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Codex Review RPG Codex Review: ELEX!

Infinitron

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Tags: ELEX; Piranha Bytes

Nearly two months ago, Piranha Bytes released ELEX and proved that the RPG Codex Hivemind can make memes real. It's a good game, not perfect, but easily their best since the original Risen. Against all odds and after years of anguish, fans of Piranha Bytes' distinctive style of open world action-RPG once again have a future to look forward to. Darth Roxor has always been our point man on these games, and ELEX is certainly no exception. It is my greatest honor (no, not my other honor) to present his extensive review. Here's an excerpt:

The slice of Magalan where ELEX takes place is divided into five distinct regions – the lush forests of Edan, the highlands of Abessa, the desert of Tavar, the volcanic wasteland of Ignadon and the snowy mountains of Xacor. It might sound like a theme park on paper, but the terrain diversity in the game actually comes with a great degree of geographical plausibility that makes it feel like a real world. And what a huge world it is too! Barring Xacor, which is mostly an endgame kill fest level, all the others are extensive territories, each with its own city, old world ruins, local Alb invasion and lots upon lots of neat little things and secrets to run into. The openness of the world and the multiple connections between the respective regions are the primary thing that sets ELEX apart from the likes of Risen 2 and 3. The game takes place on a real map with real locations, and not a network of islands with conveniently placed ledges and corridors that all lead to the same spots.

That said, it must be mentioned that Piranha Bytes once again made the same mistake they did in Gothic 3. Namely, that the world is sometimes just too huge for its own good. The most glaring example of this is Ignadon – not only is it overall much lower in quality than the rest of the game, it also gives a feeling of having been rushed or subjected to big cuts. To be frank, when you think about the quests and content available in Ignadon, you can come to the conclusion that the entire region, except for its city, could have been removed from the game with no real repercussions, as long as a few of its better assets would be relocated to other parts of the map.

Nevertheless, there is still a chockful of things to do around every corner, all over the world. Exploration in ELEX is addictive as hell, and it seems like there’s not a patch of land that wouldn’t have something interesting to it. What the game does perfectly is recreate the feeling of curiosity as you travel through it – the sudden “ooh, I wonder what’s over there” that takes you on a detour spanning hours as you move from one point of interest to another. Combine that with the fact that the world is also fully open from the very beginning, with no invisible barriers whatsoever except for map boundaries, which are represented by convenient killer radiation fields, and the “Free as a Bird” main quest that you get at the start becomes more than just an empty slogan.

Mind you, this doesn’t mean that ELEX is a “hiking simulator” where you can go anywhere you want and observe pretty landscapes without running into any trouble. Hiking in ELEX is going to get you killed. The wildlife is vicious, mutants want to murder you at every step and bandits can’t wait to give you a lead injection. However, you have one significant advantage at your disposal that lets you get away from all harm. The jetpack.

PB were hyping the jetpack a lot before release, and I feared it would either end up as a tacked-on gimmick or something that would kill exploration. Turns out I was wrong, and the developers must have planned its inclusion with great care. Floating around from place to place, scaling mountains or old radio towers and flying away in panic from powerful enemies is much more fun and seamlessly connected to the exploration than you might think, and somehow it also never gets old. As I mentioned before, you also can’t use it to exploit enemy AI, because most foes have ranged attacks to shoot you down and some even sport jetpacks of their own. Its use in combat is also limited to quick repositioning or barraging gits from up high with ranged weapons, which makes it just another tool at your disposal, and not some kind of “I-Win” button.

[...] Yet in spite of the aforementioned issues, I’d say the world is still well-crafted and fun to uncover. Another point in its favour, which is also quite the surprise, is that despite looking really dumb and corny in screens or pre-release materials, Magalan actually turns out to be a very interesting and logical setting.

First, there are many small things that all act together to make it come to life, from environmental storytelling, through such details as city guard being divided into separate patrols of day and night watch, NPCs physically moving from place to place instead of teleporting around (even between cities), to the game having its own alphabet. Second, the factions in the game all have believable agenda, distinct themes and beliefs, and clear-cut axes of conflict between each other. The Berserkers (whose name doesn’t fit at all, but whatever) are a hippie gathering of viking-ish druids, who have a strict code of law, abhor all technology and want to purge the planet of Elex. This makes them a mortal enemy of the Clerics – psychic religious fundies with droids and lasers – who only tolerate the law set by their god and need the Elex to power their machines. Meanwhile, neither of the two factions is popular among the third, the Outlaws, who are Mad Max-type desert drifters that live among scrap and really love their personal freedoms and independence.

The conflicts between the factions are also portrayed nicely in the game itself. There is no open war just yet, but it’s clear that one might happen very soon. Every region and every city is infiltrated in some way by agents of all the factions, who try to further their agenda there. Not only does this contribute to the world feeling alive, it’s also a very welcome difference from Risen 3, where none of the factions interacted with each other whatsoever and where every region existed in some kind of hermetically sealed vacuum.

