Returnal - Return All

I have to admit that, entertaining though the Returnal stories are, I can't help but notice that they're all sounding like the stories you hear from gambling addicts: "I was on an incredible roll, things were going great and I was flush with chips, then I got one bad hand/roll of the dice/spin of the wheel and it all went to hell."

Stele wrote:

Hah I did finally have a smooth biome 4 run where I got up to 170% integrity. The difference: hollowseeker. That gun just really gels for me. And when it has serrated DoT it just murders everything.\

Indeed it does! Serrated plus phasing murders through walls and doors! I especially like this combo on levels 3 and 5 where those damn drones live. Damn those drones.

I took the jump straight to biome 6. There was a chest in the starting room off to the side. Level 24 dread, so I tried it over my level 19 hollow... big mistake. Nearly died in the first room and ran back to switch guns then finished enemies still way easier with a -5 gun.

Yeah, the dreadbound can be awesome but not on levels with no walls. You suddenly have no ammo. Though the trait that makes it do more damage the further it travels can be a pretty effective snipe.

Stele wrote:

Seriously, f*ck biome 4. Twice today I died IN THE FIRST ROOM.

Now, aside from that, I decided I was going to get the hell out of there and go to biome 5 ASAP. Stop grinding for obolites or integrity and just go go go as soon as I hit the main fabricator/boss room.

So like 3 other times I failed to even get to that point. f*ck biome 4.

This is fascinating to me, because I find Biome 5 to be WAY worse than 4. I'm super comfortable in 4, but I've run it so many times, I know most of the rooms and what will happen. I know the same about 5, but FRAK, I hate all the enemies in that area.

Stele wrote:

Biome 6: Holy crap that's a lot of enemies. Really disorienting too... some rooms like the desert where there's not really a "door" between them even though there's a door on the map. So it gets weird backing up and shooting things, or them chasing you from room to room. Anyway, I found a revive chamber right at the start, and tried it, since I was still pretty low on health. I died immediately after that, haha. That actually helped because I picked up some resin and stayed full health for a while. Finally got the 200% integrity achievement!

Not sure how close I got to the end of biome 6. I switched weapons a couple times, and had a level 26 lobber. I got in a weird spot where there was one of the huge squid enemies that I was fighting, but then one of those spheres in the room too, but I couldn't see it. It just kept hitting me with those expanding rings, and right after I killed the squid, and then finally saw the sphere, it hit me again, in mid-air. I landed, and tried to pop a health item I had... but got hit again! Run over.

So, dreading biome 4 again... but at least I can finally go in the water areas. And can jump straight to biome 6 now. Feels like I'm getting close.

I usually go to 5 first so I can buy the integrity upgrade and anything else useful. The "boss" room can be a random boon as well, so I'll usually pop my head in there. Sometimes I'll scavenge the level, sometimes not. I've gotten all the glyphs and logs on that biome, so there's nothing else I need to pick up in there as far as I know.

I've also competed Biome 3 for the collectables it cares about. I may be missing a datacube there. Still need to complete a daily challenge.

Definitely getting to the home stretch, which is good. Ratchet and Clank arrives next Friday, and I will drop this game like a bad habit when it shows up!

Finally got another great run through Biome 6 yesterday. Hollowseeker after hollowseeker and I just stuck with it. Had a level 27 one at the end and passed some other level 29 guns.

Finally got the last? suit power, the visor. Made the boss room. Died in phase 2. Had a revive machine, and worked my way back... and died in phase 1.

I think I screwed myself out of a win chasing more health. I picked up some malignant resin and took critical malfunctions... one of them destroyed my astronaut! Never seen that happen before, but maybe I just wasn't paying attention. Seemed like it usually destroyed resin or an item. Losing that key artifact pretty much made sure I wasn't going to win. Also I really flubbed up right before the boss. I was sitting on 200 obolites at the final fabricator, and there was a large health vial and a regular one. In my tired state I thought, "hey I can buy 2 regular ones instead of one big one". But duh, the fabricator is empty after you buy one thing. So stupid. So yeah, another bar of health healing plus the astronaut with a couple more bars... I might have beat the darn thing. Then again phase 3 might be insane. Oh well.

So I found some extra stuff on biome 4 this morning with the visor, and am going through some of biome 5 to look for similar. I remember on my completion run a room with some items way up high that I didn't see any way to climb, but I bet there is... hehe. Get back to it after the kids are asleep. Maybe tonight will be the night.

I've only tried a handful of runs on biome 3 but I'm struggling to get to the boss with any reasonable amount of health remaining. I've gotten about halfway through his second stage a couple of times but no further. Running through the tower part and ignoring the enemies seems key, I'm not yet sure where the balance is on doing extra rooms versus and when to start skipping enemies in the main rooms. Getting back to the bosses in the first two biomes felt much easier.

There's also a couple of the laser setups I'm horrible at, especially the one you have to grapple through.

Gonna keep trying but it's taking longer than I expected

If you have made the boss in 3, I believe there's a shortcut that lets you skip a chunk of the level. I don't know because I got lucky and beat him the first time. That was my shortest biome by far, only 2 attempts. Would like to go back someday...

Had a great run made it to Biome 6 boss the first time passing BIome 5. The key weapon I used to get through most of Biome 5 was a rocket launcher with like 6 pips of bonus damage and full auto, had the integrity leaching artifact, the extra hit before losing adrenaline, and the one that gives you bonus damage when max/low health, and a few +repair artifacts/parasite. Really great synergies between my items. I made short work of the "last" room on Biome 5, and that was the room that stopped me multiple times before hand.

I got to the Biome 6 boss with an awesome level 29 hallowseeker, serrated 2, the laser beam thing, and 2 more traits that really don't think mattered. I think I would have done a lot better had this been the 2nd time I faced that boss, but having never seen it I was just winging it. Got off "rhythm" on a few of his purple ring attacks and just kept running into them over and over again.

Then tried again and died 3 times in Biome 4, once a first room death, another when the first "drop room" landed me with a mini-boss and still the starting pistol, and I said enough.

I got a new weapon, I think its some sort of grenade launcher and I have no clue what to do with it. I was lobbing it into an enemy and it was doing literally no damage.

Gazebo, I had a tough time with BIome 3 as well. I think for me when I beat it, I got lucky and didn't run into a room with a ton of those stupid drones and I had my fav artifact, where you can leech health with adrenaline levels. That boss actually isn't too bad, getting to him is a bit of a pain though. I don't recall if there's a teleport, I'm sure there is since most biomes have one, but I never used it.

Stele wrote:

If you have made the boss in 3, I believe there's a shortcut that lets you skip a chunk of the level. I don't know because I got lucky and beat him the first time. That was my shortest biome by far, only 2 attempts. Would like to go back someday...

I'm definitely interested in hearing about this shortcut. I'm at 40+ attempts LOL.

Oddly, I got in the top ten on the daily challenges recently. So the repetition has definitely made me a first biome expert lol.

TheHarpoMarxist wrote:
Stele wrote:

If you have made the boss in 3, I believe there's a shortcut that lets you skip a chunk of the level. I don't know because I got lucky and beat him the first time. That was my shortest biome by far, only 2 attempts. Would like to go back someday...

I'm definitely interested in hearing about this shortcut. I'm at 40+ attempts LOL.

I think this might just be a reference to the

Spoiler:

bridge you activate that leads to the central tower. Once activated, you don't need to repeat that section of the level.

TheHarpoMarxist wrote:

Oddly, I got in the top ten on the daily challenges recently. So the repetition has definitely made me a first biome expert lol.

Wow! Much applause on that one. I was in the top 50 the other day for the only one I've managed to complete, and I thought that was pretty good!

Yeah looking at Reddit the biome 3 "shortcut" is just the bridge. Not as nice as that teleport on biome 2 to skip the tower climb.

Depends on what time I do the challenge what rank I get. Did one the other night when only 20 others had tried and I was number 3 or something. I think 20-something is the best I've done after more than a few hundred have participated.

Aaaannnnd Roll Credits!

