Hey Nic. Thanks for uploading. I agree with your points. Many improvements but also plenty of things lost from E1. I loved the improvements to the jetpack for exploration, however, I was very disappointed by the lack of significant improvements to the magic system. Magic now feels either very OP (Berserkers) or underpowered (Albs). We still do not have the variety, usefulness and fun factor we've had in the Gothic series.
currently playing an alb full mage on ultra (well, I started that playthrough half a year ago). It's pretty strong honestly. the heavy ice fist attack decimates most enemies while stunlocking them. the lightning dot deal very heavy damage to all bigger enemies.yeah, rain of fire is busted, but alb magic is pretty good.
I agree, I'm only about 10 hours into Elex 2 so my final judgement on that is still out. I attempted to play Elex 2 right after an Elex 1 playthrough and that made it more difficult to get into the sequel, I definitely don't like many of the same changes here in your video. I'm hoping after giving it a reat for a few months I'll be able to get into Elex 2 and enjoy it more. Thanks for the great video, these kinda games don't typically get much love from content creators.
It was the devs way of making it look like there were 5 factions when there were really only 3. Most people didn't like the outlaws in Elex 1 because they had no active abilities at all. All of them were passive stim based abilities. So they relegated the outlaws to a supplementary faction which we can defect to. What I don't understand is why the clerics got the same treatment. The clerics in E1 had superior abilities to what the albs have in Elex 2. I really liked the stun locking black hole among many other of their abilities. Perhaps PB didn't like the idea of having 2 technological factions. But I'd say it would be a good idea since it would have added some nuance
Really liked this video. I feel like especially your point about Nasty is spot on. Nasty is really just a pain in E2, which is such a shame in comparison to E1. It kind of felt like the role of a somewhat unfriendly companion turning good was taken by Bully in E2, which worked for him, but Nasty had just no real redeeming quality.
My theory is this. They saw Elex 1 as a starting point for a series but someone , most likely in management wanted to design Elex 2 for consoles, probably thinking they would cut down on costs this way and make the same design for PC as well. If your entire game design is for both console and PC, yeah you will cut down on costs. Reasons why this approach seems to be believable: 1) Interface. The interface is very blocky and it favours scrolling and selecting items using a controller not a PC. The items are very large and the design of the inventory UI seems to support this idea. 2) Lack of items in hard to reach places or rooftops. Again, exploring on a controller especially with such verticality in Elex is probably more clunky than using mouse and keyboard. I am guessing they wanted to cut down on costs from manually placing items and as such discourage exploration using a controller. 3) New combat type seems to be a bit more dumbed down and has less depth, probably to make it easier for controller using players to get into it. Learning curve is easier this way but combat ends up being simpler. 4) Hotbar or lack thereof. The wheel bar is basically a console mostly design, rarely used in PC design because it's obviously faster to press 1-9 keys than opening a bar then scrolling to an item, then selecting said item. 5) Story...I don't even want to touch on this but the current world of Elex 2 doesn't make sense in the internal context established by Elex 1. Morkons I think are the biggest offender of them all. Their society simply doesn't make sense. If a writer were told to design morkons it would sounds more like : a society of people who had to rely on violence to keep the numbers down. However their isolationism proved to be a great issue for their bodies. Locked away from the outside environment for so long, their immune systems became compromised so they need Elex to actually replace their immune systems. This creates a friction between two rival factions within the morkon society. Those that want to "join the outside world and interract with its communities in order to survive and cooperate" and puritans who believe their way of life should be preserved. It's just one example of how Morkons could've been designed in a smarter fashion but there are a lot of irks in the story that make it mediocre at best. As someone once said : "If you have to retconn a story then it wasn't a good story to begin with". Overall Elex 2 is a mediocre game that seems to have been release in the idea of making a franchise with as minimal cost as possible, using the same design template for consoles first, pc's later.Which is very absurd since the majority of RPG games are actually PC centric, not consoles. Seems like the current Pyranha Bytes in their new format is pretty much a generic company putting out generic games while trying to cut down on costs as much as possible. Which is pretty much the formula for mediocrity, aka what Elex 2 turned out to be. No systems for Elex 2 were improved upon from 1, things were stripped from 1 that made it interesting and pretty much is a game that can be entirely avoided or removed from the Elex franchise. Much like Gothic 3 is nothing like G1 and 2, Elex 2 is a stepchild that wanted to disown his own family and do his own thing.
This is the most thorough analysis of this game I've seen in a comment. Kudos to your concise analysis. Not to mention the whole game-world looks like a step backwards from the first game in design
It's very nice that someone done a video like this. I wanted to share something cause I saw you had that level 3 morkon armor. 2 of their blood rites are bugged since the release the stamina one and attack speed one. Both of them not working no matter what slot u put them in. I tested it for like 20 minutes with different weapons attack speed does not increase. Also outlaw chem pick me up is not working. In first game it gave you the attack speed. In this one it's supposed to trade your HP to deal more damage. It doesn't consume your HP for activation and damage does not increase tested with both melee and range weapons. I already submitted the bug report, but ima trying to spread the info so developers look into it. Would be nice if you do a small video on this stuff so they would address it in future patches. Thanks!
I noticed those issues as well. Neither the attack speed rite nor the Pick-Me-Up stim seem to do anything beneficial. I believe the stamina rite does increase your stamina regen, however. I don't remember where exactly in my footage I tested it, but I seem to recall getting like 1.0 or 1.5 seconds-faster stamina regen with it activated, which isn't much but at least it does something, even if what it does isn't exactly what the description suggests it does. The backstab skill is another one that doesn't do exactly what it says it does, as it makes it sound like it only works on unalerted enemies, but it in fact does no extra damage against unalerted enemies -- it only does extra damage in regular combat, when executing the backstab against an "alerted" enemy. Things like that will probably work their way into a beginner's guide, which I'm planning to work on soon.
@@TheNocturnalRambler The backstab is pretty bugged on a lot of two handed weapons. It works really well with one handed weapons. Needless to say two handed weapons feel really sluggish to wield comparing them with their previous iterations and we cannot perform aerial combat with them
@@TheNocturnalRambler Pick me up does not work at all. When i was doing my testings i didn't see the difference in stamina regen while using stamina rite. So not sure about it. But anyways, i don't have that amount of subs on youtube to cover this so developers would look at it. However if ppl start to talking about those things. They will fix it. I can only imagine what my character would been like if i had both morkons rites plus spells plus pick me up chem. I would deal insane amount of damage.
I think i've finally given up on PB being able to make good games at this point. I still love all the Gothic games (even 3) and Risen 1 was also really enjoyable to play. Even had a lot of fun with Risen 2. I had a hard time with Elex 1 at first and while I never enjoyed it as much as their previous titles I still enjoyed it at the end. But Elex 2 was just a drag. A little bit of PB magic here and there but overall it felt like a chore and it was the first game ever (not only from PB) that I switched to Story-difficulty because I just wanted to finish it as quickly as possible. Also they just can't make a decent combat system if their lives depended on it. Hitboxes were atrocious, telegraphing is non-existent, enemy behaviour is inconsistent, I could go on and on and on. I might buy Elex 3 just to finish the story but I'm actually considering just giving up on that studio that clearly has no plan or incentive to improve where it really matters. I bought Elex 2 right after it came out even though I spent months playing Elden Ring first, just to support PB. But I'm very tired of being disappointed time and time again because they think they stick to what they're good at. Only problem is, they're not good at it. They never captured the same magic they did with Gothic 20+ years ago, and they never will, yet they still try and make the same game over and over again.
Speaking Out of my Soul! Cannot agree more. Sadly. But on a quick Note, the Dev Team behind PB responsible for creating Gothic 1&2 is not the same today anymore as the relevant people left already, unfortunatelly. I will very carefully examine gameplay and Reviews before buying any more New PB Games in Future. Also bought Elex 2 just to Support and even halted Elden Ring for a couple of days, but Elex 2 was Just so dissapointing, despite having a great time with the First Game. But oh Well we will see, Hope dies Last and i still wish for PBs success and awesome Games top come...
Hey off topic, but I have to say I really enjoy your commentary and analysis of these titles. Even though I disagree with some of your takes I appreciate your ability to break down all aspects of a game. Stay committed and the views will follow. Being corny but just like field of dreams “build it and they will come” keep up the good work brotha!
Personally, I'd never date a girl like Nasty. But in the game she was a blast. She was hands down the most memorable and fun character. Kaja was just plain and vanilla.
Yeah I totally agree about the part of Elex 2's biomes using drab, dull and repetitive texture work. It makes the world look a little less fantastical than the first game and cost the world design in its presentation. But what you forgot to mention was those monotonous kill these 50-60 enemies in so and so place quests. The worst part is many of them were storyline related and became quite a drag due to it repetitive nature. The quests for the most part were less inspiring than the first game. Not to mention the non companion side quests can be entirely completed in chapter 1. The game ran out of content pretty quickly forcing me to just pursue the main story in Chapter 3 and 4. And this wasn't fun considering that a lot of the storyline quests were those boring kill 100 enemies grind jobs.
Yeah, really strange that he didn't mention the MMO quests that are part of the late game, that thing really pissed me off. I got so bored that I muted the game, played my own music and lowered the difficulty to easy (to make them less tanky).
@@PaYaB_005 he's probably leaving that for the full review. Almost a year now considering that 😅. I actually felt the first game was better than the second. The second game went overboard with the jetpack and failed to work on the weakness of the first. In addition to this they introduced some baffling downgrades making the overall experience mediocre especially after chapter 1
@@Kevin5279 For me the 2nd game is a perfect downgrade almost in every way. For the first time in any PB game I rushed to the ending and was pissed how poorly it was done. And it'll probably be the 1st PB game that I won't ever play again.
@@PaYaB_005 the ending was rushed and clearly shows they ran out of time. Especially the bit where Caja expresses no emotion at Dex's death and Asghar behaving as if Dex is still alive. All in all it seemed like a cheap Mass Effect rip-off. It's a good thing PB aren't working on the Gothic Remake. But I'll subvert my expectations about that one too given my recent experiences
@Kevin My issue with that game is that sometimes it forgets it's a Gothic game. They nailed the level design and the gameplay but most of the time, the quests, feel on rails and forced into situations in an un-immersive way. For example, getting inside the city in Khorinis meant having in front of you 4-5 ways to get in. In Chornicles you can't think outside the box. You can't get inside by swimming otherwise the guards will shoot you down. How does the guard know I'm an illegal citizen? If I get inside the city by swimming, AFTER I've got the citizenship, why don't the guards shoot me down? How do they know I'm not an illegal immigrant? It feels like the devs put an invisible barrier meant to prevent you to get inside the city in case you decided to not follow the intended paths they've chosen for you to take. I've lost the count of how many times doors and locations were completely locked, and couldn't be accessed, because I didn't trigger the quests yet, and the incredible amount of npcs that previously didn't exist and spawned out of nowhere because a particular quest needed 'em to be implemented. Gothic 2 had its share amount of locked locations and npcs spawning out of nowhere, but they were only a few and had a huge impact on the story (the seekers). In Chronicles, however, this is heavily abused even in secondary quests and in environmental events. For example, the incredible amount of thugs that keep respawning in the city, even after you cleaned the city up from 'em. From where do these guys come from? I kept askin' myself. Why are there so many "fake doors" in the city? In my opinion, this game sometimes forgets to be a Gothic game and starts behaving like a "modern RPG".
@@eldiablosoundtracks6760 Yeah and they also overdid it with the immortal NPCs. I understand that certain characters are crucial to the plot and need to be unkillable. But here almost every insignificant NPC is immortal. This forces us to approach potentially hostile encounters with characters in a very one dimensional linear fashion. We cannot employ sneak attacks and the like. Not to forget that they also introduced the mechanic of being killed in a cinematic. Take for example we make a stupid choice while taking to Cortez the boss of the pirates. The game immediately takes control away from the player and has Cortez kill you in the cinematic and there's nothing you can do about it. It doesn't even matter if you're strong enough to take him on. I loved the game and overall I enjoyed the gameplay mechanics and the quest design. But it was these over the top encounters and the storyline which made it feel sometimes less like a gothic game. The story also ended in an overdramatic fashion (talking about the "canonical" ending where Marvin is thrown into the colony). And they forced Marvin to be part of the Gothic canon by later revealing that he is Scar from the Old Camp. Lol how'd a dynamic character like Marvin become a lazy follower of Gomez. I think it was because of these reasons the History of Khorinis team split from these guys. They wanted the game to play more like a Gothic game. So these creative differences caused the rift
@Kevin I know, right!? The immortal guards? Omg, I was sooooo pissed! And the fact that they FORCED the ending in a way that makes your previous choices meaningless, pissed me off. Just because these guys at one point said: "Y' know what? Let's turn Marvin into one of the characters of the original Gothic game. That's pretty cool, right? We are tieing everything together. Except it doesn't! It feels like a rushed decision took right before they finished scripting the story.
