Only once you find the sword weapon elsewhere in the stage can you then cut through this wall and move on to the next section. Without spoiling much, an important section in the first biome is stuck behind a huge, glowing ‘xeno wall’. This adds a Metroidvania element to the game too, as these are often required to clear some of the main objectives. While dying causes you to lose practically all of your items and weaponry, there are some permanent upgrades that, when found, are kept forever. Permanent upgrades introduce a Metroidvania element. Although the map is randomised each time, the game still has preset objectives that guide you through the game and its plot. To beat the game, you generally have to find and defeat the boss in each biome then find a way to travel to the next one. As in many examples of the genre, it’s possible to have a ‘lucky’ run where everything goes your way, as well as the opposite. The weapons and items you come across are different during each run, and the enemies you encounter in each room are also randomly chosen (though they do at least fit the biome you’re playing in).
The rogue-lite element is more obvious in other ways. It’s an interesting balance that keeps things fresh while still ensuring the player can adapt and improve over time. The result is that while the game technically feels different with every play cycle, over time you do still begin to learn the best strategies and secret areas in each of the rooms because you’ll eventually start encountering them multiple times. “The aim of the game is to not only make your way through Atropos’s hostile landscapes and battle the grotesque creatures that inhabit it, but to find out what’s going on and discover more about Selene’s backstory.” While this gives the impression of a procedurally generated game, in reality it’s not quite that complex: after each death, the game chooses from a selection of pre-designed rooms and shuffles them around, joining them together in different configurations almost like pieces of track in a train set. When Selene dies, however, you’re shown a (skippable) cutscene of her ship crashing again and find yourself right back at the start of the game, but this time the planet has changed and the world map is now completely different. Each of these areas is a preset, pre-designed area, and the first time you start playing you’ll think nothing of it – as far as you know you’re playing a typical third-person action adventure.
RETURNAL CRASHING SERIES
Each of the planet’s six biomes (stages) is made up of a series of areas separated by doors, similar to Hades or the Metroid Prime games.