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XEL

A game with a lot of potential bogged down by a plethora of bugs and atrocious dialogue & voice acting. Playable but far from enjoyable.
XEL Game Cover
43%Game Brain Score
gameplay, story
stability, optimization
37% User Score Based on 120 reviews
Critic Score 49%Based on 10 reviews

Platforms

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XEL Game Cover

About

XEL is a single player role playing game with fantasy and science fiction themes. It was developed by Tiny Roar and was released on July 12, 2022. It received neutral reviews from critics and negative reviews from players.

XEL is a 3D action-adventure game set in a sci-fi fantasy world, where you play as Reid, a shipwrecked stranger suffering from memory loss. Explore the mysterious world of XEL, uncover its dark past, and fight enemies while solving challenging puzzles. By purchasing the Save the World Edition, 10% of the proceeds will be donated to Sea Watch to help refugees at sea.

Genres & Tags
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+7
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37%
Audience ScoreBased on 120 reviews
gameplay16 positive mentions
stability43 negative mentions
  • XEL features a vibrant and colorful art style that creates an engaging sci-fi world, making exploration visually appealing.
  • The time travel mechanic adds depth to puzzle-solving and exploration, allowing players to interact with the environment in unique ways.
  • The game has a charming narrative with quirky characters, providing moments of humor and emotional depth.
  • The game is plagued by numerous bugs and technical issues, including game-breaking glitches that can lead to lost progress.
  • Combat mechanics feel clunky and unrefined, with limited enemy variety and repetitive encounters that detract from the overall experience.
  • Quality of life features are lacking, such as poor camera control, awkward keyboard bindings, and a confusing minimap that makes navigation frustrating.
  • gameplay
    76 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The gameplay in "xel" draws heavily from classic Zelda-style mechanics, featuring top-down exploration, real-time combat, and puzzle-solving, enhanced by a time-shifting mechanic that allows players to navigate environments in different states. However, the experience is marred by technical issues such as bugs, hit detection problems, and uneven difficulty, which detract from the overall enjoyment and fluidity of gameplay. While the game showcases ambition and engaging mechanics, many players find it suffers from a lack of polish and balance, leading to a frustrating experience at times.

    • “Drawing clear inspiration from classic Zelda-style gameplay, it aims to blend top-down exploration, real-time combat, and puzzle-solving with a futuristic twist.”
    • “A key mechanic in Xel is the ability to shift between different timelines, allowing players to explore the same area in multiple states—past and present—solving environmental puzzles and accessing new paths by switching between these timelines.”
    • “The gameplay mechanics are smooth and intuitive, with challenging yet accessible obstacles and enemies to overcome.”
    • “While there are boss fights that attempt to shake up the formula with more involved mechanics, they can also fall victim to the game’s sometimes finicky hit detection and uneven difficulty spikes.”
    • “Unfortunately, these high points are too often interrupted by bugs, underbaked mechanics, or pacing issues that slow the experience down.”
    • “Yet, in every aspect, it just does it with mediocrity because it isn't challenging, the story is subpar and brought down with horrific dialogue/no real motivation besides plot device, and lackluster gameplay which bugs out in just the worst places and ways.”
  • story
    69 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The story of *Xel* presents an ambitious premise centered around themes of identity, memory manipulation, and time travel, which some players found engaging despite its uneven execution. While the vibrant visuals and environmental storytelling enhance the experience, the dialogue often falls flat, and the narrative can feel repetitive and lacking depth. Overall, the story is seen as a mixed bag—intriguing yet marred by mediocre character development and pacing issues, leaving players with a sense of potential unfulfilled.

