Even the story, despite that promising start and some wonderfully thick horror atmosphere, ends up being a frustratingly vague tapestry that feels more aimed at the creators of 20 minute YouTube explainers than the average player. The result is a game that, though frequently fun and hugely satisfying to conquer, also demands far more patience than is really fair to ask. There's a real sense that, though the developer perfectly understands how to stage a fight, it really doesn't get what makes people love roguelikes-and certainly never figured out how to make that gel with what people love about arcade shooters. But it feels like that need to present it as something other than a pure test of twitch reflexes has led to it being housed in totally the wrong structure. It's some of the best and most engaging action you'll find on PC. I have to stress-in the moment, when you're bouncing between platforms, blasting aliens and dashing through their attacks, it looks and feels excellent. During an attempt it's a blast, but the roguelike structure means it can take hours between each go, as you fight your way to their room, try to keep yourself at high enough health to have a chance, stock up on consumables you'll need, search for a decent weapon… After all that, you could still die in a few hits, and be right back at square one. Each one is a glorious bullet hell fever dream, and beating them necessitates learning their attacks and practicing the appropriate dodges and counters, often with lots of trial and error. It's particularly grating once you reach one of the game's bosses. It's simply not worth rolling the dice on that for the sake of a slight increase to your health (in a game that demands you simply never get hit anyway), one of many incrementally better guns, or one of the artifact buffs that, due to their specificity, I found often never came into play at all. Combat is so difficult and punishing that the wrong debuff or too much damage taken ahead of an encounter can easily tank a run no matter how far in you are. Runs are full of risk/reward decisions-should you open this chest, knowing it might give you a debuff? Should you enter this challenge room, attempting a tough fight for extra rewards? Should you brave that dangerous trap to get the health pick-up inside? The problem is, because of that focus on skill over RPG progression, the rewards are usually meagre, and the risk is often too harsh. It often feels like the best strategy is to simply rush to your goal as fast as possible, rather than taking time to explore and search for loot. Combined with the long length of runs, the result is that it's very possible to die after 40 minutes of play having made no progress at all in your overall goal. There's almost no persistent progression, and even within a run, boons that you earn frequently feel minor. Despite the roguelike structure, there's a clear reluctance to let the RPG elements traditional for the genre have too much effect on the very skill-based combat. At the very least, it’s got me ready to give the game another go.(Image credit: Housemarque) (opens in new tab)Įlsewhere, unfortunately, the game struggles to find a similar balance. It’s a nice compromise that accommodates both those who believe the sometimes-grueling length of Returnal’s runs are part of the game’s point, and those who would like to fit the game in their lives but find one continuous run a little too demanding on their time. It’s not a full-on save system - you only get one file, and it’s erased once it’s loaded up again, much like how bookmarks function in a game like Fire Emblem: Three Houses. The other is a suspend cycle option, which allows players to save their runs wherever they are (provided they are not in combat or in one of the game’s narrative first-person sequences) and close the game. Live today, Returnal’s 2.0 update brings two major features to the game: the first is a photo mode, because frankly any game that doesn’t have one should be embarrassed. Six months after its release, there’s finally a way to save your game. Unlike most roguelikes, a reasonably successful Returnal run could take a few hours, and barring the use of the PS5’s suspend feature, there was no way to save your run to finish later - at least, not without sacrificing your ability to play another game, or risking disaster should the power cut out or the game update while the console was in rest mode. At launch, it was also largely meant to be tackled in one sitting. Returnal, Housemarque’s PlayStation 5 exclusive about a woman trapped in a timeloop on an alien world, is meant to be challenging.
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