For the counter-point in which I criticize various shortcomings in Elex by comparing it to Gothic 1 and 2, see my previous video: "Things Gothic 1+2 (Still) Do Better Than Elex." Link: ua-cam.com/video/ETZ1tSQrsn8/v-deo.html
Does your Elex 2 wishlist from last year hold up after the Elex 2 announcement? What do you think of the trailer and the suggested evolution of narrative? I am pretty happy as the pragmatic Albs don't feel like Pirhannia Bites trying to reinvent 40k mechanicus with the Clerics, the Berserker+neural people remnant looks like they try to restore life and style from before the comet with magic and biofrendly solutions while the new raider faction looks like it isn't afraid to steal robots - and I think more of them are ex-clerics and their miners who got apocalypsed rather than outcasts.
Check out ac Odyssey! Exploration mode! They made the entire game so you don't need to do any of the icon shit. The npcs will give directions! I can't believe how many of the things you want are ij that game. Crazy how few people know how good it is. It's the best open world rpg if the generation. It really deserves more love.
This was an excellent video, as someone who game designs & truly focuses on game mechanics & story you are a rarity in your attention to gameplay detail. Also you have to understand I learned this years ago the saddest aspect of game design is that companies do not reference other games before working on it's development. I'm working on something I will definitely contact you, as you have great potential as a game design consultant.
The internet is such a tolerant place that this dude had to dead ass spend the first 5 minutes of the video repeating that he wasn't hating on the games, nor saying one was better than the other.
Ikr remember when UA-cam was fun, during the filthy frank era. Nowadays is like u shit on my favourite game/tv show/genshin impact Waifu, you’re personally attacking me and now I have to cancel u. Wtf happened to the internet
I get you, but a lot of UA-camrs are shitty as well. Probably worse in a lot of cases. Based on the way I've seen quite a few of them act outside of their content I feel pretty comfortable in assuming the worst of them are the lowest form of human life. A lot of people watching videos often just react to something without taking a second to think about anything, and plus a lot of people are just absolute dickheads while equally as sensitive. Also, I was an avid watcher of UA-cam content back in the Filthy Frank days when commentary was all the fad. Back then language wasn't policed and not anywhere near as much censoring of content. It's easy to wistfully think back to this as a time where there was freedom of expression, the reality was far less appealing. Every other channel (especially the commentary community ugh....) used explectives and slurs to such an extent that it was normal. N-word this, F-slur that, over and over and over. Filthy Frank was hilarious, but he also had a point. It sucks that people feel totally comfortable acting like assholes, but that's typically the case for the person in the video as much as everyone else. If Nocturnal hadn't took that time to explain people would have assuming his intention was to wind them up. People don't think online, it's just act-act-fuckyou-act.
He had to do it in my opinion because TW3 and Skyrim are realy great game with massive fan base so naturally there will be inmature people not excepting others opinions and listen. I loved this video because TW3 is my fav game but he did make amazing points to make it even better. looking forward to wither universe game where you can make charakter who is not the ultimate world savior.
I love Elex. It's the first game I've played since Morrowind where I have just wanted to roam and explore the world and pause to enjoy the scenery in between trying not to die to random bastards.
Fun fact - CDPR took inspiration from Piranha Bytes series - Gothic (which is very popular, I can say, even iconic series in Poland), making Witcher series. After Witcher 3 huge succes, Piranha Bytes took inspiration from Witcher 3 making Elex XD
One of thing that i love about their games is that NPC are oddly easy to be remembered. Like in gothic, diego, gorn, lee and even the digger Mud. Each have unique characteristics that you'll remember even after years since last time you played the game.
World design, exploration and progression in Piranha Bytes games always were brilliant. Their games are junky and have stiff combat and animations but that never was an issue for me. Modern RPGs still can't get right what PB was able to achieve already 20 years ago. Elex really is a great game. The best PB game since Gothic II.
Elex exploration is one of the best. Always got be on your toes when you explore. You never know when a enemy pops out and one shots you specially at the beginning
Yep, as the guy who played both WItcher 3 and Skyrim a lot (and Witcher 1 & 2, Morrowind and Oblivion as well) I agree with most of the points of the video, especially that W3 progression is broken. I actually skipped all Piranha Bytes games after Gothic 2 (besides the first Risen), so probably I need to take a shot at Elex. Also, thanks for the video, great work as always!
I'm also considering checking out Elex. I really like their map design and reward system. But I'm so sceptical about its combat system after they ruined Risen 1 great combat in 2 and 3..
@@Sandkasten36 Elex does have a lot more jank than Risen, but I found the combat more engaging than Risen. The combat in Risen although smoother was harder to execute successfully since the time-window given by enemies to dodge and react was almost non-existent at best. Elex has a host of its own issue like certain enemies having unrealistically fast and stun-locking attack animations and a bit of a curve in mastering combat itself. But as an overall package, I found Elex far better and immersing than Risen 1. In fact coming quite close to the first 2 Gothic games
It's funny how Elex actually has technology that would realistically allow you to set waypoints for 'quests' and yet Skyrim and Witcher 3 abuse the mechanic far more.
This is part of the reason I can kind of (almost?) tolerate it in Elex, because there's at least a contextual, immersive explanation for how that stuff works. It also helps that the quest design isn't *entirely* reliant on waypoints, too, but it's an area that I would certainly like to see improved in the sequel. After all, that was a big point of criticism in my "Things Gothic 1+2 (Still) Do Better Than Elex" video.
@David Nash I had mixed opinions on BOTW but its exploration was surprisingly well done for being such a huge map. It suffers from similar problems that I criticize Skyrim and TW3 but it did a great job of indicating where you had to go without using waypoint markers, such that you could figure out where to go and where to find something just using the map and your own two eyes. For as a big and spread-out as that map is, it's intricately divided into different regions that are all individually labeled, so when you're told a location you can search the map for the general area and have a good idea of where to start looking and where the "boundaries" of that zone would be so you don't wander too far off-track and get hopelessly lost. So when an NPC says something like "Two trees on a hill overlooking Makar Plains" or whatever, you can go to Makar Plains and just look around for hills until you find one with two trees suspiciously atop it. That game also does a good job of letting you see long distances across the map so you can see interesting things that you might want to direct your attention towards, while also putting a ton of genuinely interesting curiosities into the world design. The dragons are a big example, of course, but there are tons of other examples like weird paintings on a rock surface, glowing lights over the mountain tops at certain times of day, enigmatic shrine entrances, and so on. That world has a certain intriguing mystique to it which I found compelled me to explore just to satisfy my curiosity of what was out there. Even if some of the gameplay mechanics were hit-or-miss and even if I didn't particularly enjoy it as a Zelda game, the exploration still pulled me in pretty well. For anyone who was curious, see my written review of BOTW from 2018 for more of my thoughts on it: thenocturnalrambler.blogspot.com/2018/10/zelda-breath-of-wild-review-overrated.html
@David Nash Eh, the wanking of BOW is absurd. It's just highly praised cuz it was a nice breath of fresh eair in a stale ass series and even they just ripped good ideas from AAA games to throw in it. When I finaly played it after the initial hype, I was massively dissapointed. I still prefer TP, WW, or even SS remake now over BOTW. That "mechanic" you are praising it for was done better all the way back in games like Fallout 2 or Arcanum, Sonny Jim.
@@Tomha Exactly. They even used to have spells like mark/recall, divine intervention, etc. and you get teleported by devices and magic all the time anyways. Why they can't just use their own in game lore to explain and flesh out their games systems is what makes me annoyed. Every facet of fast travel, quest markers, etc. could easily be explained by integrating it into the magic system, or barring that due to not wanting to force players into a mage archetype, at least in Skyrim they could've just integrated those into the shout mechanics. Just a sad missed opportunity to make the world that much more "in it."
I 100% agree with the question marks. Whats the point of exploration if the game tells you where to go? Elex did exploration so much better. I hope all open world rpgs remove the question marks from their map.
I'm sure I've said this before, but it's on my list, I'm just too busy with real life and other games to get to it right away. I had it on a Patreon poll recently and it gained zero votes, with Risen 2 and Sekiro taking the top 2 spots and other games like Arcania, Control, and Disco Elysium getting interest as well. In the mean time anyone who's curious can read my original written review from 2013 for an overview of what I thought of it when I played it initially: thenocturnalrambler.blogspot.com/2013/11/dragons-dogma-is-pretty-damn-good.html
I don't know if you'll see this but I hope you try out the Enderal overhaul mod for Skyrim at some point if you haven't already. A lot of the bonuses you mentioned with character progression are also present there and I have a feeling that you'll enjoy it. I honestly cannot recommend that game enough.
Really just the fact that you have to use your eyes to find things is so refreshing in this game. You look at the environments, the views and actually discover things like rambler said, it all just makes the exploration so much better than any in most triple A games. It really is a shame when big studios design everything in a way that ruins the whole exploration aspect. Why would the environmental artists even bother going the extra mile when they know that people are just starting at a compass anyways? I wish devs/publishers trusted their players to not be brain dead idiots.
Having a basic common denominator that allows a game to be accessible to more people, invariably makes it shallower to players looking for something morre invested.
I remember playing oblivion and then playing dark messiah and thinking, damn why couldnt oblivion have that kind of combat, surely the next game will have new engine and surpass even dark messiah! it didn't. even with absurd ammount of best mods released a decade later, it still barely meets expectations of action rpg combat of the year it was originally released in. ofcourse writing this in an elex video is a bit weird. i would trust piranha bytes develop a good combat system even less than bethesda.
You weren't supposed to be able to reapply blade oils during combat in Witcher 3. But there was a bug when using keyboard and mouse that allowed you to reapply it mid-combat if you click and drag. CDPR's fix was to remove the limitation entirely.
28:20 Shield can block everything even without Stamina. That's also a point for Elex. Shield actually offers the best protection, while in many games they are more than useless, being completely overshadowed by dodge and parry. Shields also allow you to block projectiles. As a fan of shields, I really appreciate Elex for making shields really useful.
@@Patches_Gaming A lot of attacks deal high damage due to sharpness of fangs or blades or spikes or whatever. If someone does actually hit very hard with blunt force, like a troll, you still get staggered a bit. A shield covers a large surface area, that's why blocking with it is much easier. It's more "passive", whereas parrying is "active".
Shield are overshadowed only when you become good at the game though, that's the point. Even in the history, the most experienced swordmasters weren't ones hiding behind a shield. It was always an additional layer of protection to compensate for the lack of skill, or used against arrows/bolts you mentioned. Dodge and parry are way harder to use and are way more punishable than a shield too. Sure, if you'll block too much, you run out of stamina and eventually get staggered for a cricitcal strike, but if you miss time your dodge even once, you get hit, end of story. Same with the parry - miss time it once and instead of opening the enemy to a critical strike, you take their hit (or hits) right in your face. Those are risk-rewards systems, but the reward is outweighing the risk for most, depending on the game. I also like shields, I absolutely love playing Mount&Blade with one, however the way they are implenented in Elex is also broken. I literally blocked a mech's LASER with a wooden shield I found somewhere. It should at the very least pierce through it, if not burn it to a crisp, but also further trivializes the already broken combat system.
@@polski8bit Nah historically, if anyone could hold a shield they would. Also Swords werent the primary weapon for fighting against steel armoured opponents. That was hammers, mace, spears etc. The sword was more ceremonial than anything else
I remember like a day after the release of Elex when I was in the dome city and wondered "Is there something at the highest point inside the dome?" And sure enough after platforming my way to the top I find a named weapon. Being rewarded for going out of your way to explore makes players want to go out of their way to explore. If the loot is randomized or no loot at all then why go out of you way to explore when you get more by following the path.
Too bad the named weapons becomes obsolete too quickly after you ugrade the regular ones with crafting skills and each faction offer you skills to ugrade their faction specific weapons even more with state effect damage, alternative fire modes and even alternative ammo.
Yep! If you explore just a little bit at the start of Elex 2 you will find a good weapon and some armor that makes you have a chance against the enemies at level 1. I got lucky and found it right off the bat but you have to go off the obvious beaten path.
Best RPG Critique channel on yt right now! I love how you mention a lot of things other review channels miss most of the time. In my opinion many ppl are delusional when it comes to skyrim and other very successful titles, and I like the way you approach the critique for these games. I am also a huge lover of Gothic 1 & 2 so maybe that's the reason I agree with a lot of your opinions. Keep up the great work! Love from Hungary!
I love the scaling system of Piranha Bytes games. It really gives you a sense of progression. There's easy stuff, and stuff that will just slaughter you. Avoiding the hard stuff to come back later makes me appreciate how much better I've gotten. I wish more games would do that.
Excellent video. Elex's metacritic score of 67 really is a travesty as far as I am concerned. Shame that most reviewers get immediately turned off by some of the rougher aspects of the game and can't seem to appreciate it's strengths.
67 definitely seems low to me. A game of this sort isn't going to appeal to everyone so it makes sense it would be significantly lower than Skyrim and TW3, but 67 is still surprising. In the US public school grading system, that's just barely a D+, almost a straight D, when really a C+ or B- seems more appropriate to me.
