Returnal |OT| A New Roguelike Standard!

Thread: Returnal |OT| A New Roguelike Standard!
Official Thread
Mista

Mista

Fox Hound
 
Platforms
  1. PC
  2. PlayStation
  3. Nintendo
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Developer: Housemarque
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Platform: PS5
Genre: Roguelike
Release Date: 30/04/2021

Game Overview

After crash-landing on this shape-shifting world, Selene must search through the barren landscape of an ancient civilization for her escape. Isolated and alone, she finds herself fighting tooth and nail for survival. Again and again, she's defeated – forced to restart her journey every time she dies.

Through relentless roguelike gameplay, you'll discover that just as the planet changes with every cycle, so do the items at your disposal. Every loop offers new combinations, forcing you to push your boundaries and approach combat with a different strategy each time.

Brought to life by stunning visual effects, the dark beauty of the decaying world around you is packed with explosive surprises. From high stakes, bullet hell-fuelled combat, to visceral twists and turns through stark and contrasting environments. You'll explore, discover and fight your way through an unforgiving journey, where mystery stalks your every move.

Designed for extreme replayability, the procedural world of Returnal invites you to dust yourself off in the face of defeat and take on new, evolving challenges with every rebirth.

Key Features

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Gold star for you @Mista

I have accepted the fact I'll prob never finish 😕 especially with all these new games now coming out, but it'll always be something cool to come back to and I'm very interested to see what they do with it in terms of patches and DLC.
 
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HotPocket69 said:
Gold star for you @Mista

I have accepted the fact I'll prob never finish 😕 especially with all these new games now coming out, but it'll always be something cool to come back to and I'm very interested to see what they do with it in terms of patches and DLC.
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Cheers

Roguelike games were never meant to be finished like any other adventure game

You go do a run after a run after a run even after finishing the game. So take your time
 
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It really does have the best sound production I've ever heard in game. Surpassing Last of Us which I thought would never be topped.
 
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I finally beat the 2nd world. It really just takes a good first world with a nice build going, getting weapon proficiency up, and then it's not that bad. I even beat the boss on the first try.

I had the figurine, and the continue, and multiple healing items and I breezed through the whole damn thing not needing them! Hopefully my save doesn't get corrupted.
 
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Man, they have a great game on their hands but some of the stuff surrounding it is so fucked. You can't use automatic firmware updates, automatic game patches, play other games, or crash without losing a long run's progress. And now they put out a patch that corrupts your save file too.

They took the "malignancy risk" mechanic out of the game and applied it to real life when deciding if you even want to boot it up or not.
 
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Grinchy said:
Man, they have a great game on their hands but some of the stuff surrounding it is so fucked. You can't use automatic firmware updates, automatic game patches, play other games, or crash without losing a long run's progress. And now they put out a patch that corrupts your save file too.

They took the "malignancy risk" mechanic out of the game and applied it to real life when deciding if you even want to boot it up or not.
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Who said you can't have auto firmware enabled? They only mentioned it if you have a current run in rest mode as the patch would interrupt your sleeping game.
Furthermore, I don't understand why the need to rest the game in the first place. I'm nearing the end and the longest game I've had was an hour. 🤷
 
Well, I beat the 2nd and 3rd bosses on my first try somehow. I did end up using my figurine on that 3rd boss. That shit was crazy! And I've gotten all the way to the next boss and died halfway through with the 2nd chance machine active. I was struggling pretty hard early in, but now it doesn't feel quite as hard.



Gold Loot said:
Who said you can't have auto firmware enabled? They only mentioned it if you have a current run in rest mode as the patch would interrupt your sleeping game.
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It seems you answered your own question. If you have it enabled, your rest mode run is dead when it updates the firmware. If a patch installs automatically, they say that kills your rest mode run. If the game crashes, your run is dead. If you want to play a different game, your run is dead. It's a lot of ways for your run to be dead that don't involve dying lol.
 
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Grinchy said:
Well, I beat the 2nd and 3rd bosses on my first try somehow. I did end up using my figurine on that 3rd boss. That shit was crazy! And I've gotten all the way to the next boss and died halfway through with the 2nd chance machine active. I was struggling pretty hard early in, but now it doesn't feel quite as hard.




It seems you answered your own question. If you have it enabled, your rest mode run is dead when it updates the firmware. If a patch installs automatically, they say that kills your rest mode run. If the game crashes, your run is dead. If you want to play a different game, your run is dead. It's a lot of ways for your run to be dead that don't involve dying lol.
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These are things that can happen with literally any other game.
Like I said earlier (ya know, that part of the quote you cut) there's no reason why your run would last over an hour anyways.
 
Gold Loot said:
These are things that can happen with literally any other game.
Like I said earlier (ya know, that part of the quote you cut) there's no reason why your run would last over an hour anyways.
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Really disagree. I could list off 100 games that don't lose all progress the second they are closed for any reason if I had to.

And an hour is maybe when you really know the game. We're not all pro esports Returnal nationals players lol
 
I don't wanna hear any apologism for this situation, i'm liking the game a lot but there is no excuse for this shitshow.

Thank god i have the console offline so i didn't downloaded the latest 2-3 patches...
 
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Fuck me, I had the 4th boss down to like 10% health twice now. Crazy fight.

This game is really hard to put down. They really have something here.

And hey @HotPocket69 what ever happened to your buddy's "leak" on this game's storyline? :ROFLMAO:
 
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HotPocket69 said:
How'd you kill those Doom Marauder guys? That's where I dropped it. That first encounter with them in B2.
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Is that the severed or whatever they are called? I think I just got lucky with having crazy high damage combined with some nice dodges. I also find that hitting with melee after dodging a big close attack typically feels very powerful.
 
Grinchy said:
Is that the severed or whatever they are called? I think I just got lucky with having crazy high damage combined with some nice dodges. I also find that hitting with melee after dodging a big close attack typically feels very powerful.
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Ok my buddy was saying that the sword fucks them up pretty good so that must be the key.

The sword staggers certain baddies for easy brutal follow up attacks. I think those tall green slime fuckers are weak to it too.

Those leaping giant red assholes are still the worst.
 
Really interested in Returnal, but at $70 and seemingly one has to spend 3-5hr/sitting per a number of reviews...would it be worth it for someone who only has 30min-1.5hr at any given time or the reset mechanics too severe for someone like myself? I guess I'm kind of worried about it turning into $70 paperweight (a mediocre one at that...)
 
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rykomatsu said:
Really interested in Returnal, but at $70 and seemingly one has to spend 3-5hr/sitting per a number of reviews...would it be worth it for someone who only has 30min-1.5hr at any given time or the reset mechanics too severe for someone like myself? I guess I'm kind of worried about it turning into $70 paperweight (a mediocre one at that...)
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Would like to know as well. For the most part, I can only have gaming sessions up to one hour at a time.
 
Finished the game yesterday, now i only need to hunt the secret finale.

The story is confusing just for the sake of being confusing even if i have an idea of what direction it is going...
Probably the weakest aspect of the game close to the shitty meta progression, hades this is not.
 
rykomatsu said:
Really interested in Returnal, but at $70 and seemingly one has to spend 3-5hr/sitting per a number of reviews...would it be worth it for someone who only has 30min-1.5hr at any given time or the reset mechanics too severe for someone like myself? I guess I'm kind of worried about it turning into $70 paperweight (a mediocre one at that...)
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IMO if you really only have that much time per session, this game will probably frustrate you. Which is a shame, because it's really awesome.

But literally the only way to not lose your run is to have the game in rest mode and not have anything happen. No power outage, no updates, no playing anything else, etc. If you feel you can leave it in rest mode and not have any kinds of issues with that or play anything else for the whole week, then maybe you'd be fine.

Some people will say a run is only an hour, but I'm 14 hours in without beating it yet. That's not one run, but the run I'm on now to get to the 4th biome is multiple hours in. So for you that'd be like 4+ days!
 
Well, I beat the 4th boss and have spent some time in the 5th level. Really cool stuff so far.

But, yet again, as I was going around just trying to gather datacubes and get unlocks for weapons, it crashed in the 5th level. My PS5 couldn't even close the app. I had to hold the power button and go through the repair process This game is really damn good but I have to remember to never buy a game on Day 1.
 
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Having less fun with biome 3 than I was before. The little flying enemies in groups are literally harder to deal with than the first two bosses.

I'm enjoying the game, I think my biggest problem is that the runs are too long and can end too quickly. I can spend well over an hour clearing the first biome to go back and farm health upgrades, go to biome 3 and have my shit pushed in really quickly in a bad room. Games like Hades didn't feel anywhere near as punishing in that regard and you felt like you were making more permanent progress.

