EVERSPACE

Everspace is Faster Than Light realized in full 3D, with engaging dogfighting mechanics and flexibility that allows a variety of playstyles. Advice to new players.... Be prepared, be aggressive and maximize every sector.
The graphics are quite nice, the random generation means you're not studying the game environment to learn how to overcome the challenge like a parrot, instead its an introflective experience of mastering the arts of ship control, management and defense and self-improvement.
Because of the random generation of course it means many sectors are populated with miscellaneous 'space junk', asteroids, wrecks etc.... Although effort has been made to ensure enough variable elements to make the visual engagements unique and the challenge each sector poses as unique, which requires keen analytical and assessment skills from the player to overcome the challenges as they identify them.
The looting mechanics from each sector is super rewarding, with each upgrade acquired adding a tangible dimension to your charge to the end, with a feeling of 'ok I got this thing now, this is gonna make my life better in a few ways going forward.' I leave some criticism for the cheap mechanic of forcing you to move on when you loot too much from one sector, forcing an unbeatable fleet to charge the sector and send you fleeing onwards to the next...
Just like limited inventory space, a fairly common game mechanic, one asks the question: "What would the game be without the mechanic?" because why, it effectively place a hard cap on the limit of looting, ultimately meaning that the reward for extensive looting, the name of the game in essence as you assemble the perfect run, you ultimately hit a shoe-horned, artificial ceiling of the game just not wanting you any stronger than you are right now, so you have to move on.
However, with enough piloting skills and gains spread across multiple sectors, you'll still benefit from efficiency and extensive looting. Even later, there are ways the game removes some of these limitations just due to the sheer difficulty of the challenge that offsets the removal of these limits. So, overall, I think the game takes steps to mitigate this limitation that many rogue-likes fall foul of.... Something which many players are not savvy to and a weakness of many rogue-like games.
The story is there, it makes sense, somewhat sparingly scattered throughout the experience, with decent premise and world-building. Even in new game plus, the game carries the momentum of motivation.
What happens though in the evolution of the Everspace experience is that the game transcends itself to 'Its just me, my ship and the open road', which is something you usually say for many of your favorite games, which makes it an awesome comfort food experience which I enjoyed very much.
Which means yes, the protagonist has their own story going on, but so do you, the story of building yourself up to overcome the ultimate challenge. :)
Also... sometimes you dont wanna spend $70 in every genre of gaming out there every time you feel the itch for something different, so the sale price of the game is attractive. I believe the sequel has its own thing going with full story mode and RPG elements, I actually think the rogue-like and randomization elements served this game well.
This is also a 2017 release like after No Man's Sky came out etc and a lot of other space games came out since that has arguably raised the bar in the industry, so the question can be asked how this game holds up in its genre in light of that, personally I think the premise is solid and it does a lot of things right that it remains strong enough to be its own thing.
Is it too late to request a toggle for the aggressive visual implementation of consumable effects maybe? Since damage limiter and damage booster usage result in a fisheye lens effect of blocking out 80% of your peripheral vision, I played most of the game without them, and seemed like a small oversight in quality-of-life.
Not that it detracted too much from the overall experience, although cycling through equipment with a single key one by one to get to the correct one slightly compounded this issue.

Fun arcade-y style roguelite space ship game. This is what I thought Elite Dangerous might be, but that game requires too much "technical" knowledge of the game and ship for it to be enjoyable to me. This game I can hop-in, play for a few hours, step away for awhile, and be able to jump right back in when I'm ready.

Game definitely worth taking a flyer on for a buck fifty... the whole galaxy is your shooting gallery!

~ I started with the Encounters DLC so I'm not really sure what's base game or not, but the DLC is definitely worth buying for all the extra stuff ~

Something that always seemed to be missing in the 6DoF genre was large, open space maps with a few bits of terrain to hide behind, in contrast to all the cramped tunnel mazes. This game does exactly that with giant, often gorgeous and somewhat-randomly generated asteroid fields dotted by wrecks and junk. Even after seeing hundreds of the huge areas, I was only sometimes noticing repeat structures.

