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This is what I want a AAA new i.p. system seller game to be. Great graphics, check. Engaging story with a character I want to learn more about, check. Minimal bugs...mostly check. Butter smooth gameplay with an addictive gameplay loop, you got it. Option to keep pushing past the end of the game without feeling like you are missing out on a complete experience, yep. NO SEASON PASS/MICRO TRANSACTION CRAP, praise be, check! The crazy amount of fun you can have with a friend in co-op is just the cherry on top.
Rouge-like games have been hot in recent years and its easy to see a big company like Sony fumble while jumping on the bandwagon. Instead, they pumped out the only full fledged AAA Rouge-like I can think of and ran with it. I love how they integrated the Rouge loop into the story and made it the centerpiece of its mystery. The story has great P.T.esque sequences to break up gameplay and make you want to press forward even more.
The world is fascinating to explore and the biomes are for the most part pretty diverse. I thought the enemy types were changed up enough to keep it from getting boring, and the bosses are epic as s**t. The spectical of some of the bosses are mesmerizing. Did I mention somehow this game is a bullet hell. Guys...this game f***s. Can't believe how much people are sleeping on this. Take my money! Make more of this and less live service slop. This is what I want to see big companies do with their resources.
As far as negatives. There is a weird lack of resolutions to choose from even though it has fantastic ultra-wide support. There are some weird graphical bugs. Examples are distracting pixelated fog, the dreaded stutters, and sometimes halfway through a run getting N64 textures for some reason which really sucks if you are playing with someone. On that note, the co-op is seriously fun. Which is why it is a huge bummer that you can only do a full run once with someone else and you cant enter the house when you do so. The house is some of the best story stuff in the game and a must to see in my opinion. Not being able to reconnect is probably my least favorite thing in the game. There are tons of factors that can lead to needing to reconnect. Mostly that I am an adult and don't have time to dedicate a whole 2-3 hour run in one go. It would be a lot better if there wasn't a limit, or maybe if someone leaves instead of dies that you can reconnect again.
P.S. This game has the single coolest way to teleport I've ever seen, never gets old. Particle effects FTW.
Either way, this game rocks, buy it, I'm done. Goodbye.

TLDR: Returnal has fun gameplay and an interesting story but it struggles to not overstay its welcome. Do not purchase at full price (60 USD).
Returnal has a lot of incredible things to offer. Great graphics, great soundtrack, great worldbuilding, an interesting albeit vague story. The gunplay is also incredible satisfying as is evading all the swarms of bullets the game throws your way. I absolutely adore the adrenaline system as well.
However, if you read the game's description you may notice that it is labeled as a "roguelike". And I suppose by the dictionary definition, Returnal is one with its infinite deaths and randomly generated worlds and items. The problem is that it's not a very good one. One of the most fun things about roguelikes is playing them over and over again, trying out new builds, and dancing around what the rng throws at you every time. Returnal doesn't really feel like that. It was extremely rare for me to pick up an an item because of my build. Instead, I usually only picked up an item because it just seemed the best out of the ones I could pick. Build synergy was very rarely something to consider.
This wouldn't be a big deal except for the fact that Returnal is a game built around you playing it over and over again; it's a roguelike. Hell the name is literally a reference to that. But over time I found it increasingly difficult to return to Returnal. The lack of real "builds" meant that the RNG honestly felt very meaningless and despite the randomness, every run began feeling very samey. And that's a big problem in a game where you're supposed to die and retry several times. Dying in games is never fun, but dying in Returnal and having to play the entire map again was brutal. To be fair, once you've beaten an area, the developers made it so you could basically skip to which ever next area you had already reached so you never had to play the entire thing, but even playing one section got very old, very fast.
I actually ended up having to take a break while trying to beat the 2nd boss because of this frustration. The satisfying combat ended up pulling me back weeks later and the story made me want to stay till the end. By the time I finally got the ending though, I was completely mentally cooked. And to find out that in the end there's a SECRET ENDING?? I just couldn't be bothered. Fastest video game cutscene I've ever youtubed.
Overall, Returnal has a lot going for it. And if you really fall in love with the combat, it has a ton of repetitive content for you to consume. Personally, I liked it, but not nearly enough to stick around. I'm glad I got this game for half off. It was fun, but way overstayed its welcome to be worth AAA game price.

Fantastic game. Reminded me strongly of Hades meeting Risk of Rain 2.
First of all, to address some common things I saw in reviews:
- Returnal advertises a strong recommendation to use a controller, specifically DS5. I didn't personally use a controller, and I think the game would be MUCH harder with a controller. Using a keyboard & mouse I still found it very difficult, but I'm pretty certain my enjoyment would be much less had I used a controller.
- I only had some issues with lag, mainly during particularly intense moments with a lot of moving particles and monsters. But otherwise it ran pretty well for me on max settings. 3440 x 1440 @ 120hz, 3080Ti.
When first playing through the game and exploring areas for the first few times, I was extremely immersed in the absolutely beautiful environment; you'd feel almost scared exploring new areas unsure of what's ahead, the variation of monsters/bosses, or unexpected environments since the map layout is randomised(not auto generated, just order differences). Even though you feel this way, you really want to explore every part of the map because at every stage of the game, exploration is rewarded and always feels good. Whether that's by getting stronger, finding secrets, or unlocking different parts of the story.
Returnal has a really cool take on Roguelike, whatever that means. In each half of the game, you restart from the respective half, and while you don't persist how strong you get, you have a permanent currency you can trade for an item that might give you a tiny edge at the start, and all other progressions are guns or items you can find in the game. It doesn't make you "stronger" between deaths, but does give you more options and playstyles. I found the story very engaging, fairly interesting and had that Hades style where each run unlocks new parts of the story, even past the credits.
Overall for me, it's a high recommendation if you're into these types of games. At it's core price, it's a pretty steep investment and while for me it was worth it at full price, in this economy it's probably better to wishlist and wait for a sale. I'm mostly done with the core part of the game after my ~37 hours at the time of writing, really all that's left is some story collectibles and the alternative game mode which I'll likely play around with, but otherwise I feel like I've taken what I wanted out of Returnal.