Returnal (2021)

God, I love this game so much.

As usual, I am going to start by listing the things I don't like, so I can focus on the glazing afterwards:

• Getting the platinum is kind of annoying.
• The haptics in the Play Station version are kind of intrusive. I don't know if it is specific about this game or if I am getting old but anytime I played this more than two hours my hands felt numb from all the vibration. It is the only game I have ever felt this so far, and I have spend more than 200 with the Pro Skaters.

Apart from that, I just love the experience of playing this game, start to finish. I went almost blind into it so the first hours were kind of creepy and horror-y in the sense that you don't really know what is in store for you if you have not watched anything prior. I knew this game was very well ranked and people loved it and I expected a Silent Hill-esque or Alan Wake type of experience, and oh no, I got it even better.

I have come to the realization that I do not enjoy survival horror games, even when I desperately want to play them. The anxiety inducing gameplay leaves me exhausted in a way that actually diminishes my ability to enjoy other aspects of the game, like narrative or art design, or even music. Returnal balances a really creepy, weird story with exhilarating gameplay, so when the tense and horror-adjacent bits come around, you are fully in the mood for some weird shit. It is so good.

The story of this game is excellent, and the integration between narrative and gameplay is so well executed is admirable. The twist at the end of Biome 3 is so uncompromising and cool that, when Selene was leaving Atropos for the first time, I thought "it would be kind of cool that this is some sort of dream and she never really leaves or something" and BOOM, the reveal is even better. A lesser game would have made handled that twist either in a really obvious or lame "gotcha" way, but Housemarque made it so good that I feel it hyped up the second part of the game, full of even weirder and creepier stuff. I will forever treasure the feeling I had at the end of Biome 5 when I realized that the last biome was the depths of a fucking subterranean ocean. My amygdala wanted to flee my body out of my ass, but like in a good way.

tl;dr: I think the best compliment I can give to this game is that it is the closest we will ever get to a video game adaptation of Annihilation (the movie, not the book), and to do that while being REALLY GOOD is a remarkable achievement.

The game is very atmospheric and the gameplay is very cool and responsive. I made it up to Biome 5 when I hit a wall. I just couldn't bring myself to play through. How am I supposed to learn the enemy pattern if they keep killing me with no chance to learn for a while?

It kinda feels like the game didn't commit hard enough one way or the other. As a roguelike, there isn't enough variety. You get the some character with minor different stats. Yet the structure is also annoying for someone who doesn't generally like roguelikes. I think I would've loved the game much more if it wasn't a roguelike. As a roguelike, there isn't enough variety for me either.

Also, from what I saw on YouTube, ending kinda sucks?

You know, I’ve always had this fantasy of eventually joining game dev. Regardless of how realistic that may be, I’ve long had an idea of what the first game I’d work on independently would be: an adaptation of Tom Cruise’s 2014 gem Edge of Tomorrow, itself based on Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s manga All You Need Is Kill. Housemarque beat me to it—and honestly, I’m not even mad.

Edge of Tomorrow follows Major William Cage, who’s trapped in a time loop on the front lines of a war humanity is destined to lose. The script is essentially built as a roguelite, where progress is more cerebral than physical: Cage evolving from a self-serving politician into a dominating force by learning the patterns of the battlefield. While Returnal is far more ambitious, I think the core aspects of that loop remain. Selene trudges through a similar cycle, facing an eerily familiar Lovecraftian-inspired foe while looking to break the cycle and return home. But unlike Cage, she’s plagued by endless swarms of bullet-hell enemies on a shifting, living planet, against a set foes built from parts of her life.

