This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Either way, Elex II has deleted any last goodwill I may have had for the studio and I really hope Elex III will either be done by a competent studio, or better yet, will never release. If it's purely cynicism trying to milk the remaining PB fans that keep hoping to have that Gothic-feeling again. If it's simply terrible project leads that time and again end up running out of time to deliver even the basics. If it's all because of their own outdated custom engine they refuse to let go. If they're trying to recreate Gothic despite not liking it. At this point I don't know what the problem is PB has. a trash indie game that has the audacity to ask for a AAA game price, while delivering an insulting game that could have been spat out by any random indie studio faster and better. It had the chance to lay a good foundation for a sequel that could really take off. And I liked Elex I, despite all its shortcomings. An unfinished, unpolished, janky hell of a game. A huge step down from what was a niche appeal to begin with. Even as Gothic/PB fan, this is a slap in the face. I can only assume that those are bought, same as the ones from the German review sites that name this as a great game. I honestly cannot understand the reviews that give this game a glowing recommendation. The end of the game (as well as the majority of quests) are literally "go there and kill X enemies" over and over and over. The story is an incoherent train wreck that dawdles for most of the game only to sprint into the finale and throw twists at you. Loot is slightly better but still meaningless overall.
Any kind of emotion that PB wants to create is lost in atrocious writing, terrible timing and involuntarily funny moments. It's supposed to be a core gameplay item that you build a relationship with your son (btw you have a son now), who, by the timeline of the game, must be 5 at most, but talks like a teenager using a small child's voice.
They added children and wrote them in the most obnoxious and cringeworthy way. Conversations jump between topics, NPCs suddenly start mentioning things completely unrelated or change their voice. Writing took a turn for the worse and is now complete trite and nonsensical - on top of that it seems there was nobody looking over the finished dialogue trees. The world is once again large but mostly devoid of anything interesting. Instead, it massively improved the jet pack (that really is a lot of fun now) and dropped the ball on everything else. I had hoped that Elex II would build on the strengths (world design, interesting factions and their relations to each other) and polish out the weaknesses (janky animations, useless jet pack, clunky combat and overall presentation). Overall story was fine, nothing groundbreaking, but presentation was hit-and-miss with PB trying too hard to sell an emotional story while lacking the ability to write one. Loot was 90% literal junk item, that you could simply sell and rarely use for some crafting. It mostly suffered from a world that was way too large and mostly filled with nothing. Dialogues and characters were sometimes funny, sometimes a bit off, but overall reminiscent of Gothic in their blunt but endearing manner. I found the combat system to be a bit clunky but serviceable once you understood how it worked (not that the game did a good job of relaying that to you). It mostly suffered The first Elex was unpolished but had some decent ideas and an alright world. The first Elex was unpolished but had some decent ideas and an alright world.
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