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[Returnal] Aliens meets Groundhog Day
Spawnbroker
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
This is a thread to discuss Housemarque's new....*takes breath*.... third-person action bullet-hell roguelite metroidvania shooter! I can't believe that's a real sentence, and I also can't believe this game is called Returnal.
It's a PS5 exclusive, it's out tomorrow, send me things to put in the OP and I will! Also reviews are in and it's apparently PRETTY GOOD!
Here is ShillUp to express his enthusiasm. Send me more reviewers and we can add them, I just like me some ShillUp:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeS3KI9vgu8Digital Foundry tech analysis:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gXNem1Vyz4Discuss!
Steam: Spawnbroker
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I'll try to circle back this evening and give my personal impressions.
I don't mind hard games. I am slightly worried about the idea of losing a 1.5 hour run at the end, but that's the nature of rogue-style games, I suppose!
Really enjoying the H.R. Giger inspired designs.
My PS5 assured me it would unlock at 9pm, so I watched the season finale of Invincible (awesome).
At 9:05 it decided no, there's still 55 minutes to go so I watched an hour of a Hellboy cartoon (meh).
Now it's 10:08 and it says it'll unlock in 51:37.
WHAT THE FUCK, PLAYSTATION. WHAT THE FUCK IS THE POINT OF A COUNTDOWN CLOCK THAT DOESN'T ACTUALLY INDICATE WHEN A GAME WILL BECOME AVAILABLE WHY DID YOU HYPE ME ONLY TO TURN ALL COQUETTE AT THE LAST MINUTE I JUST WANT TO EXPLORE A MYSTERIOUS EVER CHANGING ALIEN HELLSCAPE WHYYYYYY
Fuck this I'mma' play Galak-Z for a bit.
First thoughts -
They actually have a notice that says essentially if you want to save in the middle of a loop/run, put your PS5 into suspend mode and that'll do it. It's in giant bright yellow text before the game even loads.
The controller effects during the opening cutscene are pretty wild. It's like the first time subwoofers became a thing. It probably could be a bit more subtle IMO.
Back to it....
That is a HORRIBLE design choice imo.
That said I'm loving this game so far. Run run pew pew dash pew pew boooom what's this thing over here?
Back at it.
Helios says I've died nine times so far. That works out to about 23 minutes per attempt.
Annnnnnd... I've found my first game stopping bug. All of the interactables stopped being interactable; no doors open, can't pick up anything. Basically stuck in a tiny room with no way out. Fun game.
Tiny Astronaut's a good dude. Did me a solid.
After you die, check the Best Buy spawn again. Different loot should proc.
Well done, sir.
Steam ID XBL: JohnnyChopsocky PSN:Stud_Beefpile WiiU:JohnnyChopsocky
edit - got it
They talk more about artistic choices and execution than gameplay, but they do seem to be enjoying themselves.
Think I might take a break for a while. Huge bummer to have a good run killed by that.
Digitally is how I'm doing everything. Returnal was installed and patched and available to play just before 12 am on the 30th. I begrudge the need to put the discs in for Demon's Souls and Miles, and curse the part of me that decided it would be prudent to buy them physically. It now offends me and my modern sensibilities.
There are certain parts of the game where the controller was making noises that made me want to throw it away from me. Props for that, sound department
The astronaut figure revives you if you die.
In the second house visit after you open the door to let the astronaut in, the laptop is replaced with a job rejection letter that Selene has never seen before, since she wasn't rejected she got hired. That letter was the mom's rejection letter and the astronaut is either the mom or Selene's mental representation of her mom. It's following you because it's looking out for you, not because it's Buzz Aldrin trying to fuck you up.
Clearly this game was not meant for me. I've been banging on it for 12 hours now and the first boss is impossible for me to beat. If I'm having that much trouble in the early stages, I don't expect that later game to get any easier. The video I posted upthread turned out to be my best attempt so far. I've only done worse after that.
