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Returnal Review Thread (PS5)

Bo_Hazem

Bo_Hazem

Banned
Still in page 17, but gonna play Returnal in 20min!

Ps5 GIF by PlayStation
 
Heisenberg007

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
Mozzarella said:
I'm late to this, so this Jeff is getting attacked by Sony hardcore fans because he gave the game 6/10 and he apparently gave The Medium 10/10? Or is there any reason.
I think this Jeff guy is insufferable though, but i think meta scores are getting way way too much priority these days. People in forums always claim that review scores usually dont matter to them, yet everyday i see the complete opposite.
Click to expand...
Just a few things:

1. He literally started his review with this sentence, "The art of building a quality roguelite is in the sleight of hand. In order to finish the game, the player needs to improve their skill. But that is a tedious and laborious process." It's so absurd I don't even want to comment any further.

2. He spent roughly 500 words on his review criticizing the roguelite genre (not the game itself, but the genre). And then he deducted Returnal's score and gave it a 6/10 because of his problems with the genre. So by his logic, even if a roguelite is a 10/10, it can't get a higher score because Jeff doesn't like the genre.

3. Then under the subheading You almost lost me there, he says, "My low point with Returnal came as I was struggling to get through the second biome."

For reference, you can get to the second biome after playing the game for 2-3 hours. So, Jeff had made up his mind about a 40-hour game in the first 2 hours. At around this time, most of the games do not even open up properly.

He also clearly said that he was struggling as soon as he started the game, in the first 2 hours, when he didn't even get skills and gear or get familiar with the mechanics and combat style. His review scores aren't on the game, but the genre and the difficulty that comes with it. That's why he is being criticized.

The sensible thing would have been to look at the game itself, see what it does good and what it does bad, base your score on that, and then mention that the game is a rogue-lite (explain the mechanics for casual gamers) and highlight that it is difficult and may not be for casuals.

But the reason he didn't do any of that is because he is clearly biased against Sony. He said that he won't even preview Returnal. Why the anger? Just because Sony doesn't tell you inside stuff so you could leak and stay relevant?

Also, as far as his review pedigree goes, he said that Crackdown 3 was a better game than Spider-Man (PS4). Any rational person could see the bullshit in that claim. He doesn't even hide his bias. That's it.
 
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Polygonal_Sprite

Polygonal_Sprite

Gold Member
Heisenberg007 said:
Just a few things:

1. He literally started his review with this sentence, "The art of building a quality roguelite is in the sleight of hand. In order to finish the game, the player needs to improve their skill. But that is a tedious and laborious process." It's so absurd I don't even want to comment any further.

2. He spent roughly 500 words on his review criticizing the roguelite genre (not the game itself, but the genre). And then he deducted Returnal's score and gave it a 6/10 because of his problems with the genre. So by his logic, even if a roguelite is a 10/10, it can't get a higher score because Jeff doesn't like the genre.

3. Then under the subheading You almost lost me there, he says, "My low point with Returnal came as I was struggling to get through the second biome."

For reference, you can get to the second biome after playing the game for 2-3 hours. So, Jeff had made up his mind about a 40-hour game in the first 2 hours. At around this time, most of the games do not even open up properly.

He also clearly said that he was struggling as soon as he started the game, in the first 2 hours, when he didn't even get skills and gear or get familiar with the mechanics and combat style. His review scores aren't on the game, but the genre and the difficulty that comes with it. That's why he is being criticized.

The sensible thing would have been to look at the game itself, see what it does good and what it does bad, base your score on that, and then mention that the game is a rogue-lite (explain the mechanics for casual gamers) and highlight that it is difficult and may not be for casuals.

But the reason he didn't do any of that is because he is clearly biased against Sony. He said that he won't even preview Returnal. Why the anger? Just because Sony doesn't tell you inside stuff so you could leak and stay relevant?

