Returnal (PS5) (April 30th)

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Talenvor

Lord Nagafen Raider
916
219
Got to Assault rifle level 4 - gained about as much health as I could, have the perfect artifacts, ready to rock Phrike.

After an hour and and getting a little tired, mistakenly go through the gold door - get my ass kicked, died.

I am too old for this shit.
I feel tour pain. If you go back a few pages I posted the exact same thing you did. I even put a tldr at the end: don’t go in the star doors! Lol
 

rhinohelix

<Gold Donor>
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At least you can skip directly to biome 3, if you want. No need to fight the bosses again, but could be useful to farm up items / HP in biome 1
In Hades it seemed like you could do a whole run in a relatively short period of time. This seems like Doom in hardcore mode. It's a super beautiful game that still calls to me when I see it in videos; I would no doubt have been a Day One Deluxe purchaser of had it not been for this fact right here: I am not playing back through the whole game again every time I die. I appreciate some people like the gameplay style, and even the default difficulty of Demon's Souls and their ilk. Super Hard and Roguelike? Pass yet again, sorry to keep coming into the thread to just repeat myself. It's just frustrating on a number of levels, like a number of things in the zeitgeist right now, ie video cards etc. It's certainly reflective of the times, though, in that respect. ;)
 
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Blueweed

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
903
2,543
I feel tour pain. If you go back a few pages I posted the exact same thing you did. I even put a tldr at the end: don’t go in the star doors! Lol
Dont go in star doors with pistol or shotgun, death usually follows.
 
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Talenvor

Lord Nagafen Raider
916
219
Is there a trick to the drones in biome 3 or are they way overtuned? They kamikazi dive and release red rings of death in addition to normal attacks. I was feeling pretty good having the astronaut toy and a parasite that revived me on death to get to the boss and try him for the first time... proceeded to get completely wiped by 6-8 drones in a big room and my run ended.
 

Hateyou

Not Great, Not Terrible
<Bronze Donator>
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lol if you hook up a keyboard to your PS5 you can type in dev cheats for Returnal, a patch is coming today I think that disables these cheats haha
That’s stupid they’re patching it out, it’s not like it’s an online competitive game, if people want to cheat in single player I say let them.
 

skylan

Trakanon Raider
84
96
Really enjoying the game. I get the reason for not saving, but I don't see why a "save and exit" with a single load back in couldn't be implemented.

One thing I'm wondering though without giving away too much....

After you beat the third boss, I could see someone wanting to start a fresh game but not want to lose their progress in the original. Is it possible to do that by switching profiles or something? Or even, if my wife wanted to play her own run. Is there a way to have 2 games going at once?
 

Rajaah

Honorable Member
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Anyone still playing this? I just picked it up. Was gonna finish RE8 first, but after trying this I couldn't put it down. It's freaking fantastic. It's the good 3D 3rd-person Metroid game we never got. I haven't even reached the first boss yet and have mostly just wandered lost.

One thing though...is there seriously no way to save your game? Like if I turn the PS5 off or change games, it'll put me back at the start? Because I may well give up on it before too long if that's the case. Like others have said, I'm too old for that.

If this were a more traditional Metroid-style game with powerup retention and save points, it would be flat-out incredible and a must-play. This world looks and sounds tremendous. It also uses the PS5 controller to its full (so far) potential, especially with the vibration function.
 
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Soygen

The Dirty Dozen For the Price of One
<Nazi Janitors>
28,312
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Anyone still playing this? I just picked it up. Was gonna finish RE8 first, but after trying this I couldn't put it down. It's freaking fantastic. It's the good 3D 3rd-person Metroid game we never got. I haven't even reached the first boss yet and have mostly just wandered lost.

One thing though...is there seriously no way to save your game? Like if I turn the PS5 off or change games, it'll put me back at the start? Because I may well give up on it before too long if that's the case. Like others have said, I'm too old for that.

If this were a more traditional Metroid-style game with powerup retention and save points, it would be flat-out incredible and a must-play. This world looks and sounds tremendous. It also uses the PS5 controller to its full (so far) potential, especially with the vibration function.
I'm still on biome 2, but admittedly not playing much. This game triggers a true rage in me, so I have to really be in the mood. I'm just not very good at it.
 
