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Returnal


Whiskey_chaser
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Played a shit load more of this last night and managed to beat the first boss and get all the way to the end of the second biome on my fifth run. The second boss was nuts. Nearly had it but the third attack cycle is insane. It Almost felt like third person Ikaragua. 

 

My only grumble so far, and this is more the PS5s fault and not the game, is that I can't download any updates for this (there's a 15gig file stuck in the queue). 

 

I've tried all the suggested steps, cleared cache, database rebuild, delete and reinstall and nothing. 

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Bit of an update on this as i've managed to put a little more time in over the weekend (not as much as a few friends though who are now hitting the 20 - 30 hour mark).

Firstly, it's good. Really good. If third person action games are your thing, this is one of the tightest controlling third person action games out there. I don't count myself as being particularly good at games but i'm doing ok with this. Before you know it you'll be jumping and dashing through the air whilst dodging swarms of projectiles like some kind of hyper neon ballet. Yes it's tough, but the moment you clear a challenge room without taking a single hit feels awesome.

One criticism i've seen is that the runs are too long, which is fair, but unlike Hades you don't have to play through them all each time. There are ways of unlocking shorter paths through the biomes and there's also a light metroidvania element going on, beat a boss, get an item that helps. So each run becomes a balance of how much you want to explore/buff up for the next area and how quickly you want to push through. The lack of a save function is still a bit wanky though. Hopefully they'll patch in something soon.

I still haven't managed to patch this. Apparently the solution is to wipe the SSD and start fresh, but i'm not going to do that. The game runs fine without and I can live with a lack of online functionality. But that's an issue that's more to do with the PS5 than the game itself.

So yeah, really loving this. I'm going to say it, because it's a game that it draws a lot of comparison to, but I prefer this to Hades (a game which I played a lot of).

 

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I'm jealous @Whiskey_chaser, great impressions, glad you like it man. I almost bought it so many times last week lol.

 

Initially was put off by the Roguelike aspect to it, but warmed to it the closer it got to release, then previews dropped and I really wanted it, then reviews dropped and yeah, super hyped. Just hearing how challenging it is and it looking like a 3rd person DOOM (almost) is enough for me. Will definitely play it at some point, if RE8 wasn't out on Friday and I hadn't got Nier to finish I would've dived in.

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Started playing this last night whilst chatting to a mate on PSN. Had a couple of awful runs, dying to really stupid stuff, wasting a rare resuscitation artefact, that sort of thing. Then had an absolute stonker of a run. Finally beat the second boss after getting really close a few times and had a good load out of artefacts including one that gave me 5% health per adrenalin level on killing an enemy (adrenalin is a random perk you get for killing three enemies which stacks up to level five and is reset in taking a hit).

Tentatively went into the third biome, after hearing some friends were struggling to make any headway into it. Got to the boss and beat it first try. And what a boss design it was, any other game this would have been the final boss, it had a Bayonetta vibe to it.

Only issue was i then cleared through Biome four only for the game to glitch, with no boss appearing then hard crash for the first time (first crash in 20 hours). Luckily i'd unlocked the shortcut so I don't have to do it all over from scratch.

I think this could already be my game of the year.

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So I played another hour-ish. In the meantime, there has been an update. Which I'm pretty sure has made things worse, in general? Aiming now seems off, the speaker on the controller is more obnoxious, enemies react differently and there suddenly are different kinds of rooms. I'm not sure if that entirely down to the update or the fact that world one is now truncated, due to defeating the boss. However the changes to enemy behaviour have affected world two also.  

 

There's also some online challenge component to this now. Of course, I'm still offline at this point. So that is an ignored feature.

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I hit a bit of a wall on this for a while. Biome five is hard as nails if you're not tooled up properly. I've repeatedly had my arse handed to me on a plate but finally managed to beat it with a stupidly over-powered rocket launcher with full auto. 

I then managed to get all the way through biome six until the last boss, who I met with no health items and still managed to get him down two chunks of health, despite taking five minutes to figure out how to actually damage him. He'll go down next time we meet.

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This game is just bonkers. Managed to get close to the last boss again only to stumble into a bonus room that had a hard as balls elite enemy that i'd never seen before which went on to wreck me.

