Topic: Returnal

I should be in bed by now but.... Boss 5, here I come.

Joke's on me: apparently there is no boss in biome 5
Died in biome 6, calling it a night

It took me 23 hours of play time to get through the first biome.

@velio84 I think it's brilliant. The only thing I don't like is that it feels a bit like every run apart from successful ones are a waste of time since nothing but ether is carried over - I think it would feel more rewarding if you carried some other stuff over too, like if they made some more upgrades permanent.

Other than that though it's great. I've never even got annoyed with it really to be honest, which is surprising given have ruthless it is and how little progress I've made in that time. I just spent ages trying to clear every single room in the first biome before doing the boss so I could make sure I got all of the upgrades I could. Most of my deaths were in the yellow lockdown room, rather than the boss.

Spent a long time learning what everything did, finding which weapons I like, how enemies act etc. Then I beat the boss and got pretty far into the second biome. So I feel like I'm not going to struggle with that one as much. Maybe I'm being naive.

@Voltan Well done for getting that far. Sounds like it was worth staying up.

I did one proper run last night just trying to unlock some new items etc. Used the short cut to the citadel and promptly got dispatched. I've managed to rack up 30 ether somehow as well so at least that will come in handy for next time.

The only thing I have left to do now is mop up the survey Trophies. I've put a ridiculous amount of time into Returnal but it's honestly one of my favourite games in quite a while.

@Quintumply You did have a bit of a head start on the rest of us 😉

I agree though, it's really got me. I knew I was going to struggle with it as it's outside of my comfort zone with having to replay bits so much but the gameplay is just so good that actually I don't mind. I even went and did the first boss again last night just so I could gage how much I've developed since I first did it. I actually didn't fair as well as I thought I would but I did get the job done.

@render Haha, I did. I'm really pleased it's out and (aside from one or two issues) people generally seem to be loving it as much as I do.

Took me 6 hours and 8 deaths to beat the first boss. Made a few okay runs into the 2nd biome, but have some issues with the giant flying spaghetti monsters. Though my last run was the best.

Also had a go at the daily challenge, which is a good way to highlight how much you suck lol. I can't believe how good some people are. I was ranked something like 8000 out of 11000.

If they just add a save and quit option, so I don't have to flat out abandon runs, it will likely be a 10 out of 10 for me.

@johncalmc There is some carry over in the weapon upgrades I think, though I've not quite figured out how that works. Does anyone else know?

It is well worth unlocking (and levelling up) weapon traits. They make the guns far more interesting, and usually, much more powerful!

That's one of the things that I've been doing a lot of which is part of the reason I have such a big playtime. I've been going round and unlocking all of the weapon traits as I've found new weapons even if it's weapons I don't care as much for. It's worth doing a bit of this admin earlier on.

Possible spoilers for the Biome 3 boss and potential game breaking bug.

I had a pretty bad bug last night on the Biome 3 boss (Nemesis). I had fought and died against it before so I knew what to do this time and I had 5 healing items with me to make sure I won this time around. However, on the third stage of the boss battle when you are falling and landing on small platforms, I could not cause any damage to Nemesis at all. His red 'heart' wasn't exposed so I couldn't damage it. I thought I maybe had to get closer, but nope, still couldn't damage it, and it pushes you back anyway if you are close.
I went through all of my healing items, shooting at every possible location on him and the eyeball towers, and nothing happened. Eventually I died without causing a single bit of damage. I was using the Hollow Seeker weapon which has very good range, plus it was a high level version which was very useful getting up this point.
I tried another run after and got to Nemesis again and this time I beat it. My run was much worse, but still had 3 healing items. Int he third stage of the boss, the red 'heart' was this time exposed immediately and I could do damage with no problems, from afar or near. Hollow Seeker weapon again.
So yeah, watch out for this problem. No idea if there is a workaround, but I had the latest patch from that day installed (1.003.1 or something).

There's a shortcut somewhere, is this in biome 1?

Also, what's the deal with sleeping in the ship, i knew you could do it but since it is at the start of a run, i din't think it would do any healing?

@Throb Yes it's in biome 1. One of the rooms / tiles has this long bridge with a right hand turn half way up it that usually goes to either a room or a dead end. Straight on the bridge just ends and there's a gap and then a big wall that you can only get up with the grappler. On your first play through Selene will have made a remark there and the mission objective changes. Once you have the grappler you can get up there though and it takes you straight through to the citadel where your proficiency level gets boosted up automatically to 9 as well. The only thing is you might not have much else e.g. suite stats upgrades etc so don't fair so well which is what happened to me 😆.

With regards to sleeping on the ship, if you've done some of biome 1 then you can always go back there to heal before continuing. It can be really useful before taking on the boss, and quick if you use the fast travel points.

Fingers crossed tonight's the night i will put down the biome 2 boss, I've came close twice now but a lot of deaths in the game come from falling off platforms and generally not watching where I'm going during a frantic shoot out. I had an excellent gun but very little health one run but decided to give it a go and needless to say I didn't last long. still having lots of fun though. Does the Restart cycle option wipe your current overall progress or just let you jump into a new run? I've mostly been letting Selene die or closing down the game and booting it back up again to hopefully get a better roll of the dice.

@render I knew I was screwed when my cat woke me up for his morning noms and I noticed my controller was still charging
Luckily I have one last day off today so I just went back to sleep

@MightyDemon82 I believe restart cycle does the same thing as dying

@Voltan Ok I thought it might but wasn't sure. you'll have finished the game by the time I beat him haha.

@MightyDemon82 I haven’t used it myself but I believe I saw people mention that if you get the bug where doors are not opening for you, the workaround is to switch back to default suit and restart cycle. Wiping your whole saved state wouldn’t be great advice 😃

@katamariUK Thanks for the heads up as I'll maybe have a crack at that one later. I've only had two goes at it using the same gear as I used a reclaimer so went straight back at it. Only problem was second time around I didn't have any of my consumables so I was never going to come out of that well.

@Voltan Ha ha yep I have that sometimes with the kids where I've been playing until really late and get woken up what seems like just a few hours later with them running into the room. Oh man are they loud sometimes!!