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Elex |OT| Gothic 5: Risen From Jank

Humdinger

Gold Member
I played it for about 5 hours then stopped and put it up for sale. The game requires more patience than I have right now. I enjoyed the exploration but it seemed like the game would require too much work of me, before it began to really feel good. I just got tired of it, I guess. There is a long, slow slog in the beginning that I never got past.

Oh well, I knew it was a Eurojank RPG before I bought it, so it's on me.
 

Sentenza

Gold Member
My first hours with the game were mixed feelings at best.
There are things about this game that I hate. No hyperbole. I genuinely hate them.

And yet, the more I play it, the more impressed I am with everything it does well.
Overall, to say I'm enjoying my time with it would be a massive understatement.
 

Sentenza

Gold Member
I feel like Bethesda games would be criticized in much the same way if they were only in third person and less well known.
I feel like I would finally start to enjoy a Bethesda game if ever had one anywhere near as good as this one.

All Bethesda RPGs always feel more like toolset to play around with mods than proper games.
 

sssssszzzzz

Neo Member
Elex is like a raw diamond but with some serious blind spots. The most obvious one is animations and NPC facial design. Falling and jetpack landing looks so bad. NPCs seem like 1:1 copies of each other in different cities. Some scripts are just missing from the game which make good moments really bad. Duras
died from my sword in my playthrough after I told the Berserks about his murder. Unfortunately, he stood next to me when telling the regent, but none of the surrounding guards bothered when the traitor/murderer attacked my just in front of the throne!

Still, the game does so well in other aspects, better than Witcher or Skyrim. The best thing about Elex are its interwoven quest lines. There is a lot of grey, you will usually like something about each faction and hate other things. Also, all factions have their own struggles and multiple clans among them pursue different goals. It's all very believable and I am curious to find out what ultimately choosing one faction will mean for the world. I like that enemies do not level with you. One can debate whether you start out too weak with strong foes around too much, but it just feels so much more like roleplaying this way. Weapons and armor are much more unique, too. I am 15 hours in and did find a very strong sword and bow for later by chance, but not much else rarities, it feels as rewarding as in Dark Souls and not like in Skyrim. The world is hand-built and you can notice it here. Character progression also feels much more significant, as each level-up gives about 10 ability points. Learning talents is also integrated nicely. I wish you could actually play a proper mage and archer, but there is some character variety at least. Skyrim is stronger here. Alchemy, cooking and blacksmithing seem rather nice, too.

All in all, I am having a very good time with the game, despite some of its '2005-ish' elements.
 

blubb

Neo Member
It's the similar formula for many PB RPG games. You start out pathetically underpowered and are not coddled or hand held. It's survive or die. You aren't dropped into a nursery environment, allowed to build up a bit before you are shuttled off to the next zone that is appropriate for your level.

There is real danger and stakes. Maybe you can kill that level 20 beast at level 1 if you want to give it a shot or more likely spend the early levels running for your life. Eventually you grow in power through questing and exploring until you can go back and kill everything that ever scared you.

That's fun gameplay.

It's also great looking environment, crash free, fast load times and a decent fast travel system. There are enough good things to overcome the bad.

Thank you for answering my question. Unfortunately it is not what I would call fun. I'm glad some people here like the game.

I can stomach higher difficulty if it feels rewarding, but the difficulty here is too unbalanced. I'm OK with different parts in an RPG being gated towards higher levels that you could wander into if you're not careful, but in Elex that is everywhere. I have an aversion to running away. If sneaking past or slowly methodically fighting through everything would be an option it would be fine. But I am not running away from the game until I cheese it to level 20 to start actually playing. And on top of this is the completely broken and opaque RPG system that makes it even less fun.
Sorry, but I needed to vent this. Maybe at some later date I will hate myself enough to try it again.
 

120v

Member
so far this game is kind of a "be careful what you wish for" deal with me. everything on paper seems like a common cure for the skyrim age - no scaling, truly open ended, ect. but when you play it's kind of a mess. i'm all for a game "throwing you out there" but even the most obtuse rpgs tend to push you in a general direction with the questing . it's a dangerous world and it doesn't baby you, great but i kind of need more indication which parts are out of my league

i'll stick with it though. progression is genuinely fun which is ultimately the make or break with me
 

Filben

Member
Died thirteen times (I counted) at one enemy at the very early stage of the game (outside this gargabe ground in Edan). I probably would have quit if it had been Dark Souls. I don't know why I keep going. It just still have this Piranha Byte charme I know from Gothic 1. It fun to explore settlements and nature and skip certain parts to come back stronger.
 

Moff

Member
lol

I quit it, too. It does take a certain degree of masochism.
It really doesn't. You just need to realize that you are not supposed to fight most enemies in the first dozen of hours. Find other ways to finish those quests. Only very few actually require you to kill enemies.
 
I'm trying hard to avoid this game until a community patch releases, but the impressions here are making it difficult. Seems like there's a lot to like if you're a Gothic fan.
 

