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ELEX ELEX II - Jax is back

notpl

Arbiter
Joined
Dec 6, 2021
Messages
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Just finished it a while ago. Gotta say it gripped me a lot more from the start than the first ELEX, and was overall a more enjoyable experience but a worse game, if that makes sense. I went into it with zero expectation, bought in on GOG so figured if I don't like it after a few hours I'll just refund. However, I got into it pretty quickly as the quest design from the start shows off a lot of promise even though it ends up being extremely inconsistent. Interesting quests that involve investigation, talking to NPCs and exploration, some with multiple solutions, are spread inbetween extremely boring fetch quests and an absolutely ridiculous amount of stupid MMO quests of killing XY amount of trash mobs.

I went with the Berserkers for no other reason but proximity as I can't stand walking in open world games. I'm honestly sick and tired of that and really rarely is a game interesting enough to make it fun and worth it with its exploration. Gotta say though that the world, while largely nonsensical and stupid, is nicely condensed and I like that it's not too big and empty. So it's not entirely bad, especially once you get the jetpack upgrade that lets you "leap" forward quite a lot. It's a fun way to traverse the terrain but even then it's not fun for long, so I ended up looking up the teleporter map and just rushing to them so that I could skip the trip on any of the stupid quests that basically have you fetching stuff from one settlement to the next and then reporting to the quest giver back in the original town, etc. That said, the world has its moments and the vertical exploration is rewarding with cool loot here and there.

Story-wise, it's nothing breathtaking but has its interesting moments. The mystery itself is interesting enough to keep my attention, and the characters involved are intriguing. It's convoluted as shit sometimes with the "twists", but the details and worldbuilding is interesting. There are a few attempts at some philosophical dilemma etc. which are pretty trivial but again, it keeps it a bit more interesting.

The game unfortunately falls apart, in all aspects, towards the end, as is PB tradition. You don't really meet any new enemies, they're just now slightly easier to take down, you probably have the best armor and weapon in the game (they're fairly easy to find if you explore a bit, and some are thrown at you by the game itself) yet you're drowning in money with nothing to spend it on. The story takes a deep dive as well and several completely nonsensical things happen, with people disappearing, stupid shit happening that really doesn't have a place in a 2022 game in my opinion (always hated it when my character was different in cutscenes than in the game, and here even though I had no magic abilities, Jax throws a fireball or whatever in a cutscene). It didn't even feel like typical PB stuff, it felt like they completely rushed it and gave up on any sort of consistency or logic, didn't test it, and as is typical, the QA probably never reached the end game because there's a ridiculous amount of visual bugs in cutscenes, bad dialog, etc. Dex is basically absent 70% of the game and then towards the end gets a massive role only for

him to sacrifice himself and NOBODY reacting. Except for Jax, whose voice actor gives an absolutely ridiculous performance in English, AND the animations is even worse. His face looks like that meme Shepard's face in Mass Effect 2 with his eyebrows raised to the top of his skull, and he sort of does this wavy motion with his arms... it's so bad it's hilarious.

The final set of quests is literally "go to place and kill 20+ enemies" on your own. You spend the whole game building up a supposed central force, you're supposed to be uniting the people or something - this is given A LOT of attention and focus during the first 3/4s of the game, and then it's completely forgotten when it's supposed to give you the reward and you face the finale with a group of like 6 people from your faction + your companions. Not a single member of any other faction, seemingly no matter what standing you have with them. The ending is just rushed, and being able to visit NPCs for endgame dialogue is a good idea, but it's again stupidly inconsistent. One of the leaders of the other factions attacked me but you can't even kill him :lol:

That being said, the first three quarters were fun, it's just a shame the ending was a slog to get through - and you really do just want to get through it and be done with it finally.

The infinite jetpack only really happens after the final quest, which I don't understand. I didn't follow all the marketing for the game but I was under the impression that this was supposed to be a part of it from the start? Other than being able to easily access some of the "secret" loot (which really is fairly obvious, almost every vertical place has a way to get upstairs even with the basic jetpack, it's not difficult, and you almost always know if there's loot. There are maybe 4 exceptions that I could find which require upgrades) I see no way for it to break the game, since they have "invisible murder walls" anyway, flying enemies that could dissuade you at lower levels, and in the end items are level capped anyway.

