Murk
Arcane
- Joined
- Jan 17, 2008
- Messages
- 13,459
Enemies respawn both ways -- both just over time within a chapter and as triggered by chapter progression (the higher level ones.)
G2 had the latter as well, where returning from the valley would cause seekers, dragon snappers, and lizardmen/orcs to spawn in the populated areas.
It's funny, cuz this thread is very reminiscent of D:OS2 thread. Originally, people praising it -- then, more complaints.
I liked both, but consider them both "good but not great".
Anyway, having beaten Elex once as an Outlaw and now replaying it as a Cleric, my thoughts seem to be coalescing as follows.
edit: Ok this blew up way bigger than I thought, so I'm going to spoiler it for space. This basically turned into a very poorly edited review.
G2 had the latter as well, where returning from the valley would cause seekers, dragon snappers, and lizardmen/orcs to spawn in the populated areas.
It's funny, cuz this thread is very reminiscent of D:OS2 thread. Originally, people praising it -- then, more complaints.
I liked both, but consider them both "good but not great".
Anyway, having beaten Elex once as an Outlaw and now replaying it as a Cleric, my thoughts seem to be coalescing as follows.
edit: Ok this blew up way bigger than I thought, so I'm going to spoiler it for space. This basically turned into a very poorly edited review.
I only meant to write a few thoughts... then I kept writing, and pretty soon I was channeling my inner Azrael the cat. I guess I should say what my thoughts on PB games are before all this. Gothic 2 is one of my favorite games of all times. Gothic 1 is a great game also and while I love G2 more, one can easily argue that G1 is "more important". G3 is an okay game -- a total change of pace, and while it's both a worse Gothic and a worse game than any previous PB title, I still enjoy it for what it is. Risen 1 was a great return to form... that was short lived. I didn't touch Risen 2 and 3, they looked like shit, and I had lost all hope that PB would ever make a game that I'd enjoy again. Then Elex came out. Well, I can't tell you how happy I am that I was wrong.
This game reminds me a lot more of Gothic 3 than any of the other titles and shows what G3 could have been had it not been an incomplete and rushed mess. Gothic 1 and 2 were far tighter in their quest and world design and often gave the very strong illusion that everything was related (the expansion for Gothic 2 especially giving a strong vein that ran through the first half of the game, basically). Elex accomplishes this much more so than Gothic 3 did, but the way the factions play out and how you can just sort of go wherever from the start has the same feel as Gothic 3 where it all seems... loose. It's incredible how they built this giant ass world and still managed to place enough stuff in every nook and cranny to keep you going "huh, neat!". I was climbing up some random cliff face in Tavar to get to a higher point to look around (nothing there, as best as I could tell) and on one of the ledges I was using to jetpack up was a gold nugget sitting behind a rock. This isn't anything special, but the fact that a dev somewhere thought "hey, let me just put this here, just in case someone comes here" speaks to the experience of a proper PB game -- rewarding and crafted. The gold nugget isn't a super important item, but it's some spare money and/or can be used to upgrade some weapons. It's neat, and that's often what I found myself saying when playing this game. "Oh hey, look, a toilet with toilet paper... neat." "Oh... someone had a little camp here and left their smokes and booze, neat!" etc.
Anyway, on the specific parts. The game may not be a Gothic or a Risen, but it's definitely there spiritually. It's hard to judge it entirely on its own without comparing it to the previous games, so you must forgive me if you haven't played G1/2 (actually, fuck you, if you haven't played those games -- go fucking play them) but there's no way to really view this game in a vacuum.
