REVIEW

ELEX Review

by Luke Walsh, January 29th, 2018

Modern RPGs like Skyrim, Fallout and Witcher have been sung praises for their own strengths whether it be the questing system, the world or combat. With Elex they have tried to create an RPG which promotes flexibility with numerous mechanics that have taken inspiration from other successful RPGs.

It creates a unique adventure, one which you will struggle to find anywhere else with magic, mutants, futuristic technology and magic. It’s easily described as Fallout cross with Skyrim but unfortunately gets lost in a myriad of confusing menus and somewhat clunky combat. The first few hours are critical to getting used to a new game but ELEX fails to deliver the necessary information in a digestible way which will make a lot of players put their controllers down.

As you begin in the world of Magalan, you’ll be almost naked in a forest surrounded by monsters that are too strong for you to tackle. Running away is a valid strategy in some games like Dark Souls and is the case in ELEX but for the first 3-4 hours, it is mainly what you’d be doing. You’ll be thrown from marker to marker as you are given quests, one of the biggest in the start suggesting you join one of the three main factions. The problem is everything in the game is buried within menus and expandable lists and basic map making that it is so overwhelming to know where exactly you need to go. Guides on how to play ELEX are quite common if you search on the internet and this shows the lack of detail on the gameplay basics.

If however, you can get through the growing pains of the first couple hours the game is truly a joy to explore. The setting of ELEX is a blend of fantasy, magic, science and Mad Max style steampunk. There is a massive contrast as you wander the post-apocalyptic world from luscious green forests to barren desert and ruins of technological and modern-day ruins such as rusted cars and half sunken homes. The world is reminiscent of a cross between Horizon: Zero Dawn and Fallout 4, it’s not got the overall polish of both games but has moulded a lot of different bits together well.

The overall story is interesting, with the history and lore behind each faction filled to the brim with backstories to learn. Quest has some interesting twists and turns and choices you make have far-reaching impact on the later elements of the game. Jax, your character though is just so boring. If you don’t have a character creation tool and are set with someone, you want to make sure that person is at least interesting. Geralt from The Witcher has a backstory, personality and interacts with the world differently based on your actions. Jax is the same robotic, emotionless protagonist even after he stops taking the emotion draining Elex.

Inside the vast amount of menus are your weapons and armour which can range from medieval swords and shields to futuristic plasma rifle or steampunk modern guns. Unlike other RPGs however, all your weaponry and armour can only be gained through purchasing, quests or looting chests. Looting of enemies only achieves other items such as the in-game currency Elexit or consumables such as Hand Grandes. This embodies the design decisions from the Gothic series, where your character progression is more entwined with your action in the world rather than your ability to kill enemies.

What this ultimately does create is the need to choose a faction sooner rather than later as until you choose a faction, you’ll only be able to buy very basic gear. Unless of course you can find it/steal it from a shop. This makes sense when you realise how bloody hard the world is, even the weakest of monsters in the starting days of ELEX require a decent amount of dodging to not kill your health bar.

Choosing one of the three factions then boils down to whether you want to fight with swords and magic, psychic abilities and futuristic weapons or chemical enhancing drugs and steampunk weaponry. I personally sided with the Berserkers which is probably also a little biased as the game puts you in front of them a lot sooner than the other factions. It also was a decision based on the fact I enjoyed the aesthetic of Edan the home of the Berserkers more than the Clerics or Outlaws.

Once you have your gear though, the complicated in-game systems and menu to make it hard to keep track of your progress. Weapons, armour and skills have a level and attribute requirements, skills also have a cost to learn all from their own menu and submenus. On top of it all, everything is numbers based, giving you different values of effectiveness for defence/attack or additional points in attributes or even some items allowing you access to points in the skill tree.

There’s so much information going on that is overloaded from a gamers perspective making it extremely hard to track and manage. It seems that the data is not filtered from the game code to the user, it would be easier to simplify these systems given users the benefits and losses of each thing without going into so much detail.

Satisfying it is though once you have gotten to the correct level, wearing the right gear and paid for the skills you wanted and heading into battle. The more effort and hours you pour into ELEX the better the reward you get out. At the start I felt like I would always be the underdog, walking around with the same rusty axe but there is a turning point. Invest enough and you’ll wield the weapons, skills and armour you want and begin to really get into the meat of the game. My only criticism is it takes far too long to get to that point and you have to do a lot of manual number crunching and menu diving.

Sadly though the combat could be much better than it is, clunky and rigid is the best way to describe it. If you go down the melee route as you’d expect with the Berserkers, you have to time your attacks to perform combos based on your Stamina. The flow of the combat tries to be like The Witcher or Dark Souls, making all enemies a considered battle rather than a run and gun but it does not work. Your character does not have the required Stamina even at later levels to dodge, attack and combo. Most of the time I dodged, chained my combos to realise I had no stamina and could not perform the “finishing” move only to be awkwardly walking around the enemy waiting for it to refill.

If you acquire a decent ranged weapon the melee becomes almost obsolete, once I had magic and a decent bow, most enemies died before they got to close. Taking the route of Clerics or Outlaws where they excel more in ranged combat it would be even easier. You can, of course, use any weapons in ELEX regardless of a faction but being a Berserker, technology is frowned upon and that’s what I wanted to experience. It’s a shame that the combat was not better as in RPGs it’s one of the main pillars of the game and it lets down ELEX’s great world, monsters and story.

ELEX is a game I really enjoyed playing in terms of world, lore and the overall premise. I happily pumped over 50 hours into it but is a shame that they seem to have designed the game for the mechanics and methodologies at the same time of Gothic. RPGs have evolved since in both technology and their design which ELEX seems to have missed a little. It’s a great evolution of the Gothic series but still a bit dated, plus if you are a complete newcomer you’ll have to fight against the confusing menus and overload of information before you can enjoy it. It’s a game that is hard get into for all RPG gamers and with a little more polish it could have been an outstanding RPG of the generation.