How is it?
Jump Space is honestly one of my favorite rogue-likes as of recent. The combat feels amazing, the flying feels snappy and responsive, and the enemies are not afraid to overwhelm you. The gameplay at its core is the same as others; go to point, do mission, go to next point, rinse & repeat until that level is complete or you & your crew die, but it gets pretty insane during these missions.
You are tasked with getting through each mission by completing various tasks at the end of the level. One of my personal favorites is orbital artillery, where you and your crewmates’ final objective is to go and help in a big battle buy capturing orbital guns to shoot the bad guys out of the sky.
Jump Space’s gameplay is similar to Sea of Thieves/Marauders without the PvP. You & up to three friends pilot a ship, using it’s scanners, auxiliary guns, and pilot seat (duh) to fly through space and get shit done. Over time, you get upgrades and things get pretty creative. I will say that in those moments where you are a crew of three fighting off waves of enemies, or fighting something like a corvette for the first time, it feels insanely good. Teamwork is really what this game is about, someone has to be putting out fires, and stopping boarding enemies, someone has to pilot the ship so you don’t just get killed, and someone is on the auxiliary guns. Preparation is also key here, sometimes you can fly to a zone where resources required to fabricate parts for your ships are increased. Other times, you might have those few extra seconds to make the shield pack so the HP of your ship isn’t damaged.
Ground combat isn’t quite as teamwork-based. Often times, you can go solo through parts of these and other times you need someone to assist you. These are usually pretty obvious by the fact that you need multiple people to open doors. There isn’t too many different ground-based weapons available, but there are enough to keep it interesting and everyone has something to their liking. You can’t customize them, but you can find different ones that have different attachments, often shown by their “tier” at the top right. There are two extra-special ground based weapons that can wreak havoc though, and that is the railgun & rocket launcher. Those things can give the people not in the pilot seat or auxiliary weapon systems the ability to fight back in ship-to-ship combat. They are incredibly strong and with the right modifiers, you can one-hit big corvettes and end the fight before it begins.
The fun sorta ends there though, once you get accustomed to the missions and mission sets, it begins to feel less like you’re battling for your life and more like going through the motions. It’s definitely a game you have to take occasional breaks from, but can absolutely remain a staple game to return to for quick, fun action gameplay.