Roguelikes and roguelites have almost been exclusively locked to the indie scene and are almost always either top-down or 2D. Although still technically an indie studio, Housemarque is changing that through Returnal, its Sony-published AAA roguelite shooter. Even though this is a departure for the Finnish developer and different take on the genre, it’s easily the team’s best and most well-realized game and an overall brilliant experience.
Read the full review here:
https://www.gamerevolution.com/review/679852-returnal-review-ps5
Read the full review here:
https://www.gamerevolution.com/review/679852-returnal-review-ps5
Yeah idk. I was excited for this, and I thought I enjoyed roguelikes after playing Hades, but I hate that there's very little progression during runs with this one. I don't want to spend hours working my way through a level only to be one-shotted and then restart with nothing to show for my previous run.
I also do like games with a challenge, but I want there to be ways to overcome that instead of just pure skill and learning enemy patterns. I think one of the reasons I enjoy challenge in games like SoulsBorne is because there's more to it than just learning enemy patterns (leveling up, getting items that could help with an enemy/boss/area). Returnal doesn't have any of that so I'm not motivated enough to keep playing run after run.
I think I made it halfway through the game (third biome)? I don't feel like playing it any more. It's not really a bad game though. The gameplay is solid, the visuals are amazing, and I'm intrigued by the story. But it's just unsatisfying between runs and it's not my cup of tea.
I also do like games with a challenge, but I want there to be ways to overcome that instead of just pure skill and learning enemy patterns. I think one of the reasons I enjoy challenge in games like SoulsBorne is because there's more to it than just learning enemy patterns (leveling up, getting items that could help with an enemy/boss/area). Returnal doesn't have any of that so I'm not motivated enough to keep playing run after run.
I think I made it halfway through the game (third biome)? I don't feel like playing it any more. It's not really a bad game though. The gameplay is solid, the visuals are amazing, and I'm intrigued by the story. But it's just unsatisfying between runs and it's not my cup of tea.
I came in with fairly high expectations for this and it managed to surpass them.
Great weapons, great gameplay, great music, great bosses, and a surprisingly good story. You have to piece what is happening together but I think you'll find something interesting if you do. Hint: This is all about Selene.
If I had to give some critique, I think the level design for fighting areas is somewhat cluttered and tight. I think more could have been done to give you breathing room and allow your combat abilities to shine.
Amazing game and it is one of my top 10 all time. Highly, highly recommended.
Great weapons, great gameplay, great music, great bosses, and a surprisingly good story. You have to piece what is happening together but I think you'll find something interesting if you do. Hint: This is all about Selene.
If I had to give some critique, I think the level design for fighting areas is somewhat cluttered and tight. I think more could have been done to give you breathing room and allow your combat abilities to shine.
Amazing game and it is one of my top 10 all time. Highly, highly recommended.
I have.. mixed feelings on this one. On the one hand, the game itself is pretty fun. The combat is great, the game is beautiful, the soundtrack is good, and the story is decent. The problem is that I think the difficulty isn't well balanced at all, the performance isn't the most stable out there, the runs last for WAY too long, and because there is no way to save your game, even temporarily, I have lost 2 runs where I was at the final boss without dying. One due to a crash, and the other due to the game updating in the middle of my gameplay. So I beat my first run on my 3rd attempt at the final boss without dying. Fantastic.
This is not a bad game, but I'm not sure it's quite as fun or replayable as something like hades or risk of rain 2. Good, but not great.
This is not a bad game, but I'm not sure it's quite as fun or replayable as something like hades or risk of rain 2. Good, but not great.
I thought this game was gonna be pretty mid when it got announced...God damn was I wrong. This shit was an absolute blast to play and It's an easy recommendation for those interested.
The gunplay is super fast, the controls are tight, and the weapons are all viable. The procedural levels and swarms of enemies can seem like a lot at first, but the more you play, the better you get, and soon you'll find yourself flying through the air, evading projectiles like it's nothing. Or you'll die 200 times, as the difficulty curve seems to affect certain people differently. Personally, I found it hard, but not too brutal, and ended with 13 deaths. But I can see where others might have a different result. Im my experience, the bosses (while visually stunning) weren't that difficult, and the bulk of my deaths came when fighting the swarms of elite enemies populating the different levels. Some of those guys are rat bastards, and they definitely gave me the most trouble. Despite only having 13 deaths though, it felt like more, because losing a 2-3 hour run really stings. But that's what made surviving that much more satisfying. It's a great risk-reward cycle.
The visual design of the game is what surprised me the most however, as I was not prepared for how cool it was. Clearly inspired by the works of H.R. Giger and Beksinski, Housemarque has crafted this incredible sci-fi world that feels as haunting as it is gorgeous, and the 2nd, 3rd, and 6th biomes are some of my favorite locations in recent gaming memory. Despite the fact that these levels are procedural, the design is that damn good that they are immediately memorable, even having to replay entirely new versions of them.
The music is also fantastic, with this droning, wailing ambience floating in and out while exploring, and some nice high-octane electronic tracks to push the pace during fights. It's all around great stuff, and the sound design as a whole is incredible. The world feels alive around you, the enemies shriek and holler in your ears, and the projectiles and pick ups have satisfying clicks, crunches and pops. It's top tier stuff.
As far as the story is concerned, there's not a whole lot to go off of, but what we have is interesting. It's a supernatural tale told through fractured and untrustworthy memories of our main character Seline. It's vauge, but it's interesting nonetheless and I think it's a solid narrative for the game.
I don't really have much to complain about aside from a few nitpicks, but if I did have a more sizeable complaint, it would be that the performance was spotty in some areas. A large chunk of the game is running at 60fps, but as more enemies come on screen it can definitely drop much lower, which is a bit of a shame to still see even on the PS5.
Aside from that however, this game is fantastic, and really blew me away. It's one of the best game's I've played in a while, and definitely one of the best we'll see this year.
9/10
The gunplay is super fast, the controls are tight, and the weapons are all viable. The procedural levels and swarms of enemies can seem like a lot at first, but the more you play, the better you get, and soon you'll find yourself flying through the air, evading projectiles like it's nothing. Or you'll die 200 times, as the difficulty curve seems to affect certain people differently. Personally, I found it hard, but not too brutal, and ended with 13 deaths. But I can see where others might have a different result. Im my experience, the bosses (while visually stunning) weren't that difficult, and the bulk of my deaths came when fighting the swarms of elite enemies populating the different levels. Some of those guys are rat bastards, and they definitely gave me the most trouble. Despite only having 13 deaths though, it felt like more, because losing a 2-3 hour run really stings. But that's what made surviving that much more satisfying. It's a great risk-reward cycle.
The visual design of the game is what surprised me the most however, as I was not prepared for how cool it was. Clearly inspired by the works of H.R. Giger and Beksinski, Housemarque has crafted this incredible sci-fi world that feels as haunting as it is gorgeous, and the 2nd, 3rd, and 6th biomes are some of my favorite locations in recent gaming memory. Despite the fact that these levels are procedural, the design is that damn good that they are immediately memorable, even having to replay entirely new versions of them.
The music is also fantastic, with this droning, wailing ambience floating in and out while exploring, and some nice high-octane electronic tracks to push the pace during fights. It's all around great stuff, and the sound design as a whole is incredible. The world feels alive around you, the enemies shriek and holler in your ears, and the projectiles and pick ups have satisfying clicks, crunches and pops. It's top tier stuff.
As far as the story is concerned, there's not a whole lot to go off of, but what we have is interesting. It's a supernatural tale told through fractured and untrustworthy memories of our main character Seline. It's vauge, but it's interesting nonetheless and I think it's a solid narrative for the game.
I don't really have much to complain about aside from a few nitpicks, but if I did have a more sizeable complaint, it would be that the performance was spotty in some areas. A large chunk of the game is running at 60fps, but as more enemies come on screen it can definitely drop much lower, which is a bit of a shame to still see even on the PS5.
Aside from that however, this game is fantastic, and really blew me away. It's one of the best game's I've played in a while, and definitely one of the best we'll see this year.
9/10
This game really took me by surprise. When it first got announced I really was not into it and brushed it off but the moment I heard the game was going to be a third person Rougelike Shooter I was on board right away. I am very glad I thought this way because this game was a masterfully crafted experience and one that I see myself coming back and playing more down the line. From the gameplay to its story this game was Phenomenal and easily worth the asking price of $70 I highly recommend it !
Housemarque really got tired of waiting on Nintendo to make another Metroid Prime game and took matters into their own hands.
En algún momento de mis más de treinta horas con Returnal me vi derrotando a un boss con una pistola básica y con la vida casi entera, tras haber esquivado prácticamente todos sus ataques. La sensación de satisfacción fue mucho más intensa que cualquier recompensa tangible que pudiera darme el juego.