@@Kevin5279 And let's not talk about the mages. They basically cut down the mage faction out of the Gothic formula, and they also screwed up the lore of the water mages. They didn't bring up anything original about the water mages. In my opinion, they feel like fire mages but with blue robes. The monastery looks, sounds and feel just like the monastery of the magicians of fire in Khorinis, and the water mages themselves behave JUST like the fire mages. I thought the innostians were a mix between the Christians and the followers of Ra, and since Gothic it's set in a fantasy-middle-age society, it makes sense they would look like that. But the water mages always felt like a different culture to me. Hell, even in Gothic 3 (which to be honest, wan't that great) PB had a better idea than these guys.
I agree on many of these. Elex is probably the best - most underrated game that exists today 🤷♂ . Is not a perfect game , but is a game done with lots of love and passion, and it's rich and huge and long and very smart overall. And it grows in you so much in a way that few games in history have ever achieved. ♥🧡❤ --------------- However, Elex2 should have put an end to this by keeping the same formula only capitalizing on combat, exploration diversity, and animation/visuals. Imo. It was not the case,😑 and Elex2, despite of being a beast of a game, did not improve where it should had, and thus has not yet made it to the big audience. A true pitty this is, because Im not sure there will ever be an Elex3 to take another shot at it😑. And if there is, whether it will keep the same spirit, instead of going full mainstream. -------------- Now for the major drawbacks of Elex2: ++ Having huge vertical structures off the main path that offers basically no reward to explore ? ... that's a huge opportunity wasted and a major mistake from a design perspective. ++ The environmental hazards are basically anecdotic. Again, impacting the exploration. ++ Easter eggs and alien flora are mostly missing. More hits to the exploration experience. ++ Still no cave/underground exploration ?. And the few tunnels you can go in are not rewarding to explore... It's not a big issue, but at this point, every hit to exploration is significant. ++ Combat should have probably been the main point to focus and to improve from elex 1... But i don't have the feeling that they achieved anything here, really. If anything.. it's a little bit more fluid, but still clunky and lacks sooooooo much depth... And it's shoking and frustating too see, specially when you compare it to the depth and thought that it was put into the dialogues and story... Why can't we see the same amount of love here?? The character of this game fights its way through it. We fight 80% of our gameplay. Combat is key. Combat had to be deep , rich, with plenty of options and choices to select from and master... None of that happened in Elex2 🤦♂ . This is the biggest mistake of the game, imo. And it can be a saga-ending one 💔. ++ Stealth should also be improved. It's not terrible, but it could have better mechanics. ++ I would LOVE to see some light survival mechanics in this game. Hunger, thirst, sickness, infections, bleeding . It could give all those herbs/trash you constantly pick up a much more rewarding purpose. The items and status are already there !! ...But no mechanics 🤷♂. ++ i would also LOVE to see romance mechanics and rewards. Again, there are none 🤷♂. ++ I dont miss the hotkey bar at all. What I miss is a way to re-bind the hotkeys. WTF 🤨. ++ Nasty is still fun 🙂... I brought her with me during most of my playthrough just to see her laughing at the most disgusting and toxic dialogue options you could possibly take... But you're right, she's so much more interesting as a character in Elex1🙃
Just looking at your footage from E1 and E2 in this video and the thing that immediately strikes me is the lack of variety and interesting locations in Elex 2. The world is such a huge downgrade compared to Elex 1, it's just so bland and lifeless.
ELEX was a very reasonable start which needed significant improvement (sort of as you are saying). and then ELEX 2 removed all the good things and just expanded on all the bad things. im not sure how or why.
I think it comes down to the fact that since Gothic 2, PB have mostly displayed a near total inability to make a competent game that isn't just a retread or mild expansion of Gothic 2. Any deviation winds up delivering increasingly diminishing returns. Their arguably 'best' games since that time are Risen, and Elex, which both basically just lean on the Gothic 2 formula yet again, with added tech of gameplay feature developments.
@@Blisterdude123 no need to change anything if it works. tbh it doesnt take a genius to see that what they do is crap. i.e. The camera in Elex 2 is so aweful. And the whole child thing in Elex 2 is beyond uncanny/retarded.
@@kingprone7846 Ehhhh...sorta, but I think there's a limit to that. Like eventually you're not just perpetuating a winning formula, your development and creative process has only become stagnant. It's regressed. I 'love' what PB used to be, but the law of diminishing returns is in full effect over there. I think since Risen the company has been in a downward cycle. Like, would you look at the CoD games, or Ubi's various releases like Assassin's Creed, Far Cry etc and say 'no need to change anything if it works'? Or would you argue those games are stale, repetitive, and carbon copies? There's nothing wrong with a formula that works if it's propping up new ideas, ingenuity, and a creative drive to improve. I'm not really seeing that over at PB. Maybe this seems harsh, and if it helps, I make this critique from a place of love, of what they did in the past. But they seem like a company who has been treading water for years, now.
@@kingprone7846 There's an argument to be made by 'some' that that would apply. I don't think so though, because there's a clear progression of technology, creative scope, and ambition, from Demon's Souls through to Elden Ring. And then you have to factor in FromSoft's previous works, such as with the Armored Core series. Or even the oddities in Bloodborne, or Sekiro. Show me that trajectory with PB, is what I'm saying. Any time they 'do' try to deviate from the formula a little bit, you wind up with what are often considered, and not unfairly, some pretty messy releases. Like Gothic 3, Risen 2-3, and now Elex 3. Their 'successes' are essentially just rehashes of Gothic 2, the one that 'mostly' hit the spot. Risen for the most part is just an updated and more fleshed out redo of Gothic 2, and Elex is Gothic 2 with guns and a jetpack. And somehow, the absolute worst combat system they've devised since maybe Risen 2, or the OG Gothic.
I miss the weather variations, in Elex 2 it never rains. I would like someone to tell me why, it seems that nobody appreciates that in these types of games. I'm using Google translator, greetings from Uruguay.
I love P.B. though the vast changes in Elex 2 from Elex 1 and other past games are stupid and assholish changes, such idiotic and weird decisions that I simply can't understand WTF P.B. was thinking... I stopped playing and will wait for the last patch. However, there will never be enough fixes to fix, well, anything mentioned in this video. Also, I find it hard to believe that Baxter would have allowed Nasty to live and "work her way up," considering that Nasty helped her brother VIOLENTLY overthrow Baxter before Elex 1. Stupid...
The whole Nasty quest line and even her character were badly downsized in Elex 2. Apart from that, I didn't like how a lot of characters from the first game looked and felt as well
The only 2 problems I had with Elex 1 were the combat and character progression. In every other aspect I felt it was better than 2. Gameplay wise it has a few issues still, where they'd need to redo certain aspects, like balance ranged weapons a bit more because shotguns are seriously broken. The world is just dull overall and not as entertaining to explore. Visually it might do a few things better on an engine level, maybe with shadows (which kill performance quite a bit), but the graphics style just hurts it a lot. There's a few good quests in the middle, related to certain factions, but towards the end some seem either broken/unfinished or are so repetitive that it feels like senseless work. And speaking of factions, what they did to clerics is ridiculous to me. You get 5 choices but they clearly put much more work into Berserkers and Morkons than the rest. Even the music, which is not too memorable in Elex 1, isn't as jarring as 2, where it'll change in the middle of a conversation without any sort of transition unlike many games before. It's a disappointing entry, and I actually like most of their games.
Yes, for some reason, I find world of Risen (all three games) more fun to explore than Elex. I think it is mostly because of the theme. I didn't like the way Elex merged medieval and sci-fi stuff. It is indeed difficult to pull off something like that. But the safer option is to keep two themes separate. Honestly, I wished Elex 2 to have reversed the verticality. I mean imagine a post apocalyptic world overgrown with dense forest and studded with underground trenches and dungeons. So, basically, wee explore down the ground (and perhaps under the water) rather than up in the air. This would have been the fresh take that Elex 2 really needed. I also wanted it to feel more "Metro-like" with scripted jump scare events in a more darker and grittier world.
Did they do any patches or upgrades to fix the issues many complained of in Elex 1? I haven’t played either 1 or 2 yet but was thinking about buying Elex 1 soon.
@@johnnyappleseed5590 I replayed it about 2 years after release and they did patch out a few issues, but not many. If I recall I was still able to use certain exploits. There's a balance mod called Elex Overhaul that fixes some of the grievances. Still a better game than Elex 2 overall, even if Elex 2 also has some mods like this.
I picked up Elex 2 on launch day and jumped in. Right off the rip I had to tell myself that this isn’t Elex 1. I’ve let E2 sit on the shelf for a bit and I’m about to hop back in. Something very magical about the original game. I’m hoping the sequel has some of that sauce.
Elex 2 Jax: The dumbing down of the MC in some cases is jarring. Take the green house glass domes. In Elex 1 he knew what they were, in Elex 2 he doesn't. Also in other circumstances his reactions make no sense giving his own upbringing as an Alb. Just look at how Albs treat children in Elex 2 and then imagine baby boot camp _with_ forced Elex consume for little Jax. No.focus on emotional control, jist on science, tech and military. He sgould not be surprised that Makar doesn't know what a toy is or how it's used. I'm pretty sure he never had one while growing up as an Alb himself. He also should have known about the effects of saltwater on the human body. These are some small things that do not fit the character at all. Instead a comment on "old times" when eating protein/energy bars would be fitting and how he "didn't really miss them at all". Caja: Can't say much here. Her character development actually fits the boots she's walking in. However, her reaction to Dex and his fate (final or not is to be seen in Elex 3 hopefully) is sub par. She's his mother, for Christs sake! I get it, PB is bad at emotions, but this is unacceptable. Nasty: Well, what can you say. She's nasty and angry and sullen and vicious and a plain pain in the posterieur. Her behaviour towards the faction leaders make no sense other than deliberately punishing Jax for chosing Caja over her. A bitter and sadistic bitch that bitches on everyone and you just don't know what might set her off. Nyra: What a wasted character. The 3rd wheel on the romance waggon. He personal quest isn't that great either. What would have worked better, would have been her being an official liaison from the Depot to keep an eye on this 6th power faction, especially when they find out Dawkins is with them. Nyra would have been forced on Jax more like Bully and the clash and reconcilliations would have worked pretty well there, even as basis for a possible romance. Bully: Actually quite a nice character edition. However, you notice real quick that Bully is a softie as he favours creation choices over destruction ones, which doesn't really fit a hardened Outlaw under direct command of an ahole like Baxter. Actually... everyone seems to favour these except Nasty. There is way too less diversity in there. Fox: Can't complain. A new character that is a bit like the petulant teen rebelling against its parents and superiors in general. Still... he grows. Would have been nice to have him grow some more. Falk: Our favorite (only) cyborg. Always cheerfull and always putting his foot in it. His quest to become more human is adorable untill it isn't and that makes him terrifying. A good character. Crony: What can I say. Crony is the best. Especially as his responses seem to develop and change depending on Jax own dialogues and actions. ...I love Grandma's vanilla secret. A lot of characters also are wasted. Krull could have been used as a quest giver at least. Same for Cajas guards and the two hunters. Those two guys running from one faction to the next in search for money, fame and fortune? Why couldn't we hire them to help Gardock keep the Bastion up and running. Maybe then the holes in the roof would have been fixed. Also if you save Ivan, we could have maybe gotten a quest to help her make friends. And Victor from the Morkons could have saddled us with a man from his own rooster to keep him informed and make sure we don't do anything he deems unacceptable. That way we could have maybe gotten a Morkon companion. Bonus if it actually would have been a follower of Kriiton playing double agent. So many missed opportunities and that's not even going into the general main and side quests. Frankly, this game needs a DLC. I know PB isn't big on DLCs, but with a great chunk of the map just being inaccesible, despite obvious structures there that scream exploration, I feel like this game just wasn't finished. Also the whole atmosphere in Elex 1 was/is better. Elex 2 looks for the most part like it could be taking place in the woods outside my town. I miss the distinctive alien worldly parts of Elex 1. Take the coastline for example. And the desert has become green way too fast. 6 or 7 years since the end of Elex 1 and it looks like the forest/jungle has grown for at least 50 to 100 years. I get it, magic and stuff, but please. In general the landscape diversity, the colors, the overall feel of the world is much, much better in Elex 1. Same goes for abandoned buildings, like the factories. Where Elex 1 had elaborate multi level buildings, the best you can get here is a 2 story house. This gets driven home especially at the Old Brewery in Tavar. When exploring becomes a chore instead of a treat, you know it's not all right. And they wasted the exploration opportunity with the Tomsontown skyscrapers especially. And how come all windows are still intact everywhere, but god forbid they had doors. In Elex 1 windows were broken and mostly non existent after 166 years. These unbreakable windows severely detract from the after apocalypse atmosphere. So many things to criticize. I hardly know where to start. The only thing that made me enjoy this game are the sidequests and that I like the main character. The Alb quests concerning Skibor and Zarik and the one with Vakis are some of my favorite quest in the game. I do hope in Elex 3 we get to meet (and beat) Nero again and the quest concerning the puppet maker just has to be continnued. I also hope we get to returm to Edan, Goliet, Abessa, the Domed City, Xacor and the Ice Palace. I want an Alb Glider and I hope Zardom is still alive and allied with Dawkins. And Jax needs to develop new dark Elex abilities and I'm not sure how this singularity stuff will end. I only see 3ways for Magalan not to be completely f*ed over. Blowing the singularity up or diverting it somehow or time travel. We also see a lot of mana mutants surging in the after game of Elex 2, which could lead to the fact that despite nit being as emotional destructive as Elex, Mana as one of it's forms isn't as benign as the Berserker think, especially with world hearts growing more powerfull and then being left "alone". There was always a cloud of poisen surrounding the world hearts in the jungles of south Edan. There is quite a lot to explore story wise for Elex 3 and I do hope they don't botch it. Because as much as I like Elex 2, Elex 1 is the better game, even with the more clunky fighting dynamics. Magic: Berserker >>>>> everyone else. Really, high level Fire Rain is OP and Alb magic sucks. All you need to do as a Berserker is chug in some Mana Potions that you can craft yourself or buy by the dozens and you are golden. Don't even need any other weapon any more. Albs have to siphon the Elex energy of fallen enemies. Not only does their magic sick in comparison to Berserker, they can't even chew down some Elex to restore their reserves. What kind of BS is that! Morkons are close range specialists and I hardly played them, so no comment here, but I get the feeling the combination with the Outlaws abilities stim use is favorable over pure Morkon play. But only stimmcreation as Outlaw skills? Why not reduction of upgrade costs for enhanced weapons and the skill to add effects to weapons. I do not want them to nerf Berserker Magic, but make Alb magic better. Also, the Clerics 2 skills are good, but just 2? I get it that you don't get the whole offensive skill side again, but the weapon and defense enhancement ones would have been a nice addition. The Menu in Elex 2 is another thing. The icons and such are great, but the overall structure of the Menu in Elex 1 was better. A combination of the two would be good. And the highlighting of the chosen item should be better. Grey and grey isn't really doing it. Also on PS4 you can not really see the colors of the numbers when hacking. Weapons are nerfed in fight animation and versatility. Especially the guns have been all reduced to single shot. No special ammunitions like explosive bolts or radiation shells. Bows have better draw and aim dynamic though and shotguns are f*ing awesome in close and medium close combat. For close range weapons... just choose one and be done. No difference in animation between axes, swords and clubs. The variety is bigger and upgrading no longer needs higher attributes, but still... lack of individual combat animation for the various weapon types also hints towards a rushed job. I mean, you do not stab someone with a mace. They got it right in Elex 1 so why not in Elex 2? The eye-icon when in stealth mode is nice. Not being able to somehow get ALL faction armors for Cleriks and Outlaws despite joining them as secondary factions is BS. You should be able to buy any Outlaw armor, even the lower level ones (I don't mean the faction less ones.) at the crater. I know they are useless when you join, but just for completion sake. Same for the Clerics. I understand them running low on equipment, but they might habe been forced to leave stuff behind after the former dropped in the Hort. I'm pretty sure I can find more to complain. But I do so only because I love the game still and just want the next one to be much, much better. PS: When it comes to romaces and hownto do emotions: please, PB, ask some who actually knows about this and how to show it in/on a character, because _that_ was pathetic. PSS: Jetpack is awesome!
I feel like the majority of those are Piranha Bytes listening to feedback. Elex 1 got a lot of bad reviews due to being a difficult game at the start, so PB seems to have taken measures to streamline the experience as much as possible. From a simpler combat system to removing more complex character growth systems and weapon variety. I personally disagree with that approach, since being difficult to start with and rewarding as you got more powerful was one of the most unique aspects about Gothic 1 and 2, and if people wanted the game to be more accessible, they could have just switched to the easy difficulty. And honestly, this has been a problem with PB for a while now. They seem to be stuck in an endless loop of listening to Gothic fans who criticize their newer games for being too easy and too unlike Gothic and then when they release a more difficult game, they listen to negative reviews from newcomers who complain about the starting difficulty.
Jetpack fuel is endless after the main mission completion so maybe that's the reason why they didn't bother to put a bag of elexit on top of each building. Stuff like thunderclap is still hard to pick up early so exploration is rewarding, but maybe you write, it could be done better.
Talking of easter egs, did you visit the graveyard in Elex2? There was a hand of Terminator for example. xD But i have to agree with you in the most points. Elex 1 was better than Elex 2. Spoiler: In the end of Elex 2, Jax´s and Cajas son died. But Caja didnt react to it at all? She only talked about Jax, who rescued the world again? Wtf?
The ending was rushed and appeared broken. After Dex dies and we talk with Asgar, the conversation sounds like Dex is still alive and must have taken place before Dex died
I noticed the T-800 easter egg with the robot hand sticking out of the grave plot, but they dropped the ball on that one, too. They should've had the robot hand giving a thumbs-up to reference the iconic final shot of Arnold in T2, where his thumbs-up is the last thing you see before he's lowered completely into the molten pool. It's probably not worth it for them to model a thumbs-up robot hand since the robot hand by itself is enough to convey that reference, but that's the kind of thing where I'd like them to put in just a little more effort to make some of these fun things as fun as they truly could be.
@@goodoldgamingyoutuber6371 forsaken gods makes Gothic 3 look good. It totally undoes the story of G3 as well. I have a hard time believing it is canon. Making the hero Rhobar iii was the stupidest decision PB ever made
I really disliked the Cold system. It's a neat idea in concept, but in reality I often found myself gaining or losing Cold semi-randomly, because the one dialog option that fit the character I was playing was written in an unnecessarily emotional or rational way seemingly at random just to add the +-Cold effect.
Idk about english but in my language sometimes dialogues were different from what I picked. When you dropped flare end tried to pick it up from the ground it was called "war machine" lol. I usualy play games with native voices and eng subs but PB makes these dubbs very funny xD
They've released another cinematic trailer from the Gothic Remake. This time it shows the old mine. But we can't gather much from the trailer as it is purely cinematic in nature
Yeah, I saw that. It basically just looks like an environment showcase for the level design, which while impressively accurate to the original (and with some solid enhancements to the atmosphere), isn't anything I was overly concerned about after playing the original Teaser from a couple years ago. It was pretty clear in that demo that the map and level design was going to stay pretty close to the original, since the path down the mountain was pretty much the same once you got past the new tutorial area. And frankly, that's the easy part to pull off in a remaster/remake, because you're basically just tracing existing artwork and then embellishing it with extra detail. I was obviously much more concerned about things like the story/characters, gameplay/combat, immersion, atmosphere, player agency, difficulty, interface, and so on, which I would guess are much harder to get right than simply recreating the existing maps. And, of course, none of that is really portrayed in the new "Old Mine trailer", except maybe the atmosphere which SEEMS to be capturing the feel of that environment pretty well. I remain optimistic that they're going to do Gothic justice, considering they claim to have done a complete 180 on just about everything they presented in the Playable Teaser and there's been nothing shown to contradict that assertion, but at the same time this new trailer doesn't necessarily prove that point, either. So the jury is still out, in other words.
@@TheNocturnalRambler precisely. I shall keep my judgement reserved until they've given us some substantial footage. This is kinda how they hyped people with the initial cinematic trailer of Elex 2. But the game itself failed to do justice as a full fledged sequel. Let's hope you're right and they have truly done a 180 to the original playable teaser which we received earlier
I'm planning to at least do an updated "Final Thoughts" video once I finish it, however I still haven't played beyond chapter one yet since I've been focusing on Elex 2 right now. It's going to be a little while longer before I get back to Archolos.
@@TheNocturnalRambler Glad to read that. I think this was the true sequel everybody always wanted from gothic 2. I played Elex II also, had mixing feelings about it but overal a decent game, crap perfomance though.
I agree on all points, except for melee combat system. Other than that, feels like a streamlined downgrade, instead of an upgrade... Except for jetpack, that stuff's cool in E2.
👉 With Elex 2, this absolutely unnatural family relationship bothered me from the start and the busybody child annoyed me so much that I almost didn't play any further. That being said, it annoys me that even after all their good games, PB still doesn't manage to get a little more depth into the characters. Do any of you remember a moment you loved with one of the NPCs? What would I be grateful for a little more depth like e.g. in Dragon Age or Mass Effect. The main story is also really weak. Oh and speaking of story - I really hate that PB already 100% spoiled the story of an Elex 3 at the end of Elex 2, so why should I still buy an Elex 3 when we already know that the story is again such a mediocre nonsense. Oh, how I loved Gothic and Gothic 2 and also Elex 1 still has a lot of charm, but you could get so much more out of the game if PB would finally admit to getting someone on the team who can write good stories and makes sure that you sometimes experience real emotions in the game. Nasty was the only character in Elex who gave at least a corresponding organ of some depth, and even this one char they mutated into a stupid, evil witch in Elex 2 - fitting to the absolutely unrealistic family situation. Even if I'm just ranting here, please don't get me wrong - the rest of the Elex games are wonderful and I really like them. I even take my hat off to the performance of this small team. I still love PB - it just annoys me that the same mistakes have been made over and over again for many years. A good story and better characters with more depth would add so much more power and charm to the game.
I will say, there is one quest you do to join the Albs in ELEX 2, where you have to investigate a bombing and have to travel under the command of a character that hates you and tried to set you up, only to slowly win him over by the end. That quest I found surprisingly touching from a character standpoint. I wish the entire game had been more like that
@@plain_simple_garak That's right, that was one of the story moments that started well - I agree with you there. It wasn't all crap as far as the story and quests go - in fact many of the quests themselves were pretty good and a far away from the usual kill this and get that. What I'm missing though is more depth specifically in terms of the companions - I wish , they would strive for more examples like seen in Mass Effect or Dragon Age. You just remember characters like Morigan or Liara there. Unfortunately, Elex completely lacks that.
Also Ray was a really good buddy in Elex 1 and was written very well. Actually also all the other characters felt very believable. Like Arx and Duras - they actions and dialogued made so much more sense. Not like Bully or even Caja feels strange in Part 2 ...
It's basically just a graphics showcase so there's really not much to comment on. It looks nice and seems to capture the tone/atmosphere of the old mine reasonably well, but none of the stuff I was really concerned about is on display.
i agree with everything you said in the video and i like E1 better then E2 . i don´t know if i will finish E2 after 60 hours of playing so many missions are so lazy in E2 and i miss the battle system in E1 and i hate Nasty now and somehow the magic is gone from the world. awesome video btw
I grabbed a companion early on Caja. The wife. She was a lovely delicate flower in the first game, in this game she is a bitchy nagging Karen. Anytime I would so much as crouch she would chime in "You shouldn't do That" - Coaching the difference between right and wrong in a very matter of fact tone. After her endless moral superiority comments, she eventually asks Jax to murder somebody. I felt a great deal of relief when I stopped travelling with her. I suggest not using her at all if you can avoid it. There is a woke element to the characters and dialogue that wasn't there before. All that being said, it still is one big map with no zoning in and unlimited inventory space. That's what drew me to the first one, and it is still present in this game. Good enough.
All of this is really disappointing and further shows that PB don't really have a grasp on what game they want to make. It feels like they are trying to make the same game ever since risen 1 but keep getting most things wrong, while failing to realize when something was done right. It definitely gives off a sense of them being unable to find a formula that can create a functional game that isn't full of bugs, inconsistency and cut or underdeveloped features. The fact that the game's combat still sucks after 5 games and keeps getting overhauled instead of improved is a good example. The fact that the most notable characteristic of all of these games is that they are janky and weird attracts people who grew up with older games, but it definitely feels like the feedback from these players is being ignored in favor of catering to the masses who won't play the game anyway.
@@williamfranklin860 true that. But Mike Hoge was also responsible for the disaster that was G3. Risen 1 was a low budget "playing it safe" game because of the failure of G3. I guess if PB followed their philosophy instead of making G3 like Elder Scrolls, he would have stayed longer
@@Kevin5279 Indeed. They bit off more than they could chew with G3. However, Jowood, just like THQ Nordic, had a hand in some of the changes which lead to the game's failure.
@@williamfranklin860 They ran out of time (they needed like 1 or 2 more yeasrs) and as you said they bit off more than they could chew. Jowood has to have a major part in it as well, because the next "gothic" projects (Forsaken Gods and Arcania) sucked so much that it killed of Gothic definitely. Let's hope that THQ can revive it a bit with the Gothic Remake.
I have no intentions to go back to TW1 any time soon. It's one of my favorites, but I've got too many other games on my plate right now, and at least for the near future I'd like to focus on playing some new-to-me games as opposed to replaying games I've already played before. I did cover it on my blog about 10 years ago, however, so I have a couple articles there that you can read if you'd like to know more of my thoughts on it: thenocturnalrambler.blogspot.com/2012/02/great-games-you-never-played-witcher.html thenocturnalrambler.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-witcher-vs-witcher-2.html
The reason why the graphics and physics engine were changed is because of the evaluation of users. The users who complained about ELEX1 were: Dark Soul, Witcher 3, GTA...Users are familiar with these games. PB should not listen to the reviews of users who don't love their games. PB has to make his own game. I need a little improvement, but...The graphics and physics engine of the ELEX1 was perfect... ELEX2 is too backward.
I feel like factions had not enough quests, u werent feeling like the world is living, that u r member of faction, also what someone other said, u have 3 factions that u can join like in elex 1, where it was 5 factions easy to make joinable, unique and with a lot of quests and lore, for me it feels like elex 2 is in early access and they finished game in like 70%
All that you say is true but overall this messed game ELEX 2 is still pretty satisfying to play as it is. Quests are ok. Morkons are a nice addition, really out of this world but interesting. Fights can be challenging and the only way to grow is to explore and to do quests while running away from the strong enemies. Resources are scarce enough to challenge you all the time until late game. You want the easy way go ranged, you want the hard but satisfying approach go melee. Put the mods to reduce some of the frustrating features that break the immersion and you have a great game.
It's like they're giving up half way during development to make the game good Elex 2 is the first piranha bytes games that I'm refunded on steam wait for sale even Risen 2 is more entertaining than this , to think that they can go low than Risen2 sadden me
Man I barely made it through elex 2. Had a lot of fun with 1 but everything from the graphics to name mispronunciations like xacor just really made the game boring. Made jax look like a sucked up tweaker. The wax figure look was a joke and even the ending of the story was forgettable. I could replay 1 again but will not touch 2. If ya want to beat the game fast got berserker and rain fire hell on everything.
@@Zerif69 I think it was an oversight in the English version. But what was more strange was the change in a lot of the voice actors. I played my first playthrough as an alb and I met Sestak the separatist from the first game. His voice sounds so gruff and bears no similarity to Elex 1. The same was done with Nasty and quite a few characters. I understand that getting the same voice actor for a AA game is a bit difficult, but they could have at least tried to make them sound similar
I finished Elex 2 after 70hrs. I completed everything. It's SUCH A BAD GAME! I loved the first Elex so much, got 3 playthroughs and 150hrs total, loved every minute. But Elex 2 omfg...it feels so much worse. The whole atmosphere is gone, hard to describe. The quests are worse, the regions are bad and dull. Also the combat is not better at all. The worst one is that Jax is always talking and cursing to himself. Sure because of his illness but this annoyed th outta me over time! The UI looks also terrible. Snd there are no more great plasma rifles. Variety is gone etc etc. Elex 2 is a disaster!!
I just finished elex 1 two days ago. Explored every part of the map, got the platinum trophy, 143 hours of enjoyment. Started Elex 2 yesterday, played for 20 minutes and immediately got a refund.
Playing this after all three Dead Spaces and OMG, how this is feel weird, slow and Gothic-ish haha. (mind you, I played all Gothic and first Elex and I like them too) The dialog actors were lazy, the dialog scene designer was lazy - two person stands in front each other like paralyzed and talk without movement. And as author of video points out these things, yeah, some of them really was (made) better in first Elex. And what the hell with these bottom parts of character costumes which moves "in the wind" which is none other way pictured? No tree leaves or dust on ground moving, only clothes.
But the second game clearly says that one of the chief reasons why she behaves differently is because Jax "dumped" her in E1. This obviously doesn't make sense since it was a forced decision by PB on the players. And the whole quest design with all your companions is basically those lazy kill 50 enemies quests. It becomes repetitive, bland and quite a drag. In fact this describes the whole game pretty well
Some of these seem reasonable while other complaints seem... Petty. I thought this video would actually go in-depth with some issues in comparison with Elex 1 but the longer i go in the video the more nitpicky you become.
To be fair, I was pretty clear in the introduction that this was not going to be an in-depth video and that it would be focusing on some of the more "nitpicky" things because I wanted to save the more thorough analysis for my full review, which I'm still working on. So it's not like I didn't warn you exactly what type of video this was; if you're looking for me to "actually go in-depth with some issues in comparison to Elex 1," including some of the developer's previous games, then I'd recommend you wait for my full review.
im thoroughly surprised you havent covered elden ring yet after watching the skyrim mile wide and inch deep video it sounds like everything about elden ring would be appealing to you!
It's on my radar, but I've been incredibly busy these last few months and am still working on my Elex 2 review. I plan to get to Elden Ring at some point, but it's going to be a while.
@@TheNocturnalRambler I think youll love it based on all the things you wished SKyrim had. its a wonderful game. ive played countless RPGs and honestly its my favorite open world RPG of all time now. im not even a dark souls fan as i never played them before so its not blind loyalty. its just such a GOOD game. after playing it though i have delved into dark souls games to see what all th efuss what about before. trust me youll love it and i look forweard to seeing the video you make covering it! :D
I realy miss Nasty. The history and the way how the player live it is better, but in elex 2 the gameplay is better ( overhaul ). I realy miss my save in Elex 2 ( the witcher and mass effect was realy nice using pre game saves ).
I gave Elex a shot and couldn't even really get past the first enemies in the tutorials. I did find the controls very weird and I don't have brilliant fine motor movement, which is why I tend to stick to RPG's. As you can usually grind up levels for power, to compensate for poor reactive times. (I'm not a fan of punitive combo meters in any RPG - and I frigging hate whoever thought Dark Souls was a good idea/good game design in general) That said I've seen enough in discussion videos to be able to see the potential in Elex. It was a cool enough concept and I wanted to like the game. Hell, I wanted to be able to play the game to start with. I do think Pyrhanna Bytes has trouble with rewarding implementations - if power fantasy is why you play the genre. I've also tried Risen across the three games and couldn't get anywhere there either. I do know what I'm talking about with them; but like I do with your combo point feel free to disagree. I will say that I found Nasty (from what I've seen in said videos on the subject of story interaction - not actual game play) to be fairly toxic and a Tsundere - those never in a realistic sense, get what they want. Because they won't admit it right up to the point what they want walks away. I can see why most people would have gone with Clara as I liked her character myself. I would still have tried a run to choose Nasty; as I like the options and to test outcomes. So yeah, it disappoints me to hear they canonically borked a romance with the "darker" character. I don't mind the kid thing IF you did choose Clara; but don't strip that choice from me as a player. Nasty wouldn't necessarily have made a bad mom. Or it could be worked out in game 2 if she was willing to get there, because it was you as the father she'd want for it... Someday. They did the same thing in Risen though; and made a potential flirty, possible romance character in I believe it was 2, your sister in 3. Which was just bloody awkward.
People say 2 is too easy. Well i think its a bit, but thats good since elex 1 is the worst balanced rpg thats ever been made. Even so, in 1 and 2, as soon as you get a ranged weapon its game over EZ mode for the duration. So yeah. So many people quit 1 becuase of how frustrating it was, not hard but irritating and frustrating so 2 being a bit less, is good. 2 is still a step in the right direction. We just need better quests, better writing, better combat.... f* it just fire the entire dev team and hire competent devs that want to improve. PB literally does live streams denying all criticism and blaming fans, they are not good people, they just want to remake the same game they been doing for 20 years
Ok so in other words. A bunch of nitpicky things. Seems like the game is still pretty good and by the looks of it, better than the first of only by a small margin.
For me elex2 Is better in every aspect.More and better writen quest and man graphics looks so much better(4k all max). Not to mension dynamic UI so i can play IT on my 48"OLED TV without burn in risk(i played First game without UI and IT was pain in the ass) So yeah i enjoying second game far more.
Odd, I thought I was the only one who liked Elex 2 better. A lot of people complained about the bugs and overstretched design of the first game, and when they get a sequel that remedies all that, they complain about it. It was even a very solid continuation of the story.
Unfortunatly i refunded the game. The poor performance alongside the almost zero improvements to graphics and combat makes no sence to ask that price. Felt like it was Elex 1.25 instead of Elex 2
I was also upset by the optimization and performance, this prompted me to upgrade my PC. And good hardware makes a difference, the game is actually decent if your PC is capable of 50-60 FPS (my setup is Ryzen 5600x + 6650XT). Maybe try it after an upgrade, if you liked the first ELEX the game is totally worth it.
Man this has been a PB trend for so long. They make a great 1rst impression and then a meh 2nd impression with hopes for a great 3rd. But sadly the 3rd one is always worst😪. Gothic, Risen and now Elex seems to be going in the same direction.
You COULD, but you could ALSO decrease cold by picking "be a nice guy" dialogue options. It wasn't a strictly binary choice between being nice and being mean, it was also between being emotional or rational. Elex 2 removed the whole emotional dimension of it so now the karma shifts are more directly aligned with being nice or being mean. There's supposed to be a creative versus destructive element going on, but in practice those are basically just synonyms for nice and mean, which can't be said of the first game's emotional/rational options.
@@TheNocturnalRambler I'm playing the first one and sometimes the only option is to be an ass or logical. From what I heard people make me think ELEX 2 is worse but then again, I shouldnt make up my mind before playing it.
@@alexandrumacedon291 the cold meter was a lot more nuanced than the plain binary destruction meter. And the only companion who actively likes destruction in E2 is Nasty. The others mostly get pissed when we act destructively. Also the cold meter unlocked 3 endings in E1. Here in E2 we are limited to one ending with a few variations. They probably did that to avoid upsetting people by forcing a particular ending on them like how they picked the neutral ending of E1 in E2 and the romance option with Caja
"Solid RPG Mechanics" is precisely what ELEX lacked completely. The whole RPG part of the game was a sad joke with stats doing absolutely nothing besides allowing you to equip better equipment.
Come on! Nasty? Nasty is the most irritating character in any PB game ever. Nasty made me ashamed of even playing the game. The truth is she was just obnoxious and cringeworthy and feels like she was written by some stupid teenager trying too hard to make her 'cool'.
In this video, I was specifically talking about a single aspect of the combat system -- the combo meter and associated specials attacks. The combat system certainly has some issues but those stem mainly from the stiff animations, unresponsive controls, disjointed flow of different actions, wonky "rubber band" targeting system, sketchy enemy telegraphing, limited types of attack inputs, inconsistent hit boxes, etc, none of which relates to the combo meter itself. That whole mechanic is a genuinely interesting and engaging idea that adds an extra element of tactical depth to the combat experience with how it rewards timing and maintaining actions to raise your combo meter while also balancing limited stamina. With Elex 2 lacking that whole element it turns combat in that game into a relatively shallow, mindless affair of just repetitively mashing the attack button over and over again until it's time to dodge or you run out of stamina. Pretty much everything I criticized about Elex 1's combat is improved in Elex 2, but the combo meter is a separate, distinct entity in the equation and is not solely responsible for whether the combat system is good or bad. And in the case of Elex 2, I feel the combat could be improved by keeping all the important changes they made while adding the combo meter back into the equation in some way.
The cold-meter was a really bad idea. Its a bad game mechanic to make decisions based on an artificial system like that. It would be better to not have a meter-system like that AT ALL in a video game. Just decisions and outcomes like in the witcher for example.
I prefer the graphical style of the first game.
So does my GPU
Everyone does. Not sure who was in charge of the visual style of the sequel but they need to be fired.
@@Needkey. i dont
Yeah especially the talking animations as they just look inhuman
Same, the only reason i couldn't get myself to play it. Played it for 8 hours but i couldn't continue because of how off everything looks.
The feeling when streamlining games and removing "flaws" removes all the fun that it provides.
When a game is so easy I rarely ever die I find that extremely boring and a waste of time I want to be challenged
Hey Nic. Thanks for uploading. I agree with your points. Many improvements but also plenty of things lost from E1. I loved the improvements to the jetpack for exploration, however, I was very disappointed by the lack of significant improvements to the magic system. Magic now feels either very OP (Berserkers) or underpowered (Albs). We still do not have the variety, usefulness and fun factor we've had in the Gothic series.
currently playing an alb full mage on ultra (well, I started that playthrough half a year ago). It's pretty strong honestly. the heavy ice fist attack decimates most enemies while stunlocking them. the lightning dot deal very heavy damage to all bigger enemies.yeah, rain of fire is busted, but alb magic is pretty good.
I agree, I'm only about 10 hours into Elex 2 so my final judgement on that is still out. I attempted to play Elex 2 right after an Elex 1 playthrough and that made it more difficult to get into the sequel, I definitely don't like many of the same changes here in your video. I'm hoping after giving it a reat for a few months I'll be able to get into Elex 2 and enjoy it more. Thanks for the great video, these kinda games don't typically get much love from content creators.
I miss the factions having skill tree's. The Bandits and Clerics might as well have not existed in Elex 2.
It was the devs way of making it look like there were 5 factions when there were really only 3.
Most people didn't like the outlaws in Elex 1 because they had no active abilities at all. All of them were passive stim based abilities. So they relegated the outlaws to a supplementary faction which we can defect to. What I don't understand is why the clerics got the same treatment. The clerics in E1 had superior abilities to what the albs have in Elex 2. I really liked the stun locking black hole among many other of their abilities. Perhaps PB didn't like the idea of having 2 technological factions. But I'd say it would be a good idea since it would have added some nuance
Don't say that :(
Really liked this video. I feel like especially your point about Nasty is spot on. Nasty is really just a pain in E2, which is such a shame in comparison to E1. It kind of felt like the role of a somewhat unfriendly companion turning good was taken by Bully in E2, which worked for him, but Nasty had just no real redeeming quality.
My theory is this.
They saw Elex 1 as a starting point for a series but someone , most likely in management wanted to design Elex 2 for consoles, probably thinking they would cut down on costs this way and make the same design for PC as well. If your entire game design is for both console and PC, yeah you will cut down on costs.
Reasons why this approach seems to be believable:
1) Interface. The interface is very blocky and it favours scrolling and selecting items using a controller not a PC. The items are very large and the design of the inventory UI seems to support this idea.
