Returnal (PS5) (April 30th)

Oblio · Oct 12, 2021

wrong thread.

Dandai · Oct 13, 2021

Dandai said:
I finished Act 3 last night. I'm not sure how many hours I've put in, probably 30ish. The ending of Act 2 didn't sit well with me, and the ending of Act 3 (true ending) didn't help much, but I enjoy the gameplay so much that I'm going for the last couple trophies I need for the platinum.

Don't get me wrong, the story is fine and really works for the game. My disappointment is rooted in my expectations of this being a potentially expansive universe/IP and more installments. Given the endings of Acts 2 and 3, I don't foresee that happening, at least not in the form of a "Returnal 2".

I'm not saying this to flex, but Act 1 was pretty easy for me after the first few deaths and figuring out the game's systems and enemies. I actually only saw biomes 2 and 3 once before moving on to Act 2/Biome 4. I saw biome 4... a lot more lol. The difficulty really ramps up, especially since you still start out with a pistol but the first room can be full of a dozen trash mobs and a few bigger enemies. Stack Protection through augmentations, parasites, and artifacts. It almost trivializes the boss fights.

Similar to my experience finishing Act 1, I only saw biome 5 a couple times and biome 6 once before beating Act 2. The only boss I didn't defeat the first time was the boss of biome 4. It took me 3 times and I think it was due to having the wrong kind of weapon (for my playstyle/preference).

For me, EASILY the best weapon was the carbine with High Caliber trait. Any other traits are just gravy. High Caliber chunks hp HARD. Some notable mentions -

Dreadbound is awesome if you're good at twitchy dodge as you need to be up close (of course, the majority of bosses actively discourage you or make it impossible to be close).

Spitmaw (shotgun) with Narrow Maw trait

Hollowseeker (gatling gun) with Portal/Waves traits

Pyroshell (grenade launcher) with Seeking Flares trait for flying enemies

I wanted to give every weapon a fair shot (pun unintended) but:

Sidearm almost always had this annoying Charged Shot trait that adds a significant delay between trigger squeeze and the round ejecting.

Rotgland Lobber was -ok- but again, delay between trigger and release means an additional layer of thinking that means I'm gonna catch some of those bullethell christmas fireworks.

Electropylon Driver is cool for strategic play in the smaller levels but it really suffers in open arenas where you can't make death funnels.

Coilspine Shredder is one I never really gave a chance. I picked it up a half dozen times or so to level up traits to see if it improved, but I don't foresee picking it up any more unless someone tells me otherwise.

Overall, great game that I enjoyed more and more as I continued playing and mastering it. There's definitely a shelf life and it sours around the time you're looking for the last item you need in biome 6 to complete Act 3, but right up until that point, I heartily recommend this game to anyone that enjoys action games.

I’ve only got a couple ciphers left for platinum so I’ve been rushing to the gateways for biomes 2 and 3 (at the entrance to both there’s a proficiency boosting item that takes you to proficiency 5 or 9, respectively. Anyway, I always snag the first chest I come across after getting the proficiency boost and got a coilspine shredder and actually had a pretty good experience with it. This caused me to look up how it’s supposed to be used and I felt like a tard for not realizing it’s a sniper rifle. Later traits make it much stronger and I just watched a video where someone cleared the final boss in 30 seconds and that’s only because of animations and delays between phases.

Dandai · Oct 15, 2021

According to the in-game timer (console in the ship that says in-suit time or something like that) I’ve got just at 50 hours played. Some of that is afk time while I did other stuff and didn’t bother resting the PS5, but I’d say the breakdown was probably 35 hours from purchase to the end of act 3 and another 10ish to finish the platinum.

Ritley · Nov 28, 2021

This game seems unplayable. Had it hard freeze to where I had to manually turn the PS5 off, and then on the first boss died and came back from reconstructor to the boss area where the boss was no longer there. So have to restart the run. Both within the first 2ish hours of playing.

Ritley · Dec 25, 2021

Finally finished it, clocked in at 15 deaths and 13h20min to beat the last boss. Game was much harder in the first few biomes, the last two I just steamrolled with all of the artifacts I collected. Last boss was a joke, had the auto rifle with high caliber and he just melted. Fun game but ran into quite a few bugs.

Rajaah · Mar 13, 2022

Think I'm gonna give this another shot, since I'm coming off of Elden Ring and feel like I can take on any challenge that requires persistence like this does. From everything I've read it gets easier as it goes on. I'd like to at least clear it once. Gonna try to get some of the powerups

Dandai talked about.

Rajaah · Mar 14, 2022

Looks like there's a suspend feature now. Which likely means you can back up your save outside a boss room and reload it if you lose, a bit of a game changer that should make this way easier.

Now I just need to actually get to the boss in good shape and with the right powerups. I got to Phrike in great condition a couple times before, lost both times, and couldn't be arsed to keep playing.

Looks like I got a ton of powerups the first time around though so that's cool.

Ritley · Mar 14, 2022

Rajaah said:
Looks like there's a suspend feature now. Which likely means you can back up your save outside a boss room and reload it if you lose, a bit of a game changer that should make this way easier.

Now I just need to actually get to the boss in good shape and with the right powerups. I got to Phrike in great condition a couple times before, lost both times, and couldn't be arsed to keep playing.

Looks like I got a ton of powerups the first time around though so that's cool.

That seems pretty unnecessary for this game, it really isn’t that hard. The first couple of biomes are probably the hardest, and you get to a mid game “checkpoint” after the third so that you start at the 4th. The last three biomes are super easy, the weapon traits you unlock far outpace the increase in enemy difficulty.

Rajaah · Mar 14, 2022

Ritley said:
That seems pretty unnecessary for this game, it really isn’t that hard. The first couple of biomes are probably the hardest, and you get to a mid game “checkpoint” after the third so that you start at the 4th. The last three biomes are super easy, the weapon traits you unlock far outpace the increase in enemy difficulty.

Oh good. Yeah I'll probably only use the save scum thing right before Phreke. Any permanent upgrades I should be looking out for? I've got the red sword and the air dash and some other stuff, like a missile addition to pistol shots.

Ritley · Mar 14, 2022

Rajaah said:
Oh good. Yeah I'll probably only use the save scum thing right before Phreke. Any permanent upgrades I should be looking out for? I've got the red sword and the air dash and some other stuff, like a missile addition to pistol shots.

Most of those type of upgrades you find naturally, though there are a couple optional ones later. Don’t think there are any optional ones early on

Rajaah · Mar 14, 2022

Lul, first thing I did back in this game was die on like, the first room. I think the difficulty might be a little higher than the very beginning since I did a bunch of cycles (up to or near Phreke) in the past. I don't remember the first room with enemies having like 7 mobs in it. It's gonna be a long run.

The atmosphere in this game really is second to none. Just an incredible alien atmosphere, vaguely like Metroid Prime 2's dark world but even more creepy and inscrutable.

Ritley · Mar 15, 2022

Yeah it’s pretty random, sometimes you’ll get a bunch of easy rooms and sometimes you’ll get them packed and with something that will lock you out from leaving until you beat it.

Some tips, the signals you find where a ghost goes to a corpse, if the corpse has some red tendrils then it’s going to come to life when the ghost dies on it. These are pretty easy, they move very slow but they do send counter shots every time you hit them. So grab some cover, peek out and get a few shots, then do the same from a different location. They explode when low life.

Sometimes the corpses don’t come back to life, and you have the option of avenging or scavenging. Avenging is almost never worth doing unless you aren’t planning on making a boss run that attempt.

There’s also the bonus rooms (where you walk over a shiny thing and get teleported to an unmapped room). If you pop in and there’s nothing immediately visible, start running for the way out. If an enemy starts spawning, just exit the room, as these are really hard early on and don’t give reward enough for the damage you will take. Otherwise these rooms are good sources of resources, so always look out.

When choosing between boost stats, protection seems to be the best. Also, the astronaut figure that revives you on death is extremely useful on boss runs, it can be what pushes you over the hump.