 

I'm now 25 hours in, with 36 deaths to my name and i'm getting through the game a lot faster than some of my friends.

 

The story is great though. Certain sequences in the game are terrifying. This is easily one of the best games i've played in quite some time.

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39 minutes ago, Whiskey_chaser said:

This is easily one of the best games i've played in quite some time.

Agreed. Only got in another hour yesterday. Went into an innocent looking small cave in the desert. Picked up an audio and as soon as it finished, I got ambushed and annihilated by three massive enemies that were too close for me to even evade, let alone fight off.

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Another couple of hours today and no progress but lessons were learned. 

The main lesson: Just going straight through the portal to the desert with starting equipment is suicidal. 

I'm getting to grips with some of the enemies better too. I noticed the massive dog monsters in the desert were not there, pre-update. Honestly I preferred that, as they are quite the bullet sponge and annoying in their movements. Plus I got to explore a bit more.

My main enemy obstacle at this point is actually in world one. A variation of the dog enemies. Whereas the default shoot a horizontal line of slow moving blue projectiles at you. My nemesis launches a fast moving stream of higher damage red projectiles directly at you. Their resilience and attack is the issue at the moment. Most of the others I've got a pretty good handle on their tells by this point. Who doesn't enjoy min-maxing? 

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17 hours ago, OCH said:

My nemesis launches a fast moving stream of higher damage red projectiles directly at you. Their resilience and attack is the issue at the moment. Most of the others I've got a pretty good handle on their tells by this point. Who doesn't enjoy min-maxing? 


I know the enemy you're talking about and I recall the absolute terror they inflicted on me on my first run throughs. The joy of this game though is knowing that you'll be chewing through these guys without barely a thought in a few hours time. The flip-side to that joy is knowing that there are are enemies awaiting for you in the next biome that make them seem like fluffy kittens that fire streams of cuteness in comparison.

Don't get me started on the elite monstrosities from biome six. They are pure sadism, digitised.

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I beat the game last night. 7 deaths, 15 hours. 
 

Spoiler

Cleared Biome 4-6 on my first try with out dying. Literally beat boss 3 Monday night. Loaded it up Tuesday went straight to the end in one go for the secret ending.


‘Cuz I’m the illest


It’s so good. I struggle with the creepy, space horror shit. It’s very intense and a lot to deal with. That house can fuck off.

 

But the gameplay is so good it’s hard to put down and legit a game when I put it down I couldn’t stop thinking about. 

 

It’s definitely a rouge lite but a really weird one. The game is much more fixed and directed than your standard rouge lite experience. There’s significantly less randomisation in the rooms. I watched a stream of someone playing the game after I did it and literally had the exact same room lay out, enemies, secrets, everything, I think. So not sure how the random element really works in this game. Because of the production it also just feels like a “real” big action game instead of an indie experiment. 

 

The thing I dislike the most is it’s such an involved game that 1 good run is like 3-5 hours. Which when you die and start from the beginning hurts.

 

If you like that Dark Souls shit where you’re carrying thousands of souls and might get reset 20 minutes for a corpse run. Take that tension and times it by a lot.

 

Also people said this game is hard like a bullet hell game. No. It has those aspects. But in a shooter you can only move 8 directions and is super tight. This you have all the movement of a 3D action games + I-frames + shields + extra lives + you don’t die in 1 hit so no. Kind of with the bullet patterns. But no. They also let you off. All of the bosses are super easy. I beat all of them first time. The hard part is just getting to them. 

 

If it’s closest to any game it’s like Control, but weirder and scarier + Metroid Prime if Metroid Prime was grown up and a horror game. The sound in this game is like Metroid Prime translated through a nightmare.

 

Really loved this game. Don’t know if it’s my favourite Housemarque game. Still SSHD is my number 1. It’s super cool, though.

 

Now I’ve just got to do the super secret ending but according to the internet that’s just finding 6 items you might not find because it’s all randomised. Which sounds pretty annoying but I’ll give it a go.

