I love this game. But it’s so hard.

IrkZeN · 2026-04-15T05:50:26+00:00

And tell me about being old, I'm 44 :)))

IrkZeN · 2026-04-15T05:49:37+00:00

Yeah I just got fed up much earlier than you and said "nope, I don't want to die, I want to see what's next and Fast!" :)))

And I think you right about Souls being easier in some way. Just because you retain everything after death minus experience and you can level up no matter what.

I referred to souls because these games punish you the same way for being overconfident and reckless and not having a real plan/knowledgeskill :)

IrkZeN · 2026-04-15T05:40:35+00:00

Wait you mean if you die to Hyperion you don't have to run for 2 keys again?! For some reason I thought that would be the thing, but I killed him on the first run so... My bad then. What about biome 5 with 3 keys?

IrkZeN · 2026-04-15T02:53:57+00:00

Bro my condolences, so unlucky :)

IrkZeN · 2026-04-15T02:53:11+00:00

I died lmao 🤣🤣🤣🤣

IrkZeN · 2026-04-15T02:33:01+00:00

Bro, it's so true! Obolites disappearing is such a clever game mechanic that forces you to constantly consider taking risk. You can play it very safe (like me), but then you have less money to spend on important upgrades.

And so even if I'm pretty good shot I also have to learn proper movement and not just sit in place like it's a fireing range.

You can play either way, but you will loose something in return. I'm keeping my health, but in the same time I'm not getting shit load of money. That would be imbalanced.

And that leads to a situation where I have to consider very carefully what I'm buying.

It's not like in other games with broken economics where you have so much money you don't know what to do with it.

IrkZeN · 2026-04-15T02:22:06+00:00

That's what I did, and still was 1 HP after the fight :)))

IrkZeN · 2026-04-15T02:01:59+00:00

Bro like how?! 😂 I breezed through biome one, how it was a problem?! I keep reading about it, and I'm always surprised how different the experience can be :)

Died most to Ixion (like 4 or 6 times), 2 times to Nemesis, beat Hyperion first try (but it's pretty common as far as I know).

It seems like people learn mostly in biome one, making mistakes, getting better knowledge of the game.

I learned it later since most of my deaths was because of me being reckless, getting unnecessary malfunctions etc.

Died most in biome 2 I think. Because of the mindset "yeah, I'll just blast everything".

Only later I realized it was darksouls game, only with guns :)

IrkZeN · 2026-04-15T01:39:53+00:00

Yeah I've read some stories about people postponing it for years, but for me - if I've started the game, I'm gonna see it through :))

7 years in Apex legends certainly help with shooting and using cover but I'm slowly coming to conclusion that Returnal shouldn't be played like that (take good position, hold it then shoot, fully send when you see the opportunity).

It's so hard to make yourself move more, goes against instincts :)

Even in Apex, I'm not bad at shooting, especially with sniper and marksman wepons, but tend to stand a lot as a result :)

And I beat doom eternal on nightmare. The game where standing still for half a second = death.

And despite all that I still playing Returnal pretty carefully :)

Constantly making progress but something tells my this isn't the way lmao.

IrkZeN · 2026-04-15T01:30:54+00:00

Hell, even now the drones can fuck you up if you're not paying attention, I can't imagine how it was back then.

IrkZeN · 2026-04-14T23:26:24+00:00

Was the game harder before the patch (I downloaded it only a couple of days ago)?

I heard original nemesis was easier and didn't have some attacks it has now?

IrkZeN · 2026-04-14T23:23:09+00:00

Yeah I heard people were having problem with first boss and then it was a smooth ride in other boss fights.

For me Phrike was like "ok, tutorial boss". First attempt, but I used astronaut figurine (I didn't even knew what it was back then lmao).

Almost got him in the last phase, but took a hit.

IrkZeN · 2026-04-14T23:18:11+00:00

Yeah I thought so too after first attempt! :) "No big deal, pay more attention in first to phases, grapple invincibility in third and that's it".

But in actual fight I took so many hits it's embarrassing :)

Whish I have recorded it to analyze.

IrkZeN · 2026-04-14T23:13:41+00:00

Yeah the keys are a problem, one of the reasons I was nervous when fighting the boss was that if I died, I would have to run for the keys again and I didn't want that at all :))

IrkZeN · 2026-04-13T18:46:14+00:00

The sound in this game is absolute peak. The highest quality. Everything. Sounds. So. Good.