Perhaps as a necessary element for an open field game where enemies can shoot you from anywhere, they've leaned into being a deadly roguelite action experience. In this sci-fi setting full of alien races and robots, you have “infinite” lives and just as many single-fighter ships. You can buy permanent perks after each run, but anything not spent is lost.

Each run starts relatively easy but soon there'll be mines around things you want, tougher foes like giant ships and weird space creature, and menacing natural hazards from black holes and solar storms. Luckily there's a lot of friendly NPCs to meet along the way, starting with the local neutral mining corporation that offers trading and will fight anyone, and later a colorful cast of weirdos who give you missions and can start jumping in to fight alongside you.

There's four ships to choose from: the basic all-rounder Interceptor, the speedy Scout which can get a better sensor range and jump faster, the tanky Gunship that can install turrets and improve drones, and the smart Sentinel that can hack faster and install more mods. Additionally, the four ships each have up to three starting loadouts, and can be further improved from the start by finding powerful enhancements to install or with perks to grant extra equipment.

Primary weapons come in a nice variety for different styles of play. You might have one with strong hull damage and another with strong shield damage where you switch back and forth as needed, while other weapons do both types well enough and hit instantly. There are extremely strong short range weapons for those who get good at dodging or have a strong shield, the heat-seeking weapons and shotguns are fun to use but ineffective, the super long range rifle requires some skill but can take out enemies before they know you're there, and a few have area splash which works great on foes flying in tight formation. They all use energy to fire and can be strengthened in a number of ways.

Secondary weapons range from the basic auto-guided missiles and strong dumb bombs to the beautiful missile spam battery and giant electric storm. The one I used most was the shield-ignoring corrosion missile because it could kill almost any small shield-reliant ship with one hit.

Next there's a large variety of fun tech, which is the third-most energy cost beyond primary weapons and boosting. These include shields which either have more hitpoints or return faster after being destroyed, EMPs which temporarily disable foes, big explosions with damage based on your energy, turning enemies into allies, electric storm machines, devices that slow down time, short-range teleportation, invisibility and much more, though many are restricted to certain ships.

Lastly, you can also pick up or create consumable items, such as boosters, drones, overrides, quick jumps, nanomachines and the (somewhat useless) mines. As is common with videogame potions, they can be easy to forget or you might save them too long, but like everything else, they can be crafted from basic ingredients found in the field. The crafting system is quick and easy to use, with the only restrictions being your inventory and having the recipe.

This is the kind of game where your knowledge is a big part of how far you go. You need to learn which weapons and devices are actually good, you need to prepare for future threats, and you'll discover how close you can get to black holes. If you shoot an item box on a station's landing deck, they'll turn hostile and try to kill you because you were supposed to know that wasn't yours.

All of this takes place in a decently interesting political situation. Two space empires were fighting but then signed a truce and created a demilitarized zone which became a haven for outlaw pirates raiding the area's giant mining company. You were a scientist for one of the empires and now you need to cross the zone while being chased by outlaws, the mining company if you attack them, and of course the other empire because you're not supposed to be there.

The sci-fi writing is excellent; the tech feels fully thought-out and used well, and there's a bunch of good arms manufacturer lore entries in the codex. Unfortunately, the writing for scenes and dialogue tends to be really awkward or stilted. Certain final scenes just kill off characters without warning. Only the main voice actors sound like they know what they're doing and at a B-movie sort of level, while everyone else feels like the team pulled in a rando who tried to sound dramatic.

Buying upgrades after a run is a great reward at first, but starts to feel like doing taxes if you want to use every last hundred credits. Your choices are to throw away money or do math every time. And each run can be a serious time commitment, anywhere from 2 to 4 hours if you search every field for the things you need to survive later, though you can save and quit at any time and continuing brings you back to the start of the field so you never lose more than ten minutes or so of progress.

Combat is very fun when you get used to the speed and create a good build, but you might want to start at the easier difficulties and work you way up to harder challenges. Restarting a map if my emergency shield activated was how I first reached the ending, and certain enhancements helped a lot afterwards. Every enemy will lock on, thus the most important thing to learn is dodging, which is moving in a spiral pattern so shots from ahead or behind will arrive where you were.

