Fun gameplay, story and the lead are ehhh, nice visuals and atmosphere. The boss battles are pretty good although sometimes there's too much stuff happening on screen and it can be difficult to dodge some attacks.

I liked the house sections, they're short and spooky. Reminded me a bit of PT.

I was expecting to enjoy it more, the progression is kinda weird imo. Yeah you get some permanent upgrades but they're not that meaningful if the game's rng is against you. The story not being very intesting also doesn't help a lot, it was okay; I expected a bit more.

Overall, it's a nice game and I'm excited to see what Housemarque does next!

pretty tough game, but was able to beat it with just 11 deaths. the final boss is a spectacle though, would highly recommend playing this one all the way through.

Edit...

ok so I didn't actually beat the game that first time, only made it halfway. just beat the actual final boss and I don't think my opinion on the game has changed drastically. still very very tough though.

I think the combat feels really nice and fluid and I love the vibes of the setting. As a rogue like though, the structure of it kinda baffles me. There isn't really a whole lot of incentive to redo boss fights since once you beat them, you permanently unlock access to the next area. Really, your only reason to not just mad dash to the exit is finding power ups. I'm also not the biggest fan of the walking sim spooky house moments. The story itself does create an interesting horror scenario out of the rogue like loop though.

I REALLY want to score this game higher because the story and themes are amazing and the gameplay was okay for the most part. But the last biome is unironically one of the worst things I have ever seen in gaming as a whole and it's design and philosophy go directly against what the devs accomplished in earlier portions of the game. I beat the entire game, collected all pieces for the secret ending, saw the last home scene and on my way to the last boss I got grazed by a fucking shockwave attack going though the floor. I didn't even die, but I still took out the disk and decided I'm done with the game. I was tired of asking myself why do I only ever take damage when the visibility is dogshit or something teleports behind me or a shockwave comes from behind a wall, or when I'm in the air with limited movement options. I feel like when you take Retunal under the microscope you start seeing this everywhere. Why are there attacks that penetrate walls and floors below you, which results in truly unavoidable hits? Why design all these awesome risk/reward mechanics when the optimal strategy in EVERY SINGLE RUN is to never engage with them? Why do 75% of the weapons just straight-up suck? Why are there so many artifacts that do next to nothing or are just worse versions of other artifacts in the game? Why did the devs pick one of the most gameplay-heavy genres if their primary objective was to tell a story? If Returnal was not a roguelike and just a story-driven experience I would gladly give it an 8 or a 9. But it is a roguelike and I have to compare it to other roguelikes, and they all fucking sweep it with no effort.

100% Achievements!

A game which excels in atmosphere, graphics, plot and challenge. The music was incredible and the atmosphere was so enjoyable that playing in the levels was a joy. The game has so many weapons with sub traits that make the weapons feel so different. Some weapons can make the game cheesable whilst others make it far more challenging. Whilst I completed the game, I didn't have the heart to go for the secret ending.

My issue was that the difficulty spike in Biome 5 is incredible. In fact half my entire play time (- 20+hrs) was spent on that Biome and honestly grinded my gears. I was exhausted after, however regardless of my lack of skill- I can only hold this in such high esteem. This is most likely the best game on PS5 and with the dual shock controller, a delight to experience. So what are you waiting for?

Never have I been so bad at a video game.

Returnal is a test of patience, willpower, stamina in addition to your gaming prowess. It puts you through the paces. It's a fun and aggravating experience. Unrelated to its difficulty, there are just a few drawbacks that keep a very good game from being a great game.

I would never suggest that I'm some godly gamer. Certainly, I'm not. I play most games on their normal difficulty as given to you when you start it up. Now if the appeal of a game is solely its difficulty, I might turn it up a bit and see where I can get. If I really enjoy a game and I'm playing it for the nth time I might turn the difficulty up a bit as well. I've beaten the Doom reboots on highest difficulties for the skill challenge and I've beaten all of the Mass Effects on their highest difficulties by virtue of having completed them a million times each.

But Returnal is still quite the challenge. Taxing. Rooms are ever changing, enemy compositions unchanging, endless gun RNG that changes what the guns even do. No two carbines are the same. This makes Returnal a tough task. It took me nearly 10 hours just to beat Phrike.

Once I beat Phrike I got some downhill momentum. It took me less time to beat Ixion and even less to beat Nemesis. Bit by bit I got a little better. But there were still endless deaths to random adds, falling off platforms or getting caught in those fucking hanging things. Returnal has no problem humbling the shit out of you once you get a little cocky.

If you are unfamiliar, Returnal is a roguelite. You spawn at your crashed ship with just a middling pistol. You have to shoot and loot your way through procedurally generated rooms and enemies. Collecting resources along the way to upgrade all of your gear and stats. Should you die however, you lose everything and are returned to the start with that middling pistol.

It makes for a game that can be a real slog at times and also gives one of gaming's best endorphin-rushes when you manage to slay a boss. Returnal does a lot of things very well. The runs are tense. They require focus. You have to buy-in. Collecting guns and obolites, you feel the pressure. You can resonate with Selene fending for her life, because one mistake and she dies, so does your last few hours of investment. It can put you on edge.

This combined with all of the eerie story and aesthetics of this alien world make for a sometimes unnerving experience. The absolutely TREMENDOUS usage of the DualSense's haptics and the PS5's 3D Audio in your headset makes Returnal almost sickeningly immersive. And it pisses you off all the more when your great loot luck is dashed by an entire room full of those god damn tree demons.