Combat is pretty jank, and I'd be happier with the system Risen 1 or Gothic 2, but it's not terrible. I know many found Gothic's combat to be "clunky" but that never bothered me, and the difficulty and intensity of it was something I enjoyed a lot. For Elex, it tries admirably to create a complex combat system with parrying, evasion, dodge-rolls, combos, multiple attack types, and things like hyper armor... and you may be thinking "gosh that sounds like dark souls" and... yeah, it sounds like it, but it plays very differently. It's just that the souls games have spoiled us... but then Souls is also a game where your answer to 99% of the game world is "attack" and dialog options range from "yes" to "no" to "insert item here". So comparisons are a bit... silly. (For another comparison, I'll take Elex combat over Witcher 1, 2, and 3.) Elex is an Action RPG, but it's definitely as much RPG as it is action, and the focus of the game is not so much about killing stuff as it is about exploring and surviving. Still if you stick with the melee combat, it eventually makes sense. You don't have the satisfying responsiveness of a souls like game, but you do get a system that to me makes sense and has enough nuance to be interesting and not just a button masher (like Gothic 3, for example). Perhaps if they tweaked attack speed when 1handing it would get less complaints as I think many people expect it to be faster -- the way it currently is when using sword + shield (or they could just put a crappy shield in the starting area). This could also be mitigated by having a warrior (like say, Duras) explain how the melee styles differ the way other PB games have done in the past.
Basically, 1h weapons function more like previous games' 2handed weapons (and Elex's 2handers are super slow) unless you have a shield which will make you are a 1-v-1 juggernaut who can perma stun enemies very easily. Overall it's OK. Not great, not terrible, and does it's job. I would have liked to see the G1/G2 or even R1 style progression of skill where-in raising your ability actually changes your in game animations or allows for new abilities. Really you just unlock the jetpack attack, and it's neat, but kind of difficult to use (the aiming gets broken easily and your attack results in nothing). I think if they made it so that perhaps your speed increases with skill ranks or if you gain new attack types, it would be better. On the topic of the jetpack, I'd like to see it utilized way more.
Like many others, I thought the Jetpack looked stupid on first glance in previews, but after actually playing with it, it's quite fun and works surprisingly well (the only weirdness being when you are landing you keep moving despite your feet touching ground, though that does simulate a brisque landing so it could be intentional). It's also a nice "get out of dodge" function for running -- enemies are a lot faster than other PB games, and they chase for longer too. Since most enemies have both a melee and a ranged attack, it's not super cheesy either. What I think they should have done is give you more tools and options with it. For example, the crafting skill tree could easily get some Jetpack abilities. I would have loved to see the following 1) Jetpack lasts a bit longer, 2) Jetpack recharges faster when not in combat, and 3) forward dash when on ground with jetpack (uses less fuel, makes you go faster while sprinting at the cost of reducing your ability to turn.). These are quality of life changes, and they also give you more active abilities. Many of the skills are passive +5% to damage style ones and those aren't terribly fun. There's also a few that are painfully important -- like animal trophy. In nearly every PB game skinning/gutting animals is one of the main ways to make money, but here it's even more important because of how the character attribute system is designed -- with you basically needing a ton of money to not only buy expensive armor and gear but also the natural elex you'll need for the addictive elex potions (they permanently give you attribute points or skill points, like the ones you get from a level up). This could have also easily used an NPC that explains the value of hunting.
On the topic of skills, the game desperately needs a proper manual like Risen 1's -- or better in game descriptions of things. Many skills/attributes are unclear of what exactly they do, despite having room for text explanations. I think an intern with a few hours to spare could easily fix this in a very light patch. For example, did you know that the faction specific enchants on weapons are for melee only? If you play the game enough you'll notice the only enchanted weapons you find are melee and so you may infer, but it's never explicit. It's not a huge deal, and those functions are cool, but why not just put "for melee weapons only" in the 3 skill descriptions? Furthermore, when upgrading weapons normally, things are a bit weird. Upgrading enchanted weapons removes their enchants -- effectively meaning that some weapons that are pretty cool (like say the Energy Regent Sword I) is stuck as is unless you want a generic Regent Sword II. For a cleric, that's fine since you can just re-enchant it... but for any other faction, that means they are unlikely to get a high upgraded Energy or Stasis weapon. I get it, factions limit which equipment you get, and that's cool, but in that case why not just make those unique weapons like the Ignis Artifex? Those are elemental factional weapons (often with ridiculous stat requirements for their attack power, but different story). This way you can make it so an outlaw doesn't have an Energy Weapon III but still can get an energy weapon. Regardless, that's nitpicking. What isn't nitpicking is the weird redundancy of choice.
