In the past month I have played through Elex 2 3 times, and Elex 1 3/4 times. Seen a lot of people praising Elex 1 over Elex 2, which I now think is very much due to rose-tinted glasses. In my opinion:
Elex 2 gameplay is FAR better than Elex 1 and its not even close. Animations, jetpack, targeting, fluidity, gameplay options (ranged, 1h, magic) was MUCH better in every way than Elex 1. In fact when I play Elex 1 it just makes me want to go back to Elex 2 lol.
Elex 2 progression is far better, in Elex 1 the leveling and attribute point requirements are god awful and you never really unlock anything useful until the very end of the game by which point you're already sick of the game. In Elex 2 you always have the capability of beating enemies that are relevant to your level and steadily acquire enough attributes to unlock necessary things.
Elex 2 has more options for making Elexit than just pickpocketing and maxing Animal trophies. My 2nd playthrough I made enough Elexit to max out skills and Faction armor, weapons etc just from selling items. All 3 playthroughs I had a different way of making Elexit which were viable and not frustrating.
Elex 1 may have the worst combat of any game I've ever played, the way you kill things is always relying on cheesing it, and the way you die is always reliant on the game cheesing you (e.g. aimbot Ranged weapons that instakill you). The only mobs that had this idiotic aimbot functionality in Elex 2 were the Alb mechs which you only encounter in an Alb/Cleric playthrough.
Melee in Elex 1 you may as well throw your keyboard/controller at the wall if its anything but 1v1. In contrast, Elex 2 Melee 1H was my most fun and challenging playthrough.
Elex 2 has better replayability, when you play as a different Faction and different Destruction/Cold it actually plays much differently. In Elex 1 I was disappointed that dialog choices had no impact 90% of the time. Whether you did the good guy or bad guy option they still had the same outcome. The only outlier here was the Domed City which was really well done in this regard.
Elex 2 graphics are MUCH better. The entire atmosphere and feel of the game and especially LIGHTING is much better than Elex 1. The camera that everyone cries about was better in Elex 2 because it focuses on your character more. Only thing Elex 1 did better was the color palette.
Companions are far more interesting in Elex 2, apart from Ray which was my personal favorite from both games.
Elex 2 exploration is actually much more enjoyably simple due to the Jetpack, especially when you have unlimited fuel with Sprint boosters. Elex 1 exploration was a walking simulator snoozefest. I will say that the world design is more interesting in Elex 1, the biome diversity is a lot better but still, it was a ton of empty space you could do nothing but slowly jog through.
Elex 1 does have the better overarching story but quite frankly both games get boring by Chapter 3 and downright tedious by Chapter 4 story-wise. Overall Elex 2 still kept my interest longer.
Gothic 1 is still my favorite PB game ever, Elex 2 is now 2nd, with Gothic 2 3rd. While I very much enjoyed all the Faction questing in Elex 1, I can actually say without trolling that I put it at the bottom of the list for FUN due to how absolutely awful the progression and combat are. I even had more fun playing Gothic 4.
