"RETURNAL" has recently been launched on the PC. Many players who are trying this game for the first time want to understand the setting and background of the game. Please take a look at the background story and gameplay analysis of "RETURNAL" brought by this site. I hope it can help everyone. .
The spaceship stranded and fell into endless reincarnation
But if you had to choose one among them that died the most miserably, it would probably be "Death Return". But this game still has enough charm to support me to continue playing, because it has a hard-core meat pigeon experience that combines the future and retro.
There was a loud noise in the sky, and Selene and her spaceship made their debut in Atropos - but the landing position and posture were not right, so the voyage was over, and Selene could only survive on this dangerous alien planet. Start your own journey of exploration, accompanied by deadly and dangerous enemies, mysterious and magnificent unknown alien ruins, an irreparable and inexplicably sad spaceship, and a signal from an "unknown white shadow".
The strange thing about this journey is: every time we die, we return to the starting point of the same spacecraft crash, the same reincarnation of the adventure. All we can recover is the memory that increases bit by bit, and the use of our bodies. Learned everything about the ecology, environment and biology of this planet. This kind of "reincarnation system" setting is often seen in film and television works, but it has to be said that it is very compatible with the gameplay of meat pigeon games, and "Death Return" is indeed ambitious at the narrative level and has tried Tell an unforgettable story through a fragmented narrative.
Futuristic story, visual effects and weapon design
Although in the past year, I have become accustomed to fighting various terrifying creatures in a strange alien environment, such as "Contempt", "Io 4", "The Signal", and "Dead Space Remake" ", but when it comes to "futuristic feeling", especially the weapon system, "Death Return" is probably second to none:
Although the traditional three-piece set of pistol carbine shotguns is not uncommon, starting from the acid gland injector, the ultra-high-speed seeker, the fuse launcher (RPG), and the electrophoretic driver that enhances melee combat are all products of appearance (the eyes are in the middle) , there are two small hands underneath) - the appearance is gradually abnormal, making people feel that it is a pity not to make a gram game, the ghost binding with super high rebound speed, and the hot bullet projector with laser.
The game not only has a variety of weapons that are quite fresh in design, but these weapons also have a very rich affix system. The combination of weapons and affix systems can produce very rich combination effects, and some can be called "heavenly". Hu" combinations, such as Spine Cutter × Annihilation Disc, Twin Disc.
In addition, weapons also have random skills: tracking, electric sparks, bullet flow, blasting, etc. Weapons × entries × skills give "Death Return" a very rich "random library" that can be used for repeated play. Come for more new experiences.
In addition to its futuristic weapons, as a "2A-level" meat pigeon, "Death Return" still shows a picture quality that is far superior to other similar games (generally such meat pigeons are small productions or independent games) Mostly). The game's random terrain is randomly spliced together from hand-crafted scenes. Judging from the individual terrain, the completion quality is very high, there are many small thoughts, and it also has a sense of design (hidden shooting, being dragged by plants and sprinting to areas that are originally inaccessible, etc.). However, after playing more, because the map is not really random, It still brings a certain sense of repetition.
The thrilling journey of Atropos’ survival
Although "Death Return" has quite a lot of content to unlock and experience, the difficulty of this journey may be beyond the imagination of many players. It is common for them to be stuck on the first level for several hours. In terms of the difficulty curve, It may be in a U shape - when you first start, you don't have a hook and you can't dive. You can only give up a lot of collectibles and treasure chests, and you can't pull it well when you encounter an ambush. But if it doesn't start well because of the initial setback, you can't It is impossible to unlock various powerful weapons and exploration skills in the future, so it falls into the dilemma of "you can only go to Karazhan after graduating from Karazhan".
The difficulties that "Death Return" sets for players are first of all that there is no pure "gain", and often "you have to give up to get something". This is most vividly reflected in the "fault" system: there are a lot of "resentments" in the game Items, including money, keys, treasure chests, etc., may have malice attached to them, and malice will have a chance to give the player a malfunction: for example, if dropped from a height, blood will be deducted, or overloaded (that is, manual QTE can perfectly reload, and can quickly resume reloading) ) will deduct blood, etc. Malicious items can be purified with ether, the only resource in the game that can be saved permanently, but ether is a relatively scarce resource that is also sought in large quantities - it can be exchanged for 3 ether for artifacts (passive skills) , there are also consumables such as little astronauts for resurrection), and you can also use 6 ether to manually "archive" (reconstruct the body) as insurance. Generally speaking, unless you want to save enough resources to go all in to pursue a level, it is usually It is not recommended to use ether to purify evil spirits.
