Returnal

⭐10/10

I'd always had a bit of interest in this game, but I was not expecting this. A marvel on every level, this is now one of my favorite games of all time. Buckle up cuz this will be a long review. 

For a quick overview, this is a game about a our lead, Selene, crash landing on a foreign planet (Alien movie vibes) and having to fight her way to a signal, except every time she dies, you start the game over with very limited progress. The problem (and one that has drawn criticism) is that runs are very long, sometimes upward of 3 hours, so death can be devastating. 

So let's start with a personal story. I'm not amazing at video games, but I do enjoy some hard ones if I'm invested enough. I was able to fumble my way through games like Hollow Knight and Elden Ring, and cruised through Dark Souls 3. But I have been brick walled by some others like Sekiro or Lies of P. I died a TON in my first twenty hours or so of Returnal. And then I read reviews. People were saying, oh man, Part 1 might be easy, but Part 2 is a real challenge. I read stuff like a guy saying I only died twice in Part 1, but 18 times in Part 2... I died 30 times and hadn't even beaten Part 1! So I resigned myself. This game was too hard, and if I can just make it to Part 2, I'll call it good. 

Well that alone almost broke me. I gave this game up a few times, but like Selene, I couldn't escape the cycle! It kept drawing me back because I found this gameplay so fun and inspired and compelling. I did eventually beat Part 1, and then wouldn't you know it, I beat Part 2 pretty soon after that too. And then I beat it all again the next day just for good measure! This game is hard, but if you take the time to learn the systems and rhythms, it is a game that can be mastered, and I walk away feeling like I truly got good at something which is a great feeling, even if it's just a game. I'm just a slow learner, and it took me 40 hours to beat it, but if someone is good at shooting and action games I expect it would take much shorter. 

So on to why this game is good. Where do I start? I'll start by saying that this game is one of the most technically impressive games I've ever played. It was the first one that really showed me the power of my new PS5. It's a bullet-hell game, meaning the screen is often flooded with fire-works-style bullets, stuff going on everywhere, and the game never so much as stuttered. I felt I was always testing the limits of this machine, and the game ran beautifully. Something that broke my brain was going through a portal to a different area and it happened within a snap, no loading screen. But this game simply looks amazing, sounds amazing, has awesome music, and utilizes the controller in cool, unique ways. For instance, the power shot has a cooldown, and you know when it's ready from a unique vibration. And that's in addition to cool little details like feeling the rain through the controller. 

As for gameplay, this was the fast-paced shooting bullet-hell action I didn't know I needed but love. The game is very fun on the surface, but also has loads of depth that allows you to get better every run. Everything is crunchy and satisfying, frantic yet strategic, and often exhilarating. The guns all feel amazing in your hands, especially as you level them up. The lows can be sometimes unbearably low in this game, but the highs are essentially unmatched. 

There is some story in here, but it's mostly environmental like a souls game and rarely interrupts. I have criticised this style in the past but I think it works beautifully here. I still don't really know what was going on here, but who cares? The story that is important was my own personal journey of learning to believe in myself! Some of the most cinematic moments happen during the gameplay, especially with the boss fights which were my favorite part of the game. The final boss especially was a grand, climactic opera that had me on my feet shouting. One of those gaming moments I won't soon forget. 

I feel like there's more I could say but I know this is getting comically long.  I even have a few criticisms but I feel like they are mostly irrelevant given everything else. This game is a masterpiece. I want to put it on my Hall of Fame, but I'm not sure I want to go there, but I feel like I liked it more than my tier just below, like TLOU2, Elden Ring, Hades or Hollow Knight. I am playing what many consider another all-timer in Astro Bot, and yet all I want to do is repeat runs in Returnal. And I'm sure I'll be Returnal-ing to this game in the future yet.