Boring story, boring characters, boring loot, boring world, boring factions, boring progression.
I'm a fan of Gothic 2, Gothic 3, Risen 2, and Risen 3.
You esentially start in a tutorial corridor (why does Piranha game even have one?) before some NPC forces you into a lecture about factions, his opinions and life mottos. Who listens to this? Then he leads me to Goliet. Classic Gothic move-I lure an enemy to him so he kills it for me. Except... he dies. Yes. The first F*CKING ENEMY (a Reaver) killed him. Turns out, it had a skull icon, meaning it was way higher level.
Then? in Goliet DOZENS OF MINUTES OF DIALOGUE. Everyone asks about factions. The city is huge, yet lifeless. NPCs are braindead—steal something, and everyone aggros on you. But lure them to a skull-level troll, and they all die. Free loot! But it's still just junk. Stealing? Pointless. NPCs don’t care if you rob them, but everything is junk. I stole a sword from Goliet’s second-highest official-only five more damage than my current garbage weapon.
The Skill System – Wasting Time
Spent four levels to get better shop prices. Turns out, it’s 5% better. FIVE. If something costs 10 Elexit, it still costs 10 Elexit after this useless perk. And it’s like this for everything. The skill tree is bloated with pointless perks.
The Bugs
Piranha Bytes games have bugs. It’s part of their charm. But ELEX is something else. If an city NPC is mad at you, ALL OTHER enemies on map ignore you.
Combat
Combat is dull. Every enemy has two attacks: 1. Stupid charge attack 2. Stupid ranged attack (because you have a jetpack, so everyone has range attack now) Bows? Useless. In Gothic, enemies staggered when hit, in ELEX, they don’t.
The world is huge, but empty. Everything is a reskinned Gothic asset with a new name. Healing plants? Different name. Mana plants? Different name. Meatbugs? Different name. And I just don’t care. Looting is pointless. A "skull" enemy camp had a lockpick, wine, spoon, arrows in chests.
Soulless.
