Returnal | A Complete History and Retrospective

I have interacted with other versions of myself but I worry one day I will re-experience these same interactions from their perspectives but are they truly me or just hollowed corpses this may be the face of things to come returnal is a fresh take on an experience that we've probably had before if you'd played a roguelike at some point in your life then you know the feeling of grinding out runs in the same areas over and over trying to get the best outcomes maybe eventually you get a good set of gear luck Smiles upon you and for a moment your skill lines up with your fortune you're able to defeat the boss at the end of the tunnel in more recent years this genre has favored story as well not just being a procedural fight simulator but slowly feeding us details and pieces of a puzzle returnal does all of this so incredibly well it succeeds at being a great roguelike with in-depth mechanics very satisfying combat difficult choices to make along the way and challenging gameplay but it also has a tail worth sticking around for in the background the design of the world the enemies the environments all make you want to stay long enough to see this all through you feel the determination of the character that you're playing their motivations bleeding through to yours but the story that it tells is so interesting and just vague enough to keep us interested once we find out the mystery it all clicks at once we are shocked but also satisfied with the tale that's been woven before us there's a lot to talk about with eternal so that's what I want to do today we'll be taking a deep dive into this game talking about mechanics Story gameplay and everything in between if you like the video and want to support the channel you can do so by liking the video and subscribing as it really helps me out so I can keep making videos like this in the future you can also subscribe to patreon where I upload longer versions of my full series these retrospectives early access to my videos and Scattered text post updates spoilers for returnal Hey Dad it's me your favorite son and today I'd like to talk about returnal maternal was developed by house mark back in the 90s housemark was actually two separate companies terramarc and blood house the two companies both formed in 1993 and were finland's first commercial game studios blood house had developed Stardust for the Amiga and Terra Mark had developed elf Mania for the same platform the two Founders had been working close together and in 1995 decided to formally merge their companies creating house Mark throughout the years the team had never really made a ton of stunning projects but they did have a notable relationship with Sony a lot of their games were published by the company games like Dead Nation and Resogun were released as downloadable projects on the PlayStation Store as well as being offered on the PlayStation Plus service the studio had been wanting to make large-scale games for quite some time but Studios felt that they hadn't proved themselves yet this is why they had to make arcade games for years sometime around 2017 returnal began development at how house Mark with Sony once again publishing Jane Perry felt that voicing the character of Celine was interesting because the character was so Dynamic Celine was very driven but also very vulnerable and human when recording lines the developers gave Perry different notes based on the era that Celine was in or her level of sanity at that time ranging from 1 to 100. this helped Perry voice the character throughout the different trials that Celine went through during the course of her story Celine was also developed with the idea in mind that we would have an older woman as a protagonist the team felt that this gave her more of a background having lived a full life before the start of this game this meant that the character was established before we see her with lessons and Journeys having been undertaken dynamic levels and shifting environment were created to both keep levels fresh but also to keep the player on their toes and force them to hone their skills the score for the game was composed by Bobby kerlick also known as the haxan cloak kerlick has worked with many different artists over the years doing production work for Bjork Khalid Troye Sivan Father John Misty and most importantly Health he's also worked on many scores before having collaborated with Atticus Ross on the film black hat in 2015 and by himself on Ari Astor's mid-summer for which he won best OST at the Ivor novello Awards interestingly enough he also worked on some limited time alternative tracks for Red Dead Redemption 2 with the band swans of all people returnal was officially revealed in June 2020 and was released for the PlayStation 5 on April 30th 2021 a few notes before we get into things first I would like to state that I played returnal on the PS5 this was the original console that it was released on and was one of the first games released for the console by Sony it was later released for PC on February 15 2023. the other note I have is on the structure of this video because of the way that returnal's story is presented I will first be talking about the general gameplay loop I will discuss the challenges that one will face in the game and the way that small pieces of the story are presented to you as we go on I will take you through my journey in the game and the ways that returnal excels in its design and mechanics during this we will talk about the general story of the game but at the end of the video we will go back and unravel the true mystery that the game presents because that story lies deeper inside the tale than just surface level returnal begins with the Stars we see a vast ocean of dark only briefly lit by distant pinpricks of life our main character Celine is is heading through space in her ship she gets a notification that a signal called White Shadow has been tracked and she heads to the planet below as she descends into the atmosphere the blip on her screen stating that approach is forbidden Echoes a warning that will be foolishly ignored by our protagonist her ship is struck by lightning and she begins to crash on the surface of the planet she awakens on the ground in a strange area she begins to make her way through different doors ruins of a xenotype civilization she eventually finds a scout lying dead on the ground another Astra officer the same organization that Celine herself is a part of when she reads the helmet though she realizes it is her the shakes her but not enough to deter her from continuing as Celine travels further and further into the planet she finds strange alien fungi that will repair her wounds and eventually enemies that will cause those wounds at this point it probably makes sense to talk about the combat of Eternal first off combat changes quite a lot throughout the course of the game it will evolve based on the permanent upgrades that we get and the way that we play the game we will be talking about those changes as we go but for now I'll just stick to the basics returnal is a roguelike for those of you that don't know roguelike is a genre of games that generally see you crawling through dungeons or levels that are randomly oriented or procedurally generated and feature some sort of permanent death mechanic these games Trace their Roots back to the 70s and 80s the term roguelike actually comes from a game called Rogue released in 1980 but the same mechanics were used all the way back in 78 in a game called beneath Apple Manor the massive popularization of the genre began around 2011 when Edmund McMillan's The Binding of Isaac released and now roguelikes have carved out their own spot in the gaming landscape games like enter the gungeon and Hades have propelled the genre even higher but returnal doesn't exactly look like those games it's a third person over the shoulder shooter rather than a top-down action RPG but at its core it uses a lot of the same mechanics when you die in returnal unless you have one of the very few death saving mechanics in the game you start back from the beginning back from the crash site each time we begin a new run the rooms that we will encounter are switched around randomized so to speak this is because the planet is changing itself and the layout is never the same the general goal of the game is to get as far as we can without dying defeating bosses and making more progress each time when we take on enemies at least in the beginning we shoot at them to take them down our weapons have unlimited ammo but if we run out of bullets in the clip then it will overload forcing us to press the trigger button again in time with an on-screen prompt to reload faster and gain some advantages based on the weapon that we use we can also use an alternate fire which is different for each weapon in the game the alt-fire has a cooldown so it takes some time to charge it's generally a power powerful hit that will damage an enemy greatly we can also Dash to Dodge in the beginning use our jet pack to propel us upward and just generally run to try and avoid damage from enemies but this is all pretty simple right just shoot the enemies and don't get hit well Eternal just like any roguelike is all about the items that we get along the way the weapons and items that we'll pick up throughout our run will be lost upon death aside from a few permanent upgrades that we'll receive throughout the story we can of course upgrade our weapons along the way by finding new ones there are 10 different types of guns that we can use the strength and level of each gun is determined by our weapon proficiency this level increases as we kill enemies and when we gain certain pickups each weapon will drastically change the way that we play the game blasters which are essentially shotguns will force us to get up close and personal with enemies a style that I don't particularly prefer carbines and Holo Seekers will generally have less damage but allow us to stay back and pick enemies off at a distance the type of weapon you use is really up to you and how you like to play weapons also have their own distinct traits each weapon will be randomized on drop with new stats alt fires and traits we can have two of the same weapons at the same level sitting side by side and they'll still be different there are many different items that we can pick up that can be bought from shops they can be dropped from enemies they can be found in chests or rooms artifacts the first type are items that will generally change some sort of stat for our run the shield disrupter will grant us a 25 chance to break enemy Shields the modular calibrator will grant us weapon proficiency there are many different ones but their benefits are generally good across the board consumables are small items that we can use during combat we can only carry one type of consumable at the beginning of the game but this will change as we get further in the story these can be anything as simple as a health potion or an item that turns picked up currency into Health these items will be Lifesavers in battle and can extend a run much further we also have the general resources like Health pickups and obelets which serve as the currency for the game there's also Keys which can open doors or chests when heading through the overgrown ruins our map will notate whether the Next Room in an area is a side room or a main room side rooms will either be a challenge fighting multiple extra enemies for a reward or just a straight-up reward the main rooms will eventually lead us closer to the goal closer to the boss and the end of this specific level but this isn't all that return all offers us with the large amount of variety we've already seen Variety in the items that we'll find during a run the weapons will receive the consumables we end up with or the shops we encounter there's a lot that could go wrong or right here but there's also two mechanics that we haven't talked about the first is malignancy MO malignant items will crop up throughout our playthrough these could be Health pickups which we might desperately need or chests that could contain far better weapons or artifacts changing our run entirely with these malignant items there's a chance we could gain a malfunction malfunctions will have a negative effect on our character decreasing our protection stat our Max Health weapon damage anything that can be taken away from us these malfunctions can be fixed by fulfilling a certain condition listed underneath now of course the risk here is that the condition is something that will be terribly hard to meet and this malfunction will be almost permanent now this is quite rare and generally we can fix these in one or two fights but if you're playing it safe then just skipping malignant items is probably your best bet the other mechanic that we haven't talked about are parasites parasites are items that we can pick up throughout the course of our run these have both positive and negative effects we could get one that increases our weapon damage but lowers our protection we could get one that saves us from death but when it does it detaches and gives us a severe malfunction these are also for the riskier players ones that want to max out specific stats on a build and will take defects in other areas to get there so now we've talked about all of the mechanics and what makes up a run in returnal but why does this all work well for one the variety is there in addition to all these mechanics we'll also discover and stumble upon new artifacts and items as we make our way through the game extending the pool of drops we can receive in this we are making each run different just like any roguelike we can get a terrible run where nothing goes our way we don't get any maximum health increases we have bad weapon damage maybe we roll the dice on a couple of malignant items and they don't go well we get hit one too many times and we die really early then on the other hand we can have a great run where everything goes our way we get great Max Health the best weapons the perfect artifact everything is synergizing and working together but this isn't the entire game sure there is an RNG element and having good drops will increase our likelihood of winning but the point is to get better the point is to improve to let the ruins and the biomes shape you to create someone that can win even under dire circumstances the point of the game isn't just to play until we get good drops and then hopefully win it's to get good the game is challenging in its own right and we'll talk about that as the story progresses it doesn't pull its punches if you die you are waking back up at the crashed ship unless of course we have a death save item but these aren't aplenty and oftentimes we can't even afford them so we just have to make it without it the mechanics are tight the shooting Works incredibly well and it feels satisfying to take enemies down even after having done it hundreds of times the animations sound design and tactile feel of the combat all just work together together dodging the reign of bullets that will be hailed Upon Us during each battle is also a great feeling every encounter is pretty intense considering the fact that we have a finite amount of health and only one shot to do this it can make your heart pump the game reflects this as well with another mechanic we haven't talked about adrenaline killing three enemies in a row without getting hit will increase our adrenaline to level one at which point we will get a trait enhanced overload this gives our overload a larger window easing the timing of the button prompt every three kills we get without getting hit will increase the level once more up until level five at level 2 we get enhanced Vision which allows us to see a whisper of the enemies through walls level 3 increases the damage of our melee attack something we will get later in the game level 4 increases our proficiency rate gained and 5 increases the amount of oblates we pick up giving us more currency to spend on items now of course these traits are all really good and power us up a significant Mount they give us another massive reason to try and not get hit by enemies during battle we obviously don't want to get hit because it will decrease our health bringing us closer to death but we also don't want to get hit because it will take away many good temporary upgrades the mechanic being named adrenaline is only too apt because it matches the adrenaline we experience with our characters we see that gold flashing bar lit up yellow at the highest level and we know our heart rate is going up getting hit at this point is the worst feeling it feels like starting over all the way from Ground Zero almost like a second death but managing to make it through a room filled with enemies projectiles flying around the space and coming out the other end with that bar still lit up with the number five at the bottom is a great feeling while we loot the room and gather our Spoils of War we're given a brief second to breathe to reflect on the encounter we just had one moment to Pat ourselves on the back a moment out of the zone out of the fog of war the game in general is just intense especially as we get further and further into a run we're waiting for the next big challenge the next thing that's going to change our run and it only takes one room you can have the perfect run the best gear and that can all be taken away with one mistake of course returnal isn't the most hardcore roguelike out there and I've definitely played harder ones but it is challenging in its own right on top of that the environments that we travel through are varied and interesting incredibly well-designed Landscapes make us Wonder exactly what this place is making us just as clueless as our main character the sound design is also fantastic returnal does Verge on horror because of its intensity it blurs a thin line considering its design and themes are very abstract early on we'll get grabbed by tentacles and jump scared we never trust a room with no enemies in it because we're constantly expecting the worst preparing for another battle waiting for an attack returnal's combat is great and works incredibly well but what is actually going on here what is the story on our very first run we journey through the planet finding different ruins defeating enemies and opening locked doors this obviously introduces us to the many different mechanics that we've already talked about but we also find remnants of a species not just in the decaying ruins surrounding us but also in the piles of corpses littering the hallways a strange sphere hovers over a foggy Chasm we begin to find audio logs of Celine herself a different Celine speaking as if she's gone through this experience before we happen upon our first powerful enemy and of course we are destroyed this isn't our first real run this is meant to be a challenge that we can't beat so that we restart back at the crashed ship and Helios in the ship we can read documents on the terminal there ones that will slowly unlock as we we make more progress we can also access a challenge board that will give us daily simulation challenges to complete for a certain amount of currency we can rest in the bed on Helios and dream of the forest a foggy night as we exit the ship we figure out the loop we are returned here each time we die and are meant to get better to progress forward and get stronger to find out the mystery of these ruins and this planet the real mystery here is about the white shadow the broadcast signal that brought us to atropos in the first place where did it come from who started the broadcast and why is it here to find the answers we have to get to the signal itself we eventually find a piece of tech on one of the Dead sentience Celine scans it and determines that it is safe enough to repurpose on her own suit this piece of equipment allows us to use translocators these are Transporters that can be short range or long range short-range Transporters are meant to be used to get back and forth effectively a door transporting us to a different area long-range ones are meant for fast travel around a biome to get back to a specific area like a shop or a locked door that we didn't have a key for earlier we can also find xenoglyphs Within the Ruins these are writings from the sentience that used to occupy the planet this is easily one of my favorite things about returnal's story and how it delivers it to the audience in the beginning we can't exactly translate these texts because we don't have the basis for the language once we begin to collect ciphers from the surrounding areas we will start to gain parts of the translation eventually being able to read the full message I really like this mostly because it puts into question the motivation of the sentience at the beginning of the game we're not really sure what these texts say and the uncertain translations will give us a skewed view for a while until we finally uncover their true meaning throughout our first journey in the overgrown ruins we can also find secret rooms which can hold anything from powerful bosses to free loot men any of my runs have ended by being overzealous and taking these things on only to realize that it holds an incredible threat that I just can't handle yet we can find red machines that we can lay down in or green machines that we can lay down in the red ones will take away our health in exchange for a good item and the green ones will heal us and increase our maximum health we can also find archives and other lore related mechanic that will allow us to reconstruct the history of sentience that lived here before this adds context to the planet and the situation that this civilization was in before we got here eventually we'll also come across a house but not an alien ruin house a 20th century house that Celine seems to recognize but at this point we can't yet enter we can find a key in a different part of the ruins that will allow us entry we then get a sequence where we are in first person as Celine we quickly realize that this is her home we see her Mission binders a picture of her that was taken after she left for the mission she's on now she sees flashes of a burned house we hear thumps upstairs in a sequence that almost flirts with the concept of horror we find a strange Cube on the ground that disintegrates in celine's hand we can try to enter a door upstairs but Celine won't head through and the basement door will close when we try to open it when looking through the window upstairs we see an astronaut standing outside in the fog Celine falls down and the door beside her opens up as she is transported outside with this we unlock the astronaut figurine this will revive us one time upon death it's not a permanent item but we will have the option to buy it in shops during most runs or even find it in Fabricators inside rooms further into the overgrown ruins we will eventually find a xenotype blade this will become our melee weapon for the game by pressing Square we can do a quick attack with the sword which will get rid of enemy Shields and take down barriers holding extra goodies this weapon though actually changes the game a lot more than you would think it enables a completely new way of playing for most of the early part of the game and for quite a few of the beginning levels I mostly stayed pretty far away from enemies I would take them out from afar and pick them off trying to get out of their range so there would be less chance of me taking damage this is fine in theory but the obelets or currency that enemies drop doesn't stick around forever it will disappear after a couple of seconds if we don't pick it up being close to an enemy when it dies is very important because missing out on obletes could build up and eventually mean missing out on an entire item so being up close definitely has its advantages this is where it comes back to the build if you're someone that wants to stay up close stick and Jab get in and out then you could use a shotgun dealing more damage close up and combine that with the sword to deal big damage but having the sword opens up this possibility there are also certain items that boost your sword damage and then increase your speed when getting kills with it you can create entire build around using it it just once again goes to show the sheer variety that this game offers with its item system eventually throughout our travels we'll come across a big red door in one of our areas this will lead to the boss for that level the first boss we Face Off against is frike a three-armed teleporting ancient looking thing he has many different attacks shooting us directly covering the arena in projectiles that rain down from the sky a laser that blasts from his eye and even slashing at us directly all of this can be avoided of course and is something you have to learn through the course of the battle and possibly even many different attempts I was lucky enough to get good items on my first run that I barely scraped by defeating frike on my first try each boss's attacks will also change as the battle progresses they will get stronger versions of their attacks throw in new variations get quicker and deal more damage each boss has three phases and usually the last one is the hardest frike is probably the least complex boss that we'll face but for a first challenge he's nothing to scoff at after we defeat him we gain the Crimson key an item that we can use to travel to the next biome or level now as we talked about before each death is permanent if we really die then we start back at the crashed ship but the game does give us some leeway here if we manage to beat the boss at the end of the level we're on and