EleX - Review

INTRO. ("Like Gothic but 1000 years later")

It's a miracle that 30 people are able to make a game like this. I must say that although I do not consider The Witcher 3 a rpg with the capital "r", for reasons that will be clarified in a separate review, ELEX is the only RPG that surprised me after the release of the so called masterpiece of the CD-Project. Piranha or not Piranha, Gothic or not Gothic this ELEX is super ambitious but not at all for everyone. It's still a fan-service title because Elex has all the advantages and weaknesses of all the PB games ... starting from Gothic 1 but excluding Gothic 2 which for many is the perfect RPG from all points of view after Fallout 2, Deus Ex and Planescape: Torment. So if you are not a fan of PB, forget it. Elex is more concentrated than the previous Risen and is certainly better than that abomination of Risen 2. It is certainly better than Risen 3 even if it was a nice game but easily forgettable given its edgy development and at times approximated. So A QUESTION FROM $ 100,000. Is ELEX FINALLY THE GOTHIC'S HEIR?

EXPLORATION.

I must say that the world is fantastic, exploration is enjoyable and the jetpack is an innovation to say the least revolutionary. In fact, the entire map was built and forged by hand to make sure that the jetpack is used in the best way. So expect a truly memorable vertical exploration. Here it is no longer a matter of horizontal exploration but of VERTICAL exploration: <Hey where does that road lead? Wait, I can fly that plateau up there! What will there ever be?!> The map on the other hand sometimes feels empty. Some locations could have been filled with something more interesting, instead of having locations like Skyrim (empty and without a background). The map has a function closely related to the jetpack and does not offer breathtaking views or memorable views. Everything seems flat and little inspired in the artistic composition of the landscapes. It feels like that the map was built specifically and only for the use of the jetpack reducing the game world to a some sort of sandbox, thus sacrificing so much the immersion that was typical of PB products. I would add that the world does not seem very organic and not at all "alive" from the point of view of the advancement of story. If the monsters, npcs and quest changed position in Gothic with each chapter, giving the illusion that at every event of the main story progression the npc had a life of their own, making everything nicer, here in Elex this does not happen. Yes, certainly in chapter 4 we can see more Albs than the previous chapters, but the change is not so radical. All this because the secondary quests are exaggeratedly far from the main quest which turns out to be a sort of personal revenge that has nothing to do with the world surrounding Jax (the protagonist).

PLOT.

Ok about the plot I would not say anything for spoiler reasons. Let's say that "the fate of Magalan" reminds "the fate of the world" in Gothic 3. Up to the first half of the 4th chapter the main plot is based on understanding the reasons why Jax was the victim of a plot planned by the higher ranks of the Albs. Then from the second half of the fourth chapter Jax finds himself facing a choice related to the future of the planet. The plot, however, although not very original, has been written in order to make it seem as intriguing as possible. It is evident that the writers have done everything to make the story and the main quest as complex as possible and I am on their side. But I saw better stories to be honest (The Witcher). There are a couple of holes that need to be filled. Good story but not perfect.

RPG ELEMENT.

