How are they defining 'finished'? Just seeing the credits, or the final ending?
It's using HowLongToBeat as a guide. So it's basically up to the user to decide if they are "finishing it". Basically they put it in their list and never considered it completed.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
That could mean got a platinum trophy as well. I have seen the true ending of the game but I do not consider myself done with it until I get those last few achievements.
Alright, haven't had as much time to play lately, but I think I got a bit comfortable with biome 4 and now biome 5 is kicking my ass.
I think I'm averaging less progress there than I was in biome 1 when I first started playing and was badeven worse at the game than I am now.
If I get a good long play session I might try and do everything in 4 before moving on to 5, the last few runs I've mostly been speeding through just to try and get a bit more experience in the tougher area.
Switch Friend Code: SW-3944-9431-0318
PSN / Xbox / NNID: Fodder185
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
Yeah you really need to explore the biomes fully once you get further into the game.
Also I will say once you have him learned, Hyperion is easily one of the biggest chumps in the entire game and a very easy boss.
Yeah I think I only died once in biome 4 before Hyperion and once on him (and don't think that even counted because I'd powered up the reconstructor). Meanwhile a random room in biome 5 used up my parasite that brings me back, my astronaut and still killed me.
I'm yet to try any of the challenge rooms you find, because if I'm having a good run I don't want to mess it up, and if I'm not having a good run I just assume I'm going to get slaughtered.
McFodder on
Switch Friend Code: SW-3944-9431-0318
PSN / Xbox / NNID: Fodder185
Biome 5 is the boss of that level.
Challenge rooms are worth it if you're feeling halfway confident in your gear. If you've got a weapon you're comfortable with and a reasonable amount of health, you'll probably be able to handle it. And they can have some decent rewards.
I gave this game a break over the holidays (played through GotG instead, I like to play more story focused games when I have more play time) and came back and biome 5 was still kicking my butt. With a pile of shame growing larger, and the knowledge that if I'm still playing this when Horizon: FW comes out it'll probably be put back in the pile and never come out again, I decided to save scum my way through.
If I had unlimited play time (or even a decent chunk more than I do) I would've happily kept bumping my way through, none of the deaths feel cheap, and I'm still very much enjoying the game.
For now I am absolutely LOVING the feel of biome 6.
Switch Friend Code: SW-3944-9431-0318
PSN / Xbox / NNID: Fodder185
The difference for me is that biome 6 at least felt like you had space most of the time. There was more shit coming at me, but I generally had room to avoid it. A few of the fights in biome 5 I felt a lot more boxed in.
well the stars aligned last night. i'd been making slow, stubborn progress through the game but i carried some momentum through biome 5, clearing it for the first time, and then just... kept going. to the credits.
had to gamble on facing the end boss with no consumables, but i had leech rounds II and high protection. and let's be honest. when you're on a roll, there's no going back...
anyway it was all pretty well timed, since my first day back teaching was today and i'm not sure how well i was coping with the unresolved tension
this is a truly great game and a world i'll be revisiting often
i wound up missing a weapon - number 6? any spoilers?
I think you pick that up in one of the early biomes with the unlockable upgrade in the last.
Once you've beaten Ophion, the cargo bay in Helios is open, and if you go through you pop up back in biome 1.
I completed Act 3 on the weekend after being so close to giving up on the last collectible, the fact it's so randomly hidden combined with there being a point of no return in the level was doing my head in but got through.
This game is fantastic and frustrating and hard but fair.
I will not be attempting to get the platinum.
Switch Friend Code: SW-3944-9431-0318
PSN / Xbox / NNID: Fodder185
If you've beaten Act 3, whatever's left in the trophy list will probably just come with time.
If it's the one for finding all logs, you can find guides online for a rough idea of where to look for what you're missing.
One that kept eluding me was in Biome 1, where it only seemed to spawn if you died and respawned in that biome using the bio-reconstructor; I'd always avoided using those in the first biome because it felt like a waste of ether.
Yeah, it just seems like it would be a lot of time hoping the RNG gods are kind. I'm happy to move on to other games for now, may well revisit it if some DLC comes out or something.
Switch Friend Code: SW-3944-9431-0318
PSN / Xbox / NNID: Fodder185
firstly i totally love this world and all of its implications and ambiguities. that's not necessarily something i always adore, but the puzzle gets more lucid, more detailed, more interesting with every piece - it encourages a concrete reading, it doesn't resist it. it's such a perfect narrative design for this game
the second ending kind of made me question my timeline.
in my head, Atropos cleanly worked as a post-accident dissociative fantasy. it was selene's way of dealing with prolonged hospitalisation, rehabilitation and grief after the accident. the motifs: spines, bandages, beds, the Severed - all support this.
the cyclical chronology is clear and really apt here. her mother's accident - the one that stripped her ambition and turned her into a bitter monster - echoed selene's, and that terrible fate amplified selene's need to disconnect from a horrible reality
much of that remains true. but thinking of a few things - specifically the clocks, always stuck at the moment of the accident, and the late image of her hand emerging from the lake could support the idea that all of this occurs in a strange instant. perhaps the old-god like entity in the lake gave her this experience as the gift she needed to cope? a cathartic revenge on her past traumas, made manifest so she could move on to her new ones?
i think i need to watch the house sequences again...
Doing stuff quickly is basically how you get giant scores. Your multiplier stacks and you get extra obols for completing combat floors quickly
The environmental hazard and goody bag floors aren’t timed
Man do not sleep on this mode if you liked Returnal’s combat. You get to experiment with weapons you never used and if you leveled up weapons you now benefit from that! Also the heavy weapons are amazing
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KoopahTroopahThe koopas, the troopas.Philadelphia, PARegistered Userregular
edited May 2022
Started some tower runs for the first time. First run got to Phase 2 Room 18 before some elite mob yeeted me off the edge and I lost like 75% of my health from that combo alone killing me. Second run I got to Phase 3 Room 12, went through one of those white mob portals, found a really strong elite who literally teleported next to me and one shot me from full life (like 200% integrity). So yeah, this tower don't fuck around.
Story stuff seems really interesting so far and seems to delve into
the relationship with your mother? I've only had 5-6 audio clips and one hospital visit, but I feel like it's talking about Seline's mom and how she passed away and didn't really approve of Seline. The collection of 'unwanted' poppies is very interesting.
So this 51 year old decided to give this game a try.
After 19 hours I finally managed to kill the first boss. It was done by going through every nook an cranny on the whole level, doing apparently very well because I managed to get to proficiency 5, which gave me the assault rifle with high caliber and 3 pips pf extra damage.
Then 9 hours later, after 28 hours, I managed to beat the 2nd boss after finding a Hollowseeker with Serrated on it (the bleeding trait).
I haven’t seen boss 3 yet, because the game gave me a big room full of turrets and 4 of those machine-gunning, gorilla-stomping, whip-snaring big robots.
I know no-one is probab;y playing this anymore, but I managed to do a perfect run on a daily challenge, and ended up 6th of some 370 players, so I was pleased
Little question : if I level up a weapon’s trait to level II (for example, via the Tower), does that mean that each time I find a weapon with that trait, it’ll be II, or does it just mean that it can be I or II, but if it’s II it will already be working.
Follow-up question : If you’re training a trait to become II, is the trait I still working?
Furthermore, Hollowseeker with Waves and Serrated is civilisation.
PSN (PS4-Europe): Carolus-Billius
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KoopahTroopahThe koopas, the troopas.Philadelphia, PARegistered Userregular
Little question : if I level up a weapon’s trait to level II (for example, via the Tower), does that mean that each time I find a weapon with that trait, it’ll be II, or does it just mean that it can be I or II, but if it’s II it will already be working.
So when you find a gun that has II/III/IV/etc, I believe the current gun will have the effects of tier I until the higher tier is unlocked. I don't recall ever rolling a gun that has multiple tiers of the same effect, but that could just be my bad memory.
Another thing to keep in mind is that gun rolls are tied to your proficiency rating, and just because you leveled and unlocked say 'Hardened III' on a run prior, you will still have to level and unlock 'Hardened II' if you roll it and haven't leveled it yet. Here's a helpful post from reddit that may or may not still be accurate:
Proficiency determines what traits are available, how high they can be rolled, and how many of them you get. I would need to do a bit more testing to have confidence in exact answers here, but in general.
For example, Portal Sentry for Hollowseeker, Hyper-Accurate for Carbine, and Tail Fire for Thermogenic Launcher do not seem to appear in the pool until Proficiency 25.
Here is an off the top of my head answer. Will need to test the below for accuracy especially in light of today's patch:
Only level 1 traits are available prior to Proficiency 5. Usually guns will have one trait.
Level 2 traits are available at or after Proficiency 5-10. Guns will have two traits.
At Proficiency 10-15, guns can have three traits, still seems capped at II.
15-19 it seems that level 3 can, but is not really likely to appear.
20-24 is where you start to see many higher rolled traits.
25-30 is where the best traits are added to the pool.
Unfortunately this leads to later biomes having the best traits, but it's how the game balances getting crazy powerful weapons until later in runs instead of immediately.
Furthermore, Hollowseeker with Waves and Serrated is civilisation.
I have a partial answer for myself; I had this acid grenade launcher of which I had unlocked Enlarged Chamber I (so that I can shoot 2 blobs).
But when I found one with Enlarged II, as long as I was unlocking it, it was treated as if I had no Enlarged, so I could only shoot 1 blob.
I can now shoot 3 blobs. Acid blobs melt away turret and robot shields but you have to trust in Auto-aim a lot when things are moving
Boss 3 down! That was some Bayonetta-like insanity.
I am now starting at the 4th world? With 15 proficiency?
I’d like to amend my previous statement after unlocking the Portal Gun:
Hollowseeker with Waves, Serated and Portal Gun is civilisation.
Corporal Carl on
PSN (PS4-Europe): Carolus-Billius
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KoopahTroopahThe koopas, the troopas.Philadelphia, PARegistered Userregular
The bosses in Returnal are so jaw dropping. Really enjoyed all of them and Biome 3 has great gameplay with the moving platforms, but Biome 4 boss is thematically brilliant.
I should really jump back into this, maybe when it gets on Steam I'll do another playthrough.
World 4 is very painful; the simplest critters are flying laser, shooting, bomb-throwing-that-spawn-not-1-red-circle-but-3-just-because, there are very few chests, and almost everything seems to be cursed.
By some miracle I managed to get hold of those 2 keys (including a fight with my starter pistol versus an orange overpowered ^^critter), so the way to Hyperion, the big boss, was open. I was very happy to see a datacube processor BEFORE the boss fight, so I was really happy to stuff a cube in it, and return to a second cube I encountered.
Hyperion played his music and killed me quite hard as I basically had only 1 or 2 suit health upgrades.
And I died and died and died.
And then I found a machine gun where I could unlock Leeching Rounds, AND it had 8 pips of damage. What happened next was a headless chicken running around panickily and dodging symphonies of bullets while trying to hit the boss just to heal. I thought I was dead when he trapped me in a corridor surrended by branches, but then he decided to play a bit more music, and fill the screen not with symphonies but whole oeuvres of music and bullets.
And then boom! Boss screeches and I am exhaustedly puffing in my chair gasping for breath.
Boss 4 down!
EDIT : Enters World 5, sees locked door, uses key, gets “Protection against hazardous environment”. Walks through the lava, grabs a glyph there, goes back to central room.
Sees pool, thinks “Is water considered hazardous?”. Dies.
Water is lethal, and therefore, protection against hazardous environments does not work.
World 5 is no joke! Sometimes I get killed the first step I get outside of that central room when they throw 5 drones at me with red homing bullets.
I once managed to get a bit of progress, and then I came into a locked room with 2 orange overpowered frost Severed
So now I am training, getting through world 4 while levelling up the traits and alt-fires to level II (so that I get used to those orange overpowered ones).
I am, of course, focussing on levelling the Hollowseeker and the Carbine first (Hardened II gives +15 Protection, sweet!).
But now I have a teensy little hope, because I’m levelling Tracker II on a Waves/Serrated/Portal Gun Hollowseeker, so it feels like I might have a millisecond more to live
UPDATE: This good weapon allowed me to get 2 Hadal keys, but the way to the third was insane! First 2 hop-dodge the lasers corridors, and then I checked the map many times, but the way through was through a challenge room?
At least 6 shielded triple-purple-beam-circle dogs were part of wave 1. On an almost flat surface arena. THE END.
Do I have to gatherer the 3 Hadal keys each time, or does the game know I already have 2? I guess as soon as you open the door it stays open?
Posts
It's using HowLongToBeat as a guide. So it's basically up to the user to decide if they are "finishing it". Basically they put it in their list and never considered it completed.
I think I'm averaging less progress there than I was in biome 1 when I first started playing and was badeven worse at the game than I am now.
If I get a good long play session I might try and do everything in 4 before moving on to 5, the last few runs I've mostly been speeding through just to try and get a bit more experience in the tougher area.
PSN / Xbox / NNID: Fodder185
Also I will say once you have him learned, Hyperion is easily one of the biggest chumps in the entire game and a very easy boss.
I'm yet to try any of the challenge rooms you find, because if I'm having a good run I don't want to mess it up, and if I'm not having a good run I just assume I'm going to get slaughtered.
PSN / Xbox / NNID: Fodder185
Challenge rooms are worth it if you're feeling halfway confident in your gear. If you've got a weapon you're comfortable with and a reasonable amount of health, you'll probably be able to handle it. And they can have some decent rewards.
I went through there twice before I found out what I was missing, and was very annoyed about it.
If I had unlimited play time (or even a decent chunk more than I do) I would've happily kept bumping my way through, none of the deaths feel cheap, and I'm still very much enjoying the game.
For now I am absolutely LOVING the feel of biome 6.
PSN / Xbox / NNID: Fodder185
had to gamble on facing the end boss with no consumables, but i had leech rounds II and high protection. and let's be honest. when you're on a roll, there's no going back...
anyway it was all pretty well timed, since my first day back teaching was today and i'm not sure how well i was coping with the unresolved tension
this is a truly great game and a world i'll be revisiting often
i wound up missing a weapon - number 6? any spoilers?
I completed Act 3 on the weekend after being so close to giving up on the last collectible, the fact it's so randomly hidden combined with there being a point of no return in the level was doing my head in but got through.
This game is fantastic and frustrating and hard but fair.
I will not be attempting to get the platinum.
PSN / Xbox / NNID: Fodder185
If it's the one for finding all logs, you can find guides online for a rough idea of where to look for what you're missing.
One that kept eluding me was in Biome 1, where it only seemed to spawn if you died and respawned in that biome using the bio-reconstructor; I'd always avoided using those in the first biome because it felt like a waste of ether.
PSN / Xbox / NNID: Fodder185
actually cleared the entirety of B3 including the challenge room for the first time, which was *very* cathartic...
firstly i totally love this world and all of its implications and ambiguities. that's not necessarily something i always adore, but the puzzle gets more lucid, more detailed, more interesting with every piece - it encourages a concrete reading, it doesn't resist it. it's such a perfect narrative design for this game
in my head, Atropos cleanly worked as a post-accident dissociative fantasy. it was selene's way of dealing with prolonged hospitalisation, rehabilitation and grief after the accident. the motifs: spines, bandages, beds, the Severed - all support this.
the cyclical chronology is clear and really apt here. her mother's accident - the one that stripped her ambition and turned her into a bitter monster - echoed selene's, and that terrible fate amplified selene's need to disconnect from a horrible reality
much of that remains true. but thinking of a few things - specifically the clocks, always stuck at the moment of the accident, and the late image of her hand emerging from the lake could support the idea that all of this occurs in a strange instant. perhaps the old-god like entity in the lake gave her this experience as the gift she needed to cope? a cathartic revenge on her past traumas, made manifest so she could move on to her new ones?
i think i need to watch the house sequences again...
i'm really grateful for the way it treats the puzzle of the narrative - that is, downplayed in relation to the tone, metaphors, intertextuality etc
opened my eyes to a couple of things - cool details mostly, but it's a very meaningful reading
https://www.polygon.com/22981198/returnal-ascension-expansion-co-op-endless-mode-details
Me, two floors later: "OHGODOHGODWHYYY."
The lowest possible rank? Okay it wasn't great, but really?
2nd run:
The best possible rank? Fantastic, I have achieved godhood!
3rd run:
Oh I've got this thing down.
4th run:
Yikes. Come on, it wasn't that bad.
5th run:
Apparently better, even though it felt worse.
6th run:
A new personal best, but not in ranking I guess?
The environmental hazard and goody bag floors aren’t timed
Man do not sleep on this mode if you liked Returnal’s combat. You get to experiment with weapons you never used and if you leveled up weapons you now benefit from that! Also the heavy weapons are amazing
Story stuff seems really interesting so far and seems to delve into
Twitch: KoopahTroopah - Steam: Koopah
https://steamdb.info/app/1649240/localization/
After 19 hours I finally managed to kill the first boss. It was done by going through every nook an cranny on the whole level, doing apparently very well because I managed to get to proficiency 5, which gave me the assault rifle with high caliber and 3 pips pf extra damage.
Then 9 hours later, after 28 hours, I managed to beat the 2nd boss after finding a Hollowseeker with Serrated on it (the bleeding trait).
I haven’t seen boss 3 yet, because the game gave me a big room full of turrets and 4 of those machine-gunning, gorilla-stomping, whip-snaring big robots.
I know no-one is probab;y playing this anymore, but I managed to do a perfect run on a daily challenge, and ended up 6th of some 370 players, so I was pleased
Great fun, recommended, will die again.
Follow-up question : If you’re training a trait to become II, is the trait I still working?
Furthermore, Hollowseeker with Waves and Serrated is civilisation.
Another thing to keep in mind is that gun rolls are tied to your proficiency rating, and just because you leveled and unlocked say 'Hardened III' on a run prior, you will still have to level and unlock 'Hardened II' if you roll it and haven't leveled it yet. Here's a helpful post from reddit that may or may not still be accurate:
Unfortunately this leads to later biomes having the best traits, but it's how the game balances getting crazy powerful weapons until later in runs instead of immediately.
Yes.
Twitch: KoopahTroopah - Steam: Koopah
I have a partial answer for myself; I had this acid grenade launcher of which I had unlocked Enlarged Chamber I (so that I can shoot 2 blobs).
But when I found one with Enlarged II, as long as I was unlocking it, it was treated as if I had no Enlarged, so I could only shoot 1 blob.
I can now shoot 3 blobs. Acid blobs melt away turret and robot shields
Ragnorok not exclusive to PS5 if that is what you were thinking. Returnal really hasn't had too much competition yet.
I am now starting at the 4th world? With 15 proficiency?
I’d like to amend my previous statement after unlocking the Portal Gun:
Hollowseeker with Waves, Serated and Portal Gun is civilisation.
I should really jump back into this, maybe when it gets on Steam I'll do another playthrough.
Twitch: KoopahTroopah - Steam: Koopah
Sorta. But yeah I forgot it's out for the PS4 too.
By some miracle I managed to get hold of those 2 keys (including a fight with my starter pistol versus an orange overpowered ^^critter), so the way to Hyperion, the big boss, was open. I was very happy to see a datacube processor BEFORE the boss fight, so I was really happy to stuff a cube in it, and return to a second cube I encountered.
Hyperion played his music and killed me quite hard as I basically had only 1 or 2 suit health upgrades.
And I died and died and died.
And then I found a machine gun where I could unlock Leeching Rounds, AND it had 8 pips of damage. What happened next was a headless chicken running around panickily and dodging symphonies of bullets while trying to hit the boss just to heal. I thought I was dead when he trapped me in a corridor surrended by branches, but then he decided to play a bit more music, and fill the screen not with symphonies but whole oeuvres of music and bullets.
And then boom! Boss screeches and I am exhaustedly puffing in my chair gasping for breath.
Boss 4 down!
EDIT : Enters World 5, sees locked door, uses key, gets “Protection against hazardous environment”. Walks through the lava, grabs a glyph there, goes back to central room.
Sees pool, thinks “Is water considered hazardous?”. Dies.
Water is lethal, and therefore, protection against hazardous environments does not work.
Also I loved Hyperion, the music was great
I once managed to get a bit of progress, and then I came into a locked room with 2 orange overpowered frost Severed
So now I am training, getting through world 4 while levelling up the traits and alt-fires to level II (so that I get used to those orange overpowered ones).
I am, of course, focussing on levelling the Hollowseeker and the Carbine first (Hardened II gives +15 Protection, sweet!).
But now I have a teensy little hope, because I’m levelling Tracker II on a Waves/Serrated/Portal Gun Hollowseeker, so it feels like I might have a millisecond more to live
UPDATE: This good weapon allowed me to get 2 Hadal keys, but the way to the third was insane! First 2 hop-dodge the lasers corridors, and then I checked the map many times, but the way through was through a challenge room?
At least 6 shielded triple-purple-beam-circle dogs were part of wave 1. On an almost flat surface arena. THE END.
Do I have to gatherer the 3 Hadal keys each time, or does the game know I already have 2? I guess as soon as you open the door it stays open?
Almost there!
EDIT: Finding 7 weapons in World 6, and then seeing 2 shielded Jellyfish generators in the distance = 7 traits unlocked/leveled