Fyrion

Member
Since I've decided from beginning that I´ll definitely join the cleric and heavily specialize on PSI.I spent my first 7 levels attribute points on INT in order to pick the skill that gives you an extra point for every level up(Attribute); certainly, the INT requirements are pretty high and pouring all my INT so early meant Jax is going to suck big time in fighting(and even more because I picked the equivalent of Hard difficulty), but I wanted to obtain the maximum benefit from it, otherwise +1 extra per level later on is not going to be a worthwhile investment, and I was going to pour a lotta points on INT anyways o pick PSI skills. (I didn't know elex potions are easy to craft, and though at first this game is going to be as demanding as Gothic 2 NOTR in regards of combat specialization)

25 hours of enduring my rough early game doing Zerkers,Dome and Outlaw quests; I finally found the Hort and joined them. Crap, Black hole and chain lightning were worth those hours as a wimp, It was finally time of payback!.

Unfortunately, those nukes made most enemy encounters trivial, althoug the drawback is that both black hole and chain lightning aren't cost efficient to use against single enemies; and chain lightning is a bit hard to aim. Also, I had to chug batteries like a freaking game boy color, It was that or going every while to the bed. So, my build was pretty lacking in the sustainability department. I definitely have to include another offensive output in order to not rely entirely on psi nukes.

So first, I picked plasma rifles,a legendary one I found at the northern converter specifically, quite high attack power. Aaaand got bored of it pretty fast. Did I say black hole made the game easy? Well, this weapon made encounters against mech and mutants piss easy, since the EMP mode permastun them, and the explosive ones knock down everything, plus the aditional damage of ''One with the weapon'' Spell. It was so ludicrous . Also, the added cost of plasma bullets was hurting my savings.

I sold the weapon. Then after several ruin and hunting raids, I eventually managed to afford regent sword III with energy enchantment. So I ended up with a character that is a hybrid between caster and melee. And It's pretty fun. Power shield + phasing ability provide a lot of survivability when going melee against multiple foes (haven't picked last stand yet).

Perhaps a melee cleric doesn't reach the same DPS in comparison to a buffed Berserker or a doped Outlaw, but PSI abilities give several ways to shutdown and deceive enemies, thus is a pretty safe build choice to go without companions, provided you pick One Man Army to buff damage when alone.


BTW, Bjorn revealed recently during the gamasutra interview, there´s going to be another upcoming patch soon. And among other things, It seems will make some parameters more explicit like HP, MP, armor..etc.
 

Moff

Member
Yeah black hole and plasma guns are super strong. I also used the same sword with the same buff, very cool.

You might be interested in the clerics amulet which regenerates psi energy, its in a locked chest on a hill in ignadon.

The game is definitely meant to to be played as a hybrid. It's the most fun at least and you need several high attributes anyway for armor and perks.
 

Lucifon

Junior Member
Has anyone else tried this on XB1X. I'd love to know exactly what's going on with it but it runs so much better. It even looks cleaner but it absolutely runs much smoother. I feel like it has an uncapped frame rate, feels smoother than 30.
 

deathsaber

Member
I want this, but not for $60- this is one of those games I have a feeling will drop to like $20-30 quite fast (seems to be the case with most PC RPG ports).

Also, since I would be buying for console, I'm a little concerned about updates. The devs seem good about updating Steam/PC, but appear to be completely radio silent on console. I remember Risen 2 on console (as well as PC) launched with a pretty critical flaw in its main combat system, which got patched on PC, but never got any update on console- kept me from buying it.

So I'm wary, especially since I hear the jank is real with this one, and that there is some imbalance present in some of the classes/factions, and I'm not paying a lot for an unsupported product.
 

Moff

Member
I want this, but not for $60- this is one of those games I have a feeling will drop to like $20-30 quite fast (seems to be the case with most PC RPG ports).

Also, since I would be buying for console, I'm a little concerned about updates. The devs seem good about updating Steam/PC, but appear to be completely radio silent on console. I remember Risen 2 on console (as well as PC) launched with a pretty critical flaw in its main combat system, which got patched on PC, but never got any update on console- kept me from buying it.

So I'm wary, especially since I hear the jank is real with this one, and that there is some imbalance present in some of the classes/factions, and I'm not paying a lot for an unsupported product.

They are patching it for consoles, it will just take longer than on pc
https://twitter.com/Elex_Game
DOCB0w4W0AAElsp.jpg
 

JaxBriggs

Member
Finally finished at 52 hours played. Great game! Honestly as a long time RPG fan this game ticked all the right boxes for me. Great visuals, gameplay and an interesting story with branching story lines. Also very happy to report that in that 52 hours I only experienced one bug which was just an NPC floating in mid-air, but apart from that I had no issues. I had far more issues playing through Fallout 4 than I had with ELEX.

One thing though... that ending?? I feel like my time was spent
working towards putting an end to the Hybrid and his plans, yet at the very end (after trying to kill him in battle no less) I suddenly decided that I was to become his servant, and then decided to travel the lands telling everyone how it was going to be, and killing anyone who disagreed
.

Wait... WTF?? I don't feel the ending I got matched the decisions I had been making at all. That was really out there.

Anyway still a great game and highly recommended, especially for RPG fans. Very much looking forward to ELEX 2 now which I read has been greenlit for development.
 

Moff

Member
There are three endings and they depend on your cold level (high, neutral, low). you cannot simply choose at the end, it's a consequence for all the actions you took during the game.

you had the high cold ending.
 
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