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ELEX II
Released On: Mar 1, 2022
64
7.1
Where to Buy
Where to Buy
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 24 Critic Reviews
64
25% Positive
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
63% Mixed
15 Reviews
15 Reviews
8% Negative
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 24 Critic Reviews
64
25% Positive
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
63% Mixed
15 Reviews
15 Reviews
8% Negative
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
Those expecting a well-polished AAA RPG experience with the highest possible production values will probably have to lower their expectations. For Piranha Bytes fans, however, ELEX II is exactly what they would want it, and expect it, to be.
Playing ELEX II left me with a strong impression that the game is largely geared towards those who have already spent a lot of time playing games from this studio. If that's you, your take from the game may be different than someone new to the series and you'll likely have a blast, especially if you loved the first game. If you're new to the series, you may want to bone up on YouTube videos about ELEX I before diving into an interesting, multi-faceted world albeit one fraught with performance and graphical issues. Chances are things will improve with time and patches so maybe it's best to wait a while and let the dev team catch up to the game's potential.
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 122 User Ratings
7.1
61% Positive
74 Ratings
74 Ratings
16% Mixed
19 Ratings
19 Ratings
24% Negative
29 Ratings
29 Ratings
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 122 User Ratings
7.1
61% Positive
74 Ratings
74 Ratings
16% Mixed
19 Ratings
19 Ratings
24% Negative
29 Ratings
29 Ratings
Update, 16.11.2022: Endlich mit DirectX12 seit heute!!! SUPER. Doppelt so viele FPS bspw. in Städten. Endlich in Städten flüssig. Kein Ruckeln. Nix. Klasse, so macht es jetzt noch viel viel mehr Spaß. Danke PR!!!!
Super, Piranha Bytes! Top Spiel. So habe ich es mir vorgestellt. Kann ich wärmstens jedem Spieler empfehlen :-). Auch Deutschland kann gute Spiele machen. So, genug geschrieben, weiterzocken :-)! Viel Spaß allen. TOP Game. Ich liebe Gothic, ich liebe Elex 2. Die 4 Paches die gekommen sind haben sehr viel positives bewirkt. Prima.
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PC
If you're already a fan of Piranha Bytes, this game is a no-brainer. It has the same excellent atmosphere and great exploration of their previous games. The game is also massive and filled with tons of content. I spent 70+ hours in the first chapter alone. Of course you can get through it a lot faster if you want, but I was trying to milk it for all I could get.
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PC
Elex II is not without its flaws and some of them can sometimes be quite jarring, but underneath them all is a nice action RPG that gets more than a few things right and that can provide many, many hours of entertainment.
In contrast to the original Elex, this awkward sequel is a typical Piranha Bytes game. And no, it’s not a compliment.
Elex II is a disappointing game that fails to build on the potential of the original. While at some moments it manages to capture some of the same strengths, it feels like a poorly implemented retread in several ways. Slight improvements to combat don't make up for a less interesting story, worse characters, weak quest design, and a stark lack of polish.
ELEX 2 has a distinctive approach to RPG game design and an engaging story, but while it finally bucks the trend of having technical issues at launch, there's still much work to be done on the quality of combat and presentation.
The saying that everything deserves a second chance should not have applied to Elex. Elex II takes so many steps backwards from an already poor game, it’s astounding. Its writing, optimisation, combat, and game systems all stand as a new benchmark on what to not do.
Nice improvements, ELEX 2 feels really great & we have got Billy Idol on Magalan, yeah! :D
..After 18 hrs of playing ELEX 2, I definitely recommend to anyone, who enjoyed the 1st part of ELEX!
I also further enhanced the graphics for my taste with some config. file tweak, easily done, just like in the previous titles by PB.
NOTE: ...After 92 hours playing time: Yep, this 2nd part is definitely a great instalment of this title, the world & the story is even more engaging than in the 1st part of ELEX, well done Piranha Bytes!!! :-)))
I'm in Chapter 3 now anyway, so I just still doing my 1st playthrough, yep! :D
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PC
Игра пройдена на уровне сложности – Ультра.