Por su sensacional atmósfera, su narrativa misteriosa, música y feel, cuesta no pensar en Returnal como un nuevo grande de Sony. Un nuevo blockbuster sobre el que estaremos años discutiendo. Pero bajo esa envoltura mainstream se encuentra un juego arcade desafiante, profundo, y tan irremediablemente propio, que para quitarse el mono tras completarlo va a costar mucho no hacerlo volviendo a jugar al propio Returnal.
Tu viaje con Returnal tiene más en común con superar un soulsborne que un roguelike tradicional. Los mundos cambian en cada partida, tu equipamiento es una mezcla de progresión temporal y permanente y la aparición de nuevas armas se aleatoriza, sí. Pero son más importantes aquí las constantes, y son muchas, que las variables. Conocer a la perfección las salas, el comportamiento de los enemigos, los patrones de los bosses... Es tu propia experiencia con el juego lo que en última instancia te va a permitir dominar este bucle.
Y es un bucle perfecto.
En algún momento de mis más de treinta horas con Returnal me vi derrotando a un boss con una pistola básica y con la vida casi entera, tras haber esquivado prácticamente todos sus ataques, y me pregunté cómo pudo haber algún momento en el que eso no había sido natural para mí.
Por su sensacional atmósfera, su narrativa misteriosa, música y feel, cuesta no pensar en Returnal como un nuevo grande de Sony. Un nuevo blockbuster sobre el que estaremos años discutiendo. Pero bajo esa envoltura mainstream se encuentra un juego arcade desafiante, profundo, y tan irremediablemente propio, que para quitarse el mono tras completarlo va a costar mucho no hacerlo volviendo a jugar al propio Returnal.
Tu viaje con Returnal tiene más en común con superar un soulsborne que un roguelike tradicional. Los mundos cambian en cada partida, tu equipamiento es una mezcla de progresión temporal y permanente y la aparición de nuevas armas se aleatoriza, sí. Pero son más importantes aquí las constantes, y son muchas, que las variables. Conocer a la perfección las salas, el comportamiento de los enemigos, los patrones de los bosses... Es tu propia experiencia con el juego lo que en última instancia te va a permitir dominar este bucle.
Y es un bucle perfecto.
En algún momento de mis más de treinta horas con Returnal me vi derrotando a un boss con una pistola básica y con la vida casi entera, tras haber esquivado prácticamente todos sus ataques, y me pregunté cómo pudo haber algún momento en el que eso no había sido natural para mí.
I don't get why an indie game costs like a AAA one. wtf?
Updated in 2024: when I booted it back after I played Valhalla DLC for GoW Ragnarok and had to calm down my itching for a rogue-like.
Few notes:
It’s a really good rogue like action game with great gameplay and really really thick atmosphere.
If you liked Alien Covenant - this game is for you.
The music and soundscapes are superb. I believe
I placed it as the best soundtrack for backloggd GOTY 2021 list.
Art direction and overall tone are great and unique.
The only downside is the lack of a meaningful progression system like in Hades.
Updated in 2024: when I booted it back after I played Valhalla DLC for GoW Ragnarok and had to calm down my itching for a rogue-like.
Few notes:
It’s a really good rogue like action game with great gameplay and really really thick atmosphere.
If you liked Alien Covenant - this game is for you.
The music and soundscapes are superb. I believe
I placed it as the best soundtrack for backloggd GOTY 2021 list.
Art direction and overall tone are great and unique.
The only downside is the lack of a meaningful progression system like in Hades.
So this game was basically just made for me. An arcade arena shooter masquerading as a roguelike, with an interesting narrative, a gorgeous sci-fi aesthetic in a bunch of cool environments, and probably the best third person shooting ever conceived.
And really that last one is all that really matters. Returnal is absolutely fantastic action game, nothing more, nothing less. Whilst it is a third person shooter, it resembles Housemarque's own Nex Machina and the likes of Twin stick shooters for the most part, with a heavy focus on enemy prioritisation, strafing, and "cutbacks" through gaps in enemy attacks, formations and such to gain positional advantages. Throw in a extremely versatile melee attack with some generous snap-to-target, a dash, and a grappling hook you get in the second area and it's just super good. It's particularly great at adapting the style to the third dimension using environmental features and verticality to evade enemy attacks and bullet formations. Add on top of that a limited, but extremely fun and varied set of weapons, and it just works so damn well. The large arena fights in particular are an absolute joy.
And then you throw on top the roguelike elements. It's a mixed bag in that whilst I feel a lot of it is pretty pointless, there's a few little aspects of it that lend such a huge amount to the game. The first is the sheer tension this adds to runs. Returnal is all about tension, the feeling of getting so far and ending back at the start with very little to your name. It makes the encounters feel even better, makes every loss of health worse, and punishes you hard when you fuck up. It's basically like getting to a lategame stage of an arcade game, and it works so well. Also ties fairly nicely with the aesthetic and narrative.
And of all things for the narrative to be actually good was the one thing I was not expecting. The closest comparison I can think of to it would be Alex Garland's Annihalation. I wouldn't want to go much further than that, but I think if you're into that sort of thing, or maybe things like Silent Hill's narratives, you'll dig this, and I certainly did. It also has some fantastic wham moments. It maybe relies a bit too hard on the use of audiologs, and this sort of narrative is never going to be for everyone, but I thoroughly liked it, and it all came together nicely for me in the end.
It's a bit rough around the edges - how it launched without a save system is beyond me, the weapon and difficulty balance is a bit weird, there's not a huge amount of different rooms per biome, and I would appreciate more difficulty options - and I get the impresison a lot of this stuff will be addressed in patches, fortunately.
But don't let any of that put you off. This is for my money, the best third person shooter ever made by a long shot, as well as just one of the finest action games available - and when you interweave that with it's presentation and narrative, it ends up something really quite special.
And really that last one is all that really matters. Returnal is absolutely fantastic action game, nothing more, nothing less. Whilst it is a third person shooter, it resembles Housemarque's own Nex Machina and the likes of Twin stick shooters for the most part, with a heavy focus on enemy prioritisation, strafing, and "cutbacks" through gaps in enemy attacks, formations and such to gain positional advantages. Throw in a extremely versatile melee attack with some generous snap-to-target, a dash, and a grappling hook you get in the second area and it's just super good. It's particularly great at adapting the style to the third dimension using environmental features and verticality to evade enemy attacks and bullet formations. Add on top of that a limited, but extremely fun and varied set of weapons, and it just works so damn well. The large arena fights in particular are an absolute joy.
And then you throw on top the roguelike elements. It's a mixed bag in that whilst I feel a lot of it is pretty pointless, there's a few little aspects of it that lend such a huge amount to the game. The first is the sheer tension this adds to runs. Returnal is all about tension, the feeling of getting so far and ending back at the start with very little to your name. It makes the encounters feel even better, makes every loss of health worse, and punishes you hard when you fuck up. It's basically like getting to a lategame stage of an arcade game, and it works so well. Also ties fairly nicely with the aesthetic and narrative.
And of all things for the narrative to be actually good was the one thing I was not expecting. The closest comparison I can think of to it would be Alex Garland's Annihalation. I wouldn't want to go much further than that, but I think if you're into that sort of thing, or maybe things like Silent Hill's narratives, you'll dig this, and I certainly did. It also has some fantastic wham moments. It maybe relies a bit too hard on the use of audiologs, and this sort of narrative is never going to be for everyone, but I thoroughly liked it, and it all came together nicely for me in the end.
It's a bit rough around the edges - how it launched without a save system is beyond me, the weapon and difficulty balance is a bit weird, there's not a huge amount of different rooms per biome, and I would appreciate more difficulty options - and I get the impresison a lot of this stuff will be addressed in patches, fortunately.
But don't let any of that put you off. This is for my money, the best third person shooter ever made by a long shot, as well as just one of the finest action games available - and when you interweave that with it's presentation and narrative, it ends up something really quite special.
probably the most sleeper hit title sony will put out this gen but it really is a hit. it doesnt look like it, you dont think it will be, but it is. go play it NOW god damn it
The gameplay in Returnal is SUPER solid. It feels great to move around the environments and most of the weapons feel great to use, take some nuance to get the hang of, and are rewarding to get better at using. The gameplay by itself is 5 stars out of 5, unfortunately it is let down by most everything else in the game.
The systems in Returnal all seem to want you to do different things, which makes the play experience very scattered and unfulfilling.
Proficiency, weapon upgrading, and general difficulty make exploring everything not really worth it and not really necessary.
Artifacts, Parasites, and Health upgrades (the stuff that makes each run unique) make you want to explore every part of every biome, to maximize your power. However, the lack of midrun saves and the fact that a 3 hour run in Returnal becomes sort of a slog makes it feel like the developers don't intend for you to play this way.
These combine to make both strategies feel bad in certain ways, but the effectiveness and speed of not exploring make the first more preferable, obviating most of the systems that make this a roguelike.
