Topic: Returnal

@Tatarimokke Great job, bud! You did better than most if you got that far on your first attempt. Yeah; now it’s just weighing the risk and benefit of taking a direct line to the boss when you see it on the map, or spending an hour or so clearing the Biome and buffing yourself first, which will be much easier now with the melee sword. Like I mentioned, if you can at least make it to the fabricator store room first before going to the boss room and afford a large silphium vial, the astronaut (if it shows up there) and the integrity boost, then that should help get you through with enough health to beat Phrike. And yeah, the yellow energy beams are avoidable if you recognize the wind-up. The videos can be helpful, like people have said.

@Voltan @Thrillho @Th3solution thanks I'm getting there I mean now I understand the main mechanism of the game thanks to all of you guys on this forum. If you wouldn't have help me a lot I'm sure I would have given up already. Thanks again for all of your time and effort for helping me out!
I'm going to go back tonight and see what I have learnt so far.

@Quintumply Well done on the plat man! How long did it take you?

@JohnnyShoulder I had a quick look at the in-game stat for this — my runtime is 90-something hours, approaching the 100 mark. That's been inflated a bit by the fact I played it not only to review the game, but also to write a whole bunch of guides. But yeah, quite a lot of time dedicated to this one!

@Quintumply Gives us an appreciation of how much time you have to put into a game to be able to write what you do. Do you enjoy writing guides for games? I know some people do and do it for fun but just wondered if it does become a bit of a chore in general or for some specific games?

@render I shouldn't get too inside baseball with this, but to answer your question, I think we all enjoy the guide-producing process, provided we have enough time to do it properly. It takes a lot of time and effort but it's ultimately a satisfying endeavour.

@Quintumply Thanks for all the guides, they really helped me out!

@Quintumply Yeah same, thanks for producing some good guides and nice to know that you enjoy writing them at the same time.

@Quintumply Oh dude, yeah cheers for the guides, those really helped a lot!

I see no one has come close to my 180 hours! 😳 🤣

@JohnnyShoulder what did you do for that 180 hours?

@JohnnyShoulder I wasn't a million miles off at 153 hours ... but still, yeah

@JohnnyShoulder As Returnal is a great game then I'd say that's a very good use of time 😉

Hi guys! I'm just right before Phrike. Bought one health vial , integrity 150% and I couldn't find the astronaut figurine. Should I keep looking for it assuming it will pop up somewhere eventually or should i just leave it and go fight the boss instead? My console is in rest mode at the moment waiting for me for tomorrow

@Tatarimokke it won't be available on every run, the items are random. It could be hidden in a chest somewhere, but chances are if it's not at the 'shop' it's probably not anywhere this time around.

I remember not seeing it for quite a while after I first encountered it.

Even if you don't beat Phrike this time around, look at it as an opportunity to learn its patterns again and get ready for the next time

@Tatarimokke Good luck in there. You got quite far before so this time is the one 🤞

@Tatarimokke I don’t know if you took your shot yet, but just like @MatthewJP says, it won’t necessarily be in the biome every single run. It’s quite rare to see it anywhere except in the fabricator shop in the first Biome. In the other Biomes I would encounter it sometimes in a chest or at a random fabricator in a side room, or in one of those secret treasure rooms you fall into, but it most often shows up in the shop at the second fabricator from the left, if it’s going to be anywhere at all. In Biome 1 it’s typically either the astronaut or the blade balancer in that second fabricator from the left.

And if you put the game in rest mode and haven’t tried the boss yet, I’d suggest watch a YouTube video of the boss fight a couple times right before you go back into the game. It will help your pattern recognition to have it fresh in your mind right before you take her on.

@render @JigsawPieces @Just_2_milky I have a habit of not pausing the game and looking at guides etc, so they may make my playtime a bit longer that it actually was.

@JohnnyShoulder Since I've had the PS5 I've had to make a habit of pausing the game to go and make a cup of tea... thing just loads so fast 😆

@render RIP to hints and tips screens while a game loads.

@Thrillho That's a good point. I barely see the ones that are still in PS4 games, soon they will be gone 😲