ELEX Thread

[Tadeusz]

What games would yous recommend to someone who's never played anything Piranha and in what order to see if it is something up to my taste?

Gothic 1 and 2 are their most iconic games so they are a must if you want to get the feel of Piranha games. I wouldn't say that they are hard but they need some consistency in the skill points distribution (dispersing skill points is a bad idea, you'd better stick with a certain class).

[Rand]

ELEX is easier, but I also don't think it's a good first PB game for other reasons.

Can you elaborate as to why?

One reason is you have to choose between three factions.
Not an issue, but it affects your playstyle very significantly.
There's melee-magic faction, semi-melee + heavy-weapons faction, and guns-guns-guns faction.
And some are a lot harder than others.

It's quite a bit different to play from a lot of the other games in some ways.

[Rand]

What games would yous recommend to someone who's never played anything Piranha and in what order to see if it is something up to my taste?

Gothic 1 and 2 are their most iconic games so they are a must if you want to get the feel of Piranha games. I wouldn't say that they are hard but they need some consistency in the skill points distribution (dispersing skill points is a bad idea, you'd better stick with a certain class).

Gothic 2 is hard. If you play the most common revised version, it's very hard.
And I don't mean modern hard. I mean 2000s Eurojank level hard. Mega Man style unforgivingly hard.

[Maledict]

One reason is you have to choose between three factions.
Not an issue, but it affects your playstyle very significantly.
There's melee-magic faction, semi-melee + heavy-weapons faction, and guns-guns-guns faction.
And some are a lot harder than others.

It's quite a bit different to play from a lot of the other games in some ways.

That sounds great, actually. I'll whitelist it for when I've money.

I dislike magic and I prefer melee. Is it the hardest to play faction?

[Rand]

I dislike magic and I prefer melee. Is it the hardest to play faction?

You really can't mix and match and play the game.
If you go with the naturefag melee magic faction, you'll gimp yourself hard without using their magic.
You probably want to join the techno-fascist faction. You can focus on melee, but you have the big boomers for extra help as needed.
Avoid the scrap bandit faction.

[Maledict]

I dislike magic and I prefer melee. Is it the hardest to play faction?

You really can't mix and match and play the game.
If you go with the naturefag melee magic faction, you'll gimp yourself hard without using their magic.
You probably want to join the techno-fascist faction. You can focus on melee, but you have the big boomers for extra help as needed.
Avoid the scap bandid faction.

Sorry, I don't understand. You said there is a melee faction, but then talk about mixing.

Also, you've mentioned fascists. Are those the gunners?

[Rand]

There are three factions:
Berserkers - low-tech melee heavy, but they also depend on magic for powerful abilities. They hate technology.
Clerics - high tech with a mix of tech melee and energy weapons, with a few psi abilities.
Outlaws - some melee, but mostly guns and explosives and drug boosters.

[rusty_shackleford]

melee in PB games sucks, always has

[Tadeusz]

Gothic 2 is hard. If you play the most common revised version, it's very hard.
And I don't mean modern hard. I mean 2000s Eurojank level hard. Mega Man style unforgivingly hard.

Perhaps but the game also provides plenty of tricks to offset this difficulty.

[rusty_shackleford]

I didn't find Gothic 2 very difficult TBH

[Maledict]

There are three factions:
Berserkers - low-tech melee heavy, but they also depend on magic for powerful abilities. They hate technology.
Clerics - high tech with a mix of tech melee and energy weapons, with a few psi abilities.
Outlaws - some melee, but mostly guns and explosives and drug boosters.

But which are fascists?

[Old One]

Here's the order in which you should play the games:
Gothic 1
Gothic 2
You can play Gothic 3 if you want. It's okay but it's a significant departure from the first two. It does continue the story, for better or for worse.
Risen 1
You can play Risen 2 & 3 if you want to, but they're not as good as the first one.
Elex
You can play Elex 2 if you want to, but it's not as good as the first one.

Archolos you should try if you want more Gothic.

Some people say Gothic 1 has bad controls, but that's not true. It has its own non-standard control scheme that needs to be learned - once you learn it it works great. Gothic 2 is only hard at the beginning the first time you play it because you have no idea what's going on. Anyway, it's the good kind of hard and not the bad kind of hard.

[rusty_shackleford]

Risen 2 & 3 are way, way above Elex 2. They have funny writing and some good parts, all Elex 2 had was the jetpack.

[Rand]

Gothic 2 is hard. If you play the most common revised version, it's very hard.
And I don't mean modern hard. I mean 2000s Eurojank level hard. Mega Man style unforgivingly hard.

Perhaps but the game also provides plenty of tricks to offset this difficulty.