Enemy and level design don't help here either. Some of the rooms are very well made and are cool arenas to play around in (the circle arena in the arctic biome), but most end up being unused or plain. Many enemy types have attacks that are instant and hard to avoid, attack from outside your view, or have strange timing based tells (dodge 4.5 seconds after this attack starts) rather than readable attack patterns. Most enemies encourage you to stand outside rooms and kill them in safety, rather than engaging in the traversal and movement mechanics. There are occasionally moments where a set of enemies and a room come together for a fast paced, hectic experience that makes you feel accomplished, but these are rare.
The generation of the biomes also doesn't lend itself very well to the structure of the game. A simple hub/spoke system to explore each biome would have been welcome, allowing you to skip to the part of the game you currently want to play, rather than slogging through a random amount of early biome rooms looking for a portal.
I don't like the narrative of Returnal at all. At best it is uninteresting and overwritten, at worst it lacks coherency.
I had a lot of fun playing this game initially, but the systems really wore on me by the end and the narrative failed to deliver for me at all.
I would love to see a game with mechanics that are this solid that is executed with more attention paid to how systems interact and the roguelike elements of the game.
The systems in Returnal all seem to want you to do different things, which makes the play experience very scattered and unfulfilling.
Proficiency, weapon upgrading, and general difficulty make exploring everything not really worth it and not really necessary.
Artifacts, Parasites, and Health upgrades (the stuff that makes each run unique) make you want to explore every part of every biome, to maximize your power. However, the lack of midrun saves and the fact that a 3 hour run in Returnal becomes sort of a slog makes it feel like the developers don't intend for you to play this way.
These combine to make both strategies feel bad in certain ways, but the effectiveness and speed of not exploring make the first more preferable, obviating most of the systems that make this a roguelike.
Enemy and level design don't help here either. Some of the rooms are very well made and are cool arenas to play around in (the circle arena in the arctic biome), but most end up being unused or plain. Many enemy types have attacks that are instant and hard to avoid, attack from outside your view, or have strange timing based tells (dodge 4.5 seconds after this attack starts) rather than readable attack patterns. Most enemies encourage you to stand outside rooms and kill them in safety, rather than engaging in the traversal and movement mechanics. There are occasionally moments where a set of enemies and a room come together for a fast paced, hectic experience that makes you feel accomplished, but these are rare.
The generation of the biomes also doesn't lend itself very well to the structure of the game. A simple hub/spoke system to explore each biome would have been welcome, allowing you to skip to the part of the game you currently want to play, rather than slogging through a random amount of early biome rooms looking for a portal.
I don't like the narrative of Returnal at all. At best it is uninteresting and overwritten, at worst it lacks coherency.
I had a lot of fun playing this game initially, but the systems really wore on me by the end and the narrative failed to deliver for me at all.
I would love to see a game with mechanics that are this solid that is executed with more attention paid to how systems interact and the roguelike elements of the game.
Housemarque never fails with game feel, and unlike Miles Morales this gives me hope for creative and effective uses of the DualSense beyond the entertaining but focused gimmickry of Astro's Playroom. Man, I really wish this wasn't a roguelike though.
Maybe it's related to how the roguelike elements are designed. There are numerous approaches to making an interesting roguelike, but I think there are two types of risk management that work best for me--either the pros and cons of a given situation should be entirely clear, or entirely random. I feel like Returnal wants it both ways to a frustrating degree. Parasites and malignancy are clear enough to me in their risk, but then the infected scouts that Selene finds have two different possibilities when interacted with, for reasons I wasn't able to parse. You watch a hologram of a scout dying, and you can either further interact to take on a challenging fight for a reward, or... it just immediately forces you into the same challenging fight, as a surprise I guess? When I see mechanics like this, I just end up not interacting with them ever again, and that's pretty restricting and depressing for a game with repetition.
I've also been spoiled by the clear language presented in games like Slay the Spire. I picked up a parasite that entailed I would be hurt each time I picked up an "item" which I thought would just mean consumables, as I'm not really used to calling weapons "items," but the game includes [as far as I could tell] everything except money and resin under that umbrella. I don't think a roguelike has to make you feel "comfortable" per se--in fact roguelikes thrive when you're thinking in new and exciting ways--but I do like to trust them to some degree, and small things like this hurt my early trust.
The biggest flaw for me though is the length of the experience is incredibly prohibitive. It's wild to me that this launched with no save system with how long runs can take, especially for particular kinds of players. I would say I'm pretty thorough in exploration, so spending an hour and a half and only reaching the second area is a bit deflating. Roguelikes shouldn't be long to begin with, but if they're going to be long they should certainly let you stop more conveniently.
It's heartbreaking, because I'm imagining a non-roguelike version of this with the ability to save and hand-crafted levels, and suddenly we're at an exciting successor to the Metroid series, which in this particular case I think works out far better. It's already difficult to tie narrative to a roguelike, and when you get the rare success like Hades it's commendable. None of the roguelike execution in this game appeals to me; the worldbuilding, combat design, and narrative intrigue do. If a save system of some kind is ever implemented I'm willing to give it another go, but until then I'll just move on.
Maybe it's related to how the roguelike elements are designed. There are numerous approaches to making an interesting roguelike, but I think there are two types of risk management that work best for me--either the pros and cons of a given situation should be entirely clear, or entirely random. I feel like Returnal wants it both ways to a frustrating degree. Parasites and malignancy are clear enough to me in their risk, but then the infected scouts that Selene finds have two different possibilities when interacted with, for reasons I wasn't able to parse. You watch a hologram of a scout dying, and you can either further interact to take on a challenging fight for a reward, or... it just immediately forces you into the same challenging fight, as a surprise I guess? When I see mechanics like this, I just end up not interacting with them ever again, and that's pretty restricting and depressing for a game with repetition.
I've also been spoiled by the clear language presented in games like Slay the Spire. I picked up a parasite that entailed I would be hurt each time I picked up an "item" which I thought would just mean consumables, as I'm not really used to calling weapons "items," but the game includes [as far as I could tell] everything except money and resin under that umbrella. I don't think a roguelike has to make you feel "comfortable" per se--in fact roguelikes thrive when you're thinking in new and exciting ways--but I do like to trust them to some degree, and small things like this hurt my early trust.
The biggest flaw for me though is the length of the experience is incredibly prohibitive. It's wild to me that this launched with no save system with how long runs can take, especially for particular kinds of players. I would say I'm pretty thorough in exploration, so spending an hour and a half and only reaching the second area is a bit deflating. Roguelikes shouldn't be long to begin with, but if they're going to be long they should certainly let you stop more conveniently.
It's heartbreaking, because I'm imagining a non-roguelike version of this with the ability to save and hand-crafted levels, and suddenly we're at an exciting successor to the Metroid series, which in this particular case I think works out far better. It's already difficult to tie narrative to a roguelike, and when you get the rare success like Hades it's commendable. None of the roguelike execution in this game appeals to me; the worldbuilding, combat design, and narrative intrigue do. If a save system of some kind is ever implemented I'm willing to give it another go, but until then I'll just move on.
Platinum Trophy #32: Returnal
Fantastic triple AAA rogue-like. Combines a great gameplay loop with an equally compelling narrative. Happy to see HouseMarque finally getting the mainstream spotlight they deserve after years working on small, but fantastic arcade games. As you get used to the unforgiving difficulty you feel yourself getting dragged into, almost addicted, to the loop of instant death and eventual elation. It's one of the best recent examples of gameplay and narrative going hand-in-hand, with neither restricting the other. Although it should be noted that the RNG can make some runs complete 'duds' and made obtaining all trophies incredibly frustrating. The game has small hiccups which prevent it from being the 'best rogue-like' it could be, but the gameplay/narrative experience itself is second to none.
Fantastic triple AAA rogue-like. Combines a great gameplay loop with an equally compelling narrative. Happy to see HouseMarque finally getting the mainstream spotlight they deserve after years working on small, but fantastic arcade games. As you get used to the unforgiving difficulty you feel yourself getting dragged into, almost addicted, to the loop of instant death and eventual elation. It's one of the best recent examples of gameplay and narrative going hand-in-hand, with neither restricting the other. Although it should be noted that the RNG can make some runs complete 'duds' and made obtaining all trophies incredibly frustrating. The game has small hiccups which prevent it from being the 'best rogue-like' it could be, but the gameplay/narrative experience itself is second to none.
The second to second gameplay is excellent and easy to pick up which helps with the frustrating randomness of the gameloop. Some runs end two rooms after the start, some in the fifth biome and that is all fine and expected.
The narrative is passable and does not detract from the whole, but there is looming feeling that the resolution will be extremely disappointing.
The sound design and controller integration is second to none and deserves every possible award this year.
All in all, still playing and I will get through the last two biomes someday.
The narrative is passable and does not detract from the whole, but there is looming feeling that the resolution will be extremely disappointing.
The sound design and controller integration is second to none and deserves every possible award this year.
All in all, still playing and I will get through the last two biomes someday.
i'm a bit disappointed with this one.
Really hard to rate this one for me. I thought the gameplay was great, fast paced, and fun. I enjoyed the play on the rogue-like formula here as well. Environments are beautiful, the rumble effects help with immersion, and the soundtrack is absolutely haunting.
