Topic: Returnal

@MatthewJP Exellent! Hyperion is definitely my favorite! The lead up to it is phenomenal. The music building up over time in the biome, and finally hitting its peak as you look over him is just 👌

@MatthewJP - Hyperion is an awesome fight, and the melody build up (as mentioned by @Just2Milky) is genuinely haunting and pretty atmospheric.

I'm really interested to see how you find B5... which was probably my largest wall in the entire game. A lot of people on this board seemed to blitz it without too much trouble, but B5 was culprit to my biggest rage-quits in the whole experience ha!

Really glad you're back into the game - testament to its addictive nature. Be careful though, as some of the guys here have actually swayed me into pushing for the Platinum...!

Not started Village yet, but agreed - £20 was too good to pass on. Love the franchise, ultimate guilty pleasure... batsh*t crazy and so much fun

I think I will finally dive into this game in the near future now that it's been revealed that you can save scum the game. According to members here though in the comments section, that's blasphemy, even though everybody should be able to experience the game however they want if given extra options.

I guess it's not really a Game of the Year candidate if it's not good enough to experience it just for the story, graphics, combat, and DualSense features?

@KilloWertz Honestly it really bugs me how 'elitist' and precious some gamers can be concerning how other people want/choose to play a video game! If save-scumming gets you playing Returnal, then absolutely do it.

@render Reaching out here mate, as I need some Plat tips from a fellow masochist...! I'm now so deep into the trophy game that I don't think I could stop even if I tried ha.

Quick rundown-

• Yesterday I got the trophy for achieving proficiency level 30, which was my final 'non-survey' trophy.
• Yesterday I also found the final 2 x ciphers in Biome2... both spawned in same run, turns out I was just v v unlucky in the 2 associated rooms having never spawned for me.
• Only 2 x survey trophies left:
• Bimoe 3: need 1 or 2 ciphers
• Biome 6: need 1 or 2 ciphers

I'm pretty clued in on the RNG 'laws' regarding ciphers (eg they dont spawn behind locked doors, or in challenge rooms), but where I'm really struggling is the balance between quick runs that are also build-worthy enough to allow me time to get far enough into the Biomes.

For example, while farming B6 I will basically run through everything in B4 and jump straight into the water to phase to B6. So I arrive at B6 with no additional health or decent weapon... and then tend to get wiped out about 4-5 rooms into the run! But equally, I don't want to spend excessive time in getting OP before B6 - only then to find that my ciphers/rooms havent phased in.

How did you play this out of interest?

@CJD87 You've done well if you've managed to clear out the B2 ciphers. Those were the hardest for me as some of those rooms had the lowest spawn rate across the entire game. Several times I honestly thought my game was bugged and that I'd never find them but sure enough they eventually came along.

Out of the few that you've got left the B3 one(s) are likely to be the most annoying as you will need to tool up a little to find those. I tried a few runs where I went to B3 as soon as I could and it usually ended with me getting completely destroyed. The lucky run I had where I found the very last cipher there I needed I was pretty much at deaths door when I fell into a pool of water (I guess it might be a spoiler knowing you can go into water) and it was right there in front of me. Bagged it and then duly got killed 😆.

So for B3 I'd definitely be recommending clearing as much of B1 as you can and perhaps even some of the early sections of B2 before you get to the mountain. Then take the shortcut to the top and through to B3. There was another cipher in B3 which was in a room with 3 - 4 severed which I'd not gotten as I think I'd seen what was going down and hightailed it out of there when I'd first seen the room so that might be one you're missing.

For B6 after I got all the ciphers I needed from B5 I actually found it easier to just do the run through B4 up until I'd found the room with an elite hostile in it (it's got four columns and a grapple point in the middle), and at that point I'd turn around to go through the gate straight to B6. I never felt underpowered in B6 as usually I'd managed to have found at least one weapon with good traits on it and then could easily swap it for another if I needed to. B6 was one place where there always seemed to be plenty of weapons to choose from.

There were definitely a few harder to spot ciphers in B6 though. There were a few up on ledges that I hadn't seen until later on in the game and there's also one in one of those timed rooms where you have to make a choice of which route to go quickly. The one in B6 is the last path on the left hand side that also contains a data cube so you might have already done that.

Hope that helps and good luck!!

Not sure how I missed this, but The Persistence seems to be a roguelite game that might scratch the Returnal itch for those of us who have completed the game and looking at experiencing something similar again. I completely ignored it since it was labeled as a PSVR title, but it’s apparently playable without VR also.
Anyways, if anyone gives it a go then I’d be curious to see if it holds up to the excellence of Returnal. I’m knee deep in other games so I likely won’t jump in just yet unless people come back with rave reviews.

@Th3solution I’m tempted to give it a go. I finished off one bit of DLC for Alan Wake last night and just have one more to go. I might just get through that quickly and then give The Persistence a go.

@CJD87 if you can get past B2 you can platinum the game! B2 is easily the hardest part of it.

@render Thanks for the tip, I've heeded your advice and started grinding the starter biomes (1 & 4) before cipher-hunting in 3 & 6 (respectively).

Found this really helpful for 6 in particular, where I could barely make it to the later rooms without being crunched! Got 2 more ciphers today, so I basically now just have 1 cipher left in B3 and 1 cipher left in B6.

The 'fun' is definitely waning now, and the Plat grind is feeling more of a chore than ever. But I've come this far so I can't see myself giving up.... !

@Just2Milky Thanks for egging me on mate, honestly don't think I could have stomached the prospect of the Plat without the support here ha.

What's the platinum success rate on this - last time I looked it was less than 3% of players. Massive respect to those who achieve it.

@CJD87 No problem! I needed encouragement as well during the hunt. I you’re accepting tips, I found I was feeling better about runs if I tried to limit them to 1 per day. Doing that really helped not get burnt out.

@MatthewJP 18.05 on psnprofiles, and 2.9 on regular PSN

@Just2Milky what's psnprofiles and why wouldn't those show on psn?
It's quite different in terms of numbers

@MatthewJP PSN Profiles is a website where you can share your trophy lists publicly, discuss trophies etc - a hub for trophy hunters, I guess. The number is higher because it’s the percentage of users who chose to share their lists there, not everybody who played the game.

@Voltan ah so PSN is the only 'true' number, or does that not account for those who play completely offline?
Off topic now, apologies

@MatthewJP I guess if someone never synced their trophies with the server, then they wouldn’t count. That’s probably an insignificant number though.
On the other hand, if someone borrowed the game from a friend, played for 15 minutes and hated it (technically possible ), they would count as someone who didn’t get the platinum

@MatthewJP PSNprofiles is a website where you can (mainly) track your trophies. There are other uses, but that is the main reason. The number is higher because generally, people on PSNprofiles are the the ones who really care about that 100% completion, so the number is much higher. I count PSN as the true number.

Sorry for getting off topic

@Just2Milky thanks for the explanation. I've never felt the need to shout about my pitiful platinum trophies so never visited psntrophies.

Back on track, I have a suspended run to resume (thanks 2.0) starting at biome 5.
I just had to re-climb biome 4 and overlook hyperion and listen to that music again before back tracking

Does anyone know what that quick update did yesterday by the way?

@MatthewJP According to some Reddit comment I saw, just minor bug fixes (source: official Discord, apparently).