Topic: Returnal

@Th3solution Everything saves as you collect them in the game. Not sure where you got that from that it only saves when you die.

Respawning in Biome 4 works almost the same as it did for Biomes 1 - 3, you just start with proficiency at level 15 instead of 0.

@JohnnyShoulder lol, I think my obsessive compulsive brain make me catastrophize; I’ve not heard that the game only saves upon death, it was just my own worries popping up out of nowhere after I closed the game last night and did a double-think on it.

It’s unusual that a game doesn’t have an “exit game” option in the menu or at least a spinning icon that denotes saving taking place so as to avoid someone shutting down a game mid-save process or before an autosave occurs. Probably the save happens instantly upon picking up a scout log, cipher, ether, getting weapon trait progress, etc. due to the SSD so an icon would be superfluous.

@Th3solution As far as I'm aware it is only Souls games that require you to exit out of the game to save the game properly when you have finished. Everything else you should be OK with and there is no need to exit the game when you have finished with it for the day.

@Th3solution Where would it exit to? There's no title screen etc (which is part of what makes it feel so different, I think).

@JohnnyShoulder @JigsawPieces
The “Exit to Main Menu” options are probably antiquated at this point and are propagated out of tradition, I suppose. But to me in my weird organizationally prescriptive brain it keeps the files and OS organized… er.. something. I don’t know. I guess I’ve always reckoned that they put the option in there for a reason, so I dunno, maybe I’m supposed to exit to main menu when I close out for the session. 😅
I think we were having a similar conversation about this a few weeks back and someone else obsessed over this. Who was it? @Jimmer-jammer … wasn’t that you? Help me out here. I’m not the only weirdo who has to exit his game before closing the app or shutting down the console, right? 😄

So I made it all the way through Biome 4 on the first attempt (not counting my throwaway run right after Nemesis where I just quit early) and beat Hyperion on the first try. Not to say he was easy. Literally beat him by the slimmest of margins with a speck of integrity left. Had only one large silphium and had to use it about at the halfway point. Used a launcher with rapid fire and that’s what saved my bacon, along with a few nice artifacts.

Surprisingly, I figured I’d die quick in Biome 5 seeing as I was barely alive to start it out, but I went a good long while, my build getting better and better, my suit integrity growing larger and larger. I was way into the deep bowels of it when my luck ran out and I had a lockdown room with 2 of those transporting severed dudes, about 15 drones, and 4 turrets. I was playing with house money at that point anyways since I’d never expected to make it that far on just one run. So I was a little foolish and too daring in my attacks and approach. I’m not exactly clear what I’m supposed to do here, is this the 3 keys I’m looking for or something? It looks to be a really large Biome.

I will say that after all the adrenaline pounding the game has been causing me, I might need a little break from it. Think I’ll finally peel away and play something else for a while and reload my sanity.

@Th3solution Nice one! For some inexplicable reason, I found biome 4 the hardest to get out of but going back to it I don’t know why..

Biome 5 is a toughy as you do have to get all three keys and all on one run. Plus, I seem to remember one being in the challenge room so no avoiding it on that level!

@Jimmer-jammer Act 3 is just about finding the sun fragments; one per biome (and which only appear after a house segment in biome 4) and then beating the biome 6 boss again. It’s another good challenge but not an overly necessary one and I’m not sure the ending cleared anything up for me!

@Th3solution Great effort. I took two goes at Hyperion but it was a great battle so I didn’t mind 😁. I just love the build up to that boss as the music gets louder, along with the slightly insane dialogue from Selene. B5 can be a tough one as every room is like a lockdown room, and the drones can still be a thorn in your side.

@Jimmer-jammer Well done on beating Act 2. Act 3 was good to get done but like @Thrillho said not sure it really explains much more than you already know. I’m playing Demon’s Souls now and intensity wise it’s definitely on a par with Returnal and probably a notch or two above bugsnax 😉

@Th3solution @Jimmer-jammer Well done guys! I felt similar to Sol after my first attempts at biome 5. I took a week or so off, but took me a age to find my rhythm again. Since then I made sure I only a a couple of days away from the game.

So basically you start in the fabricator room and there’s 3 doors leading out of it (not counting the vault and the locked door that has a optional permanent suit upgrade and a cipher behind it) - there’s a key at the end of each one of those paths and you need to get all 3 in one run.

@Thrillho @render @Voltan @JohnnyShoulder Thanks guys. I appreciate all help. For some reason Biome 4 wasn’t too bad for me. A lot of the rooms have no enemies and it’s not a terribly long route. And yes, the music aspect and Selene’s thoughts are so dramatic and brilliantly executed. The boss is really cool too.

