Quick Look: Returnal

it's the returnal of 50 Cent blood on the sand

Every time I think of this game, I have to say the title in my head like the Ricola man.

Everything I've heard about this game so far has 4 major sticking points I cannot escape:

• The meta is inexplicably poor.
• The deaths are often frustratingly bullshit.
• The plot leaves threads loose and to the imagination of the player.
• The runs can last hours and there is no way to save mid-run.

Yet despite all of this, the game is phenomenal, truly next-gen, and everyone should play it. Eh... it just doesn't add up for me! Not that it matters until I get a PS5 at a retail price but I hope they patch the complaints away. Most of it seems like it could be fixed over time... I just... don't actually trust this developer to continue development as it's not really a thing they're known for. I'm very curious to see where this all goes.

This game feels like its benefiting monumentally from being a next-gen exclusive during a drought

Jeff Grubb liked it but didn't love it. Jeff Gerstmann likes it but doesn't love it. Jeff Bakalar loves hockey. Follow the money folks this is a typical Jeff-triangle scheme if I've ever seen one.

A week from now, some insane person is going to do a 20min speedrun.

If you aren't sold on this game from this QL check out Rurikhan's run on Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umy3uPub7GQ&t=5s

I've only watched half of this video so far so maybe Jeff gets around to it but regarding the alt-fire trigger situation - on Waypoint Patrick mentioned that he was having a similar problem and you can simply remap it to a different button. He had the same complain that while it's cool, it is also confusing in the middle of frantic combat.

Ugh so I want this game but the extra 10$ cost is rough, looks like Risk of Rain 2 in 4k lol (not to reduce it) and I love me some RoR.

Maybe a MP mode in the future, would be cool to go through with a friend.

@lethalki11ler: A roguelite with co-op actually sounds really interesting.

I absolutely love the look of this game (these kind of sci fi universes are high up there for me), and it looks like it can be a lot of fun gameplay-wise at the right moments. But, the roguelite element to it makes it such a hard sell for me. If it hadn't been a roguelite and a more "normal" single player story game I would have most likely instantly bought it however, especially since it sounds like each run ends up being way too long without the option to save in between. (Also never been much of a fan of randomly generated levels when they just end up being room x, y and z are just jumbled around in different orders every time)

Well I can confirm that the item that warps you to a random place is not just a always a secret safe area it sent me to a room with a mini-boss like enemy that wrecked me in seconds I was doing so well and was about to fight the first boss but figured one more secret room.

@yesiamaduck said:

So Returnal is this generation's Shadow of Mordor? Game of the year! 😄

This looks like an interesting combination of Alien, Metroid, and Furi a very good bullet hell shooter. But this is not a day one 70$ buy for me. This is definitely a game to check out once it goes on sale. And I mean a 40-30$ type of sale.

Looking forward to playing it, since it does a lot of what I like. The vibe, the gameplay, the roguelite elements. But I'm worried that after playing Outriders as a trickster, the combat will feel slow-paced despite it looking quite snappy overall.

Also, just gonna recommend Fury: Unleashed to anyone looking for a kick ass roguelite. Contra + Comix Zone + Metal Slug, it's so good.

Every weapon in Hades felt different, and upgrades amplified those differences; keeping the gameplay fresh. This gameplay looks very repetitive. Where are the: drop a turret weapons, or freeze all enemy mines, or bullets rain from above, or wall of fire, or chaining crowd control electricity strikes, melee is awesome builds. Definitely has potential, but looks a little too safe. Also no mid-run save is lame.

Having a quick look of this without Brad seems...wrong to me.

@djredbat said:

To further add on, I've actually run into those mini-boss secret rooms normally(well as normally as falling into a random "unmarked" hole). So the teleport does always take you to one of those, it's just that those rooms aren't always actually safe.

I feel there needs to be a safe room of sorts between areas where you can save etc. I quite liked how hades handles its mid floor stuff though one full run of that was 30mins or so than 2hrs or so.

Does feel it needs some better feeling upgrades/ more weapons.

This kinda reminds me of Remnant.

I was watching this with headphones and when Jeff aimed at the "button door", I distinctly thought that beeping was coming from behind - and lo and behold. I don't think I've ever been that well convinced by a virtual positioning effect, that's pretty impressive.

I'm with Jeff that I love everything about this game except the roguelike elements. I've watched a fair amount of runs now and the game does not seem to match some key, necessary roguelike elements to make this a game I'll drop 100+ hours into over months. I still want to try it because I like a lot of what they're doing, but I struggle to see a game I'll be playing all year.

Even though the combat feels snappy and your character feels quick, the runs are way too long - you need to have a run I can finish in a quick sitting, not something that takes an entire night. I don't have 1-2+ hours to spend on a run most of the time.

There's lots of modifiers, systems, and artifacts, but none of them appear game changing, and lots of the game appears samey and slow to start. The best roguelikes feel wildly different from run-to-run and in the most recent incarnation of roguelikes (Hades and Monster Train) they've also added that runs feel different from the jump with custom builds and immediate bonuses.