So in G1/G2 you get a lot of weapons that are basically 1h sword 1, 1h sword 2, 1h sword 3, etc, with few of them actually differing other than a linear upgrade. Their appearance changes, their range (length) changes, and some give a bonus (or malus) to your skill, but usually it's just "my STR is 5 higher, so now I get a sword with 5 more ATK". There are other games, not in the PB line-up, that are much more dramatic in the way they give you weapons. Like Dark Souls, where most weapons are functionally different form one another and the way you increase your atk power is by refining the one. So for example the Long Sword and the Short Sword are very similar but have a few different attacks, different range, different stat requirements, and they differ in their counter-damage power -- so you pick which one you like and upgrade it to +10/+15 and that's how you do damage. Elex kind of does both. Laser Rifles are different than Plasma Rifles in how they function... but there are like 5 Plasma blasters and 5 Laser rifles that are slightly better than one another. The basic 'Laser Rifle' is better than any of the CP1 or LK5 models -- it seems those are for "early use" when your stats are low... but the required stat differences between them are really minor, like less than 1 level up's worth of LP minor. So on a functional level, you just use the better one... so then why have 5 subversions that just reduce the stat reqs (and damage output) by a tiny amount? Why not make them different... like magazine size, range, or give them alt fire modes... or just reduce it to 2 (weaker and stronger versions, like the melee weapons form each faction).
Attributes are kind of a bust too. In previous games they were pre-requirements for certain gear, but they also influenced your damage output (either always or by chance). Now they are purely pre-requirements, and the attribute descriptions are lies. It doesn't help that the game has no numerical values put on your character's final stats (HP, Stamina, etc.) so you can't really tell whether raising Con from 10 to 20 did anything, but overtime you just realize it. I think this is a bad decision, but as long as you know this weird quirk, you can still play the game just fine. PBs primary and derived stats (str and damage) have always been very simple, but this seems like a bizarre decision. The fact that attribute have incorrect descriptions also makes it seem like it was changed at a later time... unless they do influence damage but by so tiny an amount that they are not noticeable. Anyway, regardless of what the real case is, this goes back to the lack of clarity in the game and how you're not quite sure what things do... the weird text flows into weird writing too.
Dialog can be awkward and at times seemingly non sequitur, but mostly makes sense. It's not as clean as Risen, and ultimately I don't buy either faction anywhere near as much as I did in G1/2 or Risen either. For example, in Risen 1 the bandits do a pretty good job of convincing you that they're good guys (didn't do anything wrong, etc.) and that the order is brainwashing people. This is further supported by the first NPC you meet being a bandit who seems wary at first but then helps you when he realizes you're a castaway. Harmoniously, the first recruits you meet warn you to stay away from warriors of the order (who will press gang you to join) and... if you are dumb enough to run into one, they do in fact beat you up and press gang you into joining. In Elex, you just kind of meet some people and hey go "we like magic" or "we like technology " or "we like profits". Their individual styles are consistent, and there's enough explanation within the factions to buy that zerks hate elex tech and that outlaws will double cross you if there's money to be made... but that's kind of where it ends. There's a few quests where the factions are pitted against each other, and those are good cases where you have not only clear consequences to taking sides but that it shows they are in fact intermingled in this world (often in a zero sum situation which forces you to pick a side). There's also a dark underbelly to every faction and that's good for verisimilitude and making it so no side is an obvious "good guy" choice, but it also means that you get a weird surprise with some of them. Minor spoilers below:
Knowing the dark side of each helps to make sure that none of them are 'good' in a cookie cutter sense and gives some sense of desperation and calamity in the world.
The factions are a bit lopsided I think. The magic you get as a Berserker or Cleric far outweigh those of an outlaw since most stims/chems can be used regardless of faction and since outlaw buffs are are all passive anyway. Their weapons are also less impressive or interesting. Really, you join them for flavor and for style, and because they... kind of make sense? They wear their most villainous side on their sleeve and remind you of a 'A Boy and his Dog' or 'Mad Max'. At parts I felt like I was playing a fan game called "Radzones: A Tribute to Fallout". Their characters are also the most fun, I think, with the exception of a few cringe candidates (Nasty and the Duke come to mind; there's just no likability or charisma there, a farcry from someone like Lee or Don Esteban.)