In fact, it would even display one of the better qualities of the game, and that is that you can get some quests done without knowing, and the world reacts to it (you can kill a group of bandits and then an NPC asks you to accompany them to kill them, but you tell them it's already done, etc). That being said though, they fucked that up too because some of these quest enemies are only spawned in when you're doing that quest and that's a cheap cop out. Then if you're exploring you just find an empty location that has obvious detail and just think "I see, later on there'll be a quest here". Nothing unusual in RPGs, but the game can deal with it in other instances, so it's jarring when it happens.

Overall though, it has that PB charm, sometimes interesting and sometimes awful dialogue, combat that is fun for the first time you meet a new enemy and then never again, interesting world design, fun exploration, some good and some shit awful quests... but that charm won me over and got me to finishing it. I don't think I'll replay it anytime soon, if ever, though I might load an earlier save before I committed to the Berserkers and try some of the other faction quests because those were generally the best fun of the bunch. But probably later, and possibly once some decent trainers are out that give me the infinite jetpack from the start or something, to avoid all the travel.
Minor quibble, and bear in mind I haven't played the game, but as a berserker don't you have magical abilities whether you want them or not? Like even if you chose never to touch them, in elex 1 Jax gained the ability to throw a fireball the second he joined.
 

SoupNazi

Guest
Minor quibble, and bear in mind I haven't played the game, but as a berserker don't you have magical abilities whether you want them or not? Like even if you chose never to touch them, in elex 1 Jax gained the ability to throw a fireball the second he joined.
Nah, there is a skill you need to learn from a trainer in the Berserker camp that you need to even get a mana bar, which I didn't learn. You don't get anything automatically. Plus it's quite obvious from the cutscene that it just takes nothing into account. The enemy you fight in there at this point, I fought with a sword - as in, both of us had swords. No magic was used in the actual fight. When I got him to 1% health, the cutscene started and it showed the fight as the two of us shooting magic at each other :lol: just ridiculous. It doesn't kill the game, but I would not expect it from a 2022 game.
 

lukaszek

the determinator
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Joined
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Messages
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Minor quibble, and bear in mind I haven't played the game, but as a berserker don't you have magical abilities whether you want them or not? Like even if you chose never to touch them, in elex 1 Jax gained the ability to throw a fireball the second he joined.
Nah, there is a skill you need to learn from a trainer in the Berserker camp that you need to even get a mana bar, which I didn't learn. You don't get anything automatically. Plus it's quite obvious from the cutscene that it just takes nothing into account. The enemy you fight in there at this point, I fought with a sword - as in, both of us had swords. No magic was used in the actual fight. When I got him to 1% health, the cutscene started and it showed the fight as the two of us shooting magic at each other :lol: just ridiculous. It doesn't kill the game, but I would not expect it from a 2022 game.
its same even when you dont join berserkers!

Other than being able to easily access some of the "secret" loot
you can reach tallest buildings even without infinite jetpack

anyway im finally done with this shit show.

Biggest disappointment might be weapon crafting. For example captain axe - one of best 1handers. Even if you see enemy wielding one, on death they will drop a mace! To craft enhanced version you need 6 broken axes in total. Through whole game I acquired 2. Had to buy 3rd and didnt have enough money to buy 3 more just to have enough parts. When I acquired such fund ive noticed that its stats are same as unique sword you get earlier...
One thing that seemed worth it was alien staff, but you need to find 20 of them for enhanced version, I came few short.

Btw I havent seen better gems than tier1, nor learnt how to upgrade them?
 
Self-Ejected

Zizka

Self-Ejected
Joined
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Messages
429
I personally couldn’t abide the combat. I just couldn’t. In the 90s maybe as a first experience but not in 2022. They’d have to have known it was substandard. Doesn’t make me want to try Gothic, that’s for sure.

I don’t know what they have in store for their next game, but I sure hope they start from scratch with the action combat. It just doesn’t work. It’s stunning to think they went for such mechanics.
 

cvv

Arcane
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It is still great fun to level up, explore and quest in ELEX 2 despite the game's faults.


