Roguelike with blockbuster ambitions: Returnal impressed journalists, but not without flaws
With less than a day left before the ambitious roguelike shooter Returnal from Housemarque and Sony Interactive Entertainment, the Metacritic website is filled with dozens of reviews for the upcoming PlayStation 5 exclusive.
By the time the material was published, Returnal had received 81 unique ratings from specialized publications around the world. According to their results, the average score of the project is 86 out of 100%.
Recall that Returnal tells the story of a woman astronaut Selena, who, as a result of the crash of her spacecraft, finds herself in a time loop on the exotic planet Atropos.
The plot component divided the journalists into two camps: the representatives of the first claim that the story of Returnal is mysterious and meaningful, while the adherents of the second do not see the dominance of the mysterious narrative depth.
“The fact that I went through all the Returnal content several times, even reaching the second secret ending, and still don’t know the clear answers to basic narrative questions, is just ridiculous,” said the EGM journalist.
The undocumented technical feature of Returnal also caused an ambiguous reaction: turning off the PS5 leads to a restart of the cycle – the usually save system is not provided in the game.
“If you have to stop in the middle of a race, you have to use the console standby mode, which is why I regularly lost progress, because the function did not work properly,” complains a God is a Geek employee.
In addition, some reviewers lacked the gameplay variety. For example, VentureBeat author Jeff Grubb gave Returnal the lowest available rating of 60%.
“As a result of the lack of variability, the races start to become similar and merge. This leads to a stereotype that makes me want to quit the game when I can’t handle the complexity, ”explained Grubb.
However, the journalists have no complaints about the very basis of the gameplay – movement, shooting. Moreover, according to representatives of the specialized press, this is one of the main advantages of Returnal.
“The battles are great. It is delightful to rush at high speeds and breakthrough enemy attacks, and all types of weapons at your disposal feel great ” – praise the project in Easy Allies.
The technical component is not inferior to the gameplay. Except for minor lags, Returnal is stable at 60fps, cleverly leverages the power of the DualSense gamepad, and looks like a true next-gen game.
You will have to pay for the beauty: Returnal costs 5499 rubles. According to the WellPlayed journalist, such a high price is more than compensated for by an “almost endless reserve” for repeated passes.
“The lack of difficulty levels may, unfortunately, exclude less experienced gamers [from the audience of the game], but everyone who doesn’t mind dying, again and again, will have a real pleasure,” summed up their impression of Returnal in the Video Games Chronicle.
Returnal will go on sale tomorrow, April 30, exclusively for PlayStation 5. Yesterday, the developers presented a gameplay trailer timed to coincide with the project’s imminent premiere.
