As someone who thoroughly enjoyed the original SPAZ, I've played SPAZ2 off-and-on throughout its "early access" lifetime, and have never felt the game to be anything less than enjoyable, and mostly complete.

This sequel expands upon many of the gameplay elements from the original while reducing the necessity of some particularly tedious ones (e.g. farming for Rez), so there's more than enough added value in terms of QoL improvements over the original to justify its price.

The move from 2D to 3D is impressive, though it should be noted that you're still effectively locked to the same 2-dimensional plane as before. Your inputs are primarily correlated with the ship's yaw, though your ship will roll to corner more effectively.

The developers have stated that they intended for most players to use the third-person camera, but as someone who prefers the overhead view of the original, I appreciate that I was able to play through the entirety of SPAZ2 in that way, though I wish there were a checkbox in the options so that I don't have to change the camera (the 'C' key) at the beginning of every battle, as it defaults to the third-person view.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed the story, the (admittedly corny) humor, the environments, and the replayability of the game. Everything has been packaged together into a cohesive product; nothing feels out of place, and it's clear that a lot of time went into tuning the systems to keep everything consistent.

I can confidently recommend this game to anyone interested in the premise of a "Space-based Strategy/Action/RPG".

As someone who thoroughly enjoyed the original SPAZ, I've played SPAZ2 off-and-on throughout its "early access" lifetime, and have never felt the game to be anything less than enjoyable, and mostly complete. This sequel expands upon many of the gameplay elements from the original while reducing the necessity of some particularly tedious ones (e.g. farming for Rez), so there's more than enough added value in terms of QoL improvements over the original to justify its price. The move from 2D to 3D is impressive, though it should be noted that you're still effectively locked to the same 2-dimensional plane as before. Your inputs are primarily correlated with the ship's yaw, though your ship will roll to corner more effectively. The developers have stated that they intended for most players to use the third-person camera, but as someone who prefers the overhead view of the original, I appreciate that I was able to play through the entirety of SPAZ2 in that way, though I wish there were a checkbox in the options so that I don't have to change the camera (the 'C' key) at the beginning of every battle, as it defaults to the third-person view. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed the story, the (admittedly corny) humor, the environments, and the replayability of the game. Everything has been packaged together into a cohesive product; nothing feels out of place, and it's clear that a lot of time went into tuning the systems to keep everything consistent. I can confidently recommend this game to anyone interested in the premise of a "Space-based Strategy/Action/RPG".