Returnal

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Returnal – There are not many roguelike games that seamlessly combine gameplay with a storyline like Returnal: the main character falls on a strange planet, caught in an endless loop between life and death, and the only way out is to discover the secret hidden inside.

The rise of the “roguelike” game type (a variant of role-playing games, often with the following characteristics: death is loss of characters, items, changing levels, tough fights, and other “torture” elements. Parachute has returned to safety – NV) has recently given the impetus to Housemarque, a studio based in Helsinki, Finland, to launch an exclusive Returnal title on the Playstation 5, with invested quality careful!

Housemarque is famous for its “bullet-hell” games (a type of game that “discharges bullets” from all sides anytime, anywhere) like Nex Machina, and Matterfall, so Returnal this time is no exception, you will be ” bathe” in a rain of colorful bullets pelted by enemies!

Bullet-hell and Roguelike, these two words are enough to make the player imagine Returnal’s gameplay: jumping like a rabbit, wiggling like an eel, and extremely patient with “torture”, with a spirit of willingness to learn for every failure!

Unlike previous titles of Housemarque, Returnal’s graphics and sound are extremely good!

Each level has its color scene, Ray-tracing in Returnal takes advantage of PS5’s powerful graphics capabilities, the light reflected from the puddles in the game becomes natural, close like real life.

The number of frames per second (fps) while playing Returnal on PS5 reached a stable 60fps, so we see Selene’s movement smooth and elegant amidst the rain of enemy bullets!

If combined with 3D headphones, or a good enough speaker system, the sound of Returnal will make you swoon, the sound of rain falling around, and the roar of monsters realistic and vivid enough to keep players playing for a long time.

Returnal not only makes good use of the graphics and sound capabilities of the Playstation 5 but also fully exploits the strengths of the new generation Dualsense controller.

From the very beginning, the player felt Dualsense’s Haptic Feedback feature, when Selena’s ship flew over the meteors, flying over, the handle vibrates on that side, but the vibration is suitable for the situation the character experiences.

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Returnal – PlayStation 5: Buy it now

Specifically, if the left side is slightly impacted, the hand vibrates slightly on that side; if the collision is strong, tearing the hull from right to left, the handle also vibrates strongly from right to left.

This harmonious combination of 3D sound and Haptic Feedback feature reminds the writer of the feeling of watching a movie in a 4DX theater!

Not many games know how to harmoniously combine gameplay and storyline like Returnal.

The characteristic of the roguelike play style is that when you die you will have to go back to the starting point, and lose almost everything, guns, healing potions, bombs, or armor upgrade accessories… Only a few items are left in the companion experience you have gone through.

The monsters in the game are fierce, and strong, both releasing “rain of bullets”, and aggressively rushing to demand “meat” from the player, which seems a bit fragile.

So the player must always move and take advantage of the terrain as much as possible so that the health pot does not lose too much before hitting the boss, sometimes fighting the soldiers is more difficult than killing the boss (God of War (2018) in particular!)

The game has no ranks, so you can rest assured that the monsters in Returnal never become “fragile and weak” over time, even in the early stages!

It seems that is not enough to “torture” the player, in addition to monsters, Returnal also scattered countless turrets, making the battlefield more chaotic, sometimes they are even equipped with shields, which can only be destroyed with a melee sword!

What’s better than losing each other through “die, come back to life” is the experience, of how to take advantage of permanent resources to pass the screen as safely as possible!

Returnal takes full advantage of Dualsense’s Adaptive Triggers feature, which not only makes holding the trigger more realistic but also switches the gun’s function.

If the player presses down on the L2 aiming button with all his might, the gun will fire in special mode, but normally, the L2 trigger will keep the player’s finger in normal mode.

Guns in Returnal when they run out of ammunition, it will take time to reload, players can shorten the loading process by playing “mini-games”, clicking in the right area, and the gun will reload immediately (similar to some games like Gears 5, Hard West)

In addition to the control instructions, Returnal also hides a lot of things about the gameplay, forcing players to discover for themselves through “die, come back to life”.

This is also the point of the harmonious combination of gameplay and plot in Returnal: you get lost on a strange planet, caught up in the almost forever endless cycle of “death and rebirth”, the only way to escape. To avoid is to learn from failure, to discover the mystery of this planet.

Even if the player thinks he has discovered the secret of this planet, there is another secret that upsets your discovery at first, and not only once, Returnal also “pranks” people twice!

If you are a gamer who enjoys games of moderate difficulty, Returnal is not the game for you, like many other roguelikes, games that test the player’s patient concentration.

If you can’t find the save button, it’s not because the game is faulty, it’s designed like that!

If you die at any stage in a part of the story, or you exit the game completely, you will… go back to where you started in the first level!

Of course, the boss in each death level will not come back to life, some resources or equipment are permanently retained, but you will have to climb from the first level!

The only way to keep the game progressing is to press Pause, and turn off the device using “Rest Mode”.

However, this is very inconvenient for those who do not have time, or areas with unstable electrical systems, as well as the possibility of unforeseen mechanical problems, fires, and explosions.

This is controversial among the gaming community, who expect Housemarque to add a save game mode to Returnal, who oppose it because the game genre is like that, and Housemarque has also promised to look into the matter.

Another inconvenience lies in changing the gun’s mode with the L2 trigger, if the trigger has something wrong (such as broken), the player will have a lot of difficulties, and even in boss fights, panicking and pressing the wrong one can also cause problems not strange.

However, the above disadvantages are too few to affect Returnal’s great experience for gamers who like challenges.

The combination of gameplay and plot, graphics, sound, as well as special effects of the Dualsense controller, is not an exaggeration when Returnal is the first game full of breakthroughs and attractions for the new generation console: PlayStation 5.