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Returnal |OT| Live. Die. Repeat.

Dr Bass

Member
Just finished the game right now, I’m in the 17.6% club! Took me 3 tries to beat the last boss but I did it. Personally, I would have preferred a Metroid-vania type game with this style.
Doesn't it feel like the perfect formula is right there for this? To me the game feels like you could basically make the 3D version of Super Metroid (not a remake of that game, but the first time to truly reach those heights in 3D).

Perfect combat, perfect feeling of growth and exploration, and perfect 3D platforming controls. And fantastic sci fi setting. I loved the game, and at the same time felt the same frustration you just described. It would be so dang good.
 

DeepSpace5D

Member
Got my Platinum for Returnal a couple of days ago. So far it’s the best game I’ve played this year. The combat and movement combined with enemy design is just excellent.

Sadly I don’t feel too much motivation to continue with further runs except if I wanted to continue leveling the gun’s modifiers and alt-fires to rank 3.

Hopefully this game receives alot of post-launch content from Housemarque to give me reasons to come back.

If I remember correctly, Resogun had around 4-5 DLCs post-launch.
 
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RNG

Member
Doesn't it feel like the perfect formula is right there for this? To me the game feels like you could basically make the 3D version of Super Metroid (not a remake of that game, but the first time to truly reach those heights in 3D).

Perfect combat, perfect feeling of growth and exploration, and perfect 3D platforming controls. And fantastic sci fi setting. I loved the game, and at the same time felt the same frustration you just described. It would be so dang good.
Exactly. I couldn't help but think about Super Metroid but with these kind of graphics and budget while going deeper and deeper into exploring planet Zebes with continuous progression/back-tracking/save points. Just going through those blue doors in the first biome gave me that kind of vibe.

I can just imagine the Mother Brain fight and dodging/freezing her turrets with the ice beam while avoiding falling off the platform. Switch to your super-missile by pressing L1 (consumable button) and aim it with full-button holding L2 with the Dualsense and fire away! Kraid fight with these tight and responsive controls would also be the dream for me.

10/10 game right there for me.
 

Con-Z-epT

Live from NeoGAF, it's Friday Night!
Yes I am running the latest version, ironically I didn't have any problems before updates. Not running any background app and believe my console is perfectly fine too. I guess it's just a hit or miss.
Seems like it. I can't wrap my head around the fact that some are affected and others are not.
 

Jack Videogames

Gold Member
I'm finally in Biome 6, got a good run going but I had to stop playing so I put the PS5 on Rest mode...

... and it crashed \o/ I think I've never had a game crash as much as Returnal (Actually, the PS5 crashes quite a bit by itself)

How long is Act 3? I'm not sure I want to invest another 30 hours...
 

engstra

Member
I'm finally in Biome 6, got a good run going but I had to stop playing so I put the PS5 on Rest mode...

... and it crashed \o/ I think I've never had a game crash as much as Returnal (Actually, the PS5 crashes quite a bit by itself)

How long is Act 3? I'm not sure I want to invest another 30 hours...
Really depends on you, It's just playing through each biome to pick up the sun fragment in each one. As long as you've done all the house sequences, you can do it in a single run (5-6 hours)
 
I'm finally in Biome 6, got a good run going but I had to stop playing so I put the PS5 on Rest mode...

... and it crashed \o/ I think I've never had a game crash as much as Returnal (Actually, the PS5 crashes quite a bit by itself)

How long is Act 3? I'm not sure I want to invest another 30 hours...
Yeah, just a few posts above I was ranting the same issue, the game crashed when I wanted to save a good run in rest mode. This game crashes like crazy....

As for act 3 , you essentially replay the 6 biomes and collect 6 pieces of items in each. Those are permanent , even if you die they remain in your inventory. It took me around 3 hours clearing everything and collecting the items. Then you need to beat the final boss again to see the alternative ending, or finish act 3.
 