get to the next one we don't have to unlock that pathway anymore we always keep the key on us so we can just head straight there the next time you might also be thinking that this would be stupid because you won't have enough good gear to defeat the enemies in the next biome if you head straight there but the developers have an easy way of getting around this at the beginning of each biome after the first there will be a calibrator pickup an item that increases our weapon proficiency this will increase our proficiency to around what it would have been coming out of a full successful run of the first biome meaning that we're ready to take on the next one this is a neat little way to let players have some progress to make things permanent the game still doesn't pull its punches though it isn't letting us get away with everything it's challenging but once we've completed certain challenges it recognizes that the game knows when to reward players and when to keep things from them after defeating frike we also get a new item the unified pod data Cube these can be placed into a matching device to permanently unlock a new item for next run-throughs now of course that doesn't mean we'll start with that item every time it just adds that item into the rotation meaning that we are now able to pick it up in future runs we also gain access to the parasite extractor which is advice will randomly come across it allows us to remove one random parasite to give us obletes in return when we head through the portal we enter the next biome this takes us to the other side of the planet slightly closer to the white shadow broadcast signal this is the Crimson wastes a biome half set out in the dry arid desert climate dust spilling across deteriorating ruins and half set inside of a crumbling Mega structure gaining access to this biome on my first run was much further than I thought I would get that was quickly ended when I ran into a massive tentacle monster wandering the Wasteland Upon returning to the crashed ship we find a strange device that's already active this will allow us to deposit ether and we'll create more new items that will be added into the future pools of items that we come across ether is a currency we haven't talked about yet but it's a very important one we can find ether in many different spots throughout a run but ether has a special use we can use it to cleanse malignant chests the ones that give us malfunctions this is a Surefire way to get something good without having to take the penalties involved it can obviously also unlock new items and the most important part is that it persists even after death surely a very strange substance that it can survive through Cycles ether can also be used to power a reconstructor another pseudo extra life mechanic reconstructors are kind of like checkpoints we can pay six ether to activate them if we die after this point we will be transported back here with the loadout that we had at the time of activation we can't use the reconstructor again in that run so if we die after that point it's over they are incredibly useful and this effectively means if we have an astronaut figurine and a reconstructor we can die twice before we're in serious trouble at this point on probably my third or fourth run I actually made it inside the structure in the Crimson wastes there we find a new type of enemy sentience up until this point we've really just been fighting alien fauna that seem to call this place its home floating tentacle beasts walking tentacle beasts and turrets but now the sentient is a bit of a step up first of all it seemed up to this point that all of the sentience on this planet were dead but now there's one right in front of us and he's angry these guys are incredibly fast and have the most most annoying attack in the game which is lunging directly at us and taking a big swipe with their sword this can deal huge damage and causes a lot of problems if you don't have quick enough reactions to dodge out of the way as we make our way up the structure we realize that the layout to this place is a lot different than the overgrown ruins where the first biome was a sprawling forest with minimal real structure mostly covered in Moss Vines and trees that have overtaken the once populated place the Crimson wastes houses a massive and Tall structure that juts up into the sky one that has many rooms with defenses hell-bent on taking valuable chunks of our life away but it also contains equal amounts of Challenge and reward as we Ascend the mountain we will surely be met with death and dismay on the way there we may even be forced to return to the crashed ship in the ruins one or many times but with some determination we will make it to the top and be met with our second boss of the game ixion ixion as a beast that seemingly been chained to some pillars but has led himself free he has a strange growth and wings that enable him to fly and zip around the battlefield he will move quite often reigning his projectiles of differing speeds down at us the most annoying thing that he does is leave slow-moving shots in his path after he dashes these are just slow enough that we forget about them as we move and turn to face his new position these can easily be run into if we aren't paying close enough attention his second phase sees him continuing the torrential downpour of projectiles but also adding in a few blue walls that skirt across the battlefield forcing us to jump out of their way during his third phase he combines all of this and of course amps it up a bit throwing more waves of red lasers but mostly staying on the ground once we defeat him we obtain the key for the next gate and a new artifact that increases our weapon damage based on the amount of obelis we hold we get a new suit augment as well another piece of alien technology that Celine has decided to use to augment her body this augment gives us the grapple ability which lets us cling on and shoot up to Ledges with glowing orange indicators on them we've seen these prompts many times throughout the first and second biomes as we stumble upon them we wonder what they could be for we know it must be a mechanic waiting for us later in the game but we're also not entirely sure if they're just decoration flavor design left by the developers to further flesh out the technology of the alien race once we get this upgrade though we realize how many more things we can now discover new chests we can get to rooms that we venture inside this permanent upgrade will assist us on further runs it will make our time just a bit easier as we will now have access to many more upgrades along the way this augment also changes the way that combat works we can now use it to Grapple and sling around the battlefield when fighting enemies this is incredibly useful for traversal we can be quicker than our enemies fire off a couple shots not scrapple to another area fire off a couple more while our enemies are getting their bearings Dash away from enemy attacks and then grapple again it gives us just one more option in battle to be able to dodge away from our foes and grant us a little more breathing room we can also use this upgrade to get to the next gate and head into the third biome for the game the derelict Citadel The Citadel makes Incredible use of the grappling device by having us launch ourselves towards open air hoping that there is a platform on the other side where the overgrown ruins were a dead alien structure and the Crimson wastes were a dying alien structure the derelict Citadel feels a lot more put together sure it's crumbling falling to pieces around us and well derelict but we can see remaining statues from the previous civilization we can see the grandiosity of the city that once was here it's also marked by wide open areas dense fog that obscures what lay beneath the place making us completely unaware of how high up we could even be pretty early on we find more sentients beings still alive from the aliens that once lived here being as annoying to fight as they are these guys just wrecked me immediately and I didn't see the Citadel for very long on my first visit it was around this time venturing back through the overgrown ruins that I also encountered the house once again but this time it was open things inside have changed a message from Celine is on the machine she says she won't be home celine's pills are on the table one she hasn't taken in quite some time the door to the basement is obscured by Shadow upstairs the door next to the telescope is unlocked celine's bedroom we find a book on the table a fictional