The patterns here are more literal: you learn how each unique enemy moves and fights, weaving through their attacks until what was once an overwhelming onslaught becomes a delicate dance. Progress is more conventional, as your alien-made weaponry upgrades the longer you use it, functioning as powerful modifiers that make each run unique and the repetitive gauntlet satisfying. Selene’s story, however, is where the two properties diverge most—and where I find the most to criticize. Housemarque chose a more abstract narrative approach, placing a central question at the heart of Selene’s ordeal: who is “the astronaut” (a faceless, omnipresent being haunting her throughout the game), and what do they want? In true Lovecraftian fashion, the question is never really meant to be answered—or more accurately, it’s left open to interpretation. I understand the appeal of an open-ended mystery and the value of subjective truth, but there’s a fine line between abstraction and absurdity. In my opinion, Housemarque fails to clear it. After enduring such a gruelingly difficult game, I was left underwhelmed by the reveals and their sparsely explored thematic implications.

That said, the game as a whole unquestionably proves itself as one of the most impressive third-person shooters ever made. And while I may have to let go of my own, probably doomed mental image of what this game and concept could have been, it’s only in wake of the hulking monument Housemarque has already built.

I would very much like to consider myself a cosmic horror fan, so the prospect of what Returnal was directly up my alley. There will be spoilers a little later on for the main story and plot, but honestly if you like really tight shooter rogue-lites then I highly recommend you check it out regardless of the story or not.

This game has really fun mechanics and utilizes the whole rogue-like/lite aspect very well and integrates it well into the themes, world, and narrative. This is easily the best part, in addition to all of the lore and slow piecing of elements together to understand what has been happening. If this sounds enjoyable to you, it will be. Check it out.

Now for the spoiler portion, so if you aren't interested in the story or don't care for the spoilers skip this part.

This game had the potential for a really cool, creative, and wonderful story about loss, guilt, acceptance, and grief. However, I think the way they actually went about it made me less appreciative of what the actual game was, and concerns me slightly for the game's spiritual successor, Saros.

As mentioned before, I love cosmic horror and when I am presented with something I like to relish in the cosmic-y horror ideas and themes. This was absolutely how I was feeling with the game until I hit the ending(s). Throughout the game, you are shown scenes within the house that are essentially memories or moments in time that you will re-experience from a certain perspective. This isn't necessarily an issue, with the exception for me that the scenes don't give credibility to the actual possibility that ANY of the stuff in the game is actually happening. The initial ending alludes to Selene escaping the planet, and yet despite this she is forced back into the same loop she was stuck in initially. On a subsequent playthrough with having collected all of the fragments, you get another (true?) ending where you find out that the entire game is essentially replaying the moment of a car crash that killed Selene's daughter.

I don't really have any issue with this again, should the cosmic horror aspects play a role. However, I find myself hesitant to be able to believe that this event was a precursor to Selene journeying out with Helios (the name of her child that was killed in the crash) and crashing on the planet. There just wasn't anything in any of the memories or cutscenes that indicated that it was an actual possibility, mainly due to the modern technology of the world and perhaps music as well.

The game is centered around the Blue Oyster Cult hit, Don't fear the reaper, which is thematically fitting and a clever way to include a song that essentially acts as a guiding motif through the game. While I really like this idea, I don't think it lends credence to the possibility that ANY of the main game actually happened.

More likely, unfortunately, I think (or at the very least felt) that they were going for more of a metaphor and allegory for the cycle of grief and the fact that Selene has yet to accept, process, and move onward from this incident. Whether that means she is hallucinating the entire thing, or ALSO died in the crash and is tormenting herself in the moment of death for the cause of it, but I didn't enjoy that take as much as if it truly had been some more deep cosmic entity that had tapped into her unresolved guilt and grief and forced her in some cycle otherwise.

The game is left intentionally vague so as to not give any concrete answer one way or the other, but try as I might, I cannot come to believe in what I had HOPED it would be. I think that the way it was presented, for those it will connect with, will be very impactful and cathartic, BUT for me it really did not do what I was looking for out of such a deep. lore-rich game.

There is also the possibility I missed things and just got filtered instead, but even after doing outside research and watching video essays and looking up information I just can't seem to enjoy the ending or story with the way it was presented.