Whew! I have no clue how I beat the last boss... I just kept firing. I managed to snag another full auto high damage rocket launcher and used that for the boss... of course that thing is a lot less useful when you don't have adrenaline level 1 because of the slowness of the overcharge bar, but I managed to do it. I had a ton of +repair and 3 small and one large integrity vial. I also had the 30% to not expend a consumable, but I think it only fired once so managed 4 small and the large during the fight, and used the astonaut. Ended with barely any integrity left.

And if anyone is interested... 103 deaths so don't worry if you're having a tough time.. probably still won't be as bad as me.

Dammit, Carl you beat me by 30 minutes!

Credits! I, too, won with a rocket launcher.

Stele wrote:

So I found some extra stuff on biome 4 this morning with the visor, and am going through some of biome 5 to look for similar. I remember on my completion run a room with some items way up high that I didn't see any way to climb, but I bet there is... hehe. Get back to it after the kids are asleep. Maybe tonight will be the night.

And it was a continuation of this run from yesterday. I did a full run of biome 5, mostly with a nice serrated hollowseeker. But somewhere in there, maybe the start of biome 6, I decided to grab a level 26 rocket launcher, and I stuck with it until the end. It had doombringer as the alt-fire, which just annihilates all of those big enemies in biome 6, and their little minions. I was already at 225% health early in biome 6, so I refused to pick up anything that would cause a malfunction. I didn't want to jinx myself like last time. But then when I went to get the key right near the end, those 3 elites that spawn... that damn red stuff they shoot that causes malfunction, I got hit by a couple of them. Thankfully just 2, and I didn't lose any artifacts. But it did slow my alt-fire by 10s recharge, so that sucked for the final fight. I probably could have finished a little easier and with more health without that.

Luckily I had the revive parasite, plus astronaut, plus 2 large health vials. I accidentally popped the 1st health vial early, only around half health, because I had used another item to boost my adrenaline. Oops. In the end, I had the boss down to the last little red thing to shoot, and died to my last life... and lost about 50% health just getting that last little bit. Very annoying target, but success! Whew.

These credits are really long... finished typing while watching that. Going to see what else there is to do now. And try to figure out that story exactly... last cutscene was still not as clear as I'd like.

Oh yeah, final stats... 64 deaths, 2 days. But man like 20 on the stupid remote play.

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E3Vc2k4WQAI06Wy?format=jpg&name=4096x4096)

And final setup with guns and items, 245% health:

Spoiler:

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E3Vc3XbWYAEP522?format=jpg&name=4096x4096)
IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E3Vc32gXEAImafI?format=jpg&name=4096x4096)

Stele wrote:

These credits are really long... finished typing while watching that. Going to see what else there is to do now. And try to figure out that story exactly... last cutscene was still not as clear as I'd like.

So, now you can

Spoiler:

revisit all the old biomes with your new movement capabilities. There are additional scout logs, glyphs, weapons, and datacubes to collect, along with a new special item per biome. Collecting all of those special items will net you a new ending cutscene when you defeat Ophion again.

I am rolling towards 100%. Picked up the last datacube I was missing (stupid timed area in Biome3), as well as the last scout log I was missing. That popped the trophy for biome 4, leaving me with missing glyphs in Biomes 2 and 6 for the remaining trophies before platinum! Only a few days left before Ratchet and Clank!

Very interesting stats there Stele. Am I seeing that you have 5 parasites? Also, getting to +200% health means you must trigger/cleanse a lot of malfunctions as I don't see how you can possibly get there starting at Biome 4 without a lot of resin and/or a lot of money. I forgot to screenshot my final equip/stats, but I think I had one parasite (+repair) and maybe 150% Integrity? I did have so much +repair that the small vial basically healed nearly 75% of my HP every time I triggered it.

Oddly enough, my time played (suit time) isn't much more than you even though I have more than 50% more deaths than you. Kind of reinforced my own thought that I'm not sure why people are so concerned about play time and saves... My playstyle was basically just go casual guns a blazing and if I die I die. Not until I actually have some good gear/upgrades and start thinking "this could be it" do I really start to try to focus on not dying and being more cautious. I can probably count the number of times a run was 1+ hours on 2 hands despite my 100+ deaths.

