All things considered, I think the original Elite and Frontier Elite 2 are better games than Elite Dangerous.
I really do think that the original Elite and Frontier Elite 2 are better games, in terms of game play, than Elite Dangerous. Elite Dangerous has the richer, more accurate galaxy, better graphics and so on. It really is groundbreaking... But it bores me in ways that playing the original Elite or FE2 don't. I can load up FE2 through emulation and play for hours, same with Elite even if it does look very dated these days, but after I've made one trip in ED I feel like I've had enough...
Now, I'm not trying to troll, before anyone pulls that ridiculous old chestnut out for it's daily airing, I genuinely don't know why I find ED boring. Afterall, it's exactly the same core gameplay as the previous games. However, it just doesn't grab me the way the originals did.
*edit*
before anyone decides to reply to this, could I ask that you read the whole thread and other peoples responses. I'm getting a bit tired of repeating myself to people who've only read the first post before replying. Also far too many people have replied with "if you played the originals now you'd be bored". I do play the originals through emulation and I'm not bored... Thanks.
*edit 2*
Because it seems that many people will read the top post of the thread without bothering to read down to see how the conversation has progressed, I'll add this quote of a reply I made later on that might help explain why I think Elite is a better game in terms of gameplay than Elite Dangerous is:
I really do think that the original Elite and Frontier Elite 2 are better games, in terms of game play, than Elite Dangerous. Elite Dangerous has the richer, more accurate galaxy, better graphics and so on. It really is groundbreaking... But it bores me in ways that playing the original Elite or FE2 don't. I can load up FE2 through emulation and play for hours, same with Elite even if it does look very dated these days, but after I've made one trip in ED I feel like I've had enough...
Now, I'm not trying to troll, before anyone pulls that ridiculous old chestnut out for it's daily airing, I genuinely don't know why I find ED boring. Afterall, it's exactly the same core gameplay as the previous games. However, it just doesn't grab me the way the originals did.
*edit*
before anyone decides to reply to this, could I ask that you read the whole thread and other peoples responses. I'm getting a bit tired of repeating myself to people who've only read the first post before replying. Also far too many people have replied with "if you played the originals now you'd be bored". I do play the originals through emulation and I'm not bored... Thanks.
*edit 2*
Because it seems that many people will read the top post of the thread without bothering to read down to see how the conversation has progressed, I'll add this quote of a reply I made later on that might help explain why I think Elite is a better game in terms of gameplay than Elite Dangerous is:
ED has the same basic gameplay as Elite but there's some key differences that make the original a better gameplay experience.
In the original you take off from a station and hyperspace to a new system, emerging near the star. So far so similar to ED. But the big difference is the journey between the star and the station.
In Elite, you start off in space normal speed. You can increase your speed by using the Torus Drive. If you encounter anything on your journey, an asteroid or other ship, you become mass locked and there's that moment of uncertainty when you're thinking "Uh oh, what's this? Is it just asteroids, a trader, or am I about to get jumped by pirates... Or maybe Thargoids?". The ship will appear and you'll spend the entirety of that time watching it flying past with your finger on the trigger just waiting to see if it will suddenly turn hostile or if it will just pass by. This sort of encounter may happen a couple of times on each trip, and many of them will result in combat. And they were often challenging fights, especially early on. If you managed to reach the station and dock successfully there's always that little moment of "Phew! I made it!" and a sense of accomplishment that you've arrived at the safety of the station, even if it's only for a few seconds before you take a deep breath and plunge into the dangerous depths of space once again.
In ED you're already in Super Cruise. You select the station from your navigation menu, point your ship at it and relax. Maybe even read the forums while you're travelling. Where in Elite you spend a lot of your journey nervously keeping one eye on the scanner, in ED most of your time is spent watching the distance go down, twiddling your thumbs and thinking "Please hurry up!"
You'll see other ships around you but, unlike Elite, there isn't any sense of urgency, even in anarchy systems. Interdictions are a welcome break, but they're easy to avoid. There isn't that moment where you get mass locked, see a ship and go "Uh oh! Is this guy going to attack or am I okay?". You may see a ship on your scanner moving in behind you in Super Cruise, which might just cause you a momentary bit of tension, but 9 times out of 10 you'll safely reach the station, dock and be on your way. There's no little "Phew! I made it" moment when you reach the station and no sense of accomplishment for safely getting through a dangerous area of space.
And that's where I think Elite Dangerous fails compared to the original. The original had lots of moments of high tension where you nervously waited to see if that blip on your scanner was going to turn into a pirate vessel or a whole swarm of Thargoids. Every encounter was a moment of uncertainty, every trip was an adventure. Space was dangerous. In Elite Dangerous it just feels a bit too safe. You'll see ships, but most of them will leave you alone and the only real time you get that moment of "Uh oh! What's this!?" is when there's another player in the system and you're not sure if they're going to be someone who's just going to turn your Sidewider into scrap or a harmless trader. But even then you can emergency drop and re-enter SC in a different instance where they're not around.
So for me Elite is the better game because it feels more dangerous than Elite Dangerous. There's more uncertainty, more "squeeky bum" moments, more sense that space is a lawless frontier, more sense of accomplishment when you dock and more sense of "Well, here we go again!" when you set out on a new journey, because you never really know if you're going to arrive safely at the other end.
Last edited: