Right from the moment you start, ELEX II feels like a game from a bygone era… and not in a good way. Featuring a protagonist who has fewer hair polygons than an early-2000s CGI movie character, glacial pacing, and unremarkable combat, the sequel to 2017’s middling game is a janky and boring slog at best, and often devolves into a downright unplayable experience that reeks of clumsy design.

If you’re unfamiliar with the franchise from GOTHIC and Risen devs Piranha Bytes, ELEX II takes place on a post-apocalyptic alien world that is under attack from the alien Skyands, a plot that it doubles down on by also launching an assault on your eyeballs with its clash of colours and numerous glitches. Despite looking like it wouldn’t even be a contender for best graphics in 2007, the game was an absolute slog to play through on Xbox Series X, with frame rates stuttering worse than King George VI before delivering a public speech.

Clunky graphics may be easy to forgive if the gameplay can hold up, but unfortunately, ELEX II drops the ball in this department as well. While the addition of a fully-customizable jetpack might be a great idea, it’s held back by all manner of problems that makes a dull gameplay session frustrating, repetitive, and cheap feeling. I’m not even going to bother fully articulating my thoughts on this, so I’m going to drop a list of issues that I had with the game, which at times feels more punishing than playing Dark Souls 3 while blindfolded and hanging upside down over a ravine of ravenous crocodiles.

  • The stamina system is an absolute mess that allows for no seamless transition between offense, evasion, and defense
  • Shields are functionally useless for a large portion of the game
  • The hit-boxes make absolutely no sense at all with their sizing and placement
  • Every enemy has the intelligence of fresh roadkill and will regularly attack the air around you for cheap hits
  • Enemies also have a ludicrous amount of hit points that makes each battle meander on for far too long
  • There’s no point in building a ranged character due to the tight-fisted lack of ammo or the strict requirements to craft that resource
  • You’re going to need to run for the hills if you face multiple opponents, because the combat system falls apart quicker than a Flat-Earth Society debate against geologists
  • Rampant padding for time by characters in the world, that makes Final Fantasy VII Remake look like a brief jaunt in comparison
  • Character dialogue reads like it was written by a tween who just discovered slurring

And on and on it goes. The best compliment I can give to ELEX II is that it was released in the same window as Elden Ring, and makes the new From Software game look even better by comparison. The rest of the game, and the dozens of hours I committed to it while watching my brain cells slowly diminish, is just a living embodiment of straight-up not having a good time, bro. European RPGs can be great–just look at The Witcher for example–but ELEX II feels like a textbook example of what not to do in this genre.

Even when it does reveal some positives, such as some great alien designs, every step forward is met with stiff resistance from the other elements which send you flying back several hundred thousand treads into 2005 with its plodding clumsiness. Rather go grab a copy of The Surge 2 or Dying Light 2, to get a feel for European design on a higher level.


ELEX II review

While RPGs which harken back to an older era of gaming can be fun and should be celebrated, ELEX II brings archaic elements from that time with it into the modern era, scuppering any goodwill that it might generate with its quirkier elements. Its hamstrung by numerous other flaws in its design that makes the game devolve into a Frankenstein’s monster of late gameplay additions and unnecessary busywork.

 4
ELEX II was reviewed on Xbox Series X