Game:

Returnal (2021)

Duration: 1:02:59

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Still getting through without a death, so that's good.

Someone watching for the first time might miss that I'm trapped in a cycle which I'm trying to break, if I never die. When I first played this game on the PS5, it took 110 deaths to get through all of the base game story. Dying resets you back to biome 1 with only your permanent upgrades, which is really frustrating. But once you figure out the fights, there are a lot fewer surprises, and you learn to respond to the challenges. I still hate the fights in biome 1 combining the purple flying cloakers and the sun zombies. It's very hard trying to evade fast attacks that constantly come from all directions.

So I defeated Nemesis, and escaped back to Earth, and lived out the rest of my natural life, and died. Then Atropos pulled me back, as with all of the other Selenes that died trying to escape.

Can I break the cycle?

Now that I'm in biome 4, I'll reset back to biome 4 if I die.

I once again noticed there seem to be fewer avenues to explore my first time through a biome. And I never found the main fabricator for this biome. I wouldn't have minded purchasing a few things - not that I needed to, apparently.

I also realize I forgot to go into the challenge room, visible on the map at 25:18 and 30:33! I remember seeing the yellow arch on the map but I just kept going. I'm pretty sure I could have taken it on no problem. At 35:26, it doesn't even look like there is a way to get there.

I realize that the artifacts that allow me to do extra damage and heal myself are only really good for the fights leading up to the boss. If I get damaged while fighting the boss, I lose all my adrenaline and the artifacts become useless for the rest of the boss fight. No matter - I knew the High Caliber Carbine I was carrying was the better weapon of the bunch. And now that I'm in Biome 4, I've lost all of those upgrades. (There is a game mechanic reason for this - it prevents you from farming through biomes 1-3 to power up and then take on Biome 4 - Biome 4 is balanced for a build that starts from square one).

Played on a i7-8700, 16GB 2666 RAM, RTX 3080 10GB LHR, XBox controller

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