@@SobeCrunkMonster I don't believe that's necessarily the case. If it were, a 5/10 would be "average" and thus a decently respectable score, but most people (and most reviewers) consider that to be a bad score because a lot of reviews traditionally weigh their scores towards the upper half of the spectrum where 5-6/10 is mediocre, 7-8/10 is good, and 9-10/10 is great, with slight variation of course. When you rate a game on metacritic, for example, a green "favorable" score is only given for scores 8-10/10. In its official FAQ for game scores, it considers 50-74 to be "mixed or average" while 75-89 are "generally favorable." By metacritic's own standards, a 67/100 is merely "average" and certainly not "above average." It may be statistically above average on a raw grading scale, but when most of Elex's direct competitors are routinely scoring in the 80s and 90s, a mid-60s score is well below the standard of expectation and not something to be looked at positively.
@@TheNocturnalRambler From my decades spent gaming starting in the 90's on the C-64 , I have seen 7/10 -70/100 evolve into the default pass mark and it has been that way for a long enough time to say it has been the default used by the vast majority of game reviewers for all of the 21st century, but even that is seemingly changing, since I have noticed a lot of commentary around games these days that seem to consider an 8/80 mark a pass score.
I really like ELEX I can't wait for the second one. When I bought it randomly on steam for super cheap I was blown away by how much I liked this game. I will say one thing though the grind is slow and the enemies will fuck you up for basically most of the game.
Great video! I finished Elex recently and I have to say I agree with all your points. I'm looking forward to Elex 2. I was very skeptical at first because I didn't think fantasy + Sci fi would work, but I was so wrong. The world building is so good and the world feels very believable.
I feel like the Witcher 3 still had a lot of good exploration. Diving and finding ships was awesome, going over a hill and running into a cool cave, lots of things that weren't guided or hand holding. Now there was a ton of that kind of stuff to but I feel it at least had more rewarding exploration then skyrim does.
I have to disagree about it being rewarding (although I don't think Skyrim is very rewarding either). To me Elden Ring really put into perspective how lackluster both Witcher 3 and Skyrim are in terms of rewarding exploration. Every dungeon hides a unique item, and you can find plenty of them in the open world as well. Not every item is useful to your build, but you can immediately see the use of each item. In contrast to that in Witcher 3 and Skyrim you usually only find another piece of gear which just has different stats, rarely if ever different effects. I do think the Witcher has an uphill battle to climb, since you always play a witcher and that can not facilitate as many playstyles, but I still would have loved to find some more unique stuff.
@o0LordMuffin0o buddy, I will never disagree with you when it comes to Elden Ring. That game is in another universe. The whole game is built in risk vs reward, discovering secrets, building your character your way and I can go on and on and on. The Witcher is a different type of rewarding but elden ring blows them all out of the water when it comes to exploring. The witchers story is incredibly well done and a fun ride that captures you from moment 1. Elden ring is so amazing in a way that the story could be missing entirely because the gameplay is so good you won't even care. We can agree completely here on elden ring. That is one of my favorite games ever. Only bloodborne has a bigger place in my heart
Great video as always. Not sure I agree about the melee combat being "better" since it ultimately felt too clunky and unresponsive for me to get used to, hence I bypassed it altogether and just used ranged weapons, but I do agree the use of stamina and combo meters was an interesting choice that I wish they could've executed better. Everything else was spot-on and well-said as always.
At least Elex gives you the option to avoid the melee combat if you don't like it, though in truth the ranged combat has extreme balance issues with the easy capability of stun-locking enemies so it's not exactly a perfect fix. With The Witcher 3, for example, if you find yourself bored or disinterested with the swordplay, you're kind of stuck with it, because that's the type of character Geralt is, and thus that's how you have to play. Anyway, thanks for the kind words and thanks for watching!
@@ungobungo7986 I haven't watched the video but I can confidently say that, based on my own first-hand experience, I don't believe that to be the case. TW3's combat earns points in my book for general fluidity, in terms of the flow/rhythm of everything; the responsiveness of the controls by queuing inputs instantly; its intuitive mechanics and timings being pretty easy to get the hang of and master; and its high quality animations that stream together extremely well making it all look really good and further contributing to the great feel/flow of everything. However, it loses major points when it comes to tactical depth and interesting variety which I find most important when it comes to combat in these types of games. The combat just seems so simple and straightforward that practically every fight feels like a glorified QTE of mashing left-click and periodically tapping the dodge button when you see an enemy's health bar flash red. That applies for practically every enemy in the game, as most enemies (until you get to HOS and to a lesser extent B&W) behave fairly similarly and so you don't have to adapt your combat techniques to different foes except to swap out blade oils/potions/bombs to take advantage of their unique weaknesses. Magic options usually serve to make the combat LESS interesting with Aard knocking enemies down so that all you do is walk up to them and left-click to perform an auto-finisher, Quen making you literally invincible while it's active, Igni stunning enemies with a DOT by lighting them on fire, Axii also stunning them to the point that they stand there doing nothing. Yrden's the only one I find somewhat interesting but it's generally unnecessary and not that useful in my experience (though I did like using it in HOS with the Yrden alternate sign rune). I ultimately found way more depth and satisfaction (not to mention variety) in games like Demon's Souls/Dark Souls/Bloodborne, Dragon's Dogma, and Horizon Zero Dawn (its ranged combat, not its melee) due to their more varied types of deterministic attack types and animations, more differentiated enemies with different attacks/behaviors/special weaknesses, more significant "special attack" types, greater variation in playstyles and character building leading to a greater impact on the combat, and greater overall challenge. Like I said in the video, as janky and messy as Elex's combat is, I find its core ideas and intentions more desirable as well. I'd say I also enjoyed other games like Dark Messiah of Might and Magic for its creative ways to use the environment and combine attack types for situational benefits, Shadow of Mordor for its evolution of new and different types of attack maneuvers, and Devil May Cry 1-3 for their intensely frenetic stylistic action that emphasizes doing well to get better rewards, to name just a few extra examples, more than the combat in TW3. That's not even to mention others like Sekiro, Nier Automata, Nioh, and so on, which I haven't played but assume they would be contenders as well based on how they look in footage that I've seen. Maybe there's some kind of hidden depth and variety to TW3's combat that I just haven't been able to notice, and maybe that video could enlighten me on some of its other strengths that I haven't mentioned, here, but from my own first hand experience with it across two entire playthroughs trying every possible playstyle and comparing it against a bunch of other vaguely similar games and other direct competitors, I just can't say I find it all that noteworthy. It's "fine" and "good for what it is" but nothing special, and would readily take several other games' combat over TW3's.
I played a lot of skyrim and elex.I haven't played any other RPGs.I really liked the game elex that I have completed the game multiple times with various endings.
Man, i played The Witcher 3 and Skyrim lots of hours, and i agree totally with you now that i finished Elex (because i saw this video, i have to say). If i followed typical reviews (like ign) i would never played this masterpiece.
Oh great video, made me want to give this game another try Edit : I actually finished the game yesterday and it was great imo . if it wasn't for your video i wouldn't give it another chance .
I remember the first time I played this game. Ran into my first Bitter, not Runt actual Bitter and had this epic half an hour long fight against it. Felt soooo good to take down such a weak enemy. Then I come back decked out into Enforcer Armor and mow down dozens of them. Confidently I go attack the Edan Convertor (since I didn't do that quest as I did mainly exploration) and had my first meeting with an Alb Colossus. Which proceeded to 2 shots me. I was honestly not mad. The sheer terror of that behemoth running at me and the music that accompanied it made it too good of an encounter to be mad.
I get why you think the Witcher and Skyrim has "massive empty spaces" but it just doesn't really doesn't hold any water with me. One of my first memories of Skyrim was seeing some high mountain walking up to a cave, encountering some bandits and draughouls in some strange dungeon and getting a strange object and an epic weapon at the end of it. And I did all of that without looking at any map. It didn't feel like I was traversing empty spaces. Skyrim felt anything but "empty spaces". There was always some shit going on, some goofy stray novice mage ambushing me in the woods for no reason, a hut in the middle of said woods with some old lady in it etc. Same with Witcher 3. After leaving white Orchard and going to Velen, the first thing I see is a village with a notice about a missing wife. I check out the notice, get a job, and start a rather creepy and suspensful chase of some beast that attacked her,( I had no real way of knowing what it was at the time, and even when Geralt spelt it out, I had no idea how to deal with this threat yet. On top of that the missing wife sister shows up out of nowhere telling me to call of the investigation cause she is probably dead anyway, which I really did not see coming. This stuff is very very compelling in Witcher 3 and again, it feels like the world is full of shit going on. Yes unfortunately these games do have too much boring "fight enemies, get shitty loot" question mark/interest points. I wish games would do away with question marks on the map all together. But this is not an empty space problem as much as it is a wasted space problem. I feel like you just have a very low tolerance of big games, and enjoy a more compact map experience in RPGs. I too would enjoy a more compact map and world experience in RPGs, I guess I am just better at enduring boring content than you.
The Elder Scrolls used to have vertical exploration. But then somebody made it illegal - even in Daedric Realms! Talk about Government Overreach. And it used to have multiple ways to end quests, but then they spent all their money on voice actors.
10:00 : You can actually reach the volcano crater without cheating, though finding the narrow path that doesn't give you constant fire damage can be tricky. I remember the starting point was at those rocks next to the cleric camp at the base of the volcano.
@@tada-kun982 You can walk around the actual crater which is perfectly circular and has something like a metallic border running along its length. It's pretty clear you aren't really meant to be there as you can clip through that metal border and the whole thing just looks weird. Also, the crater happens to be just above "Calaan" if you know what I mean, which makes it even more confusing, hah.
One of the best things about the maps in all gothic/elex games is, that they visualize special spots and then you can navigate there. On the Elex map you can see every Building, Mountain and lake in the topography and then decide your self that you want to see what is there. And then you find an mediavel castle filled with bandits and a hostage NPC + a legendary weapon. But this discovery was not just you following a quest marker or a question mark, but you deciding that this spot looks interesting on the map. In Witcher 3 you cant really make out on the map why this question mark is there and shrines are just placed randomly in the woods. Like who build them there? :D
I think you are somewhat wrong, I can't count the amount of times (granted I've spent about 1500 hours on tw3) that I've wandered into random shacks or buildings on the map and been greeted by cannibals or a read between the lines event unrelated to a quest.
@Ungo Bungo @Krzysztof I can't say that's accurate at all from my experience. TW3's world design felt like it was predominantly trying to block your line of sight with trees and small hills so that you could only see a limited distance in front of you, I assume for the sake of performance and graphical fidelity so that it could render more things in high detail and not have to show much stuff so far away. Consequently I rarely felt like I got an opportunity to see interesting things from a distance and then make my way there, as I was usually stumbling into places randomly and unexpectedly (instead of deterministically) after I was already upon them, or had to resort to following "?" icons and green waypoint markers to find the places the game thought was special enough to check out. Frankly, I just never found much satisfaction in TW3's exploration, with the exception of some individual isles in Skellige and most of Toussaint (though the extreme repetition of content to be found in Toussaint's POIs made me lose interest in them really quickly). Elex, in contrast, does a better job of letting you see places for yourself so that you can decide for yourself what areas might be interesting or worth checking out. A lot of this is accomplished by its more vertical world design, combined with the jetpack, which allows you to fly up to higher altitudes to see more of the map, but also by places being more noticeably distinguished from their surroundings. As such I felt a lot more intrigue in seeing something alluring that I felt called to investigate, and it was more satisfying and engaging because that was my decision to seek out answers; with TW3 I rarely ever got that feeling as discovery felt largely incidental or entirely passive.
I am from Poland and we have a lot of smaller shrines in the middle or between smaller villages some are even on private property, in a village that I grew up in we had a shrine in front of a forest on a road to church, sometimes rather than going to church people would gather there to pray with a rosary. Sorry for bad English.
It was definitely a surprise hit for me. After years of disappointment or being subtly let down by PB's games (basically starting with Gothic 3), I was really taken aback by how much I enjoyed Elex, and consider it to be one of my favorite games of the last few years. Thanks for watching!
Overall I think Bethesda had a negative impact on lots of RPG games, as it introduced the "big as the ocean, deep as puddle" concept that for some reason lots of companies (including Piranha Bytes) started to copy. While Witcher 3 is one of my favorite games of all time I definitely agree with the points you mentioned. Thing that ultimately made that game such a hit is a really well-written story, as well as Gwent, it had lots of other good points like music, graphics, smooth gameplay etc. but overall the thing that made me love it so much is the story (especially the quality of writing for side-quests)
@@tada-kun982 he is a d**k head, thinking his taste/choice should be considered as the bench mark for everyone else, mostly some kind of gaming elitist in his mind.
I think the best open world RPG I’ve played is kingdom come deliverance, for pretty much all the reasons you liked elex for. If you haven’t played it you’re missing out, it seems like it would be tailor made for you.
Killing your first dragon and being named dragonborn after what is essentially your first quest in the game is the gaming equivalent of premature ejaculation.
I would agree, generally speaking. The problem is that it was marketed as an RPG, and is largely regarded as an RPG -- "RPG" is its second-most popular user tag on Steam (second to "open-world") and it routinely makes people's "best RPGs of all time" lists, when I would consider it to be more of an "action-adventure game with RPG elements." The RPG mechanics are certainly there, but they feel less fundamental to the core game design and not nearly as mechanical or systemic in nature compared to many other games that I enjoy better. That's certainly fine as TW3 is good for what it is, but does leave it with a somewhat hollow, unsatisfying feeling when judging it under that context, which again seems appropriate given its reputation as being an RPG.