2) Lack of items in hard to reach places or rooftops. Again, exploring on a controller especially with such verticality in Elex is probably more clunky than using mouse and keyboard. I am guessing they wanted to cut down on costs from manually placing items and as such discourage exploration using a controller.
3) New combat type seems to be a bit more dumbed down and has less depth, probably to make it easier for controller using players to get into it. Learning curve is easier this way but combat ends up being simpler.
4) Hotbar or lack thereof. The wheel bar is basically a console mostly design, rarely used in PC design because it's obviously faster to press 1-9 keys than opening a bar then scrolling to an item, then selecting said item.
5) Story...I don't even want to touch on this but the current world of Elex 2 doesn't make sense in the internal context established by Elex 1. Morkons I think are the biggest offender of them all. Their society simply doesn't make sense. If a writer were told to design morkons it would sounds more like : a society of people who had to rely on violence to keep the numbers down. However their isolationism proved to be a great issue for their bodies. Locked away from the outside environment for so long, their immune systems became compromised so they need Elex to actually replace their immune systems. This creates a friction between two rival factions within the morkon society. Those that want to "join the outside world and interract with its communities in order to survive and cooperate" and puritans who believe their way of life should be preserved.
It's just one example of how Morkons could've been designed in a smarter fashion but there are a lot of irks in the story that make it mediocre at best. As someone once said : "If you have to retconn a story then it wasn't a good story to begin with".
Overall Elex 2 is a mediocre game that seems to have been release in the idea of making a franchise with as minimal cost as possible, using the same design template for consoles first, pc's later.Which is very absurd since the majority of RPG games are actually PC centric, not consoles. Seems like the current Pyranha Bytes in their new format is pretty much a generic company putting out generic games while trying to cut down on costs as much as possible. Which is pretty much the formula for mediocrity, aka what Elex 2 turned out to be.
No systems for Elex 2 were improved upon from 1, things were stripped from 1 that made it interesting and pretty much is a game that can be entirely avoided or removed from the Elex franchise. Much like Gothic 3 is nothing like G1 and 2, Elex 2 is a stepchild that wanted to disown his own family and do his own thing.
This is the most thorough analysis of this game I've seen in a comment. Kudos to your concise analysis. Not to mention the whole game-world looks like a step backwards from the first game in design
It's very nice that someone done a video like this. I wanted to share something cause I saw you had that level 3 morkon armor. 2 of their blood rites are bugged since the release the stamina one and attack speed one. Both of them not working no matter what slot u put them in. I tested it for like 20 minutes with different weapons attack speed does not increase. Also outlaw chem pick me up is not working. In first game it gave you the attack speed. In this one it's supposed to trade your HP to deal more damage. It doesn't consume your HP for activation and damage does not increase tested with both melee and range weapons. I already submitted the bug report, but ima trying to spread the info so developers look into it. Would be nice if you do a small video on this stuff so they would address it in future patches. Thanks!
I noticed those issues as well. Neither the attack speed rite nor the Pick-Me-Up stim seem to do anything beneficial. I believe the stamina rite does increase your stamina regen, however. I don't remember where exactly in my footage I tested it, but I seem to recall getting like 1.0 or 1.5 seconds-faster stamina regen with it activated, which isn't much but at least it does something, even if what it does isn't exactly what the description suggests it does. The backstab skill is another one that doesn't do exactly what it says it does, as it makes it sound like it only works on unalerted enemies, but it in fact does no extra damage against unalerted enemies -- it only does extra damage in regular combat, when executing the backstab against an "alerted" enemy. Things like that will probably work their way into a beginner's guide, which I'm planning to work on soon.
@@TheNocturnalRambler The backstab is pretty bugged on a lot of two handed weapons. It works really well with one handed weapons. Needless to say two handed weapons feel really sluggish to wield comparing them with their previous iterations and we cannot perform aerial combat with them
@@TheNocturnalRambler Pick me up does not work at all. When i was doing my testings i didn't see the difference in stamina regen while using stamina rite. So not sure about it. But anyways, i don't have that amount of subs on youtube to cover this so developers would look at it. However if ppl start to talking about those things. They will fix it. I can only imagine what my character would been like if i had both morkons rites plus spells plus pick me up chem. I would deal insane amount of damage.
I felt the exact same way about nasty. She was funny in the first game and gross in the second. She reminds me of cigarettes for some reason
I think i've finally given up on PB being able to make good games at this point. I still love all the Gothic games (even 3) and Risen 1 was also really enjoyable to play. Even had a lot of fun with Risen 2. I had a hard time with Elex 1 at first and while I never enjoyed it as much as their previous titles I still enjoyed it at the end. But Elex 2 was just a drag. A little bit of PB magic here and there but overall it felt like a chore and it was the first game ever (not only from PB) that I switched to Story-difficulty because I just wanted to finish it as quickly as possible. Also they just can't make a decent combat system if their lives depended on it. Hitboxes were atrocious, telegraphing is non-existent, enemy behaviour is inconsistent, I could go on and on and on. I might buy Elex 3 just to finish the story but I'm actually considering just giving up on that studio that clearly has no plan or incentive to improve where it really matters. I bought Elex 2 right after it came out even though I spent months playing Elden Ring first, just to support PB. But I'm very tired of being disappointed time and time again because they think they stick to what they're good at. Only problem is, they're not good at it. They never captured the same magic they did with Gothic 20+ years ago, and they never will, yet they still try and make the same game over and over again.
Speaking Out of my Soul! Cannot agree more. Sadly.
But on a quick Note, the Dev Team behind PB responsible for creating Gothic 1&2 is not the same today anymore as the relevant people left already, unfortunatelly. I will very carefully examine gameplay and Reviews before buying any more New PB Games in Future. Also bought Elex 2 just to Support and even halted Elden Ring for a couple of days, but Elex 2 was Just so dissapointing, despite having a great time with the First Game. But oh Well we will see, Hope dies Last and i still wish for PBs success and awesome Games top come...
Hey off topic, but I have to say I really enjoy your commentary and analysis of these titles. Even though I disagree with some of your takes I appreciate your ability to break down all aspects of a game. Stay committed and the views will follow. Being corny but just like field of dreams “build it and they will come” keep up the good work brotha!
Personally, I'd never date a girl like Nasty. But in the game she was a blast. She was hands down the most memorable and fun character. Kaja was just plain and vanilla.
Doing the Nasty with Nasty gang
Trust me dude plain vanilla is the best relationship u can get. But yeah i romanced nasty too. i mean its a fantasy game for a reason
Yeah I totally agree about the part of Elex 2's biomes using drab, dull and repetitive texture work. It makes the world look a little less fantastical than the first game and cost the world design in its presentation.
But what you forgot to mention was those monotonous kill these 50-60 enemies in so and so place quests. The worst part is many of them were storyline related and became quite a drag due to it repetitive nature. The quests for the most part were less inspiring than the first game. Not to mention the non companion side quests can be entirely completed in chapter 1. The game ran out of content pretty quickly forcing me to just pursue the main story in Chapter 3 and 4. And this wasn't fun considering that a lot of the storyline quests were those boring kill 100 enemies grind jobs.
Yeah, really strange that he didn't mention the MMO quests that are part of the late game, that thing really pissed me off. I got so bored that I muted the game, played my own music and lowered the difficulty to easy (to make them less tanky).
@@PaYaB_005 he's probably leaving that for the full review. Almost a year now considering that 😅.
I actually felt the first game was better than the second. The second game went overboard with the jetpack and failed to work on the weakness of the first. In addition to this they introduced some baffling downgrades making the overall experience mediocre especially after chapter 1
@@Kevin5279 For me the 2nd game is a perfect downgrade almost in every way. For the first time in any PB game I rushed to the ending and was pissed how poorly it was done. And it'll probably be the 1st PB game that I won't ever play again.
@@PaYaB_005 the ending was rushed and clearly shows they ran out of time. Especially the bit where Caja expresses no emotion at Dex's death and Asghar behaving as if Dex is still alive.
All in all it seemed like a cheap Mass Effect rip-off. It's a good thing PB aren't working on the Gothic Remake. But I'll subvert my expectations about that one too given my recent experiences
Are you gonna make a review on Chronicles of Myrtana?
Awesome game that is. The storyline was too cliche in my view
@Kevin My issue with that game is that sometimes it forgets it's a Gothic game. They nailed the level design and the gameplay but most of the time, the quests, feel on rails and forced into situations in an un-immersive way. For example, getting inside the city in Khorinis meant having in front of you 4-5 ways to get in. In Chornicles you can't think outside the box. You can't get inside by swimming otherwise the guards will shoot you down. How does the guard know I'm an illegal citizen? If I get inside the city by swimming, AFTER I've got the citizenship, why don't the guards shoot me down? How do they know I'm not an illegal immigrant? It feels like the devs put an invisible barrier meant to prevent you to get inside the city in case you decided to not follow the intended paths they've chosen for you to take. I've lost the count of how many times doors and locations were completely locked, and couldn't be accessed, because I didn't trigger the quests yet, and the incredible amount of npcs that previously didn't exist and spawned out of nowhere because a particular quest needed 'em to be implemented. Gothic 2 had its share amount of locked locations and npcs spawning out of nowhere, but they were only a few and had a huge impact on the story (the seekers). In Chronicles, however, this is heavily abused even in secondary quests and in environmental events. For example, the incredible amount of thugs that keep respawning in the city, even after you cleaned the city up from 'em. From where do these guys come from? I kept askin' myself. Why are there so many "fake doors" in the city?
In my opinion, this game sometimes forgets to be a Gothic game and starts behaving like a "modern RPG".
@@eldiablosoundtracks6760
Yeah and they also overdid it with the immortal NPCs. I understand that certain characters are crucial to the plot and need to be unkillable. But here almost every insignificant NPC is immortal. This forces us to approach potentially hostile encounters with characters in a very one dimensional linear fashion. We cannot employ sneak attacks and the like. Not to forget that they also introduced the mechanic of being killed in a cinematic. Take for example we make a stupid choice while taking to Cortez the boss of the pirates. The game immediately takes control away from the player and has Cortez kill you in the cinematic and there's nothing you can do about it. It doesn't even matter if you're strong enough to take him on.
I loved the game and overall I enjoyed the gameplay mechanics and the quest design. But it was these over the top encounters and the storyline which made it feel sometimes less like a gothic game. The story also ended in an overdramatic fashion (talking about the "canonical" ending where Marvin is thrown into the colony). And they forced Marvin to be part of the Gothic canon by later revealing that he is Scar from the Old Camp.
Lol how'd a dynamic character like Marvin become a lazy follower of Gomez. I think it was because of these reasons the History of Khorinis team split from these guys. They wanted the game to play more like a Gothic game. So these creative differences caused the rift
@Kevin I know, right!? The immortal guards? Omg, I was sooooo pissed! And the fact that they FORCED the ending in a way that makes your previous choices meaningless, pissed me off. Just because these guys at one point said: "Y' know what? Let's turn Marvin into one of the characters of the original Gothic game. That's pretty cool, right? We are tieing everything together. Except it doesn't! It feels like a rushed decision took right before they finished scripting the story.
@@Kevin5279 And let's not talk about the mages. They basically cut down the mage faction out of the Gothic formula, and they also screwed up the lore of the water mages. They didn't bring up anything original about the water mages. In my opinion, they feel like fire mages but with blue robes. The monastery looks, sounds and feel just like the monastery of the magicians of fire in Khorinis, and the water mages themselves behave JUST like the fire mages. I thought the innostians were a mix between the Christians and the followers of Ra, and since Gothic it's set in a fantasy-middle-age society, it makes sense they would look like that.
But the water mages always felt like a different culture to me. Hell, even in Gothic 3 (which to be honest, wan't that great) PB had a better idea than these guys.
Yes! Finally some Elex 2 content!
I agree on many of these.
Elex is probably the best - most underrated game that exists today 🤷♂ . Is not a perfect game , but is a game done with lots of love and passion, and it's rich and huge and long and very smart overall. And it grows in you so much in a way that few games in history have ever achieved. ♥🧡❤
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However, Elex2 should have put an end to this by keeping the same formula only capitalizing on combat, exploration diversity, and animation/visuals. Imo.
It was not the case,😑 and Elex2, despite of being a beast of a game, did not improve where it should had, and thus has not yet made it to the big audience.
A true pitty this is, because Im not sure there will ever be an Elex3 to take another shot at it😑. And if there is, whether it will keep the same spirit, instead of going full mainstream.
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Now for the major drawbacks of Elex2:
++ Having huge vertical structures off the main path that offers basically no reward to explore ? ... that's a huge opportunity wasted and a major mistake from a design perspective.
++ The environmental hazards are basically anecdotic. Again, impacting the exploration.
++ Easter eggs and alien flora are mostly missing. More hits to the exploration experience.
++ Still no cave/underground exploration ?. And the few tunnels you can go in are not rewarding to explore... It's not a big issue, but at this point, every hit to exploration is significant.
++ Combat should have probably been the main point to focus and to improve from elex 1... But i don't have the feeling that they achieved anything here, really. If anything.. it's a little bit more fluid, but still clunky and lacks sooooooo much depth... And it's shoking and frustating too see, specially when you compare it to the depth and thought that it was put into the dialogues and story...
