I thought about that this weekend. I fired up Hyper-Melee mode in Star Control 3 and Super Melee in Star Control 2. StarCon2 is definitely less smooth than I remember it, but it’s better in StarCon3. It took me a bit to get used to the keyboard controls again. Both are definitely better in my memory than in reality, no doubt about that. But still, both feel less “janky” in the combat compared to Origins. There’s no weirdness with collision detection and what-not that you get with Origins, plus the wrap-around playfield is much better than a super huge playfield surrounded by asteroids, since you never zoom out as far as you do in Origin, where everything becomes tiny.
I think the combat in Origins is salvageable. If they’re married to the playfield not wrapping around, they just need to make the collision detection less wonky. A patch should be able to fix the latter. They’ve got a decent foundation, it just needs more polish.