[...] Starting the game, I was dead sure that it would be horrible. Meanwhile I sunk into it for 85 long hours, which was only enough to complete one “full world lawnmowing” playthrough – save game counter tells me 70 hours, but I got an 80h playtime cheevo at 65, so I must have spent 15 idling and reloading (which sure is a lot of reloading). However, I also know that it took some folks just 20-something hours to breeze through it.

If I had to give you a short overall impression of ELEX, I would probably call it the same way one thread on our forums refers to Divine Divinity – it is probably the best shit game I’ve ever played. Sure, there are parts of it that are downright abysmal, broken or user-unfriendly. But at the same time, it is so incredibly addictive and fun that I don’t remember the last time a game sucked me in so completely for so long.

Perhaps a lot of it has to do with expectations and experience. I’ve witnessed the horrors of Risen 2 and 3 first-hand, so seeing the numerous improvements over these in ELEX was already a surprise for me, because ELEX is objectively an all-around better game than the both of those combined, which I suppose is at least one proven case of a developer being held back by an idiotic publisher. There is still a lot of room for improvement left to be sure, and I do hope Piranha Bytes do not waste the opportunity. If I had to give them at least one major piece of advice as to how ELEX 2 could be made better, it would definitely be to scale things down – reduce the world size, but improve its content. Gothic 3 was already an example of them overreaching, and ELEX in many ways repeats the same mistake.

Your very own expectations are also likely to influence how you will receive ELEX. If you are deluded enough to expect another Gothic, you might as well forget it. But if you still have that open world, no-nonsense PB game itch that needs scratching (and you know you do), ELEX might just be the thing you need. It looks dumb, it might be infuriating sometimes, but all I can say is: don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.​

Read the full article: RPG Codex Review: ELEX!
 

Konjad

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Zerth

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Despite of being thoroughly discussed in the Elex thread, there's still a question left to answer: Is this gaem any good guys?1?.....

Now in a more serious tone. Yep, the main quest is a hell of a shitstorm trip, on the flip side, It's so detached from the rest of content available; that you can pretty much explore and do almost everything despite of barely touching the first chapter. It also means you will end up backtracking like crazy, but is just a minor annoyance since propelling around with the jetpack never gets old. The flashbacks are kinda forgettable, I can't tell what you can potencially learn from them.

Companions certainly are not at the same level as any Gothic bro since they barely have any other agenda besides of their own personal questline and will stand still around the place you point them to be when out of the party until u recruit them again, but most of them are a'right. For me is quite adequate their usefulness in combat loses relevance after your Jax's build reach the desired powerspike, which most of times means you finally have access to some effective form of crowd control or AoE. Although their value as characters also is diminished, since you'll only have them as gateway for sidequests and not because of emotional engagement or anything like that. However, they're not dull companions, since They often will have something to say about the places you visit or even during some conversations with another NPC. Just don't expect them to have any other impact on the world outside of their respective sidequests. And this can be both understandable and anticlimatic as well, since you'll expect that having Falk as your unique cleric companion would harness any potential opportunity when visiting the Hort for example. But Nope. His recognition as a character to others NPC lies in another place, but still, as someone wearing a cleric armor It's odd He has no interactions within the Hort whatsoever.

In regards of the Elex potions. Such a shame that all the red flags the game gives ya through dialogues and exposure (there's an NPC that if you reveal you're an ex alb commander He'll warn you there'll be consequences if finds out you are an Elex junkie again for example) about abusing Elex consumption are just simply anecdotal in practice. Because It increases coldness so little, that the only way to significally go balls deep into your former autistic alb self is by choosing the 'cold' dialogue options.

Nevertheless, games like this one make me wish I could speak german.

BTW, mining with the jackhammer is crappy. It yields so little reward for all the bother you have to go through in order to finding an ore vein since vendors sell everything u need for crafting anyways. Also, picking up single shards of elex is kind of retarded, but my scrounger side hardly contains himself.

*Darth Roxor injects more ELEX into his eyeball*
All elex to the hybrid...
 
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Rpguy

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I really enjoyed the game. The review is good ( unlike IGN that gave it 4.9/10 )

One of the thing that needs fixing which is unmentioned is buying and selling prices makes no sense - you can actually make infinite money by just trading with the same vendor all day which is a big deal since money is the best way to upgrade your character.
 

Belegarsson

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I did, great review, but only 6 mentions of jetpack though :4/5:. On ELEX, I think it's a difficult recommendation, but I would say it's worth playing for quest design alone, especially The Domed City's questlines.
 

