TAG2 itself is an anti-climax that represents a concerning change in direction for the Doom reboot series, which hits harder given how on-track id Software already was with Eternal and TAG1. I am also fully aware of its troubled six-month development cycle where both TAG1 and 2 had to be out within a year of Eternal’s release to fulfill legal obligations, whose production schedule did not originally account for blizzards and power outages striking Texas (where id Software’s offices are located), and a whole freaking pandemic. I am not particularly upset that TAG2 feels rushed or that most of its new enemies are reskins (if anything, I think more games should be willing to reskin and reuse enemies), but what concerns me the most is its new gameplay direction, one which would have persisted even without the world breaking down. To properly understand why this is concerning, and considering parts of the base game and TAG1 have been changed with the release of TAG2, it is necessary to go back to the previous entries and establish some context.
With TAG1, the core players were pretty satisfied with its intensity and challenge, but the consensus amongst casual players (according to Doom Eternal director Hugo Martin) was that TAG1 was too intense pacing-wise, and thus exhausting to play even on lower difficulty settings. Here I disagree; TAG1 definitely does not run at 200% at all times. When breaking the structure of TAG1 down, there are still many downtime segments in the form of platforming segments, minor puzzles, minor combat encounters, story segments, or (quite frankly overlong) underwater swimming sections inbetween all the major arenas. The difficulty has definitely escalated, but the escalation is necessary to avoid running the risk of only repeating the ‘white belt’ encounters of the base game that the player has already proven their mastery over.
I believe the real culprit here is that most casual players were also returning players who had grown rusty in the six months between the base game’s and TAG1’s launch. Considering TAG1 starts off with several Cyber-Mancubi and Barons and no warm-up and it only escalates from there, it can make the entire DLC campaign feel overwhelming when you have yet to remember how everything worked; something that might not have been a problem if you had only just finished the base game. This is where in retrospect I believe that TAG1 would have been better off if it was balanced around a shotgun start and finding all your old weapons again, instead of balancing around your full loadout. This would allow returning casual players to get a quick crash course on all your old abilities and weapons over the course of a level or two instead of having to remember everything at once, and it would also allow for some interesting encounter design for returning core players as well where you’d have to face off against enemies without the weapons you would normally use against against them (like dealing with Shieldguys without a Plasma Rifle, or Whiplashes without Lock-on Rockets, or a Tyrant without any of your power weapons). The Super Gore Nest Master Level already features a Shotgun Start mode, so this shouldn’t have been technically impossible. And, while I personally don’t see any value in this type of argument but know that many others do, you can also cite historical precedent as a justification for taking your weapons away by pointing out that Doom 1 would also take away all your weapons at the start of each episode. Nevertheless, id Software declared the pacing guilty, and so decided to correct this in TAG2.
Rather than balancing the learning curve around one playthrough like with the base game and TAG1, for TAG2 id Software decided to take the Platinum approach to difficulty. In short, the first playthrough is an extended tutorial meant to keep casual players invested by introducing something new every 30 minutes while forgetting about the last thing, whereas the second playthrough in the form of the (yet to be released at the time of writing) Master Levels is the ‘real’ game where aforementioned new elements are combined with each other and pre-existing elements to actually test your mastery over them. In the context of a game like Doom Eternal that’s not designed around being replayed repeatedly to get a decent grasp of the gameplay (like with a roguelite or an arcade game), this approach is terrible because of the following reasons:
Firstly, it defeats the point of having difficulty settings that you can switch between on the fly. When you select Hurt Me Plenty difficulty, you expect a comfortable breeze, and not something as demanding as TAG1 was. When you select Nightmare difficulty, you expect to be pushed into using all of the game’s systems. TAG2 on Nightmare absolutely does not do that, because most TAG2 arenas are intensity-wise on par with Arc Complex in the base game, except in Arc Complex you did not have all weapons/upgrades yet, whereas in TAG2 you are fully upgraded and then some (see: Hammer). Even if the Master Levels were already out, you would still have to trudge through 3 hours of white belt encounters on Nightmare before you can actually get to the Good Stuff, because in DE you cannot access Master Levels unless you complete the regular levels first. Using cheats to skip the regular levels for the Master Levels wouldn’t be ideal either, because regardless of skill level you still need the time and space to learn TAG2’s new gameplay elements, and Master Levels are the worst place to learn them considering MLs are designed around you already having a full grasp of them.
Secondly, you basically have to run through the same content twice to get the ‘full’ experience, and even then it’s not a given that people will even bother playing the Master Levels. Amongst the majority of gamers, “beating” a singleplayer game usually involves playing once up to the credits roll, unless each playthrough promises new content (like in roguelikes and whatnot). Having to replay the same content but remixed once or twice until you get to the Fun Zone will feel to most like uninspired padding, who will just drop the game out of boredom before they get to the Fun Zone. The base game deftly avoided this and successfully appealed to both casual and core gamers by showing you the majority of its content and making you experience the depths of the gameplay--i.e. the Fun Zone, over the course of one playthrough no matter what difficulty setting you picked. Master Levels were for those who were already satisfied with the base game but wanted even more. Only after getting hooked to the gameplay will make people feel like playing remixed content; the actual hook was not in the Master Levels themselves. Meanwhile if you want to experience what it’s like doing Meathook platforming or fighting the new enemy types in a situation that actually makes you think about what you’re doing, then you’re going to have to slog through this 3-hour long pseudo-tutorial before you can even get to that point.
Thirdly, changing direction like this in what’s probably the final piece of official DE story content is the worst place to do it in. Most of the people who will play TAG2 are most likely those who already managed to get through the base game and TAG1 and liked it for what it was and wanted more, so suddenly hitting the metaphorical brakes with TAG2 feels incredibly out of place, what with its tendency for simple fodder-only enemy waves. Narratively this also creates a massive whiplash, where you finally arrive at the True Big Bad’s Lair, but it’s mostly populated by these Demonic Troopers that explode if you so much as hit them with the Meathook, so your archnemesis ends up feeling underwhelming and like a bit of a joke.
Fourthly, I hear TAG2 is supposed to be a ‘victory lap’ or a ‘power fantasy’, but that is, quite frankly, cope. A power fantasy only works when you have something worthy to exercise your awesome power against. Whenever you’d pick up a power-up like the Quad Damage in a game like Quake 1 (or just Doom Eternal itself), it would throw a greater amount of enemies at you that would normally be bullshit to deal with without the power-up. It feels good because now you’ve got the power to pull one over the foes that have been making your entire life miserable up until now. Being given a power-up and the game throwing even less enemies at you than before is not a power fantasy, but an anticlimax. Being given a full loadout and an overpowered hammer that can stun groups of enemies, and then have the only opposition you face be on par with what you faced in the middle part of the base game, is an anticlimax. And as far as I can tell, TAG2 isn’t trying to be anticlimactic for narrative reasons that could possibly justify this direction in gameplay.
There is also another issue that plagues TAG2’s pacing, one which would persist even without the aforementioned changed in direction--namely: You’re introducing five new enemy types (Riot Soldiers, Cursed Prowlers, Screechers, Armored Barons, Stone Imps, I’m not counting the Demonic Troopers LOL), a new equipment item in the form of the Hammer, and Meathook platforming in a DLC consisting of three levels (or looking at Immora, it’s more accurate to say two-and-a-half). Where are you going to find the time and space to let the player get acquainted with all these new gameplay elements, while also delivering a climax gameplay-wise that’s befitting of the last piece of official main story content?
Well, you don’t.
Save for the Hammer, every new element in TAG2 is tragically underutilized. New enemies like the Armored Barons and Stone Imps tend to largely appear by themselves and are rarely accompanied by other Heavy demons, whereas the new support demons like Screechers and Cursed Prowlers are only used in relatively low-intensity encounters, and almost never in something major. Having new enemies appear by themselves or with only minor support makes sense for when you encounter them for the first time and have yet to learn how they work, but that’s about the only capacity said demons appear in. Meanwhile the actual major encounters in TAG2 barely use the new demons at all. Meathook platforming is also mostly used to traverse large gaps, but almost never in combat. When it is used in combat, it’s usually as a single Meathook point above a largely flat and sparsely populated arena that already has tons of space to move around in. I can only imagine this all being a consequence of the “we’ll properly flesh this stuff out later in the Master Levels” philosophy.
You really shouldn’t be introducing too many new things at the very end of the game, as it gives you very little space to flesh out said elements. The base game stopped introducing new enemies and weapons after Taras Nabad (bosses and Makyr Drones excluded), and dedicated the remaining four levels to realizing its own potential by combining the existing enemies in different ways to create more demanding but also more unique encounters. TAG1 did introduce Spirits in its second level and Blood Makyrs in its third and final level, but TAG1 got more mileage out of both enemies individually than all new enemies in TAG2 combined, on account of not having to juggle a dozen new elements at once. It also helped that everyone knew that TAG2 was on the horizon, and that we might see even more interesting usage of the TAG1 enemies there (we didn’t). If we knew there was a TAG3 coming, then I wouldn’t be writing this paragraph.
What’s even weirder is that TAG2 already provides a solution for there not being enough time and space to play around with all the new elements, in the form Escalation Encounters. Casual players that prefer having an uninterruptible flow can simply ignore the optional and more intense second wave, whereas core players can get the challenge they crave and see aforementioned new elements being used to more interesting extents. This is also why it’s so unfortunate that Escalation Encounters aren’t used that much (only three times in TAG2), and that even then the second waves barely use any of the new TAG2 enemies.
