Topic: Returnal

@Th3solution Congrats! I was equally gutted to lose my loadout at the start of biome 4 after finding a golden combination in biome 2 that saw me beat 2 and 3 in one run. And praise the sun (fragments) indeed on not losing your progress!

The spitmaw is a great weapon but the fact that it is essentially useless on all the bosses really works against it. Personally, I never got on with the pylon driver but sometimes you need to get those traits unlocked before it's any use.

@Thrillho Thansk and yeah, I was surprised at how a level 7 Spitmaw tore up the early enemies in Biome 2 like the tentacle lion guys and the flying cubes. One-shotted a lot of them, depending on the distance.

@Th3solution Did you get the trophy for beating Nemesis 😂

@Thrillho @Th3solution It’s still pretty amazing how much the traits a weapon has make such a difference. It also makes you question whether you did git gud or the traits did 😆.

I tried the spitmaw against nemesis once after watching a video of someone destroy it easily with it. It didn’t end well for me but I think that was probably down to traits. I’ve also not tried the dreadbound on any bosses but surely that must be a chore due to most bosses being a distance away and the shards taking so long to return.

@render Yeah when I was going into the boss room and had a inner struggle of which of three weapons to choose from that dropped or were in the last chest there — the Lobber I’d been using which was great but the main trait it had was bouncing rot, which would be pretty useless agains Nemesis, the high level pistol with burst fire, which I just dislike the timing of the shots coming out with that trait, and the Hollowseeker with the serrated ammo. So, although I think the Hollowseeker isn’t a very good gun against Nemesis due to the poor accuracy, the serrated effect was the next best thing to the Lobber acid, so I went with it due to the trait loadout.

@nessisonett [nervously checks trophy list quickly on app to confirm] Yes, I did. As well as the silver for completion of Act 1.
I do hope the game saves things like the ciphers, scout logs, and trait progress instantly rather than upon death because I closed down the game in Biome 4 on my own accord, not after a death. 😬
If I lost the small progress I made in B4, that’s fine, but please don’t tell me the game only saves progress of beating the boss after your next death and respawn. Surely not.
Do you respawn into Biome 4 on future runs with the story related critical health, crippled, and unable to go into the Helios like the way you spawn there in the beginning after clearing Nemesis?

@Th3solution You just spawn into Biome 4 normally. I think it saves stuff instantly too. Just not the Act 1 trophy in my case 😂

@Th3solution Everything saves as you collect them in the game. Not sure where you got that from that it only saves when you die.

Respawning in Biome 4 works almost the same as it did for Biomes 1 - 3, you just start with proficiency at level 15 instead of 0.

@JohnnyShoulder lol, I think my obsessive compulsive brain make me catastrophize; I’ve not heard that the game only saves upon death, it was just my own worries popping up out of nowhere after I closed the game last night and did a double-think on it.

It’s unusual that a game doesn’t have an “exit game” option in the menu or at least a spinning icon that denotes saving taking place so as to avoid someone shutting down a game mid-save process or before an autosave occurs. Probably the save happens instantly upon picking up a scout log, cipher, ether, getting weapon trait progress, etc. due to the SSD so an icon would be superfluous.

@Th3solution As far as I'm aware it is only Souls games that require you to exit out of the game to save the game properly when you have finished. Everything else you should be OK with and there is no need to exit the game when you have finished with it for the day.

@Th3solution Where would it exit to? There's no title screen etc (which is part of what makes it feel so different, I think).

@JohnnyShoulder @JigsawPieces
The “Exit to Main Menu” options are probably antiquated at this point and are propagated out of tradition, I suppose. But to me in my weird organizationally prescriptive brain it keeps the files and OS organized… er.. something. I don’t know. I guess I’ve always reckoned that they put the option in there for a reason, so I dunno, maybe I’m supposed to exit to main menu when I close out for the session. 😅
I think we were having a similar conversation about this a few weeks back and someone else obsessed over this. Who was it? @Jimmer-jammer … wasn’t that you? Help me out here. I’m not the only weirdo who has to exit his game before closing the app or shutting down the console, right? 😄

@Th3solution ha! Yes, we were having this discussion and yes it bugged me for a bit with Returnal but with it starting at the ‘beginning’ every time, I’ve somehow been able to put my silly anxieties at rest in this case. Some kind of save feature would be welcome in my books but it is what it is.