However, the story is a bit of a mess. It is a mixture of lore and audio logs mixed with a vague backstory for our main character that we never fully get the answers to. While a lot of it is up to interpretation, I feel that it could have been presented better while still maintaining the "you figure it out" mentality.
Overall, I think this is a strong edition to the PS5 library. The gameplay is really fun and addicting. But if you're looking for the next story-driven game that Sony loves to put out, or are seeking a more put together plot rather that one you have to piece together and interpret yourself, this isn't the game for you.
However, the story is a bit of a mess. It is a mixture of lore and audio logs mixed with a vague backstory for our main character that we never fully get the answers to. While a lot of it is up to interpretation, I feel that it could have been presented better while still maintaining the "you figure it out" mentality.
Overall, I think this is a strong edition to the PS5 library. The gameplay is really fun and addicting. But if you're looking for the next story-driven game that Sony loves to put out, or are seeking a more put together plot rather that one you have to piece together and interpret yourself, this isn't the game for you.
Mi primera exclusividad de la PS5, y el primer juego que me hace pensar "me alegro de tener la consola para poder jugar a esto". Y al igual que con la PS4 y Bloodborne, se trata de un juego muy díficil que no estaba nada seguro que me fuese a gustar al pillarlo, y el riesgo ha salido igual de bien.
Es muy refrescante ver un estudio apostar por un rogue-like con presupuesto de triple A. Una apuesta que funciona gracias a un combate pulídisimo y muy adictivo, a una ambientación de horror espacial absolutamente memorable y a un uso del Dualsense incomparable por ahora en la corta historia de la consola.
Su mayor defecto es el que está comentando todo el mundo, con toda la razón: la falta de guardado a mitad de run. Es una falta de respeto del tiempo del jugador y con lo largas que son las runs (especialmente cuando descubres las zonas por primera vez) me deja muy perplejo que ni lo hayan considerado. He dudado en si bajarle media estrella por ello, pero asumo que lo van a acabar añadiendo, así que les daré el beneficio de la duda.
Ahora a seguir dándole y disfrutando de su bucle de gameplay tan disfrutón hasta sacarme el final secreto, no hay ganas de parar aún.
Es muy refrescante ver un estudio apostar por un rogue-like con presupuesto de triple A. Una apuesta que funciona gracias a un combate pulídisimo y muy adictivo, a una ambientación de horror espacial absolutamente memorable y a un uso del Dualsense incomparable por ahora en la corta historia de la consola.
Su mayor defecto es el que está comentando todo el mundo, con toda la razón: la falta de guardado a mitad de run. Es una falta de respeto del tiempo del jugador y con lo largas que son las runs (especialmente cuando descubres las zonas por primera vez) me deja muy perplejo que ni lo hayan considerado. He dudado en si bajarle media estrella por ello, pero asumo que lo van a acabar añadiendo, así que les daré el beneficio de la duda.
Ahora a seguir dándole y disfrutando de su bucle de gameplay tan disfrutón hasta sacarme el final secreto, no hay ganas de parar aún.
70 dollars?!
Glory. Glory. Glory.
This review contains spoilers
English/German below
After a good 30 hours (48 Deaths) I was done with my first roguelike game. I can already say that I was very happy, but that I had some technical problems after the first patch.
Story
Selene and her trauma in the endless loop. It is about experiencing a trauma, which can be recognized as the core in the game but is told in a very diffuse way. This is paired with a few scary moments and the whole sci-fi setting and all in all it's nice accessories, but doesn't knock me off my feet now.
I would have wished for a lot more story input and a narrative that was easier to follow. Basically, you are constantly thrown at Cutscene nibbles, the composition of which is not easy to create an overall picture. I would recommend playing after the credits (to play Act 3, too) to get a little more input (although I would have liked a clearer picture here too, but I think I understood the whole thing).
Graphic
The look of the game is phenomenally good. The individual biomes of the planet are very nicely chosen, different enough for me and just look good. I would have wished for more around it in the individual parts of an area (e.g. events in the background), but the opponents are also pretty cool to look at. In general, the game is a firework of effects, colorful and sometimes incredibly overloaded (in a positive sense). The third boss alone was fabulous in terms of presentation.
Otherwise, the game also impresses in its video sequences with a good look and the performance, it ran 95% buttery smooth, which is amazing for such a bombardment of effects. I only had a few places where the FPS kept dropping, but that was always short-lived and not really important.
Gameplay
I've never played a roguelike before and was amazed how much fun it CAN be. Basically, I found it very good that you lose almost your entire progress with one death. The lack of an autosave didn't bother me either, although you can say that it always kept the pressure on to keep playing (didnt used the restmode method, because I played other Games too on the Console).
But you can clearly see from run to run that you will achieve a real progress in your own gameplay better and it feels so awesome when you have worked out a good starting position for further progress, e.g. a boss fight, in-game. It is absolutely possible to develop an overpowering Selene, which also leads to a point of criticism for me.
I had a few runs in which, despite having earned a lot of artifacts, mods, etc., I just wasn't lucky. For example, for the entire course of the game towards the end of the game I had no skills that restore my life (or lifesteal from enemies) or only very rarely got the drop. I don't like this RNG aspect that much, but with every progress that you make you also have the chance of more different items that are sometimes more sometimes less good. There are artifacts, as passive armor improvements, mods for the weapons, for which I only understood in the course of the game how important it is to level them. In addition, there are also consumer goods (one-time usable improvements, e.g. a healing potion) and parasites that were very cool in terms of the idea (high risk / high reward), but were often far too bad in the positive effects. Unfortunately, the parasites never felt really worthwhile, which I think is a shame.
The weapons at the heart of the combat system were pretty cool, but there were some that I found way too bad and weren't any fun at all. I moved around with the same guns quite often or tried to get hold of them, but I also noticed that some guns get really cool that I didn't like at the beginning. An example would be the shotgun, which really floods in with increasing modifications (even at a distance). The game also has Metroidvania aspects that really come into their own in the After Credits round and make you just happy. By the time the game was over, I didn't understand how to turn off the orange barriers. The whole thing is rounded off with very, very cool boss fights, which, as already mentioned, have an incredible visual power and staging and also feel a little soul-like and can be really difficult.
BUT: There is something that bothered me incredibly and certainly led to a different rating. After the first patch, I started a glitch festival. I actually didn't have a game session where the doors couldn't be opened 1-2 times or some other glitches occurred.
Coupled with the roguelike gameplay, this is of course an absolute death knell. At no point in time was I sure whether my run, which had been painstakingly prepared, would still exist after the next area. Accordingly, this repeatedly led to totally unnecessary and painful restarting of cycles. I wanted to ignore the game for now, but I had a lot of fun with it so I kept playing.
In addition, I had very often and e.g. also with the final boss the sound error, which is incredibly annoying, especially when streaming, when the sound is so distorted and basically hurts in the ears. For the recording, too, you had to mute places again and again.
Conclusion (TL;DR) The game may have opened up a new genre for me and piqued my interest. It was a lot of fun and deserved a nicer story told, even if it fits the gameplay and the loop. The glitches still occurred even after the few patches and urgently needs to be improved. Still for me an outstanding game and to be rated with 4/5 astronauts (had fluctuated between 3.5 and 4.5).
-------------------------------german----------------------------
Nach gut 30 Stunden war ich durch mit meinem ersten Roguelike Spiel. Ich kann schonmal sagen, dass es mir sehr viel Laune gemacht hat, ich aber einige technische Probleme nach dem ersten Patch hatte.
Story
Selene und ihr Trauma in der Endlosschleife. Es ist eben das Durchleben eines Traumatas, was im Spiel als Kern zu erkennen ist aber sehr diffus erzählt wird. Dazu paaren sich ein paar gruselige Momente und das ganze Sci-Fi Setting und alles in allem ist es nettes Beiwerk, aber haut mich jetzt nicht vom Hocker.
Ich hätte mir hier doch deutlich mehr Storyinput gewünscht und eine besser zu verfolgende Erzählung. Im Grunde wird man ständig mit Cutscene Häppchen beworfen, deren Zusammensetzung zu einem Gesamtbild nicht leicht fällt. Ich würde empfehlen nach den Credits weiterzuspielen, um noch etwas Mehr Input zu bekommen (wobei ich auch hier ein klareres Bild gewünscht hätte, trotzdem denke ich, dass ich das ganze verstanden habe).
Grafik
Der Look des Spiels ist phänomenal gut. Die einzelnen Biome des Planeten sind sehr schön gewählt, für mich verschieden genug und sehen einfach gut aus. Ich hätte mir zwar mehr drumherum gewünscht in den einzelnen Arealen eines Gebiets (z.b. Ereignisse im Hintergrund), dafür sind auch die Gegner ziemlich cool anzusehen.
Überhaupt ist das Spiel ein Effektfeuerwerk, farbenfroh und teilweise wahnsinnig überladen (im positiven Sinne). Alleine der 3. Boss ist präsentationstechnisch fabelhaft gelungen.
Auch ansonsten besticht das Spiel in seinen Videosequenzen mit einem guten Look und von der Performance her, lief es zu 95% butterweich, was für ein solches Effektbombardement erstaunlich ist. Ich hatte nur vereinzelte Stellen an denen die FPS immer gedroppt sind, das war aber immer von kurzer Dauer und nicht wirklich von Belang.
Gameplay
Ich habe vorher noch nie ein Roguelike gezockt und war begeistert wieviel Spaß es machen KANN. Im Grunde fand ich es sehr gut, dass man fast seinen gesamten Progress mit einem Tod verliert. Auch der fehlende Autosave hat mich nicht gestört, wobei man schon auch sagen kann, dass das immer einen Druck aufrechterhalten hat weiterzuspielen.
Aber man merkt deutlichst von Run zu Run das man besser wird einen richtigen Progress im eigenen Gameplay erreicht und es fühlt sich so genial an, wenn man sich eine gute Ausgangslage erarbeitet hat für den weiteren Fortschritt, z.b. einen Bosskampf, im Spiel. Es ist absolut möglich sich eine übermächtige Selene zu entwickeln, was aber auch zu einem Kritikpunkt für mich führt. Ich hatte einige Runs bei denen ich, trotz schon viel erspielter Artefakte Mods usw., einfach kein Glück hatte. Zum Beispiel hatte ich den gesamten Spielverlauf gegen Ende des Spiels keinerlei Fähigkeiten die mir Lebensraub geben bzw. nur sehr selten mal den Drop bekommen.
Dieser RNG Aspekt gefällt mir nicht ganz so sehr, aber mit jedem Fortschritt den man erzielt hat man auch die Chance auf mehr verschiedene Items, die eben mal mehr mal weniger gut sind. Es gibt nämlich Artefakte, als passive Rüstungsverbesserungen, Mods für die Waffen, bei denen ich erst im Verlauf des Spiels verstanden habe, wie wichtig es ist diese zu leveln. Daneben gibt es auch noch Verbrauchsgüter (einmalig nutzbare Verbesserungen z.b. einen Heiltrank) und Parasiten, die von der Idee her sehr cool waren (Hohes Risiko/Hohe Belohnung), aber oft viel zu schlecht waren in den positiven Effekten. Leider haben die Parasiten sich nie so richtig lohnenswert angefühlt, was ich sehr schade finde.
Die Waffen als Kernstück des Kampfsystems waren ziemlich cool, aber es gab einige, die ich viel zu schlecht fande und überhaupt keinen Spaß gemacht haben. Ich bin relativ oft mit denselben Waffen rumgezogen bzw. hab versucht diese zu ergattern, trotzdem habe ich auch gemerkt, dass einige Waffen richtig geil werden, die ich am Anfang noch nicht mochte. Ein Beispiel wäre die Schrotfline, die mit steigenden Modifikationen richtig reinwemmst (auch auf Distanz).
Das Spiel besitzt zusätzlich auch noch Metroidvania Aspekte, die gerade im After Credits Durchgang richtig zur Geltung kommen und einen einfach happy machen. Bis zum Abschluss des Spiels habe ich aber nicht verstanden, wie man die orangenen Barrieren ausschaltet.
Abgerundet wird das ganze mit sehr sehr coolen Bosskämpfen, die, wie bereits erwähnt, eine unfassbare Bildgewalt und Inszenierung haben und sich auch ein bisschen Soulsmäßig anfühlen und richtig schwer sein können.
ABER: Es gibt etwas das mich unglaublich aufgeregt hat und mit Sicherheit zu einer anderen Wertung geführt hat. Nach dem ersten Patch begann bei mir ein Glitchfest. Ich hatte eigentliche keine Spielsession mehr bei dem nicht 1-2x Türen nicht mehr zu öffnen waren oder irgendwelche anderen Glitches eintraten.
Gepaart mit dem Spielprinzip des Roguelikes ist das natürlich ein absoluter Todesstoß. Ich war mir zu keinem Zeitpunkt mehr sicher, ob mein mühsam vorbereiteter Run nach dem nächsten Areal noch besteht. Das führte demnach immer wieder zu total unnötigen und schmerzhaften Neustarts von Zyklen. Ich wollte das Spiel dann erstmal links liegen lassen, aber hatte halt auch unglaublich viel Spaß damit.
Darüber hinaus hatte ich sehr oft und z.b. auch beim Endboss den Soundfehler, was gerade beim Streamen unglaublich nervig ist, wenn sich der Sound so sehr verzerrt und im Grunde schon in den Ohren schmerzt. Auch für die Aufnahme musste man dann immer wieder Stellen muten.
Fazit
Das Spiel hat mir eventuell ein neues Genre eröffnet und mein Interesse erweckt. Es hat verdammt viel Spaß gemacht und hätte eine schöner erzählte Story verdient gehabt, auch wenn es zum Gameplay und der Endlosschleife passt. Die Glitches traten selbst nach den paar Patches immer noch auf und da muss dringend nachgebessert werden. Trotzdem für mich ein herausragendes Spiel und mit 4/5 Astronauten (hatte geschwankt zwischen 3.5 und 4.5) zu bewerten.
After a good 30 hours (48 Deaths) I was done with my first roguelike game. I can already say that I was very happy, but that I had some technical problems after the first patch.
Story
Selene and her trauma in the endless loop. It is about experiencing a trauma, which can be recognized as the core in the game but is told in a very diffuse way. This is paired with a few scary moments and the whole sci-fi setting and all in all it's nice accessories, but doesn't knock me off my feet now.
I would have wished for a lot more story input and a narrative that was easier to follow. Basically, you are constantly thrown at Cutscene nibbles, the composition of which is not easy to create an overall picture. I would recommend playing after the credits (to play Act 3, too) to get a little more input (although I would have liked a clearer picture here too, but I think I understood the whole thing).
Graphic
The look of the game is phenomenally good. The individual biomes of the planet are very nicely chosen, different enough for me and just look good. I would have wished for more around it in the individual parts of an area (e.g. events in the background), but the opponents are also pretty cool to look at. In general, the game is a firework of effects, colorful and sometimes incredibly overloaded (in a positive sense). The third boss alone was fabulous in terms of presentation.
Otherwise, the game also impresses in its video sequences with a good look and the performance, it ran 95% buttery smooth, which is amazing for such a bombardment of effects. I only had a few places where the FPS kept dropping, but that was always short-lived and not really important.
Gameplay
I've never played a roguelike before and was amazed how much fun it CAN be. Basically, I found it very good that you lose almost your entire progress with one death. The lack of an autosave didn't bother me either, although you can say that it always kept the pressure on to keep playing (didnt used the restmode method, because I played other Games too on the Console).
But you can clearly see from run to run that you will achieve a real progress in your own gameplay better and it feels so awesome when you have worked out a good starting position for further progress, e.g. a boss fight, in-game. It is absolutely possible to develop an overpowering Selene, which also leads to a point of criticism for me.
I had a few runs in which, despite having earned a lot of artifacts, mods, etc., I just wasn't lucky. For example, for the entire course of the game towards the end of the game I had no skills that restore my life (or lifesteal from enemies) or only very rarely got the drop. I don't like this RNG aspect that much, but with every progress that you make you also have the chance of more different items that are sometimes more sometimes less good. There are artifacts, as passive armor improvements, mods for the weapons, for which I only understood in the course of the game how important it is to level them. In addition, there are also consumer goods (one-time usable improvements, e.g. a healing potion) and parasites that were very cool in terms of the idea (high risk / high reward), but were often far too bad in the positive effects. Unfortunately, the parasites never felt really worthwhile, which I think is a shame.
The weapons at the heart of the combat system were pretty cool, but there were some that I found way too bad and weren't any fun at all. I moved around with the same guns quite often or tried to get hold of them, but I also noticed that some guns get really cool that I didn't like at the beginning. An example would be the shotgun, which really floods in with increasing modifications (even at a distance). The game also has Metroidvania aspects that really come into their own in the After Credits round and make you just happy. By the time the game was over, I didn't understand how to turn off the orange barriers. The whole thing is rounded off with very, very cool boss fights, which, as already mentioned, have an incredible visual power and staging and also feel a little soul-like and can be really difficult.
BUT: There is something that bothered me incredibly and certainly led to a different rating. After the first patch, I started a glitch festival. I actually didn't have a game session where the doors couldn't be opened 1-2 times or some other glitches occurred.
Coupled with the roguelike gameplay, this is of course an absolute death knell. At no point in time was I sure whether my run, which had been painstakingly prepared, would still exist after the next area. Accordingly, this repeatedly led to totally unnecessary and painful restarting of cycles. I wanted to ignore the game for now, but I had a lot of fun with it so I kept playing.
In addition, I had very often and e.g. also with the final boss the sound error, which is incredibly annoying, especially when streaming, when the sound is so distorted and basically hurts in the ears. For the recording, too, you had to mute places again and again.
Conclusion (TL;DR) The game may have opened up a new genre for me and piqued my interest. It was a lot of fun and deserved a nicer story told, even if it fits the gameplay and the loop. The glitches still occurred even after the few patches and urgently needs to be improved. Still for me an outstanding game and to be rated with 4/5 astronauts (had fluctuated between 3.5 and 4.5).
-------------------------------german----------------------------
Nach gut 30 Stunden war ich durch mit meinem ersten Roguelike Spiel. Ich kann schonmal sagen, dass es mir sehr viel Laune gemacht hat, ich aber einige technische Probleme nach dem ersten Patch hatte.
Story
Selene und ihr Trauma in der Endlosschleife. Es ist eben das Durchleben eines Traumatas, was im Spiel als Kern zu erkennen ist aber sehr diffus erzählt wird. Dazu paaren sich ein paar gruselige Momente und das ganze Sci-Fi Setting und alles in allem ist es nettes Beiwerk, aber haut mich jetzt nicht vom Hocker.
Ich hätte mir hier doch deutlich mehr Storyinput gewünscht und eine besser zu verfolgende Erzählung. Im Grunde wird man ständig mit Cutscene Häppchen beworfen, deren Zusammensetzung zu einem Gesamtbild nicht leicht fällt. Ich würde empfehlen nach den Credits weiterzuspielen, um noch etwas Mehr Input zu bekommen (wobei ich auch hier ein klareres Bild gewünscht hätte, trotzdem denke ich, dass ich das ganze verstanden habe).
Grafik
Der Look des Spiels ist phänomenal gut. Die einzelnen Biome des Planeten sind sehr schön gewählt, für mich verschieden genug und sehen einfach gut aus. Ich hätte mir zwar mehr drumherum gewünscht in den einzelnen Arealen eines Gebiets (z.b. Ereignisse im Hintergrund), dafür sind auch die Gegner ziemlich cool anzusehen.
Überhaupt ist das Spiel ein Effektfeuerwerk, farbenfroh und teilweise wahnsinnig überladen (im positiven Sinne). Alleine der 3. Boss ist präsentationstechnisch fabelhaft gelungen.
Auch ansonsten besticht das Spiel in seinen Videosequenzen mit einem guten Look und von der Performance her, lief es zu 95% butterweich, was für ein solches Effektbombardement erstaunlich ist. Ich hatte nur vereinzelte Stellen an denen die FPS immer gedroppt sind, das war aber immer von kurzer Dauer und nicht wirklich von Belang.
Gameplay
Ich habe vorher noch nie ein Roguelike gezockt und war begeistert wieviel Spaß es machen KANN. Im Grunde fand ich es sehr gut, dass man fast seinen gesamten Progress mit einem Tod verliert. Auch der fehlende Autosave hat mich nicht gestört, wobei man schon auch sagen kann, dass das immer einen Druck aufrechterhalten hat weiterzuspielen.
Aber man merkt deutlichst von Run zu Run das man besser wird einen richtigen Progress im eigenen Gameplay erreicht und es fühlt sich so genial an, wenn man sich eine gute Ausgangslage erarbeitet hat für den weiteren Fortschritt, z.b. einen Bosskampf, im Spiel. Es ist absolut möglich sich eine übermächtige Selene zu entwickeln, was aber auch zu einem Kritikpunkt für mich führt. Ich hatte einige Runs bei denen ich, trotz schon viel erspielter Artefakte Mods usw., einfach kein Glück hatte. Zum Beispiel hatte ich den gesamten Spielverlauf gegen Ende des Spiels keinerlei Fähigkeiten die mir Lebensraub geben bzw. nur sehr selten mal den Drop bekommen.
Dieser RNG Aspekt gefällt mir nicht ganz so sehr, aber mit jedem Fortschritt den man erzielt hat man auch die Chance auf mehr verschiedene Items, die eben mal mehr mal weniger gut sind. Es gibt nämlich Artefakte, als passive Rüstungsverbesserungen, Mods für die Waffen, bei denen ich erst im Verlauf des Spiels verstanden habe, wie wichtig es ist diese zu leveln. Daneben gibt es auch noch Verbrauchsgüter (einmalig nutzbare Verbesserungen z.b. einen Heiltrank) und Parasiten, die von der Idee her sehr cool waren (Hohes Risiko/Hohe Belohnung), aber oft viel zu schlecht waren in den positiven Effekten. Leider haben die Parasiten sich nie so richtig lohnenswert angefühlt, was ich sehr schade finde.
Die Waffen als Kernstück des Kampfsystems waren ziemlich cool, aber es gab einige, die ich viel zu schlecht fande und überhaupt keinen Spaß gemacht haben. Ich bin relativ oft mit denselben Waffen rumgezogen bzw. hab versucht diese zu ergattern, trotzdem habe ich auch gemerkt, dass einige Waffen richtig geil werden, die ich am Anfang noch nicht mochte. Ein Beispiel wäre die Schrotfline, die mit steigenden Modifikationen richtig reinwemmst (auch auf Distanz).
Das Spiel besitzt zusätzlich auch noch Metroidvania Aspekte, die gerade im After Credits Durchgang richtig zur Geltung kommen und einen einfach happy machen. Bis zum Abschluss des Spiels habe ich aber nicht verstanden, wie man die orangenen Barrieren ausschaltet.
Abgerundet wird das ganze mit sehr sehr coolen Bosskämpfen, die, wie bereits erwähnt, eine unfassbare Bildgewalt und Inszenierung haben und sich auch ein bisschen Soulsmäßig anfühlen und richtig schwer sein können.
ABER: Es gibt etwas das mich unglaublich aufgeregt hat und mit Sicherheit zu einer anderen Wertung geführt hat. Nach dem ersten Patch begann bei mir ein Glitchfest. Ich hatte eigentliche keine Spielsession mehr bei dem nicht 1-2x Türen nicht mehr zu öffnen waren oder irgendwelche anderen Glitches eintraten.
Gepaart mit dem Spielprinzip des Roguelikes ist das natürlich ein absoluter Todesstoß. Ich war mir zu keinem Zeitpunkt mehr sicher, ob mein mühsam vorbereiteter Run nach dem nächsten Areal noch besteht. Das führte demnach immer wieder zu total unnötigen und schmerzhaften Neustarts von Zyklen. Ich wollte das Spiel dann erstmal links liegen lassen, aber hatte halt auch unglaublich viel Spaß damit.
Darüber hinaus hatte ich sehr oft und z.b. auch beim Endboss den Soundfehler, was gerade beim Streamen unglaublich nervig ist, wenn sich der Sound so sehr verzerrt und im Grunde schon in den Ohren schmerzt. Auch für die Aufnahme musste man dann immer wieder Stellen muten.
Fazit
Das Spiel hat mir eventuell ein neues Genre eröffnet und mein Interesse erweckt. Es hat verdammt viel Spaß gemacht und hätte eine schöner erzählte Story verdient gehabt, auch wenn es zum Gameplay und der Endlosschleife passt. Die Glitches traten selbst nach den paar Patches immer noch auf und da muss dringend nachgebessert werden. Trotzdem für mich ein herausragendes Spiel und mit 4/5 Astronauten (hatte geschwankt zwischen 3.5 und 4.5) zu bewerten.
Returnal: Creative Story-Telling with Great Challenge
So I am going to be honest. I picked up this game blind not knowing anything about it. This is now going to be one of my favorite games of all time, and at worst it makes the top 10 in my list of all time greats.
Returnal tells the story of Selene who is stuck within a time loop, dying and returning to the site of her crash. She doesn't know why she is stuck in the loop, but she presses on exploring the alien planet known as Atropos. You fight off various alien lifeforms and proceed to discover what has caused you to be within this loop via flashbacks, hallucinations, and audio logs from her past self.
This is my first time playing a rougelike for more than five minutes and not getting bored. Usually I am very picky about my games, but I got this on a whim and was hooked instantly. A story that has you guessing what will happen next is something I have been missing in the game department. Every new audio file I grab I would sit and listen for any new information on the story. Also scenes within the house were always keeping me on the edge of my seat to figure out what would come next. Even after beating the game I was not able to figure out the story until I sat down and did some hard thinking and looking at other people’s thoughts. I am not saying the story is terrible, but it has a lot of different paths that could be interpreted depending on the person. I do think there is one correct answer, but you will need to dig a bit for it. The thinking and steps to figure out a game and piece together all of it was probably one of my favorite parts about this game. The story-telling is top notch, and for me that is naturally the most important part of any game for me.
The gameplay feels so smooth. I typically hate shooters, but when I pick up the controller I could not set it down. The movement and haptic feedback is top notch and shows off what this console can do. You not only hear raindrops on the controller, but you feel them too. I felt immersed in this gameplay without the headphones, and when I put them on. I can only describe it as the perfect immersion within the game.
