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.