tale about a woman named Tali she's an explorer that is being chased by something and plunging her hands into a disgusting icker she's eventually confronted by the astronaut but we don't see what happens next Celine can access her computer with strange messages like dead Kronos weights dreaming Astra the organization that Celine is a part of even confirms evacuation before the program ends downstairs someone is trying to open the door the astronaut as we open the door though he disappears upstairs Celine finds a child's octopus toy but it wraps its tendrils around her before she drops it she finds another Cube and it disappears in her hands again the last thing she finds is a letter of rejection from Astra she's then teleported outside once we make our way back to the Citadel and actually get to Journey inside we find different enemies wandering here machines guard this place automatons that walk on two legs broken ones crawling towards us and exploding on death and flying ones that rain fire from the sky if we manage to Brave all of the rooms we can get to the end of the buildings and manage to open the bridge this will lead us into another area of the facility that will house another archive and many many levels of enemies at the top though we can finally reach the third boss he's guarding the signal itself the white shadow is right in front of us we just have to defeat this final Guardian this is Nemesis and he gave me a ton of trouble he was actually really the only boss that I struggled with in the game but it leads me to probably the best and most important thing about returnal first of all like I said I struggled with this boss now some of this is just bad luck getting subpar builds leading up to multiple tries on the boss but it probably also has to do with the fact that I had breezed through the last two and hadn't yet been truly put into the fire with Nemesis I was given that trial of course some people will have different experiences and could just struggle with the first or hell even all five bosses it really depends on your play style and your course throughout the game will change based on how you play it and the things that you do along the way but the biggest Point here is that the struggle is the entire reason to play returnal I'm going to make a bold claim here and say that returnal has some of the most saddest trying to beat fights I've seen in a game like this of course we have games like Dark Souls where trial and error really put you through the paces to test your abilities until you're good enough to beat the foe that you've been stacked up against returnal isn't exactly like that it's about 50 percent of that but there's so much at stake during a boss we know that not only is our progress through this entire level on the line but every ability that we've gained throughout the course of this run every stat boost every item every synergizing piece of our build is at stake a loss here doesn't just mean that we start back at the beginning of the level it means we lose our entire build and we might not get it back again it feels terrible to lose to a boss especially because we are mere steps away from a checkpoint in that of a gate or a new biome but that just means that winning feels all the sweeter when our build finally clicks when we are prepared for a fight when everything just works and we're on our game beating the boss feels amazing that was the feeling I got when I finally defeated Nemesis I probably went up against him three or four times dying each time to the last phase of the fight but once I finally took him down it was a massive success a thrill that isn't matched in another part of the game it's so satisfying to finally get that checkpoint to know you made more progress moving forward that this wasn't all for nothing this is what Eternal does so well it makes you earn the achievement it makes you earn progress it makes you earn the story it makes you earn satisfaction it's an incredible feat that the developers have figured out how to distill this emotion this feeling into a playable experience and it just works so well but what about the Nemesis fight did I really struggle with well the first two phases actually aren't difficult at all we stand on a platform and Dodge attacks from either sides of a massive floating ethereal Beast of course it's standard fare tons and tons of projectiles waves of lasers but the boss also moves around switching the sides from which he attacks us the last phase is probably the most challenging one though we will still be assaulted by waves and clouds of spheres but the platform is now broken we have to use the grapple to make our way closer to the boss so that we can damage him the grapple is actually not a hindrance in this battle though it helps us it gives us the ability to dodge the attacks from all sides and make our way closer to damage at the same time as I said before though when I did finally beat Nemesis it was an amazing feeling I finally destroyed the enemy that was plaguing me Celine wakes up from this strange trance and finds that machine that holds the white shadow signal she looks inside and sees flashes of imagery a bridge herself waking up hands she then realizes that the white shadow was a distressed signal to Astra she's getting off this planet she sits down and resigns herself finally having completed the cycle no more retreading old ground no more dying and living the same thing over again she gets to go home we see her ship departing the planet she's back home running her fingers through wheat she's playing the piano visiting a bridge her entire life is lived and we see her fingers get older over time but eventually all good things have to end Celine lives a long life and finally passes away Laid to Rest by her family and then she wakes back up on a stereos it wasn't linked to the planet it was linked to her even if she dies outside she will still return she's stuck in a never-ending cycle truly hell in physical form this reveal is so incredibly distressing for Celine to think that she made it out to be confident that the whole thing was over that she would never see that planet again only to be brought back at the end of her life kills all motivation we as the player are left wondering if there even exists a way that she can escape this torture this madness that holds her to the planet she finds herself on now that we're back things have changed a little bit we start in entirely new biome because time has passed and the world has changed we don't start in the overgrown ruins anymore but the echoing ruins while it is very similar to the first biome we encounter in the game it has Stark differences in enemies and design we'll encounter aggressive flying beasts that will blast us with all new attacks huge octopus-like creatures with shields and all new defenses it should also be noted that our new Journeys will start here from this biome our crashed ship has also been overgrown but it's still here and every time we perish we'll come back to the echoing ruins we will have an opportunity later to revisit old biomes but not quite yet with this new set of biomes we also start out at level 15 weapon proficiency changing our Max to 30 giving us more room to get stronger weapons this is all effectively another checkpoint for us to start our Journeys off at early on in this biome we will encounter the house once again as we walk in though we're suddenly seeing from the perspective of a child playing a PlayStation 5 trademark as the child we can interact with a walkie draw a picture of an octopus on the chalkboard and play with an astronaut doll downstairs we hear the same message from Celine on the answering machine we can sit down at the table to talk to the astronaut and the child asks them to hear a story that we choose from a list of options but as the child looks up the astronaut is gone and the child weeps sick of being alone the end what do you think it's so cool right it is cool centuries ago Majesty Coral Queen stole sunken riches as the child heads upstairs they try to show octo to the astronaut and Embraces the child only to reveal its tentacles Celine then wakes up outside once again here we get a new artifact the two-way radio which when held gives us increased protection based on how much ether we hold we will head through the ruins to find that celine's sanity has been falling apart on The Voice Memos and that the astronaut figure has had an impact on the world once we manage to reach the end of this level we're met with a large Tower at the top of this Tower is our next boss battle and