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.