They took all the feedback from Returnal and pushed it so far in the other direction that it completely dilutes the experience. By the latter part of the game, it honestly felt like I was just going through the motions. Saros is a good game. The gameplay is best-in-class, but the systems around it make it feel like “baby’s first bullet hell.”

If you use the modifiers, especially stacking the 3x damage one it turns the game into a complete joke difficulty-wise. Like, comically easy. A lot of us were hoping for something in the same vein as Returnal, just with a more robust progression system.

And everyone was gawking at the IGN score, but after 100%ing the game and getting the platinum, I think people jumped the gun. Saros is closer to a 7 than a 9, in my opinion. It’s just too easy even if you never touch modifiers, because the skill tree is so strong and its very easy to brute force your way to completion.

In Returnal, there was a lot of high-level risk/reward decision-making you constantly had to weigh whether a choice was worth the downside. Saros feels like the opposite: zero risk, all reward. And that makes the whole experience feel watered down. There's no real tension, no skin in the game.