Housemarque does it again with an intense and frenetic game capable of combining with great success a multitude of elements and ideas to create something new, fresh and fun.
Housemarque is a studio that over the years and based on effort has earned the respect of all of us who enjoy the most arcade action, a genre that they dominate like no one in its different variants. This is precisely why we were eager to lay the glove on Returnal and see how this talented team would be able to cope with the production of an ambitious high-budget title, a new challenge that we can confirm that it has overcome with a very good note. , offering us a great game as intense as it is fun and original .
Video analysis
A cryptic nightmare
The story of this new PlayStation 5 exclusive puts us in the shoes of Selene, an astronaut who one day decides to disobey the orders of her superiors to travel to a mysterious planet . Unfortunately, when her ship arrives she ends up having an accident, which leaves our heroine trapped in a hostile world filled with bloodthirsty alien creatures. In addition, if all this was not enough, it will not take long to discover that it is also within a time loop , so all its deaths end up returning it at the time of the accident.
There are some sequences that take place in the first person inside a house. They are not many, but they have a huge narrative load and will give us many clues about the history of the game.From here, a very simple plot begins to develop that finds its great appeal in the complex and cryptic way in which it is narrated, as if it were a great puzzle . If we want to discover what is really happening and what truth the protagonist’s past hides, we will have no choice but to look very closely at her comments, at the audio messages that we will find, at the small narrative sequences that have been introduced, in the files that we will decrypt and in the small details. All this make up pieces of a twisted puzzle that we will have to put together and in which there is no shortage of allegories and metaphors that leave a lot of room for interpretation. The good thing about having such an environmental narrative is thatallows the game to work just as well regardless of our interest in its story , so that whoever simply wants to explore its settings and hit shots will be able to do so without anything hindering the flow of the action, while those who do want to delve into what we are told they will have as an incentive a great mystery to solve.
A great mix of ideas and genres
In the purely playable, we find a very peculiar title that combines the advance structure of a roguelite , the progression and exploration of a metroidvania and the frenzy and fun of a third-person action adventure with mechanics typical of a shmup bullet hell . Thus, we will have to make our way through a series of scenarios that are generated randomly in each game while we fight against all kinds of creatures, we improve our character with many different power-ups, we find new weapons and we unlock skills and shortcuts that will remain even after we die.
Empowering Selene
In each game we can find different types of power-ups for our protagonist. The most common are artifacts (they give us some kind of passive benefit), parasites (picking one up will mean receiving an advantage, but also a disadvantage) and stat improvements (increasing the different parameters of our character). If we die, we will lose all of this and will have to reassemble in our next game. Additionally, we will also find consumable items with a multitude of different effects.
Its development will be very familiar to you, since we will have to advance through a series of changing rooms in which we will never know with which enemies, traps or treasures we will run into , although unlike other similar games here our objective will not only be to go down or up floors to to get to the final boss of the shift, pass the game and start again. Instead, what we have is an adventure in which we will be asked to complete a series of missions to advance, such as finding the keys to a door, finding a permanent ability that allows us to access new places or defeat the boss of turn. As in all roguelite ,dying means returning to the starting box and losing our weapons and power-ups, but all the progress we make while completing these missions will continue , enriching our next games by allowing us to use the shortcuts that we have opened, as well as reaching rooms with new rewards than before we were banned for not having the necessary skill.
Thanks to this , the feeling of progress has been constant and that we never feel like we are wasting time , since each goal achieved is a small step forward in our journey towards the end of the game. In fact, here you will not see yourself or the need to repeat bosses and if you want you can go directly to the new places that you have unlocked. Obviously, stopping to explore is rewarded in many different ways, be it discovering new rooms, improvements for our character or more information with which to decipher the story, so in the end we have some freedom to decide how we face each of our attempts to break the loop.
Each biome has its own gallery of unique enemies that we will have to adapt to.In this way, we have an adventure that is always surprising us and that encourages us to continue playing to discover new things , since the objectives that he sets for us are very well designed, affordable and provide a great incentive to try again and again. , reflecting in a very clear way our progression throughout this space nightmare.
Housemarque action
Despite all these virtues, we have the true star of Returnal in his shootings . If there is something that is clear to us when we get to the controls, it is that this is, above all, a Housemarque game, something that is noticeable in precise controls until saying enough, in a frenzied and intense development of the action, in some weapons that are a great pleasure when shooting with them and in very varied enemy mechanics and routines that, in general, will end up filling the screen with all kinds of projectiles and laser rays that we will have to avoid, forcing us to always be on the move to survive.
Overload
The ammunition is infinite, but when emptying a charge we will have to wait a few seconds for it to regenerate. When this happens, if we press the fire button at the right time we will overload and obtain a small temporary advantage, in addition to preventing the weapon from jamming and taking longer to be available.