The only thing I would even gripe about, and in the game it makes sense mostly, is the difficulty scaling. I think I struggle mostly on the third biome, while I can blow through the final biome not taking any damage. This is mostly due to attributes on the guns, which you get some VERY broken ones later on. And from what I see, there is a cap to certain proficiency levels in each biome. Once you hit 15 or higher, the game felt a little easier. You gain these levels by killing enemies and finding items that boost it. So the longer your run, the better. But it does not ruin it as you need to be able to juggle multiple enemies a lot and these attributes to guns help stay in the fray and no power-up will ultimately help you skimp on mechanics.
Overall, 5/5 a mastapiece and now I am going to jump back in now to platinum this game
So I am going to be honest. I picked up this game blind not knowing anything about it. This is now going to be one of my favorite games of all time, and at worst it makes the top 10 in my list of all time greats.
Returnal tells the story of Selene who is stuck within a time loop, dying and returning to the site of her crash. She doesn't know why she is stuck in the loop, but she presses on exploring the alien planet known as Atropos. You fight off various alien lifeforms and proceed to discover what has caused you to be within this loop via flashbacks, hallucinations, and audio logs from her past self.
This is my first time playing a rougelike for more than five minutes and not getting bored. Usually I am very picky about my games, but I got this on a whim and was hooked instantly. A story that has you guessing what will happen next is something I have been missing in the game department. Every new audio file I grab I would sit and listen for any new information on the story. Also scenes within the house were always keeping me on the edge of my seat to figure out what would come next. Even after beating the game I was not able to figure out the story until I sat down and did some hard thinking and looking at other people’s thoughts. I am not saying the story is terrible, but it has a lot of different paths that could be interpreted depending on the person. I do think there is one correct answer, but you will need to dig a bit for it. The thinking and steps to figure out a game and piece together all of it was probably one of my favorite parts about this game. The story-telling is top notch, and for me that is naturally the most important part of any game for me.
The gameplay feels so smooth. I typically hate shooters, but when I pick up the controller I could not set it down. The movement and haptic feedback is top notch and shows off what this console can do. You not only hear raindrops on the controller, but you feel them too. I felt immersed in this gameplay without the headphones, and when I put them on. I can only describe it as the perfect immersion within the game.
The only thing I would even gripe about, and in the game it makes sense mostly, is the difficulty scaling. I think I struggle mostly on the third biome, while I can blow through the final biome not taking any damage. This is mostly due to attributes on the guns, which you get some VERY broken ones later on. And from what I see, there is a cap to certain proficiency levels in each biome. Once you hit 15 or higher, the game felt a little easier. You gain these levels by killing enemies and finding items that boost it. So the longer your run, the better. But it does not ruin it as you need to be able to juggle multiple enemies a lot and these attributes to guns help stay in the fray and no power-up will ultimately help you skimp on mechanics.
Overall, 5/5 a mastapiece and now I am going to jump back in now to platinum this game
shocked by how into this I am despite it overtly representing like 800 simultaneous trending references and roguelikes not being a thing I typically enjoy at all! The scott/villeneuve style trappings are obvious but they're cleverly wielded to convey a story through refreshingly non-cinematic means, and so much of the housemarque soul is still present here. The playfeel is stellar--the dualsense and sound integration especially--and the grueling pointillist combat is reactive and wondrous in a resogun meets nier meets furi kinda way. The punitive precision and masochistic self-empowerment systems (parasites, malignancies) feel so synchronous with the game's themes about delusions of potentiality and the horror of being trapped within a losing conversation with yourself. The whole "the location is its own character" thing is so pat and tritely overused as an assessment at this point but uh... it kind of is tho and i really like it!!! I haven't finished yet and honestly don't think you're even intended to in order for the experience to meaningfully land; the whole notion of "seeing it all" as a means of understanding game messaging is so parochial and rooted in other mediums and their histories, and an especially odd cudgel to use against Returnal when frustration, obfuscation, and defeat are all integral ideas being directly explored in it!!! I will be genuinely kind of disappointed if the ending brings any semblance of traditional closure. Selene is a wonderful and subtly articulated character and the experience feels much more like a portrait rather than a journey. More cagey, damaged middle aged ladies in games plz, i love a smooth altruistic jrpg teen but it is really nice to get to excavate a thorny character who already comes with so much baggage and life experience!!!!!!!
repression is the most grueling form of labor / regret murders our potential selves
i am vast; i contain malignancies!!!!!!
repression is the most grueling form of labor / regret murders our potential selves
i am vast; i contain malignancies!!!!!!
Gameplay is super fun and solid. A single run is generally really good. But I think the game lacks rewarding bonuses for good runs.
Maybe I was just spoiled by Hades being my first rogue-like. The fact Returnal offers zero rewards for a run that doesn't happen to get to a new biome just lends to way more frustrating time wasting than anything. It'd be nice if I could upgrade things permanently with ether, like extra dashes or starting health. In Hades your 10th run will always be much stronger than your first run regardless of that runs loadout, simply because of those upgrades you can get, meaning no matter how many times it takes you to beat the game, you're always progressing. In Returnal dying in a 2 hour run without making biome progress is just too punishing. Even making it to a new biome isn't that rewarding, because all it does is give you a new piece of equipment that will allow you to gather a handful of extra resources per run.
I never even felt like I was really improving in this game. Obviously you learn enemies movesets and such, but some rooms are just so ridiculous that all you can do is dodge around the thousands of bullets coming your way between the mini bosses leaping at you to take off 60% of your health in a single hit, and thanks to the 3D gameplay it is physically impossible to keep track of everything at once. It was very much a case of spam dodge and hope to God I don't accidently dash straight into an enemy in a blind spot.
Even worse is that the game has this mechanic where if you spend Ether on a fabricator at the start of a run it'll be added to the loot pool in future runs (there are other ways to add items, but this was the most common). The game seems to THINK this is the way to help players each run but...it's not. The amount of chests and whatnot each run remain the same, and in fact the amount you can actually access will differ wildly due to RNG keys, so getting a less-than-optimal new item added to the pool just lowers your chance of getting the item you want. It can literally punish you and make future runs harder. They should really have made artefacts be a random drop from enemies sometimes - at the very least mini bosses.
And since ethers are the only permanent resource that carries between runs, you might think "Well I'll just do a bunch of suicide runs to gather ethers so I can do a great run where I can avoid all malfunctions", but the game stops that by capping the ether amount to 30.
I dunno. Returnal is so incredible to actually play. It's tense, fast paced and just feels good. It has an interesting use of the adaptive triggers by making alt fire and aiming down the sight different levels of pressing L2. But it's also just so PUNISHING for death and it lead to so much frustration, not because I was mad I died, but because I was mad I'd just lost hours of my life. The only really good thing I have to say about this system is that the feeling I got upon beating the last boss was one I haven't experienced in a game for a long ass time. I was literally shaking from the anxiety of dying and having to do it all again. But was that worth all the crushing realisations that I'd just wasted so many hours of my life on every death? Lol.
I haven't touched on the story because I don't really care for it. I'm not a fan of those kind of mystery stories where things are presented to the viewer as purposefully obscure and the character experiencing it constantly has flashes and experiences nonsensical things so the player can put pieces together. I've read at least 3 different theories on what the whole thing means and a story that has to be told by the fans, and even then they can't agree on it, just doesn't captivate me. Luckily the story mostly takes a backseat, but I admit the house sequences were low points.
Maybe I was just spoiled by Hades being my first rogue-like. The fact Returnal offers zero rewards for a run that doesn't happen to get to a new biome just lends to way more frustrating time wasting than anything. It'd be nice if I could upgrade things permanently with ether, like extra dashes or starting health. In Hades your 10th run will always be much stronger than your first run regardless of that runs loadout, simply because of those upgrades you can get, meaning no matter how many times it takes you to beat the game, you're always progressing. In Returnal dying in a 2 hour run without making biome progress is just too punishing. Even making it to a new biome isn't that rewarding, because all it does is give you a new piece of equipment that will allow you to gather a handful of extra resources per run.
I never even felt like I was really improving in this game. Obviously you learn enemies movesets and such, but some rooms are just so ridiculous that all you can do is dodge around the thousands of bullets coming your way between the mini bosses leaping at you to take off 60% of your health in a single hit, and thanks to the 3D gameplay it is physically impossible to keep track of everything at once. It was very much a case of spam dodge and hope to God I don't accidently dash straight into an enemy in a blind spot.
Even worse is that the game has this mechanic where if you spend Ether on a fabricator at the start of a run it'll be added to the loot pool in future runs (there are other ways to add items, but this was the most common). The game seems to THINK this is the way to help players each run but...it's not. The amount of chests and whatnot each run remain the same, and in fact the amount you can actually access will differ wildly due to RNG keys, so getting a less-than-optimal new item added to the pool just lowers your chance of getting the item you want. It can literally punish you and make future runs harder. They should really have made artefacts be a random drop from enemies sometimes - at the very least mini bosses.
And since ethers are the only permanent resource that carries between runs, you might think "Well I'll just do a bunch of suicide runs to gather ethers so I can do a great run where I can avoid all malfunctions", but the game stops that by capping the ether amount to 30.