 

Awesome game and definitely the most unique game I’ve played this gen so far

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4 hours ago, Whiskey_chaser said:

I know the enemy you're talking about and I recall the absolute terror they inflicted on me on my first run throughs

It was literally in the fourth room of my very first run. I thought it was a boss. Kind of takes the wind out of your sails when you discover it isn't, at all.

 

2 hours ago, Maf said:

The thing I dislike the most is it’s such an involved game that 1 good run is like 3-5 hours. Which when you die and start from the beginning hurts.

I had that the very first time I reached the desert. Had an amazing run in world one. Ended up with three life bar extensions and a *5 Carbine. Then got murdered by the giant sky squid...

 

I haven't kept track of my deaths yet. But I'm likely at more than 7. Not phased by it though. Some runs, I did random enemy testing. Others I tried to speed run certain areas. I ended up with hundreds of deaths in Isaac, it is only a number.

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@DisturbedSwan

@Jimbo Xiii

Hey

 

Got the secret ending. That last run was super cursed. The game barely gave me anything the whole way through. Every health item was malignant, all of the more powerful weapons were terrible, all the items were useless, didn’t get a single 1up or Protection bonus until the very last fabricator in the game. The only thing I really had on my side was the Artefact that gives you 5% health back per damage done on adrenaline level or something like that. But it was enough and complete. I still have no idea what this game is about really.
 

I mean spoilers I guess but I really don’t know. 
 

Spoiler

Clearly the whole situation is metaphorical for some kind of trauma. But how Selene having her kid die on a bridge on earth leads to perpetual living death hell on an alien world I dunno. And the whole mother astronaut thing - forget it. I have no idea. I wish the game actually had an answer for it’s science fiction/horror mystery hooks instead of just it being a metaphor for something else. Kind of feels like a cop out because the sci-fi part is way more interesting than whatever the game is actually about. The game ends on the main character saying one word. Talk about vague, fucking hell. 


Non spoiler version is this game has some really cool ideas narratively and it’s written interestingly (For what little writing there is). But I feel it’s all a bit of a cop out. 
 

Earlier someone compared this to Hades and in terms of gameplay I think they’re both strong where the other is weak. Nearly all of Hades weapons are unique and it’s Boon system is probably the best buff/ability/power up system in any game ever (?). The way everything interlocks, stacks and connects is amazing. So much creativity and experimentation to be had. It’s funny how the actual combat is so mashy and just comes down to hitting the same 3 buttons over and over then dashing when you can’t see anymore. 
 

Returnal goes the other way where at least half of the weapons you should never pick up (I’m specifically looking at you Dreadbound or whatever your name is) and the game’s everything’s-a-double-edged-sword buff/nerf system is interesting, but ultimately gets sussed out very quickly. Always focus on Health + Protection stats. Never, ever pick up anything that increases your dash cool down.
 

There’s more to talk about but these are the main lessons. It’s a great idea to make it so nearly everything you pick up both helps and hurts you at the same time, and I enjoy the gambling aspect with malfunctions. But the balance is off. Once learned never was I in a position where I was unsure whether something was worth it or not. An item is either good or it isn’t. There’s no push or pull. This needed more work.
 

The combat system is fantastic, though. Absolutely up there with one of the best playing 3rd person shooters ever. I think it does everything exactly right in this area. I love how fast and hard it pushes twitch reflexes. It makes me have to fully concentrate in every fight. Everything is pulling my attention all over the place but it’s never overload. Pretty much everything I can think of for the combat is perfect and I wouldn’t change it. More, better weapons would be nice and now I’ve killed every enemy over and over I could do with some new ones but in terms of how it feels to play and the feeling it gives while playing. It’s killing the competition. What other game can you throw against this and have it survive? I can’t think of any. Returnal is eating other video games for breakfast. 
 

Not that there aren’t downsides, but the movement and shooting part is so good it kind of doesn’t matter? Like there’s this, that and the third but you still won’t put the controller down until you’re dead. If you know, then you know. 
 

Looking at the trophy list all that’s left for me to do is find every collectible in the biomes but for now I need a break. I just sat here for 7 hours straight playing this video game. I need to turn the lights off and eat something in peace and quiet before my head falls off or something. 

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