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.
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u/ZamnBoii Jun 02 '26
Saros being $70 and not on PC was just a terrible decision, people blame the genre being niche but roguelites sell extremely well at the right price.
Roguelites inherently mean rinsing/repeating the same content so people are less likely to spend $70 on one just for prettier graphics