I dunno. Returnal is so incredible to actually play. It's tense, fast paced and just feels good. It has an interesting use of the adaptive triggers by making alt fire and aiming down the sight different levels of pressing L2. But it's also just so PUNISHING for death and it lead to so much frustration, not because I was mad I died, but because I was mad I'd just lost hours of my life. The only really good thing I have to say about this system is that the feeling I got upon beating the last boss was one I haven't experienced in a game for a long ass time. I was literally shaking from the anxiety of dying and having to do it all again. But was that worth all the crushing realisations that I'd just wasted so many hours of my life on every death? Lol.
I haven't touched on the story because I don't really care for it. I'm not a fan of those kind of mystery stories where things are presented to the viewer as purposefully obscure and the character experiencing it constantly has flashes and experiences nonsensical things so the player can put pieces together. I've read at least 3 different theories on what the whole thing means and a story that has to be told by the fans, and even then they can't agree on it, just doesn't captivate me. Luckily the story mostly takes a backseat, but I admit the house sequences were low points.
Really damn fun
It does fail a bit as a roguelike in certain aspects but as an action shooter it’s phenomenal
If this is an indication on what to expect this console generation, I’m all for it
It does fail a bit as a roguelike in certain aspects but as an action shooter it’s phenomenal
If this is an indication on what to expect this console generation, I’m all for it
Gameplay fun y adictivo, la historia me gusto bastante a pesar de que no es ninguna locura y el final es un poco meh, pero bueno. A nivel de audio y visuals el juego tambien destaca mucho. Para cualquier amante del genero es un must como una casa, quizas en un par de años cuando baje de precio la consola y el juego, pero bueno.
This game gave made my anxiety the final boss
A cross between Smash TV and Metroid prime.
Be warned that if you're not very good at twitch shooters or fast action games, you may end up stuck in a loop and not enjoying yourself very much.
Be warned that if you're not very good at twitch shooters or fast action games, you may end up stuck in a loop and not enjoying yourself very much.
I love this game. The action is tight. It is very difficult. But it flows so smooth.
What an absolutely beautiful, perfectly imperfect game: a blend of arcade shooting and addictive exploration, with a narrative coating of hard sci-fi shot through with deep human trauma.
The full story has to be coaxed out via many, many deaths and retries, like any roguelike; and while it's far from perfectly executed, I am just absolutely smitten by its sheer ambition. They could have made a game about, just, shooting evil aliens to save the world, and it would have been fine; instead they've made a game about excavating the remains of lost, intricate extraterrestrial civilizations, and tied it in with a personal exploration of the main character, Selene, in ways that I don't even fully understand but that are delightful and weird and, at times, desperately sad.
At the end of the day, though, engagement with the dense and fragmented story is essentially optional: Housemarque have done a brilliant job keeping the pace of the game blazing-fast, using only bite-sized cinematics or audio-logs to pepper things gradually with thematic and emotional heft as you blast your way through what are, perhaps, the most gorgeously designed enemies in any videogame, ever.
Seriously--this game looks amazing. The way your neon weapon-fire pierces through the rainy haze in the first biome is just spectacular. The way the tentacular enemies move and explode is artisinally crafted. The bosses are electric lightshows of dizzyingly intricate bullet patterns that bring to mind the top-down arcade shoot-em-ups of yore, testing your ability to aim and dodge simultaneously in some incredibly unique ways.
It's the FEEL of the game that makes it so thrilling, so replayable. The weight of your melee attacks, and the way you home in on enemies from a slight distance with a slash of your sword, is just right. The variety in gunplay styles is expansive. The speed and fluidity with which you can tear through the environments, slashing at turrets and then jumping and dashing and grappling to dodge away from enemy fire, all while spinning and shooting, is modern-dance-esque.
That's a lot of words to say something that, at its core, is very simple: at the level of individual encounters, the game is really, really, really fun to play.
That being the case, there's no lack of frustration to be had, as beating the game is EXTREMELY difficult. A good, long hour-and-a-half run can be ended in the blink of an eye by one of the game's particularly evil malformed enemies. Bosses will rain bullets on you without mercy, making you feel helpless and like you'll never progress. The way the game is designed to account for this, though--never making you beat a boss more than once, and allowing you to skip to later biomes on subsequent runs if you've already accessed them-- is a triumph, and something that should be implemented in every roguelike. You don't HAVE to suffer through the entirety of the game, playthrough after playthrough. You CAN, in order to increase your power (in one of the game's many brilliant risk/reward balancing acts) -- but you don't have to. And giving the player choices in this way, it turns out, is how to make a roguelike not feel smothering and maddening, and still make it plenty difficult.
I say Returnal is a perfect imperfect game because not a single one of its flaws detracted at all from the core experience of sheer exhilaration I had whlie playing it. Sure, the story is a big, weird mess. It doesn't matter! Dive in if you want, or ignore it entirely. Sure, you find yourself seeing the same environments over and over, which can be annoying; but it allows you to intricately learn them, and all their nooks and crannies, so that eventually, in later playthroughs, you can fly through them, grabbing items and blasting enemies and moving on. Every single item that I initially thought was pointless and a waste of game-space ended up saving my ass at some point later down the line. All of this is to say that: for me, the game's initial annoyances eventually melted away as I got better and learned more, and every playthrough then became a nirvana of uninhibited run-and-gun bliss.
Housemarque deserves an immense amount of credit for creating a triple-A game that is as strange and heartfelt as it is gloriously smooth to play. I put 35 hours into like it was nothing, and finally beat it; and it will be the first roguelike I've ever played where I'll be diving right back in for more.
The full story has to be coaxed out via many, many deaths and retries, like any roguelike; and while it's far from perfectly executed, I am just absolutely smitten by its sheer ambition. They could have made a game about, just, shooting evil aliens to save the world, and it would have been fine; instead they've made a game about excavating the remains of lost, intricate extraterrestrial civilizations, and tied it in with a personal exploration of the main character, Selene, in ways that I don't even fully understand but that are delightful and weird and, at times, desperately sad.
At the end of the day, though, engagement with the dense and fragmented story is essentially optional: Housemarque have done a brilliant job keeping the pace of the game blazing-fast, using only bite-sized cinematics or audio-logs to pepper things gradually with thematic and emotional heft as you blast your way through what are, perhaps, the most gorgeously designed enemies in any videogame, ever.
Seriously--this game looks amazing. The way your neon weapon-fire pierces through the rainy haze in the first biome is just spectacular. The way the tentacular enemies move and explode is artisinally crafted. The bosses are electric lightshows of dizzyingly intricate bullet patterns that bring to mind the top-down arcade shoot-em-ups of yore, testing your ability to aim and dodge simultaneously in some incredibly unique ways.
It's the FEEL of the game that makes it so thrilling, so replayable. The weight of your melee attacks, and the way you home in on enemies from a slight distance with a slash of your sword, is just right. The variety in gunplay styles is expansive. The speed and fluidity with which you can tear through the environments, slashing at turrets and then jumping and dashing and grappling to dodge away from enemy fire, all while spinning and shooting, is modern-dance-esque.
That's a lot of words to say something that, at its core, is very simple: at the level of individual encounters, the game is really, really, really fun to play.
That being the case, there's no lack of frustration to be had, as beating the game is EXTREMELY difficult. A good, long hour-and-a-half run can be ended in the blink of an eye by one of the game's particularly evil malformed enemies. Bosses will rain bullets on you without mercy, making you feel helpless and like you'll never progress. The way the game is designed to account for this, though--never making you beat a boss more than once, and allowing you to skip to later biomes on subsequent runs if you've already accessed them-- is a triumph, and something that should be implemented in every roguelike. You don't HAVE to suffer through the entirety of the game, playthrough after playthrough. You CAN, in order to increase your power (in one of the game's many brilliant risk/reward balancing acts) -- but you don't have to. And giving the player choices in this way, it turns out, is how to make a roguelike not feel smothering and maddening, and still make it plenty difficult.
I say Returnal is a perfect imperfect game because not a single one of its flaws detracted at all from the core experience of sheer exhilaration I had whlie playing it. Sure, the story is a big, weird mess. It doesn't matter! Dive in if you want, or ignore it entirely. Sure, you find yourself seeing the same environments over and over, which can be annoying; but it allows you to intricately learn them, and all their nooks and crannies, so that eventually, in later playthroughs, you can fly through them, grabbing items and blasting enemies and moving on. Every single item that I initially thought was pointless and a waste of game-space ended up saving my ass at some point later down the line. All of this is to say that: for me, the game's initial annoyances eventually melted away as I got better and learned more, and every playthrough then became a nirvana of uninhibited run-and-gun bliss.
Housemarque deserves an immense amount of credit for creating a triple-A game that is as strange and heartfelt as it is gloriously smooth to play. I put 35 hours into like it was nothing, and finally beat it; and it will be the first roguelike I've ever played where I'll be diving right back in for more.