I’m disappointed that I didn’t get a new tool or ability for the underwater parts. What heck is all those pools of water and am I ever going to learn to swim? 😅 Ah well, don’t tell me — I assume it’s some kind of key moment coming up if I can get through B5 maybe. 😁

Any general tips for B5? Other than it sounds like I need to go straight into the challenge room when I come across it. I’d hate to have that be my last key to get and die after all the hard work.

@Jimmer-jammer Demon’s Souls doesn’t sound like much of a break 😅 but maybe dying a slow and methodical death over and over is a refreshing change from a frantic chaotic death over and over 😂

@Jimmer-jammer I played Bugsnax before returnal, it is much more laid back. The story is more... Out in the open too. It's a great game, but don't watch any guides! Part of the game is going in blind. I thought about replaying it, however I'm playing through the Kingdom hearts games for the first time, grabbed the ultimate edition in the sale.

@Th3solution @Jimmer-jammer In Demon’s Souls last night I almost rage quit before I stepped away, came back and beat the boss I was working on. I didn’t ever feel that way when playing Returnal, it was more like just disappointment. I’m definitely more skilled at dying in DeS 🤣

@Just_2_milky I played Bugsnax with the kids and a lot of stuff in there went over their heads. I’m kind of glad as I’m not sure I could have explained some of it, especially the relationships between the characters!!

@render agreed! (Bugsnax ending spoilers) everything after the volcano erupted had me going "How is this a game for kids!" The twist was great, and the fact that, when you think about it, everything on the island could have been the grumpus before them, the game turns from a kids game to a physiological horror game in the blink of an eye! I loved it!

@Just_2_milky I still remember the look on the kids faces when you go into the mountain and the major plot point is revealed. That game was never going to be the same for them ever again. I also can’t believe that they didn’t use that really addictive theme tune anywhere other than the credits!! 😂

So…. I don’t remember reading on this thread but I know people have had some quirky save issues in the past, depending on the update version, but… I just got error code CE-107117-7 when I booted up the game, starting with a new run from scratch in Biome 4.

I clicked ok in the error box that popped up and the game seemed to be playing okay. I read on Reddit a few people mentioning this since the last update, perhaps due to some online sync issue…? I just checked my save file was already saved upon starting the game and also uploaded to the cloud already (didn’t realize it does that instantly; I thought game saves didn’t upload until the PS5 is put in rest mode or powering off), so I’m stuck with whatever potential corruption is in this save. I haven’t done anything different except that I changed my PS5 settings to not connect online while in rest mode, and I did that days ago during my Biome 3 run and had no problems. I didn’t have Returnal in suspend mode just before this occurred, I had played A Plague’s Tale a few hours ago and had completely closed that game down, placed the PS5 in rest mode, and am just now coming back and booted up Returnal and that error code popped.

Anyone else know anything and why should I do? I’m playing through Biome 4 and all seems to be going fine. I went ahead and rebooted my PS5 and then re-enabled the online connection during rest mode, and when I booted up this time I got no error.

@Th3solution Honestly, it crashed so much for me that you’re lucky it was at the start of a run. I’m not sure there’s much of an explanation than ‘it happens sometimes and you can’t really do anything about it’.

@nessisonett This is my first issue with any sort of error and I’m at about 30 hours of game time, and I’ve been utilizing rest mode to suspend runs and all.
Someone on Reddit said they were getting this code back to back and so they disabled the ‘auto-upload saves to cloud’ and the error code stopped popping. Seeing as the game apparently auto-saves anytime you add weapon trait progress, pick up ether, scan an item, etc, etc - potentially saving your progress dozens of times an hour, and then auto-uploads those many saves immediately to the cloud, I wonder if this is just a glitch where the cloud save doesn’t transmit correctly, perhaps if there is an internet connection snafu or something.

I went ahead and played for about an hour and then shut down the game and checked my files. Both my console save and the cloud save had been overwritten at the time stamp when I quit the game, so hopefully whatever save file is current is not corrupted now.
¯(ツ)/¯

@Th3solution I saw some chatter on the Housemarque discord about this particular error and the general consensus was that it doesn’t cause any problems. Hopefully that the case with yours as well 👍

@Th3solution As long as you can still play and progress through the game and you are not repeatedly receiving the same error message, I wouldn't worry or read too much into it.

I got so many in Cyberpunk 2077 but both console and game survived.

So much for taking a break, eh?