RPGWatch Feature - Elex Review

Originally Posted by luj1
Dialogue is a part of writing /facepalm.

Really? Gee I didn't know that. Thank you for imparting your knowledge.

The point I was trying to make is that a poor translation can make the writing appear worse than it is.

Thanks for the review Maylander!

And the insight into how to understand skill progression and effects.

They really need to fix the in-game skill explanations since the "manual" says nothing.

Alos, what a shame about the translations.

Any word on an English subtitled German voice-acted setting?

About that German/English translation/rewrite snippit that was uploaded:

German
But why the clerics?
- They are the TRUE hipocrites of Magalan.
- Their strongest weapon is infiltration. They act behind your back and finish you off before even YOU realize it.
- They proclaim their false faith and act as if they were the world's police.
- They are far more dangerous than even the albs.

***

English
Why did you want to destroy the Hort?
- The balance of power.
- With them gone, we'd control all the technology this side of Xacor.
- It's not like those Berserkers want it.
- And with the Clerics gone, the Albs should take care ot the Berserkers for me.

The thing is, at least for me, the English makes a great deal more sense than the original German. Perhaps the orig German needed a bit of work, which might explain the extent of changes, and why other language translations were based on the English and not the German.

Just saying…

__

Originally Posted by Fluent
The translation is wonky, that's the biggest issue, IMO. No debating it's weird in some spots, but I think the base writing is mostly fine. They need to enhance their translation efforts.

You know what's funny is that a lot of German players are actually playing the game in English because -to them- the English version has better writing .

There is a long thread on this here at WoE including a link to a YT analysis video. Many people in the thread consider the English writing per se as better but it goes further than that.
The English version also seems to be more informative or content-rich.
You apparently get a lot more background info in some of the English dialogues and texts while the German version is lacking in that regard which goes so far that some German lines don't make much sense.

I'm not sure how that is even possible with a German game written in German but apparently the person who did the translation, btw the same person as the one who did Risen 1, a fellow by the name of Andrew Walsh, had a lot of liberties to improve upon the original German material instead of being forced to stick close to the script as was the case with Risen 1 (source).

Originally Posted by Thrasher
Alos, what a shame about the translations.

It's not terrible. By all means it's completely passable, and I've heard worse in other games. Especially some JRPGs.

Also, some parts seem better and more fluid while others are a bit weird.

Interesting review. Not trying to start any controversy but it seems to me there are a lot of caveats in the review. It just seems kinda weird to me that the game gets a score of "very good", and then there are many caveats in the review talking about what seems to be a lot of flaws, and some seem pretty serious as well.

Anyhow, just my take, and I have not played the game, so it is more of a detached critique really, based on the review score criteria and what it actually says in the review, kind of a technicality, I'd say.

The beserkers' magic is actually strong if you choose the right one for damage. The fireball skill in the fire set of skills is actually very strong. It has a fairly huge aoe and can easily hit 4-5 enemies when you are fighting 5 or 6 enemies at once and it leaves burning damage on them. So the idea is to run about 12-14 feet or about 3 metres away from enemies and aim the GROUND near them to hit as man enemies as you can, then run for about 4 seconds and repeat.

I really liked this review btw.

Originally Posted by RPGFool
About that German/English translation/rewrite snippit that was uploaded:

German
But why the clerics?
- They are the TRUE hipocrites of Magalan.
- Their strongest weapon is infiltration. They act behind your back and finish you off before even YOU realize it.
- They proclaim their false faith and act as if they were the world's police.
- They are far more dangerous than even the albs.

***

English
Why did you want to destroy the Hort?
- The balance of power.
- With them gone, we'd control all the technology this side of Xacor.
- It's not like those Berserkers want it.
- And with the Clerics gone, the Albs should take care ot the Berserkers for me.

The thing is, at least for me, the English makes a great deal more sense than the original German. Perhaps the orig German needed a bit of work, which might explain the extent of changes, and why other language translations were based on the English and not the German.