CDPR strength always lied in it's narrative and character writing, I wish they took more of the first games gameplay and RPG mechanics and just improved up on them, as animation and combat has most definitely been they're Achilles heel
I actually love all of these games, despite their individual faults. But in general, I have to agree that Piranha Bytes’ games generally do a much better job of both exploration and character development than most open world RPGs. Wish more studios would takes cues from their design philosophy.
Exploration and character development are some of the most important aspects of these types of games as far as my interests go, which is a big part of why Skyrim and The Witcher 3 don't satisfy me on the same kind of level as Elex or most of PB's other games. Those games have their redeeming qualities and their appeals, of course, but I just find the challenge of exploring the world and leveling-up and figuring things out for myself so much more engaging and rewarding in Elex than those other games.
@@TheNocturnalRambler that’s fair. I love The Witcher trilogy mostly for the setting, characters, and choices and consequences that shape the story. I treat Skyrim as a platform for mods. It’s a lot of fun to see what the community comes up with, as it’s usually more interesting than Bethesda’s vanilla content. Enderal is great in particular. Elex has some of the best exploration I’ve seen in a open world RPG in years, largely thanks to the jetpack and the vertical level design. I adore vertical level design, and PB has always made great use of it, but Elex takes it to another level (literally). I just wish Elex’s ranged combat was more satisfying. Once I joined the Clerics, I found little reason to use anything besides the plasma rifle and black hole ability (forget the name).
This was my exact thought too (you're first point). This could be due to my unrelenting love for Gothic (1&2). I can't believe you had to make that disclaimer after your initial point. Says a lot about the world in which we live.
I agree with everything you say in this video and I am only 25 hours in playing ELEX and its good. Witcher 3, SKYRIM and dragon age origins are my favorite RPG´s but when I finish ELEX that might change. good vid btw.
So glad I'm subbed to this channel. I've always written elex off, can't wait to hear the good parts tho knew it had something...& it was on sale for 10 bucks! Time for nocturnal's elex starter vid!
Elex has much smaller map, so everywhere you go somewhere, there is something to see. Especially if you change config files to increase view size. And it guides you through enemies. If everything kicks your ass - maybe go somewhere else lol
The game is already at the point of almost releasing. But there was a good video on this channel about things which would make Elex 2 a good game. I definitely think they took inputs from there and I've heard they're are taking a more Gothic 2 centric approach which is good news to say the least
To be fair: that channel "Critical Bytes" also brings awesome reviews and worth-considering ideas. Moreover, I meant the whole channel, not only this video, but I agree.
You've completely sold me on giving this game a shot even though I wrote it off some time ago. I totally agree with your thoughts on exploration in W3. Too many markers just feels like a to-do list when the designers should be using the in-game environment to spark the player's curiosity as much as possible. I'm on console and see Elex is currently on sale for $15 - not much risk if I don't completely like it. Awesome review and the first I've heard of you. I'm definitely going to check out your other videos.
I'll never really understand the utter reverence that so many people have for skyrim or witcher 3. Skyrim was worse in my opinion than oblivion and fallout 3 in almost every way, and the witcher 3 just never clicked with me, the protagonist was just too cliched and unlikeable and wouldnt shut up.
That RockyBalboa-reaching top of the stairs-feeling is great! I agree with your points - those are reasons I've quit Witcher3 after 2 hours and haven't quit Elex after 20 hours.
Yeah, kinda... I actually disliked the fact that i have to do every garbage quest from every annyoing NPC i came across because i so desperatly needed the EXP to be finally able to compete against basic low level enemies. I much more prefer the "you get better at what you are doing because/while you are doing it" approach like Skyrim. Although this leads to whole other issues...
Don't forget the ultimate Zen moment in Elex when you are level 50 with Friend of the Beasts and everything but humans and mutants treat you as the Apex Predator and simply leave you alone. Truly epic.
These pirahnna byte fan boys are on a whole other level. Hypocrites to the fullest. They'll tell you how much they hate the Witcher or something while complimenting a pb game for doing something the Witcher does better 😂. Come on now. If you like them that's great but don't act like everything else is so terrible you can't even play it for a second.
It’s ironic that I’m playing Skyrim while watching this. I’m convinced that I’m soley responsible for getting Gameranx to review Elex in a Before you Buy. He hated it. But it’s definitely a fun and challenging game, with a steep learning curve. Kind of felt like when I first got into Elite Dangerous
I played like 15 hours of Elex very very long ago, and I played a lot of rpgs but I remember this one always like something really special and unique. I would give it a try again :)
You know, I've seen Elex here and there, but always kinda passed it over because I'd never heard anything about it. This video has convinced me to give it a try if I get a chance.
I think there is one more really important point, you can get to know elex, really know each nook and cranny, where to best get what items in which order, what lore is where and why.
Great stuff man, subbed. I still love the Wicther 3 but loved it A LOT more when I first played it in 2015. After coming across Fromsoft games I can't really replay it. Also, I'm still annoyed I can't get Gothic working on my laptop. At least I can get Risen running; and I'll play that one soon. Want to get into Piranha Bytes, their games looks good.
@@ryndaman2855 I've played every type of RPG for more than 10 years, from low budget indies to tripleA action RPGs. In real ARPGs you built your character into whatever type of "warrior" you want. In my opinion games like ES, Dragon Age, Dragon's Dogma, Kingdom Come, Souls games and Kingdoms of Amalur are the ones that did it best because you have the freedom to Role Play in any Action you want but in Witcher 3 you basically fight the same. It's not a bad game it's just not a real ARPG. It's an action adventure game with RPG mechanics.
@@wearevenom82 but still a game with level system and gear system is now called RPG, if you think its not its fine because having a headcanon is not wrong
If a game doesn't have different classes it's most likely not an rpg. It's an action adventure with rpg elements like stats, skills, or attributes. The key lies in 'role' from role playing. A class is a role like warrior(tank/melee), mage(buffer/debuffer/magic dps), thief/archer(long range dps), healer, etc. You can have a party comprised of individuals that have these skills but you can only roleplay by choosing one of the roles. Or you can have hybrid classes but you still have to choose from different classes. In my opinion, this is one of the most differentiating characteristics of rpgs from non-rpgs. Most games that categorize themselves as rpgs, but are not imo, have all those classes unified into one which is the main playable character. I think that's why they still are generally accepted as rpgs.
I feel like I need to give thus game another try. I couldn't get past the jank first time but it seems to have a cult following. I loved greedfall in the end despite its jank.
TW3 and Elex are both great games and i like that they are different i need to try greedfall and kingdom come next .I never liked the elder scrolls series so i can't talk about that.
A lot of people speak highly of Kingdom Come, so I'm anxious to try that one out sometime. Greedfall for some reason drew a lot of comparisons to Gothic for certain people, but for some reason the trailers and information I could read about it never really caught my interest.
@Alex Biehn Kingdom come has some really nice story, world and well done characters but the shitty for honor combat kinda spoiled my experience with it and i had to cheese the whole game. Greedfall is a travel simulator, be prepared to move back and forward for quests, have loading screens in between travels - go from one end of the 'camp between zones' - and more loading screens. The world in greedfall is nice to look at, story is kinda meh and the characters are a let down.
@@TheNocturnalRambler Kingdome Come D. definitely sticks out a lot from other RPGs due to its much more down to earth historic setting and atmosphere. Its shows that a great RPG can be done in a plausible medieval world without fantasy elements, monsters and magic.
What do you think about Witcher 2? After watching this review it seems to me there are similarities between Elex and Witcher 2 in exploration and quest designs.
I reviewed TW2 on my blog back in 2013, and also wrote a comparison article between it and the first game. See the links below for my full thoughts on TW2, but at the time I didn't like it as much as TW1 as I felt like it was straying from the unique charm, atmosphere, and game designs that made the first game so enjoyable for me. Upon replaying part of the first chapter recently I found myself put off by how restrictive everything felt, like it was trying too hard to be cinematic at the expense of gameplay during the introductory sequences, and was mildly annoyed by the map design feeling like a bunch of small paths (even when you're in a forest) and lack of any sort of jump function whatsoever. I'd have to replay it in its entirety to give better impressions than that, but you can check out my written articles for what I thought back in 2013: thenocturnalrambler.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-witcher-2-is-pretty-good.html thenocturnalrambler.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-witcher-vs-witcher-2.html
@@BullFrogFace He wasn't being insulting. I see both points though, I love a story driven game like the witcher, but also greatly enjoyed the peaceful esxploration of breath of the wild, it's peaceful. Liking those games might not even be related to a type of person, but maybe a state of the mind.
When I initially tried Elex, I HATED it. Can’t lie. When I gave it a fair shot, I found a challenging, well built game with engaging mechanics and a great world to explore. Just don’t play it without an open mind and don’t come straight from a cookie-cutter AAA title would be my only suggestions. It’s easy to let expectations get the best of your experience in an open world RPG in particular.
Thank you for sharing this. I certainly don't expect everyone to fall in love with it, but it seems to me like a lot of people who hold such strong contempt for it never gave it a fair chance and never understood its intentions. I'm glad you gave it another try and were able to find some enjoyment out of it!
@@TheNocturnalRambler my pleasure. Thanks for sticking up for a game that got destroyed in its initial reviews. The devs stuck with this and turned it around from all the bugs and imbalances it had on release. Publishers pushing for release when games aren’t ready yet really is the crux of the industry and I think was the issue for this, or at least something similar. No right minded developer wants to have their name on a buggy mess (except for Bethesda 😂) unless absolutely necessary. I’m just glad it’s getting the love it truly deserves. The world ALONE is worth wading through. You made a fan today. I’ll take a chance and sub just for the effort and for your rational perspective. It’s refreshing.
I nominate this video for "Most Epic Disclaimer 2021!" I'll definitely check this game out, these are the kinds of mechanics that are the reason I play games! I want to engage in the world not the UI. I'm anticipating elden ring having many of these strengths. Miyazaki knows how to copy himself. Also to soapbox a sec, calling Skyrim a good game is like calling a doll a good girlfriend. You might have had fun with it, but know that you brought most of the imagination. Graphic style and production value doesn't mean much to me when the characters and gameplay feel hollow. On the other hand, Witcher 3 left no room for my imagination. Thanks for letting me know about Elex!
i think the exploration in witcher 3 would be way better if the noticeboards didnt put markers on your map and just gave directions so you had to mark the location on your map yourself and try to find them, instead of just filling your hud with icons
That’s not the main problem for me, what bugs me is that all those “?” End up being pretty much the same anyway. It’s just kill those enemies, and loot this treasure.
@@therandom.cowboy5526 oh i agree, but that falls under the design of the locations themselves. i was talking more about the method you use to discover locations in withcer 3 and it would also make the map more memorable imo. even if the locations themselves arent that interesting you would learn directions in the world by yourself
@@gutagelu1327 also I kinda find it funny that the witcher 3’s open world design is exactly the same as assassins creed origin’s open world design, the funny part is that ac origin’s world has more variety in its locations, soo a Ubisoft game ended up having a better open world than the witcher 3 😂
I would love to see an Arx Fatalis review from you, that is one of my favourite games besides gothic! Would be really interesting to see your take on it
I have no plans to make a video on Arx Fatalis, but I did review it on my blog back in 2015. You can read that review here if you'd like: thenocturnalrambler.blogspot.com/2015/02/arx-fatalis-old-school-game-in-modern.html
So sad that we live in a world where creators need a 3 minute disclaimer to protect themselves from reactionary assholes with no critical thinking skills.
@@MetalGearyaTV Sht combat? I don't know about that. It did have branch story telling my guy, decisions of the past would literally affect dialgoue, etc. A generic story? At this point I don't think you're even serious. If the Witcher 3 has a 'generic story', then basically all stories have it. Just say it's not for you and move on.
@@MetalGearyaTV THe decisions you make impacts dialogue and characterization etc. Do you mean completely different story lines? How shallow are you, like the Witcher 2? There are videos, upon videos detailing the decisions you make in Witcher 3 and how it impacts the game besides the ending.
@@MetalGearyaTV It literally does my guy. A character entire motivation changes, you resolve entire story lines based on decisions major or minor, etc. It's not HUGE to completely change the story, as completely changing the story of the game would of took even more time to development. Originally, they wanted to do a Witcher 2 (which had 2 story lines upon a major decisions) thing with more than 3 completely different stories lines but that's clearly unfeasible. They did the option of subtly affecting the story, if that's "superficial" then idk what to say you my guy. It's clearly better than most RPG's. Name me an RPG since 2010 which could do that? (Have completely different story lines mid game like you wanted, creating an entirely different game that is a triple A) You're exposing yourself. Witcher 3 is already ambitius already (especially compared to most other triple A at the time and now which RPG elements), you wanted it to be EVEN more ambitous? And mind you, there's NO character creation, this is just a SINGLE character. So I ask you again, where is this perfect RPG that is triple A that fit the standard of having completely different story lines? Let me charitable because the more you speak the more stupid you're sounding., but I'll entertain :)
I'm sick of minimaps spoiling everything and I hope this trend towards organic exploration continues. I truly hope that future developers create smaller worlds designed around points of interest that make it possible and enjoyable to navigate with memory and your own eyes. Gothic II - one of this games predecessors - is imho the single best game ever made, because it masters exploration and immersion.
