Elex

The biggest disappointment that I have with Elex isn't the poor control system, or the colossally horrific voice acting, or the overpowered enemies, or the character modeling from the 1990's. No, my biggest disappointment is that all, and I mean ALL, of these issues could have been addressed and refined if given two things: more time and more money. I feel that Elex could have been one of the best open world RPG games we have seen in quite sometime had it had the time and funding to develop into something wonderful, not just passable.

At the end of the day, when you have learned to cope with all the objections of the game, you are fascinated by the huge world of Elex, its contrasts and designs, but you realize that the problem goes beyond its aesthetics. It is all these mismatches and imbalances in combat and the general experience that end up leaving a bittersweet flavor in a game that has everything to offer a deep experience in the field of RPG.

Elex is a game that I like on a core and fundamental level. The exploration is fantastic and the world they created is this place that truly feels like a mixture of so many other games before it, yet it still stands out on its own to do its own thing. The mythology is interesting here but I tended not to care for any characters I met or myself, I had fun with the gameplay mechanics and world. This is still for the hardcore open world RPG fans that have been fans of PB before or able to accept games of this caliber knowing the plethora of issues that can occur. We know what to expect at this point, I just hope one day they can go past those expectations, keeping what makes their games great, and fixing more of what hold their games back.

A wildly ambitious fantasy fighter that's sadly lacking the fundamentals.

Despite my issues with the game though, my time with Elex isn’t over just yet. I do enjoy the world and the concept, so I am willing to see what else the game has to offer in this respect. It’s just unfortunate that the game’s combat and presentation haven’t received as much attention. Elex needed much more time in the oven to be the game its promising previews made it seem to be, and with the dearth of games available this winter, I can’t recommend it to anyone but the most hardcore fans of the genre.

Despite its colorful and interesting world, the game feels like a chore to get through because of these performance issues. While the frame rate isn't as bad as some other titles out there, in order to get engrossed in a title there can't be any technical distractions. Unfortunately, that isn't the case for Elex on Xbox One, and it doesn't matter how great the content is, the lack of polish is what will push consumers away.