the other two Pathways lead to the gates of the final two biomes Hyperion is at the top a massive being that's playing a huge organ a sound that Celine just wants to stop Hyperion specializes in bullet hell a rainbow of colors will emanate from this Beast casting every attack that we've seen thus far the projectiles take different shapes and move at different speeds making it differ difficult to dodge if we aren't paying attention as the phases move on the intensity is ramped up but once we defeat him the Music Stops and we gain a key to the next biome as we enter the next place we realize that it's the Crimson wastes but it's covered in snow it's the same Mountaintop but it's now called the fractured wastes now you may be thinking to yourself that reusing two biomes for the end of the game really would feel like recycled content but it doesn't the biomes are transformed enough in design and layout that it doesn't even feel like the same place also considering the fact that the room placements are always randomized we're left with completely different and new places to explore the fractured wastes actually begins with a pretty useful room it will always start out with an item shop a reconstructor in case we die and don't want to end our run yet and five rooms off to the sides one of these rooms is an optional side room it's locked and opening it allows us to access a new augment at this point Celine is just covered in Alien attack completely transformed by the upgrades that she's attached to her body but this one allows us to Traverse on the red surfaces in the game a previously deadly substance that we couldn't even touch this will allow us access to many more optional points that hold rewards making us even stronger in the coming runs the other three rooms in the fractured waists will lead us down long paths that will eventually see us fighting a mini boss and grabbing a key at the end once we have all three keys we can head into the main door once past the main door we get another upgrade which allows us to delve into the water this is another thing that we've seen throughout the course of the game caches of rewards stuck underneath the surface of water that would kill us if we touched it now we can delve inside and take the treasure for ourselves but it also lets us access the final biome the Abyssal scar this entire biome is underwater we can of course still fall too far into the depths and take damage from this but our weight is now less so we can jump much higher higher this again changes combat giving us more mobility and making the game more Fresh near the end of its run time down here we will of course encounter even more tentacle creatures the most annoying of which are the octopus-like beings that will dash at us if we don't kill them before they charge they have a very small amount of Health but there's just an absolute flood of them so it can be quite difficult to battle the torrent through this scar we'll get our final augment of the game this lets us see strange and previously hidden balls of light we can shoot these and reveal platforms to areas that were unaccessible to us until now with that unlocked we can reach the final boss of Eternal ophion ofion is a huge skeletal-like Beast laying at the bottom of this vast ocean he's actually pretty easy because most of the projectiles he fires are pretty slow we really just have to avoid the massive walls that Rush towards us and use a basic strategy to defeat him the only thing that's tricky is we have to shoot the balls of light around him to reveal as weak spots the eyes on his body once we kill him we jump down a final pit we find another voice log from Celine who says she remembers everything now she knows why she's supposed to be here before we talk about that we should talk about the final house sequence of the game we play Celine once again who is confident that someone else is in the house with her we find another book that Rambles on and on repeating the same sentences about old gods and goddesses Celine turns on a record player that plays the reaper by Blue Oyster Cult a song that will become all too poignant as we get further into this tale she sees the astronaut who she tells she won't let leave again we're once again playing the child whose octo has gone missing they play with some blocks still terrified that their friend is gone the child plays with a latch sees drag marks on the floor and finally finds octo in the dining room the child says the monster is waking up and heads to the TV to hide from it the TV sucks the child in and it's sees the astronaut approach from the outside the child then looks at the telescope and we wake up as Celine once again seeing the ship fall from the sky she says that she destroyed Helios she started everything this is one massive Loop once we defeat opheon we find a car sitting at the bottom of the scar with its headlights on Celine finds a massive sphere with a strange being inside it shows her something we see the familiar trees that we've seen all too many times before when waking up from death and when laying in bed this time though we see a road just past it Celine is driving down the street and her daughter is in the back seat she asks Celine if she sees the white shadow but Celine only readjusts her mirror as she tries to change the station from Blue Oyster Cult she sees an astronaut in the road and swerves crashing into the water below the bridge Celine gets out of the car and tries to get back to her daughter but is pulled away by the tentacles we see one last shot of the astronaut and lean wakes back up on Helios Celine realizes that she is destruction the game makes sure at this point to tell us that the story is not yet over that's because it isn't there's still a little left to be found in returnal's depth you remember the car that we saw at the end of the game well we need to get the keys for that thing this will leave us with the final piece of the tail and the secret ending for Eternal once we beat the game and have seen all of the house sequences we're told that we need to light the way forward this tells us that we need to collect six sun-faced fragments that have been hidden throughout the six biomes that are present in the game these are placed in many different spots and to find them all we will need to use every augment and skill that we've gained thus far eventually when we find all of them Celine enters the house and this time she says mother I'm home Celine finds the latch the Buckle that the child was playing with before but she unlatched it she finds another Cube that is destroyed she walks down the stairs to the basement and finds a wheelchair chair she sits inside wheelchair and wonders why her mother seemed so frightening before the two of them were broken she then sits on a throne in the ruins overlooking the dilapidated house and she now has the car keys we then have to defeat opheon once more to get the car this time Celine opens the door to the vehicle and she's transported to a strange space she sees a skeletal woman in a wheelchair who immediately attacks her the woman falls down and Celine sees the sky looking down at her hands she's in a suit an astronaut suit the car on the bridge sees her and swerves creating a full loop that caused the events in the first place we then see Celine swimming out of the water barely making it out alive as she breathes the word Helios now before we dissect all of this and analyze it to find out the true meaning of the story I just want to quickly talk about returnal as a game and as a story first and foremost the story of the game is very vague and I say that in the nicest way possible the game presents us with just enough details to keep us interested we don't exactly need to know what's going on 100 of the time for the narrative to still hit we get the emotion we get the feeling and that's the important part we see the themes and we understand them at a glance it's clear without even diving deep into it that this is a story about loss trauma grief and Punishment it reminds me in a lot of ways of Silent Hill too this place almost feels like a hell of our own making a personal punishment designed for oneself now obviously there are definitive deeper meanings here hidden underneath but we can beat the entirety of the game without knowing for sure what has happened without answering our own questions this of course leaves the game up for quite a lot of interpretation there are many ways to interpret the game and its story and what it might mean but for now let's at least talk about what I took from it so