OTHERWISE, the game is really fun and has some fun (if limited and repetative) environments, really lending a push for the bullet-hell genre in general as well.

Despite my dislike of the narrative, I will be playing the new game Saros and HOPE that they will give some more clarity to the individual narrative and perhaps to the overarching universe and retroactively make me appreciate Returnal more.

I might still come back to this at some point, but at the moment, after playing for a couple weeks, I find that I'm not all that interested in the story and I die too many stupid deaths for it to feel worth bashing my head against it over and over. After the game crashed right when I got back to the Abyssal Scar I'd just had enough, at least for a while.

p.s. If you're going to do story (or at least aesthetically gesture at story) don't put dialogue cues and audio logs right next to scene transitions (or indeed, other dialogue cues or audio logs). The last thing I want to do in a fast-paced shooter is stop to let an audio log finish playing because I know that walking through the next door will trigger a cutscene that will interrupt it. Or worse, that might trigger a dialogue cue but I have no way of knowing so now I'm just running in circles just in case. Obviously it's harder to control in a game like this but that just means even more care should be taken.

p.p.s. One of the most deranged design choices I've ever seen is to make it so that when a player falls off a ledge (into a bottomless pit or water they're not allowed to swim in yet) they then respawn right at that same ledge, facing off of it. The first time I fell off a ledge that I didn't even know was there I preceded to fall off it three more times like Humpty f**king Dumpty. Madness, absolute madness.

p.p.p.s. It doesn't help that I only like the full-auto weapons but that's probably just personal preference.

You know the feeling when you pick up a game it instantly feels right? After decades of playing games, a lot of us have seen it all and developed this sixth sense, and I'm happy to say that Returnal is my current obsession.

It's got everything I look for these days - easy to pick up and put down, it's fast paced, the plot isn't pushed on you, it doesn't have endless cutscenes, the shooting feels precise and it's constantly exciting, and bottom line? It's just fun to play. It reminds me of the first time I picked up an Ys game. The speed and feedback had its hooks in me instantly.

I haven't gotten obsessed over a game (or into anything at all, really) since Tears of the Kingdom but I finally found my next "thing" and damn it feels good.

Now I've been really into and then burned by Roguelikes before (Dead Cells comes to mind) but the random nature isn't so bad that you can roll a bad weapon at the beginning of the run and you may as well start over. I'm still trying to take down the first boss but this is definitely gearing up to be a very challenging game.

It's on PS+ Essential so I didn't have to pay much for it, can't beat that.

Roll Credits?: Yes!

Surprised/Let Down/As Expected: Let Down

Favorite Mechanic or Narrative Moment: Visuals were absolutely striking, and the world design was so alien and uninviting in a great way. On the surface, I like this take of a sort of "longform" roguelike where the runs take quite a while but feel more like working through a full-fledged singleplayer game in a way. Instead of having that feeling that you could just die or reset and hop right back in, each run felt like it had a lot of weight behind it because of the time it took you to get there and the amount of exploration you've done since starting it.

This feeling combined so well with those mid-run house sequences (insane atmosphere and maximum spooky levels) since they would also help make each run feel big and important in the narrative. Fights were tense because of the amount at stake which could be lost. Loved the first ending too - I'm a sucker for that type of narrative and it was not expected at all.

Least Favorite Thing: The roguelike elements of the combat felt pretty lacking compared to others in the genre. Returnal is more focused on the fun of the gunplay and narrative than it is on actually exploring the roguelike genre. Creating a build isn't really a thing in this game (apart from sometimes getting one of those parasites which could sort of push you in a direction), and most of your success comes from just being able to play well.

I especially was not fond of the weapon upgrade mechanic. It's been a while since I played it, but, if I remember, the point seemed to be to switch weapons often. This combined with the lack of build variety meant that I was usually just grabbing whatever dropped that was somewhat stronger than what I had and kept blasting without much thought.