Will stick with it, but RE8 is out today, then Subnautica soon, then WoW TBC, so I dunno if I'll end up beating it before I forget about it.
 
The game added yet another way to lose your run without dying lol. There is some audio bug when you go into this arena-type room in the 4th biome to fight a kind of mini-boss. The first time it happened to me, it was just blaring horrible screechy audio and then the game crashed later.

But the 2nd time I got one of those rooms in another run, the audio just completely cut out and wouldn't come back even after warping to the 5th biome. So either I could continue playing in total silence, or I got to close the game and kill yet another run. This game is so hard to stop playing because it really is good, but god damn do they need to fix this shit.
 
Regawdless said:
Would like to know as well. For the most part, I can only have gaming sessions up to one hour at a time.
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The game uses a 'Souls like' shortcut system. Once you clear a zone, you will get keys/abilities that help you skip entire biomes. There's no need to kill bosses more than once.
Progressing the game shouldn't take any longer than an hour.
 
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If video stores were still a thing, I bet this game would be pretty hard to renew.
 
Wow, so the 5th biome
doesn't have a boss? I was pretty surprised by that. I guess it was already long/hard enough getting the 3 keys? The last one was behind one of those gold challenge doors that are usually optional, too. It was a tough ass room. And the 6th biome looks so cool and the floaty underwater mechanics really change things up.
 
lol this game though...

"This is just one of those lower ledges I can jump down to like the last 100 times."

Nz4n7uh.gif


"Hey I bet I can find the 11th way you can lose a run in this game without dying!"

 
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Think I'm out - I took a break to finish The Witcher 3 (nearly) and binge Resident Evil 8 and I'm just don't feel like going back to Returnal at all.

It's a good game, but it's not a very good roguelite specifically. So many other games I've played and will continue to play are better in that regard - Isaac, Hades, Dead Cells, Noita etc etc - where Returnal is more the sum of its parts. I had fun with it, but I'm not too fussed about beating it.
 
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Well I beat it! The ending was very strange. Won't get too specific.

I was kinda surprised though that the
last boss seemed easier than some previous ones. Was I just jacked up? Maybe a good combination of traits or something. It just seemed easier to follow and dodge his bullet spam than usual.
 
I need help guys. I'm getting so lost on the first level trying to find a White Shadow broadcast. I know that I have to start over every time I die and the levels change. My question is:

1) After I get off of this level and move to the next, if I die, do I have to repeat the entire first level again?

2) Where should I be looking for the broadcast?
 
VFX_Veteran said:
I need help guys. I'm getting so lost on the first level trying to find a White Shadow broadcast. I know that I have to start over every time I die and the levels change. My question is:

1) After I get off of this level and move to the next, if I die, do I have to repeat the entire first level again?

2) Where should I be looking for the broadcast?
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That is more of a generic objective, don't lose your mind over finding that, the levels all have the same structure with a final boss or some key to find by beating challenge rooms.

And you can't get lost, the door with a tringle are optional, the one with a rectangle are to go forward with the story, if you follow the second type you are gonna end in front of a red door in the minimap, that's the boss, you beat him and then you open a portal for the next level (the portal doors have a rectangle and a circle).

If you die, you lose everything except the objects and artifacts you unlocked (they add ti a pool of objects that you can find in your successive runs) and the weapons traits you unlock.

You also don't have to beat the boss again to reach the second biome, when you beat him the first time they give you a key to unlock a direct passage for biome 2.

You choose the wrong game to start with the roguelite genre dude, this one is not exactly cristal clear for a lot of things...
 
GymWolf said:
That is more of a generic objective, don't lose your mind over finding that, the levels all have the same structure with a final boss or some key to find by beating challenge rooms.

And you can't get lost, the door with a tringle are optional, the one with a rectangle are to go forward with the story, if you follow the second type you are gonna end in front of a red door in the minimap, that's the boss, you beat him and then you open a portal for the next level (the portal doors have a rectangle and a circle).

If you die, you lose everything except the objects and artifacts you unlocked (they add ti a pool of objects that you can find in your successive runs) and the weapons traits you unlock.

You also don't have to beat the boss again to reach the second biome, when you beat him the first time they give you a key to unlock a direct passage for biome 2.

You choose the wrong game to start with the roguelite genre dude, this one is not exactly cristal clear for a lot of things...
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Yea, sounds like too much trouble. I'll probably put the game aside.
 
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