I would have enjoyed some faction based dynamics a bit more -- the few quests that are affected by you joining a faction (i.e., how they play out) are a nice touch, but the game needed more. Again, the actual count of "faction specific events" may have been the same (or even fewer) in Gothic 2 or Risen 1, but they _felt_ more in tune. I think part of it is because the main quest in Elex is so detached from everything else... Jax even says his reason for joining: "I joined because I needed support to survive." It seems like a missed opportunity, something that could have felt more noticed. Even some random cases of roving NPCs not aggroing because you're an X would have been helpful (or the opposite.)
Characters -- so in G1/2, you have the band of bros who are not only story relevant characters, but they also help you solve quests and get through areas. This was always a profound case of "show don't tell" where-in you become friends with these guys because 1) they aren't assholes to you and 2) they help you, just as you help them. In many other games you just kind of deal with characters who treat you like a jerk until you click enough "you are great" responses that they love you (I'm thinking Baldur's Gate 2 here in particular). G1/G2 really alleviated that by basically introducing you to some characters that you work with, multiple times, and develop a believable relationship with. Risen 1 had... Patty. She's a companion, she's part of the main quest, and she's a direct lead into the sequel... but you never really rely on her so much as she relies on you. There's just no sense that she's out there doing her own thing the way Diego or Lester are. Anyway, there were some others, but none on the level of consistent supporting characters. Elex has the half dozen or so companions, and they are OK. There's nothing to be said about them either way, except that Nasty comes off as a parody of what a teenager thinks is cool (I'm certain the writers made her that way as a joke). They make the game easy -- a modal difficulty toggle, basically -- and have OK quests that get you to see the game world, often teleporting you directly to the spot in question. The robot and Arx are my favorites. The robot because it's a flying robot who gives you items it finds (it's basically a dog) and Arx because... well, just do his quest. They do comment on a lot of the game world int heir own style; their reactions to your decisions in other quests also influences what they think of you, and they kind of fulfill different roles, so overall it's fine. Nothing special but a way to help you out in the early game.
Most enjoyable character in the game is definitely Rat -- if I could, I'd have him be leader of Origin (or better yet, I'd kill the Duke and replace the leadership with Rat).
I won't comment on story because... well, it's a PB game. The story is whatever you make of it. There's no reaction to a PB game that goes "and then the plot concluded and it left me speechless" -- rather, they often go "I had to kill some bandits but they were too strong for me, so I baited a troll into the camp and it killed most of the bandits for me, and the remaining one I finished off with grenades while standing on the high hill. Then I looted their stuff and sold it to fuel my crippling Elex addiction".
On that note, the game is very good at basically making Elex a truly desirable thing. In previous games there's always been a "thing everyone wants" item but few make it as mechanically and practically real as Elex has in your constant desire to get and consume more of it. Gothic 1 had the magic ore, except it was basically just gold, and you could easily replace it with arrows, bolts, or anything else worth 1 game-shekel. Often you would just trade using self forged swords anyway. Gothic 2 had... uhh... well, nothing really. There was just gold, and it did what it was supposed to do. Risen 1 had artifacts but these were basically anything -- from useless gold trinkets to sell to equipment and magic runes. They were just items and the words were flavor... but in the game Elex, the substance called elex is both the cause and solution to all of life's problems. Never felt so good to be a Junkie.
Overall, I rank this game as pretty good.
My personal Ranking of the PB games that matter goes like this: G2, then G1, then Risen 1, then Elex, then significantly further down the road is G3. Then Risen 2/3 (not sure which first, didn't play either).
The Good: Great world to explore; fun to swap between a flame thrower, a radiation infused axe, and psionic black hole; game is challenging/hard but can be mastered; some quests are pretty cool; fun to jetpack around and blast people with a plasma rifle; neat concept with the sunglasses effectively being a QoL toggle (go to the giant wind turbine north of the Domed City if you know what's good for you).