Replayability was low, and I felt myself really wishing there was some bigger secret to find after finishing the last boss. It felt like there had to be more to discover; a better ending to this whole thing. There wasn't, and the whole narrative for it seems to be just a reason to keep her in the game to explain why you can keep replaying it.

I think I'll be dropping this once I hit 15 hours. I didn't play enough of its available content and worlds to warrant a review or even a score since I do not believe in reviewing games you dont at least come close to finishing. But between the lack of meaningful variation in world or random effects, enemies and encounters that rely on hitting very hard or overwhelming the player with numbers instead of interesting patterns, and that no stat matters aside from HP and Weapon level (which the game hands the player automatically at the start of each zone), its just not fun to engage with at all. Its not a particularly interesting rogue-lite.

The bosses and story is very cool though, I love the protagonist a lot.

I have come to the conclusion that I'm not going to beat this game.

And I'm (kinda) okay with that.

When I first saw the trailer, I was intrigued, but ultimately didn't buy it as it looked too repetitive (and I say that as a HUGE fan of Deathloop). But after getting bored with a few of the other games I was playing, I gave it a go. And I'm glad I did!

The game is visually stunning without being creepy (except for the scenes in the house - super creepy). And as an aside here - I feel like the designers drew a lot of their inspiration from the movie "Edge of Tomorrow" as the "main" baddies on level 1 remind me exactly of the blue and red baddies in that movie. Back to the review: I was SO pleased to quickly learn that when you have to start over, the map changes. Eventually you'll recognize the room, but the sequence of the maps will change - which keeps things interesting. The same goes for the the weapons and abilities you can gain - and some you can keep.

The three different areas are distinct enough and very visually appealing well, going from forest-like to desert-like to well, I don't know how to explain the last one - floating pyramid-like?

And yes, it gets harder as you go. It took me a lot of tries to best bosses one and two, but once you get the hang of it and their patterns, it gets easier-ish. I haven't made it to the last boss - but I've gotten close. And I realize that I probably even if I get there it'll take many tries to beat it.

Do I wish there was a difficulty setting? Yes. Did I have fun nonetheless? Absolutely. Would I do it all over again? Yes. Will I go back and play this one agin someday? Doubtful.

Returnal looked like the kind of game I could enjoy. I’m a fan of rogue likes, have been for a long time now, and I’ve often thought that third person shooters are a bit of a dying breed. So, when I finally got a PS5 and upgraded my PS+ the first game from that library I installed and played was Returnal.

I’ll start with the positives. This game is real pretty. The gloomy atmosphere, the dingy ruins, not something usually equated with that word, but I would use it none the less. Exploration is fun, like most rogue likes the thrill of finding a chest or a treasure room is always a bit of a roll of the dice, but it keeps the formula engaging. The enemy designs are fun, the colourful bullets are great visual flair in a fight that’s handy for dodging as well as breaking up the dim and dark atmosphere. This is all fantastic.

The thing is this, and I know it’s something I’ve already griped over, but there is no difficulty select. This is one of those “mileage may vary” type of complaints but I’ll be real here. I’m bad at this game. I’ve never been much of an action or fighting game player because my reaction times and ability to read animations aren’t great. I’m also over 30 so that isn’t going to improve much over time either. Returnal is, by design, an unforgiving game which is, ironically, the sin I cannot forgive it for.

Despite many runs, despite hard attempts, I can’t make progress, and I’m stuck in a loop, and all those positives I listed above begin to grate and bore when it’s the totality of the experience. There is no real “permanent” character progression here like in Hades, where weapon proficiency means something from run to run, or any stats to develop to make each run easier. This boils the game down to a long slog, farming random drops, and hoping that you get something good this time.

Perhaps I have bad luck, but I never got the lucky formula. There were a few guns I liked using but those never seemed to pop up during my runs, only rarely. The game is obtuse, there are more cursed chests and items that make things even harder than regular things that will just make things run normally. It’s an abysmal experience if you’re not the type of person who can just become mechanically sound at a game.