Ogbert

Member
Really disappointed with the game.

Very little in the way of build variety. Feels like a dull slog. Have tapped out at Biome 5. Might come back to it later, but thoroughly bored.
 

tommib

Member
So, I'm 4 trophies away from the platinum. I got the surveys for worlds 1 and 4. Can't find the Xenoglyph for Crimson Wastes no matter what. Any tips for the surveys? You just keep restarting cycles until you get the glyphs? That's annoying. Not sure I have it in me.
 

Con-Z-epT

Live from NeoGAF, it's Friday Night!
So, I'm 4 trophies away from the platinum. I got the surveys for worlds 1 and 4. Can't find the Xenoglyph for Crimson Wastes no matter what. Any tips for the surveys? You just keep restarting cycles until you get the glyphs? That's annoying. Not sure I have it in me.
To be thoroughly with your search is my best advice.

Don't just rush through the biomes and think you looked for every cipher well enough. Clean every part of it with full consciousness.
Check the map! Without the map i sure would have missed most of them. Don't be afraid to use YouTube.
It helped me alot since most of the videos that are being posted there, in terms of ciphers, were exactly the ones i missed.

I'm sure you have it in you!
 

FrankWza

Member
Seems like it. I can't wrap my head around the fact that some are affected and others are not.
I saw a post somewhere that having a usb storage device caused crashes and freezes with the game for some reason. I mentioned it to someone else and they didn’t have anything connected but that was a patch or 2 ago. It is odd that it doesn’t happen to everyone.
So, I'm 4 trophies away from the platinum. I got the surveys for worlds 1 and 4. Can't find the Xenoglyph for Crimson Wastes no matter what. Any tips for the surveys? You just keep restarting cycles until you get the glyphs? That's annoying. Not sure I have it in me.
To be thoroughly with your search is my best advice.

Don't just rush through the biomes and think you looked for every cipher well enough. Clean every part of it with full consciousness.
Check the map! Without the map i sure would have missed most of them. Don't be afraid to use YouTube.
It helped me alot since most of the videos that are being posted there, in terms of ciphers, were exactly the ones i missed.

I'm sure you have it in you!
Yes. The mini map is the only one that shows triangles for glyphs AND they’re also the symbol for consumables which makes it annoying
 

Dr Bass

Member
I'm finally in Biome 6, got a good run going but I had to stop playing so I put the PS5 on Rest mode...

... and it crashed \o/ I think I've never had a game crash as much as Returnal (Actually, the PS5 crashes quite a bit by itself)

How long is Act 3? I'm not sure I want to invest another 30 hours...

I played for 48 hours in total, and had one crash pre-latest patch when I got a low battery warning pop up in the game and that brought it back to the PS5 dashboard. That's the only one I've seen and my PS5 also doesn't crash. It makes me wonder what the differences could be for those experiencing a lot of problems.

As far as your question in the spoiler goes .. it all depends on your skill. I beat the game the first time and it took me 47 deaths and 40 hours. I beat what you're asking about in one try after that with zero deaths, all six biomes. I got 5 out of the 6 items needed during that time. Went back and did it again to the get the last piece and wrap up the main game, which I did again without dying because by now I feel like I am pretty decent at it.

So yeah, I had the same inclination. One time through and I am done. But it is just so much fun to play I started again and after seeing how easy it was to find the "items" and how well I was doing I just kept going until I had done it again. 🤷‍♂️
 

2AdEPT

Member
OK a couple things have been bothering me:

A.) The first time I came to biome 6 I swear there were travel portals...was I imagining things? the last two times back, first to kill the boss, 2nd to look for glyphs, there were no portals...I havent resent my machine in a while....is my memory really that bad?

B.) I reset after Ophion in biome 4...I got sun pieces in 4 and 5 and missed one in 6 and died ...returned to 4. I dont realy want to be spoiled but am I at least on the right track? I died on the demi-boss guarding the key in 6....assuming the sun piece was around there., but also had no keys. Pieces 4 and 5 were out inthe open and obvious. You dont have to spoil me unless my game is screwed up...but not really sure its ever going to let me go back to 1, 2, 3 ???!!?!?
 

fallingdove

Member
OK a couple things have been bothering me:

A.) The first time I came to biome 6 I swear there were travel portals...was I imagining things? the last two times back, first to kill the boss, 2nd to look for glyphs, there were no portals...I havent resent my machine in a while....is my memory really that bad?

B.) I reset after Ophion in biome 4...I got sun pieces in 4 and 5 and missed one in 6 and died ...returned to 4. I dont realy want to be spoiled but am I at least on the right track? I died on the demi-boss guarding the key in 6....assuming the sun piece was around there., but also had no keys. Pieces 4 and 5 were out inthe open and obvious. You dont have to spoil me unless my game is screwed up...but not really sure its ever going to let me go back to 1, 2, 3 ???!!?!?

Portals in 6? There aren’t any shortcuts. There are those collapsable transport things though.

Sun stone piece 6 isn’t around that mini boss. It is hidden off the main path. Going beyond an oddly placed consumable or chest might help you find it.
 
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DeepSpace5D

Member
So, I'm 4 trophies away from the platinum. I got the surveys for worlds 1 and 4. Can't find the Xenoglyph for Crimson Wastes no matter what. Any tips for the surveys? You just keep restarting cycles until you get the glyphs? That's annoying. Not sure I have it in me.
How many Xenoglyph Ciphers do you have remaining in Crimson Wastes? I can tell you there is one very rare cipher in a room that you only find once every ~30 runs or so. There’s also a couple “uncommon” cipher areas that you will encounter about 10% of the time.

One thing I can say is don’t feel like you are missing them because they are too well hidden. As long as you have unlocked all the traversal devices, you can access them all without too much difficulty as long as you locate and identify all the upside down triangles in the mini-map for each area.

I was always worried that they were just too well hidden for me to find them all, but nope. It’s really just a case of getting lucky that the uncommon rooms spawn on your run.
 

tommib

Member
How many Xenoglyph Ciphers do you have remaining in Crimson Wastes? I can tell you there is one very rare cipher in a room that you only find once every ~30 runs or so. There’s also a couple “uncommon” cipher areas that you will encounter about 10% of the time.

One thing I can say is don’t feel like you are missing them because they are too well hidden. As long as you have unlocked all the traversal devices, you can access them all without too much difficulty as long as you locate and identify all the upside down triangles in the mini-map for each area.

I was always worried that they were just too well hidden for me to find them all, but nope. It’s really just a case of getting lucky that the uncommon rooms spawn on your run.
Thanks for this because I’ve been really thinking that I just couldn’t see them in the map. Good to know that it’s the rooms that just don’t spam. I have one left and I know which room to look for but it just doesn’t appear.

Moving to world 5 for 1 missing cypher and 1 missing scout log. I have to say Housemarque fucked up the trophy hunting big time. It’s making me want to move on or at least take a long break from the game. I now have 80 hours of Returnal on my “hours spent”. :D

There’s 1 cool thing about this whole platinum hunt and is that you realize how good you’re now at the game. I basically never die looking for the cyphers and destroy all rooms easily. Returnal made us all pro arcade gamers.
 

Rolla

Banned
I BEAT BIOME BOSS 3!!!

The last time I was stuck on a boss for this long was going into Demon Souls Remake with a comically wrong build and stats and fighting the spider boss in the tunnel. Rouges are new for me and despite saying "Fuck this game" several times until now I stuck with it.
 
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tommib

Member
I BEAT BIOME BOSS 3!!!