The Bad: Melee combat takes a bit to get into, and while it does get better, it never feels truly satisfying (still better than Witcher 1 through 3), and is an obvious step back from what Risen 1 had. Main plot, as usual, is kinda meh. Game does a poor job of explaining how the mechanics work, attributes are just pre-reqs, and many skills are often of the passive "+5% to blah blah" variety. Itemization can be weird at times, but the upgrading salvages it to some extent.
The Ugly: Jax. Which is good, PB hero should always be an ugly asshole. Also, very mad that I can't wear Scrap Scavenger hat with sunglasses.
This game reminds me a lot more of Gothic 3 than any of the other titles and shows what G3 could have been had it not been an incomplete and rushed mess. Gothic 1 and 2 were far tighter in their quest and world design and often gave the very strong illusion that everything was related (the expansion for Gothic 2 especially giving a strong vein that ran through the first half of the game, basically). Elex accomplishes this much more so than Gothic 3 did, but the way the factions play out and how you can just sort of go wherever from the start has the same feel as Gothic 3 where it all seems... loose. It's incredible how they built this giant ass world and still managed to place enough stuff in every nook and cranny to keep you going "huh, neat!". I was climbing up some random cliff face in Tavar to get to a higher point to look around (nothing there, as best as I could tell) and on one of the ledges I was using to jetpack up was a gold nugget sitting behind a rock. This isn't anything special, but the fact that a dev somewhere thought "hey, let me just put this here, just in case someone comes here" speaks to the experience of a proper PB game -- rewarding and crafted. The gold nugget isn't a super important item, but it's some spare money and/or can be used to upgrade some weapons. It's neat, and that's often what I found myself saying when playing this game. "Oh hey, look, a toilet with toilet paper... neat." "Oh... someone had a little camp here and left their smokes and booze, neat!" etc.
Anyway, on the specific parts. The game may not be a Gothic or a Risen, but it's definitely there spiritually. It's hard to judge it entirely on its own without comparing it to the previous games, so you must forgive me if you haven't played G1/2 (actually, fuck you, if you haven't played those games -- go fucking play them) but there's no way to really view this game in a vacuum.
Combat is pretty jank, and I'd be happier with the system Risen 1 or Gothic 2, but it's not terrible. I know many found Gothic's combat to be "clunky" but that never bothered me, and the difficulty and intensity of it was something I enjoyed a lot. For Elex, it tries admirably to create a complex combat system with parrying, evasion, dodge-rolls, combos, multiple attack types, and things like hyper armor... and you may be thinking "gosh that sounds like dark souls" and... yeah, it sounds like it, but it plays very differently. It's just that the souls games have spoiled us... but then Souls is also a game where your answer to 99% of the game world is "attack" and dialog options range from "yes" to "no" to "insert item here". So comparisons are a bit... silly. (For another comparison, I'll take Elex combat over Witcher 1, 2, and 3.) Elex is an Action RPG, but it's definitely as much RPG as it is action, and the focus of the game is not so much about killing stuff as it is about exploring and surviving. Still if you stick with the melee combat, it eventually makes sense. You don't have the satisfying responsiveness of a souls like game, but you do get a system that to me makes sense and has enough nuance to be interesting and not just a button masher (like Gothic 3, for example). Perhaps if they tweaked attack speed when 1handing it would get less complaints as I think many people expect it to be faster -- the way it currently is when using sword + shield (or they could just put a crappy shield in the starting area). This could also be mitigated by having a warrior (like say, Duras) explain how the melee styles differ the way other PB games have done in the past.
Basically, 1h weapons function more like previous games' 2handed weapons (and Elex's 2handers are super slow) unless you have a shield which will make you are a 1-v-1 juggernaut who can perma stun enemies very easily. Overall it's OK. Not great, not terrible, and does it's job. I would have liked to see the G1/G2 or even R1 style progression of skill where-in raising your ability actually changes your in game animations or allows for new abilities. Really you just unlock the jetpack attack, and it's neat, but kind of difficult to use (the aiming gets broken easily and your attack results in nothing). I think if they made it so that perhaps your speed increases with skill ranks or if you gain new attack types, it would be better. On the topic of the jetpack, I'd like to see it utilized way more.
