I’m selective when it comes to playing RPGs, but when I was told about ELEX II, a game that combines sci-fi futurism with a medieval twist, I had to take a look. A big thank you to THQ Nordic and Piranha Bytes for the reviewing opportunity!
ELEX II is an open-world third-person game where you play as Jax, the hero from the first installment of the series who after defeating one threat to the planet of Magalan, is the first to notice a new extraterrestrial threat set on terraforming the planet. Jax now is sent on a quest from a former foe to gather an army to fight the menace while working with different warring factions.
Now onto ELEX II itself. The game’s controls will take time to get used to, especially if you’re using a controller as it appears that some of the buttons perform more than one action which can get Jax into trouble. For example, the button used to pick up an object or speak to people is the same and if a character is next to an object (that you can steal) and you’re not lined up right with the NPC, you’ll accidentally steal the object, and in RPGs, you know what happens next.
The graphics in-game are different from what was seen in promotional images unfortunately kind of cheapening the look. The facial animations of the characters as they speak are pretty good as their mouths actually move with the dialogue.
The storyline along with the gameplay is not new player-friendly, it’s quite overwhelming at the start. I feel lost playing because immediately as the game begins I’m dropped into the story and racking up missions left and right and Jax is weak as a newborn mouse against pretty much every enemy I’ve come across so far! I’m playing on easy (just to get a feel for the game and for the sake of review time) and I feel like I’m playing on hard. I’ve played sequels to games without playing their first installments before but they don’t make the player feel so much out of the loop like this one dose.
Overall, ELEX II is an interesting game to play, I can see the potential fun in it if you devote a long session to playing it. On my scale of 1-10, ELEX II is a 7 as though it feels like you’ve been left out on what’s going on and the control bindings are difficult, it has potential fun if you can overlook that you’ll most likely have to grind hours of gameplay in so you can build up your super weak character.
EXEX II will be coming to PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, and Xbox One and Series X/S on March 1st