Yeah I wish I could remember exactly what they were. I guess you can figure out my artifacts but the parasites all look the same in menu. Done a couple more biome 1 runs since then and forgot.

I did do a complete biome 4 and 5 run, except for boss fight, and challenge rooms, so that's how I got such high health. And that was the first time I maxed proficiency at 30, and it was maxed maybe halfway into biome 6.

Stele wrote:

Yeah I wish I could remember exactly what they were. I guess you can figure out my artifacts but the parasites all look the same in menu. Done a couple more biome 1 runs since then and forgot.

I did do a complete biome 4 and 5 run, except for boss fight, and challenge rooms, so that's how I got such high health. And that was the first time I maxed proficiency at 30, and it was maxed maybe halfway into biome 6.

If you haven't maxed proficiency by Biome 6 (I have never maxed before 6), there are usually a few opportunities to do so (with mindless grind). The enemies that produce more enemies will do so endlessly, so that can be a good opportunity to gain proficiency, get back to adrenaline 5, and level weapon traits / alt-fires you have access to.

At lunch I did biome 1 complete again because I had a cube. Suck it Phrike, you're easy now.

Tonight did biome 2 complete. Hadn't fought that boss in a while. First time ever with a shotgun, but I got level 2 auto-fire or whatever it's called... bam bam bam bam bam shotgun overload, and do it again. Wow that was fun. Also didn't hurt that I'm up to 250% health already, and got full artifacts slots... had to delete 2 things already. This is nuts. I want to finish biome 3 tomorrow if I can...

Of course today there is a PS5 update... so twice I've went into rest and had to postpone the update so I can go into rest and not lose this great run I'm on. Really really wish there was some kind of suspend-save, like so many GBA, DS, and 3DS games have had. Let you save exact progress, and then when you load the save it is deleted. I know some people might try to save scum by turning off/on cloud saves, but whatever. Just let the rest of us have a fair shot to reboot our system or play a different game once in a while...

And yes, you can turn in cubes before Biome 2 boss if you have beaten it once and have the grapple. So there's another one. It really is just biome 1 where you have to turn in cubes post-boss. Every other one gives you a spot beforehand. And I'm just now realizing this was a tangent Spike and I were talking about not in this thread... but welcome to our talk everyone else, haha.

Anyway, 11/18 cubes. 2/6 sun fragments. Progress.

The long run continued today at lunch. Halfway through biome 3 and hit 300% integrity. Found the 3rd sun fragment and found a cube so hoping to at least get to the boss and turn that in tonight.

Also glanced at trophies and WTF is wrong with this game? I'm missing all 5 "defeat boss" trophies, and I'm missing the proficiency 30 trophy. At this point I've beat 3 of the 5 bosses multiple times. Also missing the finish act 1 and act 2 torrified trophies! Where are my trophies?!

Been playing online since the start and always see other player ghosts so what is the deal? Why are trophies broken?

They've been broken for a certain subset of players since launch. Not sure if there are any fixes, but have seen more than a handful of complaints about it.

I have one remaining glyph to find in Biome 6 and that'll be a wrap. I had a ridiculous weapon in biome 2, a Rotgland Lobber with Explosive AND Caustic Rot on it, along with several pips in bonus dmg. I was killing Severed enemies in 3 - 4 direct hits.

Hated to give it up, but I have nothing left to find in 1-3!

Aeazel wrote:

They've been broken for a certain subset of players since launch. Not sure if there are any fixes, but have seen more than a handful of complaints about it.

Yeah I checked reddit this afternoon and don't see any solutions. I'm really baffled because I picked up the game late after the 2nd patch. You'd think it would be fixed. Never seen anything like this in all my PS3 or PS4 games.

And my run was ended in biome 3 by game crash during a teleport. Maxed out integrity at 300%. Picked up 2 more resin with no benefit before I realized. Had the 3rd sun fragment, but I guess that's gone now because crashes don't save.

This game really does not respect me or my time. It's fun but damn

And loaded the game back up thinking I would do a daily challenge.

One of my missing trophies popped for Risk Assessment, so that seemed nice.

