detail is astonishing. Everything in the Witcher 3 world looks unique and every place has it's story to tell, not like other open world games like Far Cry or Shadows of Mordor. I can't praise the writing enough, there are not good/bad/neutral choices as in your typical copy/pasta Bioware RPG, everything you are able to say during conversations is meaningful and contributes to the dialog, sometimes it is better not to say certain things but you must choose by yourself what those things are. The writing definetely follows the motto quality over quantity and I like this very much after playing games like StarWarsToR or Dragon Age, where there is way too much dialog for dialogs sake. Hell, even when asking for more money on witcher contracts, you'll hear variable voice-acted lines. That wasnt necessary, but such small things add a lot. The main story line was amazing, and the end very satisfying. Do you remember this one sidequest where you helped this old guy find a black pearl for his wife? I chose to tell him, that spoiled lady better be valuing our effort. After he told his story, I felt like a sack of shite for making that comment. It's just a game, but these kinds of moments let you forget that.