As for the new enemies on their own; some are good, some are undercooked. The Screecher is a great addition, as it makes you be extra careful with where you shoot and how you use your AoE weapons if you don’t want to unintentionally buff all surrounding enemies and screw yourself over. The only qualm I have about this buff is that on top of buffing enemy attack and movement speed (á la Buff Totems), it also buffs enemy damage resistance. This isn’t a problem in TAG2 itself, since most Screecher encounters don’t have Superheavy demons as support, but for larger encounters in possible future (custom) Master Levels where several Superheavies are involved, accidentally getting a group of Superheavies Screecher-buffed would basically cause a massive death spiral, at which point you might as well reload your save. It’s for this reason that, just like with the Marauder, the Screecher doesn’t scale upwards well; the level designer needs to put a damper on the heavier demons when using the Screecher so things won’t spiral into absurdly difficult territory, which limits how the Screecher can be used. I believe that forgoing the damage resistance buff would make the Screecher more flexible in this regard.
The Cursed Prowler is another such enemy which introduces an interesting and unique dynamic that works well within TAG2’s levels, but wouldn’t scale upwards well in future Master Levels. Being cursed with limited mobility and having to seek out and Blood Punch a moving target that keeps running away from you is great, as it makes you improvise using a more limited toolset in the same way that the Screecher makes you reconsider how to use AoE weaponry. The problem is that this dynamic can only occur so long as the Cursed Prowler hits you. This means that an arena that holds back on enemy spawns to account for the possibility of being cursed runs the risk of being too boneless if you kill the Cursed Prowler without getting cursed, whereas an arena that doesn’t hold back at all is liable to turn into a death spiral if you do get cursed, and basically makes memorizing Cursed Prowler spawns a requirement. This is a similar problem that Buff Totems faced in the base game, where you were better off memorizing Buff Totem spawns and beelining towards them instead of dealing with the buffed enemies, which TAG1 got around by locking Buff Totems away from you and forcing you to deal with buffed enemies. Similarly, Cursed Prowlers would work better if being cursed was an inevitability (like being automatically cursed whenever a Cursed Prowler spawns, with this being telegraphed well in advance). This would make dealing with the status effect more predictable if you know when it’s coming, but this predictability should also allow designers to create encounters that are better tailored around being cursed, instead of having to design encounters around simultaneously being cursed and not being cursed. Even with that in mind, being unable to dash while cursed means you’re basically screwed against enemies like Tyrants, Doom Hunters, or Whiplashes where you absolutely must dash in order to avoid their attacks (the Meathook also works as a means to quickly GTFO, but it has its own cooldown), so to better allow for encounters where you end up being cursed against enemies like that without it becoming complete bullshit, it would be better to create some leeway by having dashes just recharge relatively slowly when you are cursed.
On another note, I also wish being cursed didn’t automatically give you a BP charge to always prepare you for killing the Cursed Prowler, and would actually deplete your BP gauge to begin with. Part of the dynamic of being cursed involves having to suddenly adapt to a limited moveset, and having to find other enemies to GK for BP’s while cursed (instead of immediately beelining towards the Crowler) could have played a great part in that.
The Armored Baron is a great albeit underutilized addition. It’s basically the Marauder Done Right; instead of only being able to wait for the Baron to give you an opening to disable its shields (like with the Marauder/Blood Makyr), you can also force an opening by shooting it with the Plasma Rifle and its mods, which also makes the Heat Blast somewhat useful for once because of its burst plasma damage. Instead of the Armored Baron being a non-factor that you only deal with after clearing out all other heavy demons (like with the Marauder), you do want to prioritize parrying/dodging its morning star attacks when they occur, because their range and accuracy is massive. The Armored Baron also occupies a different niche from the Blood Makyr where instead of being able to insta-kill it during its vulnerability window in one shot, you need to commit more time and ammo to kill it while it’s vulnerable. This is why the Armored Baron works best in pairs or together with other (super)heavy demons; other demons get in the way of you easily being able to burst down an Armored Baron while it’s vulnerable, while the Armored Baron still demands top priority when it does its morning star attack. This is also why it’s unfortunate that Armored Barons are rarely used in this capacity. On another note, I wish the vulnerability window for the morning star attacks was made a bit smaller, so you’d have a reason to actually go destroy the Armored Baron’s armor the hard way when things are getting too intense for you to easily focus on parrying the morning star.
The Riot Soldiers are supposed to be like the Doom 2 Chaingunners, but here they are just undercooked no matter how you want to try and use them. Their fast low-damage projectiles are too inaccurate to pose any threat whatsoever, and their indestructible shields are easily circumvented with only one Remote Detonation or Sticky Bomb. Riot Soldiers could work as a long-range harassment unit, where they bully you with nigh-unavoidable chip damage into breaking line of sight or prioritizing them first, but this could only work if they could actually reliably hit you and if they weren’t so simple to kill from long-range with explosive splash damage. The Challenge Restored mod has the right idea here where Riot Soldiers have increased projectile speeds, and take way less damage from explosive weapons, with the intent of using explosives to setup falters and finishing them off with another weapon. That way instead of quickly being able to delete Riot Soldiers from any range, you need to commit dealing with Riot Soldiers either by waiting for your explosives to detonate and falter them so you can finish them off at any range, or by simply moving around their shields.
The Stone Imps seem like a lazy way to get you to use the Full-Auto, but they do pose an interesting dynamic (if they’re not used only by themselves). So here you’ve got an ubiquitous fodder demon that cannot be killed using regular means. While Full-Auto does easily kill them, Full-Auto is also a mod that requires commitment in terms of deployment time and reduced movement speed when using it, so if you had to fight Stone Imps alongside heavier demons intruding on your personal space, then using only Full-Auto would be much less of a dominant solution. You also can’t easily choose to ignore Stone Imps until you take out all the bigger demons first, because Stone Imps have this homing spinball attack that’s tricky to avoid. Their damage vulnerability to the Hammer is also a neat idea in that you can expend a valuable Hammer charge to easily get rid of them in one shot. At least this would be a cool dynamic if getting Hammer charges wasn’t so easy, but more on that later. I do wish that the Stone Imp also had a damage vulnerability for other high-commitment options such as the Mobile Turret, Microwave Beam and Destroyer Blade, so you have a bit more freedom in deciding how exactly you are going to commit to dealing with Stone Imps.
Lastly, TAG2 introduces the Hammer. The Hammer is your replacement for the Crucible, and is a way more interesting tool that should’ve replaced both the Crucible and Chainsaw from the get go. The Chainsaw simply isn’t very interesting to use; with one press of a button you insta-kill an enemy for ammo, and the dynamic of being left vulnerable after a Chainsaw kill often doesn’t get capitalized on by the enemies (except for Mancubi and Possessed enemies), and even then can be mitigated by deploying the Chaingun Shield right after the kill animation ends. Meanwhile there is more depth to how you can use the Hammer as a tool to regain ammo, as a tool to stun enemies, or just to clear out fodder (kind of like DOOM (2016)’s Chainsaw dynamic of “do I save fuel to insta-kill a Baron, or do I want ammo now”, except the Hammer takes a less insane approach that doesn’t involve insta-killing any enemy with no effort). Enemies hit by the Hammer shockwave drop ammo, so the more enemies you hit at once, the more ammo you get. But you can also opt to forgo maximizing ammo gains to use it more offensively by stunning (super)heavy demons or using it to increase the vulnerability windows on enemies like the Armored Barons and Marauders, or enemies that are resistant to everything except the Hammer like the Stone Imp.
This is all great, but in practice the Hammer is way overpowered (especially once upgraded), and needs to be tuned down by a whole lot. The ammo gained per hit demon is large enough that grouping enemies together on purpose isn’t something you would really consider doing, which on top of already having the Chainsaw means that ammo will never be an issue ever. Hammering enemies that are already frozen with an Ice Bomb or set alight with the Flame Belch further multiplies the health/armor gains to absurd levels. The absurd upgraded stun duration on enemies hit by the Hammer, on top of the debuff that makes hammered enemies take bonus damage, means that you can kill most (super)heavies in one cycle (if you know how to quickswap), and is already obscenely OP on its own. Yes, it lets you very easily one-cycle Marauders which is based because they’re a trash enemy type, but that is honestly just a band-aid fix. Furthermore, the Hammer is also quite spammable because you only need to destroy two weak points or do two Glory Kills to recharge it (sidenote: having something fill up based on destroying weak points is great because it gives you a reason to bother shooting off the Revenant shoulder cannons), and even then TAG2 levels tend to litter arenas with Hammer charge pick-ups that make using the Hammer with its sheer power a brainless option. I want to use the Hammer, but its sheer power makes other parts of Eternal’s resource gathering and faltering dynamic too redundant. The Ice Bomb/Frag Grenades are about as or less powerful than the Hammer, but they’re also less spammable because of their lengthier cooldowns, and so end up being less useful on their own unless combined with the Hammer. In short, the Hammer needs nerfs nerfs nerfs--to the resources you gain from it, to the degree it stuns enemies, and to how frequently you can use it. As it is right now, it’s only suitably tuned for slaughter map-tier encounters, and way too strong for anything below that.
