A Cycle of Death and Fun: “Returnal” Review

In a day and age where many games are 20-50 hours sprawling story-intense adventures, it’s nice to have a game that you can just sit down and jump into when you have maybe 20 minutes a free time and jump right back out of when you need to. Last year’s popular game Hades is a great example of the quick in-quick out gameplay. This year, we have Returnal, a fun rogue-like for the PS5 with a horror twist. Rogue-likes has been more of a niche game but has been gaining more popularity in the recent years, so how does Returnal stack up? With its fast paced and tight bullet-hell action, great graphics, and intriguing story, this PS5 exclusive fits right in with some of the best.

Returnal, at its core, is a bullet-hell third-person shooter that takes place on a mysterious planet. Our protagonist, Selene Vassos, picked up a mysterious signal from White Shadow and crashed on the planet Antropos. From there, it’s a mystery to figure out what happened to the planet and what is causing her to resurrect on the planet death after death. The action is frantic, tight, and challenging, but it never feels overly difficult or cheap. It eases you until the world before throwing you into the deep end but once you’re in the deep end, expect to die again, and again, and again. It’s not up there with the most difficult of rogue-likes, but it has a nice balance between challenging and fun that most people can enjoy. Exploration is also a big part of the experience. As a rogue-like, after each death, t…