Updated Thoughts on Returnal

A couple weeks ago, I shared my first thoughts on Returnal, the PS5 exclusive roguelike shooter.

I wanted to talk more about the game, now that I am tantalizingly close to finishing Act 1 (Biome 3). I will do my best to avoid story spoilers, but I have to talk about some of the permanent upgrades you unlock, although none of them will ruin the story surprises.

It will not surprise you from the beginning of the game that there are a lot of story revelations. I am very close to what feels like a major story moment, but I’ve so far been able to avoid accidentally learning what it is.

So far, I have one major criticism of the game, and it sounds like the game developers are working on a fix. Once you start a run of the game, you can’t do anything else with your PS5 until you finish that run. You can put the system in rest mode, so it’s not like you have to do the run straight through, but if you want to play another game before you finish your current Returnal run, you are out of luck.

I realize that adding a save feature is tough because the “restart every time you die” feature is a major aspect of the game. What would be nice would be to be able to save your game to one save file that deletes when you die. I have no idea how hard that is to do.

That aside, and it is a big deal, I am still loving the game. It’s the type of game where you start to get incredibly frustrated when you can’t get past something, but when you finally do, you have a major sense of accomplishment.

It took me over 10 times each to beat the bosses of the first two biomes. When I finally did, I felt amazing. I was so ready to check out the next biome and see what monster was lying in wait to frustrate me next.

And oh boy has there been a new thing to make me hate them over and over. Do not get me started on the drones in Biome 3. Yet, each time I die, I want to start again and see if I can get further.

I am currently at the point where I need to beat the boss of the third biome. I’ve gotten to it twice, and each time I didn’t quite have what I needed to beat it. Both times I died on phase 3. Just like the first two, I feel like I know exactly what I need to do, but I just couldn’t do it. I also know that once I do, it’s going to feel amazing.

Updated Tips

In the last article, I gave some tips. Since then, I’ve gotten better at the game, and I have some more tips, as well as a couple updates to the tips from that article.

1. Don’t get frustrated. This is WAY easier said than done. One thing I did that really helped me is to try the first two bosses again on my runs now, as long as I think I am upgraded enough to beat them. You can skip them, but if you want to have a prayer on Biome 3, you need to upgrade as much as possible using what’s available in Biomes 1 and 2. I can now beat the first two bosses pretty handily, which gives me confidence that I am getting better, even as I get frustrated in Biome 3.
2. Know which upgrades are worth it. You want to get every artifact you can get your hands on, but some of them are better than others. If you have the chance to get one for free, always take it. If you have to spend your obolites, I’ve found that the astronaut is always the most important (it revives you once upon dying so you don’t have to start over), followed by the machine that increases your max integrity (health) by 25%. You want to get your max integrity as high as possible because the drones in Biome 3 are ridiculous.
3. MOAR health! For the consumable items, I will always prioritize anything that will heal me. I want to go into every boss fight with at least one of them, if not more. If you can’t find those, there are other items that will convert something to health. For example, one item will convert damage you deal to health recovery until you are hit two times.
4. MOAR items! Depositing ether into the machine near your ship once you unlock it is always worth it. Some of the items you unlock are amazing, and once you unlock them they will be added to the items that can randomly drop during a run. For example, there is an item that converts keys to increases in max integrity, and if you get 3 or 4 keys, you can drastically increase your max health, which comes in handy in boss fights. There is another one I unlocked that changes the requirement to upgrade max integrity from 3 resins to 2. By the time you get to Biome 3, that could mean a ton more max integrity.
5. Try the different weapons. For a long time I was sleeping on the Electropylon Driver. I was so wrong. That weapon is amazing once you get the hang of it. You can target individual enemies or an area (or both), and the pylons do damage over time, so you only have to hit most enemies once and they are dead within seconds. It can be awesome on mini-bosses, since you can hit it with a few, then dodge all the stuff it throws at you, all the while watching its health bar continuously decline. The Rotgland Lobber is OP as well once you figure out how to use it. Anything that gives damage over time is awesome considering how mini-bosses have attacks that you basically have to hide to avoid, so if they are taking damage while you are hiding, well, that’s the best of both worlds.
6. When possible, get in close. When I first started playing, I stayed as far away from the enemies most of the time. The problem with this, however, is that in most cases you have to be close to where an enemy died to pick up the obolites it drops, and they disappear pretty quickly. Once I realized how many obolites I was leaving behind, I adopted a strategy where I only back way up if I am taken by surprise. Otherwise I run around as much as possible, targeting an enemy and running straight at it, shooting the whole time. If it shoots at me, I jump or dash (or both) and keep moving towards it. If possible, I try to finish it off with a melee kill so I’m right there to get those sweet, sweet yellow orbs. They are so important because you use them to buy items at the big fabricator once you find it in each biome. It really sucks if you could have had an astronaut, but you couldn’t afford it and you nearly beat the boss.
7. Order Matters: You want to always keep in mind that while healing is important, getting healing items when you are at full health will give you progress towards more max health. So if you are almost at full health and you find a large health item, don’t use it until you find a small one and use that first. By doing that you will be fully healed with 2 slots towards more max health rather than the 1 you would be if you did them in the order you find them.
8. Don’t be afraid to look for help. I have to give a shoutout to a great YouTube channel that has really helped me with basic strategy and the best ways to counter boss attacks. SweetJohnnyCage has an entire playlist of great videos, including full walkthroughs of all major areas of each biome. He does a good job of helping you avoid spoilers as well.
9. Don’t be afraid to start over. I don’t mean don’t be afraid of dying, which is also true. If you get 15–20 minutes into a run, you might realize this isn’t going to get you where you need to be. Maybe you hit a series of hard rooms early on, so you use your health items to heal instead of increase your max integrity. Instead of finishing Biome 1 with something like 140–150% max integrity, you’ll have far less. Unless you are way better than I am at the game, the drones in Biome 3 could easily end a run unless you have 200+% max integrity. So I would just restart rather than spending another 90 minutes to be drone fodder. Your mileage may vary.

At the end of the last article I included a video of me almost beating the first boss. I want to show you the difference between the first time I beat the second boss compared to how easily I can beat it now. In the second video, I think I took one hit and zero damage through the first two phases. In the third phase, I got a little sloppy because I knew from past fights with this boss that I was going to definitely kill it.

First victory:

Second victory:

Thanks for reading. Feel free to reach out with any questions. My user name on twitter is the same as here. I can help you at least through Biome 3. After that, I have no idea what will happen. Yet.