It really bugs me how prevalent the minimap and icon-hunting system has become in modern games. Even in games like TW3 which let you turn it off, the world design still seems based around having that information present at all times, so exploring the world without them just doesn't feel the way it should. Like you say, Gothic 2 was perfect in this regard; a big enough map with tons of area to explore, with lots of discrete areas adding extra depth to the exploration by hiding little rewarding secrets in the folds of a more densely-structured world, with a clear navigable layout and lots of memorable landmarks and structures to use as reference points when exploring without the aid of a mini-map or compass. You didn't NEED to explore with your eyes glued to the map all the time because the landscapes themselves were distinct and memorable enough that you could tell where you have and have not been, and where the interesting places to explore might be, just using your own eyes and memory. I really respect Elex for having such a massive open-world and still feeling interesting and engaging to explore without a mini-map or a bunch of icons telling where you to go all the time, but it's still nowhere as good as Gothic 2.
@@TheNocturnalRambler You can easily left behind minimap in W3. Became the game more difficult and more adventurous. I played on Death March without minimap, because questgivers tell you exactly what and where you have to do your things.
I feel like I would favor Greedfall over Elex any day. I didn't exactly enjoy Elex when I first played of course this was way before any of the updates, but Greedfall had such a great feel, I played as a mage that class gives you enough time to plan an attack, dodge or do massive damage.
Played Breath of the Wild for the first time recently and I was constantly thinking how ELEX's similarly large world was a lot more dense and packed with twice as more content (if not count the repeated puzzles from previous Zelda games in the shrines). I can imagine a much larger metacritic score for ELEX if only it had a casual difficulty with simplified mechanics in vein of BotW and other open-world games.
I'll preface by saying I didn't like Elex, not a huge fan of Skyrim(huge fan of it's predecessors since Daggerfall in '97), but enjoy Witcher 3(and been playing Witcher games since the first one released in '07). Exploration: Nothing to say here, 100% great take. Quests: Fair points all around, though I'll counter argue that Witcher 3 you're playing as a pre-established player, being Geralt, and the 'purpose' is mostly to only do things he would do, in the way he would do so. Much of the narrative writing and decision writing of the Witchers games take careful attention to what Geralt would do, or most likely do, given the situation. This is to not deviate too much from the established written character(from the books), but also allow the player some freedom in making decisions. Elex however, being a completely new IP, with no established characters at all, allows PB to do as they wish, which incidentally mean they can give the player complete narrative control over the character, without it seeming forced(Because the character's personality has never been established beyond an agent of the player). Progression: Witcher 3 should've never been an RPG. RPG Mechanics are horrible because of Geralt as an established character. It should've been an open world action adventure game. Hell, mods like 'noLevels' or 'Enhanced Edition' that do away with gear and level system(for the most part) feels far better to play, it remains a consistant challenge that you overcome with player skill, rather than Geralt's leveling skill. While I do love RPGs that favor character over player skill, Witcher 3 just isn't fit as such a game, because of it's narrative and lore. Witcher 1 and 2 it made sense(amnesia), but not in 3. Overall, the leveling system feels and most likely was tacked on for Witcher 3(Also Deathmarch was clearly not the 'hardmode' but intended \ normal difficutly, but they decided to scale it back by 4 and create 3 easy settings instead, this is obvious because of persk like gorumet, that make no sense outside of deathmarch). Combat: I couldn't stand Elex combat and is one of those thing that completely turned me off the game(I love Gothic 1-3), I feel it relies too much on the Dark Souls formula(a.k.a stamina bar). The argument is that stamina bar prevents spam \ consistant attacking(as you're arguing in the video), however Witcher 2 already solved that problem(without a stamina bar), which is enemy guard\counters when you spam, causing you to stagger(or be countered), so it rewards you for careful planned hits, and not consistant spams. I'd argue stamina based games tend to reward selective spam(as you're rarely punished as long as you remain over a certain threshold in stamina). Witcher 2 also solved over cautiouness by limiting parry(tied to stamina which is used for signs). Basically, Witcher 2's combat was a more clunky Witcher 3 combat, but overall a better one(but much more punishing and harder). They clearly desined Witcher 3's combat to cater to a lowest common denominator(a sad reality of most AAA games). I will say this for Elex; it being completely configurable allowing you to select what parts of the combat you like and don't like, is a massive pluss and kudos. As for the quen sign immortality. 100% agree, and this too, was actually solved in Witcher 2. As long as quen is active, you do not regain stamina. Making it's invincibility a tradeoff(especially for spell builds), and the adrenaline regen was slower, and enemies more agressive. Dodging also temporarily stopped adrenaline regen for about a second(which is a lot in thick of battle against aggressive enemeis that can kill you in 1-2 hits). Unlike WItcher 3 however, you had 2(start) - 5(choosing all talents that increase stamina) stamina "bubbles". Every spell(or parry\block) cost 1. So you cast quen, now you have 4(that do not regenerate). Allow you to theoretically spam it 2 - 5 times throughout a fight, as the stamina regen is too slow(about 3-4 seconds iirc) to reliably wait for it(as again, dodge pauses it for an additional second). Edit: Re-reading it(after notified from like), I see I fucked up adrenaline and stamina. Adrenaline does not regenerate in W2, only stamina does* Every mention of adrenaline is stamina* I confuse Witcher 3 with 2 in those portions. Eitherway, Witcher 2's combat rules, with witcher 3's combat would've been a much better and challenging fight, without relying on the dark-souls formula(Punished for spams, punished for overly cautious, punished for relying on quen, leaving you with a need to remain temparate agressive, just like an actual witcher in the books). I'll also add this as an extra: Witcher 2 did not have i-frames. meaning if your hit box is hit, you're hit, wether you're in the middle of dodging or not. Making dodges far more dangerous and unpredictable. Souls and souls-like combats rely on i-frames.
It's crazy cuz I am a die hard Morrowind/Oblivion fan and absolutely LOVED W2: Assassin of Kings but for some reason W3 and Skyrim felt hollow and souless to me, just felt like cashing in on the series and not finely, carefully crafted adventures like their predecessors. Now I'm like 10 hours deep in ELEX and havnt felt this loss, weak, and genuinely in awe at a world since I first played Morrowind all those years ago. Outward almost had it right but the lack of real story and good missions/chars made it feel more like "Skyrim Meets Dark Souls" than the "Fable Meets Morrowind" feel ELEX pumps into my brain.
Bruh every Elex video on YT I have to comment but Elex really did change the way I viewed and played “open world RPGs”. I whole heartedly enjoyed Elex better overall more than the other bigger titles. However all games mentioned in the video are great in their own right. Despite its many flaws Elex does many things right and it does them well. The jet pack works surprisingly well.. Playing Elex I felt like my choices on my path mattered…. Not to mention the huge world to explore and so much loot to obtain. I love Elex and I cannot wait for Elex 2.
Elex seems good but ultimately it shows that the studio still hasn't managed to fix the same issues that were apparent in the risen franchise which containted the same unrefined controls and combat. Elex 2 seems to be coming out and it will be interesting to see if they actually fix any of these problems, knowing they haven't been able to in the last 8 years.
From what PB have claimed in interviews, it sounds like they're taking more of a "Gothic 2" approach with Elex 2 and are focusing their time and resources more on creating quality content and fleshing out what core systems they already have (with new features, of course) instead of trying to reinvent the wheel and changing everything. That, I feel, has been their biggest demise with Gothic 3 and Risen 2, as people would've been more than happy with "more of the same" in an improved package with new content, but they've had this bizarre compulsion to scrap tried-and-true, successful ideas in favor of experimenting with new stuff while not really having the budget or manpower to properly polish all-new concepts between games. They've also said they're trying to keep the world about the same size and focusing more on the content and story, instead of making everything bigger and more expansive for the sake of it. Between those types of statements and the fact that Elex 2 has been in development longer than any game they've worked on previously, I'm trying to remain cautiously optimistic that it'll be a solid continuation of the first game with iterative improvements and not another mess of bizarre and confusing design choices.
Elex reminds me of a cross between Fallout's damaged world, Skyrim's open world fantasy setting, and Shadowrun's mix of magic and technology, though without the cyberpunk. One major plus that I have seen of Elex is something that often lacks in open world games: verticality. A lot of these structures are designed with roofs and upper layers and exploration in mind, and even the first town is layers of a mountain top with a five or six story hotel at its peak. The quests and characters are engaging to me, crafting interesting little story lines that you can walk into and out of in the world. And I actually enjoy the realism of being able to stumble into the middle of a quest instead of having to find the start of the quest first to have it even exist. The combat is rather unforgiving, but it's obviously the type of combat where you start weak and grow exponentially until you're even with the baddest things in the game. In my current playthrough, my first playthrough, I am most likely going to become an outlaw. I will consider the berserkers later, although I do wonder if there's a golden neutral path for endings.
I agree sooo much with every word in this video, I have great expectations for elex 2 (lets also hope for more variety in character models). Also, let's not forget that also risen 1 is a beautifull game (except the ending ahah) that deserves attention even after 10 years
For the counter-point in which I criticize various shortcomings in Elex by comparing it to Gothic 1 and 2, see my previous video: "Things Gothic 1+2 (Still) Do Better Than Elex." Link: ua-cam.com/video/ETZ1tSQrsn8/v-deo.html
Does your Elex 2 wishlist from last year hold up after the Elex 2 announcement? What do you think of the trailer and the suggested evolution of narrative? I am pretty happy as the pragmatic Albs don't feel like Pirhannia Bites trying to reinvent 40k mechanicus with the Clerics, the Berserker+neural people remnant looks like they try to restore life and style from before the comet with magic and biofrendly solutions while the new raider faction looks like it isn't afraid to steal robots - and I think more of them are ex-clerics and their miners who got apocalypsed rather than outcasts.
It's funny the necessary length of the introduction, to avoid fanboy venom in the comment section. Nice vid, didn't knew your channel.
Check out ac Odyssey! Exploration mode! They made the entire game so you don't need to do any of the icon shit. The npcs will give directions!
I can't believe how many of the things you want are ij that game. Crazy how few people know how good it is.
It's the best open world rpg if the generation. It really deserves more love.
This was an excellent video, as someone who game designs & truly focuses on game mechanics & story you are a rarity in your attention to gameplay detail.
Also you have to understand I learned this years ago the saddest aspect of game design is that companies do not reference other games before working on it's development. I'm working on something I will definitely contact you, as you have great potential as a game design consultant.
looks like game Outward is even better than Elex.
The internet is such a tolerant place that this dude had to dead ass spend the first 5 minutes of the video repeating that he wasn't hating on the games, nor saying one was better than the other.
Ikr remember when UA-cam was fun, during the filthy frank era. Nowadays is like u shit on my favourite game/tv show/genshin impact Waifu, you’re personally attacking me and now I have to cancel u. Wtf happened to the internet
What can you expect from a bunch AAA games manchild fanboys who refuse to give lower budget games a chance?
Shut up
I get you, but a lot of UA-camrs are shitty as well. Probably worse in a lot of cases. Based on the way I've seen quite a few of them act outside of their content I feel pretty comfortable in assuming the worst of them are the lowest form of human life. A lot of people watching videos often just react to something without taking a second to think about anything, and plus a lot of people are just absolute dickheads while equally as sensitive. Also, I was an avid watcher of UA-cam content back in the Filthy Frank days when commentary was all the fad. Back then language wasn't policed and not anywhere near as much censoring of content. It's easy to wistfully think back to this as a time where there was freedom of expression, the reality was far less appealing. Every other channel (especially the commentary community ugh....) used explectives and slurs to such an extent that it was normal. N-word this, F-slur that, over and over and over. Filthy Frank was hilarious, but he also had a point.
It sucks that people feel totally comfortable acting like assholes, but that's typically the case for the person in the video as much as everyone else. If Nocturnal hadn't took that time to explain people would have assuming his intention was to wind them up. People don't think online, it's just act-act-fuckyou-act.
He had to do it in my opinion because TW3 and Skyrim are realy great game with massive fan base so naturally there will be inmature people not excepting others opinions and listen. I loved this video because TW3 is my fav game but he did make amazing points to make it even better. looking forward to wither universe game where you can make charakter who is not the ultimate world savior.
I love Elex. It's the first game I've played since Morrowind where I have just wanted to roam and explore the world and pause to enjoy the scenery in between trying not to die to random bastards.
THIS
Yes. Actually I recently started a witcher role-play but found it hard to make cash because there were barely enough bounties around.
Is it really that good? I thought it was a shit game
@@RedMichicompanies depends what kind of dialogue you prefer
@@OoogaBoog I mean I thought It was a cheap AA game... does it have cool stuff? Like the game play and mechanics are they good?
Fun fact - CDPR took inspiration from Piranha Bytes series - Gothic (which is very popular, I can say, even iconic series in Poland), making Witcher series. After Witcher 3 huge succes, Piranha Bytes took inspiration from Witcher 3 making Elex XD
For sure the Elex combat system is inspired by the Witcher 3, but what else?