Finally, there’s the Dark Lord fight, which is bad. It’s basically a Super Marauder, except the Gladiator boss fight was already a Super Marauder, so the Dark Lord doesn’t get any points for originality. It’s also a much worse Super Marauder fight in every conceivable way. The biggest one is that it’s just terrible at pressuring you and testing your mobility. Most of his attacks can be avoided by simply circlestrafing or circledashing in the case of his shield bash, which you can do because the arena for the fight is ridiculously large and flat, and the Dark Lord has no fast ranged options that actually lead your movement. Compare this to the Gladiator who could snipe you with his morning stars, his shield projectile, his jumping rope attack, or by just rushing you and smacking you up close, or how the DOOM (2016) bosses would have more ranged attacks that indiscriminately covered the whole arena.
In terms of offense, the fight doesn’t fare much better. Whereas you could deal some chip damage to the Gladiator instead of having to only wait to parry its attacks, the Dark Lord gets straight up healed when you attack it when its eyes don’t flash green, even when it whiffs a melee attack (?!?!). This means there is absolutely no choice but to wait for that green flash to come, and whether the Dark Lord will do the one attack where he does flash green is very much up to RNG. Once you stagger him it’s a matter of optimizing how much damage you get out of the vulnerability time window by using the Hammer to extend the window and equipment to deal more damage, but in this context that’s not an interesting dynamic on its own. Since the fight is mostly a 1v1, applying a close-to-optimal quickswap combo becomes the dominant strategy, which is also one that isn’t that difficult to execute if you have set up some reasonable keybindings. Here the solution is obvious, is easy to execute, and must be repeated several times (for a minimum of two times for each of the five phases) with no reason to change it up, so it becomes boring. What wouldn’t have been boring if you had to find a way to deal the most damage possible while other demons kept trying to interrupt you--much like how fighting Armored Barons should ideally play out. Now depending on the situation you need to shift your priorities between doing sick combos and dealing with other demons. Charging the Hammer so you can deal extra damage is also a shallow dynamic in this fight, where instead of having to set up Glory Kills or target weak points on other demons, the enemies that the Dark Lord summons will straight-up drop Hammer charges on any kind of death, meaning there is no real choices to be had between prioritizing enemies for resources and prioritizing the Dark Lord to deal damage (and even then you can easily Meathook towards any of the static Zombies at the edge of the arena for a free Glory Kill/Chainsaw Kill).
In conclusion, as a result of trying to cram in too many new things in a small mission pack and trying to expedite properly utilizing said things to subsequent playthroughs, TAG2 ends up primarily feeling like wasted potential, and I would have genuinely preferred if it introduces less and polished what little it did introduce, than to wave all these cool concepts in our faces and do nothing with it. While introducing as many new elements as possible is great for future Master Levels both official and unofficial, vanilla TAG2 ends up suffering because of it, and vanilla TAG2 is what most people are going to be playing. I do hope that in the future id Software goes back to the base game’s approach to the learning curve, instead of TAG1’s approach of assuming the player is still completely familiar with all systems, or TAG2’s obsession with flow and increasing the intensity only very gradually over the course of its campaign.
With TAG1, the core players were pretty satisfied with its intensity and challenge, but the consensus amongst casual players (according to Doom Eternal director Hugo Martin) was that TAG1 was too intense pacing-wise, and thus exhausting to play even on lower difficulty settings. Here I disagree; TAG1 definitely does not run at 200% at all times. When breaking the structure of TAG1 down, there are still many downtime segments in the form of platforming segments, minor puzzles, minor combat encounters, story segments, or (quite frankly overlong) underwater swimming sections inbetween all the major arenas. The difficulty has definitely escalated, but the escalation is necessary to avoid running the risk of only repeating the ‘white belt’ encounters of the base game that the player has already proven their mastery over.
I believe the real culprit here is that most casual players were also returning players who had grown rusty in the six months between the base game’s and TAG1’s launch. Considering TAG1 starts off with several Cyber-Mancubi and Barons and no warm-up and it only escalates from there, it can make the entire DLC campaign feel overwhelming when you have yet to remember how everything worked; something that might not have been a problem if you had only just finished the base game. This is where in retrospect I believe that TAG1 would have been better off if it was balanced around a shotgun start and finding all your old weapons again, instead of balancing around your full loadout. This would allow returning casual players to get a quick crash course on all your old abilities and weapons over the course of a level or two instead of having to remember everything at once, and it would also allow for some interesting encounter design for returning core players as well where you’d have to face off against enemies without the weapons you would normally use against against them (like dealing with Shieldguys without a Plasma Rifle, or Whiplashes without Lock-on Rockets, or a Tyrant without any of your power weapons). The Super Gore Nest Master Level already features a Shotgun Start mode, so this shouldn’t have been technically impossible. And, while I personally don’t see any value in this type of argument but know that many others do, you can also cite historical precedent as a justification for taking your weapons away by pointing out that Doom 1 would also take away all your weapons at the start of each episode. Nevertheless, id Software declared the pacing guilty, and so decided to correct this in TAG2.
Rather than balancing the learning curve around one playthrough like with the base game and TAG1, for TAG2 id Software decided to take the Platinum approach to difficulty. In short, the first playthrough is an extended tutorial meant to keep casual players invested by introducing something new every 30 minutes while forgetting about the last thing, whereas the second playthrough in the form of the (yet to be released at the time of writing) Master Levels is the ‘real’ game where aforementioned new elements are combined with each other and pre-existing elements to actually test your mastery over them. In the context of a game like Doom Eternal that’s not designed around being replayed repeatedly to get a decent grasp of the gameplay (like with a roguelite or an arcade game), this approach is terrible because of the following reasons:
Firstly, it defeats the point of having difficulty settings that you can switch between on the fly. When you select Hurt Me Plenty difficulty, you expect a comfortable breeze, and not something as demanding as TAG1 was. When you select Nightmare difficulty, you expect to be pushed into using all of the game’s systems. TAG2 on Nightmare absolutely does not do that, because most TAG2 arenas are intensity-wise on par with Arc Complex in the base game, except in Arc Complex you did not have all weapons/upgrades yet, whereas in TAG2 you are fully upgraded and then some (see: Hammer). Even if the Master Levels were already out, you would still have to trudge through 3 hours of white belt encounters on Nightmare before you can actually get to the Good Stuff, because in DE you cannot access Master Levels unless you complete the regular levels first. Using cheats to skip the regular levels for the Master Levels wouldn’t be ideal either, because regardless of skill level you still need the time and space to learn TAG2’s new gameplay elements, and Master Levels are the worst place to learn them considering MLs are designed around you already having a full grasp of them.
Secondly, you basically have to run through the same content twice to get the ‘full’ experience, and even then it’s not a given that people will even bother playing the Master Levels. Amongst the majority of gamers, “beating” a singleplayer game usually involves playing once up to the credits roll, unless each playthrough promises new content (like in roguelikes and whatnot). Having to replay the same content but remixed once or twice until you get to the Fun Zone will feel to most like uninspired padding, who will just drop the game out of boredom before they get to the Fun Zone. The base game deftly avoided this and successfully appealed to both casual and core gamers by showing you the majority of its content and making you experience the depths of the gameplay--i.e. the Fun Zone, over the course of one playthrough no matter what difficulty setting you picked. Master Levels were for those who were already satisfied with the base game but wanted even more. Only after getting hooked to the gameplay will make people feel like playing remixed content; the actual hook was not in the Master Levels themselves. Meanwhile if you want to experience what it’s like doing Meathook platforming or fighting the new enemy types in a situation that actually makes you think about what you’re doing, then you’re going to have to slog through this 3-hour long pseudo-tutorial before you can even get to that point.
Thirdly, changing direction like this in what’s probably the final piece of official DE story content is the worst place to do it in. Most of the people who will play TAG2 are most likely those who already managed to get through the base game and TAG1 and liked it for what it was and wanted more, so suddenly hitting the metaphorical brakes with TAG2 feels incredibly out of place, what with its tendency for simple fodder-only enemy waves. Narratively this also creates a massive whiplash, where you finally arrive at the True Big Bad’s Lair, but it’s mostly populated by these Demonic Troopers that explode if you so much as hit them with the Meathook, so your archnemesis ends up feeling underwhelming and like a bit of a joke.
Fourthly, I hear TAG2 is supposed to be a ‘victory lap’ or a ‘power fantasy’, but that is, quite frankly, cope. A power fantasy only works when you have something worthy to exercise your awesome power against. Whenever you’d pick up a power-up like the Quad Damage in a game like Quake 1 (or just Doom Eternal itself), it would throw a greater amount of enemies at you that would normally be bullshit to deal with without the power-up. It feels good because now you’ve got the power to pull one over the foes that have been making your entire life miserable up until now. Being given a power-up and the game throwing even less enemies at you than before is not a power fantasy, but an anticlimax. Being given a full loadout and an overpowered hammer that can stun groups of enemies, and then have the only opposition you face be on par with what you faced in the middle part of the base game, is an anticlimax. And as far as I can tell, TAG2 isn’t trying to be anticlimactic for narrative reasons that could possibly justify this direction in gameplay.
There is also another issue that plagues TAG2’s pacing, one which would persist even without the aforementioned changed in direction--namely: You’re introducing five new enemy types (Riot Soldiers, Cursed Prowlers, Screechers, Armored Barons, Stone Imps, I’m not counting the Demonic Troopers LOL), a new equipment item in the form of the Hammer, and Meathook platforming in a DLC consisting of three levels (or looking at Immora, it’s more accurate to say two-and-a-half). Where are you going to find the time and space to let the player get acquainted with all these new gameplay elements, while also delivering a climax gameplay-wise that’s befitting of the last piece of official main story content?