Then went to get water while sitting on the challenge screen and came back to a crashed game again...

Two crashes in less than 10 minutes with only a system update in between.

At least I didn't lose progress. But the challenge went from one with 8 hours left to a brand new one. That was odd.

Think I need a break

Alright so I didn't quit. I tried biome 1 again. Got a cube, so beat Phrike again. Got the trophy for him finally!

So I guess that other trophy popping might mean my trophies are fixed? Going to try and beat Ixion again I guess and see. Dammit.

Edit: sorry for quad post or whatever

And completed a full biome 1-2-3 run with that last one. Beat all 3 bosses, and got the trophies last night. But still no Act 1 trophy.

After a couple runs of Biome 4 today, beat the boss and got the sun fragment. But then after dying in biome 5, I hit the biome 4 wall again tonight... 3 runs cut short before the fabricator room. Just frustrating as heck.

Think I need to take a break until the next patch and hope they fix the trophy stuff.

Patch 1.4.0

It just downloaded for me while I was playing something else at lunch.

Platinum: Added support for replaying certain Act 1 & Act 2 Trophies

Platinum: Added support to retroactively award Trophies which cannot be replayed

....

Fixed a rare freezing issue when teleporting in Crimson Wastes

Hopefully that fixes all my trophies. There's a few more notes for scout logs and other trophy related stuff.

That's crash sounds like what happened to me ending my 300% health run in biome 3 that one night last week

No details on the balance changes. Hope they didn't nerf my hollowseeker with serrated.

Annnnnnd done! I finally found the missing glyph in Biome 6 which gave me that trophy and then the platinum one for getting them all. I went ahead and beat Ophion afterwards, since the Xenoglyph in the post-boss area had always shown an incomplete translation. Protip: the translation only changes very slightly after collecting all the glyphs, and the ending doesn't change at all.

Nice work

I played more since the patch and biome 1 seems a bit tougher. I have ran into multiple lockdown rooms with green healing towers. One time Wed I was having an ok run, backed up into the previous room and one of those elite crawlers plus teleporting tree guys came into the room and THAT room got locked down. But the healing tower was still working from the other room. It sucked and ended my run real quick.

I've seen more green towers in biome 1 post patch the last 3 days than in every other biome combined the last month.

Anyway I've made it into biome 3 a few times but can't even reach Nemesis. This is after making 2 boss 1-2-3 runs easy for this game just last week when my trophies seemed to work again. I have to beat nemesis again to get the missing act 1 trophy post patch though and can't seem to get there again.

I had a start of a good run yesterday finally, got 215% health in biome 1 still. No cube so skipping Phrike and moving on to biome 3 again next time I play. Maybe this will be the one.

Stele wrote:

Nice work

I played more since the patch and biome 1 seems a bit tougher. I have ran into multiple lockdown rooms with green healing towers. One time Wed I was having an ok run, backed up into the previous room and one of those elite crawlers plus teleporting tree guys came into the room and THAT room got locked down. But the healing tower was still working from the other room. It sucked and ended my run real quick.

I've seen more green towers in biome 1 post patch the last 3 days than in every other biome combined the last month.

Anyway I've made it into biome 3 a few times but can't even reach Nemesis. This is after making 2 boss 1-2-3 runs easy for this game just last week when my trophies seemed to work again. I have to beat nemesis again to get the missing act 1 trophy post patch though and can't seem to get there again.

I had a start of a good run yesterday finally, got 215% health in biome 1 still. No cube so skipping Phrike and moving on to biome 3 again next time I play. Maybe this will be the one.

I also felt like Biome 4 was tougher than I remembered, but it had been a week or so since I'd really played much. Perhaps the balancing stuff made changes that were less in my favor!

Note - you can carry a cube from 1 to 2 and turn it in there. Or 2 to 3 (though I don't know why you'd do that). The nice thing about 2 is that you can go back through the entire level if you want and get any cubes that are available. Can do this with 1 (after beating the boss) and 4 as well. Datacubes aren't required for any trophies, though. Only glyphs, scout logs, and defeating the containment rooms.