Otherwise, keep unlocking weapon perks and just build the muscle memory for enemies.

Rajaah · Mar 17, 2022

Couple things:

My main issue with this is running out of health. Is there a reliable way to stay healed rather than slowly being whittled down? Is the only alternative just "don't get hit"?

I think you can sleep in the ship to heal, but you can only do that once per cycle IIRC so that doesn't help too much.

Also, does this game have the most incredible controller vibration or what? It's astoundingly immersive on PS5.

Dandai · Mar 17, 2022

Rajaah said:
Couple things:

My main issue with this is running out of health. Is there a reliable way to stay healed rather than slowly being whittled down? Is the only alternative just "don't get hit"?

I think you can sleep in the ship to heal, but you can only do that once per cycle IIRC so that doesn't help too much.

Also, does this game have the most incredible controller vibration or what? It's astoundingly immersive on PS5.

It’s been a long time since I’ve played, but yes, the best way to not run out of health is to not get hit. Don’t trade health for items. It’s almost never worth it unless you have an unused heal nearby. There are a couple different ways you can be resurrected (once per biome and then an item that is consumed). Those are helpful for extending runs.

Ritley · Mar 17, 2022

There are some weapon perks later on that can heal you, but nothing early. So yeah you just have to not get hit and collect the health items from each room.

Rajaah · Apr 20, 2022

How do you get the Returnal Ascension DLC? Not seeing anything in the PS store, wondering if it's an automatic update. I didn't see any co-op options the last time I played the game, but it might have been before the DLC dropped.

I'm thinking the new co-op might be worth a run since I got thrashed by the game solo.

Dandai · Apr 21, 2022

Rajaah said:
How do you get the Returnal Ascension DLC? Not seeing anything in the PS store, wondering if it's an automatic update. I didn't see any co-op options the last time I played the game, but it might have been before the DLC dropped.

I'm thinking the new co-op might be worth a run since I got thrashed by the game solo.

Afaik you can't opt out. If you have Returnal installed and patched, you have Ascension.

spronk · Apr 21, 2022

keep in mind Returnal is being added to tier 3 PS+ in june (when PS+ 3 tiers rolls out) so the player base will expand massively. I wouldn't be surprised if there is another game update around then too.

Dandai · Apr 24, 2022

Rajaah said:
How do you get the Returnal Ascension DLC? Not seeing anything in the PS store, wondering if it's an automatic update. I didn't see any co-op options the last time I played the game, but it might have been before the DLC dropped.

I'm thinking the new co-op might be worth a run since I got thrashed by the game solo.

I fired up Returnal to check out the tower. Looks like you first access it in act 4, but that may have been coincidence as I only poked my head out after swapping from the inside of the ship to act 4.

Anyway, I felt like king shit when I got to phase 2 floor 10ish on my first go after not playing for 6+ months. Then I looked at the leaderboard and saw some phase 40 floor 20 or something lol.

Rajaah · Jul 5, 2022

I took another stab at this and it's much easier now with the suspend point. Can basically save whenever now, retry bosses without going back to the beginning, even save scum treasure chests if you aren't doing anything else with your life.

Got back to Phreke for the second time ever and beat him pretty handily, now about to try the second boss. Also have tons of artifacts and weapon proficiency from all the fails I did before. It's awesome to finally get somewhere with this game.

Edit: Beat Ixion on the first try. Found Biome 3 a lot tougher than 2, took me 3-4 tries to beat Nemesis (glad I could reload before the fight instead of starting the whole damn game over). Generally I find that once I get good at a boss, I only take minimal hits on it, so all the +HP I have stacked doesn't even really come into play. On Biome 4 now, surprised it looks like a pallette-swap of Biome 1. So far Biome 1 has been the hardest one for me...I was stuck on it for like 10 hours, after all, while the next two took about 2 hours each.

Edit 2: Beat the game, whooo. Glad I finally gave it another shot.

Returnal (PS5) (April 30th)

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