Играя в Elex 2, постоянно вспоминал их первую Готику. То, как деградировали, за эти годы, разрабы из Piranha Bytes вызывает огромное сожаление. Постоянное упрощение всего и вся, в желании заработать денег на массовой аудитории, которой в основе своей нужно только собирать электронный мусор, понятно, но, когда-то у них была первая Готика, с её трёх уровневой механикой боя, удары, блоки, которую поначалу казалось нереально освоить, но которая, после освоения, оказалась той недосягаемой вершиной, которая дарует просто нереальное наслаждение от поединков, от ощущения того, что ты не просто машешь мечом составляя убогие комбо, а реально бьёшься, вырабатывая свою тактику под каждого противника, с тяжёлой добычей ресурсов от нахождения которых испытывал почти детскую радость, понимая что теперь-то у тебя получится смастерить что-то действительно стоящее, с её системой выбора заставляющей внимательно вчитываться-вслушиваться в то, что тебе говорят, дабы принять верное для себя решение, которое может изменить многое если не всё. И что же Elex 2, тупые диалоги, персонажи, которые практически не вызывают сопереживания от того, что с ними происходит, квест с сыном, это что-то, особенно реакция матери на его финал. Убогая графика и анимация, которые, кажется, не поменялись со времён первой Готики, система боя, заточенная под одноизвильные организмы, система выбора, которая не вызывает никакого интереса вникать в её перипетии, ибо нет в ней нерва осознания тяжёлых последствий от принятия тех или иных решений. Первый Elex, казалось, возвращает разрабов в их лучшие годы, несмотря на мерзкую, устаревшую графику и всё туже крайне упрощенную систему боя, но, сама игра, история и исследование Магалана, разность фракций и их мотиваций, а значит непростой выбор во взаимодействии с ними, всё это создавало, пусть и далеко не совсем, иллюзию первой Готики, второй же Elex вызывает большое разочарование своей упрощённостью, и сомнением в том, что разрабы способны сделать в будущем действительно настоящую CRPG а-ля первая Готика.
Оценка: 7/10
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PC
The game is like all past Piranha Bytes offerings in the past fifteen years or so. You begin as a wimp who can barely wield a weapon, SLOWLY build up your character, in a world where every enemy is much stronger than you. At some point, you manage to join a faction, which finally allows you to develop some really powerful abilities, and eventually you are strong enough to confront even the strongest enemies.
Unfortunately, the combat system is possibly the worst I’ve ever seen. In any game. Characters move as through molasses; enemy movement harks back from the last century. I’m positive I’ve seen games from the 90s with much better combat animations. Reading their stance to decide when to parry or dodge, is completely random: they twitch and turn, but apparently some of these erratic movements count as attacks; you only realize it because your health drops to zero and you die. Since all creatures can kill you in two hits, even combat against minor enemies becomes a deadly danger (I'm playing on hard). Hitboxes that are so glitched as to be almost funny: an axe may cut the air one full meter away from you, and you still get the damage. Also, you can lock onto enemies, which helps in attacking and avoiding damage - that is, until the game decides you lose your lock for some reason: bam! You dodge the wrong way and die.
Earlier today, I was fascinated and incredulous, as I watched my cyborg companion utterly failing to land a single hit against a tough enemy. The AI was broken, like most other things in this game, and he kept freezing, looking at the enemy without doing anything, even though I tried to interpose him between me and the attacker. When he did decide to attack, he regularly missed, because his attacks were too slow to ever connect. Essentially, I was alone – but fear not, he’s not the only companion available. At the moment, I have two more. A fire mage, whose slow fireballs rarely hit anything, and a small robot, whose sniper shots deal relatively low damage, but thankfully usually hit the intended target. But does he fly out of enemy range? Of course not, he usually remains where they can hit him with melee weapons.
Save often! There is an auto save feature, but it doesn't work 90% of the time.
Everything in this game costs in-game money, even level ups. Money is hard to come by; the best renewable source of income is trophies from monsters, but you need to attain the highest level in this ability, and this can only happen late in the game. So, for now, I have to grind like crazy to afford anything, while the game designers thought it fine to include stupid missions where the quest giver gives you money to buy something, but the actual price turns out to be much higher. Pure genius.
Dialogs are boring and badly written. Even when discussing something straightforward, NPCs tend to antagonize you and ramble on and on, with nonsensical lines that only induce sleepiness. The temptation to right-click through the voice acting is strong. NPC attitude is inconsistent as well. The first companion you encounter, wants you to butcher a party of invaders. Makes sense, no problem (apart from the fact that you are WAY too weak to do that, and she won’t join forces with you until you do). Later on, I encounter a hiding alchemist, whose bodyguards have been killed by an outlaw. He asks me to deal with said outlaw, but if I accept to kill the murderer, the warmongering mage doesn’t like it, she is suddenly averse to violence. Fast forward a bit, and she becomes bloodthirsty again, asking me to kill someone for a minor slip. Duh.
On the positive side, the jetpack is fun, especially after you upgrade it with sprint jets, which allow you to zoom over the terrain like a missile. I really like the environment and the graphics, it’s a relaxing world, at least if you forget all the monsters that want to eat you. And character growth is satisfying.
This keeps me playing, at least for now, but really: both the Gothic and the Risen series had better combat and equally satisfying character progression. I preordered this game after liking the first Elex in spite of its shortcomings, but I won’t certainly preorder a third one, if it ever comes out. They NEED to fix combat; as things are, it's simply atrocious.
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PC
They had more than 4 years to work on this, a bigger budget and more support from the Publisher... and this is it? A game that reuses 70% of the assets from the previous one but manages to have even less content. Yes, there are more factions now, but they are mostly a variation of the first 3. Morkons are just Clerics without the cool technology stuff. Albs are just Clerics with autism. Berzerkers went from Viking hippies to just hippies and the Outlaws are just as useless as in the first game. Magic seems to also be useless, at least for the Berzerker faction, as most guns you will get will deal more damage by the time you advance well enough into the game to get magic. Also, there seems to be fewer weapons than in the first game, so no more cool stuff like the Flamethrower or Chainswords.
Story and Dialog are also pretty bad. The storyline of the first Elex was not what pretentious game journalists would call the "Citizen Kane of Gaming" but I liked it. The premise of bringing together Traditionalists, Anarchists and the Religious to fight a Collectivist metahuman faction that seeks to transform and **** the entire planet is not something you see in most AAA games, where stories seem to be specifically made for Twitter feminists and redditors. In Elex 2 you'll be doing mostly the same thing, only without the few interesting bits of the Original. Also, Jax is so whiny and annoying and now he has a stupid kid and a **** ex wife to deal with. I guess this is PB's idea of an emotional core. Also quest design is even worse than the first game. This is Gothic 3 level of fetch/kill quests, I think even modern MMOs have better design.
On the gameplay side, it still ****. A minor improvement for the Malee combat, but still bad even compared to other mediocre AA games like Greedfall. Ranged is still OP, like in most PB games, but the newly-includded flying enemies are the worst thing I've seen in a game latelly. Not only are they small and have smaller hitboxes, but they also move around so fast that you can barelly hit. They are more annoying than challenging.
Lastly, performance is attrocious. I don't have a monster PC, but still the framerates are so low for a game that looks like it was made in 2010 on a low budget.
Are there good things? Sure. The environment and world design still look great. Exploration is still fun and can be rewarding and the Jetpack upgrade system is pretty neat. But this is just not enough. I was a big Pyranha Bytes fanboy and even I can't recommend this. If you really need your Gohic fix you should tryChronicles of Myrtana: Archolos instead.
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PC
Summary ELEX II is the sequel to ELEX, the vintage open-world role-playing experience from the award-winning creators of the Gothic and Risen series, Piranha Bytes. ELEX II returns to the post-apocalyptic Science Fantasy world of Magalan with massive environments that can be explored with unrivaled freedom via jetpack, you will be able to move t...
Rated M
for Mature
Platforms:
- PC
- PlayStation 4
- PlayStation 5
- Xbox Series X
- Xbox One
Initial Release Date: Mar 1, 2022
Developer:
- Piranha Bytes
Publisher: THQ Nordic
Genres:
