Returnal Review

Returnal is a great game, and I absolutely recommend it.

For my roguelite enthusiasts, I’ll put it this way. Imagine a AAA game built loosely around the Risk of Rain 2 Commando and their kit. Give the hypothetical game bosses with Dark Souls levels of difficulty. String several excellently themed areas together as if it were an action RPG. Boom. That’ll get your mind pretty close to how Returnal plays, and man, it is fun.

One reason to enjoy it: The gameplay is so tight and refined. I played on a PS5 controller on PC and thought that might impair how I normally play with mouse and keyboard but it didn’t. Guns feel strong and impactful. While playing, the music increases in intensity as the tension rises, and as you attempt to clear rooms and waves of enemies without taking damage. It creates amazing spectacle encounters in every room and can often make you feel the pressure of your potential demise. Sure, there are still times you can live out your power fantasy (as roguelites tend to let you do), as an unkillable god-being, but it’s these intense one-off runs facing death itself that make your spontaneous god-runs feel oh so satisfying.

The other part about Returnal that really made me fall in love with it is the mystery. The more you play the more you (think you) understand. You’ll find glyphs in your run and slowly translate them into strange little conundrums…