So I made it all the way through Biome 4 on the first attempt (not counting my throwaway run right after Nemesis where I just quit early) and beat Hyperion on the first try. Not to say he was easy. Literally beat him by the slimmest of margins with a speck of integrity left. Had only one large silphium and had to use it about at the halfway point. Used a launcher with rapid fire and that’s what saved my bacon, along with a few nice artifacts.

Surprisingly, I figured I’d die quick in Biome 5 seeing as I was barely alive to start it out, but I went a good long while, my build getting better and better, my suit integrity growing larger and larger. I was way into the deep bowels of it when my luck ran out and I had a lockdown room with 2 of those transporting severed dudes, about 15 drones, and 4 turrets. I was playing with house money at that point anyways since I’d never expected to make it that far on just one run. So I was a little foolish and too daring in my attacks and approach. I’m not exactly clear what I’m supposed to do here, is this the 3 keys I’m looking for or something? It looks to be a really large Biome.

I will say that after all the adrenaline pounding the game has been causing me, I might need a little break from it. Think I’ll finally peel away and play something else for a while and reload my sanity.

@Th3solution Congrats! Hyperion is such a cool boss...I just beat act 2. Credits rolled and everything so I’m not sure what act 3 is all about or what I’ll have to do to beat it but I may also take a break. I was thinking of jumping into Demon’s Souls but something like Bugsnax is sounding really nice right about now. 😅

@Th3solution Nice one! For some inexplicable reason, I found biome 4 the hardest to get out of but going back to it I don’t know why..

Biome 5 is a toughy as you do have to get all three keys and all on one run. Plus, I seem to remember one being in the challenge room so no avoiding it on that level!

@Jimmer-jammer Act 3 is just about finding the sun fragments; one per biome (and which only appear after a house segment in biome 4) and then beating the biome 6 boss again. It’s another good challenge but not an overly necessary one and I’m not sure the ending cleared anything up for me!

@Th3solution Great effort. I took two goes at Hyperion but it was a great battle so I didn’t mind 😁. I just love the build up to that boss as the music gets louder, along with the slightly insane dialogue from Selene. B5 can be a tough one as every room is like a lockdown room, and the drones can still be a thorn in your side.

@Jimmer-jammer Well done on beating Act 2. Act 3 was good to get done but like @Thrillho said not sure it really explains much more than you already know. I’m playing Demon’s Souls now and intensity wise it’s definitely on a par with Returnal and probably a notch or two above bugsnax 😉

@Th3solution @Jimmer-jammer Well done guys! I felt similar to Sol after my first attempts at biome 5. I took a week or so off, but took me a age to find my rhythm again. Since then I made sure I only a a couple of days away from the game.

So basically you start in the fabricator room and there’s 3 doors leading out of it (not counting the vault and the locked door that has a optional permanent suit upgrade and a cipher behind it) - there’s a key at the end of each one of those paths and you need to get all 3 in one run.

@Thrillho @render @Voltan @JohnnyShoulder Thanks guys. I appreciate all help. For some reason Biome 4 wasn’t too bad for me. A lot of the rooms have no enemies and it’s not a terribly long route. And yes, the music aspect and Selene’s thoughts are so dramatic and brilliantly executed. The boss is really cool too.

I’m disappointed that I didn’t get a new tool or ability for the underwater parts. What heck is all those pools of water and am I ever going to learn to swim? 😅 Ah well, don’t tell me — I assume it’s some kind of key moment coming up if I can get through B5 maybe. 😁

Any general tips for B5? Other than it sounds like I need to go straight into the challenge room when I come across it. I’d hate to have that be my last key to get and die after all the hard work.

@Jimmer-jammer Demon’s Souls doesn’t sound like much of a break 😅 but maybe dying a slow and methodical death over and over is a refreshing change from a frantic chaotic death over and over 😂

@Jimmer-jammer I played Bugsnax before returnal, it is much more laid back. The story is more... Out in the open too. It's a great game, but don't watch any guides! Part of the game is going in blind. I thought about replaying it, however I'm playing through the Kingdom hearts games for the first time, grabbed the ultimate edition in the sale.