Just saying…

__

I can understand what you are saying, however the German text has more nuanced character and thought processes and builds a better "flow". However I can see the benefits of both.

Just pick it up today---to me it plays exactly like Gothic---the characters and how they respond, the mood, the attitude of the responses, very Gothic-esk. I really like it.

Originally Posted by Arkadia7
Interesting review. Not trying to start any controversy but it seems to me there are a lot of caveats in the review. It just seems kinda weird to me that the game gets a score of "very good", and then there are many caveats in the review talking about what seems to be a lot of flaws, and some seem pretty serious as well.

Anyhow, just my take, and I have not played the game, so it is more of a detached critique really, based on the review score criteria and what it actually says in the review, kind of a technicality, I'd say.

That's because I happen to be smack dab in the middle of the target audience, so to me it genuinely is very good. It's the most enjoyable game of 2017 to me and quite a few others around here, but I still try to point out that the game is not for everyone, and that the rating is likely to scale all the way from poor to excellent, depending on point of view.

There's no denying it'll divide opinions though, even among larger user groups. On GOG it sits at 4,3/5, at Steam it's 74/100, but at metacritic it's at 69/100 for users and 70/100 for reviews.

The bottom line is that it's just one of those games where you can't really average out the score. It doesn't work, as different audiences will experience it completely differently.

Originally Posted by Maylander
No problem!

People tend to ask for more and more information regarding the content of the reviews, but this has to be some sort of record in lengthy game reviews. I'm counting on feedback from the folks around here to let me know if it's gone too far, and if I should cut down a little for the next one (which I have no idea what might be, by the way).

For rpgwatch it is a great review, for common people it is perhaps to lengthy. On the otherhand it might give them the edge to try the game out.

As I already said, great review !

However this review won't change the mind of the players who didn't like the game, as it's too long and too detailed for them to be read
Don't forget : "The average gamer’s attention span during an interaction is about 2-3 minutes".

Originally Posted by ikbenrichard
For rpgwatch it is a great review, for common people it is perhaps to lengthy. On the otherhand it might give them the edge to try the game out.

For me it was too short.

Originally Posted by Maylander
That's because I happen to be smack dab in the middle of the target audience, so to me it genuinely is very good. It's the most enjoyable game of 2017 to me and quite a few others around here, but I still try to point out that the game is not for everyone, and that the rating is likely to scale all the way from poor to excellent, depending on point of view.

There's no denying it'll divide opinions though, even among larger user groups. On GOG it sits at 4,3/5, at Steam it's 74/100, but at metacritic it's at 69/100 for users and 70/100 for reviews.

The bottom line is that it's just one of those games where you can't really average out the score. It doesn't work, as different audiences will experience it completely differently.

That makes it more clear to me, thanks.

Originally Posted by Archangel
For me it was too short.

Maybe you're not the "average gamer", or maybe you've got more brain than a goldfish

Oops… what was I writing about ? Maybe it's more than 8 secondes I'm writing, too high for my attention span

Originally Posted by the_dagon
Maybe you're not the "average gamer", or maybe you've got more brain than a goldfish

Oops… what was I writing about ? Maybe it's more than 8 secondes I'm writing, too high for my attention span

I agree, I am not a Bethesda gamer

We certainly did our best to add enough screenshots to make the challenge of reading text easier

Originally Posted by Archangel
For me it was too short.

Special snowflake.

Thank you for a great review, Maylander. I loved the amount of detail and the comparisons with other games. To me your enthusiasm was catchy, it even made me rethink my decision not to play this PB game (reached the same conclusion though: I don’t like the mix with sci-fi).

Because of the length of this review I skipped the text about the factions, and would not have mind a shorter introduction (though I get some intro is necessary); to me the most interesting parts were the parts where you told us about your personal thoughts and experiences.

Thank you!

I was going to wait for Elex to go on sale but after this review I paid full price on GoG to help the developers. Seems like the kind of game I love and am a big fan of Gothic but I did not enjoy the Risen games as much.

Great review and you swayed me into getting the game now.