ELEX - Review

HiddenX

The Elder Spy
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LastKnownMeal reviewed ELEX:

WTF is Going on with ELEX? - 65 DAYS LATER



It's been more than 65 days since the release of ELEX, a new RPG by PiranhaBytes. Today we take a look at the current state of the game and we will find out if this game is worth your money.
More information.
 
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I pre-ordered from GOG and played it over 100 hours. Sure, it's got some warts and quirks, but nothing that turned me off or spoiled the game for me. Combat seems to be the most common complaint. I've played most of PB's games and expect combat to be bit eccentric, so I just adapted my play style to it. Once I familiarized myself with its behavior, I didn't give it much more thought.
I'd buy it again and plan to buy Elex 2 if it ever comes out. I'd recommend it and grade it 8/10.
 
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Not a rabid PB fanboy...
Elex has been my favorite game of 2017 hands down.
Couldn't remember the last time I had so much fun with a game.
 
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I loved the Gothic's and I'm loving this. Great game. :)

Daniel.
 
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I don't understand some schism between the comments and the video:
- The comments say the combats can be unfair and can ruin difficulty and immersion (sigh), but the video shows someone playing well the combats (he improved a lot since original review), using well dodges, and no way the video shows any unfair combats.
- He complains about patterns because they can't be found in other video games (strange complain) but videos show nothing of that.

I gave up listen fully without few quick forward, but overall, I can't say other aspects mentioned are invalid, it's ok opinions, and I share more or less many and not some other.

Another detail, about all the comments on Elex 2, that's too much, Elex 2 isn't released and nobody can make any safe prediction about it.

Otherwise yeah it's an obvious great game and it's not some flawed aspects, various glitches, and many potential improvements that can change it.
 
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Actually he said near the start that the animations and combat would sometimes ruin the difficulty and immersion of the game. He got those crossed but its pretty clear its the animations that are hurting the immersion, not the difficult combat.
 
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I've been playing this a bit and I will admit that I'm a bit lost on what they want me to do in the beginning. A lot of the missions will take me to areas I die right away unless I sneak in past some pretty powerful bad guys. I can do that, but I think maybe I'm missing some area that will allow me to level up a bit better?

Also, the animations are poor at best, I mean there is literally no falling animation...your guy just stands in one place as he falls. This game is definitely not about the graphics.

I'm having fun, but trying to level can be a bit frustrating at the moment.
 
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He does have a falling animation... sometimes :)

I thought that was fixed in the new patch.
 
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I've been playing this a bit and I will admit that I'm a bit lost on what they want me to do in the beginning. A lot of the missions will take me to areas I die right away unless I sneak in past some pretty powerful bad guys. I can do that, but I think maybe I'm missing some area that will allow me to level up a bit better?

Probably not, it does get easier though if you persevere and kill said enemies. I've found that even the hardest enemies can be defeated if you play carefully. While I enjoy getting close and doing melee jetpack attacks, I will typically pepper enemies with arrows, poison, grenades, fire, anything really that gets them down to a more manageable level, then finish them off in melee.

Getting an ally ASAP really helps, especially one who has a grenade launcher or who throws fireballs. ;)

Now at level 23 (and a Berserker) I've found I can defeat enemies with a bit more ease and I have many more methods with which to beat them.

One tip for those who need plenty of ammo, is to trade with a vendor, buy all the arrows then exit. Then trade again and the vendor will have restocked. You can buy as many as you need. I keep around 500 arrows on hand typically.

Daniel.
 
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Duras tells you what you should do at the beginning. Join a faction, make friends, do jobs to earn money to buy better gear and improve your skills. You're supposed to get a companion ASAP (the game says in plain text "Duras will help you survive in Magalan" and Duras himself tells you during the conversation what to expect in the world, i.e. it's very dangerous, there is death around every corner, etc..) Rather than that dialogue being typical RPG "flavor text" of no consequence, it actually describes how the game functions and directly applies to the world.

Another little (or big?) feature which I love about Piranha Bytes games. Their dialogue and in-game lore actually applies to the world. I.e. if an NPC says "you'll get eaten alive in that forest if you go in with just the clothes on your back", you will actually get eaten alive in that forest if you aren't wearing decent armor. :) Gotta pay attention to the in-game dialogue.
 