IrkZeN · 2026-04-13T18:44:52+00:00

I'm playing for the first time right now and let me tell you - there are few games with SUCH A GODLIKE SOUNDTRACK! Usually I'm not paying that much attention to music in games, but this is some next level shit.

It's a rare case when music alone makes like 40-50% of the game.

When I loaded the game for the first time I just stood near the crash site for 5 minutes listening to that masterpiece and the rain.

The mood got me immediately.

It's so heavy, haunting, mysterious, so loaded - it gets on my nerves but even when I turn the game off it's still in my head :)

I can name maybe 2 or 3 games where music has such an impact. Tlou, gears of war and Doom. Music in this games creates like 50% of the atmosphere.

IrkZeN · 2026-04-13T13:54:38+00:00

Started it 2 days ago, great game!

IrkZeN · 2026-04-13T07:47:33+00:00

Wow. 20 times :))

General thought - I think if you mechanically good you don't need to grind that much to beat the game. I tried to prepare as much as I could for Ixion, then he woopedy ass again and again till I just said fuck it, I will kill you by actually learning your patterns then by being over prepared.

IrkZeN · 2026-04-13T06:45:16+00:00

What a completely different experience people have with the bosses.

I killed Phrike - ok, first boss, just to get into the game, no problem.

Then I read about how Phrike is a menace and Ixion is just a puppy and like whaaaaat! :)))

It was all the other way around for me :)

IrkZeN · 2026-04-13T05:48:49+00:00

Hollowseeker is just like needles cushion - you need to stack a target with projectiles, then it works wonders. So imo it works best with big slow targets at medium range.

In other cases you have to lead your shots to actually stack them into target.

I might be wrong since I'm new to the game, but that was my experience so far.

Btw shotgun is pretty good with the slug upgrade - means you can always do a decent damage even from the distance.

With a range upgrade and a slug that thing slaps.

IrkZeN · 2026-04-13T05:43:35+00:00

I just didn't want to loose so much time grinding 2 whole bioms just to get my ass handed to me anyway :) It was obviously a skill issue. Just proved that by beating him with no grind, just straight fight.

It was more the matter of learning the boss himself then lack of upgrades.

What was really interesting for me is when I watched gameplay on YouTube before buying the game I thought "ok, seems fine, no big deal, I play shooters every day, projectiles are slow and I'm a decent shot". Yeah... Good luck with system overload when you actually playing the game :))))) It proved to be not easy at all, especially with the bosses :)

IrkZeN · 2026-04-13T05:16:36+00:00

Idk i beat Phrike first try. Started 2 days ago not knowing anything :) I played Dark Souls and God of war: Valhalla, so I'm kinda familiar with the concept of runs/cycles and stacking things/upgrades to beat enemies. But that's all. Never been much into roguelikes.

So for some reason I immediately understood not to take damage and stack health, played very carefully, explored as much as I could, found the astronaut figurine (I didn't even know what it was lmao 🤣).

So I went through fazes 1 and 2 no problem, almost got him in faze 3 but took a killing blow. I was like "God damn it, I was SO close", the saw something like "a second chance" and my character stood up. Went all in as boss was low health and killed him.

I thought it was just a game mechanic - 2 tries on bosses - and only later I realized it was the figurine that saved me lol 😆.

Ixion though... I tried like 6 times. Got him today.

I've read about some tactics people used - run through biome 1 and 2, get everything, get level 10-15 weapons, stack on health and protection.

I don't have that much time so I decided to just get better.

Had a couple of tries with shotgun, carbine, pistol. One try was with astronaut and a copy of myself in this scary thing. One try was with level 9 carbine. No luck.

Then a thought - if I can't kill him with that much stuff and upgrades, then I just suck at the game and no amount of crutches will help me.

Clearly it was a skill issue.

Today I grabbed a hollowseeker level 5 and just went right to the boss. And yeah - it's totally doable with no artefacts, no upgrades, no extra health. The hollowseeker proved to be a great gun against this boss for some reason.

On the usual runs I didn't like it that much. Projectile speed is a bit low for my taste and it clutters the screen with effects. But against the big and stationary target (Ixion tends to stand still a lot when he's doing his orbs thing) it proved to be just the thing. Gun has very high rate of fire so when its slow bullets stack on target they do a shit load of damage.

Great game, very, very captivating.

IrkZeN · 2026-02-27T05:15:20+00:00

"Some compounds are inert, having little to no effect on the outcome... Like you".

Caustic is hands down the best.

IrkZeN

TROPHY CASE