@@Airnyy In my opion Elex' combat feels more inspired by Dark Souls rather than TW3.
Witcher games are basically nothing like Gothic. And neither is Elex anything like Witcher.
@@GolemoidI see you dont know what "inspiration" means.
@@eldiablogmic6760 I wish that they copied DS combat much better as doesn't come anywhere close to it.
One of thing that i love about their games is that NPC are oddly easy to be remembered. Like in gothic, diego, gorn, lee and even the digger Mud. Each have unique characteristics that you'll remember even after years since last time you played the game.
Exactly . Most of npc in gothic you can remember even after a few years passed. Skyrim and witcher dont do that.
How can you NOT remember MUD!!! :D :D :D
World design, exploration and progression in Piranha Bytes games always were brilliant. Their games are junky and have stiff combat and animations but that never was an issue for me. Modern RPGs still can't get right what PB was able to achieve already 20 years ago. Elex really is a great game. The best PB game since Gothic II.
Man how are other developers not doing things like this
Elex exploration is one of the best. Always got be on your toes when you explore. You never know when a enemy pops out and one shots you specially at the beginning
Yep, as the guy who played both WItcher 3 and Skyrim a lot (and Witcher 1 & 2, Morrowind and Oblivion as well) I agree with most of the points of the video, especially that W3 progression is broken. I actually skipped all Piranha Bytes games after Gothic 2 (besides the first Risen), so probably I need to take a shot at Elex.
Also, thanks for the video, great work as always!
I'm also considering checking out Elex. I really like their map design and reward system. But I'm so sceptical about its combat system after they ruined Risen 1 great combat in 2 and 3..
@@Sandkasten36 Elex does have a lot more jank than Risen, but I found the combat more engaging than Risen. The combat in Risen although smoother was harder to execute successfully since the time-window given by enemies to dodge and react was almost non-existent at best. Elex has a host of its own issue like certain enemies having unrealistically fast and stun-locking attack animations and a bit of a curve in mastering combat itself. But as an overall package, I found Elex far better and immersing than Risen 1. In fact coming quite close to the first 2 Gothic games
It's funny how Elex actually has technology that would realistically allow you to set waypoints for 'quests' and yet Skyrim and Witcher 3 abuse the mechanic far more.
This is part of the reason I can kind of (almost?) tolerate it in Elex, because there's at least a contextual, immersive explanation for how that stuff works. It also helps that the quest design isn't *entirely* reliant on waypoints, too, but it's an area that I would certainly like to see improved in the sequel. After all, that was a big point of criticism in my "Things Gothic 1+2 (Still) Do Better Than Elex" video.
@David Nash I had mixed opinions on BOTW but its exploration was surprisingly well done for being such a huge map. It suffers from similar problems that I criticize Skyrim and TW3 but it did a great job of indicating where you had to go without using waypoint markers, such that you could figure out where to go and where to find something just using the map and your own two eyes. For as a big and spread-out as that map is, it's intricately divided into different regions that are all individually labeled, so when you're told a location you can search the map for the general area and have a good idea of where to start looking and where the "boundaries" of that zone would be so you don't wander too far off-track and get hopelessly lost. So when an NPC says something like "Two trees on a hill overlooking Makar Plains" or whatever, you can go to Makar Plains and just look around for hills until you find one with two trees suspiciously atop it.
That game also does a good job of letting you see long distances across the map so you can see interesting things that you might want to direct your attention towards, while also putting a ton of genuinely interesting curiosities into the world design. The dragons are a big example, of course, but there are tons of other examples like weird paintings on a rock surface, glowing lights over the mountain tops at certain times of day, enigmatic shrine entrances, and so on. That world has a certain intriguing mystique to it which I found compelled me to explore just to satisfy my curiosity of what was out there. Even if some of the gameplay mechanics were hit-or-miss and even if I didn't particularly enjoy it as a Zelda game, the exploration still pulled me in pretty well.
For anyone who was curious, see my written review of BOTW from 2018 for more of my thoughts on it:
thenocturnalrambler.blogspot.com/2018/10/zelda-breath-of-wild-review-overrated.html
@David Nash Eh, the wanking of BOW is absurd. It's just highly praised cuz it was a nice breath of fresh eair in a stale ass series and even they just ripped good ideas from AAA games to throw in it. When I finaly played it after the initial hype, I was massively dissapointed. I still prefer TP, WW, or even SS remake now over BOTW.
That "mechanic" you are praising it for was done better all the way back in games like Fallout 2 or Arcanum, Sonny Jim.
Personally for Skyrim I justify fast travel as being a mage and simply teleporting.
@@Tomha Exactly. They even used to have spells like mark/recall, divine intervention, etc. and you get teleported by devices and magic all the time anyways.
Why they can't just use their own in game lore to explain and flesh out their games systems is what makes me annoyed.
Every facet of fast travel, quest markers, etc. could easily be explained by integrating it into the magic system, or barring that due to not wanting to force players into a mage archetype, at least in Skyrim they could've just integrated those into the shout mechanics.
Just a sad missed opportunity to make the world that much more "in it."
I 100% agree with the question marks. Whats the point of exploration if the game tells you where to go? Elex did exploration so much better. I hope all open world rpgs remove the question marks from their map.
Mr. Nocturnal Rambler, I am hereby formally requesting a long ass video on Dragon's Dogma, thank you in advance.
Well said!
I'm sure I've said this before, but it's on my list, I'm just too busy with real life and other games to get to it right away. I had it on a Patreon poll recently and it gained zero votes, with Risen 2 and Sekiro taking the top 2 spots and other games like Arcania, Control, and Disco Elysium getting interest as well. In the mean time anyone who's curious can read my original written review from 2013 for an overview of what I thought of it when I played it initially: thenocturnalrambler.blogspot.com/2013/11/dragons-dogma-is-pretty-damn-good.html
I don't know if you'll see this but I hope you try out the Enderal overhaul mod for Skyrim at some point if you haven't already. A lot of the bonuses you mentioned with character progression are also present there and I have a feeling that you'll enjoy it. I honestly cannot recommend that game enough.
Really just the fact that you have to use your eyes to find things is so refreshing in this game. You look at the environments, the views and actually discover things like rambler said, it all just makes the exploration so much better than any in most triple A games.
It really is a shame when big studios design everything in a way that ruins the whole exploration aspect. Why would the environmental artists even bother going the extra mile when they know that people are just starting at a compass anyways?
I wish devs/publishers trusted their players to not be brain dead idiots.
Having a basic common denominator that allows a game to be accessible to more people, invariably makes it shallower to players looking for something morre invested.
Skyrim had the worst combat mechanic and feel of any sword game I've ever played
You ever play Morrowind lol?
@@chrisMengland I was gonna mention oblivion ot something else but you beat me with Morrowind.
Wait what about Daggerfall?
@@valravnsshadow9422 mother of god... I forgot about Daggerfall 🤣
I remember playing oblivion and then playing dark messiah and thinking, damn why couldnt oblivion have that kind of combat, surely the next game will have new engine and surpass even dark messiah! it didn't. even with absurd ammount of best mods released a decade later, it still barely meets expectations of action rpg combat of the year it was originally released in.
ofcourse writing this in an elex video is a bit weird. i would trust piranha bytes develop a good combat system even less than bethesda.
Tbh the swinging animations were good, the main issue which caused the system to fall apart was the lack of feedback when you hit anything.
You weren't supposed to be able to reapply blade oils during combat in Witcher 3. But there was a bug when using keyboard and mouse that allowed you to reapply it mid-combat if you click and drag.
CDPR's fix was to remove the limitation entirely.
Elex is legit my #2 3D open world crpg. #1 is New Vegas.
28:20 Shield can block everything even without Stamina. That's also a point for Elex. Shield actually offers the best protection, while in many games they are more than useless, being completely overshadowed by dodge and parry. Shields also allow you to block projectiles. As a fan of shields, I really appreciate Elex for making shields really useful.
That's kinda bad though, you have creatures in this game that hit like a truck, how can you block that shit even without stamina?
@@Patches_Gaming A lot of attacks deal high damage due to sharpness of fangs or blades or spikes or whatever. If someone does actually hit very hard with blunt force, like a troll, you still get staggered a bit.
A shield covers a large surface area, that's why blocking with it is much easier. It's more "passive", whereas parrying is "active".
Shield are overshadowed only when you become good at the game though, that's the point. Even in the history, the most experienced swordmasters weren't ones hiding behind a shield. It was always an additional layer of protection to compensate for the lack of skill, or used against arrows/bolts you mentioned.
Dodge and parry are way harder to use and are way more punishable than a shield too. Sure, if you'll block too much, you run out of stamina and eventually get staggered for a cricitcal strike, but if you miss time your dodge even once, you get hit, end of story. Same with the parry - miss time it once and instead of opening the enemy to a critical strike, you take their hit (or hits) right in your face.
Those are risk-rewards systems, but the reward is outweighing the risk for most, depending on the game. I also like shields, I absolutely love playing Mount&Blade with one, however the way they are implenented in Elex is also broken. I literally blocked a mech's LASER with a wooden shield I found somewhere. It should at the very least pierce through it, if not burn it to a crisp, but also further trivializes the already broken combat system.
@@polski8bit irl, shields are a straight bonus. No question, dude with the shield wins.
@@polski8bit Nah historically, if anyone could hold a shield they would.
Also Swords werent the primary weapon for fighting against steel armoured opponents. That was hammers, mace, spears etc.
The sword was more ceremonial than anything else
I remember like a day after the release of Elex when I was in the dome city and wondered "Is there something at the highest point inside the dome?"
And sure enough after platforming my way to the top I find a named weapon.
Being rewarded for going out of your way to explore makes players want to go out of their way to explore.
If the loot is randomized or no loot at all then why go out of you way to explore when you get more by following the path.
Too bad the named weapons becomes obsolete too quickly after you ugrade the regular ones with crafting skills and each faction offer you skills to ugrade their faction specific weapons even more with state effect damage, alternative fire modes and even alternative ammo.
Yep! If you explore just a little bit at the start of Elex 2 you will find a good weapon and some armor that makes you have a chance against the enemies at level 1. I got lucky and found it right off the bat but you have to go off the obvious beaten path.
Wow, I was the ultimate Gothic 2 fan, and wasn't even aware of ELEX. So this is a special video for me. I appreciate this.
Even crazier there’s an Elex 2 that’s coming. PB seems primed to make it special.
Best RPG Critique channel on yt right now!
I love how you mention a lot of things other review channels miss most of the time.
In my opinion many ppl are delusional when it comes to skyrim and other very successful titles, and I like the way you approach the critique for these games.
I am also a huge lover of Gothic 1 & 2 so maybe that's the reason I agree with a lot of your opinions.
Keep up the great work!
Love from Hungary!
I love the scaling system of Piranha Bytes games. It really gives you a sense of progression. There's easy stuff, and stuff that will just slaughter you. Avoiding the hard stuff to come back later makes me appreciate how much better I've gotten. I wish more games would do that.
That's because there isn't any level scaling :]
Excellent video. Elex's metacritic score of 67 really is a travesty as far as I am concerned. Shame that most reviewers get immediately turned off by some of the rougher aspects of the game and can't seem to appreciate it's strengths.
67 definitely seems low to me. A game of this sort isn't going to appeal to everyone so it makes sense it would be significantly lower than Skyrim and TW3, but 67 is still surprising. In the US public school grading system, that's just barely a D+, almost a straight D, when really a C+ or B- seems more appropriate to me.
@The Nocturnal Gambler 67 is above average. video games dont use the school rating system
@@SobeCrunkMonster I don't believe that's necessarily the case. If it were, a 5/10 would be "average" and thus a decently respectable score, but most people (and most reviewers) consider that to be a bad score because a lot of reviews traditionally weigh their scores towards the upper half of the spectrum where 5-6/10 is mediocre, 7-8/10 is good, and 9-10/10 is great, with slight variation of course. When you rate a game on metacritic, for example, a green "favorable" score is only given for scores 8-10/10. In its official FAQ for game scores, it considers 50-74 to be "mixed or average" while 75-89 are "generally favorable." By metacritic's own standards, a 67/100 is merely "average" and certainly not "above average." It may be statistically above average on a raw grading scale, but when most of Elex's direct competitors are routinely scoring in the 80s and 90s, a mid-60s score is well below the standard of expectation and not something to be looked at positively.
The actual controls are just to clunky and cumbersome, it just feels dated and that needs to be addressed in the sequel.
@@TheNocturnalRambler From my decades spent gaming starting in the 90's on the C-64 , I have seen 7/10 -70/100 evolve into the default pass mark and it has been that way for a long enough time to say it has been the default used by the vast majority of game reviewers for all of the 21st century, but even that is seemingly changing, since I have noticed a lot of commentary around games these days that seem to consider an 8/80 mark a pass score.
I really like ELEX I can't wait for the second one. When I bought it randomly on steam for super cheap I was blown away by how much I liked this game. I will say one thing though the grind is slow and the enemies will fuck you up for basically most of the game.
Great video! I finished Elex recently and I have to say I agree with all your points. I'm looking forward to Elex 2. I was very skeptical at first because I didn't think fantasy + Sci fi would work, but I was so wrong. The world building is so good and the world feels very believable.
