LogFAQs > #965580723

Returnal (PS5)

This is a super good game and I definitely recommend it if you have a PS5. It really does have some Metroid Prime vibes, especially the more action-y parts of those games. The gun play is just fun and moving around feels great. It's also gorgeous to look at with the exception of the first area which is dark as shit. Turn your brightness/gamma way up and don't look back, it's awful on default settings.

I suspect I found this game a lot easier than most. The 1st area is by far the hardest relative to how equipped you are for it, and it's not particularly easy even after you get some permanent upgrades. It has several extremely dangerous enemies/elites, and the boss is by far the hardest boss in the game. Even going back later, it's still the hardest boss in the game, with by far the hardest patterns and 10x more mobility than any other boss. The second area has a particularly annoying elite enemy, but otherwise isn't too much trouble -- and the rest of the game is kind of cake until you get to area 5 (which just has nasty enemies all around), and then cake again after leaving area 5. I beat the majority of the game's bosses first try. It's really not that challenging once you get past the initial difficulty cliff. My hot tip if you're playing this and having trouble is to use the Electropylon Driver, which is just a broken as shit gun that melts everything it hits.

I'm not sure the rogue-like-ness of it actually makes the game better, especially since your build doesn't vary much between runs. It contributes to the story, but I found myself wishing there were more permanent upgrades and less retreading easy areas on death. Thankfully there are a lot of shortcuts and ways to make progress that won't be undone if you die. Whenever you open a major locked door, it stays open forever. So even if you're struggling, you can chip away at the game until you finish it.

I was very invested in the plot initially: it starts out very Metroid, with a distress signal and a crash on an alien planet and finding snippets of lore about the indigenous aliens unleashing... something that destroyed them. Then you learn about the time loop and the question of how it's all connected is super intriguing!! Then you find the main character's house, randomly on the alien planet, and you go inside and start looking at pictures and stuff and she makes comments about her mom and it becomes clear that, no, actually this is going to be a psychological horror game's story loaded into a Metroid trapping. It's not great, and frankly those stories are usually awful so I wasn't surprised I didn't like it. It's not entirely clear how much of the game is really happening, which is definitely A Choice for the game that paints itself as sci-fi. Like... you can do psychological horror in a sci-fi setting, but this isn't even that. The "real life" parts are straight up modern day.

I got the secret Act 3 ending which is... arguably not really worth it, but I wanted to play more anyway so it was fine. Not sure about 100%ing it, I'm pretty close but there's a lot of randomness involved in getting the things I'm missing.