Jet Set Future.
The original Elex felt like a mixed container of action figures dumped onto the floor as a child would pick them up and smash them together, creating lore that somehow saw technologically advanced cyber-soldiers at war with a faction that looks like they were ripped out of Mad Max, or Lord of the Rings. And yet, it all works, creating a world that is just as diverse in its quests, environments, and narrative. It's not perfect, but it's also the type of game we don't seem to get much anymore unless some big AAA publisher is behind it, likely injecting microtransactions or filler to pad its length. Elex II is a continuation of what the original gave us back in 2017, albeit far more polished and technically more impressive than ever, even if it does still have its issues.
The Euro-jank genre, which Piranha Bytes is no stranger to, is a classification of games I adore. Technomancer, Greedfall, Bound by Flame, all of which developed by Spiders, are games that alongside Piranha Bytes' own Risen and Gothic series, are enjoyable games fueled more so by passion than cutting edge visuals or provided a considerable budget. Elex is a franchise that fits perfectly into that same conversation, creating a world that is engaging to explore and play around in so long as you have set the proper expectations on what you're about to take part in. And, thankfully, Elex II more than lives up to what I wanted from it, making this one of the best Euro-jank games out there.
If I was to describe Elex II to someone who has never seen or played the original, I would likely go as far to say it's if Fallout played and resembled something more akin to The Witcher III. Now, granted, there are some technical and narrative caveats there as well as some other design limits I'd placed on those comparisons, but I still stand by it. There is a vastness to the freedom you're given here, not just in picking a direction and seeing what you'll find, but in the way you can customize Jax and his abilities. Elex is a game about player choice in how you fit into its world around its diverse factions and the powers and abilities that can be yours if you so choose.
Releasing right after Horizon Forbidden West and what is being hailed as “one of the greatest video games ever” in Elden Ring, it is safe to say that Elex II is going to be drowned out of the conversation apart from the steady few who are fans of the original and have been, like myself, eagerly awaiting this sequel. While the metal-fueled reveal trailer didn’t quite nail the actual energy of the game, it got many people pumped for it, regardless. Thankfully, Elex II, despite the game being around 40-50 hours for a single playthrough is relatively budget-priced when compared to its contemporaries, so it does certainly have that going for it. It's also a damn fun adventure that I couldn't stop playing, despite a sealed copy of Horizon Forbidden West staring at me almost the entire time, not to mention Elden Ring installed and ready for launch day.
Elex II is a direct continuation of the original, continuing several plot threads that were left dangling during the conclusion of the previous game. As Jax, who is rocking a whole new voice actor for this adventure, you'll attempt to forge alliances with various factions in order to stop an alien race that looks to threaten life on Magalan. However, should you wish, you can forgo any such alliance and attempt to take on the threat without them. Being such a direct continuation, there is a lot of connective tissue here from not just the story, but characters who were integral to Jax's first journey. It's also worth noting that there is no save transfer from the original, so your Jax for this adventure will start his journey at level one, devoid of any abilities or skills learned from the prior game, with all choices based on what the team is dubbing the “canon” storyline. While it narratively doesn’t make sense that Jax is back to square one, besides being told his time off has made him rusty, it does allow you to come at this game with a fresh outlook on how you want to continue, given there are more factions to join and abilities to learn than before.
Elex II is what you would expect from a typical adventure game. You’ll interact with NPC’s to earn new quests to take on as well as a wealth of shops to partake in a bit of commerce. The game doesn’t bring anything new to the table, apart from maybe being the first in the genre to provide a large focus on jet pack traversal or the ability to perform combat attacks while flying. Even then, Elex II is the type of game you have likely played before, even If I don’t mean that as an insult. The straightforward nature of what Elex II provides worked well for me and I can see it either being a hindrance or blessing to others with how much it illustrates exactly where to go. You’ll be initially given a quest to seek out the various factions as you’ll attempt to find allies for the fight ahead, a narrative that is kick-started by the return of a pivotal character from the first game. It is up to you on how you’ll proceed, and what faction, if any, tickles your fancy enough to work through their quests and which one to eventually join, and subsequently, work up the ladder to their final rank.
