ELEX II

amazon ELEX II reviews

“Old does not mean outdated”, is the motto not only of game developer Piranha Bytes but for the whole CRPG genre – a game genre that has won its own “renaissance era”. I rely on passion rather than the need to follow trends.

But, from the player’s point of view, how can we tell what is “intentionally old” and what is “old because… obstinate”? Because Piranha Bytes, seem to be sitting in their place for more than 20 years now with Gothic II “parody” games that bring little significant change.

They also don’t have much reason to change when fans are still rushing to buy and buy Gothic, Risen, and now ELEX. After all, how can they blame them when Piranha Bytes’ games have passed through many generations and still shine with “souls” that only those who touch them can understand?

ELEX II is, once again, a very Piranha Bytes game, and of course, if you’ve been toppled by the company’s previous titles, there’s no reason for you to skip it.

But times have changed in 2022, many other open-world role-playing games have taken advantage of their qualities and done better than what they used to do, and that makes the “old” ” of ELEX II as hard to ignore as before.

The ambition to create open worlds worth exploring has always been the biggest draw to Piranha Bytes’ games, because no matter how bad the games themselves are, they always do a good job to create a feeling of “adventure” quite naturally, with little restraint.

The planet Magalan is still split into many parts with each place carrying a separate biome and life form depending on the faction that resides there. Walking from the Berserker jungles to the desolate foothills of Morkon is such a seamless experience that you won’t even realize you’ve reached a strange or unfamiliar part of the map.

Maybe you have too much free time to “walk” around the map so you accidentally go there, maybe a quest forces you to chase an NPC there, maybe an NPC is too bored because of the stigma between where he is staying, so want to go back to their original faction, and then invite you along… for fun. ELEX II does its best to make you visit every millimeter in an open world that looks simple in form but is rarely tedious to explore.

Of course, the jetpack pair of the main character Jax still reappears, making exploring the open world less confusing. With some significant upgrades, it can act like a real rocket for you to launch like… Iron Man, which can sometimes lead to a bit of a game-breaking situation (like flying straight to the tower containing the quest item instead. because of climbing from the bottom of the tower), but in a time when everyone is a bit “addicted” to wall hooks, the ELEX II jetpack is an exciting and different travel tool.

The rest of ELEX II is what you might expect from a classic 3D role-playing game. You as Jax must make friends with 5 factions in Malagan to fight against a new evil force. You travel through the headquarters of these 5 factions, getting a lot of errands, but also getting the same unique equipment and weapons of each faction.

It’s also quite fortunate that even though the content and scenario are not too special, the game always strengthens the conflicting relationship between the factions, giving the player enough motivation to solve it all to serve the common goal.

The margin of “zero to hero” of ELEX II happens quite quickly compared to the first part, it won’t take you too long to become the Viking version of Terminator.

I must emphasize that to enjoy ELEX II, you must have a degree of tolerance for the so-called “eurojank”, roughly the awkwardness that builds up from each time you press the button to the animations that are happening dancing across the screen, in which Piranha Bytes’ game is the face of this phrase.

That means that the sense of adventure, the conflicting quest lines of factions, exploring the world with jetpacks… are all blocked by one thing: interaction.

Interaction is the “heart” of video games, but ELEX II seems to see it as… the navel. Walking, running, swinging swords, and slashing are the most basic actions and also a sign that Piranha Bytes “hates” the player, because they are not only inaccurate, and have a significant delay, but they are also Presented by character animation as coming out of PS2/Xbox 1 generation.

Try to fight a random monster and you’ll be horrified at how the game “pulls” Jax into a state of raising his weapon to the target, and of course, the target doesn’t react to being hit multiple times.

My memory of ELEX is rather fuzzy since I last touched it in 2017, but a few videos are enough to confirm that the character animation in ELEX II not only didn’t improve but was downgraded from the beginning.

The game’s combat mechanics aren’t really bad thanks to their counterattacks, target kicks, and innovative weapon combos, but it’s all completely ruined when the biggest key point – the feeling of hitting, is realized. presently sloppy. If you can “digest” the feeling of hitting, then be prepared in advance that the camera tends to jerk when the target lock is activated.

The most disappointing thing about ELEX II is not in the game itself, but in the fact that Piranha Bytes has been making the same game for 20 years now but they seem to have ignored the appearance of the game.

The environment, visual effects, and plants of ELEX II have been significantly upgraded, but the character model somehow looks like a plastic person, lacks depth in shading, and looks extremely “disgusting” when placed next to the part head.

NPCs in conversation just stand in one place, move their faces a little, and look at each other with more steely eyes than aliens, making conversations a test of attention for people with ADHD rather than it. A memorable moment that the writer encountered was when Jax reunited with his son Dex and his wife Carja, instead of being affectionately like “I miss you so much”, the three of them glared at each other, and then… read the lines according to the script.

Besides the form, the structure of the ELEX II is also what we might flatly consider “outdated”. You know, the type of mission like character A asking the player to talk to character B, character B sending you back to character A, repeating two or three times, just to waste your travel time. Not every mission in the game is as old-fashioned as this, but their frequency is frequent enough to give a bad impression of it.

You may be wondering, “ELEX 1 is so clumsy and still has so many fans?”, but the reality is that in the last 5 years, we don’t need to step out of Europe to see game developers. others, of the same size, with the same (sometimes less) experience, succeed in making open-world role-playing games more soulful than Piranha Bytes’s.

Spiders, after years of struggle, finally created a Greedfall that is not perfect, but a significant step forward in terms of technique and storytelling. Warhorse Studios released a Kingdom Come: Deliverance that contains a Bohemian reimagined that is both excellent and enough to knock 90% of the AAA games out there. A “newbie” like Nine Dots Studio can also mold a full Outward. So what is the reason that Piranha Bytes has been standing still for the past decade?

Even though the RTX 3070 graphics card can pull Dying Light 2 at the highest graphics setting with Raytracing at a frame rate of >70 FPS, it… succumbs to the ELEX II which has average graphics quality with an FPS rate between 45 – 65!

where can you get a ELEX II online

Elex II – Xbox Series X/S – Xbox Series X: Buy it now

Elex II – PlayStation 5 (PS5): Buy it now

Elex II – PlayStation 4 (PS4): Buy it now