Returnal review: A true next-gen experience
Our Verdict
Returnal is an incredible experience, which combines a replayable rogue-lite construction with heart-pounding bullet-hell gameplay.
For
- Compelling rogue-light construction
- Intriguing and mysterious story
- Thrilling bullet-hell gainsay
- Incredible visuals and DualSense features
Against
- Overwhelming introduction
- Lacks a save system
Tom's Guide Verdict
Returnal is an incredible experience, which combines a replayable rogue-lite construction with middle-pounding bullet-hell gameplay.
Pros
- +
Compelling rogue-lite structure
- +
Intriguing and mysterious story
- +
Thrilling bullet-hell combat
- +
Incredible visuals and DualSense features
Cons
- -
Overwhelming introduction
- -
Lacks a salvage system
EDITOR'S NOTE: Returnal won a "highly recommended" laurels for best game blueprint at the Tom'due south Guide Awards 2021 for gaming.
Returnal is a perfectly timed release. The game adds a wonderful breath of fresh air to Sony's exclusive lineup, which has recently come nether fire for lacking diversity.
On the surface, Returnal may wait like another third-person action game with the PlayStation Studios splash screen attached Nonetheless, zilch could be further from the truth. Returnal is a bold stride forward for developer Housemarque, proving that the studio is one of the finest working teams in the industry.
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Returnal takes huge risks frequently. Remarkably, virtually all of them pay off. No other publisher is putting out big-budget titles equally risky as this rogue-low-cal. If yous own a PS5, so Returnal is absolutely essential.
Returnal review: Story
Returnal's premise hooks yous correct from the start. You're immediately thrown into the boots of astronaut Selene, who has just crash-landed on the hostile conflicting planet of Atropos. After a cursory scripted opening, Selene finds herself trapped in a fourth dimension loop.
Every time she dies, she returns to the wreckage of her crashed spaceship and must once again venture out from there to unravel the mystery of Atropos. She must also discover why she has become trapped in this never-ending bike.
The story unfolds mostly through audio logs that you pick up from previously fallen versions of Selene herself. These logs are randomly generated, which results in the story feeling a tad fragmented. However, fifty-fifty with the narrative being doled out in small-scale snippets, the cardinal yarn is surprisingly gripping.
There are some surreal cutscenes thrown into the mix. Yous'll also get to unravel more story through first-person sections set inside a creepy 20th-century firm from Selene's past, which has inexplicably appeared on the alien earth's surface. These segments are pretty bizarre, and fifty-fifty get a trivial meta. Just they're a nifty change of pace and oft feel unnerving.
The story definitely takes a backseat to the gameplay in Returnal, but the narrative does come to a satisfactory, if slightly rushed, conclusion. There'south besides a secret "true" catastrophe tied to a set of post-game collectibles, which could fill in the few remaining blanks.
Returnal review: Gameplay
Returnal is the logical development of Housemarque's previous critically acclaimed games like Resogun and Dead Nation. Information technology takes the excellent bullet-hell shooting of those titles and bumps the product values up several notches.
You'll primarily spend your time running, jumping and dashing around enemies while avoiding waves of brightly colored projectiles. Equally you do so, Platforming sections pause up the tense gainsay encounters. While the jumps feel a tad floaty, making precise landing catchy, these sections offer some needed variety, also every bit time to allow your center rate to return to normal.
As mentioned Returnal is a rogue-lite, and a pretty unforgiving one at that. This means that upon every decease, you return to the scene of the crash, without any of your previously collected weapons, upgrades, and items. You begin with almost naught, save for a basic pistol, and each death returns you lot to that land.
Some games in this genre, such as Dead Cells and Hades, are reasonably generous, giving players a range of upgrades that persist beyond runs. In Returnal, though, very little carries over. Traversal abilities that unlock during fundamental story moments remain, equally does a blazon of currency chosen Ether. You can also keep a few specific weapon upgrades, which you lot earn through long-term use. Otherwise, yous lose it all.
Furthermore, there are no save rooms or ways to suspension your progress. If you switch the game off mid-run, you lose everything and beginning back up at the crash site. You tin can use the PS5'southward rest mode feature to suspend the game, but it'due south an inelegant solution. The game desperately needs a "save and exit" function. This would prevent players from cheating expiry with frequent saves, while even so making the game more than accessible to people who can't play for hours at a time.
Returnal review: Upgrades and difficulty
At that place are a lot of interlocking systems at play in Returnal. There are 2 currency types: Ether, every bit described higher up, and Oblities, which don't carry over across runs. There are also various types of pickups, such as Parasites. These are footling creatures that adhere to your body and offer a positive upgrade, too as a negative effect. You can remove Parasites only by completing a randomly generated job, such as killing a set up number of enemies or picking upward large quantities of Oblities.
At that place are as well Artifacts and Cancerous Chests, either of which can infect you with a negative malfunction. You tin cleanse these items with your precious stock of Ether. Then at that place are gameplay systems such as overloading, which is like to active reloading in Gears of War, and Adrenaline, which rewards you with upgrades for every iii enemies you kill without taking damage.