Like many others, I thought the Jetpack looked stupid on first glance in previews, but after actually playing with it, it's quite fun and works surprisingly well (the only weirdness being when you are landing you keep moving despite your feet touching ground, though that does simulate a brisque landing so it could be intentional). It's also a nice "get out of dodge" function for running -- enemies are a lot faster than other PB games, and they chase for longer too. Since most enemies have both a melee and a ranged attack, it's not super cheesy either. What I think they should have done is give you more tools and options with it. For example, the crafting skill tree could easily get some Jetpack abilities. I would have loved to see the following 1) Jetpack lasts a bit longer, 2) Jetpack recharges faster when not in combat, and 3) forward dash when on ground with jetpack (uses less fuel, makes you go faster while sprinting at the cost of reducing your ability to turn.). These are quality of life changes, and they also give you more active abilities. Many of the skills are passive +5% to damage style ones and those aren't terribly fun. There's also a few that are painfully important -- like animal trophy. In nearly every PB game skinning/gutting animals is one of the main ways to make money, but here it's even more important because of how the character attribute system is designed -- with you basically needing a ton of money to not only buy expensive armor and gear but also the natural elex you'll need for the addictive elex potions (they permanently give you attribute points or skill points, like the ones you get from a level up). This could have also easily used an NPC that explains the value of hunting.
On the topic of skills, the game desperately needs a proper manual like Risen 1's -- or better in game descriptions of things. Many skills/attributes are unclear of what exactly they do, despite having room for text explanations. I think an intern with a few hours to spare could easily fix this in a very light patch. For example, did you know that the faction specific enchants on weapons are for melee only? If you play the game enough you'll notice the only enchanted weapons you find are melee and so you may infer, but it's never explicit. It's not a huge deal, and those functions are cool, but why not just put "for melee weapons only" in the 3 skill descriptions? Furthermore, when upgrading weapons normally, things are a bit weird. Upgrading enchanted weapons removes their enchants -- effectively meaning that some weapons that are pretty cool (like say the Energy Regent Sword I) is stuck as is unless you want a generic Regent Sword II. For a cleric, that's fine since you can just re-enchant it... but for any other faction, that means they are unlikely to get a high upgraded Energy or Stasis weapon. I get it, factions limit which equipment you get, and that's cool, but in that case why not just make those unique weapons like the Ignis Artifex? Those are elemental factional weapons (often with ridiculous stat requirements for their attack power, but different story). This way you can make it so an outlaw doesn't have an Energy Weapon III but still can get an energy weapon. Regardless, that's nitpicking. What isn't nitpicking is the weird redundancy of choice.
So in G1/G2 you get a lot of weapons that are basically 1h sword 1, 1h sword 2, 1h sword 3, etc, with few of them actually differing other than a linear upgrade. Their appearance changes, their range (length) changes, and some give a bonus (or malus) to your skill, but usually it's just "my STR is 5 higher, so now I get a sword with 5 more ATK". There are other games, not in the PB line-up, that are much more dramatic in the way they give you weapons. Like Dark Souls, where most weapons are functionally different form one another and the way you increase your atk power is by refining the one. So for example the Long Sword and the Short Sword are very similar but have a few different attacks, different range, different stat requirements, and they differ in their counter-damage power -- so you pick which one you like and upgrade it to +10/+15 and that's how you do damage. Elex kind of does both. Laser Rifles are different than Plasma Rifles in how they function... but there are like 5 Plasma blasters and 5 Laser rifles that are slightly better than one another. The basic 'Laser Rifle' is better than any of the CP1 or LK5 models -- it seems those are for "early use" when your stats are low... but the required stat differences between them are really minor, like less than 1 level up's worth of LP minor. So on a functional level, you just use the better one... so then why have 5 subversions that just reduce the stat reqs (and damage output) by a tiny amount? Why not make them different... like magazine size, range, or give them alt fire modes... or just reduce it to 2 (weaker and stronger versions, like the melee weapons form each faction).
Attributes are kind of a bust too. In previous games they were pre-requirements for certain gear, but they also influenced your damage output (either always or by chance). Now they are purely pre-requirements, and the attribute descriptions are lies. It doesn't help that the game has no numerical values put on your character's final stats (HP, Stamina, etc.) so you can't really tell whether raising Con from 10 to 20 did anything, but overtime you just realize it. I think this is a bad decision, but as long as you know this weird quirk, you can still play the game just fine. PBs primary and derived stats (str and damage) have always been very simple, but this seems like a bizarre decision. The fact that attribute have incorrect descriptions also makes it seem like it was changed at a later time... unless they do influence damage but by so tiny an amount that they are not noticeable. Anyway, regardless of what the real case is, this goes back to the lack of clarity in the game and how you're not quite sure what things do... the weird text flows into weird writing too.
Dialog can be awkward and at times seemingly non sequitur, but mostly makes sense. It's not as clean as Risen, and ultimately I don't buy either faction anywhere near as much as I did in G1/2 or Risen either. For example, in Risen 1 the bandits do a pretty good job of convincing you that they're good guys (didn't do anything wrong, etc.) and that the order is brainwashing people. This is further supported by the first NPC you meet being a bandit who seems wary at first but then helps you when he realizes you're a castaway. Harmoniously, the first recruits you meet warn you to stay away from warriors of the order (who will press gang you to join) and... if you are dumb enough to run into one, they do in fact beat you up and press gang you into joining. In Elex, you just kind of meet some people and hey go "we like magic" or "we like technology " or "we like profits". Their individual styles are consistent, and there's enough explanation within the factions to buy that zerks hate elex tech and that outlaws will double cross you if there's money to be made... but that's kind of where it ends. There's a few quests where the factions are pitted against each other, and those are good cases where you have not only clear consequences to taking sides but that it shows they are in fact intermingled in this world (often in a zero sum situation which forces you to pick a side). There's also a dark underbelly to every faction and that's good for verisimilitude and making it so no side is an obvious "good guy" choice, but it also means that you get a weird surprise with some of them. Minor spoilers below:
The duke has a nuke and wants to blast the clerics with it; this is lunacy of course and it fails, but it means that the leader of that faction is straight up psychotic and genocidal. You can do the quest before joining a faction, so at least you know what you're getting into. Similarly the clerics have no problem blowing up a huge dam and killing tons of innocent civilians from multiple factions to potentially stop an Alb advancement, also lunacy given how they claim they're saving and protecting the world. Similarly, you can learn about this before joining, and if you meet a suggester you already know the Clerics are nazis who brainwash people into joining them (often using force). Zerks are effectively the swamp camp from g1 where they are accidentally empowering a great (evil) creature. Though the poorly named Berserkers are probably the least intentionally evil of the groups.
Knowing the dark side of each helps to make sure that none of them are 'good' in a cookie cutter sense and gives some sense of desperation and calamity in the world.
The factions are a bit lopsided I think. The magic you get as a Berserker or Cleric far outweigh those of an outlaw since most stims/chems can be used regardless of faction and since outlaw buffs are are all passive anyway. Their weapons are also less impressive or interesting. Really, you join them for flavor and for style, and because they... kind of make sense? They wear their most villainous side on their sleeve and remind you of a 'A Boy and his Dog' or 'Mad Max'. At parts I felt like I was playing a fan game called "Radzones: A Tribute to Fallout". Their characters are also the most fun, I think, with the exception of a few cringe candidates (Nasty and the Duke come to mind; there's just no likability or charisma there, a farcry from someone like Lee or Don Esteban.)
I would have enjoyed some faction based dynamics a bit more -- the few quests that are affected by you joining a faction (i.e., how they play out) are a nice touch, but the game needed more. Again, the actual count of "faction specific events" may have been the same (or even fewer) in Gothic 2 or Risen 1, but they _felt_ more in tune. I think part of it is because the main quest in Elex is so detached from everything else... Jax even says his reason for joining: "I joined because I needed support to survive." It seems like a missed opportunity, something that could have felt more noticed. Even some random cases of roving NPCs not aggroing because you're an X would have been helpful (or the opposite.)