Paul_cz

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Gonna wait for few more patches. I want them to add numerical values to stuff that needs it.
But good review, gonna buy as I always do, the PB whore that I am.
 

Kyl Von Kull

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
In regards of the Elex potions. Such a shame that all the red flags the game gives ya through dialogues and exposure (there's an NPC that if you reveal you're an ex alb commander He'll warn you there'll be consequences if finds out you are an Elex junkie again for example) about abusing Elex consumption are just simply anecdotal in practice. Because It increases coldness so little, that the only way to significally go balls deep into your former autistic alb self is by choosing the 'cold' dialogue options.

Nonsense bro. I barely ever picked cold dialogue options but found it quite easy to chug at least a hundred Elex potions (it’s a much easier way to progress than levelling up), which got me all the way to synthetic. I had to reload from a substantially earlier save to prevent myself from being locked into the cold ending.

Were you maybe playing it that first week before they patched Elex potions? Initially they did not increase your cold, at least for the first few days. So there were probably sixty or seventy potions I used in that period that didn’t even end up counting in my cold score.

PS. Good work, rattus rattus.
 

Rpguy

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In regards of the Elex potions. Such a shame that all the red flags the game gives ya through dialogues and exposure (there's an NPC that if you reveal you're an ex alb commander He'll warn you there'll be consequences if finds out you are an Elex junkie again for example) about abusing Elex consumption are just simply anecdotal in practice. Because It increases coldness so little, that the only way to significally go balls deep into your former autistic alb self is by choosing the 'cold' dialogue options.

Nonsense bro. I barely ever picked cold dialogue options but found it quite easy to chug at least a hundred Elex potions (it’s a much easier way to progress than levelling up), which got me all the way to synthetic. I had to reload from a substantially earlier save to prevent myself from being locked into the cold ending.

Were you maybe playing it that first week before they patched Elex potions? Initially they did not increase your cold, at least for the first few days. So there were probably sixty or seventy potions I used in that period that didn’t even end up counting in my cold score.

PS. Good work, rattus rattus.

I think the patch only informed you that your cold increased, while before the patch it increased without telling you about it.

In any case I drank hundreds of potions and finished the game with the lowest cold value. It wasn't really an issue. You just have to pick the dialog options that decrease cold.
 

Fenix

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Agree with whole review, except this

The effects of this opacity are absurd. They make every advancement feel like a gamble or an R&D project. First you take the plunge and blindly pick a skill, after which you proceed to test what it does by running around naked and whacking monsters with different weapons, until you finally realise your last choice was garbage and reload the game. It has one lovably “oldschool” aspect of trying to find out just how the hell does anything function, but seriously speaking, this has no place in 2017.

I think it was design goal to maximize exploring aspect - even in character building, when there is no clear guides, so you need to do the job yourself.

Also, what was new in review, that English reanslation is a mess. I can imagine what kind of mess the Russain translation is, because it's more likely was done by translating from English.


BTW, mining with the jackhammer is crappy. It yields so little reward for all the bother you have to go through in order to finding an ore vein since vendors sell everything u need for crafting anyways.

Give the info that jetpack was planned to use Elexit shards as fuel - at least I heard that, I think those Elex veins had to give at some point Natural Elex, and no infinite NE from merchants or at all.
But that was abandoned forsome reason.
 

Fenix

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Since I'm not visiting Elex thread, can I ask here - where can I find Slugebeasts, those with wings, need them for crafting.
Have found 5 of them in Edan, need another 3.
Also, I have 189 hours in Elex, explored only 90% of Edan and Abessa combined, didn't visit Dome Sity yet.
 

Darth Roxor

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think it was design goal to maximize exploring aspect - even in character building, when there is no clear guides, so you need to do the job yourself.

Idk man, I'd say there's a very fine line between discovering stuff on your own and having absolutely no way to tell wtf you're upgrading.
 

Bumvelcrow

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Good review - I read all of it and didn't get bored. I rate this review 4.5/5. A couple of spelling mistakes, which I presume were ironic given the criticisms of the English localisation. :obviously:

I had absolutely no intention of buying Elex, given my previous history of liking the unpopular PB games and disliking the classics, but I'm currently wavering. Some patches plus better translation (or when I finally get round to learning German) and I might go for it. As it is I think I'll wait for a 50% off sale.
 

imweasel

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Despite some questionable and clunky design the game remains alluring until the very end. Elex is truly an extremely addictive shit game. :D

Thanks for the review, Darth Roxor.

:bro:

If pumping your stats with Elex potions had some kind of negative effect on Jax, it would serve as a pretty good counterbalance. But since it doesn’t...
Elex potions do actually raise your cold value. I think it was something like 0.1 cold per large Elex drink.
 

Darth Roxor

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Elex potions do actually raise your cold value.

I know and that's my point. They raise cold, but cold doesn't have any real gameplay impact.
 

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