Duras tells you what you should do at the beginning. J

Rather than that dialogue being typical RPG "flavor text" of no consequence, it actually describes how the game functions and directly applies to the world.

if an NPC says "you'll get eaten alive in that forest if you go in with just the clothes on your back", you will actually get eaten alive in that forest if you aren't wearing decent armor. :) Gotta pay attention to the in-game dialogue.

Meaningful Dialogue - Another MMO themed casualty.

Who reads dialogue? And when does it matter?
"King 'whoever' needs forest cleared of 'mob' for 'reason'"

"Dark scary place, blah blah, haunted locals for years, but you can do it at level 3 with a tin can and a sharp stick"

"Biggest baddest boss in the whole universe that is threatening mankind as we know it, wiped out civilizations, don't worry, thats this patches endgame and can be done with minimal crafted gear"

After a while nobody takes NPC's seriously. Thats partially why there is such an uproar in games when the quests don't give you a shiny yellow !!!!! (or local flavor equivalent) over what you are to find. They didn't read it, they are just going from ! to !.
 
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Elex is full of shiny yellows and magical guides, though - and you can take on the entire world at level 15 as a demi-god because the balance is crap once you break the curve.

But the intention was good, I guess.

Same is true for a lot of games using the old-school punishment for the sake of punishment approach.

Even classic AD&D is like that. You start out a wimp being wiped out by Kobolds sneezing at you - and you end up juggling dragons and picking demon flesh out of your teeth with a toothpick around level 12-ish.

I guess some people think that's a world full of "danger" - but I certainly don't.

I like games that challenge you in terms of your skill and knowledge of game mechanics - that you can only master by being good at them.

Not a lot of those around, though.

Why? Because it takes a lot of effort to properly balance your games. Blizzard tend to be very good at it - though they go out of their way to make the beginning soft. But their (very) end-game content is HARD unless you master the mechanics and develop personal skill.

Dark Souls is another great example - only it has little else EXCEPT that part, which sort of makes the whole excercise of mastering it pointless.
 
Hmm I have played more and gotten a lot better.

A few things I don't like though...

The skill/weapon system/ability scores...why allow me to upgrade a weapon but not be able to use it after? seems weird.

Everything is tied into how many points you have in an ability.

Some quests are a bit off...for instance someone asks me to find his bow...but his character has a bow on his back:p

Also, say you are exploring and hit an area that a cutscene may happen....it jars you over to an area where it will happen so that it can...no matter if you are right on top of it.

This is another good game with flaws by them, I wish they would clean things up a bit more, that's what is stopping them from being great.
 
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You can see what the new requirements will be before you complete the upgrade.

Yes, but say I take that skill at the start it useless as I cannot upgrade anything.
 
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Yes, they really should have made upgrades work differently. They should be smaller but NOT require better stats. That way, you would be happier actually finding new and better weapons - and upgrades would not only be useful, they would also make sense.

Just have them be 10-15% better so it's noticable - but not so much that it breaks the curve outright.

As it is now, there's almost no difference between upgrading a weapon and finding a better one. You still have to wait ages for your stats to match.

Beyond that, it's completely stupid that you modify a weapon at a workbench - and then it magically deals twice the damage, and you can't use it for ages.

That's QUITE the upgrade :)
 
I'm not sure why anyone would take that skill at the start in a game where the requirements are tied to the character's stats.

I picked it as one of my first skills, because I definitely didn't expect upgraded weapons to require vastly superior stats. In fact, I assumed it would work like the vast majority of other RPGs - where crafting upgrades are relatively minor and don't require stat upgrades at all.

The game is extremely unintuitive when it comes to skills and their functions.

Obviously, once you know the game and how it works - it's a different story.

In this case, I think it's quite safe to assume rune didn't deliberately pick a skill that was useless to him at that point.
 
I picked it as one of my first skills, because I definitely didn't expect upgraded weapons to require vastly superior stats. In fact, I assumed it would work like the vast majority of other RPGs - where crafting upgrades are relatively minor and don't require stat upgrades at all.

The game is extremely unintuitive when it comes to skills and their functions.

Obviously, once you know the game and how it works - it's a different story.

In this case, I think it's quite safe to assume rune didn't deliberately pick a skill that was useless to him at that point.

Except that PB's games have always worked that way in regards to using a better weapon.

I do agree that the stat increases are high, but I assume that's because PB wanted to limit the amount of upgrades on any given weapon. It would be sort of reduntant to have a War Bow VII for example.

The unintuitiveness is certainly valid though. I complained about that from the very beginning.
 
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