ELEX

It is such a weird thing to like a videogame but also agree with almost every piece of criticism people tand to levy on it.
Terrible combat, unnecessarily tedious and long beginning phase when you can't do a thing, boring main plot, numerous bugs, poor UI and much, much more. These things do really suck.
But the game also offers a great world to explore, a surpisingly fun jetpack, companions which are somewhat endearing and the feeling of progress that overlaps the whole experience.
If you are a fan of previous Piranha Bytes games and are also ready to endure massive amounts of jank, I think you may like it. I did, for some reason.

Dang it man! Foukaejevous! These games keep on bamboozling me!
Despite playing and greatly enjoying the Risen trilogy, I'm 5.5 years late to ELEX, and the sequel has already released. I'll never play ELEX II, but I thought I'd slam through ELEX in the time that's left. Once again, my expectations on how long it would take to play a game was wrong.
My plans to play Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Valhalla in the first half of the year were ruined when it took me 200 hours to finish with Odyssey. I anticipated it would take 40-50 hours to complete ELEX, which is how long I played each Risen game.
ELEX took TWICE AS LONG! This game is much bigger than any of the Risen series and ELEX consumed four weeks of dedicated play.
Holy hell it was brutal at the start. But developer Piranha Bytes did not fail to deliver what I wanted from this game: a deep, rewarding and janky hardcore open-world RPG that I can feel proud to have played to completion.
The game is extremely slow-paced, even compared to Risen. The start of the game is savagely difficult. The game does not have the standard open-world RPG design where enemy levels are conveniently low in the starting area and increase the further you go, or enemies are magically scaled to your level.
High-level and mid-level and low-level enemies are found throughout the whole map. I had to avoid most enemies for the first 30 hours. But by the end my character was an overpowered God among men, just as I knew he would be from playing Risen, Risen 2, and Risen 3. I love how it feels to finally slice through enemies that had dominated me for so long. And this power feels EARNED!
I don't have time to write anymore about ELEX! Now that the playthrough is finally done, I need to get started on Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII immediately!

This game is nice. I enjoyed it alot. So much to explore - just a great RPG.

Edit: After finally reaching level 15 the game seems to open up a considerable amount. Once you are allowed to survive and explore Elex reveals itself to be a truly great (if flawed) RPG. The choices and consequences of each quest are real and the prejudices of its chief factions bloody and absolute. There were times I made the wrong choice and only realized too late and felt the sting of it. Losing the life of people who depended on and trusted me. I felt bad about it. That's the mark of a good game. Plus the world is simply stunning. One of the best PB has made to date. I'll leave my original review below, because I don't consider it wrong, but take it with a grain of salt.
Elex is a game that epitomizes the need for a 'mixed review' thumb on Steam. On the one hand you have a world full of beautiful vistas and interesting lore sprinkled with four factions, each unique and vying for power. You have cool abilities -- magic or technical-- futuristic or medieval weaponry, awesome armor, and some pretty deep crafting. You have a fairly robust build system to tailor your character exactly the way you want to play and the world is essentially yours to explore. Sounds good huh?
Oh, but you want to PLAY the game? Well, that's different.
Elex has A LOT of problems. Chief among them is the worst combat I've ever experienced in an ARPG of this type -- and I've played Two Worlds. I know Piranha Bites has never had Dark Souls level of combat -- I cut my teeth on Gothic 2 as a lad. But I cannot for the life of me understand how we went from Risen, which was fairly fluid and accessible to...this. It's simply insane and so much of the movement and combat feel like they were done as an afterthought with minimal testing.
Climbing ladders and even just using the jet pack feels like taxing the game to the point of breaking. You can't switch weapons in flight -- why? Just getting around on a flat plane is incredible clunky due to how the PC turns and 'resets' after a mild fall of a small ledge. Couple this hyper aggressive (and health bloated) enemies and you'll likely die hundreds of times simply due to the fact that you move as if you're made of wood and someone else is controlling the strings.
This is all without mentioning the EXCESSIVE amounts of dialog and story -- whose writing is best okay and at worst juvenile -- and a map which essentially doesn't stop killing you until you're 3/4 of the way to the level cap. That doesn't make any sense, nor does it make for good game play. It simply means most players will skip it. I'd probably recommend skipping it honestly but...
I enjoy the game, I really do. I don't even know WHY I do, but I do. The fact of the matter is though that YOU need to be aware that Elex is a TREMENDOUSLY flawed product. If you're a fan of Piranha Bites, sure, go for it. I bet you'll love it. But from a modern perspective this game feels like it came out in 2005 -- and even then it would have been considered outdated and clunky. Don't waste your money on frustration. PB needs to do better.

I see where the disconnect with reviews are. If your around 26+ and have been playing RPGs since morrowind etc, your going to like this.
If your a bit younger, OR started playing RPG's around say, mass effect 2, your likely not going to enjoy this as much.
For an ESL game, the VA is shockingly good. Lighting, shadows, and textures are great for this size of studio, animations are just ok, and thats because they are work intensive, so they rightfully, put their efforts into making a better game all around.
This game is lovely. If your a more casual gamer, this is sort of a "Im bored of all my RPGs and need another", except it delivers more than expected, and potentially, if your a bit older, will make you quite happy.
My biggest gripe? No subtitles so you cant speed read dialogue to move things along.

Of course you should get it. Jank controls and jax looks kinda silly running around but the atmosphere and lore is really good and its got a lot of meat to it. Runs great, looks great and you get a jet pack almost immediately. Character building is fun because outside of quest rewards, it takes work to level up. Meaning you have to really decide at the beginning what you are going to be and how to build up to that. Gothic 1+2 and a little bit 3 hold a special place in my heart and this is truly a successor. Now for Elex 2

Elex is a difficult game to rate. But for a start, its a game not for everyone. Game is an oldschool rpg game with clunky mechanics. What i find annoying was that the devs decided to implement action gameplay mechanics which is just bad, character moves fluently but melee combat is a joke. Another problem is character developing curve, you start as total weakling without any power to kill even small enemies, always on the brink of death. Key is implementing stamina and att strength points, suddenly deom lvl 20 i was running and killing everything without problem, abusing broken mechanic with E attack and just melee. Later when bored started leveling ranged weapons, which were much worse than melee due to skillpoints ofc. But my problem is, even with point system etc, its funny when rocket launcher does less damage than axe :) My point is devs broken the system and its not well developed. That is a main sin of Elex which annoyed me, and that later in game it was ridicoulusly easy instead of harder, which is wrong. So why positive review? because this is major drawback of the game, but rest is nice. Game looks really good, locations are nicely developed, not boring, was nice to explore, collect items. Factions are nice, abit loopholes but still nice. Good road of progress in story, interesting quests, for me a person who played alot rpg i was sometimes surprised which is really good. Main story was predictable. But Elex the longer you play becomes BETTER! Yes this is one of those games where i can totally forget that clunky combat system. The story was interesting to me, factions fun, followers ok. Main reason its not for kids is this difficulty level at start and this oldschool vibe (many kids grab cheats in such games and ruin themselves with easy aproach), it reminded me alot of gothic (which i dont like really, but really liked story there) but more it feels like Risen on steroids - Risen was really ok. Game lacks some momentums in story and epicness, but at the same time i like hard language, and more realistic acting than in other games, its apocalypse and devs really showed that everyone cares about themselves. I really liked that development of story and groups of interest. Game has alot easter eggs, is fun to explore and do side quests. It is very important to understand the world of Elex, because the more you know the more you enjoy the story and understand why devs made some decisions in story. I really liked this journey and i cant wait to play Elex 2. I will definetly remember this game, and this is the best recomendation from somoeone who plays rpg's for like 35 years. Dont hesitate, buy Elex and enjoy the sci fi story in oldschool Comet broken world full of tech. Remember about soft toilet paper :D