Why can't we see the same amount of love here?? The character of this game fights its way through it. We fight 80% of our gameplay. Combat is key. Combat had to be deep , rich, with plenty of options and choices to select from and master... None of that happened in Elex2 🤦♂ . This is the biggest mistake of the game, imo. And it can be a saga-ending one 💔.
++ Stealth should also be improved. It's not terrible, but it could have better mechanics.
++ I would LOVE to see some light survival mechanics in this game. Hunger, thirst, sickness, infections, bleeding . It could give all those herbs/trash you constantly pick up a much more rewarding purpose. The items and status are already there !! ...But no mechanics 🤷♂.
++ i would also LOVE to see romance mechanics and rewards. Again, there are none 🤷♂.
++ I dont miss the hotkey bar at all. What I miss is a way to re-bind the hotkeys. WTF 🤨.
++ Nasty is still fun 🙂... I brought her with me during most of my playthrough just to see her laughing at the most disgusting and toxic dialogue options you could possibly take... But you're right, she's so much more interesting as a character in Elex1🙃
btw is there no let's play of elex 1?
Just looking at your footage from E1 and E2 in this video and the thing that immediately strikes me is the lack of variety and interesting locations in Elex 2.
The world is such a huge downgrade compared to Elex 1, it's just so bland and lifeless.
I agree. Everything in elex 2 looks the same...
@@djadamandruszkiewicz8965 doesnt it happen in the same environment?
ELEX was a very reasonable start which needed significant improvement (sort of as you are saying). and then ELEX 2 removed all the good things and just expanded on all the bad things. im not sure how or why.
I think it comes down to the fact that since Gothic 2, PB have mostly displayed a near total inability to make a competent game that isn't just a retread or mild expansion of Gothic 2. Any deviation winds up delivering increasingly diminishing returns. Their arguably 'best' games since that time are Risen, and Elex, which both basically just lean on the Gothic 2 formula yet again, with added tech of gameplay feature developments.
@@Blisterdude123 no need to change anything if it works. tbh it doesnt take a genius to see that what they do is crap. i.e. The camera in Elex 2 is so aweful. And the whole child thing in Elex 2 is beyond uncanny/retarded.
@@kingprone7846 Ehhhh...sorta, but I think there's a limit to that. Like eventually you're not just perpetuating a winning formula, your development and creative process has only become stagnant. It's regressed. I 'love' what PB used to be, but the law of diminishing returns is in full effect over there.
I think since Risen the company has been in a downward cycle. Like, would you look at the CoD games, or Ubi's various releases like Assassin's Creed, Far Cry etc and say 'no need to change anything if it works'? Or would you argue those games are stale, repetitive, and carbon copies?
There's nothing wrong with a formula that works if it's propping up new ideas, ingenuity, and a creative drive to improve. I'm not really seeing that over at PB. Maybe this seems harsh, and if it helps, I make this critique from a place of love, of what they did in the past. But they seem like a company who has been treading water for years, now.
@@Blisterdude123 demon souls, dark souls 1, dark souls 2, dark souls 3, elden ring. hmmm no. :P
@@kingprone7846 There's an argument to be made by 'some' that that would apply. I don't think so though, because there's a clear progression of technology, creative scope, and ambition, from Demon's Souls through to Elden Ring. And then you have to factor in FromSoft's previous works, such as with the Armored Core series. Or even the oddities in Bloodborne, or Sekiro.
Show me that trajectory with PB, is what I'm saying. Any time they 'do' try to deviate from the formula a little bit, you wind up with what are often considered, and not unfairly, some pretty messy releases. Like Gothic 3, Risen 2-3, and now Elex 3. Their 'successes' are essentially just rehashes of Gothic 2, the one that 'mostly' hit the spot. Risen for the most part is just an updated and more fleshed out redo of Gothic 2, and Elex is Gothic 2 with guns and a jetpack. And somehow, the absolute worst combat system they've devised since maybe Risen 2, or the OG Gothic.
I miss the weather variations, in Elex 2 it never rains. I would like someone to tell me why, it seems that nobody appreciates that in these types of games. I'm using Google translator, greetings from Uruguay.
I'm pretty sure that I've seen rain in my playthrough.
I love P.B. though the vast changes in Elex 2 from Elex 1 and other past games are stupid and assholish changes, such idiotic and weird decisions that I simply can't understand WTF P.B. was thinking... I stopped playing and will wait for the last patch. However, there will never be enough fixes to fix, well, anything mentioned in this video. Also, I find it hard to believe that Baxter would have allowed Nasty to live and "work her way up," considering that Nasty helped her brother VIOLENTLY overthrow Baxter before Elex 1. Stupid...
The whole Nasty quest line and even her character were badly downsized in Elex 2. Apart from that, I didn't like how a lot of characters from the first game looked and felt as well
Elex 2 has a Terminator reference. A gravesite in the crater has a headstone that says T-800 and has a hand sticking up from the grave
The only 2 problems I had with Elex 1 were the combat and character progression. In every other aspect I felt it was better than 2. Gameplay wise it has a few issues still, where they'd need to redo certain aspects, like balance ranged weapons a bit more because shotguns are seriously broken. The world is just dull overall and not as entertaining to explore. Visually it might do a few things better on an engine level, maybe with shadows (which kill performance quite a bit), but the graphics style just hurts it a lot. There's a few good quests in the middle, related to certain factions, but towards the end some seem either broken/unfinished or are so repetitive that it feels like senseless work. And speaking of factions, what they did to clerics is ridiculous to me. You get 5 choices but they clearly put much more work into Berserkers and Morkons than the rest. Even the music, which is not too memorable in Elex 1, isn't as jarring as 2, where it'll change in the middle of a conversation without any sort of transition unlike many games before. It's a disappointing entry, and I actually like most of their games.
Yes, for some reason, I find world of Risen (all three games) more fun to explore than Elex. I think it is mostly because of the theme. I didn't like the way Elex merged medieval and sci-fi stuff. It is indeed difficult to pull off something like that. But the safer option is to keep two themes separate.
Honestly, I wished Elex 2 to have reversed the verticality. I mean imagine a post apocalyptic world overgrown with dense forest and studded with underground trenches and dungeons. So, basically, wee explore down the ground (and perhaps under the water) rather than up in the air. This would have been the fresh take that Elex 2 really needed. I also wanted it to feel more "Metro-like" with scripted jump scare events in a more darker and grittier world.
Did they do any patches or upgrades to fix the issues many complained of in Elex 1? I haven’t played either 1 or 2 yet but was thinking about buying Elex 1 soon.
@@johnnyappleseed5590 I replayed it about 2 years after release and they did patch out a few issues, but not many. If I recall I was still able to use certain exploits. There's a balance mod called Elex Overhaul that fixes some of the grievances. Still a better game than Elex 2 overall, even if Elex 2 also has some mods like this.
@@Viktory_MkII thanks for the info much appreciated.
I picked up Elex 2 on launch day and jumped in. Right off the rip I had to tell myself that this isn’t Elex 1. I’ve let E2 sit on the shelf for a bit and I’m about to hop back in.
Something very magical about the original game. I’m hoping the sequel has some of that sauce.
In some German circles, this game is known as "Elend 2" 😏
Elex 2
Jax:
The dumbing down of the MC in some cases is jarring. Take the green house glass domes. In Elex 1 he knew what they were, in Elex 2 he doesn't. Also in other circumstances his reactions make no sense giving his own upbringing as an Alb. Just look at how Albs treat children in Elex 2 and then imagine baby boot camp _with_ forced Elex consume for little Jax. No.focus on emotional control, jist on science, tech and military. He sgould not be surprised that Makar doesn't know what a toy is or how it's used. I'm pretty sure he never had one while growing up as an Alb himself. He also should have known about the effects of saltwater on the human body. These are some small things that do not fit the character at all. Instead a comment on "old times" when eating protein/energy bars would be fitting and how he "didn't really miss them at all".
Caja:
Can't say much here. Her character development actually fits the boots she's walking in. However, her reaction to Dex and his fate (final or not is to be seen in Elex 3 hopefully) is sub par. She's his mother, for Christs sake! I get it, PB is bad at emotions, but this is unacceptable.
Nasty:
Well, what can you say. She's nasty and angry and sullen and vicious and a plain pain in the posterieur. Her behaviour towards the faction leaders make no sense other than deliberately punishing Jax for chosing Caja over her. A bitter and sadistic bitch that bitches on everyone and you just don't know what might set her off.
Nyra:
What a wasted character. The 3rd wheel on the romance waggon. He personal quest isn't that great either. What would have worked better, would have been her being an official liaison from the Depot to keep an eye on this 6th power faction, especially when they find out Dawkins is with them. Nyra would have been forced on Jax more like Bully and the clash and reconcilliations would have worked pretty well there, even as basis for a possible romance.
Bully:
Actually quite a nice character edition. However, you notice real quick that Bully is a softie as he favours creation choices over destruction ones, which doesn't really fit a hardened Outlaw under direct command of an ahole like Baxter. Actually... everyone seems to favour these except Nasty. There is way too less diversity in there.
Fox:
Can't complain. A new character that is a bit like the petulant teen rebelling against its parents and superiors in general. Still... he grows. Would have been nice to have him grow some more.
Falk:
Our favorite (only) cyborg. Always cheerfull and always putting his foot in it. His quest to become more human is adorable untill it isn't and that makes him terrifying. A good character.
Crony:
What can I say. Crony is the best. Especially as his responses seem to develop and change depending on Jax own dialogues and actions. ...I love Grandma's vanilla secret.
A lot of characters also are wasted.
Krull could have been used as a quest giver at least. Same for Cajas guards and the two hunters.
Those two guys running from one faction to the next in search for money, fame and fortune? Why couldn't we hire them to help Gardock keep the Bastion up and running. Maybe then the holes in the roof would have been fixed.
Also if you save Ivan, we could have maybe gotten a quest to help her make friends.
And Victor from the Morkons could have saddled us with a man from his own rooster to keep him informed and make sure we don't do anything he deems unacceptable. That way we could have maybe gotten a Morkon companion. Bonus if it actually would have been a follower of Kriiton playing double agent.
So many missed opportunities and that's not even going into the general main and side quests.
Frankly, this game needs a DLC. I know PB isn't big on DLCs, but with a great chunk of the map just being inaccesible, despite obvious structures there that scream exploration, I feel like this game just wasn't finished.
Also the whole atmosphere in Elex 1 was/is better. Elex 2 looks for the most part like it could be taking place in the woods outside my town. I miss the distinctive alien worldly parts of Elex 1. Take the coastline for example. And the desert has become green way too fast. 6 or 7 years since the end of Elex 1 and it looks like the forest/jungle has grown for at least 50 to 100 years. I get it, magic and stuff, but please. In general the landscape diversity, the colors, the overall feel of the world is much, much better in Elex 1. Same goes for abandoned buildings, like the factories. Where Elex 1 had elaborate multi level buildings, the best you can get here is a 2 story house. This gets driven home especially at the Old Brewery in Tavar. When exploring becomes a chore instead of a treat, you know it's not all right.
And they wasted the exploration opportunity with the Tomsontown skyscrapers especially. And how come all windows are still intact everywhere, but god forbid they had doors. In Elex 1 windows were broken and mostly non existent after 166 years. These unbreakable windows severely detract from the after apocalypse atmosphere.
So many things to criticize. I hardly know where to start.
The only thing that made me enjoy this game are the sidequests and that I like the main character. The Alb quests concerning Skibor and Zarik and the one with Vakis are some of my favorite quest in the game. I do hope in Elex 3 we get to meet (and beat) Nero again and the quest concerning the puppet maker just has to be continnued.
I also hope we get to returm to Edan, Goliet, Abessa, the Domed City, Xacor and the Ice Palace. I want an Alb Glider and I hope Zardom is still alive and allied with Dawkins. And Jax needs to develop new dark Elex abilities and I'm not sure how this singularity stuff will end. I only see 3ways for Magalan not to be completely f*ed over. Blowing the singularity up or diverting it somehow or time travel.
We also see a lot of mana mutants surging in the after game of Elex 2, which could lead to the fact that despite nit being as emotional destructive as Elex, Mana as one of it's forms isn't as benign as the Berserker think, especially with world hearts growing more powerfull and then being left "alone". There was always a cloud of poisen surrounding the world hearts in the jungles of south Edan.
There is quite a lot to explore story wise for Elex 3 and I do hope they don't botch it. Because as much as I like Elex 2, Elex 1 is the better game, even with the more clunky fighting dynamics.
Magic:
Berserker >>>>> everyone else. Really, high level Fire Rain is OP and Alb magic sucks. All you need to do as a Berserker is chug in some Mana Potions that you can craft yourself or buy by the dozens and you are golden. Don't even need any other weapon any more. Albs have to siphon the Elex energy of fallen enemies. Not only does their magic sick in comparison to Berserker, they can't even chew down some Elex to restore their reserves. What kind of BS is that!
Morkons are close range specialists and I hardly played them, so no comment here, but I get the feeling the combination with the Outlaws abilities stim use is favorable over pure Morkon play. But only stimmcreation as Outlaw skills? Why not reduction of upgrade costs for enhanced weapons and the skill to add effects to weapons.
I do not want them to nerf Berserker Magic, but make Alb magic better. Also, the Clerics 2 skills are good, but just 2? I get it that you don't get the whole offensive skill side again, but the weapon and defense enhancement ones would have been a nice addition.
The Menu in Elex 2 is another thing. The icons and such are great, but the overall structure of the Menu in Elex 1 was better. A combination of the two would be good. And the highlighting of the chosen item should be better. Grey and grey isn't really doing it. Also on PS4 you can not really see the colors of the numbers when hacking.
Weapons are nerfed in fight animation and versatility. Especially the guns have been all reduced to single shot. No special ammunitions like explosive bolts or radiation shells. Bows have better draw and aim dynamic though and shotguns are f*ing awesome in close and medium close combat.
For close range weapons... just choose one and be done. No difference in animation between axes, swords and clubs. The variety is bigger and upgrading no longer needs higher attributes, but still... lack of individual combat animation for the various weapon types also hints towards a rushed job. I mean, you do not stab someone with a mace. They got it right in Elex 1 so why not in Elex 2?
The eye-icon when in stealth mode is nice.
Not being able to somehow get ALL faction armors for Cleriks and Outlaws despite joining them as secondary factions is BS. You should be able to buy any Outlaw armor, even the lower level ones (I don't mean the faction less ones.) at the crater. I know they are useless when you join, but just for completion sake. Same for the Clerics. I understand them running low on equipment, but they might habe been forced to leave stuff behind after the former dropped in the Hort.
I'm pretty sure I can find more to complain. But I do so only because I love the game still and just want the next one to be much, much better.
PS: When it comes to romaces and hownto do emotions: please, PB, ask some who actually knows about this and how to show it in/on a character, because _that_ was pathetic.
PSS: Jetpack is awesome!
I feel like the majority of those are Piranha Bytes listening to feedback. Elex 1 got a lot of bad reviews due to being a difficult game at the start, so PB seems to have taken measures to streamline the experience as much as possible. From a simpler combat system to removing more complex character growth systems and weapon variety. I personally disagree with that approach, since being difficult to start with and rewarding as you got more powerful was one of the most unique aspects about Gothic 1 and 2, and if people wanted the game to be more accessible, they could have just switched to the easy difficulty. And honestly, this has been a problem with PB for a while now. They seem to be stuck in an endless loop of listening to Gothic fans who criticize their newer games for being too easy and too unlike Gothic and then when they release a more difficult game, they listen to negative reviews from newcomers who complain about the starting difficulty.
Mmm maybe they changed nastys voice to be closer to the German version.... Which sounds much rougher than either in both games.
Jetpack fuel is endless after the main mission completion so maybe that's the reason why they didn't bother to put a bag of elexit on top of each building.
Stuff like thunderclap is still hard to pick up early so exploration is rewarding, but maybe you write, it could be done better.
Talking of easter egs, did you visit the graveyard in Elex2? There was a hand of Terminator for example. xD
But i have to agree with you in the most points. Elex 1 was better than Elex 2.
Spoiler:
In the end of Elex 2, Jax´s and Cajas son died. But Caja didnt react to it at all? She only talked about Jax, who rescued the world again? Wtf?
The ending was rushed and appeared broken. After Dex dies and we talk with Asgar, the conversation sounds like Dex is still alive and must have taken place before Dex died
I noticed the T-800 easter egg with the robot hand sticking out of the grave plot, but they dropped the ball on that one, too. They should've had the robot hand giving a thumbs-up to reference the iconic final shot of Arnold in T2, where his thumbs-up is the last thing you see before he's lowered completely into the molten pool. It's probably not worth it for them to model a thumbs-up robot hand since the robot hand by itself is enough to convey that reference, but that's the kind of thing where I'd like them to put in just a little more effort to make some of these fun things as fun as they truly could be.
@@TheNocturnalRambler Hello please make review on Gothic 3 Forsaken Gods and Arcania The Complete Tale.
@@goodoldgamingyoutuber6371 forsaken gods makes Gothic 3 look good. It totally undoes the story of G3 as well. I have a hard time believing it is canon. Making the hero Rhobar iii was the stupidest decision PB ever made
@@Kevin5279 forsaken gods isn't developed by PB. LOL
09:59 "Even if it's just a small bag of elexit"
Shows a LARGE Bag of Elexit. :D
he's proved, the size does not matter! 😄
I really disliked the Cold system. It's a neat idea in concept, but in reality I often found myself gaining or losing Cold semi-randomly, because the one dialog option that fit the character I was playing was written in an unnecessarily emotional or rational way seemingly at random just to add the +-Cold effect.
Idk about english but in my language sometimes dialogues were different from what I picked.
When you dropped flare end tried to pick it up from the ground it was called "war machine" lol. I usualy play games with native voices and eng subs but PB makes these dubbs very funny xD
They've released another cinematic trailer from the Gothic Remake. This time it shows the old mine. But we can't gather much from the trailer as it is purely cinematic in nature
Yeah, I saw that. It basically just looks like an environment showcase for the level design, which while impressively accurate to the original (and with some solid enhancements to the atmosphere), isn't anything I was overly concerned about after playing the original Teaser from a couple years ago. It was pretty clear in that demo that the map and level design was going to stay pretty close to the original, since the path down the mountain was pretty much the same once you got past the new tutorial area. And frankly, that's the easy part to pull off in a remaster/remake, because you're basically just tracing existing artwork and then embellishing it with extra detail.
I was obviously much more concerned about things like the story/characters, gameplay/combat, immersion, atmosphere, player agency, difficulty, interface, and so on, which I would guess are much harder to get right than simply recreating the existing maps. And, of course, none of that is really portrayed in the new "Old Mine trailer", except maybe the atmosphere which SEEMS to be capturing the feel of that environment pretty well. I remain optimistic that they're going to do Gothic justice, considering they claim to have done a complete 180 on just about everything they presented in the Playable Teaser and there's been nothing shown to contradict that assertion, but at the same time this new trailer doesn't necessarily prove that point, either. So the jury is still out, in other words.
@@TheNocturnalRambler precisely. I shall keep my judgement reserved until they've given us some substantial footage. This is kinda how they hyped people with the initial cinematic trailer of Elex 2. But the game itself failed to do justice as a full fledged sequel. Let's hope you're right and they have truly done a 180 to the original playable teaser which we received earlier
Any plans of bringing a full review of Chronicles of Myrtana?
I'm planning to at least do an updated "Final Thoughts" video once I finish it, however I still haven't played beyond chapter one yet since I've been focusing on Elex 2 right now. It's going to be a little while longer before I get back to Archolos.
@@TheNocturnalRambler Glad to read that. I think this was the true sequel everybody always wanted from gothic 2. I played Elex II also, had mixing feelings about it but overal a decent game, crap perfomance though.
I agree on all points, except for melee combat system. Other than that, feels like a streamlined downgrade, instead of an upgrade... Except for jetpack, that stuff's cool in E2.
Totally agree, ELex 2 is great, but Elex 1 better in a lot of areas.
👉 With Elex 2, this absolutely unnatural family relationship bothered me from the start and the busybody child annoyed me so much that I almost didn't play any further. That being said, it annoys me that even after all their good games, PB still doesn't manage to get a little more depth into the characters. Do any of you remember a moment you loved with one of the NPCs? What would I be grateful for a little more depth like e.g. in Dragon Age or Mass Effect. The main story is also really weak. Oh and speaking of story - I really hate that PB already 100% spoiled the story of an Elex 3 at the end of Elex 2, so why should I still buy an Elex 3 when we already know that the story is again such a mediocre nonsense. Oh, how I loved Gothic and Gothic 2 and also Elex 1 still has a lot of charm, but you could get so much more out of the game if PB would finally admit to getting someone on the team who can write good stories and makes sure that you sometimes experience real emotions in the game. Nasty was the only character in Elex who gave at least a corresponding organ of some depth, and even this one char they mutated into a stupid, evil witch in Elex 2 - fitting to the absolutely unrealistic family situation. Even if I'm just ranting here, please don't get me wrong - the rest of the Elex games are wonderful and I really like them. I even take my hat off to the performance of this small team. I still love PB - it just annoys me that the same mistakes have been made over and over again for many years. A good story and better characters with more depth would add so much more power and charm to the game.
💯
I will say, there is one quest you do to join the Albs in ELEX 2, where you have to investigate a bombing and have to travel under the command of a character that hates you and tried to set you up, only to slowly win him over by the end. That quest I found surprisingly touching from a character standpoint. I wish the entire game had been more like that
@@plain_simple_garak That's right, that was one of the story moments that started well - I agree with you there. It wasn't all crap as far as the story and quests go - in fact many of the quests themselves were pretty good and a far away from the usual kill this and get that. What I'm missing though is more depth specifically in terms of the companions - I wish , they would strive for more examples like seen in Mass Effect or Dragon Age. You just remember characters like Morigan or Liara there. Unfortunately, Elex completely lacks that.
Also Ray was a really good buddy in Elex 1 and was written very well. Actually also all the other characters felt very believable. Like Arx and Duras - they actions and dialogued made so much more sense. Not like Bully or even Caja feels strange in Part 2 ...
Hi. Any thoughts on the new Gothic trailer?
It's basically just a graphics showcase so there's really not much to comment on. It looks nice and seems to capture the tone/atmosphere of the old mine reasonably well, but none of the stuff I was really concerned about is on display.
My cold meter was broken because it always shown neutral even if I had two cold results vs all the other emotional responses
i agree with everything you said in the video and i like E1 better then E2 . i don´t know if i will finish E2 after 60 hours of playing so many missions are so lazy in E2 and i miss the battle system in E1 and i hate Nasty now and somehow the magic is gone from the world. awesome video btw
I grabbed a companion early on Caja. The wife. She was a lovely delicate flower in the first game, in this game she is a bitchy nagging Karen. Anytime I would so much as crouch she would chime in "You shouldn't do That" - Coaching the difference between right and wrong in a very matter of fact tone. After her endless moral superiority comments, she eventually asks Jax to murder somebody.
I felt a great deal of relief when I stopped travelling with her. I suggest not using her at all if you can avoid it. There is a woke element to the characters and dialogue that wasn't there before. All that being said, it still is one big map with no zoning in and unlimited inventory space. That's what drew me to the first one, and it is still present in this game. Good enough.
Great now i gotta replay Elex after my Elex 2 playthrough, cause im loving 2 but never finshed 1
You ought to review Outward.
All of this is really disappointing and further shows that PB don't really have a grasp on what game they want to make. It feels like they are trying to make the same game ever since risen 1 but keep getting most things wrong, while failing to realize when something was done right. It definitely gives off a sense of them being unable to find a formula that can create a functional game that isn't full of bugs, inconsistency and cut or underdeveloped features. The fact that the game's combat still sucks after 5 games and keeps getting overhauled instead of improved is a good example. The fact that the most notable characteristic of all of these games is that they are janky and weird attracts people who grew up with older games, but it definitely feels like the feedback from these players is being ignored in favor of catering to the masses who won't play the game anyway.
This is because Mike Hoge left P.B.
@@williamfranklin860 true that. But Mike Hoge was also responsible for the disaster that was G3. Risen 1 was a low budget "playing it safe" game because of the failure of G3. I guess if PB followed their philosophy instead of making G3 like Elder Scrolls, he would have stayed longer
@@Kevin5279 Indeed. They bit off more than they could chew with G3. However, Jowood, just like THQ Nordic, had a hand in some of the changes which lead to the game's failure.
@@williamfranklin860 They ran out of time (they needed like 1 or 2 more yeasrs) and as you said they bit off more than they could chew. Jowood has to have a major part in it as well, because the next "gothic" projects (Forsaken Gods and Arcania) sucked so much that it killed of Gothic definitely. Let's hope that THQ can revive it a bit with the Gothic Remake.
@@PaYaB_005 THQ Nordic (and Zyddie, one of their social media mods) are a pack of scumbags who are no better than EA.
Are you going to make a Witcher 1 review anytime soon?
I have no intentions to go back to TW1 any time soon. It's one of my favorites, but I've got too many other games on my plate right now, and at least for the near future I'd like to focus on playing some new-to-me games as opposed to replaying games I've already played before. I did cover it on my blog about 10 years ago, however, so I have a couple articles there that you can read if you'd like to know more of my thoughts on it:
thenocturnalrambler.blogspot.com/2012/02/great-games-you-never-played-witcher.html
thenocturnalrambler.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-witcher-vs-witcher-2.html
The reason why the graphics and physics engine were changed is because of the evaluation of users.
The users who complained about ELEX1 were:
Dark Soul, Witcher 3, GTA...Users are familiar with these games.
PB should not listen to the reviews of users who don't love their games.
PB has to make his own game.
I need a little improvement, but...The graphics and physics engine of the ELEX1 was perfect... ELEX2 is too backward.
So are they stupid?
It should be clear they can't compete with Dark Souls or Witcher right now..
I actually really love this version of Nasty.