I was skeptical too but I'll check it out now after watching this.
it's a perfect time to get into this game. It's still on sale (-80%) on steam atm (offer ends on 23/09/21)
I feel like the Witcher 3 still had a lot of good exploration. Diving and finding ships was awesome, going over a hill and running into a cool cave, lots of things that weren't guided or hand holding. Now there was a ton of that kind of stuff to but I feel it at least had more rewarding exploration then skyrim does.
I have to disagree about it being rewarding (although I don't think Skyrim is very rewarding either). To me Elden Ring really put into perspective how lackluster both Witcher 3 and Skyrim are in terms of rewarding exploration. Every dungeon hides a unique item, and you can find plenty of them in the open world as well. Not every item is useful to your build, but you can immediately see the use of each item. In contrast to that in Witcher 3 and Skyrim you usually only find another piece of gear which just has different stats, rarely if ever different effects. I do think the Witcher has an uphill battle to climb, since you always play a witcher and that can not facilitate as many playstyles, but I still would have loved to find some more unique stuff.
@o0LordMuffin0o buddy, I will never disagree with you when it comes to Elden Ring. That game is in another universe. The whole game is built in risk vs reward, discovering secrets, building your character your way and I can go on and on and on. The Witcher is a different type of rewarding but elden ring blows them all out of the water when it comes to exploring. The witchers story is incredibly well done and a fun ride that captures you from moment 1. Elden ring is so amazing in a way that the story could be missing entirely because the gameplay is so good you won't even care. We can agree completely here on elden ring. That is one of my favorite games ever. Only bloodborne has a bigger place in my heart
Great video as always. Not sure I agree about the melee combat being "better" since it ultimately felt too clunky and unresponsive for me to get used to, hence I bypassed it altogether and just used ranged weapons, but I do agree the use of stamina and combo meters was an interesting choice that I wish they could've executed better. Everything else was spot-on and well-said as always.
At least Elex gives you the option to avoid the melee combat if you don't like it, though in truth the ranged combat has extreme balance issues with the easy capability of stun-locking enemies so it's not exactly a perfect fix. With The Witcher 3, for example, if you find yourself bored or disinterested with the swordplay, you're kind of stuck with it, because that's the type of character Geralt is, and thus that's how you have to play. Anyway, thanks for the kind words and thanks for watching!
@@TheNocturnalRambler I would advise you watch rax rabbits videos, the witchers combat is ultimately some of the best in recent years.
@@ungobungo7986 I haven't watched the video but I can confidently say that, based on my own first-hand experience, I don't believe that to be the case. TW3's combat earns points in my book for general fluidity, in terms of the flow/rhythm of everything; the responsiveness of the controls by queuing inputs instantly; its intuitive mechanics and timings being pretty easy to get the hang of and master; and its high quality animations that stream together extremely well making it all look really good and further contributing to the great feel/flow of everything. However, it loses major points when it comes to tactical depth and interesting variety which I find most important when it comes to combat in these types of games.
The combat just seems so simple and straightforward that practically every fight feels like a glorified QTE of mashing left-click and periodically tapping the dodge button when you see an enemy's health bar flash red. That applies for practically every enemy in the game, as most enemies (until you get to HOS and to a lesser extent B&W) behave fairly similarly and so you don't have to adapt your combat techniques to different foes except to swap out blade oils/potions/bombs to take advantage of their unique weaknesses. Magic options usually serve to make the combat LESS interesting with Aard knocking enemies down so that all you do is walk up to them and left-click to perform an auto-finisher, Quen making you literally invincible while it's active, Igni stunning enemies with a DOT by lighting them on fire, Axii also stunning them to the point that they stand there doing nothing. Yrden's the only one I find somewhat interesting but it's generally unnecessary and not that useful in my experience (though I did like using it in HOS with the Yrden alternate sign rune).
I ultimately found way more depth and satisfaction (not to mention variety) in games like Demon's Souls/Dark Souls/Bloodborne, Dragon's Dogma, and Horizon Zero Dawn (its ranged combat, not its melee) due to their more varied types of deterministic attack types and animations, more differentiated enemies with different attacks/behaviors/special weaknesses, more significant "special attack" types, greater variation in playstyles and character building leading to a greater impact on the combat, and greater overall challenge. Like I said in the video, as janky and messy as Elex's combat is, I find its core ideas and intentions more desirable as well. I'd say I also enjoyed other games like Dark Messiah of Might and Magic for its creative ways to use the environment and combine attack types for situational benefits, Shadow of Mordor for its evolution of new and different types of attack maneuvers, and Devil May Cry 1-3 for their intensely frenetic stylistic action that emphasizes doing well to get better rewards, to name just a few extra examples, more than the combat in TW3. That's not even to mention others like Sekiro, Nier Automata, Nioh, and so on, which I haven't played but assume they would be contenders as well based on how they look in footage that I've seen.
Maybe there's some kind of hidden depth and variety to TW3's combat that I just haven't been able to notice, and maybe that video could enlighten me on some of its other strengths that I haven't mentioned, here, but from my own first hand experience with it across two entire playthroughs trying every possible playstyle and comparing it against a bunch of other vaguely similar games and other direct competitors, I just can't say I find it all that noteworthy. It's "fine" and "good for what it is" but nothing special, and would readily take several other games' combat over TW3's.
@@ungobungo7986 Uhm, I dont like witcher 3 combat system at all. My humble opinion.
@@ungobungo7986 are you serious? Witcher 3 combat is complete dogshit, 1 sword and 2 attack types for 80 hours of gameplay.
I played a lot of skyrim and elex.I haven't played any other RPGs.I really liked the game elex that I have completed the game multiple times with various endings.
Man, i played The Witcher 3 and Skyrim lots of hours, and i agree totally with you now that i finished Elex (because i saw this video, i have to say). If i followed typical reviews (like ign) i would never played this masterpiece.
Oh great video, made me want to give this game another try
Edit : I actually finished the game yesterday and it was great imo . if it wasn't for your video i wouldn't give it another chance .
The lack of leading you by the nose is what makes games like morrowind so great.
Elex is a hidden gem of an ARPG
I remember the first time I played this game. Ran into my first Bitter, not Runt actual Bitter and had this epic half an hour long fight against it. Felt soooo good to take down such a weak enemy. Then I come back decked out into Enforcer Armor and mow down dozens of them. Confidently I go attack the Edan Convertor (since I didn't do that quest as I did mainly exploration) and had my first meeting with an Alb Colossus. Which proceeded to 2 shots me. I was honestly not mad. The sheer terror of that behemoth running at me and the music that accompanied it made it too good of an encounter to be mad.
I get why you think the Witcher and Skyrim has "massive empty spaces" but it just doesn't really doesn't hold any water with me. One of my first memories of Skyrim was seeing some high mountain walking up to a cave, encountering some bandits and draughouls in some strange dungeon and getting a strange object and an epic weapon at the end of it. And I did all of that without looking at any map. It didn't feel like I was traversing empty spaces. Skyrim felt anything but "empty spaces". There was always some shit going on, some goofy stray novice mage ambushing me in the woods for no reason, a hut in the middle of said woods with some old lady in it etc. Same with Witcher 3. After leaving white Orchard and going to Velen, the first thing I see is a village with a notice about a missing wife. I check out the notice, get a job, and start a rather creepy and suspensful chase of some beast that attacked her,( I had no real way of knowing what it was at the time, and even when Geralt spelt it out, I had no idea how to deal with this threat yet. On top of that the missing wife sister shows up out of nowhere telling me to call of the investigation cause she is probably dead anyway, which I really did not see coming. This stuff is very very compelling in Witcher 3 and again, it feels like the world is full of shit going on.
Yes unfortunately these games do have too much boring "fight enemies, get shitty loot" question mark/interest points. I wish games would do away with question marks on the map all together. But this is not an empty space problem as much as it is a wasted space problem. I feel like you just have a very low tolerance of big games, and enjoy a more compact map experience in RPGs. I too would enjoy a more compact map and world experience in RPGs, I guess I am just better at enduring boring content than you.
The Elder Scrolls used to have vertical exploration. But then somebody made it illegal - even in Daedric Realms! Talk about Government Overreach.
And it used to have multiple ways to end quests, but then they spent all their money on voice actors.
On all 5 of them
The art of map design is lost at this point in the triple A space.
Maybe elden ring
@@hiratzu I totally blanked on from software,but I was mostly speaking of open world maps.is it suppose to have an open world?
@@valipunctro yes, its their first open world game, im sure its going to be great
10:00 : You can actually reach the volcano crater without cheating, though finding the narrow path that doesn't give you constant fire damage can be tricky. I remember the starting point was at those rocks next to the cleric camp at the base of the volcano.
Is anything there?
@@tada-kun982 You can walk around the actual crater which is perfectly circular and has something like a metallic border running along its length. It's pretty clear you aren't really meant to be there as you can clip through that metal border and the whole thing just looks weird.
Also, the crater happens to be just above "Calaan" if you know what I mean, which makes it even more confusing, hah.
If you've played Gothic and risen this game just feels like home 😁
Exactly. ☝️
Risen is awful like Arcania and 3-FG.
I really like comparison type videos, hope you keep making them.
One of the best things about the maps in all gothic/elex games is, that they visualize special spots and then you can navigate there. On the Elex map you can see every Building, Mountain and lake in the topography and then decide your self that you want to see what is there. And then you find an mediavel castle filled with bandits and a hostage NPC + a legendary weapon. But this discovery was not just you following a quest marker or a question mark, but you deciding that this spot looks interesting on the map.
In Witcher 3 you cant really make out on the map why this question mark is there and shrines are just placed randomly in the woods. Like who build them there? :D
I think you are somewhat wrong, I can't count the amount of times (granted I've spent about 1500 hours on tw3) that I've wandered into random shacks or buildings on the map and been greeted by cannibals or a read between the lines event unrelated to a quest.
I agree
That's a really inaccurate take to be honest. Out of all games Witcher 3 really does a good job at making me "hey wtf is that im gonna check it out".
@Ungo Bungo @Krzysztof I can't say that's accurate at all from my experience. TW3's world design felt like it was predominantly trying to block your line of sight with trees and small hills so that you could only see a limited distance in front of you, I assume for the sake of performance and graphical fidelity so that it could render more things in high detail and not have to show much stuff so far away. Consequently I rarely felt like I got an opportunity to see interesting things from a distance and then make my way there, as I was usually stumbling into places randomly and unexpectedly (instead of deterministically) after I was already upon them, or had to resort to following "?" icons and green waypoint markers to find the places the game thought was special enough to check out. Frankly, I just never found much satisfaction in TW3's exploration, with the exception of some individual isles in Skellige and most of Toussaint (though the extreme repetition of content to be found in Toussaint's POIs made me lose interest in them really quickly).
Elex, in contrast, does a better job of letting you see places for yourself so that you can decide for yourself what areas might be interesting or worth checking out. A lot of this is accomplished by its more vertical world design, combined with the jetpack, which allows you to fly up to higher altitudes to see more of the map, but also by places being more noticeably distinguished from their surroundings. As such I felt a lot more intrigue in seeing something alluring that I felt called to investigate, and it was more satisfying and engaging because that was my decision to seek out answers; with TW3 I rarely ever got that feeling as discovery felt largely incidental or entirely passive.
I am from Poland and we have a lot of smaller shrines in the middle or between smaller villages some are even on private property, in a village that I grew up in we had a shrine in front of a forest on a road to church, sometimes rather than going to church people would gather there to pray with a rosary. Sorry for bad English.
I couldn't agree with you more! Elex was a breath of fresh air, to be honest. Looking forward to Elex 2!
It was definitely a surprise hit for me. After years of disappointment or being subtly let down by PB's games (basically starting with Gothic 3), I was really taken aback by how much I enjoyed Elex, and consider it to be one of my favorite games of the last few years. Thanks for watching!
@@TheNocturnalRambler
Fingers crossed for Elex 2 🤞
@@Kevin5279 trailer dropped ;)
Overall I think Bethesda had a negative impact on lots of RPG games, as it introduced the "big as the ocean, deep as puddle" concept that for some reason lots of companies (including Piranha Bytes) started to copy.
While Witcher 3 is one of my favorite games of all time I definitely agree with the points you mentioned. Thing that ultimately made that game such a hit is a really well-written story, as well as Gwent, it had lots of other good points like music, graphics, smooth gameplay etc. but overall the thing that made me love it so much is the story (especially the quality of writing for side-quests)
@@MetalGearyaTV it is a good, high quality game. It's not perfect but it is fun if you like the story
@@MetalGearyaTV I found the narrative quite enjoyable. May you elaborate on your complaints with the game?
@@tada-kun982 he is a d**k head, thinking his taste/choice should be considered as the bench mark for everyone else, mostly some kind of gaming elitist in his mind.
@@tada-kun982 no. It's a good, high quality playable (60+hrs) movie/series.
I think the best open world RPG I’ve played is kingdom come deliverance, for pretty much all the reasons you liked elex for. If you haven’t played it you’re missing out, it seems like it would be tailor made for you.
for me the save system ruined the game!@@ot6443
Killing your first dragon and being named dragonborn after what is essentially your first quest in the game is the gaming equivalent of premature ejaculation.