If it all sounds like a lot to accept in, that's because it is. Unfortunately Returnal doesn't do a great job of slowly introducing you to each organization. Instead, it throws all of them at you right from the start. Returnal's offset few hours experience overwhelming. Every few minutes, you'll try to get your head around a new contraction or type of upgrade.
The game's half-dozen unique biomes are procedurally generated equally well. Each feels distinct, salvage for one in the back half of the game that seems like a palette swap. The randomness helps to make every run feel unique. While you'll apace start to recognize individual rooms, enemy placement is usually different. Well-placed checkpoints and shortcuts minimize the need to incessantly repeat previous biomes, but some areas do get repetitive.
Returnal warns players from the start that information technology's designed to exist a challenging experience, simply information technology starts off fairly easy. In fact, my beginning decease didn't come until the third boss fight. However, the 2nd one-half of the game ramps up the claiming significantly. While it never approaches the brutality of a Souls game, Returnal has a pleasant difficulty bend. I always felt apprehensive about what terrifying brute was lurking in the adjacent night corner.
I always felt apprehensive about what terrifying beast was lurking in the next dark corner.
How long it takes yous to achieve the ending will be highly dependent on your skill. I managed to fight my style through to the game's final boss within 15 hours, which felt a petty on the short side. However, the unpredictable nature of each new run and the additional postal service-game collectibles are giving me plenty of reasons to return.
Overall, Returnal'due south structure and engaging risk-reward rest made only about every minute of play a joy. I had one especially crushing defeat, in which I barbarous to a mini-boss with just a sliver of health left, after two-and-one-half hours of slowly crawling through ane of the game'southward toughest biomes. My reaction was momentary frustration, followed by immediate determination to render to that enemy and enact my revenge. And trust me, the mini-boss felt my fury (after it killed me a second fourth dimension, that is).
Returnal review: Visuals, audio and the DualSense
Returnal is a truthful showcase of the PS5's capabilities. The game is graphically stunning. From the incredible environmental design, to small details like animate being swaying in the breeze, or the movement of an enemy's grotesque tentacles, it all looks marvelous. A PS4 couldn't dream of running this.
Remarkably, the game sticks to a smooth sixty frames-per-second frame charge per unit without whatsoever noticeable hiccups. This is admittedly essential for the bullet-hell nature of battles, where perfect timing is the deviation between dodging an attack and losing a massive chunk of your precious health.
The sound pattern is as well extremely impactful. Returnal proves that 3D Audio isn't just a marketing gimmick. Walking into an unexplored area and hearing a appalling scream backside you lot from a new type of monster never gets old. You need to play Returnal with a decent headset, or a proper surround sound system. Audio design this good isn't meant for lackluster boob tube speakers.
On a technical level, the game is impressive equally well. I experienced no major bugs or glitches, beyond a couple of forgivable clipping issues with some of the larger enemies. I promising run ended in a difficult crash, yet. This was pretty frustrating, because the lack of mid-run salvage points.
Unfortunately, post-release Returnal has proved to exist a lot less stable from a technical perspective. After various reports of crashing and salvage files corrupting (which I experienced myself later on posting this review) in the days later launch, Housemarque promised a patch to accost these problems.
This patch ended up creating more issues than it solved, and information technology led to the game becoming downright unplayable for some users. Fifty-fifty requiring a complete redownloading of the game after file corruption in some cases. This game-breaking patch was pulled and a new update has now been pushed out, but it further highlights the drastic need for some form of manual salve system to permit users to restore progress in the upshot of a glitch or game crash.
Information technology's almost incommunicable to talk near Returnal without mentioning its implementation of the unique features of the PS5'due south DualSense controller. These increase the sense of immersion tenfold. The DualSense uses haptic feedback to simulate everything from the pitter-patter of raindrops on your metallic helmet, to the fizz of your weapon being ready to nail off a powerful shot.
Every gun has an alternative-burn manner, which charges upwardly slowly over time. To switch betwixt burn modes, y'all don't concord down a button or toggle a setting. Instead, you select which type of round to fire off by how far you depress the left trigger. The DualSense's Adaptive Triggers create a shooting organisation that a player needs to feel to fully capeesh. Returnal is the best implementation of the DualSense'southward features since Astro's Playroom.
Information technology's likewise worth noting that thanks to the PS5'southward speedy SSD, load times in Returnal basically don't exist. Fast travel is essentially instantaneous, and besides features a particle event that is downright jaw-dropping.
Returnal review: Verdict
Returnal is a organisation-seller in its own correct. While many of the game's best ideas come from other rogue-lites, Housemarque has blended together all of these dissimilar elements into one uniquely satisfying bundle.
This remarkable game feels completely original in the big-budget gaming space, which often feels frustratingly hazard-averse. Returnal stands shoulder-to-shoulder with beloved PlayStation exclusives like God of War and Ghost of Tsushima, and is the first must-play championship of the new console generation.
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Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/returnal-review
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