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.
I don't know about the rest, but melee combat is finally decent. Difference between melee combat in E1 and E2 is really big, but creating better combat system than bad shouldn't be praised so much, its not that E2 combat is that awesome, its E1 combat was that bad.
E1 combat was working against the game, E2 combat is working in favor of the game.
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.
On the other hand, in Elex 2 I unlocked every useful skill for me in very first chapter, and then spend rest of the game with little to no real character progression. My end of chapter 1 save I was dealing 313 damage with The Cutter, on my end game save I'm dealing 322, which means my damage increased by less than 10%.
I preferred E1 approach, really weak at the start, overpowered at late game, because that meant progress was constant and there was something to look forward to. In E2 character progression is way too fast, and there is no useful end game.
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.
In E1 I was selling animal trophies a lot, because each Elexit could be indirectly turned into Elex potions. In E2 I sold items only once, because rewards are so high it was enough to get everything I wanted, after all the only thing we had to buy was an armor, and because i-frames on dodges are so generous, and dodges without stamina are possible, armor is important only in late game.
On top of that pretty quickly I've reached a point where not even elex potions could make my character stronger, so there wasn't a reason for me to spend time at trades.
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.
Mechs weren't that bad because you could get really close to them. They can't shoot you in short distances, and their melee attacks are slow and rather easy to read. Fighting mechs on their own wasn't that bad, the real problem for me was cleric invasion on Bastion that came out of know where and had 2 mechs protected by many overpowered clerics.
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.
In E1 melee combat is the best imo, even though it was frustrating. When fighting melee at least I had a chance to fill combo meter and get through enemy armor, and I could still die from weak enemies when playing bad. When playing ranged I either couldn't get through enemy armor or I could enemies without endangering myself, no middle ground that required any skill from me.
I agree melee combat in E1 was frustrating though
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.
Any examples how it plays differently? The only real choices I saw were "kill or not", and I didn't very rare consequences of such choices.
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.
Right? I don't understand how people can say Elex 2 have same graphic as Elex 1, difference is so obvious since the very start of the game. They clearly upgraded their engine a lot, but I can't say trading graphic for performance was a good choice, I will always choose decent performance over the graphic.
Companions are far more interesting in Elex 2, apart from Ray which was my personal favorite from both games.
I think Falk was much more interesting in E1, Caja was more interesting in E2, Duras and Ray were more interesting than any companion in E2. Bully was fun, but he felt too much like an archetype than real interesting character, Nyra was surprisingly boring to be honest. So overall I can't agree that companions where more interesting in E2.
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.
I can't agree with that. E2 only seems to have much empty spaces because we can travel with jetpack through them. I'm sure actual density of content in Edan is much higher than in any region in E2. Also jetpack was used better in E1, there were many many places where which player could reach only with smart usage of jetpack, game was really smart at using 3d exploration and forcing players to stop looking at ground and starting looking up and checking where they can go. In E2 the only places that can be reached only with jetpack are towers, and there's never anything interesting on them.
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.
I think story of E1 is much better. Maybe because it's original, so we are actually learning about the world while playing the game and there are many unkowns to be learned. In E2 the only unkown are Skyands, and almost all interesting information are dropped on player near the end of the game.
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.
To each their own I guess. In my opinion G1 > E1 > R1 > E2.
EDIT: Even though I don't agree with you on most of the points I still upvoted, your opinion seems reasonable enough.
This is why I'd prefer reddit for my review on games rather than someone who'd probably paid off
I think the combat system in E1 was actually more satisfying and rewarding.
For me, Elex 1 will always be the overall better of the two.
Fair enough, it depends what you're after. Not everyone shares what I value in games. For me I value fun over lore and exploration and I had a lot more fun in Elex 2 from a gameplay perspective.
For people that value exploration and lore then I can see why they would like Elex 1 more.
In any case they are both great and I'm so glad I decided to try the new IP again after Elex 1 died on me a few years ago. Turns out all I had to do was reset graphics to default lol.
[spoiler alert]
I started elex 2 with fort area and berserkers playthru and it was an 10/10 game for me for perhaps 20 hours but when I finished thier missions and started doing other factions I unfortunately found out they are nowhere near as flashed out and deep as fort/berserkers so I was a bit underwhelmed. Last 30% of the game is literally kill 100 mutants there, kill 100 skyanids there, not nearly as good as first 20 hours.
First of all, no one cares about Gothic 4, it has nothing to do with the rest of them and is not made by PB anyway.
As of the rest:
- "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."
There is plenty of areas in E2 where the game throws much harder enemies at you than it should. That being said, in both games you can kill anything with a stick if you have time for it.
- "Elex 2 has more options for making Elexit than just pickpocketing and maxing Animal trophies."
In E1 I've never bothered with those and I've never had an issue with money. I would say both games are very similar in this regard.
- "Elex 1 may have the worst combat of any game I've ever played" "Melee in Elex 1 you may as well throw your keyboard/controller"
Yes, 1h without a shield is improved in Elex 2, in terms of fluidity and general feel, but you praise it too much. There is not that big of a difference between those two. Ranged combat is still awful, melee 2h or 1h+shield in boring, magic has most spells useless, even light auto is so clunky people try not to use it.
- "Elex 2 has better replayability, [...] In Elex 1 I was disappointed that dialog choices had no impact 90% of the time"
That's literally how it looks in Elex 2. Even tho you belong to different faction, the game plays quite similar, not counting few dialogs here and there.
With the rest I more or less agree, so I won't bring it for the sake of minor differences.
But I would say, after reading your post, that you look at "rose-tinted glasses" at Elex 2 the way people look at Elex 1. I would lie if I would say that I don't see improvement in Elex 2, but it's defnitely not of magnitude you try to show here compared to Elex 1.
For me, even tho I mentioned plenty of minuses of Elex 2, its still one of games I had the most fun with in past few years, PB provides unique experience that no other company can provide, even when thir games are clunky and, like Elex 2, unfinished.
I see many people complaining about the progression and how the game gets boring by chapter 3, though the same people say that they ended chapter 1 on level 30 or 40. That’s the thing I ended chapter 1 on lvl 20 and rn I’m near the end of chapter 3 and the game feels as good as before. So I guess, don’t end chapter 1 so late and things will be better. By the end of chapter 1 i dealt about 80 damage, by the end of chapter 2 - 160 and now 240.
Agreed on the rose tinted glasses. The sequel is by far the better game.
Doesn't mean the first one isn't good.
If it wasn't good, the sequel would never have happened.
I absolutely adore Elex 1. I have done several playthroughs, joined every faction, done every quest, and gotten every ending. I have not yet played Elex 2 since 2 things were a huge turnoff based on what I have seen:
Jax’s new voice is fucking abysmal. I like his deep, manly, almost robotic voice from Elex 1 far more since it better suited his character. He used to be an alb commander completely void of all emotion and his voice should reflect that like it did in Elex 1. Having a deep-voiced main character is not always a good thing, (I really dislike Captain Price’s new voice in the MW reboot), but for Jax I think it worked well. Maybe once I play the game his new voice will grow on me, but only time will tell.
Two aspects of the story that I know have been made canon thus far are that Jax joined the berserkers and Caja is the mother of your child. The problem with this is that now we know not to join the outlaws or clerics in Elex 1 since that wouldn’t be canon, and we know not to romance nasty because he chose Caja.