ELEX

Elex is the most bipolar game I've played. So much of it is absolute crap and so much more is brilliant. Overall, I highly recommend it if you like exploring an interesting and beautiful open world with a long quest log full of choices.
Let's start with the bad.
Elex is a jank-fest. The movement and controls are simply awful. If it weren't otherwise so engaging, I would've refunded it. It doesn't transition between animations at all; like it has to wait for one to end, then receive new input and then process the next action. Jumping off a short ledge while running and suddenly having to stop in place for the landing animation is jarring, but these issues get so much worse in combat.
I've never thought about it before, but it seems most games have some kind of input management system that can receive and prioritize multiple inputs. For instance, in a polished game, you may be mid-attack and hit the dodge button, which cancels the attack and immediately transitions to a dodge animation, which you might emerge from straight into a jump or another attack.
Not in Elex. You have to wait for every single animation to complete and only then will it even begin to register your next button press. Sometimes you'll be trying to turn the character around to face the enemy you over shot, but your next attack registers first so you keep attacking in the wrong direction, exposing your back to the enemy. Then, if you get hit and staggered, it's already over because there is no chance of registering a move, an attack, or a dodge before the stagger animation ends and the enemy attacks again. Lock-on just makes everything worse by pulling you toward the enemy when you do get to move, like a gravity well.
I'd describe combat in Elex like your character is playing a turn-based combat game while mobs are playing RTS. I'm not ashamed to say I play on easy mode, because the controls add their own severe element of difficulty and make combat so tedious and effectively chance-based that I just want any combat encounter to be over as soon as possible.
Just to give you a broader idea, other janky elements include:
- Every female character and many male ones use the same model with various cosmetic differences.
- Mouths don't get anywhere close to matching the voice lines.
- There is seemingly zero tolerance for friendly fire, so barely having control of your character's attacks while fighting with a team means you'll have to reload before the fight several times.
- The sound design will occasionally jump scare you by blasting sound effects once they are triggered to start or immediately cutting them. This is especially bad with rain.
- NPC's have background "conversations" that repeat the same few lines without prompts that make any sense.
Now, the good. Elex offers a complex web of choices and consequences with its beautifully crafted quest design. If Bethesda still cared about this, they'd study Elex or poach some of the writers with their big Microsoft bucks.
Almost every quest in Elex, even routine fetch quests, have branches and layers; like, you could just take this item back to the quest giver and be done with it, or you could ask around and find out that it had been stolen and the owner's looking for it, or that turning it over to another faction will improve your status with them, or that you could turn in the quest giver for trying to acquire illegal goods - all of which will have some impact on relationships and future story beats.
What they have done here with their quest lines is nothing short of inspired. The setting and stories may not please everyone, but the attention to detail when it comes to player choices and the branching possibilities is astounding. If you're ever on a quest and think "you know, I bet that guy back in that city would be interested in this information" he probably actually will be, even if the quest log didn't say anything about him! I can't express how refreshing it is to see this depth of foresight in quest design.
Next, the world is full of interesting things to explore, loot to collect, and enemies to encounter (even though combat sucks). There are many locations here and there that give you insight into the world as it stands and the world that came before. Though not photorealistic, the world design is beautiful. Generally, the lighting, distances, LOD, and objects are AAA quality, especially for when it was released, albeit with some inconsistencies.
Don't expect it to best the likes of Skyrim or Witcher 3, but Elex is a solid entry into a similar space offering dozens of enjoyable hours in an oft overlooked gem of a world. I'm certainly looking forward to Elex II.

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.

I hear and see alot of people complaining about the 'janky combat' and how clunky the overall game feels. And while that is true, there's so much inside this game that far outshines the negatives. Personally, I always like comparing this game to TES III: Morrowind. Why? As someone who also finished and played Morrowind to death both as a little girl and as an adult now, Elex and Morrowind both have striking similarities.

-Morrowind had a very janky and clunky combat system.
-The structure of how Morrowind's story was laid out is very similar to Elex (multiple choices and a vast array of outcomes)
-Morrowind was punishingly difficult at first, just like Elex. It had very many useless skills and traits that you could spend with on your character, just like Elex. But if you knew exactly what skills you needed in the game (hint hint enchanting, youre welcome :3) then you could break the game wide open and enjoy it to the fullest, again, just like Elex.

There are other similarities between the two games but those are the ones that stand out the most. The point is that if you're someone who doesn't enjoy games like Morrowind which are punishingly hard at first and require a ton of research in order to find whats useful and what isn't, then this game is definitely not for you. And that's okay, alot of people didn't like Morrowind either because it was very janky even for its time. But if you enjoy taking time to know more about the game and poring through different videos (which is exactly what I did in Morrowind to get a level 47 character with broken stats :3), then you will see that it has alot to offer, just like Morrowind did.

TLDR: Elex is essentially TES III: Morrowind's red headed stepchild. There's no denying the fact that it is hard and can be very janky at times, just like Morrowind. But if you're willing to take the time to improve your knowledge about the game, then it offers you a beautiful world with lots of different choices that are very engrossing and a rewarding feeling that you overcame a big challenge, again just like Morrowind. That and shooting robots, raptors and people with cool laser guns while flying in the air is really, really fun. Pew pew. :3

This is barely a positive recommendation (6/10), be forewarned.
Elex is an interesting game. When it comes to worldbuilding, quest structure, exploration.... lets call these general gameplay, it can be only compared to AAA Rpg titles. Open world is more rewarding and interesting than Elder Scrolls titles, npcs, factions and quest structures are more fun than fallout or Witcher series.... All in all it has makings of a spectacular game.
It has some issues, that would fall under, this is not a AAA game. Voice acting leaves much to be desired, translation (I believe the game is originally German) sometimes leads to meaningless or dumb situations and results. There are some issues with variety of monsters and enemies. But, at least from my perspective, none of these were too bad.
The utter failure of the game is 2 fold. 1st combat is... Minecraft is better..... You want a bow you want to click enough times to kill things and you are done. Don't get me wrong, there are explosives, heavy weapons, energy weapons, magic and abilities in the game. Also melee combat is... there. But other than the bow and arrow the rest are... fluff. If you don't understand that as a fact and quickly you will experience a very "annoying" game.
2nd failure is character progression. There is a huge amount of fluff and you will need to listen a lot of lectures on YouTube to understand what is what. But it boils down to this. You have 2 useful abilities (1 gets you more loot for kills, the other increases bow damage) and maybe 3-4 others you might use once or twice during your adventure, the rest is fluff.... It is like someone added a leveling system and wrote some fancy sounding skills that you won't usually need or want.
So in the end, the game is 0/10 in rpg elements and 1/10 in combat and 10/10 in most other areas.
If this title was coming from someone other than Piranha Bytes, a relatively small dev, I wouldn't have given a positive rating. As is it is barely 6/10. A game definitely worth playing (and thus time) if you can stomach the utter disgraceful character system and what goes for "combat".

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

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.