Well, you don’t.
Save for the Hammer, every new element in TAG2 is tragically underutilized. New enemies like the Armored Barons and Stone Imps tend to largely appear by themselves and are rarely accompanied by other Heavy demons, whereas the new support demons like Screechers and Cursed Prowlers are only used in relatively low-intensity encounters, and almost never in something major. Having new enemies appear by themselves or with only minor support makes sense for when you encounter them for the first time and have yet to learn how they work, but that’s about the only capacity said demons appear in. Meanwhile the actual major encounters in TAG2 barely use the new demons at all. Meathook platforming is also mostly used to traverse large gaps, but almost never in combat. When it is used in combat, it’s usually as a single Meathook point above a largely flat and sparsely populated arena that already has tons of space to move around in. I can only imagine this all being a consequence of the “we’ll properly flesh this stuff out later in the Master Levels” philosophy.
You really shouldn’t be introducing too many new things at the very end of the game, as it gives you very little space to flesh out said elements. The base game stopped introducing new enemies and weapons after Taras Nabad (bosses and Makyr Drones excluded), and dedicated the remaining four levels to realizing its own potential by combining the existing enemies in different ways to create more demanding but also more unique encounters. TAG1 did introduce Spirits in its second level and Blood Makyrs in its third and final level, but TAG1 got more mileage out of both enemies individually than all new enemies in TAG2 combined, on account of not having to juggle a dozen new elements at once. It also helped that everyone knew that TAG2 was on the horizon, and that we might see even more interesting usage of the TAG1 enemies there (we didn’t). If we knew there was a TAG3 coming, then I wouldn’t be writing this paragraph.
What’s even weirder is that TAG2 already provides a solution for there not being enough time and space to play around with all the new elements, in the form Escalation Encounters. Casual players that prefer having an uninterruptible flow can simply ignore the optional and more intense second wave, whereas core players can get the challenge they crave and see aforementioned new elements being used to more interesting extents. This is also why it’s so unfortunate that Escalation Encounters aren’t used that much (only three times in TAG2), and that even then the second waves barely use any of the new TAG2 enemies.
As for the new enemies on their own; some are good, some are undercooked. The Screecher is a great addition, as it makes you be extra careful with where you shoot and how you use your AoE weapons if you don’t want to unintentionally buff all surrounding enemies and screw yourself over. The only qualm I have about this buff is that on top of buffing enemy attack and movement speed (á la Buff Totems), it also buffs enemy damage resistance. This isn’t a problem in TAG2 itself, since most Screecher encounters don’t have Superheavy demons as support, but for larger encounters in possible future (custom) Master Levels where several Superheavies are involved, accidentally getting a group of Superheavies Screecher-buffed would basically cause a massive death spiral, at which point you might as well reload your save. It’s for this reason that, just like with the Marauder, the Screecher doesn’t scale upwards well; the level designer needs to put a damper on the heavier demons when using the Screecher so things won’t spiral into absurdly difficult territory, which limits how the Screecher can be used. I believe that forgoing the damage resistance buff would make the Screecher more flexible in this regard.
The Cursed Prowler is another such enemy which introduces an interesting and unique dynamic that works well within TAG2’s levels, but wouldn’t scale upwards well in future Master Levels. Being cursed with limited mobility and having to seek out and Blood Punch a moving target that keeps running away from you is great, as it makes you improvise using a more limited toolset in the same way that the Screecher makes you reconsider how to use AoE weaponry. The problem is that this dynamic can only occur so long as the Cursed Prowler hits you. This means that an arena that holds back on enemy spawns to account for the possibility of being cursed runs the risk of being too boneless if you kill the Cursed Prowler without getting cursed, whereas an arena that doesn’t hold back at all is liable to turn into a death spiral if you do get cursed, and basically makes memorizing Cursed Prowler spawns a requirement. This is a similar problem that Buff Totems faced in the base game, where you were better off memorizing Buff Totem spawns and beelining towards them instead of dealing with the buffed enemies, which TAG1 got around by locking Buff Totems away from you and forcing you to deal with buffed enemies. Similarly, Cursed Prowlers would work better if being cursed was an inevitability (like being automatically cursed whenever a Cursed Prowler spawns, with this being telegraphed well in advance). This would make dealing with the status effect more predictable if you know when it’s coming, but this predictability should also allow designers to create encounters that are better tailored around being cursed, instead of having to design encounters around simultaneously being cursed and not being cursed. Even with that in mind, being unable to dash while cursed means you’re basically screwed against enemies like Tyrants, Doom Hunters, or Whiplashes where you absolutely must dash in order to avoid their attacks (the Meathook also works as a means to quickly GTFO, but it has its own cooldown), so to better allow for encounters where you end up being cursed against enemies like that without it becoming complete bullshit, it would be better to create some leeway by having dashes just recharge relatively slowly when you are cursed.
On another note, I also wish being cursed didn’t automatically give you a BP charge to always prepare you for killing the Cursed Prowler, and would actually deplete your BP gauge to begin with. Part of the dynamic of being cursed involves having to suddenly adapt to a limited moveset, and having to find other enemies to GK for BP’s while cursed (instead of immediately beelining towards the Crowler) could have played a great part in that.
The Armored Baron is a great albeit underutilized addition. It’s basically the Marauder Done Right; instead of only being able to wait for the Baron to give you an opening to disable its shields (like with the Marauder/Blood Makyr), you can also force an opening by shooting it with the Plasma Rifle and its mods, which also makes the Heat Blast somewhat useful for once because of its burst plasma damage. Instead of the Armored Baron being a non-factor that you only deal with after clearing out all other heavy demons (like with the Marauder), you do want to prioritize parrying/dodging its morning star attacks when they occur, because their range and accuracy is massive. The Armored Baron also occupies a different niche from the Blood Makyr where instead of being able to insta-kill it during its vulnerability window in one shot, you need to commit more time and ammo to kill it while it’s vulnerable. This is why the Armored Baron works best in pairs or together with other (super)heavy demons; other demons get in the way of you easily being able to burst down an Armored Baron while it’s vulnerable, while the Armored Baron still demands top priority when it does its morning star attack. This is also why it’s unfortunate that Armored Barons are rarely used in this capacity. On another note, I wish the vulnerability window for the morning star attacks was made a bit smaller, so you’d have a reason to actually go destroy the Armored Baron’s armor the hard way when things are getting too intense for you to easily focus on parrying the morning star.
The Riot Soldiers are supposed to be like the Doom 2 Chaingunners, but here they are just undercooked no matter how you want to try and use them. Their fast low-damage projectiles are too inaccurate to pose any threat whatsoever, and their indestructible shields are easily circumvented with only one Remote Detonation or Sticky Bomb. Riot Soldiers could work as a long-range harassment unit, where they bully you with nigh-unavoidable chip damage into breaking line of sight or prioritizing them first, but this could only work if they could actually reliably hit you and if they weren’t so simple to kill from long-range with explosive splash damage. The Challenge Restored mod has the right idea here where Riot Soldiers have increased projectile speeds, and take way less damage from explosive weapons, with the intent of using explosives to setup falters and finishing them off with another weapon. That way instead of quickly being able to delete Riot Soldiers from any range, you need to commit dealing with Riot Soldiers either by waiting for your explosives to detonate and falter them so you can finish them off at any range, or by simply moving around their shields.
The Stone Imps seem like a lazy way to get you to use the Full-Auto, but they do pose an interesting dynamic (if they’re not used only by themselves). So here you’ve got an ubiquitous fodder demon that cannot be killed using regular means. While Full-Auto does easily kill them, Full-Auto is also a mod that requires commitment in terms of deployment time and reduced movement speed when using it, so if you had to fight Stone Imps alongside heavier demons intruding on your personal space, then using only Full-Auto would be much less of a dominant solution. You also can’t easily choose to ignore Stone Imps until you take out all the bigger demons first, because Stone Imps have this homing spinball attack that’s tricky to avoid. Their damage vulnerability to the Hammer is also a neat idea in that you can expend a valuable Hammer charge to easily get rid of them in one shot. At least this would be a cool dynamic if getting Hammer charges wasn’t so easy, but more on that later. I do wish that the Stone Imp also had a damage vulnerability for other high-commitment options such as the Mobile Turret, Microwave Beam and Destroyer Blade, so you have a bit more freedom in deciding how exactly you are going to commit to dealing with Stone Imps.
Lastly, TAG2 introduces the Hammer. The Hammer is your replacement for the Crucible, and is a way more interesting tool that should’ve replaced both the Crucible and Chainsaw from the get go. The Chainsaw simply isn’t very interesting to use; with one press of a button you insta-kill an enemy for ammo, and the dynamic of being left vulnerable after a Chainsaw kill often doesn’t get capitalized on by the enemies (except for Mancubi and Possessed enemies), and even then can be mitigated by deploying the Chaingun Shield right after the kill animation ends. Meanwhile there is more depth to how you can use the Hammer as a tool to regain ammo, as a tool to stun enemies, or just to clear out fodder (kind of like DOOM (2016)’s Chainsaw dynamic of “do I save fuel to insta-kill a Baron, or do I want ammo now”, except the Hammer takes a less insane approach that doesn’t involve insta-killing any enemy with no effort). Enemies hit by the Hammer shockwave drop ammo, so the more enemies you hit at once, the more ammo you get. But you can also opt to forgo maximizing ammo gains to use it more offensively by stunning (super)heavy demons or using it to increase the vulnerability windows on enemies like the Armored Barons and Marauders, or enemies that are resistant to everything except the Hammer like the Stone Imp.
This is all great, but in practice the Hammer is way overpowered (especially once upgraded), and needs to be tuned down by a whole lot. The ammo gained per hit demon is large enough that grouping enemies together on purpose isn’t something you would really consider doing, which on top of already having the Chainsaw means that ammo will never be an issue ever. Hammering enemies that are already frozen with an Ice Bomb or set alight with the Flame Belch further multiplies the health/armor gains to absurd levels. The absurd upgraded stun duration on enemies hit by the Hammer, on top of the debuff that makes hammered enemies take bonus damage, means that you can kill most (super)heavies in one cycle (if you know how to quickswap), and is already obscenely OP on its own. Yes, it lets you very easily one-cycle Marauders which is based because they’re a trash enemy type, but that is honestly just a band-aid fix. Furthermore, the Hammer is also quite spammable because you only need to destroy two weak points or do two Glory Kills to recharge it (sidenote: having something fill up based on destroying weak points is great because it gives you a reason to bother shooting off the Revenant shoulder cannons), and even then TAG2 levels tend to litter arenas with Hammer charge pick-ups that make using the Hammer with its sheer power a brainless option. I want to use the Hammer, but its sheer power makes other parts of Eternal’s resource gathering and faltering dynamic too redundant. The Ice Bomb/Frag Grenades are about as or less powerful than the Hammer, but they’re also less spammable because of their lengthier cooldowns, and so end up being less useful on their own unless combined with the Hammer. In short, the Hammer needs nerfs nerfs nerfs--to the resources you gain from it, to the degree it stuns enemies, and to how frequently you can use it. As it is right now, it’s only suitably tuned for slaughter map-tier encounters, and way too strong for anything below that.
Finally, there’s the Dark Lord fight, which is bad. It’s basically a Super Marauder, except the Gladiator boss fight was already a Super Marauder, so the Dark Lord doesn’t get any points for originality. It’s also a much worse Super Marauder fight in every conceivable way. The biggest one is that it’s just terrible at pressuring you and testing your mobility. Most of his attacks can be avoided by simply circlestrafing or circledashing in the case of his shield bash, which you can do because the arena for the fight is ridiculously large and flat, and the Dark Lord has no fast ranged options that actually lead your movement. Compare this to the Gladiator who could snipe you with his morning stars, his shield projectile, his jumping rope attack, or by just rushing you and smacking you up close, or how the DOOM (2016) bosses would have more ranged attacks that indiscriminately covered the whole arena.
In terms of offense, the fight doesn’t fare much better. Whereas you could deal some chip damage to the Gladiator instead of having to only wait to parry its attacks, the Dark Lord gets straight up healed when you attack it when its eyes don’t flash green, even when it whiffs a melee attack (?!?!). This means there is absolutely no choice but to wait for that green flash to come, and whether the Dark Lord will do the one attack where he does flash green is very much up to RNG. Once you stagger him it’s a matter of optimizing how much damage you get out of the vulnerability time window by using the Hammer to extend the window and equipment to deal more damage, but in this context that’s not an interesting dynamic on its own. Since the fight is mostly a 1v1, applying a close-to-optimal quickswap combo becomes the dominant strategy, which is also one that isn’t that difficult to execute if you have set up some reasonable keybindings. Here the solution is obvious, is easy to execute, and must be repeated several times (for a minimum of two times for each of the five phases) with no reason to change it up, so it becomes boring. What wouldn’t have been boring if you had to find a way to deal the most damage possible while other demons kept trying to interrupt you--much like how fighting Armored Barons should ideally play out. Now depending on the situation you need to shift your priorities between doing sick combos and dealing with other demons. Charging the Hammer so you can deal extra damage is also a shallow dynamic in this fight, where instead of having to set up Glory Kills or target weak points on other demons, the enemies that the Dark Lord summons will straight-up drop Hammer charges on any kind of death, meaning there is no real choices to be had between prioritizing enemies for resources and prioritizing the Dark Lord to deal damage (and even then you can easily Meathook towards any of the static Zombies at the edge of the arena for a free Glory Kill/Chainsaw Kill).
In conclusion, as a result of trying to cram in too many new things in a small mission pack and trying to expedite properly utilizing said things to subsequent playthroughs, TAG2 ends up primarily feeling like wasted potential, and I would have genuinely preferred if it introduces less and polished what little it did introduce, than to wave all these cool concepts in our faces and do nothing with it. While introducing as many new elements as possible is great for future Master Levels both official and unofficial, vanilla TAG2 ends up suffering because of it, and vanilla TAG2 is what most people are going to be playing. I do hope that in the future id Software goes back to the base game’s approach to the learning curve, instead of TAG1’s approach of assuming the player is still completely familiar with all systems, or TAG2’s obsession with flow and increasing the intensity only very gradually over the course of its campaign.
Not as torturous as part 1 plus had an epic battle scene, so overall pretty fun! Also the boss at least felt more like a boss than part 1 but was still hoping for more than 5 rounds of the same thing. Plus the health regen was super annoying.
a história é maneirissima apesar de meio apressada, os inimigos novos são legais e a quantidade exagerada de inimigos melhorou muito com a adição do martelo na gameplay, muito mais útil que a espada do jogo base tbm, mas sinceramente o pedaço q vem os dois marauders junto com os inimigos q gritam e o boss final foram simplesmente insuportáveis, o jogo faz uma propaganda desgraçada pra esse último chefe pra ele ser uma luta chata onde ele regenera vida sempre e tem o mesmo padrão de ataque durante 10 minutos usando uma armadura esquisita. se não fosse esse último chefe eu dava um 8
70
The Ancient Gods - Part Two is a fairly satisfying and enjoyable conclusion to DOOM Eternal, even if it’s still just more of the same. I seem to be in the minority— wherein most people preferred part one, I actually think part two does a lot better— more consistently. The levels don’t drop off in quality after the first one, the enemies fit into the flow of combat a lot better, and I liked the inclusion of the hammer; although it does decrease the difficulty by quite a bit.
All of the new environments are gorgeous, even if they don’t live up to the first level of part one; but I was expecting that to be the case so it’s not that big of a deal. Reclaimed Earth was especially creative and fun, I like the lush green look of it all; and it’s cool how it’s comprised of skyscrapers, alleyways, and other city-esque stuff. I just found it really fun.
The third level had the spectacle down— with an all-out war happening in the background, but failed with the complexity of the layout. It’s pretty much just a straight pathway down to the finish line, which makes it bland and boring to progress through. The boss fight at the end isn’t horrible by any means, but it definitely goes on for way too long with little to no change in approach for each phase… and there’s five of them! The cutscenes throughout the DLC go fucking hard though…
DLC's - Ranked
2021 - Ranked
The Ancient Gods - Part Two is a fairly satisfying and enjoyable conclusion to DOOM Eternal, even if it’s still just more of the same. I seem to be in the minority— wherein most people preferred part one, I actually think part two does a lot better— more consistently. The levels don’t drop off in quality after the first one, the enemies fit into the flow of combat a lot better, and I liked the inclusion of the hammer; although it does decrease the difficulty by quite a bit.
All of the new environments are gorgeous, even if they don’t live up to the first level of part one; but I was expecting that to be the case so it’s not that big of a deal. Reclaimed Earth was especially creative and fun, I like the lush green look of it all; and it’s cool how it’s comprised of skyscrapers, alleyways, and other city-esque stuff. I just found it really fun.
The third level had the spectacle down— with an all-out war happening in the background, but failed with the complexity of the layout. It’s pretty much just a straight pathway down to the finish line, which makes it bland and boring to progress through. The boss fight at the end isn’t horrible by any means, but it definitely goes on for way too long with little to no change in approach for each phase… and there’s five of them! The cutscenes throughout the DLC go fucking hard though…
DLC's - Ranked
2021 - Ranked
Why the fuck did they waste Doomguy's first time speaking on him saying shit like rip and tear when this has the better and less eye rolling wink to the camera way to do it raaaaaahhh!!! Also, this shit is just a Quake game that they called Doom lmfao. It's all right there. The nonsensically fucked up lore and legendary RPG Knight savior Doomslayer shit. The emphasis on movement and jumping, plus a fucking hammer. It's Quake it's goddamn Quake and we didn't even see it this whole time.
Fucking baller. Dare I say it's better than part 1? Honestly? Yeah it is. Everything in Part 1 and the base game has been expanded upon and brought to an even further insane level. Everything about Doom Eternal is cracked the fuck out. From the gameplay, to the music, to the story it's all crackhead shit that has me grinning like a psycho for the entire 30 or so hours I've spent between the campaign and the expansions. It's kind of funny how I feel that Doom 2, a game I used to (and still do!) unabashedly love feels like it overstays its welcome after replaying it yet Doom Eternal which is around twice the length just breezed through for me. Got a massive hard on every time I'd be on some psycho shootout with like 50 goons and then a fucking Cyberdemon joins in cause they're just cannon fodder now too. Disrupting that fucker Marauder's stun state into being even longer with the hammer. And the Sentinel Hammer goddamn it. Never has a game gotten me closer to feeling like Bob the Fucking Builder or Gaogaigar it's a 10/10 on that alone. So much better than The Crucible too since it refills with glory kills.
I could go on and on about how this shit rules and may actually be the best FPS of the past decade (contentious since for everyone else it's Titanfall 2, but I'm dying on this hill damn it!), but the tl;dr is that if you liked Doom Eternal you will like these expansions. Period.
If I was a woman this game would have probably been such a huge jolt to my hormones that I would have transitioned to the opposite gender.
Fucking baller. Dare I say it's better than part 1? Honestly? Yeah it is. Everything in Part 1 and the base game has been expanded upon and brought to an even further insane level. Everything about Doom Eternal is cracked the fuck out. From the gameplay, to the music, to the story it's all crackhead shit that has me grinning like a psycho for the entire 30 or so hours I've spent between the campaign and the expansions. It's kind of funny how I feel that Doom 2, a game I used to (and still do!) unabashedly love feels like it overstays its welcome after replaying it yet Doom Eternal which is around twice the length just breezed through for me. Got a massive hard on every time I'd be on some psycho shootout with like 50 goons and then a fucking Cyberdemon joins in cause they're just cannon fodder now too. Disrupting that fucker Marauder's stun state into being even longer with the hammer. And the Sentinel Hammer goddamn it. Never has a game gotten me closer to feeling like Bob the Fucking Builder or Gaogaigar it's a 10/10 on that alone. So much better than The Crucible too since it refills with glory kills.
I could go on and on about how this shit rules and may actually be the best FPS of the past decade (contentious since for everyone else it's Titanfall 2, but I'm dying on this hill damn it!), but the tl;dr is that if you liked Doom Eternal you will like these expansions. Period.
If I was a woman this game would have probably been such a huge jolt to my hormones that I would have transitioned to the opposite gender.
suck my dick hugo martin
Pior que a primeira. É mais fácil, os inimigos novos são bem qualquer coisa e a final boss é decepcionante.
Porém possui talvez a melhor cena da franquia (início da Immora) e também o martelo é pika demais.
Porém possui talvez a melhor cena da franquia (início da Immora) e também o martelo é pika demais.
It’s not as good as the base game or Part 1, but it still rocked.
Whereas Part 1 felt like the tallest mountain to climb in the entire Doom Eternal experience, this plays like more of a victory lap, up until the hilarious middle finger of a final boss.
The Avengers: Endgame thing, the fact that the last level is basically just High Charity from Halo 2, the dragon, the ending… I don’t really care. I haven’t really cared about the story in Doom 2016 or Eternal, so none of it bothers me. It’s fine.
The Ancient Gods Part 2 was more of Doom Eternal’s highly-engaging, active gameplay experience, with some new additions and unlocks. It was significantly easier than part 1, which is disappointing but not the end of the world.
Whereas Part 1 felt like the tallest mountain to climb in the entire Doom Eternal experience, this plays like more of a victory lap, up until the hilarious middle finger of a final boss.
The Avengers: Endgame thing, the fact that the last level is basically just High Charity from Halo 2, the dragon, the ending… I don’t really care. I haven’t really cared about the story in Doom 2016 or Eternal, so none of it bothers me. It’s fine.
The Ancient Gods Part 2 was more of Doom Eternal’s highly-engaging, active gameplay experience, with some new additions and unlocks. It was significantly easier than part 1, which is disappointing but not the end of the world.
I fucking hate Marvel
Had to check what day it was because of how long the final boss took.
more like part doo doo am i right folks
I loved the variety and scale of the levels and set pieces in this DLC. While I originally was mixed on the addition of enemies that require certain weapons to kill, I ultimately felt like it was very smart design decision.
I played through all of the main campaign and first DLC on Nightmare difficulty, but this DLC on Nightmare was the first to make me tilted.
I played through all of the main campaign and first DLC on Nightmare difficulty, but this DLC on Nightmare was the first to make me tilted.
This review contains spoilers
loved fighting evil doom guy
This review contains spoilers
Tag Two is the weakest entry in the otherwise excellent compendium that is Doom Eternal.
Aesthetically, the levels here look fantastic; mechanically, there are some really fun additions – I enjoy that id attempts to make use of every weapon mod, including the auto-shotgun mod which gets some mileage in taking down stone imps (essentially just imp reskins with a spindash), but for every step forward, it seems like Tag Two takes another step back.
Tag Two has some interesting challenges. The part where you fight several mancubuses (mancubi?) around a fountain in the Purple Goo That Makes You Not Jump Or Dash Good was a neat idea. The Cursed Prowler is not such a neat idea. In fact, I lost three lives to the same Cursed Prowler because I missed my only Blood Punch and could not get another for the life of me. I don’t think the idea of a Cursed Prowler is bad, but why a Blood Punch? Why can’t I just kill the dude to get my jump and dash back? I guess it’s not so bad since there’s only three in the entire DLC, but holy crap was this guy awful.
The final level feels… nowhere near as intense or demanding as the levels prior, and obviously nowhere near as hectic as anything in Tag One. The part with the possessed Marauder was scary for five seconds, and then I killed him. The new soldier enemies are also just unfinished.
This DLC was made under a significant time crunch, so I feel bad for bagging on it so hard, but also… it would’ve never been enough anyways. There’s plenty of other reviews that dig into the weirdly lax difficulty as well as the time constraints that id software produced Tag Two under, and I don’t really want to retread old ground here, but all I’ll say is that it’s pretty obvious towards the end, and it sucks, and I feel bad for them. What they did manage to accomplish is impressive, and I’m actually glad they managed to create something that is mostly high-quality and cohesive in spite of these limitations.
Yet the final boss, the Dark Lord, leaves much to be desired. It is once again the Marauder, except with more health, more summons, and not nearly as aggressive. Not only are the Dark Lord’s openings less frequent, but each successful hit he lands actually refills his health, ballooning an already long multi-phase bossfight into a ridiculous timesink.
This wouldn’t bother me so much if there were any sort of reliable way to pressure him into attacking more, maybe being able to deal chip damage or something? As it stands, the boss utilizes one of my least favorite video game tropes – that is, the enemy/boss remains invincible, unless you attack them at a certain point, and then you can deal damage for X amount of seconds before rinsing and repeating. In some cases, I understand. I don’t even hate the Marauder that much anymore because he attacks so quickly and his openings are so frequent. But the Dark Lord? This guy takes FOREVER to kill, and it doesn’t feel climactic or earned, just tedious and annoying.
The final phase where all his adds turn into heavy demons is also turbo-turd city. Majorly crap way to artificially inflate difficulty, especially at the last leg of an already long endurance test. I didn’t die to this boss, it was just a major pain in the ass to finish.
Which is a shame, too, because the final cutscene where Doomguy says his first word is actually really cool… or, it would be, if the base game didn’t do this already in a flashback (a flashback which is, by the way, one of the worst story elements in the base game by a long shot). This moment would be 10x cooler if that flashback didn’t happen, but it DID happen, and so the one, solitary word Tag Two leaves us with, “No,” rings hollow.
It would’ve been PEAK. It would’ve been CINEMA. Instead, all I can think is, man, if this was the only thing he said, that would’ve been awesome. But I KNOW what Doomguy sounds like, Hugo. YOU made it canon. YOU DID THIS.
And really, what a shame. Because playing through Doom Eternal again let me see it through brand new eyes, and I finally saw the game I wanted to see. Now I’m left with its final hurrah, and it isn’t quite as triumphant as I’d imagined.
The hammer is very fun though!
Aesthetically, the levels here look fantastic; mechanically, there are some really fun additions – I enjoy that id attempts to make use of every weapon mod, including the auto-shotgun mod which gets some mileage in taking down stone imps (essentially just imp reskins with a spindash), but for every step forward, it seems like Tag Two takes another step back.
Tag Two has some interesting challenges. The part where you fight several mancubuses (mancubi?) around a fountain in the Purple Goo That Makes You Not Jump Or Dash Good was a neat idea. The Cursed Prowler is not such a neat idea. In fact, I lost three lives to the same Cursed Prowler because I missed my only Blood Punch and could not get another for the life of me. I don’t think the idea of a Cursed Prowler is bad, but why a Blood Punch? Why can’t I just kill the dude to get my jump and dash back? I guess it’s not so bad since there’s only three in the entire DLC, but holy crap was this guy awful.
The final level feels… nowhere near as intense or demanding as the levels prior, and obviously nowhere near as hectic as anything in Tag One. The part with the possessed Marauder was scary for five seconds, and then I killed him. The new soldier enemies are also just unfinished.
This DLC was made under a significant time crunch, so I feel bad for bagging on it so hard, but also… it would’ve never been enough anyways. There’s plenty of other reviews that dig into the weirdly lax difficulty as well as the time constraints that id software produced Tag Two under, and I don’t really want to retread old ground here, but all I’ll say is that it’s pretty obvious towards the end, and it sucks, and I feel bad for them. What they did manage to accomplish is impressive, and I’m actually glad they managed to create something that is mostly high-quality and cohesive in spite of these limitations.
Yet the final boss, the Dark Lord, leaves much to be desired. It is once again the Marauder, except with more health, more summons, and not nearly as aggressive. Not only are the Dark Lord’s openings less frequent, but each successful hit he lands actually refills his health, ballooning an already long multi-phase bossfight into a ridiculous timesink.
This wouldn’t bother me so much if there were any sort of reliable way to pressure him into attacking more, maybe being able to deal chip damage or something? As it stands, the boss utilizes one of my least favorite video game tropes – that is, the enemy/boss remains invincible, unless you attack them at a certain point, and then you can deal damage for X amount of seconds before rinsing and repeating. In some cases, I understand. I don’t even hate the Marauder that much anymore because he attacks so quickly and his openings are so frequent. But the Dark Lord? This guy takes FOREVER to kill, and it doesn’t feel climactic or earned, just tedious and annoying.
The final phase where all his adds turn into heavy demons is also turbo-turd city. Majorly crap way to artificially inflate difficulty, especially at the last leg of an already long endurance test. I didn’t die to this boss, it was just a major pain in the ass to finish.
Which is a shame, too, because the final cutscene where Doomguy says his first word is actually really cool… or, it would be, if the base game didn’t do this already in a flashback (a flashback which is, by the way, one of the worst story elements in the base game by a long shot). This moment would be 10x cooler if that flashback didn’t happen, but it DID happen, and so the one, solitary word Tag Two leaves us with, “No,” rings hollow.
It would’ve been PEAK. It would’ve been CINEMA. Instead, all I can think is, man, if this was the only thing he said, that would’ve been awesome. But I KNOW what Doomguy sounds like, Hugo. YOU made it canon. YOU DID THIS.
And really, what a shame. Because playing through Doom Eternal again let me see it through brand new eyes, and I finally saw the game I wanted to see. Now I’m left with its final hurrah, and it isn’t quite as triumphant as I’d imagined.
The hammer is very fun though!
Slightly better than the Ancient Gods Part 1, but still has a lot of the same issues
Just has a neat battle scene
Just has a neat battle scene
There's a lot of questionable decisions in here (Doomguy riding a dragon most egregious of all), but most of them can be hand-waved with a simple "John Romero would have done this if he had the technology in '94"; even the MCU-aping 'portals' scene isn't all that far away from the original games including a bunch of barely-legal "homages" to metal music and The Evil Dead. DOOM isn't some sacred cow being slaughtered by Bethesda capital - it's always been a stupid anything-goes-fest and I respect TAG2 for recognising that and escalating it wherever it can despite working within the confines of the pandemic's peak. However, the game ending with an “always in our hearts” dedication to a ZeniMax lawyer and friend of the Clinton family who was embroiled in multiple financial fraud scandals while sat on Robert Trump's management board feels about as far from DOOM's original punk ethos as you can get. I pretend I don't see it.
I won't get into the nit and grit of the gameplay because what is the point when Durandal has literally hit it out of the park already like holy shit dude this is one of the best technically-minded reviews on the site, but I will allow myself to get smug about the Satan boss fight and say I enjoyed it very much because I recognised it for the DOOM fighting game that it is, a real "1v1 me" of timing, footsies and combos that tests how well you understand moving and grooving with Doomguy. Also, was that a NUTS.wad reference right before the final battle? Hell yeah dude.
I won't get into the nit and grit of the gameplay because what is the point when Durandal has literally hit it out of the park already like holy shit dude this is one of the best technically-minded reviews on the site, but I will allow myself to get smug about the Satan boss fight and say I enjoyed it very much because I recognised it for the DOOM fighting game that it is, a real "1v1 me" of timing, footsies and combos that tests how well you understand moving and grooving with Doomguy. Also, was that a NUTS.wad reference right before the final battle? Hell yeah dude.
It's funny that right after I write a whole spheel talking about how much I love the maximalist feeling of Doom Eternal and constant adrenaline run it provides me that the second dlc pulls all the punches and delivers an almost Marvel Cinematic Universe experience and I mean that in the worst way.
I knew coming in that it would be easier (I watch hugo streams) but I wasn't expecting it to be doom eternal midgame. This would be fine, but the encounters are also extremely milquetoast. Enemies are introduced and then only fought in the same arena you see them or maybe you get an encounter that's just a bunch of them, not paired with other enemies much. You'll see a blood makyr here from DLC1, but it'll be the first thing you see that's easy to prioritize, or it'll be the only threat. Riveting.
I'm overgeneralizing, as there are a few solid encounters here, especially the optional encounters that were just absolutely major thrills that I loved almost completely. But it still feels like the trollish lovely feelings of Hugo and his team feel, well, minimized? Watered down?
I keep thinking of two things. Firstly, that this is the Doom 2 to DLC1's Plutonia. I mean this for several reasons. Like Doom 2, TAG2 perfects the roster that was already pretty good if even great after base game and TAG1. These new enemies are phenomenal even, with the cursed prowler being my favorite just for being a troll enemy done right that also punishes you just as well. They force you to use more of your weapon roster in an optimal pattern and contribute well to the "you will press these buttons and you'll press them right dammit". But, just like Doom 2, the overall design of the game is a major step down from previous. About half of the encounters are too basic, utilizing little of the synergy in waves or asking for much of what the core systems provide.
The second one I'm thinking of is Ninja Gaiden, no please stick with me. Ninja Gaiden 2 is one of my favorite games and is a pinnacle of extremely brutal fuck you blah blah blah i covered this in my TAG1 review, and rightly it's TAG1. This? It feels a lot like Ninja Gaiden 3. Something is 'missing' here, so missing that it takes me straight out of the game and makes me wonder where the soul went sometimes. It's so sanded off, devoid of much edge and made way easier. They throw a ridiculous amount of super ammo at you and then have you do a few encounters where you just spam the same move for spectacle.
If you're tired of me making analogies at this point, I guess the right wording to describe my feelings is disappointed, and rather underwhelmed. It's still Doom Eternal, something I love and probably will stay in my top 20 games for a very very long time. But the ending for it all feels remarkably... less of it. Minimal
Also PS, I respect hugo's balls to make the final boss a super marauder but this is the one time I'm going to say I wish he had no hand in this.
I knew coming in that it would be easier (I watch hugo streams) but I wasn't expecting it to be doom eternal midgame. This would be fine, but the encounters are also extremely milquetoast. Enemies are introduced and then only fought in the same arena you see them or maybe you get an encounter that's just a bunch of them, not paired with other enemies much. You'll see a blood makyr here from DLC1, but it'll be the first thing you see that's easy to prioritize, or it'll be the only threat. Riveting.
I'm overgeneralizing, as there are a few solid encounters here, especially the optional encounters that were just absolutely major thrills that I loved almost completely. But it still feels like the trollish lovely feelings of Hugo and his team feel, well, minimized? Watered down?
I keep thinking of two things. Firstly, that this is the Doom 2 to DLC1's Plutonia. I mean this for several reasons. Like Doom 2, TAG2 perfects the roster that was already pretty good if even great after base game and TAG1. These new enemies are phenomenal even, with the cursed prowler being my favorite just for being a troll enemy done right that also punishes you just as well. They force you to use more of your weapon roster in an optimal pattern and contribute well to the "you will press these buttons and you'll press them right dammit". But, just like Doom 2, the overall design of the game is a major step down from previous. About half of the encounters are too basic, utilizing little of the synergy in waves or asking for much of what the core systems provide.
The second one I'm thinking of is Ninja Gaiden, no please stick with me. Ninja Gaiden 2 is one of my favorite games and is a pinnacle of extremely brutal fuck you blah blah blah i covered this in my TAG1 review, and rightly it's TAG1. This? It feels a lot like Ninja Gaiden 3. Something is 'missing' here, so missing that it takes me straight out of the game and makes me wonder where the soul went sometimes. It's so sanded off, devoid of much edge and made way easier. They throw a ridiculous amount of super ammo at you and then have you do a few encounters where you just spam the same move for spectacle.
If you're tired of me making analogies at this point, I guess the right wording to describe my feelings is disappointed, and rather underwhelmed. It's still Doom Eternal, something I love and probably will stay in my top 20 games for a very very long time. But the ending for it all feels remarkably... less of it. Minimal
Also PS, I respect hugo's balls to make the final boss a super marauder but this is the one time I'm going to say I wish he had no hand in this.
.
1. Hammer is so fun to use and it complements the kit so well, it should just take the place of chainsaw as your main way to extract ammo from enemies in 3ternal if it ever gets made.
2. Armored barons clap; screechers really want you to take the enemy prioritization seriously; riot soldiers are cool; you love to hate cursed prowlers; stone imps take arbitrary weapon restrictions too far even if they are fun to fight; not even sure what was the point of demonic troopers. Overall new enemies take more Ws than Ls but Blood Angels are still the best TAG addition.
3. Traversal and platforming is at its most fun with addition of meathook grapple points.
4. Encounters are definitely less tight than in TAG1 but I wouldn't say it's that much less intense. Even a few normal fights managed to kick my ass and escalation encounters provided exactly the thrill I was looking for.
5. Marauders work because you can learn to be proactive with them. You can't be proactive Dark Lord and that's his greatest failing.
6. id environmental artists completely outdid themselves yet again like holy shit.
1. Hammer is so fun to use and it complements the kit so well, it should just take the place of chainsaw as your main way to extract ammo from enemies in 3ternal if it ever gets made.