Lastly and perhaps least importantly, there's an option in the main menu to play hardcore mode, which is extremely hard to the point of being unfun. First they make you buy your perks again and not having enough core energy is a common cause of death, then they add a further rough downgrade between each of the 7 sectors such as disabling secondary weapons or breaking your engine.

But overall, the main game is fun across 50 or more hours and well worth trying, especially for 6DoF enthusiasts and anyone who likes space shooters.

This game really surprised me! The first time I tried it so long ago, I didn't get far before dropping it. Recently though, I came back to give this another shot after playing Everspace 2. For some reason, the gameplay just clicked for me now and I really started enjoying myself! In particular, I found myself admiring the purity and more action-focused nature of this game's design over the more overstuffed and underfocused sequel!
PROS
+Roguelite structure makes it a pure action experience with no fluff that makes you want to use all your resources cleverly to win due to the pressure of losing it all
+Unlike most rogue games, there's enough of a narrative to justify the looping roguelite structure and give the game a greater sense of purpose and motivation
+3 ship archetypes to pick from and lots of equipment/enhancements adds some decent variety and builds to play with to suit your playstyle and keep things fresh
+Crafting systems helps fight against randomness: if you don't get the weapon you like, just craft it
+Nice sense of progression both in terms of statistical power and player proficiency: I really felt like I was getting skilled and loved pulling off tricks like using debris as tactical cover
CONS
-Despite the inclusion of a narrative, the roguelite looping structure can inevitably make the gameplay feel rather purposeless: just feels so futile to lose it all, start over and go through the same build-up over and over
-Metaprogression can feel like an unnecessary hurdle: having to go through a bunch of sacrificial/unwinnable runs until you get enough upgrades and blueprints for it to feel fair. Also most of the metaprogression are statistical upgrades which you barely notice.
-While I understand the reason, it can feel annoying to have the energy bar shared with so many systems, especially boost, since it makes you feel forced to move around slowly when you're trying to get to places so you don't get caught with your pants down (the sequel fixed this)
-Randomness can make some runs just feel screwed over despite player skill and crafting

This game plays pretty well on a keyboard with a mouse. I haven't tried a touch-pad but I'm guessing a mouse is the way to go. I started by playing this with a game controller instead, and everything seemed to play much worse. But I can't be sure it wasn't just because I was a complete newb - I was dying so much and really not having any fun. After switching to the keyboard/mouse it started to get fun and I can see why the game is popular. It also didn't hurt reading a "things I wish I had known when I started playing" guide too.
This reminds me a LOT of the dogfights in X3! This is a "concentrate on dogfights and leveling up your ship" game loop. I might write more later, but I imagine because the game has been around since 2017 I won't have much to say that hasn't been said already in other reviews. Hint: If you like dogfights you'll have fun playing this!
Stuff that doesn't sit well with me:
Remember I mentioned X3? What this game refuses to do, sort of, is let me choose when to do upgrades. In other space games if I earn enough money to upgrade my ship, I won't waste another minute trying fight, and will go and do upgrades. But the point of Everspace is to be an **arcade game, not a simulation game**. So if I want to immediately go upgrade my ship, I have commit suicide in order to go back to where I can do ship upgrades. That's a bit immersion-breaking. Sort of a fundamental game-loop thing which is why I avoided Everspace for so many years and only bought it at a steep discount.

wow.. this game.. this fucking game, man.

I was looking for a game to scratch that starfox64 itch. And wow. I'm in love.
This game it brutal at first, so expect to die. a lot.
The voice acting is top tier, which is just *mwah*.. its unnecessary because the game is already so good.
The action is good, the ship customization is good (mind you, I haven't played without the DLC), and collecting resources is immersive as heck, dude. -mining crystals from inside an asteroid, collecting tech and scrap from a wrecked freighter (my last attempt I died to a booby trap !)
The controls do take some getting used to, but once you've got the hang of it it gets really fun!

I got this game on sale with the DLC for a little over $6 and it feels like I stole from the devs. That is too cheap for this game!