I think it's rather weird how they (or their publisher, THQ) have decided to release this game at a time packed with several big releases. Instead, they could have delayed this release by a month or two and fixed at least a few bugs. It's like Piranha guys have given up on attracting a new player base, and they are just fine with keeping the current one. First Elex was also rather unknown to a wider player base.

“They took this desert and turned it into a desert” LOL corrected in post but got a chuckle doubletake outta me haha, great review.

IDK how you aren't much much bigger. Your review is amazing, and after scrolling through your videos I realized you do an initial review and then a 100% review. That is how a review should be and how game journalists used to review back when they had credibility. Thank you for the time you put into these. You deserve so much more notoriety for your work and I hope blow up soon.

I love your content. Thank you so much for your thorough and most of all HONEST reviews. You really strike the balance of being honest with your reviews without coming off as overly critical or nitpicky. For me, your reviews are like an oasis of quality in a desert of rants. Thank you!

ELEX was one of my most favourite games of all time I just loved the story and how brutal it could be. I got with Nasty joined the outlaws and then sided with the hybrid so it is cool to see them saying he took out the hybrid for Elex 2 and had a family .

Awesome vid. I’m about 25hrs into ELEX 2 and loving it. Elex 2 is/was my most anticipated RPG of the year! Massive upgrade from the first game. 😁

Glad that you managed to 100% this game! I played the first game a lot at launch, and while I did finish it, 100%ing would be impossible, as many quests bugged out, as well as some further faction progression. Good that the second game seems a bit more stable.

I don't even play 90% of the games you review. I just really enjoy your content. thanks!

I adore this franchise. I hope it gets a third.

After spending so much time in Elden Ring, it’s so weird to see a character just walk up to an enemy and whack it. No shield. No dodge. It just feels wrong lol.

This reminds me that I need to get around to finishing the first Elex. I definitely agree that I felt useless at level 1 in the first game. I found myself avoiding a lot of combat, using arrows when I had to fight something due to the ranged option being so much easier, and basically scrounging around the Berserker tutorial village until I got some torso armor and upgraded my health and stamina a bit. Love the idea of the jet pack though, and used and abused it often.

Morti you're a machine. I have no idea how you're able to 100% these games so quickly. Great job!

Since I'm still working through Elex, I'm going to save this one for later! Thanks for the vid!

I was waiting for this, thank you.

I just got elex 1 on a sale for xbox thinking it would probably suck but i liked the setting and overall look of the game and i also didnt know or played any games from piranha bytes. I was so wrong, im hooked on this game and i cant stop playing, even with is quirks and roughness around the edges im loving it, theres a charm to it idk. Great review! Ill definetely get elex 2 when i finish the first one!

Im about to finish my first playthrough, i managed to Max out all skill trees, turn myself into an invincible Morkon tank, i found all the rare weapons and Map pieces. Due to being mostly melee, i saved a lot of money, since i dont use any consumables/ammo, not even potions due to health regen skill and gemstones. I survive on 40% health bar or 505/1253HP due to Morkon skill to have speed, damage and attack speed buff up all the time.

Am I alone in feeling that the map, look's better graphically but the first games map was just a lot more memorable & filled with unique locations and better rewards for exploration?

You're really good at this! Hope you get more opportunities down the line :)

Just finished the game. Put 70+ hours into it. Finished at level 49 as a berzerker paladin, tho i didnt level up any of my berzerker magic and used shotguns for second half of the game lol. Besides the game crashing every time i attempted to fast travel in chapter 4, i had a very enjoyable play thru! Thanks for this video, great work.

Great review mate.

Beautiful review, keep up the good work! Subscribed!

I know I’m late but this game is very dear to me. Thanks for reviewing yet another awesome AA game, Mortismal!

Thank you for all the warnings, I haven't played the first one yet and intend to. Soon in fact. So I stopped the video at 1:28 I think. Again thank you Mortismal that really helps avoid ruining the surprise. Your reviews are great and I'm positive this one is too. Be well, and stay safe.

You are an absolute legend, 55 hours to 100% Elex 2!

I feel so lucky that PB are still making theses games, I will definately be getting the 3rd

How do you keep yourself motivated to play these games to 100%? i always got a difficult time to stick to games after a while.

Your channel is going places. I've spent a decade consuming content on this platform and I'm 100% sure of it. All you need to explode now is a hyped-to-hell-and-back rpg-ish launch (ie. skyrim/fallout, gta, dragon age/mass effect etc). Something that is capable of "going viral" as in 90% of views coming from non-subs with millions of total views.

PB is one of my favorite devs. Played the RIsen and Gothic games, as well as Elex. Despite some jank, they sure do know how to make a proper rpg. Looking forward to playing Elex 2.

Thanks for reviewing Elex 1 and 2 after 100%. I didn't like the critics review of either games. You hit the things I would actually care about to make my decision.

Do enemies scale to your level? I did some messing around and gave myself a million exp and I noticed that enemies were not dying after fighting them for an hour lol. I barely made a dent to their health.

I think it's a great game despite how janky it is, PB always had a particular philosophy surrounding their games, you either love it or hate it.

Thanks for this review. I just finished Elex last week, and I really enjoyed it, despite the jank, and I am looking forward to playing this one once it goes on sale. I will say, right off the bat, though, that I don't like how the dialog menus are this time round, and I also think the character faces aren't very good at all. Perhaps both will grow on me.

Informative and entertaining!

Would love to see your take on Two Worlds, but I know it might not happen.

Thanks Oracle !!! You are definitely one of the very best reviewers on the platform and a strong guide to others that really wants to dig and/or play one of those titles curated by you. I hope your wisdom inspire creators like you to enter the path, soon enough. May you wander in success this 2023 !!! @Mortismal

I have started playing the first one, and not sure if getting into it or not. A lot of jankiness. Is it worth carrying on, or jumping into the sequel, since your choices make no difference anyway.

Hi, I don’t know where to go or who can help but does anybody else have an issue with the amount of glow and glare on jaxs hands when using Alb magic? I’m on ps4 if that matters! If Someone knows how to contact the devs and make them aware I would be grateful!

As far as the price goes, I think your spot on, 49.99 is too high, 35 or 39.99 would be more accurate. I’m holding off due to the price and the fact that I would need to put up with the “jank ”. If it does come down in price on gog or steam, I will purchase!

Nice work man

I love this channel and your videos man. I highly recommend investing in a better mic for better sound quality. You deserve better!

Gotta admit you're really good at describing stuff which goes to show how good of a reviewer you are. 15:10 I couldn't have described Elex combat any better than this. Indeed, you do lots of cool stuff but the animations look rather clunky in a non smooth way unlike dark souls combat for example which is intentionally clunky yet smooth. Actually Risen 1 combat felt alot more smooth to me than Elex combat did and it was an older piranha bytes game as well soo..

Just finished my first playthrough, having ploughed my way through every Piranha Bytes game so far. Elex 2 is now my new favourite PB game, even though the Steam reviews were less than stellar. I thought the combat was great. Enemies show little intelligence, simply running towards you, then being aggroed by your companion. But using a blaster or the bow lets you stand off nicely, then when they arrive hit them with a couple of blasts of shotgun. For sure, melee was terrible, seemingly borrowed from the souls genre. The magic was disappointing, but I only tried the berserkers. The fireball is way too slow, and the shield confusing to use, and only available when you have the fireball armed. I ended up regretting my investment in magic, and I resorted to the weapons described above. The story was incomprehensible gibberish, with the most catastrophic outcome for one of the characters raising not an eyebrow from the closest character to them (trying to avoid spoilers here). Dialogue got more and more disjointed and bizarre the longer the game went on, with character motivations hidden beneath several layers of jank. What were the motivations of the main protagonist and antagonists? Well, despite the game throwing enormous amounts of speech my way, I have no idea. I mean, I could tell you what I was told, but it makes ZERO sense. There are many times where the game doesn't explain what to do, forcing the player to think things through. Usually the solution is clear enough, but once or twice I resorted to the Steam forums for help. All in all, a AA title bedeviled by jank, but still worth a shot, especially if you can pick it up cheap (which I did).

You should try Gothic if you liked Elex. Game is dated but the world building is pretty great.

Just out of curiosity, did PB just gave up on a narrative reason for Jax loosing all his abilities ? Usually they at least gave the player an excuse, even if it was flimsy at best. The game is currently on sale and after reading about his self inflicted exile (which allready is a big turn off for me) seeing that you have to start all over again as basically a nobody, I am seriously asking myself if playing as Jax`s child would have made more sense from an immersion standpoint (and it would have given the opportunity for a selfmade character)....

