Everspace is amazing!

[Arvandor]

Anyone who hasn't tried it, should probably try it, or look into it.

It's an arcadey 3D action space shooter rogue-like. Yep. It's exactly as awesome as that sounds. I love it a lot.

[Mischief Maker]

I wrote a longform review for Caltrops.com that never ended up getting frontpaged here.

Definitely the prettiest space game I've yet played.

[Arvandor]

I read your review. Very spot on and well-written, for the most part! The only thing I take issue with is the "unlock-cancer". Everspace rewards skill over the rogue-lite upgrade elements, and the upgrades are mostly fairly minor, in the grand scheme of things. There are a pair of videos on youtube of a very skilled player starting a fresh save, clearing the game on his first attempt with the Interceptor, and then dumping all his credits into the more credits perk, and beating HARD mode on his second run with a completely unupgraded scout. It's fairly rogue-like in how much luck can make or break a run, but it's MUCH more gentle than most, and good piloting skills, knowledge of the game, and intelligent device/consumable use make a much larger impact than pilot and ship perks.

Then there's also "hardcore" mode, which is all rogue-like and no rogue-lite. You technically start out with certain pilot and ship perks unlocked, but they're pretty minimal, then you can unlock more ship perks between sectors, and are also forced to choose between a pair of handicaps (which range from mildly annoying to "Oh god why") for the next sector. I got to Sector 6 last night in a Sentinel before I had to go to bed. I'm excited to see if I'll be able to manage a clear!

[Mischief Maker]

Well that's why I said it may not be a negative for everyone.

[Arvandor]

True enough. Rogue-likes in general are a downside for many people ;P I actually really like Rogue-lites too though, because I like upgrade progression games (like Diablo and whatnot), so Rogue Legacy and Everspace are both awesome. I *really* need to play Invisible Inc too still.

[m.sniffles.esq]

Heads up department: I just saw that GOG is selling this for a dollar

It is WELL worth a dollar

[guigui]

Have it on the NSW, but never gave it the time it deserved I guess.

I read that Everspace 2 is released, but with usual RPG and exploration gameplay. Anyone tried it too ?

[m.sniffles.esq]

I was not nearly as fond of Everspace 2 as the original. Opinions about this vary, so my word certainly isn't the last.

Spoiler

On the surface, I preferred the original's '70s Prog album cover' graphical style more than the sequel's '70s comic book' look

As for gameplay, I found the original's rougelike structure to be MUCH more engaging than the 'soulslike' structure of the sequel. When a run ended in the original, you received the ability to feed the upgrade tree. But you also received knowledge, which proved just as valuable (if not moreso). "Man, if I get into that situation again, I should do this instead". You're actually forced to think.

Replaying the same 6 minutes over and over trying different shit until something works doesn't teach you anything except how to surmount the thing directly in front of you.

I also liked the mystery aspect of the original. In that, you never knew what you'd be warping into, what problems it would pose, and what rewards you could potentially extract from it. And having the knowledge that you'd probably wouldn't be seeing exactly the same situation ever again made it feel important. Nothing feels very important if you can just try again (or 50 more times) if you screw up.