The last time I was stuck on a boss for this long was going into Demon Souls Remake with a comically wrong build and stats and fighting the spider boss in the tunnel. Rouges are new for me and despite saying "Fuck this game" several times until now I stuck with it.
You’ve done it. I would say that’s the hardest part of the game. It will be all good now until the very end but it will never be as hard as world 3.
 

kyoji

Member
I BEAT BIOME BOSS 3!!!

The last time I was stuck on a boss for this long was going into Demon Souls Remake with a comically wrong build and stats and fighting the spider boss in the tunnel. Rouges are new for me and despite saying "Fuck this game" several times until now I stuck with it.
feels good dont it?
 

Rolla

Banned
You’ve done it. I would say that’s the hardest part of the game. It will be all good now until the very end but it will never be as hard as world 3.

feels good dont it?

You want to hear something hilarious....

I One shotted Biome Boss 4 :messenger_tears_of_joy: :messenger_tears_of_joy: :messenger_tears_of_joy: :messenger_tears_of_joy: :messenger_tears_of_joy: :messenger_tears_of_joy:

The most powerful weapon I took into Biome Boss 3 was a level 8. I walk into Biome 4 and get a level 17 and melt everything.
 

TwistedSyn

Member
qBTGoxy.jpg


Congrats Housemarque! Can't wait to see the new content they have planned.
 

tommib

Member
By the way, guys. If anyone has been having Returnal withdrawal symptoms, please check Matterfall. It’s basically a 2D prototype for Returnal. The amount of similar mechanics and overall flow is all there. Check it out.
 

Moonjt9

Member
Got the platinum. The rare cipher in biome 6 plus the giant hand room in biome 2 took the majority of the time post act 3. Funnily enough scout log 9 was not a problem at all. All told, I finished act 3 at 28 hours and got the plat at 50 hours. The search for collectibles never got old either. The game is just too much fun to play. After getting the plat I reset and went to kill Hyperion, one of the greatest bosses in recent memory, to celebrate.

Returnal is my game of the year. There is nothing on the Horizon(heh), even though they might be great, that can match the sheer unique gameplay, setting, and story of this game. I think Returnal is a very special experience. What a game!
 
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Mr Hyde

Member
After a 3 week break, platting Horizon, I wanted to get back into the shit. Squeezing the trigger and jumping around like a madman (or madwoman) dodging bullet hells.

So far so good. Collected the sun fragment in biome 3 and killed the boss. My game crashed the last time I tried this and it left me upset, but this time everything went smooth sailing.

I now have 4 fragments. Biome 5 and 6 await. It's gonna be challenging. Biome 5 is no joke with the severed in there. I'm nearing almost 60 hours of playtime. 42 deaths so far.
 

[Sigma]

Member
I see why people like Hollowseeker. It's the gun noobs pick up and be like "damn, this makes everything easy". Then they don't explore anything else from there. Hollowseeker is like the 3rd best gun in the game at best.;)
 

Jebron

Member
Finally beat the game, took me almost 36 hours. I really struggled with sections of the game, the first and third boss were very challenging for me. Also, fuck some of the mini-bosses, they were some of my most frustrating deaths.

I don't think I'm going to go for the platinum on this, I just don't think I have it in me.
 

fallingdove

Member
Hollowseeker is the most popular weapon? No wonder people can’t finish the game.

It doesn’t get much better than a hollowseeker with waves + portal + portal turret + serrated bullets and trackerswarm.

That said, there are much better weapons when you are lower level.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
~110 kills per "life"... is that low, or high, for this game?

Also about a death every 45 minutes.
 
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IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
That could be like 1 biome depending on the spawns and how much you explore. Also, the phrike deaths mean a good amount of people quit after the first boss because they didn’t want to keep losing progress.
People who quit right away aren't really going to effect the stats though.
 

FrankWza

Member
People who quit right away aren't really going to effect the stats though.
Phrike is the first boss. So if thats where the deaths are coming that means a bunch of that is people who tried to beat him and couldn’t. They probably died more than once and gave up trying because you have to replay the entire biome to reach him and the next few bosses. They probably figured it was too much. Beating him only makes a shortcut in the sense that you don’t need to beat him again but you have to find the portal room to go to biome 2 which can spawn anywhere and you need to pretty much replay the entire level. Plus you need to boost your stats and weapons.
 

Entroyp

Member
It doesn’t get much better than a hollowseeker with waves + portal + portal turret + serrated bullets and trackerswarm.

That said, there are much better weapons when you are lower level.

It’s funny because I use the hollowseeker on the first and second biome and never touch it again once I get my hands on the EPD or RL.
 
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Northeastmonk

Gold Member
I went back to it after sitting it down for a while for other games. I finished biome 3 last night. That was a good feeling. I got into biome 4 and it was like things were dropping like flies. I was like an inch away from beating biome 4 and I dodged way too soon and got caught in a major cluster of stuff. I brought no health items either. It’s actually gotten better the more I play. Biome 4 boss felt so easy compared to that last boss.

The hollowseeker gives you confidence because you believe you have more ammo. You don’t pay attention to the actual DPS. You just feel like you can keep shooting and shooting.
 

tommib

Member
Finally beat the game, took me almost 36 hours. I really struggled with sections of the game, the first and third boss were very challenging for me. Also, fuck some of the mini-bosses, they were some of my most frustrating deaths.

I don't think I'm going to go for the platinum on this, I just don't think I have it in me.
You’ll master the combat looking for the Platinum, trust me. The randomness of the collectibles is what will tear you down. They’re really hard to get. I’m close, so close, but also close to not touch it for months.

I’ve said many times this is my new favourite game and in a way it’s heartbreaking to let it go because I know we won’t see anything like it for 10 years. I have no desire to play anything else.

Until Elden Ring, of course.
 
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Markio128

Member
It looks like a lot of people on here ‘got gud’ at this game and unfortunately, I don’t appear to be one of them haha. I keep getting to the biome 3 boss and croaking it on the 3rd stage. I usually get there with a fairly decent integrity increase and a level 12 hollowseeker. Do any of you guys have any tips on what state I should be in by the biome 3 boss to make it a bit easier - it takes me ages to get the life bar down and I reckon I am fighting the boss for around 10 minutes before I’m pushing up the daises.
City Of Angels Showtime GIF by Penny Dreadful: City of Angels
 

2AdEPT

Member
Yup You guessed it, its me again, complaiing that I crashed yet again. Granted I got at leat one fragment before doign so, but this was a special build that had every artifact slot maxed out, I had three small heals and two large heals in reserve and I was wrecking biome 2 and 3 to get fragments (after grinding hours and hours in biome 1 to get a special build started) ....only got the one in 2 yet only had the tower left in three and CRASH.
_____________________________
Markio wrote:

It looks like a lot of people on here ‘got gud’ at this game and unfortunately, I don’t appear to be one of them haha. I keep getting to the biome 3 boss and croaking it on the 3rd stage. I usually get there with a fairly decent integrity increase and a level 12 hollowseeker. Do any of you guys have any tips on what state I should be in by the biome 3 boss to make it a bit easier - it takes me ages to get the life bar down and I reckon I am fighting the boss for around 10 minutes before I’m pushing up the daises.
City Of Angels Showtime GIF by Penny Dreadful: City of Angels


Im not that good a payer and yet I rolled Nemesis first try. What allowed me to do it was electropylon driver with voidbeam as the alt. I had so mcuh protection and the damaged robot artifact which allows more invulnerability time after getting hit that I could stand in, tank hits and melt the last bit of health bar in the 3rd phase with voidbeam. I cant recall what level EPD was at but it wasnt likely high as I always ignore proficiency for other perks and trade it away. I rely on RNG to get good weapons. Id say you should have at least 25% protection but more is better. You can always go high damage as that makes the fight shorter...have sseen some people roll this boss way faster than I did with ridiculously high damamge.

 
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