Elex II is extremely straightforward in its quest design. You’ll often be set forth to gather items, defeat enemies, or track down people who may or may not have to be killed. You’ll make choices along the way that will shape those quests, and while some of that may only play out with a new line of dialogue, there is essentially still that freedom to make mistakes and have the game continue. My initial playthrough was that of joining the Berserkers, a choice I made in the original Elex, so it was fitting for me to return to them, despite how different they are now that enough time has passed. And while the passing of time can account for some changes to characters as well as where certain factions are in the grand scheme of things, the map, and its locations is dramatically different, with several locations from the original Elex simply not being accessible in any way or even found on the map at all, it is THAT different. This is likely to make Magalan feel different than what we've already explored before, but there is no narrative justification for how different it truly is, despite some areas clearly having a good reason for it, given the events of the original.
The map size of Elex II is about on par with the original, and while there may be an argument for saying the original has a bigger explorable area, Elex II has way more here to populate it with things to explore and do, making it vastly superior and frankly, easier to navigate. Apart from the initial loading into the game, you will rarely see any sort of loading screen apart from fast traveling to a location you haven't likely been to for some time, and even then, it’s less than two seconds. It is remarkable how fast it is here and honestly, I think I only saw one instance of pop-in while playing, but some of the chapter break cutscenes where you’ll get wide open pans of the environment did have some pop-in that was extremely noticeable. And, while I won’t talk about the ending, the final cutscene was similar to those environmental pans, but it was a very compressed video of them and was so incredibly pixelated that it was really hard to imagine this was approved or not addressed in some way.
The major focus of Elex II is that, for the most part, not everyone is going to have the same playthrough. Sure, there is a massive amount of overlap, but you’ll be given the choice to side with one of five factions; The Berserkers, Albs, Outlaws, Morkons, and the Clerics. Each faction presents unique abilities from the ability to wield magic with the Berserkers, to the high-tech approach of the Clerics. Each faction has its rules and creeds to live by, and while it is possible to complete the game without joining one of them, you will have to explore what they can at least offer you in some capacity. The choice to join or not gives you a variety in what you’ll have access to as joining a faction will cut you off from exploring all of them to their fullest, making additional playthroughs have unique content that you previously would have been gated off from experiencing. While my initial playthrough was that of the Berserkers, I am eager to try out the Clerics as I adore a lot of their high-tech weapons and armor, which looks cool as hell.
Each faction will have customized abilities that suit their ideals and way of life, and each hub location given to them will have teachers that can educate you on various abilities and passive upgrades. From everything to pick-pocketing, crafting, to affecting your overall health, you’ll need to seek out these trainers to get the most out of what Elex II can offer. Each time you level up you’ll be able to sink points into Strength, Dexterity, Cunning, Intelligence, and Constitution, that while affecting Jax in typical ways, contribute to the requirements of certain abilities in order to learn them. You’ll also gain LP which are skill points needed to learn additional skills, preventing you from learning too much too often. Honestly, I still had plenty of LP available after completing the game, so you won’t feel like you are starving for points to customize Jax.
How you outfit Jax will depend on the faction you’ve chosen as each has weapons and armor that work towards their faction's ideals. The Berserker clan, for example, allows you to wield magic, allowing you to have fire erupt from your fingertips. While I still found melee combat to be more effective, I can’t deny how fun it was to beat up the various creatures and human threats that got in the way of my firey fist. And while you can melee while flying around in your jet pack, at least after you’ve upgraded it a few times, you cannot wield fire magic while flying, which was disappointing that I couldn’t hurl down firebolts from above. You can; however, consume potions while flying, and completing the game does unlock unlimited fuel, so there is that to look forward to.
Elex is a journey that is not limited by level gating or anything that prevents access to most of its locations, apart from some narrative progression moments here in Elex II. This means you can often just pick a direction a go, often encountering enemies that are considerably more brutal than you are likely leveled for. It doesn't take too long before you're able to keep up with the challenge, but do know that you'll likely die a few times trying to gauge if you're able to conquer a certain area or not on the map. While you can often chip away at most foes, being one-shotted by something because you didn't roll out of the way in time is an extreme possibility here.
Combat in Elex II is far more polished and less unwieldy than before but does have its issues with a temperamental locking-on system that since it is tied to R3, means moving the camera during intense fights can often see you removing the lock-in and having to re-engage it. Otherwise, combat feels quicker, and weapons are very easy to take advantage of, with light and heavy attacks among your melee options. Magic, and your ranged weapons like bows or guns, are less favorable here as they feel a bit underpowered until you invest heavily into them via the various trainers around Magalan. However, by that time, you've likely worked out that melee just works far better in most situations, and even with the quick snap aiming that you can pull off, ranged weapons are still less than ideal and I do wish a more intuitive system was put into place here to make them a more viable way of maining through the whole adventure. As it stands, it is very difficult to solely rely on being a ranged attacker.