Also, as far as his review pedigree goes, he said that Crackdown 3 was a better game than Spider-Man (PS4). Any rational person could see the bullshit in that claim. He doesn't even hide his bias. That's it.
Click to expand...
Haha. Is Crackdown even worth a play on game pass. I have a Series X and always thought it looked like mindless fun.
 
P

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
Heisenberg007 said:
Just a few things:

1. He literally started his review with this sentence, "The art of building a quality roguelite is in the sleight of hand. In order to finish the game, the player needs to improve their skill. But that is a tedious and laborious process." It's so absurd I don't even want to comment any further.

2. He spent roughly 500 words on his review criticizing the roguelite genre (not the game itself, but the genre). And then he deducted Returnal's score and gave it a 6/10 because of his problems with the genre. So by his logic, even if a roguelite is a 10/10, it can't get a higher score because Jeff doesn't like the genre.

3. Then under the subheading You almost lost me there, he says, "My low point with Returnal came as I was struggling to get through the second biome."

For reference, you can get to the second biome after playing the game for 2-3 hours. So, Jeff had made up his mind about a 40-hour game in the first 2 hours. At around this time, most of the games do not even open up properly.

He also clearly said that he was struggling as soon as he started the game, in the first 2 hours, when he didn't even get skills and gear or get familiar with the mechanics and combat style. His review scores aren't on the game, but the genre and the difficulty that comes with it. That's why he is being criticized.

The sensible thing would have been to look at the game itself, see what it does good and what it does bad, base your score on that, and then mention that the game is a rogue-lite (explain the mechanics for casual gamers) and highlight that it is difficult and may not be for casuals.

But the reason he didn't do any of that is because he is clearly biased against Sony. He said that he won't even preview Returnal. Why the anger? Just because Sony doesn't tell you inside stuff so you could leak and stay relevant?

Also, as far as his review pedigree goes, he said that Crackdown 3 was a better game than Spider-Man (PS4). Any rational person could see the bullshit in that claim. He doesn't even hide his bias. That's it.
Click to expand...
In a world where the metacritic score can help green light sequels and influences dev bonuses a callous review like Grubb’s one is not just lazy at best but damaging to devs too… and it is not like the game seems to deserve it.
 
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Heisenberg007

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
Panajev2001a said:
In a world where the metacritic score can help green light sequels and influences dev bonuses a callous review like Grubb’s one is not just lazy at best but damaging to devs too… and it is not like the game seems to deserve it.
Click to expand...
Exactly. It is disingenuous. But I'd not expect anything else from a person who isn't even sincere with his work.
 
rofif

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
Reviews carne out and it's a good shooty shooty arcade game. Seems it's not as random and interesting in each room as binding of isaac or enter the gungeon though? Or an I missing something? I love those games.
Also I still don't see 80 euro in that... It's not a grand aa game like god of war or uc4. I know it should not matter but I would pick it right up for half the price...
 
Ogbert

Ogbert

Member
Enjoying it.

About three hours in. I do wish there was a little more to level up in between runs - even if it was just cosmetic or secondary to the campaign.

There’s a bit of slowdown too.

Digging it though. Feels like an 8/10 for me at present.
 
John Wick

John Wick

Member
ToadMan said:
I don’t have a feel for an actual number - I’m just going from Jaffe’s comment “a lot”. He didn’t say hundreds of millions for returnal and I didn’t interpret it that way either.

But what I can say is that just talking about HM as if they’re the only cost is incorrect.

The costs spiral out through other parts of Sony. HM might be a “small” and focused studio, but the support through the entire organisation can inflate that to hundreds of staff dedicating some or all of their time to it over the development and release periods.
Click to expand...
How would Jaffe know how much it cost? He's not part of HM or Sony. Game development cost is going up but that's true with everything else too. Returnal isn't a AAA budget game. Nor has it been advertised as such. Probably more in line with AA.
If games like this cost AAA budgets believe me there'd be far more studios disappearing.
 