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Rajaah

Honorable Member
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How many biomes are there? I can't tell if it's five or six. I'm guessing they're each a different environment type. I've seen desert and aquatic so that's two more besides the first one.

I'm still on biome 2, but admittedly not playing much. This game triggers a true rage in me, so I have to really be in the mood. I'm just not very good at it.

Yeah, that makes sense. The problem is I feel like once you start this game you can't really turn it off because of the way it's set up. It feels like a game that COULD be incredible, but they put too many obstacles in their own way.

I'll give it a few days and then I might just sell it and watch a playthrough on Youtube for the experience. Which is really unfortunate because I LOVE the world here and what they did with PS5 functions. This would be an early GOTY contender for me if it were just...a little more normal (i.e. had save stations like Metroid).
 

Vorph

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
10,945
4,642
I agree it should have a Save & Exit or Suspend option like a lot of similar games do, but you can just quit after a death or use Rest Mode if you're really in a hurry to shut off the PS5 in the middle of a run. Just make sure you don't have auto-updates on for either the game or the console itself if you're going to rely on Rest Mode.
 

Rajaah

Honorable Member
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Just got the energy sword. The rare times where you get a permanent upgrade give you a great sense of accomplishment, at least. I've gone a pretty long time without dying, scoured everything, and have a lot of extra health. Looking forward to losing all of it the minute I try the first boss.
 

Rajaah

Honorable Member
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I eventually tapped out on this one. People who really dedicate themselves to it are gonna get a lot out of it, and the look of the world is second to none. As somebody with other shit to do, 12 hours of this where I didn't make it out of the first area was enough for me. Souls games can get away with that kind of thing because you're always gaining exp and improvements. This, not so much. Oh well. Would have loved it if it were a regular Metroid-style game with save points and everything, it'd be a GOTY contender for me then.
 
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Nester

Vyemm Raider
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This is in sale via PSN this weekend.

did they improve the lack of save/pause/rest mode issue? I have two toddlers and have to stop gaming at a moments notice more often than not. Initial reports of time needed to progress really turned me off at launch.

Is it better now ?
 

Vorph

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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Rest mode with auto-updates (game and OS) off is still the only option.

Not the game's fault, but I'm really leery of using rest mode since I'm pretty sure it's what caused me to have to factory reset my PS5 when every game I had started crashing within seconds to a minute of launching. So far the problem hasn't come back, but a lot of people who get the errors end up having to deal with Sony support that is extremely resistant to giving you a RMA for this issue.
 
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Rajaah

Honorable Member
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This is in sale via PSN this weekend.

did they improve the lack of save/pause/rest mode issue? I have two toddlers and have to stop gaming at a moments notice more often than not. Initial reports of time needed to progress really turned me off at launch.

Is it better now ?

It isn't, no. For someone in your situation I don't recommend this at all. Not sure why they felt the need to make PS5's second major exclusive, which PS5 owners have waited months for, so inaccessible to the average player. Between this and Demon's Souls it's like Sony thinks that the only PS5 audience are hardcore pro gamers. I like both games a lot, but damn.
 

Pyksel

Rasterizing . . .
840
284
Finally beat it tonight.
Including the secret ending
There are definitely a couple of hard walls to break through difficulty wise, but once you start to unlock more weapons, traits, artifacts, consumables, and permanent upgrades, it does get much more manageable. You start to see what you can build toward and focus on it. There's also progression check points and shortcuts so you're not always relegated to starting at biome 1 nor being forced to progress through repeated biomes. There are also other tools to help you along the way, keep you in a biome or return you to the biome, even after death.

Overall, fantastic game! Makes great use of the haptic feedbacks, graphics and sound design are on point, movement is responsive and smooth, and the storytelling is very well done.

I would have loved to have seen more from Housemarque but now that Sony acquired them I'm not sure what we can expect.
 

Dandai

Lesco Brandon
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I picked this up a couple days ago since it was on sale for $50 again. I felt so triumphant at the end of Act 1. I looked at my wife and said "this is a baby game for babies." I'd heard it was short but I thought 5-6 hours was REALLY short for a $50 game. Of course, that wasn't the end of the game but just the end of act 1.

Now I'm eating my words as I'm once again getting my shit pushed in in the first biome. Ah well, at least I'm enjoying myself.
 
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Dandai

Lesco Brandon
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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.
 
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