I was playing some Everspace 2 and while it sure is pretty and feels pretty good there was something lacking that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I’m only 20 hours or so into it but I just felt like it wasn’t quite living up to my memories of Freelancer.
Now I last played Freelancer over 15 years ago so I was sure that I was just seeing this through a heavy mist of nostalgia, so I reinstalled the old game, installed the HD mod and a few other user made tweaks and loaded it up. The opening scenes were definitely nostalgic but once I started to fly missions properly again it became crystal clear, nope Freelancer still kicks the shit out of every other space game I’ve ever played since.
Elite Dangerous, Rebel Galaxy Outlaw, Everspace 2, Spacebourne 2, EVE Online, (edit adding more I’ve played here: Chorus, Star Citizen, No Mans Sky) they all have strengths but nothing feels as good as the grand daddy Freelancer.
I love the entire game, but there's one part that stands out for me, and that I always look forward to - the flight through the asteroid field with Juni when you first arrive in Kyushu. It's just this beautiful, tranquil interlude in the middle of all the danger and drama.
To me, the thing with the game is that it's just quality all the way through - the story, the characters, the mechanics, the graphics, the controls, the gameplay, the combat, everything.
There are so many places to go and things to see snd so many different ways to approach it. And it's all balanced so well - there's a constant calculation of risk vs. reward.
The only thing I don't really like about it is that there are so many mooks. It gets tedious when I'm trying to explore or trade and some scrubby ships pick a fight that they're absolutely guaranteed to lose. There's no risk and no challenge - all it is is an interruption. But I can put up with it - all the rest of the game makes it worth it.