I think Returnal is a pretty challenging game but
I also think it's really fun - and hopefully some of the tips in this video will help you enjoy
yourself a bit more as you play it. I think probably the first thing you ought to do is adjust
your mindset. What I mean is, rather than focusing on all the negatives - like "man, every time
I die I gotta start over again?! I lose all my stuff?!" - well, I think it's worth mentioning, by
the way, that pretty much every single video game used to be like this - I don't think that's too
unprecedented - but rather than focusing on all that negative stuff that's going to get you
frustrated, why not focus on the positives? For example, the developers have literally given
you an invincibility button. Yeah! You just push a button and you're invincible. You can push
it almost as much as you want. If you just push circle - just tap it - it'll do a short dash, and
if you hold it a bit longer you'll do a longer dash. And when you're dashing you are completely
invincible - nothing can hurt you. Well, yeah, I'll admit that the time you're invulnerable
isn't very long, but you do move forward when you dash which means your timing doesn't need to be as
precise. So you can just go through bullets - like that - and when you're getting shot at like this
you can either dash through the projectiles, or you could just walk around them or jump over
them. It's a good time to practice your timing with the dashes. You can just go right through
things. Now at first you can just walk around stuff but the time will come when you do need to
actually dash with the right timing, which you can see that here with this mini boss. But if you
kind of calm down you'll see that he telegraphs his moves quite a bit. He flashes red. Oh, he's
gonna attack! Dash. He's gonna attack - dash. Gonna attack - dash. So if you just kind
of don't get too overwhelmed you actually could probably get the hang of
it even on an enemy like that. So next up is shooting. If you push the L2 button
halfway down you'll kind of zoom in. It makes it easier to see what you're shooting at and you
move a bit slower to kind of steady your aim. But it actually doesn't improve your accuracy
"stat," so to speak, at all - you'll shoot just as accurately without aiming. What I
found was over time - the more I played the game - I gradually stopped zooming in. Sometimes
I would so I could see things a bit better, but i just like the increased mobility of
not zooming in. You can see I can zip around a lot better getting this guy. So you
might consider just not zooming in at all. Another major consideration is crowd control.
If you get surrounded like I am here - you've got bullets coming at you from all directions
- that's really hard. It's difficult to keep track of everything. So what you need
to do is get out of those situations and get all the enemies on one side of you. Get
them in front of you. That way you can actually see what's going on. You can see that here
even though there's a tougher enemy there, they're all in front of me and
it's a lot easier to manage. If you do kind of start to lose track of
things you could always look at your mini map. You can see all the enemies down there on
it. That's pretty convenient! If you have your adrenaline level up to at least level two
you can see enemies through walls - that's what that red stuff is there. It's pretty convenient
- I can just see where they're coming from. And if an enemy or projectile is gonna hit you
from off screen there's a flashing light next to you - Ooh! - like there. The game also has an
"adrenaline" system. You can see it down here. That's going to increase over the duration
of this clip. Now how this works is, it's the game trying to reward you for playing
well. So every three kills you get without getting hit it increases your adrenaline level,
and each level comes with perks of some kind. Adrenaline level one makes it easier to reload
your weapon; level two makes so you can see enemies through walls; all the way up to level
five, which gives you fifty percent more money. Which is pretty good! But arguably the best
part about increasing your adrenaline level is that you shoot extra projectiles. See
right here I have just a common sidearm but I'm shooting tons of extra homing missiles
with my gun. So that's a pretty nice perk. It makes especially tougher
enemies like a boss much easier. And I want to take a moment here and just
kind of reflect on this gameplay system, and why it makes the game so much better. So
you're really incentivized to not get hit - which you are in any game - but you know a lot of games
you just kind of hide for five seconds and you get your health back. This game not only doesn't
have recharging health, but you really want to keep all those bonuses from the adrenaline
levels, you know? When you get hit - oh! - you really feel it! "Man, now my gun kind of sucks
again. It's really plain. I don't have all those extra bullets flying everywhere. I can't see
enemies through walls. I'm not getting extra money." You really feel it! And that pressure
adds a lot of tension and fun to the game. It makes each moment count, and you actually
care what you're doing - it actually matters! And that system of pressure kind of also carries
over into the health system. When you have full health all the green items turn into "resin,"
and every three resin you get it increases your max health, which is pretty good. You can
see that happening here in the bottom left. And that will happen again in just a moment. In
games like this I kind of think of "hit points" (in this case "integrity") as kind of like
"how many mistakes you can make." You know, they could have made the game one-hit kill, but
they didn't - they let you make mistakes. So when I see an item like this - plus 25% health -
I kind of see that as "well, I can make 25% more mistakes. That's- that's pretty good! I could
use a little wiggle room in a game like this!" And the same thing applies to "protection."
That's kind of like armor. So this power-up gives me 10% protection. Or, in other words,
I can make 10% more mistakes. "Yes please!" Before the video ends I wanted to give a few tips
about the first boss because it is pretty hard. You know, if you keep dying to this boss you're
not abnormally bad at the game or something - it's a pretty tough boss, to be honest. So tip number
one is: always shoot. Shoot every single moment. Every second you're not shooting is another
second you gotta survive. Tip number two: keep moving. You are gonna get killed if
you just stand still. Now he'll shoot in a way that kind of pressures you to move. "I gotta
move out of the way of these. Oh gotta move out of the way of those, go the other way." So you
kind of just need to look for an opening about when to change directions when you move. If you
just move the same way every time he'll get you that way too. Kind of like how in Demon's Souls
you attack an enemy but you wait for an opening, you do the same thing here - only you're looking
for an opening about when to change directions. Now, when you get him down past his first health
bar he does a few more moves - most notably he tries to melee you. There'll be this big flash and
then he'll attack, so just use your invincibility button and get out of the way. "When you see that
flash, you gotta dash!"™ Now if you're going back and forth and you're going to get hit - you can
just kind of tell - just use your invincibility button get out of there. If he does that laser
use the invincibility button - it won't harm you. So you kind of just keep that up. Now the third
phase things get a bit more hectic, as you might expect. He starts out by trying to melee you twice
in a row, so just heads up about that. Some people online swear by melee-ing him, but I don't think
that works out very well - as you can see - and it doesn't really do that much damage anyway.
So, like i was saying, the third phase is more or less similar. Your strategy is going to be the
same. Keep moving, keep dodging, keep shooting. But pay a bit more attention to what the boss is
up to. Now you also might want to make it easier on yourself. Now every level has a store in it,
and there's going to be what's called a "Large Silphium vial" there - over there on the left,
that orange thing. What it does is it fills your health up all the way when you use it. That would
be great. You could also find or buy an astronaut figure - that'll bring you back. You could also
spend six ether and use a reconstructor - get another chance at things. You might even find
a parasite that brings you back - with some big negative effect, but you would be dead if you
didn't get it so . . . might as well pick that up. So you're getting him down, you're
paying attention to what he's doing, you're being a bit more mindful about
where you're stepping . . . If you see that double laser just dodge twice, by the
way. And soon enough, if you keep at it, you'll get him. And you will feel so proud of
yourself when you do. Now if this is as far as you are in the game I got good news - there is a
lot more to see! And I hope this video helps you feel a bit more confident in your abilities in
playing, and I hope it helps you have more fun!
