Current Events > I don't know if Returnal is a game for me

(+) Yeah! (+)

I'm playing it and I'm enjoying it okay. But tbh I just don't know if I vibe with roguelikes very much.

Everything flowed perfect for my first two runs. First one I stumbled onto a boss rather quickly and died. Second one I made it all the way to the first boss. But got flustered when I didn't realise the astronaut figure was going to resurrect me. Unfortunately that was also the best opportunity I had so far to beat the boss. When I understood the game the least.

My second attempt at the boss I just didn't feel powerful enough. So okay. I guess I have to grind it out for a bit to get to where I was. But nothing has felt as good as that second run. Now I just feel a bit meh. I've spent a couple of hours now just feeling really repetitive. Nothing feels overly hard except when I stumble into something major, get screwed over and my progress is lost.

The boss itself I feel like I could do but it just feels kinda sucky that if I was just a little bit better that first time I would have progressed a lot more. The pacing of my experience just feels off. An hour of constant progression followed by two hours of repeating similar fights over and over.

When I only have an hour or two at a time to play it I just don't think I have the patience tbh. Especially when I have a lot of other games to play.

I don't think the game is bad though. Just the genre isn't for me I think. This is actually my history with Housemarque in general as well. People rave about the game. I check it out. I overall like it but just doesn't overly vibe with me. Worth keeping in case I maybe feel in a better head space with it later.

I think it's just in how you look at it.
For me rogue-likes/lites are perfect for when I only have an hour or two to play. Ultimately the progression doesn't matter because I will definitely play it again in the future. They're not games that I beat and shelve forever. I will come back to them almost endlessly, so one bad run (or 100 bad runs) doesn't matter. I never feel like I'm wasting my time because I'm having fun.

I usually need something like story, atmosphere, art, graphics, roleplay, customization, unlockables, relevance, etc

to keep my interest