I love games like Rogue Legacy, Hades, Darkest Dungeon, and Loop Hero but these all have some form of character progression. I also love games like Dark Souls, that challenge my reflexes and my action game skills but they also have a levelling system and a healing mechanic. This game has consumable heals but you’re not guaranteed to find one and often only have one at a time. Imagine almost ANY boss in a Souls game with only a single heal.

All of this to say, Returnal doesn’t offer enough to make the slog worthwhile to someone like me. Which is unfortunate. I’ll have to resort to watching a let’s play or something because I’m genuinely interested in the story and the mystery of the planet. It’s just a shame, a whole team of people worked hard to share this vision, they just decided to exclude people based on a flimsy “artistic vision” excuse instead of including people and allowing them to enjoy their game.

If anything I’ve written here resounds with how you feel then avoid this game like the plague. It doesn’t want you to play it anyways.

Such a promising start. The combat is fast paced and tense, encourages you to never stop moving. The monsters explode in glorious, satisfying and disgusting fashion. The combination of melee with run and gun is fantastic.

However, the big issue I have is that there seems to be so little content to keep me going. There is very little gained from run to run; there are only 3 weapons with a couple of perks; I have found only a handful of cyphers that further the lore; there is only a handful of different enemy types. I will admit I am stuck on the first biome but after 6 hours I have seen every room and don’t have anything compelling me to move forward. I don’t have a run where I find an incredible combo of items and weapons and hope I get that again.

I contrast that with a Dead Cells or Hades where I regularly had that feeling. There was also enough variety in the early game that had significant different play styles. I am not seeing that with Returnal. But I enjoyed my time with it.

We are sometimes skeptical when it comes to new IPs from major developers. I get it, comfort food is always pleasing. Playstation is really good with creating new IPs and stories and have us love the characters and worlds that they create for us and Returnal is no different. This game is simply... saucy. It just oozes with game. The gameplay is hectic, flashy, difficult, but fair. Returnal uses all the features that the PS5 has to offer. The adaptive triggers, haptic feedback, and the 3D audio. I would break it down but I'll just say that Returnal truly feels next gen when it comes to gameplay and sound design. The graphics are great, but it's not jaw dropping like other Sony titles.

Overall, Returnal is a must have PS5 game. If you can only grab 2 games for your brand new PS5. I'll say Spidey: Miles and Returnal be the first two games you get. Although the game is difficult, the gameplay is fun, hectic, and full of life.

Play this game!

Very plainly, Returnal is superb. This is a bit of a preliminary review because there’s apparently a third act with a secret, possibly true ending, which I will likely pursue shortly. That said I’ve arrived at the credits and what I think most people will consider the primary ending of the game.

Returnal is a mechanical masterpiece and not since Bloodborne have I experienced something as fluid and enjoyable to play moment to moment without a single reservation or negative critique (although The Pathless and Sekiro have come close). Movement, traversal, combat are all honed to near perfection. There is no tripping over awkward controls, no suboptimal level design that hinders free movement, no downsides to the functional design choices made for this game.

I think I’m going to have a hard time shaking off its effect on my expectations of third person action game. To quote a wise person:

In a horde of games trying to act like they're on the level of movies by being cinematic rather than their own medium, Returnal is a video game first and foremost. Among a sea of risk averse titles, Returnal is all about taking risks. Where most Sony games lack in accountability, Returnal is a game that holds you accountable. Where Sony games tend to be slow, Returnal is energetic with dashing, bunny hopping, grapple hooking. Despite being published by Sony, Returnal is the anti-Sony game. If you're down for the weird and challenging on your shiny PS5, then I strongly recommend Returnal.

I also poked around a bit in Immortals Fenyx Rising and found the controls to be incredibly clunky in comparison. That’s not entirely fair to Fenyx because it’s a different type of game, but I’m spoilt by the absolute joy and pleasure of movement in Returnal. I either need a palate cleanser of an entirely different genre of game after this, or I need to play something that also has highly satisfying traversal and movement, like The Pathless.

Maybe if I had one critique of the gameplay during my play-through it is that the final boss was a tad easy. But it was such a spectacular light show and the dance required to survive remained thrilling nonetheless. So while it was a bit less of a challenge than I expected it was still damn fun.

What is also impressive about Returnal is that Housemarque managed a game that tells its story in a way that is as satisfying as its gameplay. The way in which the story unfolds through repetition is not new, nor is it entirely novel for a roguelike/lite. But Housemarque leans heavily into the more ephemeral approach of a game that wipes your progress with each death, filling out hints at a larger narrative that is as winding and alien as the planet Atropos. The game also employs allusions to Greek mythology as a means to construct the primary themes of Selene’s emotional and psychological journey (or cycle), especially in relation to family, fate and punishment.

As a result I think I can confidently say that Returnal is my favourite roguelike/lite that I’ve played to-date, even outdoing Hades in the ways it satisfies my desires for the genre overall. The very fact that you are not forced to grind bosses is perhaps the thing I appreciate most about Returnal’s stab at the genre. I enjoy that you can elect to fight bosses again, but dispensing with the need to is a breath of fresh air for the genre overall. Returnal is the anti-Dead Cells and is all the better for it. It’s also considerably shorter than many other roguelikes/lites and that is very welcome. Hades you know I love you, but you are very long and it can be exhausting running the full gauntlet the number of times required to advance the story. Returnal has a pace and length that feels ideal to me and heightens my appreciation for Housemarque’s level of restraint in this area.

Returnal isn’t an easy game and perhaps the most salient criticism is that difficulty does bar some from entry. Arguments about whether difficulty settings should be implemented in games for reasons of accessibility (they should) aside, I’ve seen enough evidence that there are people who very much want to experience this game to its fullest but cannot. And that does make me sad because it’s a thoroughly enjoyable and thoughtfully designed experience. It’s a game I would recommend to everyone without hesitation but suffer from the knowledge that I’d be sending some to a frustrating experience rather than the sublime one I’ve enjoyed. Despite this I still adore the game and do hope people who want to experience it can enjoy it as I have.

Lastly, here are my stats after completion of the base game, prior to chasing down any secrets in the post game/third act.

Deaths: 18
Areas Explored: 234
Hostiles Eliminated: 1,445
Max Adrenaline reached: 25
Successful overloads: 210
Malfunctions: 41
Parasites: 31

Returnal is a perfect example for a difficult game. It is challenging, keeps you on the edge all the time, and at the first distraction you risk dying, ending up doing exactly that a lot of times. But you start to get the hang of it, you start to understand the optimal way to kill certain types of enemies without taking damage to conserve Adrenaline (a very cool mechanic which rewards you with small power-ups if you can manage to kill X enemies unscathed), and as soon as you get a little bit farther, the game rewards you with a permanent upgrade that significantly boosts your gameplay. After around 10 hrs, you took down that boss which looked impossible, and can actually breeze through the first biome like a veteran, collecting resources for the next. The game makes you feel like you're hopeless, you'll get frustrated, and 2 attempts later you're actually beating the boss, without the need of a godlike run. The satisfaction this game gave me when I managed to unlock 3 permanent upgrades in a single run was priceless, would recommend to anyone who likes a good, fair challenge.

I'm not gonna tell you anything about the story, 'cause I feel Returnal should be played without a single external hint about that, as it has a much bigger focus on narrative than one imagines when thinking about a roguelite. Just trust me when I tell you that it's an intriguing story, delivered very well.