what really happened in returnal again I just want to start this off by saying that this game's story is highly interpretive you can read it in many different ways and the story was made vague enough to invite that kind of thing it wants you to read into it it wants you to dissect its narrative and take what you want from it what you find in the story and identify with or like the most is what you get out of it you get what resonates with you to that end this is just my reading of the narrative and that does not make it the definitive one what I took from the game is that Celine had a daughter named Helios this is something that we could have spied earlier in one of the house sequences if we paid close enough attention during one late night while driving home Celine was distracted possibly from being rejected from a space program led by Astra she felt a loss in the longing for this career and she didn't get it because of this she wasn't fully there when trying to adjust the radio she ran off the road and the two plunged into the water Celine was able to save herself but was not able to save her daughter because of the death of Helios Celine felt immense guilt and hatred for herself this leads us to the events that actually happen in return the game is all a reflection of the punishment that Celine is putting herself through this is a simulation of grief of trauma of dealing with issues Celine tortures herself with beasts that try to attack her she punishes herself with the torment of reliving this hell over and over again but it's not only that this is a manifestation of her grief it's no coincidence that Celine crash lands on the planet aboard a ship named Helios the same name as her daughter this crash is an exact representation of the car crash that night that changed her life forever also whenever we leave the crash site we see a big piece of text that says Helios abandoned signifying the hatred and loaded language that Celine uses to punish herself she feels like she crashed and then abandoned her daughter in the water that so if this whole thing is a torment machine then what does the rest of it mean well eventually Celine gets off atropos she goes and lives her entire life and is buried by her family only to end up back on the planet once again this is a symbol meant to stand for the fact that Celine can always run away from her grief in this first ending she doesn't face her grief head on she leaves she gets a way out and runs this helps for a time and she's seemingly allowed to dump it in the past but until she faces her troubles and deals with them she'll never be able to fully get away from it when she comes back to the planet she is forced to face the grief that she endured she is forced to remember and forced to destroy those memories to leave them in the past the astronauts standing on the bridge signifies that Celine herself was the one that caused that crash this is at least how she feels about it but in the end Celine gets out of the water she's no longer pulled down by the tendrils she allows herself to be free now there are other things in here too and returnal is a very thematic game celine's relationship with her mother is very troubled from audio logs and memos it seems like they didn't have the greatest time together this is especially signified during the ending scene when she talks about her mother being this terrifying monster that she could never get past it's possible that Celine feels like she became her mother she became the terrifying monster that ruined or ended her own child's life it's also worth noting that the game's Health meter is actually called Integrity I believe this was a conscious Choice relating to the fact that having Integrity with oneself will make it easier to face their own fears and grief in the end but returnal also has a lot of Greek symbolism this is pretty clear to anyone that knows really anything about the mythology names like Helios Thea Hyperion are all pretty familiar each of the bosses themselves are named after Greek figures frike the first boss that we face is the spirit of horror her name means Tremor or shivering the being was listed as the personification of horror in seneca's play Oedipus though this was a Roman tragedy and not a Greek piece of fiction the term itself was used commonly throughout many different tragedies this could just be the blanket reference to the very first feeling that Celine had towards the incident she felt great horror shock and fear after what happened ixion in Greek mythology was the king of the lapiths he went on to marry Daya and did not pay the bride price which was customary for this his father-in-law stole some of ixion's horses ixion then went on to kill his father-in-law kinslang was a great crime and he was banished and shunned he eventually went on to cross even Zeus and was bound to a winged spinning fiery wheel this could be a representation of the punishment that Celine felt that she faced for the death of her child or even the punishment she racked upon herself it's also worth noting that ixion was a kin Slayer air not unlike Celine herself Nemesis the third boss that we face in the game is named after the Greek goddess of the same name she is a winged woman holding either a whip or a dagger Nemesis is another representation of punishment she personifies retribution for specifically hubris the name while originally meaning something different was eventually connected with Feeling Just resentment Celine resents herself she feels that she is deserving of Retribution she wants Justice to be enacted upon her and this boss does that Hyperion is the fifth boss that we fight in the game Hyperion was one of the Titans specifically fathered by Gaia and Uranus Titan happened to be the father of Helios and Celine the woman that he had these children with was Thea now it's no coincidence that Thea is the name of celine's mother in the game clearly Hyperion is meant to represent celine's father she has quite a lot of resentment for her father as well in the games suggests that they stopped speaking it's also worth noting that the song that Hyperion plays on the organ during the battle is the reaper by Blue Oyster Cult the same song that was playing during the crash this makes a lot more sense in context and why Celine wanted the song to stop playing opion the final boss that we fight in returnal is based on a Titan god of the same name or at least I think there's not a lot to connect this one in the game otheon was originally an elder god who ruled Earth he was eventually overthrown by Cronus and cast down to Tartarus now the only thing that I could really pull from this is that ofion is here because he is sometimes represented as a serpent in mythology the boss has some serpent-like qualities and it's no coincidence that a lot of the enemies in the game bear Tentacles when the crash happened Helios was carrying octo in her lap this could be a representation of just memory and the fact that the last thing that Celine has to overcome before she moves past this is the memory of that night it's worth noting that this battle happens underwater as well the place where her daughter died there are a ton of other Greek references in the game like atropos the name of the planet that the game takes place on being the one who cuts the threads of life this means that this planet is not only a representation of life or death but of Fate itself now there's also a lot of discussion that directly contradicts the statements that I just made and the theories that I just presented but I would love to hear everyone's view on this story because all of the interpretations are great I'm definitely not here to say that anyone is wrong and that I'm right I think that all theories out there are valid another large theory is that the car crash on the bridge was actually Thea and Celine that the car crash happened when Celine was a child Dale was paralyzed from the car crash and Celine survived Thea then had a turbulent relationship with Celine because she felt that Celine got to have a life and that she didn't this was also worsened by the fact that Celine went on to pursue a career in being a astronaut which was Thea's dream in the first place there are also theories out there that Celine is a murderer this all furthers my point that this game is very interpretive the developers meant for it to be that way there's a reason they haven't come out and said specifically what it means this is because they want you to decide for yourself and that's what's so beautiful about the whole thing I'm calling this section DLC but