I went straight from Elden Ring to Returnal.
Elden Ring is like a kids game.
I wasn’t as frustrated even after 3 days of struggling at the final boss in Elden Ring as my first boss encounter in Returnal.
The thing is, even though ER can be brutal and you can die in a second at a boss, one hit, it still just takes a few seconds to do another attempt at a frustrating boss.
In Returnal I had played for about 2 hours or so in an awesome run, carefully searched the map and found everything, had great weapons, extra life, a parasite that would give my life back at death with some penalties, and a respawn point. Perfect setup I thought.
Let’s do this! Let’s kill the boss!
Lost at the third (last?) phase.
Respawned mid map, phew! There is still a chance, nothing lost besides the parasite and extra life. I can still do it!
Died at the second phase.
Bam! Back to the crash site. New map. The 2 hours clearing the map. Wasted.
Exited the game. Haven’t started it again.
There are enemies on the map that can easily kill you as well too, so you might not even get to do another try at the boss at your next 2 hour session.
It’s absolutely brutal.
I googled on it and unless I missunderstood you have to clear the level 2 boss as well to get a permanent grappling hook, which could sort of feel like you have a new spawn point since you can reach level 3 from the crash site. I think.
What annoys me the most is that every single thing besides the brutal restart is amazing. They’re so close at making a new Super Metroid here. It’s awesome! Feels awesome!
But imagine having to start at the space ship with no new weapons or missiles in Super Metroid when you die fighting Kraid. That’s Returnal.
It’s available on PS+ Premium, so go try it yourself. Have fun!