Just amazing, it says it all.
Do recommend for all Gothic & Risen fans, newcommers are also welcome)
What I miss a bit is music experience and actors' voices (localization) which should make you drown into the game, which is perfect in G & R , Witcher series either, but i feel like not enough of it in Elex 1. This is purely personal, may not be the case for you.
Good luck!
I am not much of a fan of the sci-fi genre, but I admit I found the blend between fantasy and sci-fi pretty interesting. I will start with the positives first.
The story and the lore were good, with several unexpected twists along the way. The open world is massive, PB's biggest one yet and it feels very well done, with different variety of enemies in the different environments, similar to Gothic 3. In terms of exploration there is a lot to see and find, helped by the ability to use a jetpack which also gives the option of vertical exploration.
Most of the quests are interesting with at least a couple of ways to complete them. You can definitely feel Gothic vibes in some of the quests and also in some of the factions' motivations (An orderly camp, a religious camp and a lawless camp that values profit above all else, sounds familiar?).
The combat can be pretty clunky until you get used to it or acquire certain skills. Ranged combat is far superior to melee combat. You can clearly feel the progression in the game, in the beginning you practically can't kill almost anything and near the mid to end-game you become an absolute wrecking ball, killing most enemies with a couple of shots.
I did not encounter any game-breaking bugs, but the game definitely lacks polish when it comes to quest triggers, dialogue, AI, etc. Visually the world is beautiful. (I edited the config file to remove fog, without it I think the game looks better and it runs smoother). However the character models look pretty dated and lack variety.
I did not like that PB has added respawn to the game, unlike previous games, but that is a personal preference. I also did not like that in the end sequence you don't really have a choice to make, it all depends on your "cold rating", so keep that in mind.
Overall the game is certainly no as good as Gothic 1 or 2 or even Risen 1, but it can be fun. I give it 3.5 stars.
For a 2017 game, it is a little pricy, on a sale the game is an absolute steal.
It took me 32 hours to finish this game to an allmost 100%-stat (questwise, with only 1 seemingly bugged quest and the romance-options left out). You could probably shave off 10 hours off of that, since I ran around like a bum for the first 10 hours, saveing up skillpoints/abilitypoints and doing every factionquest before takeing on the coat of any of them. By the end of it, I had no problems with anything the game offered me. 10 hours of moderate fun and roughly 22 hours of extensive exploration and plotline-finishing.
Here are my thoughts.
First off, the Good:
+ A nice array of characters and factions
+ Interesting worlddesign with some really nice screenshot-setups
+ A challange in it's early gameplay with somewhat rewarding character-progression
Now the Bad:
- The combat-system
It tries to emulate the darksouls-stamina bar, but does so badly, since damage is based allmost only on your equiped weapon. This means that not your mobility and reactions determine the outcome of a fight, but how well you can wait for the bad AI to expend their stamina so you can unload your quickattack into the enemy, hopeing your weapon does enough scaleing damage after the first 2 hits.
- The characterprogression-system
Most skills outside of the combat-skilltree have no impact on the gameplay. Even those do not have a higher impact than %-bonuses to dmg. Most damning, they encourage you to gimp your character by pumping useless skills to be able to pass arbitrary skill-checks in dialouge for extra rewards/questoutcomes etc. It's just a drain on your allready too plentyfull skillpointpool.
- The Story
It's a sequal-setup. And a unnatural one. Gothic 2 followed Gothic 1 from a finished plot. The return of the sleeper was as much a surprise for the nameless hero as it was for you. Here, it isn't.
The Ugly
# The graphics
# The voicework (even the german one is weak, emotionless)
Conclusion:
In absence of great games, even the weak can shine. For some.
To make it short: I've always loved the Gothic-Style RPGs and am quite happy they stay true to their roots whilst experimenting with other settings. There's nothing quite like these sort of RPGs, they are rough, unpolished and often unforgiving... yet I love them to pieces. And for this review to not be completely irrelevant, here's a pro and con list:
PRO:
+ Atmosphere an Immersion
+ Soundtrack
+ Feeling of Secrets hidden everywhere
+ Open World
+ VERY long game
+ Lots to do and explore
+ Interesting Setting
+ Story is quite good
CON:
- Unpolished, often clunky (especially combat)
- Graphics not really up to date
- Very unforgiving, especially so in the beginning
- The Menu structure and descriptions are horrible and are flat-out lies sometimes
- Some dialogue trees make no sense ("We will meet as enemies on the battlefield, I'm afraid" - then fights alongside you)
All in all, I'd recommend this game to anyone that has enjoyed a GOTHIC or RISEN game before. If you haven't... I suppose it's pretty hit-or-miss, I can imagine the difficulty at the beginning driving a LOT of people off.
When Andreas Pankratz introduced the game, I was not really excited. I was a huge fan of gothic 1-3 and risen 1, whilst risen 2-3 seemed to be pretty bad for me. When Elex was introduced, it felt liek they just wanted to do new stuff for the sake of it. Boy was I wrong.
I had a lot of fun in this game. It may not be on the level of WItcher 3 and has many flaws, that's why only 4 stars. However, I naver had that mich fun and excitement exploring the map, caves and dungeons. THe start is so hard, and you are afraid to die all the time. I played as a beserk, and every skill you learned, every new armour and weapon made you really feel stronger. The map is designed so beatifully. If you live hard RPGs, and exploring beafutiful and exciting locations, this game might be what you are looking for.