    • “It's an ambitious premise, and Xel strives to deliver a heartfelt experience by combining an emotionally driven story with engaging mechanics and a visually striking world.”
    • “The story introduces some intriguing ideas around identity, memory manipulation, and the nature of time.”
    • “The story is quite intriguing, if a bit slow to develop, with some nice character development among the main characters, but others are quite trivial and have a lot of meaningless stuff to say.”
    • “The dynamic between Reid and her robotic companion Chap is meant to anchor the story with personality and levity, but their conversations sometimes fall flat due to forced humor or repetitive exchanges.”
    • “Overall, the story is mediocre at best, with a few ups and many downs.”
    • “The story doesn’t really start to blossom until the halfway point of the game, as Reid uncovers the secrets to her lost memory and how she fits into the world of Xel, but even though the story wasn’t mind-blowing, it served as a nice way of gelling the gameplay together.”
  • stability
    43 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The game's stability is heavily criticized, with numerous players reporting a wide range of bugs and glitches that significantly disrupt gameplay, such as falling through the map, non-responsive enemies, and issues with save points. While some users experienced fewer problems initially, many found the technical issues to be pervasive and frustrating, leading to a lack of enjoyment and even prompting some to quit the game altogether. Overall, the game's stability is considered a major drawback, overshadowing its positive aspects.

    • “At its worst, it can feel underdeveloped or occasionally clunky, especially when glitches interfere with trigger points or puzzles don’t register as completed.”
    • “Not only is the game still full of bugs after all the patches already released: you still get stuck in random areas and have to reload from the last save-point; the screen goes black and freezes; even quitting the game sometimes doesn't work properly.”
    • “However, technical glitches in the Switch version make it difficult to enjoy at launch.”
  • graphics
    40 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The graphics of the game are generally praised for their charming and consistent art style, blending bright sci-fi elements with organic settings, creating an aesthetically pleasing world. However, many users report significant technical issues, including graphical glitches, pop-in effects, and performance dips, which detract from the overall experience. While the visuals are appealing, the presence of bugs and a lack of graphical options have left some players disappointed.

    • “The aesthetic blends bright sci-fi elements with organic settings, creating a world that feels both otherworldly and familiar.”
    • “Xel is a delightful 2D platformer with charming visuals and an engaging story.”
    • “The atmosphere is gorgeous, the music is beautiful, and the aesthetic of it all made me feel happy.”
    • “There are audio and graphic glitches (a lot).”
    • “Even on max settings, there are often things popping in near the camera and everything looks a bit too pixelated.”
    • “Frame rate struggles in busy scenes, gameplay and cinematic bugs undercut the game's potential, textures fail to load consistently, marring the visuals.”
  • music
    18 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The music in the game has received mixed reviews, with many praising its atmospheric and fitting qualities that enhance the overall experience, while others find it somewhat repetitive or out of place. Overall, the soundtrack is often described as beautiful and immersive, contributing positively to the game's aesthetic, though some players noted inconsistencies in how it aligns with the gameplay and art style.

    • “The music and sound effects are fantastic, immersing the player in the game's world.”
    • “The soundtrack and other sounds in the game also fit very nicely with the environments and visual style we see.”
    • “The atmosphere is gorgeous, the music is beautiful and the aesthetic of it all made me feel happy.”
    • “The music is kind of annoying and doesn't fit with the art style and gameplay.”
    • “Cutscenes look low quality and partly out of sync, the music feels out of place, lighting can switch very abruptly.”
    • “The music isn't anything to write home about.”
  • optimization
    10 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The optimization of the game has been widely criticized, with players reporting significant technical issues such as game-breaking bugs, rough animations, and inconsistent performance across platforms. While some users experienced decent frame rates, the overall experience is marred by glitches, poor design choices, and a lack of essential quality-of-life features, leading to a frustrating gameplay experience.

