Returnal April 30, 2021

Union Game Rating

  • ☆☆☆☆☆

    Votes: 1 50.0%
  • ☆☆☆☆

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • ☆☆☆

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • ☆☆

    Votes: 1 50.0%
  • Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    2

"There's been understandable concern recently about Sony's reported obsession with blockbusters that are too big to fail - the God of Wars, the Horizon: Zero Dawns and the god-forbid-it's-real The Last of Us remake - so it's quite remarkable how Returnal has arrived within mere weeks of the story like some kind of rebuttal. This is one of the most daring, dazzling and straight-up different big ticket games to come from Sony since Death Stranding.

Will a hard-edged shooter go on to find the same broad acclaim as Sony's other blockbusters, and how well will the final thing hold together over the course of a full playthrough? I'm not entirely sure of that either, but I do know this. There's never been anything quite like Returnal, a big ticket blockbuster with action that would do Eugene Jarvis proud. I'm itching to go back and play some more."
 
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I ended up getting the deluxe edition. When this was first announced it looked good, but not worth the price. But the more I saw, plus the amount was enjoyment I got from Resogun and Nex Machina, I figured what the hell. And only $10 more wasn't a deal breaker for me.
 
I've read this game makes really good use of the DualSense and 3D audio. Its like the devs are trying to stimulate as many of our senses as they can.
 
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I've read this game makes really good use of the DualSense and 3D audio. Its like the devs are trying to stimulate as many of our senses as they can.




Can't wait to put my Sony 3D headset to use as well. I think this will be the first game I've played specifically built for it.

Someone, I think on Reddit, said that the way this type of haptic feedback works in the controller is via PCM audio. So it *should* be easy for even third party devs to implement this type of feedback on multiplat games.
 
Outside the game looking good and previewing as good, it’s benefiting from having a huge window all to itself with close to zero competition. I can’t think of anything else I’m interested in until fall.
 
Seems like a review leaked ahead of the embargo, glowing review 9.3/10:

Click here

Returnal will provide most players between 30-50 hours of gameplay, depending on their skill level, patience, and how much they want to explore. Some players may not want to do this, but I feel most players will, so I think a larger portion will lean towards the 50 hours side of things. That is exceptional value in my opinion, for such a high quality game.

Returnal was neither a game I was looking forward to, or knew too much about before playing this past week. I’m generally not a fan of rogue-like games, but Returnal has changed my perspective completely. And, while I enjoyed Hades immensely “for a rogue-like game”, I simply enjoyed Returnal. Full Stop.

This is not something you expect from many games these days, and ones with strong narratives tend to take a backseat to mechanics or multiplayer in order to sell more units. Returnal is proof that superb writing can still be achieved while incorporating fun, challenging gameplay, and raises the bar for future titles, particularly on Playstation 5.

Returnal is game that transcends genres, allowing it to speak to a broader audience across the entire gaming stratosphere. For some Returnal will be the game they hoped it would be, but for others like myself, Returnal will be an experience they will never forget. If you own a Playstation 5, this is a must buy game.

SUMMARY: A sleeper hit, Returnal is bound to captivate you from start to finish, no pun intended. If you are a fan of good Sci-fi in the vein of The Expanse, Stranger Things, or Mass Effect, you surely won't want to miss this game. Returnal is the early front runner for Game of the Year 2021, making a compelling case to get a Playstation 5...if you can find one.
 
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Another 9.3 from another leaked review, will reveal later which site as I don't want to get them in trouble:

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Glowing reviews and with this PR, I may have to go out and support this title before RE releases.


In the age when game publishers are taking less and less creative risks, we are truly thankful to our publishing partner Sony, who has given us an opportunity to work on something very risky and has given fantastic support during the whole project. We are forever grateful for having this opportunity.

Shipping games is hard, shipping games that are bigger, more ambitious than the company has ever delivered before featuring things that we’ve never done in our previous games, like translating Housemarque arcade gameplay from 2D to 3rd person action and adding substantial storytelling elements, is even harder. We also added quite a few new wonderful people in the team growing up to 75 game developers internally at the same time and tried to figure out how to produce a game of this scope. We also have been working with great external partners helping us out to create the best possible game and delivering the game on a new platform, which has some ground-breaking features to consider. Then adding a total new challenge in a form of COVID-19 pandemic forcing us mostly to work remotely, we can start talking about some additional challenges to game development, which is never easy in the first place!

TLDR
Returnal is finally soon out after over 4 years in the development, almost six years after the initial concept was born.
We are incredibly proud of what we have accomplished. Despite these challenging times the team has been able to ship a unique and intriguing game.
Kudos and huge thanks to the Housemarque team, external studios helping us out and our publishing partner Sony, who took a chance on us and gave us an opportunity to create something new and unique.
 
Dropped to 86 now on Metacritic. Still doing good.
 
The length of each run without any way to save progress is sounding a bit rough. i really don't have hours and hours to devote for each gaming session these days.
For me it's the thought of playing the same game for several hours at a time without switching. I may game 3-4 hours on a weekend for example, but in that time I'm switching between at least a couple games. Just seems like a really dumb design choice. I can't think of any real positive reason to have that requirement.
 
The length of each run without any way to save progress is sounding a bit rough. i really don't have hours and hours to devote for each gaming session these days.

Checkpoints would help. Although I'm guessing it's Rogue-lite so you'd have to compare it to other games like it in the genre. Did they have checkpoints or save whenever you want?
 
For me it's the thought of playing the same game for several hours at a time without switching. I may game 3-4 hours on a weekend for example, but in that time I'm switching between at least a couple games. Just seems like a really dumb design choice. I can't think of any real positive reason to have that requirement.
I think its woven into the narrative & gameplay of living in some sort of time loop. Its in the title "Return-al". Ala you will die and return as many times as needed until you figure out how to progress. But yeah, if you have to constantly replay the same sections that could get old and put some off and compel them to stop playing. For me, it depends on how punishing it is and how much fun it is to repeat sections.
 
Checkpoints would help. Although I'm guessing it's Rogue-lite so you'd have to compare it to other games like it in the genre. Did they have checkpoints or save whenever you want?

In the game's defense, the standard launch mode for Resogun required you to play through the full thing too, and that may have been one of my most played games of the original PS4, but I think you could get through the full game in about 40 mins or so on that one. Maybe they'll add in level select or some other modes later
 
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