Unfortunately, the ugly character models and awkward enemy animations tend to break whatever visual spell the world designers have tried to weave. And the world is surprisingly beautiful in spots, with majestic trees that gently sway in the breeze and the mysterious ruins of old geodesic dome habitats dotting the landscape. Your jetpack - which can be modified in a variety of ways, allowing for longer, higher, more controlled flight - is a fun and liberating way to get around once it's been properly upgraded. There are occasional glimmers of a good game lurking beneath the surface. There's plenty of freedom, but it's fumbled and frustrating. Quests are a mixed up jumble, often overlapping each other and pushing you to explore in different directions, and once you arrive at your destination, you might suddenly realize you aren't yet powerful enough to take on whatever challenge you're presented. The button-mashing combat is flat and unexciting, dialogue is often poorly written and awkwardly cut together, there's little sense of linear story progression, and, depending on where you explore and who you meet, it can take too long to learn even some of the most basic skills, like lock-picking or handling firearms. It attempts to include all the things players love about open-world RPGs (role-playing games) - exploration, player agency, apocalyptic drama, item collection and crafting, vertical traversal, skill and ability growth, and more - but doesn't take the time to adequately polish any of its constituent parts. Elex II is a clutter of partially formed ideas and mechanics. Show moreĮverything seems to be thrown into this epic open-world adventure hoping it would gel into something greater than the sum of its parts, but it's not to be. Jax gradually grows more powerful as he levels up and earns points to distribute among his base attributes, learns new skills from people willing to teach him (for a price), and crafts upgrades for his jetpack and gear, until, eventually, he is ready to save the world a second time. It's typically best to say yes, though, since these quests will typically result in rewards of resources or gear and may open up new areas to explore and storylines to pursue. Non-player characters frequently request assistance, which players usually have the choice to grant or deny through in-game dialogue choices. Along the way, you'll be fighting aliens, robots, human enemies, and aggressive wildlife. Like many open world games, the bulk of your time will be spent roaming the land, walking and jetpacking through green woods, across desolate wastelands, and to the tops of mesas. As players progress, they'll encounter plenty of groups and characters who both need Jax's help and who may eventually unite together behind him to fight off the alien threat. But as players soon discover, the planet is once again under attack, this time from an alien menace that could eradicate all life on Magalan, which is still in a state of post-apocalypse recovery and suffering infighting between sects ranging from the faithful Clerics to the power-mad Berserkers. A sequel to Elex, ELEX II drops players back into the boots of Jax, the rough and tumble hero who saved the world of Magalan seven years ago.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |