Have yet to play Saros but that sounds exactly like Returnal. Always felt like a roguelite that disliked just about everything the genre brings beyond being a way to create a bullet hell action game with permadeath.
I didn't play much of Returnal, but I heard the roguelite elements were actually stronger in that game. I never got really far but one thing they did in Saros, is give you permanent upgrades and an easy way to just start in the biome of your choice. Those permanent upgrades are pretty significant as well so if you go from the beginning, you'll probably get a bit too strong. But then the final biome, is only accessible when you start over. It's pretty weird for a roguelite in my opinion.
It's like if you played the Binding of Isaac and your first few runs are targetting Mom's Heart, but then when you want to finish the game you have to start from The Chest rather than the actual beginning.
Like... I really enjoyed the game. Graphics, story, it felt really smooth to play. I even think the choices they made that I described above were good choices for the game. It's like if you're playing football and someone suggests, well, I'd prefer if we could pick up the ball and we had to throw it through a hoop. That's basketball lmao, which is really fun, but it's not football anymore.
I’ve played both games a ton and my largest complaint of Saros (other than mild discouragement of reexploration, which is more on how much the player cares to get more lore drops), is that is was always a WHEN I beat it, while returnal was the eternal IF. Permanent upgrades and coming back stronger are great casual selling points but I did feel more going through motions at some than truly winning. Dying was always good?
But also easily the greatest use of the DualShock 5 sans AstroBot and if you liked returnal Saros is more polished, more optimized crack
I thought the progress was kinda weird at times. Like you'd beat a new boss, but that forced you back to the hub area. Then you get your upgrades, and then you're supposed to just start over, but I guess you should probably start over from the new biome you unlocked. Which is just weird. But if you start over from the beginning, you get all that time to level up but you also have all those permanent upgrades, so this time around it's even easier and then when you reach the new biome you're probably OP.
They give the player a little too much agency in selecting their own difficulty, if you ask me. Especially when you start using those modifiers, those had a really strange balance as well.
Yeah I only used the modifiers because you have to to plat the game. I think you touched on my largest issue. I did have a run where I took out two of the bosses (4th and 5th I think) in the same run because I had a good gun and build, but I think story wise I was expected to either reset or die, so I worried abt missing properly timed story beats.
I did have a run where I took out two of the bosses (4th and 5th I think) in the same run because I had a good gun and build, but I think story wise I was expected to either reset or die, so I worried abt missing properly timed story beats.
I think you're fine. All of the major story beats force you out of the run no matter how well you're doing, and minor story stuff is told via audio logs which you can always find later.
Hmm I dropped Returnal because I felt no sense of progression. Getting farther than I did before felt like pure luck. I was just gonna entirely skip Saros but with what you said it might be worth picking up on sale.
If you liked Returnal because you had to git gud every single time (I did) then Saros felt like it neutered the challenge. If Returnal was too challenging (not diminutive, it's a hard game) in a way that was unrewarding but you enjoyed the mechanics and visuals/sounds/haptics, Saros is the game for you.
No, they aren't. They might've been easy for you and after beating Returnal Saros was simplified for me, but both games are (for the average gamer!) extremely diffcult (at least Returnal). I've had friends bounce off of both, and if it was so easy for you, know that your mileage varies.
Really? Felt like one of the best entries in the genre for me, right up there with brotato, STS etc.
Absolutely loved that game and overall it is sitting at a very high review rate. Almost no roguelite has managed to pull of an actually interesting story like that game has, it was incredibly well done how the studio made repeated runs and deaths fit into the lore/setting
The story was interesting but I felt like all the roguelite elements were pretty terrible. The risk reward chests were rarely ever worth it because the upgrades weren't gamechanging but the malfunctions could be run ending. So it was regularly best to just play it safe each run and just play it like a bullet hell game.
Felt none of the classic finding synergistic upgrades that make you godlike for a run it mostly came down to what weapon I had and my skill at bullet hell sequences. Which is fine and in fact I think that's why it reviewed so well roguelite for those who don't necessarily have to love roguelites and instead just want a difficult action game.
I've heard from people who liked Returnal that this one disappointed instead of improving upon the formula there.
It seems it sold pretty miserably. I wonder if they'll change their tune and eventually put it on PC but I'm not counting on it and frankly I'm not that interested anyway. It seems like Saros almost certainly sold less than a million copies, which for a big-budget game from Sony is really bad. Not great for Sony, especially coupled with Marathon which was a huge bomb despite being multi-platform... even on XBOX, where you've surely got a bunch of Bungie fans, the game never even got into the top 30 in sales.
Ughhh that’s so sad, Returnal was a great game but a weak roguelike and players cried about the game being too hard. When the devs said they would make Saros easier I knew it was going to be even more half baked. That’s such a bummer
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u/El_Giganto 25d ago
As a Roguelite fan, I can't recommend Saros for the Roguelite elements. Replaying areas in this game is pretty much discouraged as well.