Just finished elex like an hour ago and thank you so much for this video. I absolutely loved Elex, Idk why this Studios games always pull me in so hard. Even with all the jank its a fun experience and you can tell it was made with love. Super excited to get elex 2 on a sale ofcourse lol. Looks like more elex with some quality of life improvements. Im down.

Are the Morkons a difficult faction for a first playthrough? I like their aesthetic a lot, but I read that they sacrifice health for abilities

Mortie you legend! What would i do without a Mortie daily dose !!

i gave this video a like and subscribe on the basis the reviewer actually played the game.

8:50 What's up with her hands? They forgot to animate them out of their default pose?

I've never wanted a game reviewer to start lets playing

Great review as always, but damn the sound quality of your ecording is all over the place, hard to listen to at places.

Great game I bought this and elden so I’ll def be busy for awhile

I am not done with Elden Ring, so I didn't install it yet, but I'll play it!

I purchased Elex 1 for $13 last week. It’s a fun game except the combat sucks. When Elex 2 has the bugs worked out and is $13 I might try it.

You are so fast, it's crazy

Bro, I'm in 50+ hours and I found combat honestly amazing and improvement over their older games, what you didn't like about it? I see you using shield on footage and I agree shield combat sucks, but just one handed and two handed weapons feels great. Shooting is not bad either.

Is there jankiness, especially around the combat?

i have treated first elex as great prototype for future releases now elex 2 after almost 144 h many mechanical improvements and more detailed world story feels weaker and shorter most quests are not accounted for how factions perceive you and because of that feel meaningless all this hyping on idea of creating new faction feels like a huge lie and lesson not learned since first game (and even a bit of regression) 1. outside of companions and initial mandatory characters i have found 3 recruits (one being at final chapter) 2. the only bigger set of recruits was with side faction at the end for final battle (felt like waste of effort) 3. main base is just a ruin that despite of initial quest to convince one guy to fix it remains a ruin (ruined walls and burned buildings and a lot of empty space and outside of typical full redecoration of players home there is nothing for main base 4. no nameless npcs to give artificial feeling that it is actual force and not just one warrior that can take everyone on his own (no workers or guards or farmers or trainers or merchants (just 3 limited and mandatory characters) 5, new treason mechanic that would be really interesting if not for a fact that it is mandatory and only way for recruitment to certain factions with skipp of all progression to highest rank making it all feal just like a really lazy and uninspired shortcut 6. and for f.sakes why is it so hard to understand that when character have helmet equipped it should remain equipped during conversations and cutscenes and everything 7. when you take path of renegade (which should be a default path) instead of being just a servant of other factions you don't get any new gear or skills (making me feel a really strong need for new game + option) in the end elex 2 feels like something made based on complaints made by people that mechanically didn't like anything about previous titles instead of next passionate project (a patch note instead of expansion) i simply can't give it more than 6/10 and if that's how they want to make new games then i give up on idea of any interest for release of third game ever

I am thinking of building Intelligence first to get the 2 AP skills for more experience and skill points per level.

Thanks for makinf this review i skipped elex 1 and just going to 2 and not feeling left out

I expected 2 be able 2 make Bastion bigger,stronger,a new and improved castle,and a village aswell,guards,traders,smiths,people doing their stuff all day,quests,and maybe creating a new faction and being a lord or king or something

Great video sir

Can this game be cheesed like the first game? I remember using energy weapons in the first one and after a while you can destroy everything with no difficulty, after that I lost interest in it. I really hope they balanced that out.

Please hold my automatic thumbs up, comment and support. Love the channel!

Was there a reason why the level of detail of the environments was so low? Even some of the npc/enemy models looks rough and textures used to bug out when cloth overlaps. I was able to add shaders (Natural Shaders on Nexus), but it still looked weird after. I was able to refund it, but still kinda sad.

Good show sir!

I liked the first Elex well enough and beat it but only got about 3/4 of the way through the second before I gave up. There were just too many bugs and the gameplay just didn't feel good.

I wanna play it but i would like the dev team to release a stability patch

Hummm. A Protagonist who is trying to pull everyone together to fight off an invasion that everybody knows is coming...can't place where I've seen that before...Piranha Bytes have been making games for awhile...anybody ever ask them why the don't fix the ' Jank " present in every game they make? Great review as usual. Well done.

Exalted Mortismal, i really love your content and all, but honestly you should do something about your mice. It is the only thing that i dont like about your content.

Looks very awesome

Didn't even know this game was out already lol

PB game series usually run in 3's. So a third game is very likely.

