It's super janky. Treat every enemy like the rabbit in Monty Python. The exploration is rock solid though.

I think ACG said it best, the game makes you feel like you need to go through Customs before you're allowed to start having fun. But there's fun to be had.

I already changed my mind and reinstalled Kingmaker instead, haha. I only got 30 hours into that so there's plenty of game left.

Janky is fine, as long as the jank is predictable. It'll just take some time to learn this particular jank.

I love the slow start. To me, that's one of the best parts of PB's design style. Having to slink around and pick off only the weakest of enemies while scavenging anything you can to survive. I think it makes their games a lot more satisfying in the long run.

The price is irrelevant tbh. If you like these kinds of games, Elex is easily worth it with or without any discount.

I waited about a year after Elex was out, just to get it on discount in case I didn't care for it. I couldn't have been more wrong, it's easily worth full price, take your time and explore the world, you should have a good time.

I feel the same way and that sentiment applies to any RPG… I love the start when everything is dangerous and almost every new piece of gear has meaning. Too many games are such that gear loses meaning too quickly.

Elex is a great game when modded :)

I think the story sort of falls apart in the end, and if you don't mod the game - it's incredibly poorly paced and balanced when it comes to combat and progression.

Other than that, though, it's a true PB game - which means it's glorious even with all the janky crap.

I've been itching for a replay… do you have any mods you'd recommend?

It's been a while - and I can see there's a ton of balance mods added since I last checked Nexusmods.

But I'm 99% certain I used this one:

https://www.nexusmods.com/elex/mods/57

It fixed the vast majority of my issues with game balance - including some positively absurd differences between certain weapons, where some are next to useless and others are vastly overpowered.

Also, it changes the item economy - especially for Elex potions - which, originally, would allow for infinite power growth once you reached a certain level of wealth.

Of course, you could simply not use them - but I prefer not having the option at all.

It's not an entirely new game or anything, but it flows better than I think it did in the vanilla version.

I agree that some weapons are kind of cheating devices, once you have them. That would be a valid concern. (I personally like it that way ;), however…)

If I remember correctly, using many of those come with a tradeoff that you loose humanity. So you have to decide between beeing an overpowered "bad guy" or a "good guy" with normal powers. At least I don't remember that you could rise your "humanity" stat for money. If it works this way it is like in a few RPGs. In Might&Magic VIII (at least, probably it is the same in VI and VII), you can get evil reputation easily and have access to more powerfull destruction spells in that way, while getting "good reputation" is harder and doesn't give you access to the same spells. I saw a similar trade offc in Baldur's Gate 2, but don't remember how it worked exactly.
Therefore I wouldn't see the need to mod this out, because it is a role-playing decision, you make.


I would like to add, that mods are not needed to make the game playable graphics-wise or UI-wise, like for some other games.

So I don't use mods for Elex despite having replayed it several times. In the end it is a matter of preferences.

I'm not suggesting there's any kind of need for modding :)

I'm just saying how I feel about the game and its balance - and I'm suggesting a mod as per the request.

IIRC, you didn't pick between "good" or "bad" - but between Cold and Emotional, but it's been a while so I could be wrong.

Since I was actually going for Cold - the Elex potion was a double exploit of sorts, except I think the actual impact on your stat was very limited.

The reason I consider it an exploit is that there's a non-cheating way to buy an infinite amount of them - which clearly wasn't intended.

Modding is a double-edged sword, because there's always a risk when you mess with the intention of the design. Well, perhaps not the intention - but certainly the actual result.

But I'm confident enough in my own personal preferences to the point where I'm comfortable changing aspects of certain games that bother me.

I'm a huge fan of PB - but I don't think they're great at stuff like balance and mechanics. In their defense, open world freeform RPGs are probably among the hardest games to balance - not counting multiplayer games.

It is true that it is between cold and emotional, which is interpreted by the game as being between machine-like and human-like. In order to see all possible endings you need to play it both ways (as I mentioned elsewhere, this was the only game I played until I got all steam achievements and managment of this stat is needed for that).

(By the way I didn't mean that you said, that the game is not a great game without mods, but I feared that people could interpret your statement "Elex is a great game when modded" in that way and wanted to give a different view… :cool: )

IIRC, it was best to be Cold as a Cleric - which was my faction of choice. But I must admit I forget the details.

You gotta give people more credit. I think most around here know me well enough to not necessarily trust my opinion as some kind of set-in-stone fact :)

But we can certainly agree that it's a great game overall.

Also, by the way, I recently learned that PB are "largely finished" with their next project (99% certain it's Elex 2) - and that they're essentially in polish mode right now.

To me, that sounds like a 2021 release is likely.

Which would be great - as the year seems a little light on great games, if you ask me.

From a pure power-gaming point of view that may be true (except if you want to be a pure melee guy, than berzerk may be better, or a hidden thief-type guy, where Outlaws might be better).



But, as I said, being very cold prevents you from some choices in the end game so you can't have all possible endings. There are at least three distinct endings and IIRC even these can have variants.



Edit: Eagerly waiting for Elex 2 too…

I also don't try to get several endings only for seeing them (I don't save at a decision point in order to try all decisions). I rather replay the game. But I make different role-playing decisions in different playthroughs. For example being a "cold" guy for the sake of being as powerful as possible in order to win against my arch enemy in one playthrough and being a human guy, who tries to do do the right thing in each single quest regardless of the power issue in another one. So I played Elex about three or four times (and am in another playthrough right now because of all the discussions here).
(The only exception from the above was when I tried to get the achievement, to learn all skills for every faction. In that case I may have reloaded a save short before joing a faction only for the sake of learning all the skills for a second faction, because I forgot that in an earlier playthrough. I had enough skill points for that anyway at that point in time, because that was a play through where I tried to finish every sidequest and all enemies without joining a faction as far as possible.)

Sorry for spamming the thread but since it is exclusively about Elex it is ok, I believe, to add some more:

I remembered some of the ending variants now and try to describe them spoiler-free.

The three main endings depend on the question, how you decide with regard to the final boss. However there are variants with regard to the question, which of the factions will support you in the end and also, IIRC, which of your possible companions will stay with you in the final fight. Somebody wrote that this means about 3*3*3=27 variants but I am not sure and since the decisions in the different aspects mentioned above are partly independent of each other you do not need to try all combinations in order to see the results of all decisions once. (But i didn't try that anyway and pissed of only factions and companions, for whom this fitted to my other role-playing decisions.)

I wish PB would make that kind of choice relevant for the sequel.

If there's anything that can motivate me to replay games, it's when choices persist between games in a series.

I mean, I'm on my 4th-ish replay of Mass Effect - and I don't even like the games all that much. I mean, they're good and all, but pretty limited when it comes to stuff I really like - apart from the lore/story but I've seen that a million times by now.

Of course, I never actually completed Mass Effect 3 - which is why I keep trying to replay the entire trilogy :)