DOOM Eternal

DOOM (2016) was a fun game for one playthrough. I tried replaying it later on but the game felt samey and I quickly uninstalled it. With DOOM Eternal I didn't even get to the end of my first run before I felt I had had enough. It's not that the game is just more Doom; there is enough new stuff to make it feel fresh. The problem I feel is that Eternal has higher skill ceiling and even on mere Hurt Me Plenty difficulty I had to reload a myriad number of times. That tends to be annoying.

An ammo-starved sequel

Now, I didn't have that many issues with the majority of the game. Rather it was the Khan Maykr boss fight that ultimately tried to sour the experience. It has a design I loathe: a flying boss enemy that makes you look up and damaging floor that requires you take glances down, away from the boss. Add headshot-requiring piñata minions to that as well. Eventually, having died enough times, the game started suggesting I restart with sentinel armor on. (It grants damage reduction, I think.) I declined a few times but eventually caved in: I just wanted the fight to be over.

It's not the last fight of Eternal however. It still continues on for you to make your way to the Icon of Sin. At this final boss I again struggled enough to get offered the sentinel armor: this time I took it right away. Had I been in a less frustrated mental state, I probably could've beaten it normally though. It wasn't as hard as Khan Maykr; just taking way too long. There's something wrong when you're mostly running around looking for ammunition to empty your guns at a bullet spongy, classic waist-up boss.

The whole game in general is much more about managing your ammo than the previous Doom was, I think. Chainsaw still works as your ammo spawner (provided it has fuel) but now you really want to save certain weapons for certain enemies: shotgun's grenade can be launched at cacofiends to swallow, plasma rifle destroys shields, heavy cannon's sniper mode takes out revenant weakpoints etc. I was out of key weapon ammo too often to my liking.

The inclusion of the marauder was particularly controversial. Many didn't appreciate the fast enemy being pretty much invulnerable outside when his eyes flash green to telegraph his melee attack. I found the marauders themselves easy enough to kill with super shotgun once I got the hang of it. The problem usually was everything else: other demons, the marauder's hound summon, or just terrain being in the way.

Doom Pinball

Bumping into things and things bumping into me became a theme of the game. Doom 2016 had some hectic encounters at its endgame but Eternal becomes that much earlier. You more often fight in unfamiliar terrain without having had a chance to look around first. Demons are aggressive and tend to swarm on you. Constantly being pushed around makes fighting back challenging. Being able to keep distance with dashes, jumps, and bar swings is probably of utmost importance on harder difficulties.

Sometimes platforming gets silly. Some levels have straight up Mario game like spinning flame ball obstacles. They don't thematically fit the game; they're like something a fan had put together in a map maker. As a gameplay element I didn't mind them though. I learned the capabilities of dashing and jumping pretty fast and the few upgrades available helped too. Hunting secrets at vertiginous heights is also a thing I enjoy in video game although I didn't like how the game has more of various upgrade points than what are needed to get absolutely everything. As a completionist I feel cheated when that happens.

DOOM Eternal looks great and runs well. I was worried that the game defaulted to too high settings. Like surely my PC couldn't handle a big 2020 title nearly maxed at 1080p? But nope, the game ran beautifully at 60 FPS.

It also sounds good; the music and sound effects too are crisp and meaty. Mick Gordon returned to compose for the series though his failure to meet deadlines and such caused bit of a fall out and thus The Ancient Gods expansion has had its music composed by Andrew Hulshult and David Levy instead.

I don't recall there being any single track as good as BFG Division but as a whole I liked the soundtrack more than the previous game's. The music truly adds to the experience when you are doing well, ripping and tearing those demons until it's done.

Edited 2020-12-31: Improved some wordings.