It's probably just me but the aim feels a bit "off". It seems like I need to shoot just slightly above the targets to hit them, but not too much above or that's a miss. And I've had the bug where doors stop opening at least a handful of times.
Wasted $70 (for me), which is really sad because the short-term gameplay loop is a lot of fun. I'm just locked into the first 30 minutes of the game with no potential for advancement.
Since I'm pretty unlikely to move on, can someone explain about the supposed online functionality? I've yet to see another player's corpse and have no idea how that's supposed to work.
You level up by dumping Ether into the terminal beside the Helios crash. As you do that, more and more-awesome shit will spawn in the world to equip, which makes it easier to kill the boss and obtain a new item that makes the first world yet easier as you get to access new rooms that you couldn't reach before.
And repeat. Don't sweat a run cashing out 'cause you got jumped while underequipped. Just practice, for the fun of running and jumping and shooting crazy aliens (and cash your ether at the kiosk) and you might find it's getting easier.
I too have never had the option to do anything with the corpses.
Also, when you reach the boss's room there will always be a weapon available right before the fight, in case you want to trade off. It tends to be pistols for me, and those actually tend to work pretty great on bosses.
Not sure if I'm a fan of the shotgun gameplay, but they are super effective if you can stay up in the enemy's face
Wait, what?
Thanks for the advice. I'm continuing to play this despite how frustrating it is because, my goodness, the short term game loop is FUN!!
Just for giggles I watched a twitch stream of some guy playing this for the first time. I actually have gotten to the point where I can recognize every "room" in the first part of the game because I've played them so many times. This guy (on his "first time"!) was pulling artifacts and power ups that I've never seen. 5% damage boost based on oblites? 10% damage boost on adrenaline? And he went into the boss room with a level 6 (!!!) gun?? With two perks??? The highest thing I've ever seen (in 13 hours of play now) is level 3. He had five (!!!) suit artifacts active?? I've feel lucky when I get one; I might see two on a very good run. I have NEVER seen three active ever! (Remember, this is over 13+ hours of playtime.)
I hesitate to say this since it sounds so trite, but I have a long history of "bad luck". In the original Guild Wars there was a festival event that dropped a speacial weapon with a 5% chance. I grinded and grinded and opened over 400 chests without hitting it. In DAoC, when I was in charge of the weekly event, I always said the LOWEST rolls would get BoE items, because I can count the number of times I rolled 90+ (out of 100) on one hand, in four years of playing. I was a crafter for six months, with a 2% chance of hitting a "masterwork" (i.e. 100% quality item with each attempt) - after literally THOUSANDS of attempts, I saw three. Basically, if there is anything RNG dependent, I'm not going to get it. And this game seem to be REALLY dependent on RNG... at least in the first section. According to my PS5, there are three "common" trophies in the first sections that I'm still missing,
The really annoying part is that I'm actually not doing bad with the combat. Yes, I'll have the odd "bad run" where I'm just not clicking, but then I'll also have amazing runs where I can clear a bunch of rooms without taking a single hit. But that first boss is such a HUGE jump in difficulty that it seems unreasonable. I honestly feel like the game hates me.
I'm up to 35 deaths now.
There's a new Pokemon Snap game out this week. It's kinda like a big deal.
Resident 8bitdo expert.
Resident hybrid/flap cover expert.
Yeah it's hard, and it's really frustrating to get killed after what I thought was a good run, but I never feel like the deaths were out of my control.
I started doing a lot better when I stopped standing still. Constant run and gun, don't even aim your weapon, go fasterrrr
I don't get the point of most of the parasites to be honest, I won't even pick most of them up unless they synergize with some artifacts I have.
They could be giving twitch streamers and other influencers tweaked versions of the game with better drop rates.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Just like in any roguelike, there are tricks you can use to get advantages and game the system. Mechanic spoiler for what I mean here:
It's far more likely that the people who play video games for 12 hours a day are just better at the game than you are.