What would you say are the biggest flaws? I'm mostly interested in comparisons to E1, what is E2 missing that E1 had?

(In other words I'm not interested in "flaws" like "hurr it's open world and I don't like that", "characters look bad", "VO and writing is terrible" and so on - all those things have present in PB games for the last 20 years).
 

SoupNazi

Guest
It is still great fun to level up, explore and quest in ELEX 2 despite the game's faults.


What would you say are the biggest flaws? I'm mostly interested in comparisons to E1, what is E2 missing that E1 had?

(In other words I'm not interested in "flaws" like "hurr it's open world and I don't like that", "characters look bad", "VO and writing is terrible" and so on - all those things have present in PB games for the last 20 years).

Wonkier combat than in Gothic 2 (but better than Gothic 3)
Endgame content consisting of killing 100s of generic enemies. Take Sleeper's Den from Gothic 1 and make it even worse

Those are my biggest problems with the game

you can reach tallest buildings even without infinite jetpack
Yeah, that's why I said "easily" because if you had infinite jetpack from the start, you don't need to solve the "jetpacking puzzles" at all and do not have to get any upgrades. I know everything is reachable without it, would be missing the point if they weren't
 

lukaszek

the determinator
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What would you say are the biggest flaws? I'm mostly interested in comparisons to E1, what is E2 missing that E1 had?
when compared to e1, e2 gives you this mmo feel.

Only thing that is better is jetpack. It works way better now, melee flying attacks are less clunky too.
Otherwise get ready for decline. Even exploration is worse. At least I do remember in e1 having some rewards and even trash found in ruins had some use. Here its just vendor garbage.
I think factions had weapons available only to them? In e2 you get only exclusive armor.

Remember elven ruins from oblivion? E2 got worse generic structures to explore... Actually game story is sort of oblivion & DAI hybrid
 

Joyvankek

Learned
Joined
Dec 4, 2021
Messages
275
What would you say are the biggest flaws? I'm mostly interested in comparisons to E1, what is E2 missing that E1 had?
when compared to e1, e2 gives you this mmo feel.

Only thing that is better is jetpack. It works way better now, melee flying attacks are less clunky too.
Otherwise get ready for decline. Even exploration is worse. At least I do remember in e1 having some rewards and even trash found in ruins had some use. Here its just vendor garbage.
I think factions had weapons available only to them? In e2 you get only exclusive armor.

Remember elven ruins from oblivion? E2 got worse generic structures to explore... Actually game story is sort of oblivion & DAI hybrid

The more I hear about Elex 2 the less I want to buy it.
Shame that this long awaited sequel is looking like a decline, the more I read about it.

Hopefully Knights of the Chalice 2 will be good.
 

Peachcurl

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btw. I also don't get why they made unlimited jetpack fuel conditional on finishing the story. Whatever could be broken with it, could as well get broken with limited fuel.
Only reason I see is limiting player progression speed, which seems rather nonsensical given how most of the later quests work.

It should be a high-tier ability (conditional on all other jetpack updates, including the 50 fuel updates). With an adequate attribute requirement.

Hope mods will fix it. :|

(similarly, I don't get the sun glasses... that should be an ability as well, or removed. But unlike the jetpack fuel, this feels like PB is just trolling the players here.)
 
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Angelo85

Arcane
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Btw I havent seen better gems than tier1, nor learnt how to upgrade them?

Once you unlocked the gem skill you can use the gem workbench not only to slot them, but also to upgrade them (it's the second menu, on keyboard switch with Q/E). All you need to upgrade gems to higher versions are a certain number of the smaller ones of the same type.
 

Grotesque

±¼ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Divinity: Original Sin Divinity: Original Sin 2
how many patches are out for Elex II?

is it playable?
should I install now or wait for 2+ months?
 

King Crispy

Too bad I have no queen.
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Eminently playable, but people are reporting some show-stopping bugs and currently the performance in the cities and towns is terrible, even for very high-end rigs.
 

Peachcurl

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how many patches are out for Elex II?

3 patches, with the day 1 patch.

is it playable?

