![]() I wish it well, but I don’t think I’ll be calling it up for a second date." - Leana Hafer, OctoScore: 4.9 ![]() But the frothy mix of joy and frustration that ELEX presents today skews too heavily toward the latter. It has enough good ideas that one day it might be talked about as one of those hidden RPG gems that people play and wonder why it wasn’t successful at launch. The best-case scenario for ELEX is that it’ll be worth picking up on sale a year or two from now after it’s been heavily patched to fix its rampant bugs and infuriating balance problems. The one thing that's been improved from its predecessor’s combat system is that you don't have a lot of encounters where you'll get 360 noscoped by a firing squad offscreen, thus being forced to kite melee troops around a cliff for ages to break their line of sight. I often had to farm money for potions to get through tough encounters, which is a drag. Shields are all but useless until much later on, with some of the early ones only allowing you to take three direct hits instead of two. ![]() On top of that, there are too few effective options when you’re getting ganged up on in melee. Much like the original Elex, the scarcity of ammo and mana potions makes it very difficult to go for a pure ranged build – though being able to craft your own ammo helps a bit. Standing your ground usually gets you killed, since even basic enemies are flush with hitpoints and it takes Jax dozens of levels to feel more robust than a wet sheet of paper. I attack, then I stand back and watch the bad guy swing ponderously at the air, then I get to run back in and attack again. This creates an almost turn-based feel, and not in a good way. The poorly-balanced stamina system makes it difficult to smoothly transition between attacking, defending, and maneuvering, even after you upgrade your stamina regeneration much later on. They do at least provide helpful skull icons on each foe's health bar this time to let you know when you're fighting something that is currently out of your league, so I had fair warning that whatever stray rodent just murdered me is meant to be a certified badass.Ĭombat in Elex 2 is not bad because it's too challenging – take that from someone who’s currently loving Elden Ring. Jax, who has already saved the world once at this point, can still be killed in two hits by some random varmint along the side of the road. Many enemies repeat these glacial, downright silly attack animations where it's almost impossible to tell when it's actually dangerous to be standing near them. It feels clunky, imprecise, and annoying. I'll get this out of the way right up front: I can't think of anything positive to say about the combat, and that makes it very hard to recommend Elex 2 in spite of anything else it gets right. Underwhelming and sometimes confusing character writing undermines an interesting main quest scenario, graphical glitches sabotage an often beautiful post-apocalyptic world, and straight-up terrible combat tears down everything else. ![]() I wish more had changed, to be honest, because the hold-overs from the original Elex are most of what makes Elex 2 a disappointment. ![]() It's been a while since we checked in with the inventive sci-fi world of Magalan and its standard-issue bald video game protagonist Jax in 2017, and while the landscape has changed, a lot has stayed the same. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |