Returnal (2021)

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.

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.

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.