Yeah it is playable. Performance seems to be an issue for some though I'm perfectly fine with it, on a laptop.
I had some issues when installing it / starting it, but that may have been GOGs fault, since a "repair" fixed it.
One crash to desktop so far in roughly 15 hours playtime.

should I install now or wait for 2+ months?

I'm sure there'll be further bug fixes coming in the coming months. But who knows how that'll effect your experience. ;)
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
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Codex Year of the Donut
I don't think I'll be able to finish this game. It just doesn't feel like a Piranha Bytes game. I think they're done as a developer.
I quit because of a bug, but even if it's fixed I won't finish it. 30 hours felt like enough to be done with the game.

The only semi-decent thing is exploration but there's no incentive to explore. Once you have a good weapon, that's it, you're done. The "RPG" mechanics are so streamlined and reduced to the bare minimum that the only thing that matters is how much damage your weapon does. All the armor of the same tier is effectively identical with one stat: armor.
This is the sort of shit I'd expect from a Bethesda iteration, but then I remember Fallout 4 actually has multiple damage types, location-based damage, attributes that do something, armor with stats/unique effects, armor/weapon modding, ... Even the perks that Bethesda took from FO1/2 that are still around are more interesting than the abilities ELEX 2 has now that the game is lacking anything like cleric mind trick and such.

Is ELEX 2 actually an RPG?
No, I don't think so. It's an action game with RPG elements. I'd have a really hard time explaining how this differs significantly from recent Far Cry games in terms of mechanics.
Well, besides Far Cry having much better gunplay. Otherwise, they're not very different.
 
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SoupNazi

Guest
Is ELEX 2 actually an RPG?
No, I don't think so. It's an action game with RPG elements. I'd have a really hard time explaining how this differs significantly from recent Far Cry games in terms of mechanics.
Well, besides Far Cry having much better gunplay. Otherwise, they're not very different.
I'm inclined to agree, though in reality ELEX 2 is at least RPG oriented. It's built and developed as an RPG, and while not perfect and I agree the mechanics are more "Far Cry with RPG mechanics", the game itself is built more as an RPG than a Far Cry.
 

Darth Roxor

Royal Dongsmith
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202203151241081.jpg


just your run-of-the-mill arctic chili

202203151220591.jpg


this nigga might have been the most buggy fight i had yet

you should have seen him float (yes, float in a default pose with no animation) across the river to get me

and then he got stuck on some rocks that i pushed him into

and when i finally killed him he didnt even leave a corpse behind

rude


My patience with this game is slowly but surely running thin. I have to start it three times to reset shadows by turning them off/on/off to even get it to run. If I spend more than 30 seconds in the options menu, I have to do the same thing. If I forget myself and alt-tab even for a sec, same thing.

I made it to the old castle that used to have the elevator to Calaan (which for some reason isn't even there anymore unless I missed it among the wreckage). It's guarded by a bunch of those humanoid Elex mutants, whatever they are called in inglese. I kill all of them by circle strafing around them while mashing LMB. Out of 5 munsters I think only 1 actually attacked me once because all the others were too focused on bitch-slapping me for no damage even when I was standing still and not even trying to attack. The people responsible for this combat, and those who then gave it the greenlight, are all fucking imbeciles.
 

SoupNazi

Guest
Interestingly enough, other than the obvious bugs in fights (especially with those monsters who dig underground), I didn't really have any technical issues with the game. It ran pretty well on my two year old PC, no crashes or anything and pretty stable FPS on like the second best settings.
 

Cpt. Dallas

Learned
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Keep on the Borderlands
Done. Obvious sequel bait. I think I saw one CTD during the whole playthrough. Decent performance 1080p, high. Infinite jetpack should have been added sooner, maybe beginning of Chp 4, latest.
Incentive to explore is mixed. Some of the unique weapons are worse than the stock ones.

'Oh, btw honey, our son plugged himself into the matrix and then turned himself off. Sorry. Oh yeah, I left his body there too.'
'Who?'

:3/5:
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
Incentive to explore is mixed. Some of the unique weapons are worse than the stock ones.
The world/exploration was obviously designed for an itemization system that simply does not exist in the game. The only thing you have to look forward to is more healing potions & cooked food after you find a decent weapon.
 

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