I have had elex in my library for awhile now. Never played it but you have convinced me to give it a shot. Great content. Liked and subbed
Yes is the best rpg ever made
I think The Witcher 3 is more adventure than RPG. That's why it lacks many of the things you look for.
I would agree, generally speaking. The problem is that it was marketed as an RPG, and is largely regarded as an RPG -- "RPG" is its second-most popular user tag on Steam (second to "open-world") and it routinely makes people's "best RPGs of all time" lists, when I would consider it to be more of an "action-adventure game with RPG elements." The RPG mechanics are certainly there, but they feel less fundamental to the core game design and not nearly as mechanical or systemic in nature compared to many other games that I enjoy better. That's certainly fine as TW3 is good for what it is, but does leave it with a somewhat hollow, unsatisfying feeling when judging it under that context, which again seems appropriate given its reputation as being an RPG.
CDPR strength always lied in it's narrative and character writing, I wish they took more of the first games gameplay and RPG mechanics and just improved up on them, as animation and combat has most definitely been they're Achilles heel
I actually love all of these games, despite their individual faults. But in general, I have to agree that Piranha Bytes’ games generally do a much better job of both exploration and character development than most open world RPGs. Wish more studios would takes cues from their design philosophy.
Exploration and character development are some of the most important aspects of these types of games as far as my interests go, which is a big part of why Skyrim and The Witcher 3 don't satisfy me on the same kind of level as Elex or most of PB's other games. Those games have their redeeming qualities and their appeals, of course, but I just find the challenge of exploring the world and leveling-up and figuring things out for myself so much more engaging and rewarding in Elex than those other games.
@@TheNocturnalRambler that’s fair. I love The Witcher trilogy mostly for the setting, characters, and choices and consequences that shape the story. I treat Skyrim as a platform for mods. It’s a lot of fun to see what the community comes up with, as it’s usually more interesting than Bethesda’s vanilla content. Enderal is great in particular. Elex has some of the best exploration I’ve seen in a open world RPG in years, largely thanks to the jetpack and the vertical level design. I adore vertical level design, and PB has always made great use of it, but Elex takes it to another level (literally). I just wish Elex’s ranged combat was more satisfying. Once I joined the Clerics, I found little reason to use anything besides the plasma rifle and black hole ability (forget the name).
This was my exact thought too (you're first point). This could be due to my unrelenting love for Gothic (1&2). I can't believe you had to make that disclaimer after your initial point. Says a lot about the world in which we live.
I agree with everything you say in this video and I am only 25 hours in playing ELEX and its good. Witcher 3, SKYRIM and dragon age origins are my favorite RPG´s but when I finish ELEX that might change. good vid btw.
So glad I'm subbed to this channel. I've always written elex off, can't wait to hear the good parts tho knew it had something...& it was on sale for 10 bucks! Time for nocturnal's elex starter vid!
Elex has much smaller map, so everywhere you go somewhere, there is something to see. Especially if you change config files to increase view size. And it guides you through enemies. If everything kicks your ass - maybe go somewhere else lol
I really enjoyed elex. It was very refreshing change from playing skyrim and witcher 3. Cant wait for elex 2 till come.e out
This is likely the best channel about PB games. I really hope Elex 2 development teams watches this channel, that would mean we'll have a great game.
The game is already at the point of almost releasing. But there was a good video on this channel about things which would make Elex 2 a good game. I definitely think they took inputs from there and I've heard they're are taking a more Gothic 2 centric approach which is good news to say the least
To be fair: that channel "Critical Bytes" also brings awesome reviews and worth-considering ideas. Moreover, I meant the whole channel, not only this video, but I agree.
You've completely sold me on giving this game a shot even though I wrote it off some time ago. I totally agree with your thoughts on exploration in W3. Too many markers just feels like a to-do list when the designers should be using the in-game environment to spark the player's curiosity as much as possible. I'm on console and see Elex is currently on sale for $15 - not much risk if I don't completely like it. Awesome review and the first I've heard of you. I'm definitely going to check out your other videos.
I'll never really understand the utter reverence that so many people have for skyrim or witcher 3. Skyrim was worse in my opinion than oblivion and fallout 3 in almost every way, and the witcher 3 just never clicked with me, the protagonist was just too cliched and unlikeable and wouldnt shut up.
That RockyBalboa-reaching top of the stairs-feeling is great! I agree with your points - those are reasons I've quit Witcher3 after 2 hours and haven't quit Elex after 20 hours.
Yeah, kinda...
I actually disliked the fact that i have to do every garbage quest from every annyoing NPC i came across because i so desperatly needed the EXP to be finally able to compete against basic low level enemies.
I much more prefer the "you get better at what you are doing because/while you are doing it" approach like Skyrim. Although this leads to whole other issues...
Don't forget the ultimate Zen moment in Elex when you are level 50 with Friend of the Beasts and everything but humans and mutants treat you as the Apex Predator and simply leave you alone. Truly epic.
Elex’s exploration is unmatched. I beat it and tried Greedfall immediately after and it was so disappointing because Exploring is so uninspired.
I have been playing w3 lately and you can actually play the game looking at the radar xD
These pirahnna byte fan boys are on a whole other level. Hypocrites to the fullest. They'll tell you how much they hate the Witcher or something while complimenting a pb game for doing something the Witcher does better 😂. Come on now. If you like them that's great but don't act like everything else is so terrible you can't even play it for a second.
It’s ironic that I’m playing Skyrim while watching this. I’m convinced that I’m soley responsible for getting Gameranx to review Elex in a Before you Buy. He hated it. But it’s definitely a fun and challenging game, with a steep learning curve. Kind of felt like when I first got into Elite Dangerous
I played like 15 hours of Elex very very long ago, and I played a lot of rpgs but I remember this one always like something really special and unique. I would give it a try again :)
You know, I've seen Elex here and there, but always kinda passed it over because I'd never heard anything about it. This video has convinced me to give it a try if I get a chance.
I think there is one more really important point, you can get to know elex, really know each nook and cranny, where to best get what items in which order, what lore is where and why.
You can get to know Skyrim the same way??
@@cheeseboi588 not really, too much randomization, bland geography, and radiant quests.
@@NoOnesBCE That's you, friend. That's your opinion, but it doesn't mean you can't get to know Skyrim the same way.
Lets be short. Elex is a gem. Bit rough round the edges but a gem!
I adore this game.
I'm glad I bought ELEX and I plan on playing it as some point. I found about this game a couple of months back when the EXEL 2 has been announced.
Great stuff man, subbed.
I still love the Wicther 3 but loved it A LOT more when I first played it in 2015. After coming across Fromsoft games I can't really replay it.
Also, I'm still annoyed I can't get Gothic working on my laptop. At least I can get Risen running; and I'll play that one soon. Want to get into Piranha Bytes, their games looks good.
I never felt like there was enough "RPG" in Witcher 3 to be called an RPG, it felt like an action adventure game with RPG elements.
Because it is action RPG duh, its mean RPG game that make us to do more action
@@ryndaman2855 I've played every type of RPG for more than 10 years, from low budget indies to tripleA action RPGs. In real ARPGs you built your character into whatever type of "warrior" you want. In my opinion games like ES, Dragon Age, Dragon's Dogma, Kingdom Come, Souls games and Kingdoms of Amalur are the ones that did it best because you have the freedom to Role Play in any Action you want but in Witcher 3 you basically fight the same. It's not a bad game it's just not a real ARPG. It's an action adventure game with RPG mechanics.
@@wearevenom82 but still a game with level system and gear system is now called RPG, if you think its not its fine because having a headcanon is not wrong
If a game doesn't have different classes it's most likely not an rpg. It's an action adventure with rpg elements like stats, skills, or attributes.
The key lies in 'role' from role playing. A class is a role like warrior(tank/melee), mage(buffer/debuffer/magic dps), thief/archer(long range dps), healer, etc. You can have a party comprised of individuals that have these skills but you can only roleplay by choosing one of the roles. Or you can have hybrid classes but you still have to choose from different classes. In my opinion, this is one of the most differentiating characteristics of rpgs from non-rpgs.
Most games that categorize themselves as rpgs, but are not imo, have all those classes unified into one which is the main playable character. I think that's why they still are generally accepted as rpgs.
@@zensoredparagonbytes3985 that's called action RPG duh, its still RPG, but its fine to have headcanon to think its not RPG
Smooth, accessible gameplay….
Laughs in Piranha Bytes.
I feel like I need to give thus game another try. I couldn't get past the jank first time but it seems to have a cult following. I loved greedfall in the end despite its jank.
Elex was fkn good man! And the Cleric armor looks sooo goood man,
TW3 and Elex are both great games and i like that they are different i need to try greedfall and kingdom come next .I never liked the elder scrolls series so i can't talk about that.
A lot of people speak highly of Kingdom Come, so I'm anxious to try that one out sometime. Greedfall for some reason drew a lot of comparisons to Gothic for certain people, but for some reason the trailers and information I could read about it never really caught my interest.
@Alex Biehn Kingdom come has some really nice story, world and well done characters but the shitty for honor combat kinda spoiled my experience with it and i had to cheese the whole game. Greedfall is a travel simulator, be prepared to move back and forward for quests, have loading screens in between travels - go from one end of the 'camp between zones' - and more loading screens. The world in greedfall is nice to look at, story is kinda meh and the characters are a let down.
@@TheNocturnalRambler: I won't spoil your time playing it just remember: "bows are better than swords" you'll know when you play it.
@@TheNocturnalRambler Kingdome Come D. definitely sticks out a lot from other RPGs due to its much more down to earth historic setting and atmosphere. Its shows that a great RPG can be done in a plausible medieval world without fantasy elements, monsters and magic.
What do you think about Witcher 2? After watching this review it seems to me there are similarities between Elex and Witcher 2 in exploration and quest designs.
I reviewed TW2 on my blog back in 2013, and also wrote a comparison article between it and the first game. See the links below for my full thoughts on TW2, but at the time I didn't like it as much as TW1 as I felt like it was straying from the unique charm, atmosphere, and game designs that made the first game so enjoyable for me. Upon replaying part of the first chapter recently I found myself put off by how restrictive everything felt, like it was trying too hard to be cinematic at the expense of gameplay during the introductory sequences, and was mildly annoyed by the map design feeling like a bunch of small paths (even when you're in a forest) and lack of any sort of jump function whatsoever. I'd have to replay it in its entirety to give better impressions than that, but you can check out my written articles for what I thought back in 2013:
thenocturnalrambler.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-witcher-2-is-pretty-good.html
thenocturnalrambler.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-witcher-vs-witcher-2.html
While Breath of the Wild has exploring, no quests and strong story just makes it mindboggling level boring for me.
Some people need to be handheld their entire journey I guess
@@cefirodewinter9086 Or some people like quest and story? I love how people throw out insults to people that don’t like the same media lmao
@@BullFrogFace He wasn't being insulting. I see both points though, I love a story driven game like the witcher, but also greatly enjoyed the peaceful esxploration of breath of the wild, it's peaceful. Liking those games might not even be related to a type of person, but maybe a state of the mind.
@@Rogerio_FM I read it as insulting but I agree on everything else
Agreed breath of the wild open world exploration is awesome but the main quest and side quests are a average
When I initially tried Elex, I HATED it. Can’t lie. When I gave it a fair shot, I found a challenging, well built game with engaging mechanics and a great world to explore.
Just don’t play it without an open mind and don’t come straight from a cookie-cutter AAA title would be my only suggestions. It’s easy to let expectations get the best of your experience in an open world RPG in particular.
Thank you for sharing this. I certainly don't expect everyone to fall in love with it, but it seems to me like a lot of people who hold such strong contempt for it never gave it a fair chance and never understood its intentions. I'm glad you gave it another try and were able to find some enjoyment out of it!
@@TheNocturnalRambler my pleasure. Thanks for sticking up for a game that got destroyed in its initial reviews. The devs stuck with this and turned it around from all the bugs and imbalances it had on release.
Publishers pushing for release when games aren’t ready yet really is the crux of the industry and I think was the issue for this, or at least something similar. No right minded developer wants to have their name on a buggy mess (except for Bethesda 😂) unless absolutely necessary.
I’m just glad it’s getting the love it truly deserves. The world ALONE is worth wading through.
You made a fan today. I’ll take a chance and sub just for the effort and for your rational perspective. It’s refreshing.
Witcher 3 combat was so much better pre updates. There were more restrictions that actually made sense when it came to potions and blade oils
Damn, hearing that Witcher 3 music makes me wanna dive right in again
I nominate this video for "Most Epic Disclaimer 2021!"
I'll definitely check this game out, these are the kinds of mechanics that are the reason I play games! I want to engage in the world not the UI. I'm anticipating elden ring having many of these strengths. Miyazaki knows how to copy himself.
Also to soapbox a sec, calling Skyrim a good game is like calling a doll a good girlfriend. You might have had fun with it, but know that you brought most of the imagination. Graphic style and production value doesn't mean much to me when the characters and gameplay feel hollow. On the other hand, Witcher 3 left no room for my imagination.
Thanks for letting me know about Elex!