It is one of those few titles that makes the simple act of pulling the trigger a fantastic experience , something that is reinforced by the very vertical design that the stages usually have and the high mobility of Selene, which ends up shaping some Battles as spectacular as they are fun in which we will not have a single second of respite while “platform” and liquidate everything that moves, something that reaches its maximum splendor when facing bosses with a multitude of phases and mechanics different.
The bosses are amazing, too bad there aren’t many.Regarding its difficulty, it should be noted that it is a challenging game that does not hesitate when it comes to punishing mistakes, but at the same time it is also very affordable , since it is relatively easy to strengthen ourselves a lot by little that we explore all the rooms in each region, we make decisions head on and let’s have a modicum of luck with the weapons and artifacts we find, so you shouldn’t die too much if you take it easy.
A somewhat short roguelite
Despite how much we liked it, we have to admit that the title has fallen a bit short in content for it to be a roguelite , something that is especially evident after its credits . While fighting to reach the end the first time is an incredibly addictive journey that is always rewarding us with new surprises and discoveries, the incentives to keep playing after defeating the last boss are crumbling at an alarming rate, as it is incapable of give us compelling reasons why we want to continue investing hours in it beyond meeting a series of tedious requirements to be able to see an additional ending.
If we chain murders without being touched, we will increase our level of adrenaline and obtain all kinds of additional advantages.
In fact, there aren’t even rewards for replaying the game or match modifiers, so all that’s left is to explore each region over and over again to finish unlocking trophies and completing our research files . To this we must add that the number of possible rooms that each biome has is not particularly high, so that the games end up being too similar, especially if we take into account that each world always maintains a more or less fixed structure.
In our case, we have completed it in about 12 hours with a little more than a dozen deaths, while for the true ending we have needed more than 25 without a guide of any kind., although we have to admit that after him we had hardly any desire to continue playing, which does not exactly speak well of his replayable values as a roguelite . A real shame, since he is so good at playable that we would have liked them to give us great incentives to continue enjoying his shootouts.
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Not everything will be fighting, since there will be no lack of traps or moments of ‘platform’.Interestingly, what has most hooked us after finishing the main adventure have been its daily challenges , a series of challenges scored with online markers that take place under a series of specific conditions, where Housemarque brings out its more arcade, direct and frenetic side. Not that they offer us great rewards, but they do know how to “sting” us so that we want to exceed our own marks for pure personal pleasure.
Taking advantage of DualSense
There are corrupted items that when collected can cause an error in our costume. If this happens, we will suffer a penalty until we meet the objective required for it.On the other hand, we cannot forget to mention the very good use that it makes of the characteristics of the DualSense , being the console game that best takes advantage of it together with Astro’s Playroom . The amount of things that it is capable of transmitting to our hands thanks to haptic feedback is amazing, from the raindrops to the different power of each weapon, although here it stands out above all the party that it takes out of the adaptive triggers, whose resistance it varies depending on our arsenal, in addition to allowing us to alternate between aiming and launching our secondary shot depending on how much we press L2. In fact, they even simulate the effect of when a weapon jams on us because we have reloaded it wrong, one pass.
An absorbing science fiction nightmare
At the graphic level it also stands out thanks to its good modeling, its detailed settings and the great effects that constantly fill the screen with all kinds of elements. It is not that it is the game that most squeezes the hardware of the console, since some textures have not finished convincing us, but what has fallen in love with us is its artistic section, a delight for any lover of science fiction more dark , which translates into a fascinating enemy design and a world that manages to absorb us with its very careful and twisted setting. Of course, everything works at 60 very solid and stable images , something essential in a title of these characteristics, and the loading times are non-existent .
Online collaboration
If we play connected to the internet we can find the corpses of other players. If this happens we can try to avenge his death to obtain rewards, although there is also the possibility that the body takes a monstrous form and attacks us. Additionally, there are some special positions where we can exchange resources with the rest of the community.
Finally, about the sound, we could talk about a great environmental soundtrack that, without needing to claim prominence, is capable of creating a unique atmosphere, its very varied effects or its outstanding dubbing into Spanish, but here what we want to highlight is the The way it takes advantage of the console’s 3D audio technology – simply spectacular . Right now there is no other PS5 game that takes such great advantage of it and the precision with which it is able to let us know where the aliens are coming from through our ears greatly enhances the experience, so we strongly recommend that you play with some good headphones.
Conclusions
Returnal is a great game that knows how to combine a multitude of ingredients with great success to create something unique, fresh and with personality . It may not be as replayable or as extensive as other roguelites , but the experience it offers us while it lasts is fantastic and highly recommended for any fan of science fiction and the most frenetic, unbridled and arcade action. If what he proposes catches your attention, do not hesitate to give the new Housemarque a try.
We have carried out this analysis thanks to a download code provided by PlayStation.
