Returnal

It wasn't the primary factor but I would place a large bet that the mystery behind it is what pushed people to stay with it, because it actually feels like the story came first and they built the game around it. Even with the free DLC endless tower, they weave it into the story quite well.

TBH Returnal isn't really an endless roguelike. Once through to the end is really all that's worth doing anyway; it doesn't have the amount of variety that other entries in the genre do.

The audio tapes were a pain in the arse to get the right rooms to spawn in. I remember the last one taking me about 15 hours to get to drop in the 6th biome, by which point I'd become like Neo I'd played it that much.

The DLC tower is where the proper replay value is for me. I still go back for a round now and again.

I wish I was better at the game. My reaction times are terrible, and I can't be arsed to put the hours in to GET GUD.

I way prefer an intriguing, light touch story like this than being bored senseless by hours upon hours of dull dialogue.

It's such a weird game. You either made it through the whole game with like 7 deaths or spent tens of hours trying to beat the first boss. You rarely see an in between.

I think I personally lucked out by moving dodge to a shoulder button and switching on auto run pretty much straight away. I'm usually absolutely shite at games with any sort of dodge/parry mechanic that's crucial to success.

I’m fucking brilliant at it.

I did the first boss the second attempt and then breezed through until the 3rd boss which took about 5 goes because I was determined to use the shotgun. The hardest was probably the journey to get to the final boss who was really anticlimactic as I just used a super upgraded pylon gun and it just demolished it.

Turns out there’s still a few collectibles in each biome I’ve missed and a few guns still to level up so I’m back into just doing runs now. It’s still so so good.

I’m even starting to appreciate Dreadbound but good lord if you aim for any flying enemies don’t bloody miss.

The sword is the key to the first boss.

I’ve played maybe 5 lives worth. Got to the boss twice and both times got it nearly dead. It’s fun and has a good atmosphere and I’m curious to see where it goes. Too early to have much of an opinion on it except I still hate the rogue mechanic. Yeah I have only tried the boss twice but when I died, already I was letting out a sigh thinking I had to go through the same area again.

The second boss was the hardest for me - but once you get a bit in, the weapons and their perks end up getting so much better that, combined with some of the “game winning” artefacts like the adrenaline leech you’re very likely to win if you get a decent roll in the first biome.

Okay I’m actually starting to hate this game. Did the long build up, got a level 5 gun and some other bits. Died to the boss with it being about 1% health. Can’t be bothered to do it all again. Just tried to speed run back but this time most rooms gave me annoying lockdowns with the annoying jumping mini boss thing. It just isn’t fun. Plus the main chunk, combat, just isn’t as good as most other shooters. It feels so much better killing things in helldivers. I hope eventually the game feels sorry for me and gives me a defence upgrade so I don’t die from a couple of flicks of anything in the game.

The main things that will save you are the ability to heal without using Silphium, which will mean that Silphium turns into resin, which increases your max health, and getting better at melee which means you get loads more obolites, which you can then spend on things like protection upgrades and astronauts. You also get better movement options for most arenas on completing biome 2 which seriously help out when you’re being overwhelmed.

There was a tipping point for me and it was after the second boss, though on the way to the end I still had a fair few of those runs where I’d take a bunch of damage quickly and slowly choke over the next 20 minutes or so.

In addition I’m not sure if you’ve done this already but turn on auto run and crank up the auto aim as that’s more useful than not. Check your perks too, a shotgun with wide maw is impossible to use unless you’re in melee range (where the stun properties and invulnerability of melee make it more useful anyway) but slugs will make it a very useful weapon, for example.