As for the RPG element on the other hand I can say that we are at the same levels of Fallout New Vegas which is good. "The consequences of the actions" will be credible (more or less) and they will effect only the main plot and NOT ... and again ... NOT THE WORLD OF THE GAME. The RPG element reminds me a lot of The Witcher, even though here the system is more simplified and is a little less ramified. But warnings! I played ELEX straight so that my coldness attribute was higher as possible for reasons of maximizing the character's build efficiency. Having a high coldness score leads to a reduction in the choices of dialogue, so in a few words I could not take advantage of all the RPG's ramifications. Sometimes in the other RPGs the consequences of the actions are seen immediately after a few minutes, but here it works like The Witcher: <If I help the Clerics, then the Berserkers will get angry in the future>. But I do not understand why the dialogues have ups and downs. The main characters have interesting lines of dialogue and in general the dialogs in ELEX are very long! But in many cases these dialogues mask without any success the little originality of some secondary quests that are unlocked by npcs that have no narrative weight, placing themselves as quest dispensers like in Gothic 3. The same goes for the dub: some voices are really well set and some others are embarrassing. Other secondary quests are very interesting and consequently there are also beautiful dialogs (equally long) that are pleasant and information-rich and do everything to make us identify within Jax or any other secondary characters. The companions have quests and just like all the quests in the game, these ones have pros and cons: Caja, Ray and Nasty have important quests that connect to the main storyline while the Duras's and Falk's quests try to be interesting but at the end they are forgettable, despite presenting some small surprises. Instead, Arx and U4 have really horrible quests that turn out to be quests that look like if they come from some MMOs: <Go there and kill those bad guys that spawn specifically to be killed>. And now that I think about it, some secondary quests have, like Gothic 3, some MMO flavor. Instead, other quests are the exact opposite, which means that they have a well-placed narrative context but that at the level of gameplay they just simply result in a simple: [BRING OBJECT TO THE NPC B!] But that anyway have their own meaning. For example, the city's quests under the dome (yes ... they have resurrected Vengard) that eventually will change the balance of power between factions, depending on our choices. One last observation to make is that it will not only be the choices that influence the future but also the inaction! Exactly! Not completing some quests will result in consequences. I give a small example: In the base of the clerics there is Anna who assigns us to provide her some spare parts cips for the mechs whic are important for the city's security. These mechs were used for the safety of the fortress as the clerics now have not enough men. If we do not carry out this task we will see after 2-3 days some mechs attacking the inhabitants of the fortress and then Anna will be mad at us. The mechs during the malfunction of course will be destroyed and when Ulbricht (commander of clerics) will make a frontal assault to a converter Alb, will not have enough mechs to make an effective assault and at the end he will die! At the level of gameplay it is simply a quest that is reduced to:" GIVE THIS OBJECT TO ANNA" but has a domino effect that effects on another quest. Who does such quests? Gothic and The Witcher.

COMBAT SYSTEM AND GAMEPLAY.

The combat system on the chart is ell done but technically it is not. The fighting is copied from Dark Souls but with slower animations to be managed, eventually adopting a more methodical philosophy rather than action one. Slowness is a lesser evil forcing us in making more planned strategies and the combo bar on the bottom left is a reminiscent of Street Fighter. With each hit concatenated correctly, the bar will gradually fill. If you click repeatedly without going in time with the animations, then the bar will not load. Thanks to this the player will use better his attacks and gain a certain awareness on the battlefield. Once the bar is filled, the player can make a special attack that will do much more damage than the heavy attack. There are basically two attacks: with the left button you make the quick attack and with E the heavy attack. Q is the special attack. Yes, the commands are horrible so much that I tried a combination more suited for me which replaces E and Q with the side buttons of the mouse. Fortunately, the PB have given free choice to the player to change all the parameters of the game. You can simplify the combos, the damage received from the enemies and you can even remove the stamina. Funny on the other hand is the ranged combat system. The combination of firearms and jetpacks is very reminiscent of Mass Effect: Andromeda. The problem with ELEX is that unfortunately the animations are horrible and not very natural. Unfortunately we are in 2017 and an engine like the Genome Engine is now to be scrapped. Because of these cluncky animations and little redefinition, the melee combat system becomes frustrating especially in the first hours and no matter how much someone is a fan or not, it will take time to adapt. The character development is well done and the builds of the three factions are traditionally balanced. The problem is that on the stats and skills screen there is no useful information about ​​the effects of the individual abilities.

In the end ELEX is a game that aims a lot and can hardly put itself as a "giant RPG". The technology of the Genome Engine does not do justice to the beautiful game mechanics but on the other hand ELEX offers a funny but monotonous exploration, an engaging but not an original storyline, an RPG element that has made progress and a well-conceived combat system but penalized by poor animations. The PB fans will still find the spirit of Gothic in this ELEX, and they will be allowed to forget those two Risens that were a disappointment but the game is still off limits to all the other players. If I can give advice to the legendary Piranha Bytes, without any doubt it would be to expand the staff, change the engine and increase the budget. It is evident that ELEX on paper proposes interesting mechanics but the development is marked by a lack of human, technological and economic resources that make the difference. Obviously, however, the issue is very delicate for a small-sized softwerehouse.

Game is so so!