Housemarque just gets it.
A Roguelike third person shooter with bullet hell enemies sounds like something that should have been done a million times but it hasn't. Especially not to this level of competence.
The shooting mechanics are pitch perfect here with a ton of weapons that just feel awesome to handle. On PS5, the game has an excellent implementation of haptics that just make every weapon FEEL strong. There's a weight and tightness to everything here and it's great. I also LOVE how the game includes the Gears of War reloading minigame too. More games should.
Narratively, Returnal is interesting enough but it definitely falls into the Souls/Hollow Knight form of storytelling where everything feels somewhat abstract in an effort to have the player extrapolate their own conclusions. I'm frankly getting a little worn down by that type of storytelling. Not that it matters much here since the gameplay is the star.
Another nitpick I have is that some of the roguelike elements aren't the strongest. Runs start to feel quite samey after a while. This makes Returnal have a definite shelf life of roughly 30 hours for me. Although, I'll likely keep revisiting the game to get the remaining RNG collectibles I missed.
Although I sounded a little negative near the end, I still feel strongly that Returnal is GREAT. And with a few tweaks for a sequel, we could be in for something even more special.
A Roguelike third person shooter with bullet hell enemies sounds like something that should have been done a million times but it hasn't. Especially not to this level of competence.
The shooting mechanics are pitch perfect here with a ton of weapons that just feel awesome to handle. On PS5, the game has an excellent implementation of haptics that just make every weapon FEEL strong. There's a weight and tightness to everything here and it's great. I also LOVE how the game includes the Gears of War reloading minigame too. More games should.
Narratively, Returnal is interesting enough but it definitely falls into the Souls/Hollow Knight form of storytelling where everything feels somewhat abstract in an effort to have the player extrapolate their own conclusions. I'm frankly getting a little worn down by that type of storytelling. Not that it matters much here since the gameplay is the star.
Another nitpick I have is that some of the roguelike elements aren't the strongest. Runs start to feel quite samey after a while. This makes Returnal have a definite shelf life of roughly 30 hours for me. Although, I'll likely keep revisiting the game to get the remaining RNG collectibles I missed.
Although I sounded a little negative near the end, I still feel strongly that Returnal is GREAT. And with a few tweaks for a sequel, we could be in for something even more special.