Returnal

Its a diamond in the rough. Each run is unique with a wide variety of artifacts, parasites, and items that can synergize with one another. Each gun has multiple traits to unlock each with their own tiers to upgrade. I think it really incentivizes the player to look outside their comfort zone. In it's grasp of roguelike mechanics, it stands among the best.

We all know at the end of the day stories are good in games, but game-play is king; Returnal checks both of these boxes. The dark narrative is refreshing and unique, a far cry from the sea of cliche story lines that find their way to the mainstream. This one stayed with me, and when you hear the desperation and momentary bouts of insanity in Selene's rage against her fate, you can't help but sympathize and fight harder to free her from her hell, if you even can.

For those who rated this game poorly for having to start over after dying, I'd not only not recommend this game to you, but roguelikes entirely. That premise is the foundation of the genre. It's like buying a sandwich, and complaining when you ate it you noticed two pieces of bread with ingredients between them. That's just what a sandwich is. It isn't that you don't like this particular sandwich, but sandwiches entirely. I'd recommend sticking to the tried and true chicken tenders and french fries; but for my fellow sandwich connoisseur's out there, this one's one of the best.

Returnal sounded great on paper but after playing it the game is just a mess. Everything looks the exact same from start to finish. I know it's a rogue like but that doesn't mean it has to look alike. It just makes the game feel empty. The weapons aren't to bad. They get held by the lacking combat. They wanted to make it all fast pace but it just feels uncomfortable. I don't know what it is. The bosses are where the game really takes a nose dive. From example 1 of the bosses has different attacks where you need to avoid it different. Throu dash or jumping. But they both look the same at 1st so you have to guess which way to avoid it. That is unless your lucky enough to be standing on further side of the sweep but if not enjoy getting hit for a mass amount of health. Also in-between each health bar you don't have any time before the next phase so why not just have 1 long health bar with lines in at each new phase. If your going to make it 3 separate health bars it makes you think your gonna have a bit of time in-between each phase to revive your friend or whatever. Which I think there should be during a long encounter anyway but that's just my opinion.

At 1 point there was a building which you can't enter. But later after seeing it I got a key and it said it was for the building but you still can't enter it? Why do you give me a key when you still can't enter? Surely someone would have picked up on how misleading and silly that is?

Anyway, essentially the game boils down to mindlessly running round the same looking rooms doing random stuff which you don't know if it's optional or its actually driving the progress forward. Eventually it will tell you that you can now open the boss room door. Also here and then it will tell you something about the story. But that's few and far between and you'll probably forget what's actually going on half the time.

I like the fact the developers tried something new. However this game would have probably been better if it wasn't a rogue like.

How did this pathetic trash game even make it to green lite ? This game doesn't even tell you what to do nor does it have a quest item . This game got awards how ? Guaranteed boys are praising this game. Do not play or buy it. It's rogue like and you lose your weapons when you die, so the game is not worth it. Only way I'll play it is free on ps extra. Not worth $69.99. Avoid this garbage. Returnal is returned.

A great game with a lot of variety with the weapons and abilities you can use. A fair amount of choices to be made when you decide what kind of build you want for different fight engagements.

There's something left to be said about the final boss when it is the easiest one to beat in the entire game, but the rest of them will give you a challenge on your first run-in with them.

A bit lacking with other activities to do in the game other than just moving down a lot of aliens. Could have added more optional challenges to overcome.

But overall a nice little challenging experience.

Having played this game for my 1st jump to the PS5 left me very encouraged about the new hardware. Owning a Pro and playing it again 2+ years later now that it's been patched for the PS5 Pro and I'm definitely here for the whole experience. Yes, it's Souls like, but it's also completely unique from that genre. Beautiful - check, difficult but rewarding - check, intriguing story - check but you have to give it time & accept that you're going to be starting fresh a lot until you really get the hang of it. Anyone looking for a fun game to throw lots of hours into, I highly recommend!!! I'll admit that the current generation needs more quality games, but the great ones they have developed are absolute works of art, i.e. Returnal, Horizon (both games), Spiderman 2, etc.