When Eternal Space 2 I was a little worried when I was discovered. The original game was my favorite, but it was a “less is more” game. Everspace 2 promises RPG-like mechanics, loot and some other elements, and I am worried that these elements may bloat it unnecessarily.
Now that it’s close to the final Early Access version-it went on sale on Monday-and I can safely say that my worries are misplaced.
Everspace 2 feels like the perfect sequel. From visual effects to scale and scope, all conventional benchmark upgrades have been completed, but the biggest victory of the game lies in how its various components are meaningfully constructed on the basis of the original version. Explore. The first Everspace is like a gangster. It surrounds dungeons that are essentially dungeons. The space between them is very limited. On your way to the boss, they all jump between them. After death, you will be placed in a different layout, facing different enemies and challenges-quite typical things.
I like it very much, but the frustrating nature of the rogue class prevents me from really getting into trouble. I want a sense of freedom and clarity of progress; take my ship anywhere in the system, establish alliances and make enemies. After all, this is a game played in space, so it never really makes sense to make the environment feel so manufactured or bound by it.
Everspace 2 eliminates rogue-like settings, although it does not completely eliminate all these elements. The sequel instead gives you a ship and the promise of exploring open space through multiple systems. Before that, your first playground is the startup system, which contains multiple departments, among which many attractions and activities are to be done. Sometimes these missions come in the form of treasure hunts or hunting missions, and sometimes they are painful signals that you may find in the warp, or are auxiliary tasks that open unique missions and gain opportunities favored by the game faction. This time, more emphasis was placed on the story, so the morning shift was surprisingly written. Here, you will learn the basics of the world and the mechanics of ships.
But soon, Everspace 2 really opened up and showed its true self as a space action RPG.
The composition of each system has not changed much from the original configuration. You will still encounter direct actions, hidden vessels in the sunken ship, puzzles and a mixture of many other secrets. But the quality of each of them has been greatly improved. I encountered several big problems, and it took me a few minutes to figure it out and implement it. Even the large corpses you infiltrate are much more diverse, and the environment usually tells your own little story.
Procedural generation is still one thing, what it is to control which changes in the variables you encounter, this is very helpful for diversity. Everspace 2’s transition to openness does encourage exploration, and this is the most influential change in the game. It also makes a surprisingly good mix of procedural generation and makes it closer and closer to becoming a modern freelancer.
But Everspace 2 is exciting in other ways. This time the loot is an important part of the game. Yes, this means that you will usually get an item that is almost identical to the item you own, with only a blue banner (rare) instead of a gray banner (rare). Obviously you will be in trouble, or you will get some new prefixes, but this is still the same space laser.
There is no solution, but the way Everspace 2 implements this very familiar system has never been out of experience. First of all, the loot was emitted at a moderate speed, which kept me interested in the process, and carefully weighed my options every time I fell. What’s more interesting is that the game manages to make low-level items get one or two good scores in general attributes. The items I see are rarely thrown away immediately, which is usually a problem with loot games. You can even upgrade your existing load to supplement the materials obtained by removing excess loot.
Everspace and its sequel reveal the different components of any given spacecraft. This is another layer that allows plunder, not just new weapons and shields. This is an opportunity for theoretical design and construction of diversity, so unfortunately, it is currently impossible to save custom add-ins or favorite items.
However, Everspace 2’s greater scope and scale are not without problems. Although you have far fewer restrictions on where to go and what to do, transitioning between different planets is still ancient. Whenever you leave a sector, you will encounter two loading screens; one at the beginning of the warp and the other before reaching the final destination.
These are detailed worlds, usually full of discoveries, so I understand why it happens, but I can’t help but want to distort Was originally The loading screen makes travel smoother. Every area in the game even has a physical advantage, it will warn you and turn the spaceship back when you get too close. These problems may be resolved when the game “Early Access” graduates a year later, but now, there is still a lingering feeling that you are jumping between different levels instead of exploring space.
This may explain why you can only save manually on the workstation. The game is also automatically saved whenever you enter a new location, but I still want to save it manually at any time. Indeed, I have passed away several times and then come back to find the same area occupied by completely different activities. I think this is the cost of program generation.
The user interface and front end also cannot fully keep up with the larger focus of exploration, or every location will throw you a lot of new projects. In “Everspace 2”, the “List” screen is easier to appear and more descriptive, but you don’t have enough space to hold everything you need. If you are not interested in scrapped or discarded items, you must go to the trader to unload the goods.
You can develop an upgrade program to return the excess cargo to the base, but it won’t appear until the game gets deeper. Even then, you still need to ship the items in the hangar to the merchant to actually sell the damn thing. The good news is that the game (usually) indicates which items are needed for the task/project, so it is difficult to get rid of what is needed.
Obviously, upgrading your cargo hold or buying a new ship altogether will inevitably expand your options, but depending on how you play, it may take some time to get there.
Similarly, some other features make the transition look the same as the original game. You still have to be very close to objects to interact with them. Tractor beam cargo and floating interactive objects are still very picky. Of course, part of the reason is the nature of spatial inertia, but this could be better.
These UI issues will also continue to the battle and target HUD. The initial game may be very busy, with more than one icon on each enemy aircraft. When three or more clusters are together, I still find it difficult to concentrate on a single target in Everspace 2. Use other colors or completely unique icons when locked.
I also hoped to make some improvements to the battle in the sequel, but the movements of Everspace 2 are largely similar to the original ones. Although it feels satisfactory, it usually feels sloppy and inaccurate. I think the battle will become more interesting with the development of new weapons and ships, but so far this is still a dance of crossing the shield and switching to another weapon to cause kinetic damage.
The functions in Everspace 2 are almost in complete state. Although I think the asking price is a bit high-especially considering that your progress may not continue to the finished game-this is not an early access game that you have to complete in five hours. Even if only part of the story is completed, the playable space and the programs generated on the side missions and locations provide good replayability.
Everspace has always been an easy-to-access and continuously fun space shooter, and the sequel can only really enhance this-and there are so many places to play.