A lot of reviews criticize Returnal because it's a Roguelite: here on Grouvee you can read "Sets a worrying precedent for AAA rogue-lites"(which I actually want it to be a thing), and even on Metacritic you can find something like "I am dropping my score from 9 to 4. [...] People don't have time to replay levels over and over again." (which is funny, considering a lot of other people consider the game to be too short). I am a huge fan of Roguelike and Roguelite games, so of course I appreciated this aspect of Returnal too, but contrary to others I think it needed to be MORE roguelite. There's too little randomization every run, not many rooms in the pool to choose from, and the majority of the items you find have little impact on the run (stuff like +10% defense, or -3 seconds of secondary fire recharge), so you end up buying always the 3-4 actually good items in the shop. But even if Selene will always play more-less the same way, it is still fun to build your character optimally and there's a decent amount of weapons available. The thing is, after you reach the "true ending", there's very little to do, contrary to most roguelike/lite (think about Isaac, or Hades), so it really is a story-driven game that plays out like a hardcore roguelite. I'd explain more problems in detail, but I'd end up spoiling half the game, so I'll stop here.

Overall, story and atmosphere are really cool, gameplay is frenetic and fun, but has numerous shortcomings compared to similar games, while also being unique in what it does. 80€ is too much for the standard edition of any game, but I got my copy for 45€ and it was money well spent.

PROS

• Fast-paced action is a lot of fun most of the time
• Intuitive, well-polished controls
• Yummy sound design
• Core narrative premise is initially intriguing

CONS

• Rogue-lite elements sap the the artistry out of the level design and atmosphere, this should've been a 3rd-person shooter Metroidvania or Souls-like
• Mediocre enemy designs
• Sets a worrying precedent for AAA rogue-lites that I desperately hope doesn't catch on

Returnal had a weird effect on me.

While I did have a fantastic time with it, it was also one of my most frustrating experiences of the year.

And while it may seem like I'm fighting against the game's own nature (which I kind of am), I have to say that this very good game would've been even better if it wasn't a roguelike.

One thing that I have to highly praise Returnal is its gameplay. It's just superb. Probably one of the main reasons you'll keep going back to it, even if it annoys you're brains out. Shooting, running, dashing, traversing through areas feels fast and great thanks to the game's sleek mobility. Control scheme is also perfection, which helps to boost fun-factor. And I won't even go into details about how well the dualsense enriches Selene's journey.

Oh and the boss fights... They'll keep your adrenaline high, but they're incredible! Graphics are also stunning. The amount of (beautiful) things on screen is crazy and marvelous. It's basically bullet hell shooter orgasm. The whole presentation is done well. It might seem a bit too much at first, but once you get it, it stays with you. Even the environments, which at first seemed repetitive, but they grew on me.

As for the story, I do admit that the ending sucks (both of them), but up until that point, it managed to keep me interested. Sure, it's minimalistic and very cryptic, but the atmosphere created by the whole 'death and ressurection in Atropos' thing was interesting. The mystery is there and pulls you in, even if your anger is telling you to stop playing.

Ok, now I have to say this: This game shouldn't be a roguelike.

Although I loved playing it, I didn't exactly have a great time experiencing it. I blame it on how Returnal approached the genre.

Each run took too long, even if you were lucky. Enemies did MAJOR damage out of nowhere and without any reason. Shortcuts were necessary, but they're almost nonexistent here. Weapon variety is good, but not all of them are actually useful. Every single item HAVE to be huge gambit. And all that packed with a very bad ending that just ruins the terrific sense of accomplishment given by the gameplay.

Returnal just feels overly unbalanced, most of the time. It's as if the RNG hates you 24/7. Mechanics are more often trying to frustate you instead of helping. You can see that in the amount of permanent power ups or skills you get - almost nothing! Just a few concerning traversing each level!

This game could've been so much better than it is.

Returnal is by no means a bad game. I did love playing it. But I'm not sure if I'd recommend it to anyone, even if you're a fan of the genre.

I had a great time, but also a major headache.