Lots of bad randomness - roll the dice on something good versus damage is a terrible item. It never feels good to be on the bad end of that, and it makes for very annoying decision-making. It's far more interesting to have defined risk/reward (pay X health to get X reward; take on X challenge to get X reward) than it is to just add an additional RNG level on top of the randomness that is already inherent in the genre.

Also a small thing - but why does the adrenaline upgrade effect flash your character red? Every time it happens I think it's a damage indicator.

I live for Jeff's Clipse references.

I feel like this game would have benefitted from an early access tweaking/community feedback period.

I haven't looked at other videos but could that be a side effect of the color blind settings he's using?

Is this Risk of Rain 2 only slower and with PS5 graphics?

I don't really know if this is for me, but damn if it doesn't look really cool. I've only been using my PS5 to play PS4 games anyway, so I might pick it up.

Either way, this is a sharp looking game and seems like something a little different. Good for them.

@obsurveyor: No it is red always. But I agree with what he meant. When it flashes red it always make me think I just took a big hit. I think I'm used to it now, but it was disconcerting

@davekap: Thanks. My thoughts exactly. And I fell for the praise, tried it and essentielly wasted 80 moneys.

I just beat the game and to these points, yes some of the artifacts are pretty much non negotiable, especially the one that gives you a shield when you pick up resin, that thing doubles, triples maybe even quadruples your effective hp for any given run. It's ridiculously powerful. That said, there aren't that many artifacts in total and you are very likely to get all or most of them including the really important ones on pretty much every successful run. The real variety from run to run are the weapons and how they make you approach combat, and in that respect all the weapons are pretty well balanced.

In general I would say that people are kind of mislabeling this game, it's a roguelike for sure but it's not trying to be like old roguelikes. It seems to be attempting to evolve in a different direction. In most rogulikes replayability is the big selling point and it's important for every run to be very different. In Returnal there is much less emphasis placed on replayabilitiy, although it is there if you want to keep playing, and much more emphasis on the decision making and quick progression aspects.

As for the story, yes the ending is quite vague, although there is still a lot of supplemental logs that I need to read through that may make things more concrete. I called the twist really early, but wasn't necessarily disappointed by it. Even if it is just left up to your interpretation, I'm enjoying thinking on it.

I fully intend to keep coming back to this game, not for the usual roguelike reasons of wanting to see what crazy new run I can have, but because the game is just insanely fun to play and is very satisfying. In that respect it falls very much in the same camp as Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal for me.

@davekap: Not critiquing your points, but I am curious as to why leaving ideas to the player is a sticking point? In my mind games and modern media writ large don't do enough of that. I'd prefer my hand held a little less.

I made it through the second biome and died to the third boss last night. I'm enjoying this a lot. My only real complaint is the lack of a hard save function mid-run (I really don't trust the PS5's sleep mode - it's crashed on me too many times).

I've been playing it and am in the 4th biome now. I absolutely love it so far. It's not really as difficult as people seem to want to make it out to be. Just that some of the mechanics are a bit obtuse. For example at full hp every single hp item is a resin that will work toward increasing your max hp. Then of course at the beginning of each area there is a modular calibration pickup that will set your weapon proficiency to the minimum needed to have a shot in the area. It's a guaranteed drop for example you can take a shortcut to the 3rd biome and you will get around level 8-9 weapon proficiency immediately. Super nice for when you have died. The more you use a weapon the more secondary feature you unlock. Shit gets busted

All but your second point are true. Deaths aren't really bullshit, but there are tough rooms that tend to fuck you up in a predictable way if you don't know what you're doing.

There aren't really builds in Returnal so much as there are certain items you want to basically collect every time. Increase protection, get integrity max up (total life), get extra lives, increase damage if you've got extra money, get weapons with better stats. You will consistently be overwhelmed by a large majority of the upgrades. Whoever thought that "increase/decrease time money stays on the ground" was an interesting dynamic should be taken to task, and the utter ubiquity with which you see that stat is baffling. That said, even with all the lackluster upgrades and boring stat bonuses, you still feel good when you get yourself powered up. There's no diversity in builds, aside from the guns you use, but it's still fun despite that.

I kind of like the abstract plot, even if it's too vague, and many of its twists and turns are predictable. There's a certain depth to it that has me thinking about it.

Overall, it's kind of just its own thing, and it's fun to play, looks great, and has many of the addictive hooks of other roguelites despite not having any interesting capacity for diverse builds.

Also, the boss battles, while being a little bit too easy I think, have this incredible sense of majesty to them. The music combined with the bullet hell fireworks kind of puts me in a fugue state. It's just cool.

is this game supposed to be good? because based on what I saw here... hard pass

Even at 1080p60 the video quality seems "fuzzy".

is this because the fidelity of the ps5 is so high compared to 1080p?