It's not just a "great tribute", "very nostalgic", "SNES throwback". To hell with those things. It is, more importantly, a game with surprising amount of enemy variety, solid combat that keeps evolving throughout the game, and a very well-written story. It shows a lot of love with the attention to details throughout all the game, and it's supremely well-crafted. I know I'm not the only one to whom all the babbling about retro, nostalgia and beautiful pixels raises a red flag. So this review is for people like me. I recommend it wholeheartedly.
For the most part, the game plays the same as Elex 1. They did, however, improve in many areas where the first game was lacking. RPG systems are no longer as barebones. There are a lot more perks to choose from, stats actually have an effect by themselves, stat checks are tied to stats instead of number of skill points spent. Melee combat no longer tries to combine stamina management with rhythm game, instead just using stamina. It's also quicker, and enemies seem less spongy. In addition, all enemies now have stamina that can be drained by your attacks to knock them down when it gets to 0, not just humanoids. So it's finally not a strictly inferior option compared to ranged. It's interesting to see the changed world compared to Elex 1 (like Tavar taken over by Berserkers and becoming green). Some people have mentioned the eye strain. It is indeed present, and I seriously hope they'll do something about that with patches. For me it's not a deal breaker, but I guess it can be for some.
In terms of presentation, the game is good. Really good. I can see the reason for all the praise. In terms of mechanics, it's a lot more shallow than it seems to be. Despite seeming complexity, there is very little to character building and combat strategy boils down to a few simple heuristics. That can be disappointing, but it's not the end of the world. The UI, however, is just not functional. The camera keeps getting stuck and refusing to move. That happens all the time in combat. Sometimes, the game will just ignore your clicks because some decorative piece of debri on the foreground covers that cell on the battlefield. Yeah, guys, I certainly want to target that piece of decoration, nevermind it's not possible. Sometimes, worse yet, a popup causes the same issue. There are pieces of tech you can scan during the battle, and that's indicated by a small window that says "Scan". Guess what? It blocks your clicks to, so if you are unlucky and want to move to the cell where that popup is positioned, you have to carefully find a spot that isn't covered. The font choice is terrible, because D there looks like O and 0. It's mildly amusing to read "1 OMG" instead of "1 DMG". It's not funny or amusing to read it as "10 MG" at a glance and think someone just dealt 10 instead of 1. The character upgrade UI does not show how many free augment slots it has. It shows the total, and it shows how much each piece of equipment takes, but it refuses to show this other piece of vital information. Some icons are clickable for absolutely no reason at all. How about an icon for a passive upgrade in reward menu? Clicking it does nothing, but it reacts visually. That's just inconsistent. And the funniest part? It's been 3 years since release. They found time to make a DLC. But they couldn't find time to fix the camera.
You will see almost everything this game has to offer over the few couple of hours. You will know 90% of mechanics, read 90% of dialogue and in general see most of its content. Yet you'll have another 20 hours of grind ahead of you.