GymWolf

GymWolf

Member
Edgelord79 said:
Reading the reviews on different sites is bizarre as the final verdict is often at odds with what they say (Eurogamers review comes to mind here). I feel that this is a game that reviewers desperately want to love hence the gushing praise, but ultimately don't regardless of their verdict, and this is why the reviews don't jive sometimes. I think this is would be an incredibly hard game to review.

I think ultimately this is going to be an extremely niche game which isn't a bad thing. It just is.
Click to expand...
From the reviews i readed it seemsl like the game is an excellent bullet hell tps, an overall great game but a pretty shitty roguelite.

Most reviewers probably love the tps part so much that they are not disturbed by the lack of quality as a roguelite, probably because they were never big fan of the genre to begin with.

People shit on grubb review but skill up absolutely love the game and he listed basically the same flaws grubb said ragarding the roguelite aspect.

For people at their first roguelite maybe the progression is gonna be enough, but people who exstensively played stuff like hades or dead cells have far higher standard for the roguelite part.

I'm gonna see by myself if the game is a good or bad roguelite but i already know that at least the tps part is gonna be great.
 
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Freeman76

Freeman76

Member
Im a bit torn on this game. I dont usually like roguelikes, Enter the Gungeon for example was way too difficult for me. However, Dead Cells was incredible and Ive played it for over 100 hours having never finished it lol. I platinumed Resogun with my wife, we loved that game, Nex Machina didnt grab me as much though and again, was too difficult. I know this isnt in the same vein as their other games as such, but still, torn!!
 
D

dyergram

Member
Topher said:
Returnal | Review Thread | ResetEra
Click to expand...
It’s crazy that cm (aka playstation candy man/Voldemort)
Heisenberg007 said:
Just a few things:

1. He literally started his review with this sentence, "The art of building a quality roguelite is in the sleight of hand. In order to finish the game, the player needs to improve their skill. But that is a tedious and laborious process." It's so absurd I don't even want to comment any further.

2. He spent roughly 500 words on his review criticizing the roguelite genre (not the game itself, but the genre). And then he deducted Returnal's score and gave it a 6/10 because of his problems with the genre. So by his logic, even if a roguelite is a 10/10, it can't get a higher score because Jeff doesn't like the genre.

3. Then under the subheading You almost lost me there, he says, "My low point with Returnal came as I was struggling to get through the second biome."

For reference, you can get to the second biome after playing the game for 2-3 hours. So, Jeff had made up his mind about a 40-hour game in the first 2 hours. At around this time, most of the games do not even open up properly.

He also clearly said that he was struggling as soon as he started the game, in the first 2 hours, when he didn't even get skills and gear or get familiar with the mechanics and combat style. His review scores aren't on the game, but the genre and the difficulty that comes with it. That's why he is being criticized.

The sensible thing would have been to look at the game itself, see what it does good and what it does bad, base your score on that, and then mention that the game is a rogue-lite (explain the mechanics for casual gamers) and highlight that it is difficult and may not be for casuals.

But the reason he didn't do any of that is because he is clearly biased against Sony. He said that he won't even preview Returnal. Why the anger? Just because Sony doesn't tell you inside stuff so you could leak and stay relevant?

Also, as far as his review pedigree goes, he said that Crackdown 3 was a better game than Spider-Man (PS4). Any rational person could see the bullshit in that claim. He doesn't even hide his bias. That's it.
Click to expand...
did Jeff actually review the medium I’ve tried to find his review but I can’t find it. I saw a lot of people yesterday accusing cm (aka Voldermoriarty) of sending his fans to harass that lady but I feel like Jeff sent more people her way by actively pissing the fanboys off.
 
Heisenberg007

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
dyergram said:
It’s crazy that cm (aka playstation candy man/Voldemort)

did Jeff actually review the medium I’ve tried to find his review but I can’t find it. I saw a lot of people yesterday accusing cm (aka Voldermoriarty) of sending his fans to harass that lady but I feel like Jeff sent more people her way by actively pissing the fanboys off.
Click to expand...
I don't remember him doing that. The Medium 10/10 review was from another outlet I think, which gave Returnal a 7/10. Two different outlets I believe.
 
GymWolf

GymWolf

Member
Heisenberg007 said:
Just a few things:

1. He literally started his review with this sentence, "The art of building a quality roguelite is in the sleight of hand. In order to finish the game, the player needs to improve their skill. But that is a tedious and laborious process." It's so absurd I don't even want to comment any further.

2. He spent roughly 500 words on his review criticizing the roguelite genre (not the game itself, but the genre). And then he deducted Returnal's score and gave it a 6/10 because of his problems with the genre. So by his logic, even if a roguelite is a 10/10, it can't get a higher score because Jeff doesn't like the genre.

3. Then under the subheading You almost lost me there, he says, "My low point with Returnal came as I was struggling to get through the second biome."

For reference, you can get to the second biome after playing the game for 2-3 hours. So, Jeff had made up his mind about a 40-hour game in the first 2 hours. At around this time, most of the games do not even open up properly.

He also clearly said that he was struggling as soon as he started the game, in the first 2 hours, when he didn't even get skills and gear or get familiar with the mechanics and combat style. His review scores aren't on the game, but the genre and the difficulty that comes with it. That's why he is being criticized.

The sensible thing would have been to look at the game itself, see what it does good and what it does bad, base your score on that, and then mention that the game is a rogue-lite (explain the mechanics for casual gamers) and highlight that it is difficult and may not be for casuals.

But the reason he didn't do any of that is because he is clearly biased against Sony. He said that he won't even preview Returnal. Why the anger? Just because Sony doesn't tell you inside stuff so you could leak and stay relevant?

Also, as far as his review pedigree goes, he said that Crackdown 3 was a better game than Spider-Man (PS4). Any rational person could see the bullshit in that claim. He doesn't even hide his bias. That's it.
Click to expand...
If you quote him, at least put the complete sentence instead of nitpicking what you want to make it look more bad than it is.

He explain the first point if you quote the entire phrase and it makes sense in the roguelite genre, i improved my skills in hades by aiming at those upgrades etc, while i was playing my first thought was not improving my skills but reaching an objective like an upgrade for zagreus or unlocking a new weapon, doing that i also improved my skill in a natural way, it is a cycle and it is the same for many people who play roguelites.
Sure many people enjoy improving their skill as a first though but what he say is not inherently wrong, it is how the brain work for many people.

He says some bullshit like the triggers problem but you can disable them in the option but his opinion about the roguelite part is shared by reviewers who actually loved the game.

The guy is probably a M shill and a woke shithead but some of the things he say in his review are not so far-fetched and his review reads more like a 7,5 than a 6 tbh, the 6 is ridicolous i give you that.

Skill up review is probably a 9 but he list a lot of flaws in the game, some pretty big for a roguelite.

Like i said, i usually don't trust vg journalist so i take every review as a grain of salt until i try the game myself.
 
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freefornow

freefornow

Member
Panajev2001a said:
In a world where the metacritic score can help green light sequels and influences dev bonuses a callous review like Grubb’s one is not just lazy at best but damaging to devs too… and it is not like the game seems to deserve it.
Click to expand...
Apologies if i have misinterpreted your statement , but are you suggesting that critics should consider a developers opportunity to receive " bonuses" and potential sequels into their reviews/critique? Do they hold back on critisicms to facilitate that? Always give a score that does not fall below the "bonuses"/sequel threshold?
 
killatopak

killatopak

Member
freefornow said:
Apologies if i have misinterpreted your statement , but are you suggesting that critics should consider a developers opportunity to receive " bonuses" and potential sequels into their reviews/critique? Do they hold back on critisicms to facilitate that? Always give a score that does not fall below the "bonuses"/sequel threshold?
Click to expand...
If you were given the chance to save people based on how you think they are worthy, maybe do so honestly.

Imagine if instead that person who gets to choose is a racist. Credibility goes down the drain.

Apply that to this game then Grubb becomes the racist and Returnal is the POC.

I’m not implying Grubb is a racist or biased against Sony. Just used that to explain the analogy better the way I understand it I guess.
 
Dodkrake

Dodkrake

Banned
Heisenberg007 said:
Just a few things:

For reference, you can get to the second biome after playing the game for 2-3 hours. So, Jeff had made up his mind about a 40-hour game in the first 2 hours. At around this time, most of the games do not even open up properly.
Click to expand...

Funny enough, this is the exact same issue I've seen with a lot of Death Stranding and Days Gone reviews.
 
Yoboman

Yoboman

Member
Dr. Samuel Hayden said:
For the record Resetera is completely misrepresenting what Moriarty did (what a shock). He didn't "organize a harassment campaign" or any of that nonsense. He literally just quoted the article and said "What?" That's it.

44Nhoi2.png
Click to expand...
This is why you don’t bother appealing to wokelords. Progressive, desexualised main female character. But they just shift the goal posts and find some other outrage
 
Tomeru

Tomeru

Member
ToadMan said:
I don’t have a feel for an actual number - I’m just going from Jaffe’s comment “a lot”. He didn’t say hundreds of millions for returnal and I didn’t interpret it that way either.

But what I can say is that just talking about HM as if they’re the only cost is incorrect.

The costs spiral out through other parts of Sony. HM might be a “small” and focused studio, but the support through the entire organisation can inflate that to hundreds of staff dedicating some or all of their time to it over the development and release periods.
Click to expand...
Im sure that compared to their previous games, the budget for Returnal is alot more.
 
Heisenberg007

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
Dodkrake said:
Funny enough, this is the exact same issue I've seen with a lot of Death Stranding and Days Gone reviews.
Click to expand...
True. It especially reminded me of that hot chick's Days Gone review from Gamespot. She complained about the lack of things that would have literally appeared in the game had she played for a few more hours.
 
rickybooby87

rickybooby87

Member
Just started playing this morning for a few minutes before work, I've never really played any "Rogue like" games, so I must say I was a little apprehensive going in, but I am super interested thus far!
 
worldwithpyramids

worldwithpyramids

Member
Game has a lot of cool stuff going for it. I’m liking my initial time with it a lot.

However, am I the only one that’s finding it difficult to see through all the gray fog and darkness in this game? I can’t see shit most of the time. I can’t tell if this is a design choice to make the world feel more alien, or if I finally need to get an HDR TV because so much is just blending together.

Also, getting used to the half-pull on the left trigger is taking a bit to get used to after decades of muscle memory to full press.
 
KingT731

KingT731

Member
Dodkrake said:
Funny enough, this is the exact same issue I've seen with a lot of Death Stranding and Days Gone reviews.
Click to expand...
This has been an issue with games journalists for a long time. It's pretty obvious once you read the reviews that they didn't do much in the game at all...being clueless about the story/game mechanics outside the first 2-3 hours(Death Stranding got nailed HARD for things that aren't available at the start of the game like the mechanical legs, floating carriers etc...hell some of them didn't even mention there were guns in the game). I would think that's doing a disservice to any potential reader.
 
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RedWhiteBlue

RedWhiteBlue

Banned
The game is great but really people need to play and make up their own mind.

I'll be honest that bad reviews do annoy me. Not low review scores, I am fine with those.

Just seems that every big game release needs to have some terrible reviewer coming in with the worst possible take and then making the launch all about them and their terrible review.

It almost seems like it's intentional at this point.

Everyone, the community is getting very excited for a new release. Seems the game might even be better than expected and gamers might even be happy when launch day comes. How can I ruin that? Hmmmm. I notice the "xeno" prefix being used a lot and that makes me think of xenophobia. Yes!

These are professional video-game reviewers! Why can't they just review the game competently and present it in an informative way?

A reviewer having a moan about the "xeno" prefix being used in a game must be some kind of new low.
 
