Ok, I reinstalled the game to try out the new "suspend cycle", for science.
So, save scumming works perfectly as you would expect. And in fact, it's now been streamlined: when on the PS5 home screen and on top of the game icon, press OPTIONS, then UPLOAD/DOWNLOAD SAVED DATA, and you'll have the two needed functions right there in the same screen, UPLOAD or DOWNLOAD. It really couldn't be easier.
A few notes of stuff I noticed while retrying a couple of times:
- Room layout is the same, so this appears to be randomized only when first entering the biome, not when retrying from your save
- Chests, Obolite chunks, resins, keys all appear in the same places and with the same malignant status, so also not random
- But interestingly, destroyable walls are random, although it appears that if a room has a destroyable wall, it will also have one when scumming, just in a different part of the room
- Enemy composition is random, you won't face the same enemies when scumming
- Although you can also suspend with enemies around, so if you've already triggered an enemy wave, it's the same enemies when you reload
- Dropped loot from enemies (items, weapons, parasites) is random
- Chest contents are random
- Fabricator stuff is random
- Terror image Splash screens when reloading are random
- Parasites on the ground are not random, they have fixed bonuses and maluses
- Bonus rooms entrances are not random, but the bonus room itself is random
- Didn't try it, but since the Obolite repository is tracked online, you could save scum right before depositing obolites, reloading and depositing again until full to get an item
Save-scummers rejoice! The time it takes from pressing the PS button, closing the game, downloading your data from the cloud and restarting to the point you're back in action is 42 seconds.
I hadn't played the game since I got the platinum a few months back, got reminded how cool it is and just how great it feels when playing.