Game:

Returnal (2021)

Duration: 1:00:00

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The title is just about how ready I thought I was. I thought I just needed to be appropriately careful, and this biome was in the bag for me. Despite my excellent healing setup and my astronaut artifact, I had to consume it all reaching the transmission tower, so I had little left to face what came after.

Chapters
0:00 Arrival - all powered up
2:30 Missed the Ether, off to a fine start
3:45 Hmm what's this - wait what??
6:31 Well that hurt more than it was supposed to
8:35 Automaton Fight - I do poorly
11:04 A Rest Bed!
12:38 Yeah sure I'll cleanse it - and I missed more selphium
13:32 Turrets and eyeballs
15:70 Mild fight
16:08 Missed that teleporter
16:39 Oh crap
18:58 Fabricator, more heals!
20:40 Nasty Fight - I lose most of my heals and astronaut and fall twice like a dope
24:03 Continuing ascension
24:35 Yeah I'm not opening that
26:45 Almost to the first goal - fighting safe
27:34 Ok not safe anymore
28:19 Where I died last time
29:13 Screw it I'm leaving - ok that didn't work - all heals gone
30:09 Almost there
31:10 Here they all come
32:34 Oh god one of those
32:42 Are you fricking kidding me
35:00 Finally, I made it to Ascension 1
36:40 Yeah, that was smart... after the parasite
37:20 Activating the bridge
40:00 I never used this translocator - I should have
40:22 To the Bridge
40:44 Dodging eyeballs at low health, should have just shot them
42:33 The Archives
45:40 I didn't pick this up because I thought it would hurt me with the parasite
45:50 ANOTHER Ascension test are you SERIOUS - I'm lucky to have made it
48:06 Sigh
48:50 Oh god a shielded turret
50:25 Another fight
53:20 Oh god here we go
54:10 I got really lucky here, twice - almost a sword, almost a pit
55:55 A lucky bug
56:10 Lucky again...
57:40 Gathering up what I can
59:21 Nice the parasite let me keep the Vial

This is a really nasty Biome. Biome 3 is very large and empty, but the enemies that are there, all of them, hit REALLY hard. I wish I would have fought with more retreating tactics. Distance fighting seems to be my best way against these enemies - sadly that means a lot less collection of obolite. That makes it even better than I can at least farm biome 1 and 2 first. The ones with shields, especially the laser turrets, really raise my anxiety.

I'm not angry, just disappointed that my good setup went to waste so fast.

The first portal room with all the obolites was a nice bonus, but I wasn't hopping with confidence so I got hit a few times. That hurt.

I wasn't aware that I was playing so long - the PS5 forced the video save at 1 hour. That leaves just 7 minutes for the next video before I die.

I hope that there is a midpoint portal now at which I can comfortably reach the boss fight again (boss is in the next video). I assume so, but we'll see. That ascension was SO nasty. I'm frankly lucky I made it. There were 3 or 4 spots that 1 hit would have done me in and by luck I avoided them.

At least I got some story to go with it. I made progress in this biome a lot better than I did in the Ruins or the Wastes - I made it to the boss here on just my third visit. Being able to farm biome 1 and 2 first helped a lot. If I can farm that well again and circumvent all of those exploding golems with a shortcut, I might stand a good chance against the boss (which would, frankly, makes things a little easy, all things considered). As long as it's satisfying enough, like it was against Ixion, it's good.

I watched the section of the 5 hour Returnal longplay dealing with this biome, and the player was a lot more active than I was, charging and taking out turrets instead of fighting carefully from a distance. I'll eventually play that way when my confidence increases. For now I just want to get past the boss.

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