Dodkrake

Dodkrake

Banned
KingT731 said:
This has been an issue with games journalists for a long time. It's pretty obvious once you read the reviews that they didn't do much in the game at all...being clueless about the story/game mechanics outside the first 2-3 hours(Death Stranding got nailed HARD for things that aren't available at the start of the game like the mechanical legs, floating carriers etc...hell some of them didn't even mention there were guns in the game). I would think that's doing a disservice to any potential reader.
Click to expand...

Yeah. And again, while I love the game, and would rate it nearly perfect if I was a reviewer, I can see how someone could fairly rate it a 6/10. Any less than that implies that the game is broken somehow, which is not the case, but this is a fairly arbitrary line.

The problem is not playing and reviewing while pretending to do so. Grubb's returnal review is just another in a very long list. The problem is that this leaves people to wonder if there's some political / monetary motivation to do this. Not saying there is, but the thought is there, especially considering the content this particular person puts out.
 
RedWhiteBlue

RedWhiteBlue

Banned
Dodkrake said:
Yeah. And again, while I love the game, and would rate it nearly perfect if I was a reviewer, I can see how someone could fairly rate it a 6/10. Any less than that implies that the game is broken somehow, which is not the case, but this is a fairly arbitrary line.

The problem is not playing and reviewing while pretending to do so. Grubb's returnal review is just another in a very long list. The problem is that this leaves people to wonder if there's some political / monetary motivation to do this. Not saying there is, but the thought is there, especially considering the content this particular person puts out.
Click to expand...
I would suggest that the motivation is just to get clicks.

Even if Grubb outright said he only played a couple of hours and couldn't be bothered then still his article would be more successful than if it was just a competent game review.

The Paste one is even more blatant as the author just wants to comment on US politics (tiresome for non Americans) when reviewing a game made in Finland and have a good whinge about capitalism etc. Its not a game review. It's a clickbait article designed to annoy people into reading.
 
P

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
freefornow said:
Apologies if i have misinterpreted your statement , but are you suggesting that critics should consider a developers opportunity to receive " bonuses" and potential sequels into their reviews/critique? Do they hold back on critisicms to facilitate that? Always give a score that does not fall below the "bonuses"/sequel threshold?
Click to expand...

I am saying that before phoning it in / causing damage due to their exposure / notoriety they should be mindful of that. A shitty review by a nobody cannot generally cause underserved damage, but a shitty review from a well known publication can actually cause undeserved damage.

Responsibility and caring about doing your job well is a thing, right?
 
ToadMan

ToadMan

Member
John Wick said:
How would Jaffe know how much it cost? He's not part of HM or Sony. Game development cost is going up but that's true with everything else too. Returnal isn't a AAA budget game. Nor has it been advertised as such. Probably more in line with AA.
If games like this cost AAA budgets believe me there'd be far more studios disappearing.
Click to expand...

I don’t know - take it up with Jaffe how he knows that. I don’t see what incentive he would have to fabricate the information.

If you don’t want any to take expert testimony from a source like Jaffe - who not only has worked “on the inside” on major game franchises but these days is also still clearly in close contact with recently active and active game studios and personnel - then I guess you do you. 🤷‍♂️

Personally I’ll take him as a source before a random internet guesstimate. And his quote was “Returnal cost a lot”.

Oh and the final point - game studios have been and are disappearing...
 
FunkMiller

FunkMiller

Member
Yeah, the Alien influence on this actually borders on plagiarism in the opening few minutes :messenger_tears_of_joy:

Loving the tone of the game so far though. That oppressive forbidding vibe is very well done. The Dualsense implementation is fantastic.
 
ethomaz

ethomaz

Banned
dyergram said:
It’s crazy that cm (aka playstation candy man/Voldemort)

did Jeff actually review the medium I’ve tried to find his review but I can’t find it. I saw a lot of people yesterday accusing cm (aka Voldermoriarty) of sending his fans to harass that lady but I feel like Jeff sent more people her way by actively pissing the fanboys off.
Click to expand...
Grubb did more harassment to her than Moriarty but ERA mods have no ideia how to deal with communities lol every single time they are completely lost in the actions.
 
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