That new players don't know and won't figure out because the first REALLY tough enemy seems unbeatable.
You have to either cheese it massively or know that you have to do dodge and tiny 3% damage stab 35 times, perfectly. Because that's "fun".

I'm talking about the first orc in the cave which is WAY too tough for being 10 steps out of the city gate. Before the revision it was tough but not insanely difficult.
But there are others. Like the two bandits that went from being defeatable to you "saving" the villagers by running around to stay alive while they kill them. Heroic.

[lucky-SVLLa]

The melee system in Risen 1 is decent, but I prefer defeating enemies with bare hands. Unarmed combat is just so satisfying. Okay, just kidding about that earlier, but at least in the early stages of Risen 1, unarmed combat seems feasible

[Tadeusz]

I'm talking about the first orc in the cave which is WAY too tough for being 10 steps out of the city gate.

He's not supposed to be beaten in the early game I assume. Early levels are hard by design and most enemies can overpower the player so it's necessary to be clever and do some easier quests first to acquire skill points and better gear.

[Rand]

I'm talking about the first orc in the cave which is WAY too tough for being 10 steps out of the city gate.

He's not supposed to be beaten in the early game I assume. Early levels are hard by design and most enemies can overpower the player so it's necessary to be clever and do some easier quests first to acquire skill points and better gear.

It's in the cave with the town portal reciever which you are meant to use.
It's meant to be beaten, except a new player can't do it 99% of the time.
And the last 1% figure out to flee from his attacks and kite him to the guards at the gate, forfeiting all experience points and probably the loot as well (NPCs loot fallen foes for themselves).

Again, it was far less bad in the original design, but the maniac section of the fanbase said it was "too easy" because you could defeat an enemy without Mega-Man level total focus to perfect combat and they did a "re-balance" where it's hard AF.

[lucky-SVLLa]

Risen 1 is far superior to Risen 2 and Risen 3. Risen 3 is slightly better than Risen 2, but still far inferior to the first one

[lucky-SVLLa]

There are three factions:
Berserkers - low-tech melee heavy, but they also depend on magic for powerful abilities. They hate technology.
Clerics - high tech with a mix of tech melee and energy weapons, with a few psi abilities.
Outlaws - some melee, but mostly guns and explosives and drug boosters.

But which are fascists?

It might be Albs?

[lucky-SVLLa]

When discussing Piranha Bytes style games, I think Gothic 1, Gothic 2, and Archolos are definitely the best, with Risen 1 being slightly inferior.


ELEX is much weaker than Risen 1, but still quite fun for hardcore RPG fans.


Gothic 3 is weaker than ELEX because it was never finished; therefore, mods are essential to play.


The other games are even worse. But if I had to choose, I would pick the ELEX 2 instead of the Risen 2 & 3.


If you want to torture yourself, you can try Gothic 4.


It's hard to say whether Gothic Remake will be good or bad, or just a mixed bag of experiences.

[rusty_shackleford]

Archolos is the best and it's not close. Such an incredibly good game.

[lucky-SVLLa]

@lucky-SVLLa are you looking for a game more similar to ELEX, War Logs, or just eurojank in general?

How should I put it? I already own quite a few rpgs/crpgs that are considered Eurojank, and I even think some isometric CRPGs made by Europeans can be considered to have the Eurojank spirit. So I think I know most of the more mainstream ones. What I'm looking for are more niche games, similar to ELEX or Eurojank in general

Although it was not produced by a European studio, Outward could indeed be classified as a Eurojank game, and I appreciate it for what it is. However, apart from the combat, it isn't heavily inspired by Piranha Bytes' style. As such, while Outward isn't truly similar to Piranha Bytes' titles, it still fits within the broader Eurojank genre. That said, its survival elements are fairly solid and contribute to the overall experience.

[lucky-SVLLa]

Interestingly, under very hard difficulty, I found ELEX to be harder than Gothic, but ELEX's difficulty is more about broken difficulty or broken systems and design— the kind of difficulty that frustrates players. Since Risen 2, their games have become increasingly broken. Gothic 3 was very broken because it was unfinished, but the later two Risen games, despite having ambitions obviously smaller than Gothic 3, are very broken as well.

The first two Gothic games and the first Risen were noticeably less broken.

The first ELEX is actually Piranha’s attempt to return to the scale of Gothic 3. I actually prefer Gothic’s fantasy theme, but ELEX has that strange kind of charm. ELEX is very broken, far more than Piranha’s earlier titles, yet the magic that keeps pulling you back into this world is still enormous.

If I were to boldly give an assessment, in the field of broad cRPGs (loosely defined), in the past 2015-2025 period, ELEX is one of the rare games worth playing, leaving aside those isometric ones.

[lucky-SVLLa]

I think ELEX is quite possibly one of the games I both love and loathe the most