there technically wasn't ever a paid DLC released for returnal most of the new releases and expansions for the game came from free updates I'll only talk about this part briefly because there really isn't a ton to cover here though there is some new information to talk about the ascension update adds both the Tower of Sisyphus and Co-op to the game the developers had originally intended for the game to be a solo experience but after release fans really wanted a way to be able to play with other people because of the demand housemark added in a co-op mode here we can join together with another player another version of Celine and have some assistance in the battles to come the larger point of this update though is the Tower of Sisyphus this is a massive Tower accessed by entering a door off to the side of the crash site here we can begin making our way up this massive Tower entering new rooms and defeating the enemies inside we are given a score and a multiplier as a way to track our best runs there is one new boss that's faced at the end of each phase of the tower this boss is called Algos the first time we face him he will only have one phase then two phases the second time and finally three phases the final time Algos can be pretty challenging as he sends waves of fast projectiles out at us that can be really hard to dodge we can damage him by attacking his eye though the biggest difference with the tower from the rest of the game is that we get a lot of items if we clear rooms faster we'll get extra obelets we can obviously then use these to buy a ton of upgrades this means that we do a lot more damage and have a lot more Health but we also take a lot more damage because of this we have to be able to survive through the onslaught and make it all the way the interesting part about the tower though is that we gain access to a hospital bed pretty early on here we can explore the hallway and find a book with a poem about Sisyphus that eventually changes into being about Celine the book also contains a prayer about someone cutting a thread we can unlock more of these Hospital sequences by finding poppies throughout the tower once we find all of them we can return to the hospital bed to find more information about Thea now some of the information in the hospital contradicts each other some of it says that Thea was the one driving the car that night and she made it out only to suffer terrible injuries that ended her career other information says that they had died that night in the car wreck there is a ton that we could do with this information of course we could be led to believe that Celine never wrecked her car that Celine was the child in the accident that night possibly Cillian was in another wreck with Helios later in her life it's possible that Thea somehow managed maybe through the real power of atropos to trade her own life for her child's changing history in the process it should also be noted though incredibly obvious that the tower named after Sisyphus is a huge theme for the entire game if you're not already aware Sisyphus is a character in Greek myth he was the king of ephera and happened to cheat death twice during his life because of this he was sentenced to Eternal punishment Sisyphus was a character of hubris thinking himself above the gods having gotten away from their fate for him because of this he was forced to roll a massive boulder up a steep hill only for it to fall back down again restarting the activity clearly this is a very cruel punishment the effort itself is futile and degrading no one wants to do work just to have to do it again and this is effectively work without any sort of meaning or purpose Sisyphus has a massive presence throughout literature and art most interpret the myth as a reflection of Life some taking a more nihilistic point of view that our presence is futile just the same pointless routine over and over others take this with a more positive theme showing that the meaning of the work isn't the point but the action of itself regardless this reflects celine's character she was doomed to repeat the same cycle over and over again with no way out the tower is much the same she only learns more as she goes on but cannot seem to leave the hill that she climbs again and again it's also worth noting that Algos the boss that we fight in the tower was a lesser demon in the history he was meant to be the personification of pain physical and mental there was not just one but many representing different parts of this vast emotion Wars lies Anarchy ruin and many more the DLC itself is very good it adds a substantial amount of content to the game it's a fantastic addition to the story introducing both new thematic discussion but also new lore information it also extends the combat and keeps the systems rolling giving us more to earn from the experience returnal is something really great it combines so many elements to create the piece that we get in the end the combat is fast paced action focused and Incredibly satisfying the controls are very responsive they feel great in your hands you feel not only the weight of your shots but the weight of the enemies attacks you feel light When jumping through the air but the intensity of the combat is the true art of returnal for a while it can feel like you're fumbling around like you aren't good enough to reach an end here but after that stage you enter into the zone you just feel all the systems click you know why you're doing what you're doing your build is working everything synergizing is great when you finally overcome that mountain that plagued you for so long it feels amazing you got past it you made your way through you got good enough and made the right choices and here you are with something to show for it pushing the boulder up the hill finally paid off the work had meaning it had permanence the design of returnal is also fantastic each Zone in biome feel distinct they are wholly their own they feel unique and set apart from the rest the foreign worlds feel like something we've seen before but just different enough that we don't know where we are we almost feel lost and part of getting better at the game means feeling like we have our bearings in the strange place the colors used are magnetic beautiful pieces that can make a place feel Grand open and desolate While others make a place feel small closed off and surrounded all of these elements work together to form something great but that's only helped by the sound design and the music the sounds of Eternal always feel alien to some extent but they're done so well that it adds to the impact of combat and the weight of moving around the music adds an intensity to the combat encounters but adds a lightness and wonder to the moments that don't see us mowing down alien hordes the story of course is probably my favorite part though its vagueness and ambiguity make it something worth pouring over you want to learn details you want to learn the exact points of its history you want to answer your own questions why and how but you can't always be sure or get those answers for certain but that's what makes it so good it requires delving but it also demands that you take a look at it on a surface level that you see how it makes you feel because of the initial lack of details you're left to feel the story rather than think about it this leaves an emotional impact one that can be wildly different based on the person that experiences it the game overall is just great it's honestly a shame that the game was a PS5 exclusive during the time when getting one of the consoles was damn near impossible despite that the game was successful though it received great reviews from critics holding an 86 on Metacritic for the PS5 version as of July 18 2021 the game sold over 5 hundred and sixty thousand copies returnal was nominated for and won many awards at dice the British Academy games Awards and the game awards because of the success of the game it was eventually ported to PC it seems like housemark has moved on though to a new IP for their next game but whatever the team decides to make for their next go around I'll be there bye dad

Channel: YourFavoriteSon

Views: 62,822

Keywords: Returnal, Returnal gameplay, Returnal Retrospective, Returnal explained, Returnal story, Returnal timeline, Returnal movie, returnal cutscenes, returnal real story, returnal review, returnal review 2023, returnal video essay, returnal gameplay 2023, returnal ascension story, returnal ascension

Id: 6jRvvBrl1qs

Length: 67min 21sec (4041 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 17 2023