The gameplay is flowing and snappy. I find the design choice to make Returnal more of a run 'n' gun than a slow stealthy game pays off well. It feels something like Doom and even Devil May Cry. Dashing about through enemy projectiles, leaping to slash people with your lightsaber and desperately trying to collect obolites before they disappear makes for a really fast paced action game. When you're really in the groove it can feel great. The movements usually feel well related to one another. Faster than you can think but yet you're always trying to think a step ahead. When it gets going it feels really cool.

Returnal has a few drabacks though. The most glaring one is the lack of save states. I don't mean for save scumming, but Returnal runs can take a real long time. You can take 2 hours easy in a really good run. You can take longer if you're trying to salvage a mediocre run into a good one. This is longer than most roguelites which comparably tend to have <30 minute runs. It's hard to pick up the controller in Returnal and try a quick cycle because if it's going well and you have to leave, well there goes your run.

Plenty of roguelites have some form of midrun save or checkpoint system that allows for you to come back to your run later. Especially roguelites with run times as long as Returnal's. I believe at this time Housemarque is allegedly looking into adding such a feature but through my many hours with the game it wasn't there yet. This is particularly egregious when many are reporting issues with crashes while playing Returnal. The game crashed on me once during a run that was awful anyway, but had I been in the middle of a boss fight when it happened I might've shattered my controller. To lack save states in a game with runs that take hours and can be prone to crashing is truly abysmal. Figure out how to shorten run times or just implement a save mechanic.

I thought some of the biomes were a bit underwhelming and I didn't love their layouts. I thought the random gaps and holes in the map during the first biome were more aggravating than interesting. Rarely were they a part of cool puzzles. They were mostly there to piss you off if you happened to dash away from an enemy projectile in the wrong direction. I didn't find them engaging in any form. It also didn't comport well with how cramped biome one felt.

Conversely, biome two is way too open. The desert leading to the mountain is much too large and much too open. Some cool visuals but playing that portion of the biome just isn't interesting. Once you get to ascending the mountain and dealing with the ruin rooms it's a bit more interesting again but ultimately I found the game's opening two biomes to be boring.

Derelict Citadel on the other hand is super cool. And is the most unique of all the biomes. Plenty of cool enemies and just the general aesthetic is interesting. The Abyssal Scar is neat but I found the final boss, Ophion, to be underwhelming. In some ways this was nice. The game was so hard and Abyssal Scar is really an absolute bastard to get to the final boss in decent shape, that it was nice to get to the final boss and be able to win. But I also felt it was as easy if not easier than Nemesis, and though it was cool in the moment it isn't as cool in hindsight.

The Returnal story is not half as cool as it thinks it is. The weird abstract ending and such just doesn't do a lot for me. At all. I guess this is supposed to be some weird metaphor for Selene's relationship with her abusive mother and the death of her daughter in that car crash? Idk. I can't figure it out. The game's way too specific about all of the aliens and xeno stuff on the planet that it just seems weird for it to be all invented in a (dead?) women's brain? I just don't get it. At least it's absolutely gorgeous.

My one big complaint with Returnal gameplay is the guns and gun traits. There's a ton of them. They're random. There's so much RNG. The game gives you very little accessible information about how much actual damage guns do and exactly what their traits do. It takes a lot of trial and error to figure that out. Way more than is necessary. Given the importance of guns and gun traits to progression this made things far more annoying than it ever needed to be.

Not a huge fan of rogue like games, but great game, great atmosphere, solid gameplay and world.

Difficulty as fuck

I would say could have a little more story, but I didn't explore all of it.

I've debated for a long time whether to play this game, afraid that I wouldn't like the roguelike style. While roguelike still has a long way to go before becoming my favourite genre, as I am fond of permanent character development and builds, this game is nothing short of phenomenal and is easily one of the best first-party games available on PS5.

The game looks and runs fantastically, and particular praise should go to the excellent sound design. Returnal can also be notoriously challenging, where mistakes are heavily punished and good runs can be quickly ruined by even minor missteps. Luckily, the suspend feature that was retroactively added, together with the almost non-existent loading times, makes everything more manageable.

The completionist side, however, can be extremely tedious, with heavy RNG elements and repeated runs for collectables that contradict how the game was intended to be played.

I would buy a PS5 just for this game. This is a console seller much like Demons Souls was for me.
The absolute hardcore difficulty of it with an absolutely mine boggling story that is a heart wrenching all while having some of the best gameplay I’ve ever experience as well as showcasing just how amazing the DualSense is as a controller, makes Returnal easily one of the best games I’ve ever played.
It’s a shame that the games difficulty turns away so many players because it genuinely is an experience unlike any other.
If you’re a fan of Hades and Binding of Isaac, imagine a third person bullet hell version of that with intense horror elements. That’s what this game is and it hits every single note that it’s trying to achieve and expands on already existing ideas.
It takes the run based genre and goes with a heavy story that is gripping from the start. It may have some of the best atmospheric story telling in any game I’ve played. It matches the Souls series in every way. Subtle references lie in wait, alien dialect reveals the plot in strange ways.
The entire meaning of the game is so gorgeous and so impactful. I was left stunned by its ending.
It is hard to talk about this fantastic game without mentioning the controller and audio design.
I was always concerned the DuelSense would be a gimmick but Returnal proves it’s not. Every gun feels different. Every step I take, every bit of rain, every enemy attack feels and waves past the controller that immerses beyond just seeing what’s on the screen.
The audio as well, is just gorgeous. You honestly can tell where enemies are by the slight sound behind you with the 3D audio. It genuinely helped me in tight spots and every second matters in this game.
Returnal is honestly a fun, unique, extremely loveable game that sadly is turned away by it’s difficulty.
It deserves a round of a million applauses and has easily spiked itself up into my top PlayStation games of all time.
From the bottom of my run based heart.