Review | ELEX II – PlaySense

Review | ELEX II – Piranha Bytes scored well with Gothic and its sequel in the early 2000s on PC, but the third part in the RPG series did not succeed. Things didn’t get any better when the German developer made the switch to consoles. This was mainly because the games they made were often a generation behind on many fronts and therefore looked and played outdated. Of ELEX this was no different and there was also the fact that the game suffered from many technical problems. As with the Risen series, despite the lukewarm reception, a new part has simply been made. Probably in the hopes that the German developer can revive the glory days of Gothic.

Do not bother

Piranha Bytes has in any case not made it too difficult in terms of story. In the first part, you played as Jax and fought a great evil on the planet Magalan to battle for ELEX, a substance that can make you extra powerful. Besides fighting the enemy, you also had to get involved in conflicts between different factions. Instead of coming up with something more original with the second part, the German developer has opted for the easiest way. They simply copied the story from the first part, only now with a different enemy and several years later.

Not what you expect

In terms of gameplay, there are no original things being done either. The game is presented in a third-person perspective and you are mainly engaged in fighting and having conversations with various characters in a world where you can go wherever you want. You will be given various assignments to complete and side missions will also be presented during your adventure. You can also upgrade and level up your hero, of course, in order to successfully complete the most difficult assignments. The sequel to ELEX is therefore a fairly standard open world RPG, but this should not be a problem if the game knows how to entertain you well. Piranha Bytes’ game does that to a certain level, but there are still some snags.

When you start playing ELEX II – version 1.03 – you will not be very happy with what you see. Although the image is super sharp with a resolution that is close to or exactly 4K, the frame rate stands out in a negative way. Depending on the environment, it is approximately between 30 and 50 frames per second when looking straight ahead and 60 is tapped when looking at the sky or ground. Since for the most part you look straight in front of you in the game, you have to do it with a sub-optimal frame rate. There’s also only one graphics mode, so you’re stuck with this. What catches the eye anyway is that there is a lot of screen tearing. Both therefore create a messy and restless image.

If you’re positive and accept that screen tearing and an unstable frame rate are part of the game, then your attitude will be put to the test again. When you start the first fights, you notice that they are stiff. Attacking and defending with the mix of old-fashioned and modern melee weapons and shooting irons therefore does not work well. Your character is slow to respond to your commands, which is especially a problem when dodging incoming attacks. Of course you have to get used to this, because after a while you know how to adapt to still get some fun out of fighting, but it is far from ideal. It’s clearly the weakest part of ELEX II and that’s a shame, because this part takes up a large part of your adventure.

The bad first impression of ELEX II does not change in the first hours either. The world itself and the main character look nice to good, but other characters you encounter sometimes look a bit strange. Faces can look a bit misshapen and the animations of the NPCs are quite wooden and are reminiscent of two generations ago. The strangest and most disturbing thing happens when you start looking at the map; then the frame rate drops a lot. If the 10 frames per second are achieved, that is a lot. Why this is so is a mystery, as it is a simple flat 2D map. You use this a lot, so having to use a heavily stuttering map over and over is really annoying.

Patience will be rewarded

It is understandable that the aforementioned points can be a reason for some gamers to write off ELEX II after a few hours. Still, it pays to give the game time. Where you will first sit with a grumpy face, at some point it will slowly change into a light smile and then you take the negatives for granted. This is primarily due to the world in which the adventure takes place. There is regularly something to see in the distance that makes you curious and there are also quite a few ‘easter eggs’ to be found, with funny winks to other games or media. Magalan invites you to investigate and that is very cool.

Gradually you will also notice that the many missions and side missions – which are good for dozens of hours of gameplay – are for the most part just a fun activity. Of course, these will mainly consist of frequent fighting, but you’ll also need to maintain friendships with factions or, if you choose, antagonize someone. You will also have to look for people who can help you during the adventure. In any case, you are not constantly doing the same thing and that benefits the playing pleasure. There are some assignments that feel a bit like filling in, for example, because you are often sent from one place to another without doing anything important, but fortunately these are heavily in the minority.

What also makes the missions fun is that you come into contact with different characters. As you could read before, these can sometimes look a bit strange, but they each have their own – sometimes funny exaggerated – personality. The dialogues are not always well written and the voice acting is not equally strong everywhere, but the individual identity of each character more than makes up for this. What is a bit of a shame is that it is not indicated whether a (side) mission is still too ambitious for the level that your character has at that moment. You can therefore be busy with an assignment for a while to have to break it down again, because you encounter an enemy that you take out with one blow.

Nothing stands in your way

What gives the game a positive turn in one fell swoop is the use of a ‘jet pack’. You will receive this soon after you start your adventure. You can fly with this for a short time and that is really ideal. If you’ve played more open world RPGs, you’re probably familiar with the phenomenon that you sometimes have to walk around a lot to get to a certain point because there are some mountains or buildings in the way. Nine times out of ten in ELEX II this is not a problem, because the jet pack offers a solution and you overcome the obstacle in a short time. Now the map of the game world is not very big, but that you don’t have to walk around is always handy.

Reviewed on: PlayStation 5
Also available on: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S en pc.