If you don’t mind a bit of a grindy ARPG aspect to it and REALLY annoying progression for traversal? Everspace 2 is probably THE best space combat in a modern release… which is sad but it is still actually really good and has some great set pieces. It is basically Freelancer 2, if that helps. If you just want shooty shooty boom boom then the original Everspace may be a better fit but… there is a reason so many of us slept on 2 after trying to like 1.
If you want something that is basically a love letter to Privateer? Rebel Galaxy Outlaw. I personally don’t vibe with it but I think that is because it is too close to what I expect to be using a HOTAS with (it is very much a gamepad/m+kb game) and the “vibes” of the Rebel Galaxy series are more “space redneck” than “space western”.
I have yet to actually get around to it (just been, what, eight or nine years now?) but I hear that some of the player origins in X4 are really good for getting into combat. I sincerely doubt that because the X series has always had REALLY good combat… broken up by 10 hours of trading so you can afford repairs and the missiles you use. But worth a look.
If you don’t mind getting out of a fighter and into a corvette or even a capital ship?
I REALLY like Cosmoteer but it is pretty grindy to start with. Space Pirates and Zombies, shitty acronym aside, has much better onboarding and similar gameplay but also much less control or a sense of “this is mine”.
And it is a love it or hate it kind of pseudo-series (really more like major functionality patches sold as a sequel) but check out Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2. You control capital ships in the 40k universe and Tindalos very much understood the assignment Just understand that 40k doesn’t pretend that space combat is anything other than romanticized WW1 naval fleet combat and it really feels like you are controlling ships of the line as it were.
Lots of intresting things there! Just read some reviews for RGO and it sounds like my kinda thing! And I’m going to try out BGA2, because I do like the somewhat ponderous naval vibe to battles too. Thanks!
It sadly happens in single player games too... People complain loudly that parts are too hard, then the devs put out nerfs in response.
A significant number of legendary bosses from the arcade and cartridge era are probably only famous because they were dialed up too hard and couldn't be tweaked after release, and I think it's more memorable that way.
I’m from a time when complex games could lead to softlocking your progress if you made the simple mistske of assuming the game was programmed logically, so I avoid using those myself because I don’t want to get half way through the game only to be unable to go the rest of the way becsuse RNJesus forsook me. 😅
Every randomizer I’ve played has logic built-in to prevent that exact thing from happening. If there is a game you know inside and out, there might be a randomizer for it that can breathe new life into a title you love.
But with LttP specifically, you can set the randomizer to use a few different modes when placing items which range from “make everything accessible with vanilla item behavior” to “I’m a freak and walls are merely a suggestion”
I’ve seen plenty of Dark Souls randomizer runs that have to be restarted before leaving the asylum at the start because it didn’t spawn the key needed to leave. But that also was quite some time ago when these things were fairly new.
Also remember that randomizers often have a lot of settings to customize, and sometimes they’ll have an option to disable the logic checks, so the players might’ve been doing this to themselves lol.
I know the Zelda, Castlevania, Final Fantasy, and Deus Ex randomizers are very robust against softlocks.
In addition to what other people have pointed out, I'll also add that most decent randomizers are very configurable -- you can usually make things as random (or as not random?) as you want. And typically you can also get a "seed solution" which will tell you exactly how to complete it (or if you've configured it to allow impossible seeds, it can tell you if it is even possible to do so). And there are many more options to use besides that. If you only want certain aspects or elements or sections of the game randomized, or you only want them randomized in a certain way or according to certain rules you can usually do that too. And you can usually either search for or tell it to generate specific seeds that will give you certain things early to give prompt access to the whole world if you want. These are called "open" or "very open" seeds. For speedrunning they can even be a significant challenge, as there is little guidance on where you need to go to get the next item when the whole map is almost immediately unlocked. The opposite, so-called "linear" seeds, have a very direct a->b->c->d progression path (much like the original game probably did) where as soon as you get an item, you know exactly what your next goal must be because the particular combination of items you possess might only give you access to one new location each time. But you may only realize this once you become intimately familiar with the game mechanics (and sometimes the randomizer's mechanics too).
Randomizers are really powerful tools for replaying a game you've otherwise mastered but they're not intended to only be hard. Sometimes they're actually very easy, especially if you tune them to be. And that's part of what's fun about them, the flexibility of being able to play some of your favourite games again in ways you always dreamed of doing, or ways that you never dreamed of doing. It's not just a challenge it's also a sandbox. It allows you to do new things that you never would've been able to do in the game without cheating, but it doesn't necessarily remove all challenge the way cheating normally would.
In increasing order of casualness I recommend: Elite Dangerous->X3/X4->Everspace/Everspace 2-> No Man’s Sky.
Everspace 2 is a spiritual successor to Freelancer, so probably your best bet ( Everspace 1 is more roguelike, but holds up nicely ). Speaking of Freelancer, I hear the game is still alive and has a vibrant community around it.
If you ever want to revisit Elite shoot me a message, I may help you with starting up. They say Elite doesn’t have a learning curve but a cliff, so help is usually needed. Luckily the game has the most welcoming and helpful community I’ve seen in/around a video game.
Other than these, there’s Chorus, but I haven’t played that one and it seems more story driven than open-ended.
Everspace is very cool - it’s a rouge like where you upgrade your ship as you progress with very unique skills and different branches.
I’m also in love with Cosmoteer - 2D game where you can build, rebuild, salvage enemy ships, eventually create a small fleet and experiment a lot with different designs.
I love how scary the tanks are in Hell Let Loose because most classes cannot really do anything against them and since they’re usually manned by 3 people, they almost always spot you when they’re facing your direction. Its great
If you like this type of game and want more I recommend the YouTube channel Kirk Collects. He covers boomer shooters a lot and this game was also in his latest roundup. youtube.com/
The X series (X3 and X4 in particular) might be fun. Very sandboxy. The late-game turns into more of a management game than a ‘fly around blasting stuff’ game, but you don’t have to go that route if you don’t want to.
super mario 64 is exclusively played these days just to speedrun and break the game with whacky glitches. I dont think the devs expected players to fly up the stairs and clip through a door to skip half the game
For a game that’s themed as space battles and isn’t an action game, check out Cobalt Core. It’s a deckbuilding adventure about a space crew trying to escape from a time loop. The characters and story moments are fun and combat is like a turn-based puzzle of trying to position the ship to line up with enemy weak spots or to dodge missile barrages.
You might like Mullet MadJack too, if you like frantic shooters with a “keep killing or die” element.
Completely different style, and no customization that I know of, it’s 90’s cyberpunk anime styled. Each level you have ten seconds until your heart stops. Each kill gets you more time, and flashier kills like melee finishers get you more, as in universe you’re doing some sort of livestream death game. At the end of each short level, in roguelike fashion, you get to pick one of a few randomly selected upgrades/powerups.
Look up some footage on youtube, it’s a lot cooler in motion than words can cover. But it’s definitely one to play with mouse and keyboard so you can do twitch movements fast.
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