Characters -- so in G1/2, you have the band of bros who are not only story relevant characters, but they also help you solve quests and get through areas. This was always a profound case of "show don't tell" where-in you become friends with these guys because 1) they aren't assholes to you and 2) they help you, just as you help them. In many other games you just kind of deal with characters who treat you like a jerk until you click enough "you are great" responses that they love you (I'm thinking Baldur's Gate 2 here in particular). G1/G2 really alleviated that by basically introducing you to some characters that you work with, multiple times, and develop a believable relationship with. Risen 1 had... Patty. She's a companion, she's part of the main quest, and she's a direct lead into the sequel... but you never really rely on her so much as she relies on you. There's just no sense that she's out there doing her own thing the way Diego or Lester are. Anyway, there were some others, but none on the level of consistent supporting characters. Elex has the half dozen or so companions, and they are OK. There's nothing to be said about them either way, except that Nasty comes off as a parody of what a teenager thinks is cool (I'm certain the writers made her that way as a joke). They make the game easy -- a modal difficulty toggle, basically -- and have OK quests that get you to see the game world, often teleporting you directly to the spot in question. The robot and Arx are my favorites. The robot because it's a flying robot who gives you items it finds (it's basically a dog) and Arx because... well, just do his quest. They do comment on a lot of the game world int heir own style; their reactions to your decisions in other quests also influences what they think of you, and they kind of fulfill different roles, so overall it's fine. Nothing special but a way to help you out in the early game.
Most enjoyable character in the game is definitely Rat -- if I could, I'd have him be leader of Origin (or better yet, I'd kill the Duke and replace the leadership with Rat).
I won't comment on story because... well, it's a PB game. The story is whatever you make of it. There's no reaction to a PB game that goes "and then the plot concluded and it left me speechless" -- rather, they often go "I had to kill some bandits but they were too strong for me, so I baited a troll into the camp and it killed most of the bandits for me, and the remaining one I finished off with grenades while standing on the high hill. Then I looted their stuff and sold it to fuel my crippling Elex addiction".
On that note, the game is very good at basically making Elex a truly desirable thing. In previous games there's always been a "thing everyone wants" item but few make it as mechanically and practically real as Elex has in your constant desire to get and consume more of it. Gothic 1 had the magic ore, except it was basically just gold, and you could easily replace it with arrows, bolts, or anything else worth 1 game-shekel. Often you would just trade using self forged swords anyway. Gothic 2 had... uhh... well, nothing really. There was just gold, and it did what it was supposed to do. Risen 1 had artifacts but these were basically anything -- from useless gold trinkets to sell to equipment and magic runes. They were just items and the words were flavor... but in the game Elex, the substance called elex is both the cause and solution to all of life's problems. Never felt so good to be a Junkie.
Overall, I rank this game as pretty good.
My personal Ranking of the PB games that matter goes like this: G2, then G1, then Risen 1, then Elex, then significantly further down the road is G3. Then Risen 2/3 (not sure which first, didn't play either).
The Good: Great world to explore; fun to swap between a flame thrower, a radiation infused axe, and psionic black hole; game is challenging/hard but can be mastered; some quests are pretty cool; fun to jetpack around and blast people with a plasma rifle; neat concept with the sunglasses effectively being a QoL toggle (go to the giant wind turbine north of the Domed City if you know what's good for you).
The Bad: Melee combat takes a bit to get into, and while it does get better, it never feels truly satisfying (still better than Witcher 1 through 3), and is an obvious step back from what Risen 1 had. Main plot, as usual, is kinda meh. Game does a poor job of explaining how the mechanics work, attributes are just pre-reqs, and many skills are often of the passive "+5% to blah blah" variety. Itemization can be weird at times, but the upgrading salvages it to some extent.
The Ugly: Jax. Which is good, PB hero should always be an ugly asshole. Also, very mad that I can't wear Scrap Scavenger hat with sunglasses.
Remember to press Q in the right time or you won't be able to do your speshial attack.