While you’ll be able to tailor Jax to be the warrior you want him to be, your companions are less customizable and some actions you make through conversation or a more direct approach may have them look at your choices favorably or fall out of favor with you. While some choices can eventually lead to romance, you are essentially making these choices and outcomes to have your companions loyal to your cause and stick around for the final battle. While Elex II does feature a few returning companions, there are plenty of new ones, each with their own baggage and quests. They will often come to you with things they want your help with and those quests instantly send you to them, without a single loading screen popping up; it’s impressive. While I never really cared for Nyra, or Bully, as the game really didn’t seem to know what to do with them, Fox, Carja, and your robot buddy, C.R.O.N.Y. U4 all had far better story arcs to work through and felt far more integral to the plot. When I finished Fox’s quest, however, he disappeared until the post-game and wasn’t around for a good chunk of the final act, either from a glitch or it’s possible that he didn’t favor me enough to stick around for the later part of the game.
There is one additional character I am not going to name due to spoilers, so I’ll be very vague here as it stands as the only character to feel vastly underused for their purpose. You’ll have some interaction with them and a few quests that hint at things to come, but their arc and what ends up happening, at least in my playthrough, came so far out of left field that I still don’t know their fate, despite Jax clearly indicating to me that they died, but no single other character ever mentions it. I’ll also stress that part of their arc may have been spoiled in a previous trailer, and may hint at the future of this character, but honestly, for how important they ended up being in the game’s final moments, I don’t feel it was earned in any conceivable way and left me with far more questions than answers.
Visually, like its predecessor, Elex II is a mixed bag, but a lot of that is to be expected given the genre of Euro-Jank titles and the budgets they are usually restricted with. Environments look great, with a strong variety of forests, swamps, deserts, and winter biomes alike, all of which are densely populated with various buildings and settlements to scavenge. You certainly are not getting the AAA polish here in the realm of Horizon or anything even remotely that impressive, but there is a wide-open nature to its world and town hubs that is still impressive given the scope and limited budget given to the team. That said, its people, and especially that of its few children, are extremely less impressive. Dex, who is Jax and Carja's son, is horrifying, and seems more like a full-grown adult, albeit an ugly one, shrunk down. The rest of the cast doesn't favor as well, with a lot of reused character traits and some poor facial animations that looked like the team was trying to convey an emotional response but don't quite nail it.
The same goes with voice acting as the game has a lot of it, but little of it is great. You'll find some reuse of the same actor, but it's far less of a crime than something like Skyrim where every second character was seemingly voiced by Jim Cummings. There is a wide variety of good performances here, but no one really stands out, even with a marked improvement to what Jax's new voice actor brings to him. Also, I had numerous moments where Jax or one of his companions would randomly say something with no context and this happened constantly. I had one conversation with a central faction leader and before Jax could even reply, it cut to Carja and she said “Jax, you're making us look bad..” and I sat there puzzled as I hadn't even had the chance to respond or talk. This sort of thing happens less frequently than the random chatter, but when it does happen, it's very off-putting. I also had numerous moments where characters were referencing either the wrong choice I made in a previous quest or a thing I had yet to even do.
Elex II is certainly a game where you need to understand the difference between AAA capability and AAA ambition. Elex II, much like any other Euro-Jank game with a fraction of the budget when compared to any AAA venture, has its sights on delivering impressive worlds that while filled to the brim with passion, have a vast array of visual and technical shortcomings that can put off those looking for a more AAA approach and execution. These types of games never hit those highs, despite doing well to still make their adventures enjoyable. I adored my time with Elex II but I also approached this game having a good idea of what it was going to offer, and the experience I was going to have. So yes, Elex II is going to feel like an older experience to some, but to its core fan base, it’s a game that is going to satisfy those who, like myself, are beyond excited for the inevitable Elex III.
Developer - Piranha Bytes. Publisher - THQ Nordic. Released - March 1st, 2022. Available On - Xbox One/SeriesX/S, PlayStation 4/5, Windows. Rated - (M) Blood and Gore, Strong Language, Suggestive Themes, Violence. Platform Reviewed - Xbox Series X. Review Access - A review code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.