Returnal - "Hades x Aliens x Metroid" - PC version officially confirmed

Patch pulled

twitter.com/Housemarque/status/1390053362616389632

Not like I was all that far into the game, but I am super strawberry floating glad all the same that I wasn't online when that patch went live. Er, I hope.

Got it for £55. Good things come to those who wait

Saint of Killers wrote:
Saint of Killers wrote:NOOOOOOO!

I was one short burst of fire away from beating first boss.

*the biggest swears*

And again Though this time I saw the death coming (death ray + death ray ground sweep return) but wasn't able to react / panicked and walked into where the ground was on fire.

Success after around about 5 attempts against the first boss. And I didn't even need the astronaut :lol:

I got to the 2nd boss on my first attempt. Got it well below 50% on last bar but just couldn't keep up. On 2nd attempt I had the figurine but I still couldn't best it. I actually did worse. I appreciated the warp point to the summit, though. Oh and, I practically gooseberry fool the bed when the first Severed showed up :dread:

Hollowseeker is *a lot* of fun

Last edited by sawyerpip on Thu May 06, 2021 11:39 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Saint of Killers wrote:
Hollowseeker is *a lot* of fun

Keep an eye out for a Hollowseeker with either of the perks Portal Beam or Portal Turret (or both if you're lucky). They generate laser beams which automatically home in on the nearest enemy, they seem pretty overpowered :lol:

Just sat through the credits, although I believe there is more to do afterwards. Really enjoying this game, glad I took notice if it last week after previously ignoring it. My stats show 36 deaths which I don't think is too bad, weirdly I didn't die on any of the bosses.

The game's sound design is amazing. After I sometimes fire off sustained rounds from the carbine, I stop and think I've heard a creature that sounds somewhere between in pain and pissed off. It's the gun! :lol:

The sounds accompanying the purple chests creep me out too. It's like they ripped sounds for the game straight out of someone's fevered nightmares.

Boss 4 down but starting to lose interest. Went into Biome 5 and first room (3 new big enemies and 6 turrets) wrecked me. I barely tickled them

The reset in Biome 4 just brings back and amplifies all the earlier problems. Punishingly difficult, not challengingly so. risk/reward near impossible to judge - but also mandatory to hope for power, RNG dependency becoming more and more obvious (5 runs in a row straight into a combat room with 10 enemies with 3 varieties - thanks! ).

When the game works, it's brilliant - my run through B1/2/3 that got me here was great, and I'd managed to craft an interesting build. But that's gone now - and it seems to go out of it's way to stop you getting there.

Back to being basic bitch against stupendously tough enemies - but more often than not it feels like a time sink hoping for a decent combo. You're better off just dying early if things take a bad turn (or you take a couple of hits from the enemies shooting you from off screen). And even then you'll sometimes get smashed by a mini boss you're utterly unequipped to deal with because you got a different weapon combo.

Any tips of the enemies that fire out 4 purple beams that converge on you? You can't dodge though them, and they seem to track so always converge. Feeling like guaranteed damage but I must be missing somethign

Also - are community obelisks no longer working? Can put mats in but they never seem to progress to rewards/unlock to repeat?

sawyerpip wrote:
Saint of Killers wrote:
Hollowseeker is *a lot* of fun

Keep an eye out for a Hollowseeker with either of the perks Portal Beam or Portal Turret (or both if you're lucky). They generate laser beams which automatically home in on the nearest enemy, they seem pretty overpowered

Just sat through the credits, although I believe there is more to do afterwards. Really enjoying this game, glad I took notice if it last week after previously ignoring it. My stats show 36 deaths which I don't think is too bad, weirdly I didn't die on any of the bosses.

WAT?! Seriously? (No deaths on bosses.) Well done.

Ta for the weapon tip. Much appreciated.
Those Hollowseeker Portal perks sound a heck of a lot like one of the modified weapons from Hades :lol:

Initially it's a gem/turret with a laser which just spins about, but with the right modifier it homes in on enemies in double quick time and becomes OP AF. I wish they'd lifted more things from Hades!

Yeah, I think I got lucky with my drops on the runs where I actually got to the bosses. I was dying a lot on biome 4 but then on the run where I made it to the boss I actually went on to complete 4-6 without resetting because I had a really decent weapon and some good healing artefacts/parasites, and the times I died to normal enemies I either had an Astronaut or a Reconstructor set up.

I'd say healing perks/abilities are the most important to look out for, they make things a lot more manageable. Always look for the Adrenaline Leech artefact I mentioned, there's an artefact and parasite that tops you up to a minimum level of integrity when you're low, one that has a 10% chance of restoring integrity for every kill, and the auto-rifle weapon (can't remember the name) can come with a Leech Rounds perk which has a chance of restoring integrity for with every hit. There are probably more I haven't come across as well.

Some of the mini-bosses in the later biomes are ridiculous though. Slight spoilers for game mechanics - some of them have attackts that can destroy artefacts and attacks that can cause malfunctions

Really struggling to make progress with this, despite playing for an hour or two every day. I either get to the first boss with hardly any energy and what seem like weak weapons, or I get a decent build but end up in locked room after locked room, full of tough enemies, and I get slaughtered. And this happens before I find the boss room.

If anything, it seems to have gotten harder after I found the house key, went in the house for the first time and unlocked the astronaut.

Any tips? What weapons are people finding best on that first biome? I'm also finding reading what malignancies/parasites to keep tricky, so any ideas here welcome.

If you want to cheese the first area a bit you can just go back to Helios to heal when you need to instead of picking up the green pickups. At full health, they all count as resins so you can boost your health to 165-180% in the first level easy, it’s just time consuming.

The carbine is the easiest weapon to get you through the first time. Leave a few chests until you’re about to face the boss to get something at the highest proficiency you can.

Also, go easy on the dash, maybe? It’s a handy dodge, but it’s better used as a short shield, so just tapping it at the last second when you know you were about to eat a bullet is better than spending it to dodge something you could have run or jumped around.

TonyDA wrote:Any tips? What weapons are people finding best on that first biome? I'm also finding reading what malignancies/parasites to keep tricky, so any ideas here welcome.

On weapons, make sure you pick up ones that have locked perks. Once you've killed a few enemies it unlocks and that perk has a chance of appearing in future runs.

Personally I avoided the shotgun type weapon throughout the game, I'd try and get Hollowseeker as I found that really good. It has a huge clip so you can spend longer concentrating on dodging and moving while you just hold the trigger down. I can't remember what perks show up in Biome 1 but I think Waves and Serrated are early level ones for Hollowseeker and both quite good.

For larger groups of enemies don't ignore the melee attack, it works great on the smaller enemies like the dogs, and can add a lot of stagger damage to the bigger ones sometimes. If you get some of the melee based artefacts where it produces explosions and bolts of energy on use then it can become a really powerful ability.

If you're struggling I'd suggest ignoring malignant items as sometimes the malfunctions you get can be quite harsh and not worth the pay-off. Generally I've found I leave probably 75% of parasites as I don't think the trade off is worth it on a lot of them. Certainly don't pick up any that affect your cooldowns or damage or anything of that nature.

You may already be aware of this but if you are full health any green pick-ups will add slots to help build your max integrity (I thought it was just random initially). You can rest at your ship for health (only once per run since the last update) but if you return to heal after you first take damage you can generally get a few green pick-ups to start increasing your integrity early in the run.

Thanks guys - quite a lot I hadn’t realised there, especially returning to your ship to heal!

Also pretty sure I haven’t seen the hollowseeker weapon at all, I’ll keep an eye out.

Will let you know how I get on this afternoon!

Hmm I might be misremembering and the Hollowseeker doesn't turn up until the second biome. In that case I'd stick with the Carbine like jiggles suggested.

Hollowseeker is from 2nd biome, but then gets added to the pool once you have it.

I think the deluxe edition adds it to the pool from the start. (With Pylon launcher)

I haven't used the Pylon gun too much as I didn't find it particularly fun to use, but it seems like it could be really useful if you use it as part of a conservative approach.

So, I managed to get a decent run/build - went back to the ship twice to regain some energy, and had decided to collect enough obolites to enable me to teleport back to the fabricator room, where I knew I had the option to buy an Astronaut and a regain energy consumable, just before taking on the boss.

I ended up in a room with three exits - red (boss), green and blue. Cleared out that room and then thought 'I'll check out the blue room, then teleport back to the fabricator room, buy the two things I want and then take on the boss.'

In the blue room, there was a big coffin like chest which I opened (it said it was safe to do so....). The room locked, an enemy I haven't seen before appeared and wiped me out in three hits.

I like the game, but this kind of thing is happening to me far too often! And this is in the first biome

TonyDA wrote:So, I managed to get a decent run/build - went back to the ship twice to regain some energy, and had decided to collect enough obolites to enable me to teleport back to the fabricator room, where I knew I had the option to buy an Astronaut and a regain energy consumable, just before taking on the boss.

I ended up in a room with three exits - red (boss), green and blue. Cleared out that room and then thought 'I'll check out the blue room, then teleport back to the fabricator room, buy the two things I want and then take on the boss.'

In the blue room, there was a big coffin like chest which I opened (it said it was safe to do so....). The room locked, an enemy I haven't seen before appeared and wiped me out in three hits.

I like the game, but this kind of thing is happening to me far too often! And this is in the first biome

That's seriously unlucky because I am over double digits in 1st biome runs and have never encountered that. So yeah, try not to let that put you off.

twitter.com/RLecuivre/status/1390808474880299014

I guess I'll be playing with my crappy cans on.

And I can't believe Shu went that long (he's beaten the first 2 bosses at the very least) without figuring out how to open those :slol:

Returnal - "Hades x Aliens x Metroid" - PC version officially confirmed

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