Adam Love

Gorgeous, haunting atmosphere. Great, intriguing, mysterious story. Set and setting are pretty perfect. Gameplay feels fluid, fast dynamic: a good cross of melee + third person shoot, bullet hell dodger, and has that "classic arcade feel" while looking and literally feeling (dualsense is done outstandingly well) next gen. That said: this game is exponentially punishing and difficult. This is coming from someone who plays Demon's Souls; someone who feels like "Survivor" on Last of Us 2 is too easy. The game is truly a gem to play: it's fun, fast, and overall a total blast. But the lack of saving options (even Demon's Souls has this!) make it one where you give up after an hour or so and switch to the easier task of beating The Last of Us Part 2 on Grounded/Permadeth mode. I'm not joking about that, either: TLOU2 on Grounded is easier than Returnal. Like others, I am hoping they'll either include a better save feature, allow you to keep the items/guns you discover after death, or just anything that gives you a chance to be more successful in your next run. It feels incongruous for a "true roguelike/lite" to allow the player to keep SOME items (the blade, a few suit upgrades), but you CAN'T keep the guns you find/upgrade? Also: this is where the game defies its own logic. In the beginning, as Selene, she "loses" her sidearm only to find it on her corpse, roughly a few minutes into the game. After an inevitable death, the cycle repeats itself and you crash-land again. Only this time, you get to keep your sidearm. But if you die with the machine gun or shotgun or any other weapon, they automatically disappear and you have to start leveling them up all over again. The percentages reset, not the actual levels. Even for a "true roguelike," Returnal forgets its own rules just to make the game more difficult which comes off as a bit pretentious after roughly playing 10+ hours and not even beating the first boss yet. Don't get me wrong: I'll keep playing. But you should heed this call before you buy. I don't regret my purchase, but I don't think I'm finishing the game any time soon.