However, the "management" fun of "Death Return" is generally reflected in this, that is, we don't have to be afraid of malfunctions, but boldly embrace the hazards, bear the negative effects, and learn to move forward with the "curse", because the more afraid we are, the worse it will be. You will lose the opportunity to strengthen yourself and eventually die slowly. Moreover, similar to "The Temple of Hell", there are also some ways in the game that can turn danger into a turning point. For example, there are artifacts that can increase the integrity of the space suit (that is, the upper limit of blood volume) when obtaining and removing faults. It is very profitable to touch the malicious items after this - the reason is that the conditions for removing most of the malfunctions are not difficult. You can open boxes and kill monsters to obtain parasites, etc. The only thing you need to pay attention to is that you still need to after you have two malfunctions. Convergence point, because there is a chance of getting a serious malfunction next, which may significantly reduce the upper limit of life or destroy items on the body, which is quite fatal.
In addition to malfunctions, another manifestation of "danger and opportunity coexist" is the parasite: its function is to provide a negative effect + a positive effect, such as greatly increasing the upper limit of blood volume but halving the damage of melee attacks. Generally speaking, the total damage of parasites The benefits are all negative, but the difficulty of obtaining various resources is different. For example, in the parasite example above, halving melee damage will greatly reduce the smoothness and flexibility of combat, but it will increase the upper limit of blood volume. It may be the key to whether you can pass the level, and it is more difficult to replace.
In addition to the acquisition of various negative effects, the difficulty of the "Death Return" level is also reflected in monster ambush, hazardous terrain and elite closing the door to fight dogs - basically if you reach a terrain that is difficult to retreat, you will be accompanied by a group of monsters. appear, and are often accompanied by contact with contaminated pools that will cause a large amount of blood loss, or terrain that falls through the air... Of course, these are not as disgusting as the randomly appearing locked-door elite rooms: due to the increase in the upper limit of blood volume in the game The most reliable way is to eat compass herbs with full health. In the long run, it is best not to eat any recovery on the road, and wait until the big compass herb before going to the next level is filled (always available in the store) before picking up the blood, but During this process, residual blood entered the double elite room and was about to cry without tears*.
*In the early days of the PS version, the ship could sleep to restore health, but now it has been modified to only sleep once, and the remaining health will not be fully restored.
Picking up money is not that easy, every coin has its own temper
The next step is basically time to complain. The first problem is that money disappears in "Death Return" very quickly... Since about 70% of the ways to enhance yourself in the game come from consumables and artifacts purchased with money, 30 % comes from the accumulated experience points (weapon proficiency) exchanged for high-level guns (the weapons outside the box, weapon room and BOSS door will not be lower than your weapon level).
If you don't have enough experience, you can also rely on artifacts to get better items to get advanced guns. There will also be a "calibrator" at the beginning of each level to supplement experience (so it is OK to skip dangerous areas and not fight), but there is no If you have enough money, you will basically become poorer and weaker, and you will become stronger and weaker, and eventually die slowly (yes, it is the same as not touching poisonous items).
Encourage close combat and encourage precision, but what if you can’t?
So how can you avoid losing as little money as possible? The closer you are to the enemy, the better, and use photon knives, shotguns or ghost bindings to solve the problem - although this brings many problems, such as it being difficult to dodge barrages and charge attacks after getting close to you, the overall logic of the game encourages knife edge licking High-risk, high-yield, and precise operation of blood. For example, similar to the benefits of picking up money, there is the adrenaline system - if you can kill enemies continuously without taking any damage, you can get layers of adrenaline and gain various bonuses such as vision (red circle perspective), speed, weapon proficiency, etc. For this kind of system, the stronger the better, as a rookie who has been exchanging blood with the enemy for a long time, I can only shed tears of sadness...
Highly tense nerves and a relatively long single reincarnation process
Overall, "Death Return" is a pretty old-school pigeon shooting game. It does not have the divine power mode of "Hades", the card drawing experience of "Warm Snow", or the initial conditions that are almost standard nowadays. Enhancement can only be achieved by improving the player's own skills and experience, learning how to avoid various attacks, avoiding various dangerous places and enemies, and balancing the choice of strengthening oneself and encountering risks.
But the biggest problem of the game may still be that the single reincarnation time is too long, and the game rhythm is too fast: the process design has a soul-like level of malice, and the combat barrage avoidance requires a high amount of concentration, but the game process is too long. . The superposition of these three makes the frustration of failing a single game too strong. Although the game provides some ways to skip levels and shortcuts, if you don't collect as much as possible in the early levels, it will be difficult to persist to the end. , thus forming a contradictory gaming experience.
A hard-core meat pigeon experience that combines the future and retro
Overall, "Death Return" is a game full of futuristic feeling, which is not only reflected in its weapon design and sci-fi atmosphere creation, but also reflected in the fact that this kind of high-standard production may be the direction that meat pigeon games may go in the future. . But on the other hand, this is also a game that favors retro and hard-core gameplay. Its U-shaped difficulty curve, relatively slow game flow, and frustration of handover may dissuade many players from playing in the game. Early stage. However, if you are confident enough in your own operations and also like shooting & pigeon-type games (you don’t have PS5 yet), then when this game is launched on PC, it is also worth trying this game from "Death Return" pleasure.