I love exploration in Elex 1. World exploration is the best part of the game.
i think the exploration in witcher 3 would be way better if the noticeboards didnt put markers on your map and just gave directions so you had to mark the location on your map yourself and try to find them, instead of just filling your hud with icons
That’s not the main problem for me, what bugs me is that all those “?” End up being pretty much the same anyway. It’s just kill those enemies, and loot this treasure.
@@therandom.cowboy5526 oh i agree, but that falls under the design of the locations themselves. i was talking more about the method you use to discover locations in withcer 3 and it would also make the map more memorable imo. even if the locations themselves arent that interesting you would learn directions in the world by yourself
@@gutagelu1327 also I kinda find it funny that the witcher 3’s open world design is exactly the same as assassins creed origin’s open world design, the funny part is that ac origin’s world has more variety in its locations, soo a Ubisoft game ended up having a better open world than the witcher 3 😂
@@therandom.cowboy5526 variety doesn't mean quality tho....everything in ac games is so boring
@@alexbiehn978 yes but the “?” In origins are far more entertaining than the “?” In the witcher 3. They’re both shitty open world designs yes.
Great video man respect your tone of voice and commitment to the constructive criticism
Chheeers
Skyrims logic: picks a master chest, gets a hide helmet.
I would love to see an Arx Fatalis review from you, that is one of my favourite games besides gothic! Would be really interesting to see your take on it
I have no plans to make a video on Arx Fatalis, but I did review it on my blog back in 2015. You can read that review here if you'd like: thenocturnalrambler.blogspot.com/2015/02/arx-fatalis-old-school-game-in-modern.html
@@TheNocturnalRambler Thank you!
So sad that we live in a world where creators need a 3 minute disclaimer to protect themselves from reactionary assholes with no critical thinking skills.
Been playing witcher 3 with a difficulty mod which uses stamina in the same way, makes u use oils and decoctions regularly. Makes it way deeper
@@MetalGearyaTV A sht game? Absolutely trolling my guy.
@@MetalGearyaTV Sht combat? I don't know about that. It did have branch story telling my guy, decisions of the past would literally affect dialgoue, etc. A generic story? At this point I don't think you're even serious. If the Witcher 3 has a 'generic story', then basically all stories have it. Just say it's not for you and move on.
@@MetalGearyaTV THe decisions you make impacts dialogue and characterization etc. Do you mean completely different story lines? How shallow are you, like the Witcher 2? There are videos, upon videos detailing the decisions you make in Witcher 3 and how it impacts the game besides the ending.
@@MetalGearyaTV It literally does my guy. A character entire motivation changes, you resolve entire story lines based on decisions major or minor, etc. It's not HUGE to completely change the story, as completely changing the story of the game would of took even more time to development. Originally, they wanted to do a Witcher 2 (which had 2 story lines upon a major decisions) thing with more than 3 completely different stories lines but that's clearly unfeasible. They did the option of subtly affecting the story, if that's "superficial" then idk what to say you my guy. It's clearly better than most RPG's. Name me an RPG since 2010 which could do that? (Have completely different story lines mid game like you wanted, creating an entirely different game that is a triple A) You're exposing yourself.
Witcher 3 is already ambitius already (especially compared to most other triple A at the time and now which RPG elements), you wanted it to be EVEN more ambitous? And mind you, there's NO character creation, this is just a SINGLE character. So I ask you again, where is this perfect RPG that is triple A that fit the standard of having completely different story lines? Let me charitable because the more you speak the more stupid you're sounding., but I'll entertain :)
I'm sick of minimaps spoiling everything and I hope this trend towards organic exploration continues. I truly hope that future developers create smaller worlds designed around points of interest that make it possible and enjoyable to navigate with memory and your own eyes. Gothic II - one of this games predecessors - is imho the single best game ever made, because it masters exploration and immersion.
It really bugs me how prevalent the minimap and icon-hunting system has become in modern games. Even in games like TW3 which let you turn it off, the world design still seems based around having that information present at all times, so exploring the world without them just doesn't feel the way it should. Like you say, Gothic 2 was perfect in this regard; a big enough map with tons of area to explore, with lots of discrete areas adding extra depth to the exploration by hiding little rewarding secrets in the folds of a more densely-structured world, with a clear navigable layout and lots of memorable landmarks and structures to use as reference points when exploring without the aid of a mini-map or compass. You didn't NEED to explore with your eyes glued to the map all the time because the landscapes themselves were distinct and memorable enough that you could tell where you have and have not been, and where the interesting places to explore might be, just using your own eyes and memory. I really respect Elex for having such a massive open-world and still feeling interesting and engaging to explore without a mini-map or a bunch of icons telling where you to go all the time, but it's still nowhere as good as Gothic 2.
@@TheNocturnalRambler You can easily left behind minimap in W3. Became the game more difficult and more adventurous. I played on Death March without minimap, because questgivers tell you exactly what and where you have to do your things.
I feel like I would favor Greedfall over Elex any day. I didn't exactly enjoy Elex when I first played of course this was way before any of the updates, but Greedfall had such a great feel, I played as a mage that class gives you enough time to plan an attack, dodge or do massive damage.
Played Breath of the Wild for the first time recently and I was constantly thinking how ELEX's similarly large world was a lot more dense and packed with twice as more content (if not count the repeated puzzles from previous Zelda games in the shrines). I can imagine a much larger metacritic score for ELEX if only it had a casual difficulty with simplified mechanics in vein of BotW and other open-world games.
I feel the two biggest factors that hold back Lex when it comes to mainstream success is the UI and how clunky movement is.
I'll preface by saying I didn't like Elex, not a huge fan of Skyrim(huge fan of it's predecessors since Daggerfall in '97), but enjoy Witcher 3(and been playing Witcher games since the first one released in '07).
Exploration: Nothing to say here, 100% great take.
Quests: Fair points all around, though I'll counter argue that Witcher 3 you're playing as a pre-established player, being Geralt, and the 'purpose' is mostly to only do things he would do, in the way he would do so. Much of the narrative writing and decision writing of the Witchers games take careful attention to what Geralt would do, or most likely do, given the situation. This is to not deviate too much from the established written character(from the books), but also allow the player some freedom in making decisions.
Elex however, being a completely new IP, with no established characters at all, allows PB to do as they wish, which incidentally mean they can give the player complete narrative control over the character, without it seeming forced(Because the character's personality has never been established beyond an agent of the player).
Progression: Witcher 3 should've never been an RPG. RPG Mechanics are horrible because of Geralt as an established character. It should've been an open world action adventure game. Hell, mods like 'noLevels' or 'Enhanced Edition' that do away with gear and level system(for the most part) feels far better to play, it remains a consistant challenge that you overcome with player skill, rather than Geralt's leveling skill. While I do love RPGs that favor character over player skill, Witcher 3 just isn't fit as such a game, because of it's narrative and lore. Witcher 1 and 2 it made sense(amnesia), but not in 3. Overall, the leveling system feels and most likely was tacked on for Witcher 3(Also Deathmarch was clearly not the 'hardmode' but intended \ normal difficutly, but they decided to scale it back by 4 and create 3 easy settings instead, this is obvious because of persk like gorumet, that make no sense outside of deathmarch).
Combat: I couldn't stand Elex combat and is one of those thing that completely turned me off the game(I love Gothic 1-3), I feel it relies too much on the Dark Souls formula(a.k.a stamina bar). The argument is that stamina bar prevents spam \ consistant attacking(as you're arguing in the video), however Witcher 2 already solved that problem(without a stamina bar), which is enemy guard\counters when you spam, causing you to stagger(or be countered), so it rewards you for careful planned hits, and not consistant spams. I'd argue stamina based games tend to reward selective spam(as you're rarely punished as long as you remain over a certain threshold in stamina). Witcher 2 also solved over cautiouness by limiting parry(tied to stamina which is used for signs). Basically, Witcher 2's combat was a more clunky Witcher 3 combat, but overall a better one(but much more punishing and harder). They clearly desined Witcher 3's combat to cater to a lowest common denominator(a sad reality of most AAA games). I will say this for Elex; it being completely configurable allowing you to select what parts of the combat you like and don't like, is a massive pluss and kudos.
As for the quen sign immortality. 100% agree, and this too, was actually solved in Witcher 2. As long as quen is active, you do not regain stamina. Making it's invincibility a tradeoff(especially for spell builds), and the adrenaline regen was slower, and enemies more agressive. Dodging also temporarily stopped adrenaline regen for about a second(which is a lot in thick of battle against aggressive enemeis that can kill you in 1-2 hits). Unlike WItcher 3 however, you had 2(start) - 5(choosing all talents that increase stamina) stamina "bubbles". Every spell(or parry\block) cost 1. So you cast quen, now you have 4(that do not regenerate). Allow you to theoretically spam it 2 - 5 times throughout a fight, as the stamina regen is too slow(about 3-4 seconds iirc) to reliably wait for it(as again, dodge pauses it for an additional second).
Edit: Re-reading it(after notified from like), I see I fucked up adrenaline and stamina. Adrenaline does not regenerate in W2, only stamina does* Every mention of adrenaline is stamina* I confuse Witcher 3 with 2 in those portions. Eitherway, Witcher 2's combat rules, with witcher 3's combat would've been a much better and challenging fight, without relying on the dark-souls formula(Punished for spams, punished for overly cautious, punished for relying on quen, leaving you with a need to remain temparate agressive, just like an actual witcher in the books).
I'll also add this as an extra: Witcher 2 did not have i-frames. meaning if your hit box is hit, you're hit, wether you're in the middle of dodging or not. Making dodges far more dangerous and unpredictable. Souls and souls-like combats rely on i-frames.
It's crazy cuz I am a die hard Morrowind/Oblivion fan and absolutely LOVED W2: Assassin of Kings but for some reason W3 and Skyrim felt hollow and souless to me, just felt like cashing in on the series and not finely, carefully crafted adventures like their predecessors.
Now I'm like 10 hours deep in ELEX and havnt felt this loss, weak, and genuinely in awe at a world since I first played Morrowind all those years ago. Outward almost had it right but the lack of real story and good missions/chars made it feel more like "Skyrim Meets Dark Souls" than the "Fable Meets Morrowind" feel ELEX pumps into my brain.
Elex 2 will be an instabuy for me regardless of the PB jank.
Bruh every Elex video on YT I have to comment but Elex really did change the way I viewed and played “open world RPGs”. I whole heartedly enjoyed Elex better overall more than the other bigger titles. However all games mentioned in the video are great in their own right.
Despite its many flaws Elex does many things right and it does them well. The jet pack works surprisingly well.. Playing Elex I felt like my choices on my path mattered…. Not to mention the huge world to explore and so much loot to obtain.
I love Elex and I cannot wait for Elex 2.
Elex is a terribly underrated game I absolutely enjoyed the hell out of it looking forward to Elex 2
how was it i wanna play both but don't know is elex 2 better ?
Elex seems good but ultimately it shows that the studio still hasn't managed to fix the same issues that were apparent in the risen franchise which containted the same unrefined controls and combat. Elex 2 seems to be coming out and it will be interesting to see if they actually fix any of these problems, knowing they haven't been able to in the last 8 years.
From what PB have claimed in interviews, it sounds like they're taking more of a "Gothic 2" approach with Elex 2 and are focusing their time and resources more on creating quality content and fleshing out what core systems they already have (with new features, of course) instead of trying to reinvent the wheel and changing everything. That, I feel, has been their biggest demise with Gothic 3 and Risen 2, as people would've been more than happy with "more of the same" in an improved package with new content, but they've had this bizarre compulsion to scrap tried-and-true, successful ideas in favor of experimenting with new stuff while not really having the budget or manpower to properly polish all-new concepts between games. They've also said they're trying to keep the world about the same size and focusing more on the content and story, instead of making everything bigger and more expansive for the sake of it. Between those types of statements and the fact that Elex 2 has been in development longer than any game they've worked on previously, I'm trying to remain cautiously optimistic that it'll be a solid continuation of the first game with iterative improvements and not another mess of bizarre and confusing design choices.
Elex reminds me of a cross between Fallout's damaged world, Skyrim's open world fantasy setting, and Shadowrun's mix of magic and technology, though without the cyberpunk.
One major plus that I have seen of Elex is something that often lacks in open world games: verticality.
A lot of these structures are designed with roofs and upper layers and exploration in mind, and even the first town is layers of a mountain top with a five or six story hotel at its peak.
The quests and characters are engaging to me, crafting interesting little story lines that you can walk into and out of in the world.
And I actually enjoy the realism of being able to stumble into the middle of a quest instead of having to find the start of the quest first to have it even exist.
The combat is rather unforgiving, but it's obviously the type of combat where you start weak and grow exponentially until you're even with the baddest things in the game.
In my current playthrough, my first playthrough, I am most likely going to become an outlaw.
I will consider the berserkers later, although I do wonder if there's a golden neutral path for endings.
Elex is an awesome game, i'm so hyped for the sequel.
Thank you for this. I'm finally sold on giving Elex a try
I really like your videos! They are so well structures and your analysis is always on point! Its really fun to watch your content! :)
I agree sooo much with every word in this video, I have great expectations for elex 2 (lets also hope for more variety in character models). Also, let's not forget that also risen 1 is a beautifull game (except the ending ahah) that deserves attention even after 10 years