Jank: it's not a bug, its a feature.

fair review

soooooo when are you going to 100% Gothic 1 and 2? ;)

it's not yet official, but sadly there will most likely not be an Elex 3 - all employees of Piranha Bytes were laid of and Embracer is about to close the studio.

New generation gamers should understand "this is a Tribute to Gothic games" . My favourite rpg as a youngster was Gothic 3 which was a very hard game for an inexperienced new gamer back then, but we were used to having a hard time in gaming anyway (if u played tomb raider 1,2,3 u ll feel our pain).. -- About elext itself, i did not play the 1st, cause youtubers were too harsh so i waited for an improved sequel. I m glad i played elex 2, cause it is just like bringing a timecapsule oldschool game to the new gemeration's expectation. Iff i could use 1 world to describe the gameplay style, it would be "rustic", a word being given to something being old but with its own style. -- Should u buy it though? If u are not familar with gothic series, wait for a price % off deal and try it but keep expectations away from modern gaming. Consider it a time travel to a different gaming era. If u played a gothic game even once and enjoyed it , then elex 2 is a must have. as u ll know how to appreciate something that is not trying to be the next fortnite or the next elder scrolls game.

I've recently bought and played the original because of your review. It was a older, and cheaper, title that was quite nice. This one, however, I will definitively wait for a better deal

I actually really enjoyed this review. I agreed with almost everything said (the combat is a big improvement over Elex 1, although I've only just started playing it, so maybe there were a few patches that addressed issues since launch). It's really ironic that someone on Discord sent me the link to "prove" to me that Elex 2 is shit, when overall it sounds like nothing but positives haha

I enjoyed the first Elex as much as you did. Interesting world and setting to explore, engaging story. The second one lost me completely. Story was very weird, they just lore dumped a few times and the rest of the story (especially the son part) made no sense/was stupid. Not even sure if I'll play the 3rd one.

I really enjoyed Elex but this one I couldn't finish. The story/plot just has so many holes that it's immersion breaking and jarring at times. On a side note, the improvements to the gameplay are great.

I just wish they would make combat a little less janky.it would make the gameplay so much better

Combat is nowhere near Elden Ring but hey Elex has its own charm.

How is it for people who haven't played ELEX 1?

DON'T YOU DISS MY BOY ARX! He was so cartoonishly evil he'd make me giggle.

100% satisfied with the review.

Anyone else never going to play this game but have been waiting for this review 😂

Core combat remanins the same?! Dammit

jax was canonically berserker ...... when did that happened

The fact that in the previous title in the.series, Gothic series and Piranha Bytes games in general, the game didn't care about first level character meeting higher level mobs early in the game. It only made the world feel more real, more open world by making it more dangerous and lacking of the feeling of delibwrately paced game following and changing according to player all the time instead of character living in the real world that lives for itself and doesn't revolve around one guy. Once you leveled up and could kick more ass it also felt more rewarding. Overall; that was one of the things that made it shine among the other games. If you take that out of the game; then together with the clunkiness it will feel only like a cheaper generic common AAA open world rpg. Fortunately there is still that being in the same world albeit changed, jetpack, story and music so I will still play it but I'm disappointed that they've put scaling difficulty in the game. In Piranha games, you always start as a pushover. That was part of the feel

Best game of played this year. Similar to Fallout 4. An underated steal on sale.

I'm about 30 hours in and it's so much better than I thought it was going to be. **did not like Elex 1. Also got a key for $15.

Seems like a decent game... I've found it for £25... Do you think that's worth it?

Forgot to leave a like so i came back 👍. And the covid measures hit Piranha Bytes really hard! Much harder than they admit.

great game but i wait final release with all update...

you forgot to mention that the game is almost unplayable on amd cards

piranha bytes the only company that have that old rpg feeling. if only they had more personnel and money they would make the best rpgs easily

I had soooo much fun with this game 😂 and yes it’s janky as all hell but somehow good.

I think Elex 2 isn't bad but its very dissapointing. After Elex 1 i was very excited for the sequel and i was just hoping they would improve the combat. After Elex 2 im not really looking forward to Elex 3. Im not that into the story anymore. I think it got worse. Im annoyed by several characters. I also lost all my hopes that PB will ever be able to make a solid well balanced combat system... Really how can you repeatedly develop games with a big focus on combat without ever delivering a good combat system. I just don't get it...