I don’t even remember where I picked up Space Rangers 2. This was way back in my college days when money was tight, so it’s better than even odds it was just part of an illegal download my roomie grabbed online from some dubious source or other. The name wasn’t particularly inspiring, but the description that came with it seemed interesting enough. So I gave it a shot.
I suppose it’s worth pointing out that this was a particularly difficult time in my life. I just didn’t know what I wanted to do with myself; I was in the middle of switching majors while knee-deep in third-year midterms while simultaneously in the throes of my recently discovered sexuality. So yeah, piracy wasn’t really my biggest concern. Sue me.
What was my concern, of course, was finding a good distraction from just how freakin' stressful all that stuff could be. And “good” in this case meant “free, sci-fi, turn-based RPG.” At least, that’s what Space Rangers 2 seemed to be on the surface. I’d soon find out it was a lot more than that.
From Russia, With Love
Since the statistical likelihood of you ever having heard of Space Rangers 2: Rise of the Dominators is about as high as getting struck by lightning, a bit of a history lesson. Space Rangers 2 is the sequel to the original Space Rangers, a game released in 2002 by Russian developer Elemental Games. It was popular enough in Russia to warrant a sequel, and so in 2004, they partnered up with Russian publisher 1C Entertainment to create a worldwide release. This meant an English translation that wasn't perfect but would occasionally offer up a humorous grammatical error.
To start, you choose from five different alien races and create your character, choosing starting equipment and skills. Once done, you’re catapulted into a procedurally generated galaxy (an idea that was still relatively new at the time) and tasked with defending the known systems from an invading army of sentient killer robots called the Dominators.
Only you actually have absolutely no hope in hell of doing anything to the Dominators beyond scuffing their paint when you first start. Instead, you have to mostly evade the Dominators while you scrounge around to make a living, picking up odd jobs for the free species of the galaxy in order to accrue wealth, equipment, and experience.
Eventually, your character would gain enough levels and purchase enough firepower to start fighting back against the oncoming hordes of robots, but the in-between period is where you bite into the meat of Space Rangers 2. And if the buns of this sandwich are turn-based space combat, the meat spans so many genres that it might as well be a hot dog for all the ingredients it has.
Some parts of Space Rangers 2 turn into a real-time strategy game where you have to build a base to fight against Dominator invasions. Some parts turn into a classic text adventure like you've been catapulted back into the early '90s. Some parts are like an arcade shoot-'em-up where you fall into a black hole and have to eliminate aliens to fight your way back out.
You can even grab control of units during the RTS portions to turn Space Rangers 2 into a third-person action shooter. The game was everywhere at once, and while it sounds like something that crosses so many genres should be an awful mess, it wasn't. Space Rangers 2 did it all so amazingly well that you'd never think it was just one game and not half a dozen all slapped together.
I remember spending hours every night exploring everything that Space Rangers 2 had to offer, and it was a lot. Elemental Games even kept adding to it well after release, putting in more text adventures, more planets, and random events. For 2004, it was truly a game ahead of its time, and I loved it.
You Can Never Go Back Again
Almost a decade after the initial release, 1C Entertainment reached out to SNK Games to create a definitive edition of Space Rangers 2 called Space Rangers HD: A War Apart. It had all the usual trappings of a good remaster, including upgraded graphics, sound, and support for modern hardware. It also added some new content, including a pirate faction that was threatening the galaxy at the same time as the Dominators. You can even play as a pirate to get access to new side and story quests.
Crucially, Space Rangers HD was also released on Steam, which meant I got a great big advertisement one day. So I actually bought it this time around.
I remember being excited for this definitive edition of such an incredible game, and one that had played such an important role at such a formative time in my life. And then I actually sat down to play it and thought it wasn’t the same game anymore.
To be clear, it was still the same game. Sure, the graphics were leaps beyond what I remembered experiencing in 2004, but it was still the same eclectic collecting of genres tied together by a turn-based space RPG. But that wave of nostalgia never crashed over me. Steam reports I put four hours into Space Rangers HD before I set it down and never played it again.
At the time of me playing Space Rangers HD, I was actually pretty happy. I'd recently purchased my first house along with my best friend, I had a job with financial stability, and a ton of friends. I still played games, obviously, but the games I played were about being social, not single-player escapes like Space Rangers HD.
The game had stayed the same, but I was totally different.
Games that you fall in love with are intrinsically tied with the moment you play them. It was only when I played Space Rangers HD that I realized the magic you feel when you first play a game isn’t just the game itself – it’s also a reflection of your life. It’s the relationships you’re in, your job, your school, your hobbies, and even your hopes and dreams.
The person I was back in the early 2000s loved Space Rangers HD. The person I am now still does, but in a different way. It’s like a cherished relic from the past– not a terrible past, per se, but one that was tumultuous and stressful. And one that I don’t really want to return to.
I’m happier seeing what the future holds.