    • “I have this on Switch and PC, and the performance is nearly the same. If you don't go into it thinking it's going to be the new Wukong or Elden Ring, you may actually have a good time.”
    • “As for performance, there are dips here and there, and the graphical settings are very sparse, but I was constantly hovering around 50-60 FPS, so that isn’t an issue for me.”
    • “The performance on my old PC is really good.”
    • “Unfortunately, one of the most persistent issues with Xel lies in its technical performance.”
    • “Tldr: ok story/combat/exploration, but bad performance and game-breaking bugs.”
    • “Those things are true, but are buried in a huge amount of game-breaking glitches, bugs, bad design choices, awful balance in the difficulty of the boss fights, complete lack of critical 'quality of life' features like checkpoints, better placement of the save points, tutorials, really bad optimization, useless volume settings that even at 100% still feel 'low', and broken cinematics where characters literally get glitched in your face.”
  • humor
    10 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The humor in the game is a mixed bag, with attempts at witty dialogue and playful banter often veering into cringe territory, leaving players divided on its effectiveness. While some moments elicit genuine laughs, many find the humor forced or repetitive, and technical glitches add an unintended layer of comedy. Overall, the humor may appeal more to a younger audience, but it struggles to consistently land its jokes.

    • “The dialogue also seems to hit that gray area between 'funny' and 'cringe', and it's just the right amount of cringe to keep you interested and looking to find out more.”
    • “Plus, Reid's got a very dark sense of humor, need I say more?”
    • “A humorous touch is added to the dialogue and playful banter, and sometimes it ekes out a chuckle or two from me, but they are trying too hard to be funny, causing more cringeworthy moments than anything.”
  • grinding
    6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    Players have mixed feelings about grinding in the game; while some appreciate the rewarding exploration and engaging story, others find the combat and inventory management tedious. The need for material-grinding to upgrade gear is seen as a chore rather than an enjoyable aspect, detracting from the overall experience.

    • “Unfortunately, there isn’t a hotkey for consumables, and it becomes rather tedious accessing the inventory, then scrolling through the multiple snack items every single time I just want to chew on gum.”
    • “After deliberating on it, with its tedious combat, so-so storyline, and all-around buggy nature, I can’t in good conscience recommend it.”
    • “It's tedious and not fun.”
  • atmosphere
    4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    The atmosphere of the game is widely praised for its gorgeous visuals, beautiful music, and professional voice acting, creating an engaging and pleasant experience. However, some players note that frustrating moments can detract from overall enjoyment, despite the strong atmospheric elements.

    • “It has a nice atmosphere, pleasant music, and an interesting concept.”
    • “Xel looks gorgeous and has a nice atmosphere, with its pleasant soundtrack and professional-sounding voice acting.”
    • “The atmosphere is gorgeous, the music is beautiful, and the aesthetic of it all made me feel happy.”
  • emotional
    3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    Xel successfully combines an emotionally driven narrative with engaging gameplay and stunning visuals, creating a heartfelt experience that resonates with players. The game's atmosphere, complemented by beautiful music and aesthetics, enhances its emotional depth and overall enjoyment.

    • “It’s an ambitious premise, and Xel strives to deliver a heartfelt experience by combining an emotionally driven story with engaging mechanics and a visually striking world.”
    • “Narratively, Xel aims for emotional depth and mystery.”
    • “The atmosphere is gorgeous, the music is beautiful, and the aesthetic of it all made me feel happy.”
  • character development
    2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative

    Character development in the game is a mixed bag; while the main characters exhibit intriguing growth, some secondary characters feel trivial and lack depth. Additionally, players note that certain gameplay mechanics and aspects of character progression feel unfinished, detracting from the overall experience.

    • “The story is quite intriguing, if a bit slow to develop, with some nice character development among the main characters.”
    • “So many things feel unfinished: the crafting, some sort of character development beyond just gathering max HP and gadgets, an active quest tracker/quest log, and some gameplay mechanics had more potential.”
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49%Critics’ scoreBased on 10 critic reviews
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4h Median play time
4h Average play time
4-4h Spent by most gamers
*Based on 1 analyzed playthroughs
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Frequently Asked Questions

XEL is a role playing game with fantasy and science fiction themes.

XEL is available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Steam Deck and others.

On average players spend around 4 hours playing XEL.

XEL was released on July 12, 2022.

XEL was developed by Tiny Roar.

XEL has received neutral reviews from players and neutral reviews from critics. Most players liked this game for its gameplay but disliked it for its stability.

XEL is a single player game.

Similar games include Apex Construct, Downward, Hob, Eternal Edge+ Prologue, Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas and others.