Everspace to put it simply, it’s amazing but if I ended a game review with a simple sentence I’d probably never get to review another title again. The game takes a page from other great space combat games most notably Star Fox in its combat, not counting doing a barrel roll through. The controls for combat are very fluid with an option to increase the sensitivity to make things easier on both veterans of the genre and newcomers.
One of the best features of the game is the ability to change the difficulty before you begin a play-through. So if you are having issues you can set it too easy which just decreases the number of credits you get as you play through, but this can be rectified by putting all the credits you do own into the perk which enables you to find more credits which lead to increasing your threshold of money but keeping it on an easier mode.
Speaking of perks found in most RPGs or ARPG’s are skill trees and although this is definitely NOT a Role-Playing game it does carry over that element, with the ability to perk out one of three ships so you can progress through the game easier and accomplish the mission you sent out to do. Now you expect that after you die you would re-spawn back at your base of operations and in this instance, you are not far from the truth.
However, the game does play off the fact that you did indeed die and one of the main focus points of this game is that you are the clone of the man who created you. So every time you die a new clone of yourself takes over and you got to start your adventure all over again venturing into space straight from sector one, much like the Star Fox games of old on the Super Nintendo and the Nintendo 64, the game is not very forgiving in this respect.
Not to mention it’s not very forgiving either when it comes to equipping your ship with better equipment. Although you can pick up blueprints and new colors as well as you are venturing through the game, not to mention finding better weapons. You never get to keep the weapons you equip and find only the blueprints and color schemes. This is all well and good but all the items you can make or store are only found in stages and you only build better weapons or equipment during a stage and do not launch into battle with them.
This is quite tedious as you got to mine materials during stages, hopefully, while you are not being attacked, and then proceed to the crafting screen to make your new equipment, not to mention that while you are crafting you got to ensure you also have enough materials left just in case a crucial function of your craft goes out.
Finding materials to keep your ship going is crucial to the gameplay, and on one particular run my life support went out with it failing and not being able to get the materials in time I spun out and blew up ending my current run. So knowing and having a balance between materials, and items you want to craft is crucial if you want to go for long runs.
However though the biggest issue I tend to encounter is getting fuel for my ship to make jumping easier between sectors and stages. You can attack the neutral NPCs to get fuel but then for the entire sector they will all come after you making getting to the end game much harder for yourself, so you really got to choose your battles. Because they will occasionally aid you in fighting the various enemies you will encounter as you play through.
All this together helps make Everspace though one of the best action/space combat games I have ever played. With the opportunities to make my ship how I want, a selection of various enemies I can fight, and countless ways I can customize my ship for combat. All while adding a reason to explore all the sectors you visit and adding anomalies to make the space combat even more thrilling, such as lightning storms, in space!
The great soundtrack, compiled with the well-driven story and beautifully drawn cutscenes makes Everspace a game I can’t put down. I hope whatever the studio is doing right now involves a sequel and fixing the occasional crashing bug on the Xbox One. All in all, even with that bug specifically. This game is one I would recommend to everyone. Regardless if you are new to the genre or a veteran of the genre Everspace is a game everyone can enjoy.
An autistic gamer with opinions on games who also enjoys making dumb videos on the internet!