I feel like factions had not enough quests, u werent feeling like the world is living, that u r member of faction, also what someone other said, u have 3 factions that u can join like in elex 1, where it was 5 factions easy to make joinable, unique and with a lot of quests and lore, for me it feels like elex 2 is in early access and they finished game in like 70%
I just miss the atmosphere and variety of regions.
Love the first.... the secone is not so good.
All that you say is true but overall this messed game ELEX 2 is still pretty satisfying to play as it is. Quests are ok. Morkons are a nice addition, really out of this world but interesting. Fights can be challenging and the only way to grow is to explore and to do quests while running away from the strong enemies. Resources are scarce enough to challenge you all the time until late game. You want the easy way go ranged, you want the hard but satisfying approach go melee. Put the mods to reduce some of the frustrating features that break the immersion and you have a great game.
It's like they're giving up half way during development to make the game good
Elex 2 is the first piranha bytes games that I'm refunded on steam wait for sale
even Risen 2 is more entertaining than this , to think that they can go low than Risen2 sadden me
Part 1 was sooooo much better. The writing too. Factions got castrated in 2
Elex 2 was even worse than Elex 1, which is rly saying something haha
I enjoyed both very much but feel like 1 was just better in more aspects then 2
Man I barely made it through elex 2. Had a lot of fun with 1 but everything from the graphics to name mispronunciations like xacor just really made the game boring. Made jax look like a sucked up tweaker. The wax figure look was a joke and even the ending of the story was forgettable. I could replay 1 again but will not touch 2. If ya want to beat the game fast got berserker and rain fire hell on everything.
The change in the pronunciation was really jarring. Another example is Tavar
@@Kevin5279 Ya that was one thing I did not get was the pronunciation changes. I guess jax missing a few years changed there language to.
@@Zerif69
I think it was an oversight in the English version. But what was more strange was the change in a lot of the voice actors. I played my first playthrough as an alb and I met Sestak the separatist from the first game. His voice sounds so gruff and bears no similarity to Elex 1. The same was done with Nasty and quite a few characters. I understand that getting the same voice actor for a AA game is a bit difficult, but they could have at least tried to make them sound similar
@@Kevin5279 Ya jax went from sounding like a badass to a washed up fighter.
I finished Elex 2 after 70hrs. I completed everything. It's SUCH A BAD GAME! I loved the first Elex so much, got 3 playthroughs and 150hrs total, loved every minute. But Elex 2 omfg...it feels so much worse. The whole atmosphere is gone, hard to describe. The quests are worse, the regions are bad and dull. Also the combat is not better at all. The worst one is that Jax is always talking and cursing to himself. Sure because of his illness but this annoyed th outta me over time! The UI looks also terrible. Snd there are no more great plasma rifles. Variety is gone etc etc. Elex 2 is a disaster!!
I just finished elex 1 two days ago. Explored every part of the map, got the platinum trophy, 143 hours of enjoyment.
Started Elex 2 yesterday, played for 20 minutes and immediately got a refund.
Playing this after all three Dead Spaces and OMG, how this is feel weird, slow and Gothic-ish haha. (mind you, I played all Gothic and first Elex and I like them too) The dialog actors were lazy, the dialog scene designer was lazy - two person stands in front each other like paralyzed and talk without movement.
And as author of video points out these things, yeah, some of them really was (made) better in first Elex.
And what the hell with these bottom parts of character costumes which moves "in the wind" which is none other way pictured? No tree leaves or dust on ground moving, only clothes.
You are not gonna talk about Jaxs new and better face in 2? 😂
I actually think nasty changing makes sense she was like that because she was gonna die
But the second game clearly says that one of the chief reasons why she behaves differently is because Jax "dumped" her in E1. This obviously doesn't make sense since it was a forced decision by PB on the players. And the whole quest design with all your companions is basically those lazy kill 50 enemies quests. It becomes repetitive, bland and quite a drag. In fact this describes the whole game pretty well
Some of these seem reasonable while other complaints seem... Petty. I thought this video would actually go in-depth with some issues in comparison with Elex 1 but the longer i go in the video the more nitpicky you become.
To be fair, I was pretty clear in the introduction that this was not going to be an in-depth video and that it would be focusing on some of the more "nitpicky" things because I wanted to save the more thorough analysis for my full review, which I'm still working on. So it's not like I didn't warn you exactly what type of video this was; if you're looking for me to "actually go in-depth with some issues in comparison to Elex 1," including some of the developer's previous games, then I'd recommend you wait for my full review.
im thoroughly surprised you havent covered elden ring yet after watching the skyrim mile wide and inch deep video it sounds like everything about elden ring would be appealing to you!
It's on my radar, but I've been incredibly busy these last few months and am still working on my Elex 2 review. I plan to get to Elden Ring at some point, but it's going to be a while.
@@TheNocturnalRambler I think youll love it based on all the things you wished SKyrim had. its a wonderful game. ive played countless RPGs and honestly its my favorite open world RPG of all time now. im not even a dark souls fan as i never played them before so its not blind loyalty. its just such a GOOD game. after playing it though i have delved into dark souls games to see what all th efuss what about before. trust me youll love it and i look forweard to seeing the video you make covering it! :D
Elex I, Is the better game from the two...
Poeple what maded Gothic 1 and 2 has left company years ago. That why Pyranha can't make games like in anymore, they never maded in the first place.
As a console player that 8 wheel is better because I only got
I realy miss Nasty. The history and the way how the player live it is better, but in elex 2 the gameplay is better ( overhaul ). I realy miss my save in Elex 2 ( the witcher and mass effect was realy nice using pre game saves ).
I gave Elex a shot and couldn't even really get past the first enemies in the tutorials. I did find the controls very weird and I don't have brilliant fine motor movement, which is why I tend to stick to RPG's. As you can usually grind up levels for power, to compensate for poor reactive times. (I'm not a fan of punitive combo meters in any RPG - and I frigging hate whoever thought Dark Souls was a good idea/good game design in general) That said I've seen enough in discussion videos to be able to see the potential in Elex. It was a cool enough concept and I wanted to like the game. Hell, I wanted to be able to play the game to start with. I do think Pyrhanna Bytes has trouble with rewarding implementations - if power fantasy is why you play the genre. I've also tried Risen across the three games and couldn't get anywhere there either. I do know what I'm talking about with them; but like I do with your combo point feel free to disagree. I will say that I found Nasty (from what I've seen in said videos on the subject of story interaction - not actual game play) to be fairly toxic and a Tsundere - those never in a realistic sense, get what they want. Because they won't admit it right up to the point what they want walks away. I can see why most people would have gone with Clara as I liked her character myself. I would still have tried a run to choose Nasty; as I like the options and to test outcomes. So yeah, it disappoints me to hear they canonically borked a romance with the "darker" character. I don't mind the kid thing IF you did choose Clara; but don't strip that choice from me as a player. Nasty wouldn't necessarily have made a bad mom. Or it could be worked out in game 2 if she was willing to get there, because it was you as the father she'd want for it... Someday. They did the same thing in Risen though; and made a potential flirty, possible romance character in I believe it was 2, your sister in 3. Which was just bloody awkward.
I think the title should have been 10 things ELEX 1 did better than elex 2 since the gameplay you’re showing is mostly elex 1
Elex 1 лучший, Elex 2 к сожалению провал
Overall it feels like Elex 2 is missing creative flavor. They sanitized the experience too much
People say 2 is too easy. Well i think its a bit, but thats good since elex 1 is the worst balanced rpg thats ever been made. Even so, in 1 and 2, as soon as you get a ranged weapon its game over EZ mode for the duration. So yeah. So many people quit 1 becuase of how frustrating it was, not hard but irritating and frustrating so 2 being a bit less, is good. 2 is still a step in the right direction. We just need better quests, better writing, better combat.... f* it just fire the entire dev team and hire competent devs that want to improve. PB literally does live streams denying all criticism and blaming fans, they are not good people, they just want to remake the same game they been doing for 20 years
Elex 2 looks disgusting... graphically. Am I the only one who thinks this?
It looks too real.
No, you're not. It's pretty weird to me that so many reviews of this game say that it was much better than the first.
It's total garbage.
the first one will be a masterpiece even with all that jank
Ok so in other words. A bunch of nitpicky things. Seems like the game is still pretty good and by the looks of it, better than the first of only by a small margin.
Yea, it's so good the studio went defunk because of it. Cry harder. 😢
I learn to like Bully on Elex 2 like Nasty on E1. But damn, Nasty so ugly and boring on E2
For me elex2 Is better in every aspect.More and better writen quest and man graphics looks so much better(4k all max). Not to mension dynamic UI so i can play IT on my 48"OLED TV without burn in risk(i played First game without UI and IT was pain in the ass) So yeah i enjoying second game far more.
Odd, I thought I was the only one who liked Elex 2 better. A lot of people complained about the bugs and overstretched design of the first game, and when they get a sequel that remedies all that, they complain about it. It was even a very solid continuation of the story.
No segment on eyebrows. You dont miss the eyebrows ?
Unfortunatly i refunded the game. The poor performance alongside the almost zero improvements to graphics and combat makes no sence to ask that price. Felt like it was Elex 1.25 instead of Elex 2
Good job, you also have asked for compensation for lost time on this garbage.
I was also upset by the optimization and performance, this prompted me to upgrade my PC. And good hardware makes a difference, the game is actually decent if your PC is capable of 50-60 FPS (my setup is Ryzen 5600x + 6650XT). Maybe try it after an upgrade, if you liked the first ELEX the game is totally worth it.
Lmao I swear this is one of the fun horrible games since I played two world game
Man this has been a PB trend for so long. They make a great 1rst impression and then a meh 2nd impression with hopes for a great 3rd. But sadly the 3rd one is always worst😪. Gothic, Risen and now Elex seems to be going in the same direction.
Elex1 is my most favourite game while Elex2 is one of the worst games ever made .Total garbage.
Combat feels better but everything else is weaker
FIRST!
gothic games were better
combat seem worse than elex 1. shouldhave keep the first 1, improve it add more skill set, they fucked it up like Risen 2.
Come on to decrease the cold meter u had to pick the "being a dick" dialog options 😂
You COULD, but you could ALSO decrease cold by picking "be a nice guy" dialogue options. It wasn't a strictly binary choice between being nice and being mean, it was also between being emotional or rational. Elex 2 removed the whole emotional dimension of it so now the karma shifts are more directly aligned with being nice or being mean. There's supposed to be a creative versus destructive element going on, but in practice those are basically just synonyms for nice and mean, which can't be said of the first game's emotional/rational options.
@@TheNocturnalRambler I'm playing the first one and sometimes the only option is to be an ass or logical. From what I heard people make me think ELEX 2 is worse but then again, I shouldnt make up my mind before playing it.
@@alexandrumacedon291 the cold meter was a lot more nuanced than the plain binary destruction meter. And the only companion who actively likes destruction in E2 is Nasty. The others mostly get pissed when we act destructively. Also the cold meter unlocked 3 endings in E1. Here in E2 we are limited to one ending with a few variations. They probably did that to avoid upsetting people by forcing a particular ending on them like how they picked the neutral ending of E1 in E2 and the romance option with Caja
"Solid RPG Mechanics" is precisely what ELEX lacked completely. The whole RPG part of the game was a sad joke with stats doing absolutely nothing besides allowing you to equip better equipment.
I never touched Elex because I can't stand the idea of playing a pre-made Person with a name, backstory etc. 🙄
Elex 2 is really a bad game. Play othe PB games instead, they are lightyears better than this comedy shit.
I think the changes are for the bether, the game looks great and the gameplay is fluid, elex 2 is overall bether game.
Nope, it was so bad they closed the studio, so you can keep your opinion to yourself.
Come on! Nasty? Nasty is the most irritating character in any PB game ever. Nasty made me ashamed of even playing the game. The truth is she was just obnoxious and cringeworthy and feels like she was written by some stupid teenager trying too hard to make her 'cool'.
What? Scrapping that shitting combat system is the best thing they did. I even preferred the Gothic 1 combat system over that garbage in Elex 1.
In this video, I was specifically talking about a single aspect of the combat system -- the combo meter and associated specials attacks. The combat system certainly has some issues but those stem mainly from the stiff animations, unresponsive controls, disjointed flow of different actions, wonky "rubber band" targeting system, sketchy enemy telegraphing, limited types of attack inputs, inconsistent hit boxes, etc, none of which relates to the combo meter itself.
That whole mechanic is a genuinely interesting and engaging idea that adds an extra element of tactical depth to the combat experience with how it rewards timing and maintaining actions to raise your combo meter while also balancing limited stamina. With Elex 2 lacking that whole element it turns combat in that game into a relatively shallow, mindless affair of just repetitively mashing the attack button over and over again until it's time to dodge or you run out of stamina.
Pretty much everything I criticized about Elex 1's combat is improved in Elex 2, but the combo meter is a separate, distinct entity in the equation and is not solely responsible for whether the combat system is good or bad. And in the case of Elex 2, I feel the combat could be improved by keeping all the important changes they made while adding the combo meter back into the equation in some way.
The cold-meter was a really bad idea. Its a bad game mechanic to make decisions based on an artificial system like that. It would be better to not have a meter-system like that AT ALL in a video game. Just decisions and outcomes like in the witcher for example.