What many do not want to understand is that Elex is a quest game and not a fighting game.

Quests are more important at the beginning to ascend. The fight is minor matter in Elex.

Translated with Google.

This is my first piranha bytes game, and I'm wildly in love. A lot of things that I see people criticizing it for are, to me, much of the draw of the game. The combat is remarkably nuanced and while it takes awhile to get used to, once you do, you can use skill to defeat pretty advanced critters. The reverse is certainly true, and if you screw up or don't know what you're doing, you'll die fast. I can see where that's frustrating, but I personally don't mind it. I also like the way the world is set-up, especially things like non-scaling monsters, which is one of those things I would mod into games like Skyrim. It effectively means I can explore anywhere, as long as I'm careful..

The leveling is a bit weird, in that unless you're willing to exploit Elex to advance your character, it's very slow going and if you pick the wrong skills or attributes, you can easily lock yourself in an increasingly difficult gameplay curve. My first run through crashed and burned, and I tried something different with my next one, and the difference was night and day. This means you have sort of a reverse difficulty curve, where early game is far harder than late game, and that the game is very unforgiving when you first go in, but once you know the game, it's great. Objectively, this is not good game design and something I encourage PB to look into. I don't have an easy answer how they can keep some of the things I enjoy, above, while fixing this as well.

I see other genuine flaws, like there's some weird tranlsations at places, especially in dialogue in the Hort ("What do you need doing?"). There's also the fact that the game world is dynamic, but the dialogue from characters don't always reflect that dynamism. I've brought NPCs to the burned out ruins of some place that was previously thriving, and listened to them comment on the environment like it was all still shiny and new. But this particular flaw is a relfection of just how dynamic the game is, which leaves you vulnerable to flaws like this if your players really push hard in a direction that you might not have anticipated. I'm willing to overlook it.

I love how dynamic and vibrant the game world is. I love losing myself in a particular region, or pondering how I'd handle different playthroughs. With numerous factions and a "hot/cold" morality, you've got a lot to play with. I've put some 80 hours in, according to GOG.com, and my only regret is that I didn't get it sooner.

If it's really true that this is a pale shadow of G1 and G2, then I really ought to try those out (though for me, a lot of the appeal of Elex is the sort of Thundarr-the-barbarian post-apocalytpic setting. I'm surprised there isn't an option for riding cybernetic dinosaurs while blasting your mutant enemies with your magical fireballs)

I agree--the game is great--very nice. This is far and away different from the original Gothics--quality is an order of magnitude better in ELEX. It took a decade and many community patches to shore up G1/G2/G3--community patches, coming *after* the old PB had officially abandoned all three games. With the exception of G3, G1 and G2 are unplayable on modern systems without the community patches--which I know GOG includes (and Steam) in its versions--the G2 GOG sells is *not* the G2 that PB abandoned years ago--it includes the community patches. G3 required the 1.75 community patch to deliver its potential. I think that PB took a lot of deserved hard knocks for the state in which it left the Gothic games originally.

Elex has a lot of nice surprises and unexpected events--the content is huge. 90% of the voice-acting is excellent--only ~10% seems "mismatched" in terms of voice-to-NPC, but isn't really *that* bad, and is only my own subjective opinion. I think that seeing what PB does with Elex from now on will determine its ultimate fate on down the line--whether it will just be "very good" or whether it will enter the "classic" hall of fame...;) Great game, though. Just wish the developers would be a bit more communicative with what they have in store for future updates with the game.

Also, I am playing the game on a Win10x64 Insider's beta build, 17692, and have absolutely no problems at all, so the code base is already prepped for maximum longevity. Very nice @ 2560x1440 with the game's own FSAA (SMAA X2 is my preference)!