2. Armored barons clap; screechers really want you to take the enemy prioritization seriously; riot soldiers are cool; you love to hate cursed prowlers; stone imps take arbitrary weapon restrictions too far even if they are fun to fight; not even sure what was the point of demonic troopers. Overall new enemies take more Ws than Ls but Blood Angels are still the best TAG addition.
3. Traversal and platforming is at its most fun with addition of meathook grapple points.
4. Encounters are definitely less tight than in TAG1 but I wouldn't say it's that much less intense. Even a few normal fights managed to kick my ass and escalation encounters provided exactly the thrill I was looking for.
5. Marauders work because you can learn to be proactive with them. You can't be proactive Dark Lord and that's his greatest failing.
6. id environmental artists completely outdid themselves yet again like holy shit.
Not as good as part one, but still super duper awesome. Doom Eternal is so fucking good it's insane.
The new stuff in this DLC just wasn't as good as the new stuff in the first DLC. The hammer and grapple is cool and the levels are fun but all the new enemies are more annoying. I could deal with the spirit from Part One, but the Cursed Prowler is so goofy. The armored baron and stone imp are just annoying. The final boss is actually horrible I can't believe how bad it is.
The new stuff in this DLC just wasn't as good as the new stuff in the first DLC. The hammer and grapple is cool and the levels are fun but all the new enemies are more annoying. I could deal with the spirit from Part One, but the Cursed Prowler is so goofy. The armored baron and stone imp are just annoying. The final boss is actually horrible I can't believe how bad it is.
This is how you dont make a DLC. every single aspect of the previous dlc but lame and without a twist, i dont like being sad
Played through on "I'm Too Young to Die". The epic conclusion to the Slayer's saga definitely feels like an epic conclusion. Although shorter and relatively easier than The Ancient Gods Part 1, it still delivers even more incredible maps, fantastic cutscenes, new demons (some of which are more annoying than cool but whatever), and a new weapon. Its presentation is amazing, the final level is more epic than anything I've played in recent memory aside from Dark Souls 3 and Horizon Zero Dawn. The final boss is no pushover, but feels great once you get the pattern down. The ending you'll have to see for yourself, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and I'm excited for what Id has in store next.
is it a hot take to say the dlc is significantly better than the main game? theres just a level of fun and intensity here i rarely got in eternal's campaign. the levels are fucking gorgeous, the musics great, and the final boss was incredible, unlike TAG1's boss. id say its just as good as ultrakill, but knowing hakita im sure layers 5 and 6 are gonna top this. but this is peak doom eternal, the people who say this is worse are liars. liars!
i had a great time with doom eternal, it was a fun couple of weeks.
i had a great time with doom eternal, it was a fun couple of weeks.
That portal scene was awesome but that final boss is pain.
This review contains spoilers
No creo que puede haber mejor final a la saga de DOOM (al menos de momento, supongo) que literalmente asesinar al Creador de la realidad.
El DLC en su totalidad es un poco lo que ya comenté con respecto a la primera parte: es el juego base menos la exploración y aumentando a la quinta potencia los enfrentamientos. El DLC tomando ambas partes como el todo, me parece un buen recurso para darle un cierre a toda la historia, que, aunque no me deja de parecer algo que sobra mucho, temáticamente me agrada mucho y creo que efectivamente, es un buen último clavo sobre ese ataúd.
¡He terminado con los demonios!
¡He terminado con DOOM!
Por ahora.
El DLC en su totalidad es un poco lo que ya comenté con respecto a la primera parte: es el juego base menos la exploración y aumentando a la quinta potencia los enfrentamientos. El DLC tomando ambas partes como el todo, me parece un buen recurso para darle un cierre a toda la historia, que, aunque no me deja de parecer algo que sobra mucho, temáticamente me agrada mucho y creo que efectivamente, es un buen último clavo sobre ese ataúd.
¡He terminado con los demonios!
¡He terminado con DOOM!
Por ahora.
Actually really enjoyed this one a lot tbh. Much better than the first with the pacing being a lot better and the music being better overall, oh yeah and the cutscene at the beginning of imorra was just so DAMN EPIC! The final boss was also really awesome and the ending confused me a bit but honestly I’m glad to finally see the ending of the doom slayer saga and realise how great this saga truly is, rest easy doom slayer I’ll be back for more
DOOM Eternal: The Ancient Gods - Part Two is the second DLC expansion released in 2021 to the first person Doom Eternal that was released the previous year. A sadly disappointing finale to the storyline that was set up in the first part also taking a step back in the overall gameplay quality as well.
The Doom Eternal gameplay loop is still fine and well here really. The new platforming element is a tiny nice touch here and despite the complaints with the hammer, I do like that they gave the doom slayer something new here at least. The music is also improved a little bit compared to TAG1 but it still doesn't reach the base game at all. The levels feel a bit uninspired except the last level even though it's essentially the penultimate level but in red which I did like from an art design perspective.
Despite the gameplay loop still being Doom Eternal, it's marred by a lot of awful gimmicks and new enemy designs that feel annoying and felt like created for the sake of making other weapon mods viable. They also decided to bring back slime for some reason in this expansion to the point I'm sure there's more of it in this 4 hour campaign than in the entire 20 hour base game. The hammer is definitely way too overtuned for normal play and provides way too many resources and long time stunning that along with the much lower difficulty in this expansion compared to the first makes this a much easier experience than TAG1 and it feels really disappointing considering the first expansion pack nailed several things right. The final boss while interesting in concept felt extremely anti-climatic with a lot of waiting around to really do anything along with being way too reliant on the hammer to even do anything substantial as well.
I feel like the time at Id used this expansion as a beta test of new enemy mechanics for the future game or something because it felt like they didn't have time to really play test how it would feel for the player and see if it actually changed the way you played unlike with the turrets and spirits in TAG1. The final boss took way longer than it had to and it felt like it was extremely dragged out to the point it just leaves a sour taste in my mouth. I hope this isn't a sign of things to come for the next game.
The Doom Eternal gameplay loop is still fine and well here really. The new platforming element is a tiny nice touch here and despite the complaints with the hammer, I do like that they gave the doom slayer something new here at least. The music is also improved a little bit compared to TAG1 but it still doesn't reach the base game at all. The levels feel a bit uninspired except the last level even though it's essentially the penultimate level but in red which I did like from an art design perspective.
Despite the gameplay loop still being Doom Eternal, it's marred by a lot of awful gimmicks and new enemy designs that feel annoying and felt like created for the sake of making other weapon mods viable. They also decided to bring back slime for some reason in this expansion to the point I'm sure there's more of it in this 4 hour campaign than in the entire 20 hour base game. The hammer is definitely way too overtuned for normal play and provides way too many resources and long time stunning that along with the much lower difficulty in this expansion compared to the first makes this a much easier experience than TAG1 and it feels really disappointing considering the first expansion pack nailed several things right. The final boss while interesting in concept felt extremely anti-climatic with a lot of waiting around to really do anything along with being way too reliant on the hammer to even do anything substantial as well.
I feel like the time at Id used this expansion as a beta test of new enemy mechanics for the future game or something because it felt like they didn't have time to really play test how it would feel for the player and see if it actually changed the way you played unlike with the turrets and spirits in TAG1. The final boss took way longer than it had to and it felt like it was extremely dragged out to the point it just leaves a sour taste in my mouth. I hope this isn't a sign of things to come for the next game.
STOP... HAMMER TIME!!!
Jokes aside I know it isn't as hard as the previous dlc, but it's still more Doom Eternal and I love the shit out of Doom Eternal, so I still went through this whole thing with a huge smile on my face.
Jokes aside I know it isn't as hard as the previous dlc, but it's still more Doom Eternal and I love the shit out of Doom Eternal, so I still went through this whole thing with a huge smile on my face.
While I still like the first dlc a bit more, this was absolutely not a disappointment
It follows the trend of TAG1 with memorable and great areas that have enjoyable platforming, samey but still excellent arenas and stellar asthetics.
The platforming is made 2 times better with the addition of the meathook grapple points but they are terribly underutilized in combat(a pattern with this dlc)
It's easier than TAG1 but still pretty difficult(on UV at least). The escalation encounters being an example of this. I loved them. The hammer, while a bit overpowered, is incredibly fun to use and a good replacement of the crucible. I wished you needed more than 2 glory kills to be able to use it tho. At least like 4 or 5.
Like in TAG1 the music is good and fitting but not that note worthy outside of the final boss
The story was dumb but in a good way. Can't express just how, for lack of a better word, epic the end cutscene for the world spear or the first cutscene in Immora were. The lore was interesting and the ending was satisfying but the plot twist at the end is pretty stupid and bad
The new enemies are generally good, even if they are reskins, but are mostly underutilized. The screechers are great and add a layer to the encouters he's in but he should have appeared in every major fight instead of a couple few.
Armored barons are my favorite enemy in the dlc. I love that you can either instantly break off their armor or microwave beam it. Plus it feels like one of the new enemies that was used the most.
Stone imps are good, it's pretty satisfying to kill them with the full auto mod but they should have replaced most regular imps in the dlc
I also really liked the curse prawler but I obviously wished he was used more and that you didn't had to use a blood punch to kill it since if it happens to curse you while you don't have it, you're just dead
Riot shield soldiers and demonic troopers are pretty forgettable. They're fine but not that interesting as the rest.
Now here's a very hot take: Dark Lord is the best boss across all of modern doom. He was incredibly tough but I really loved to learn his moveset even if it's a bit rng based. I also really liked that the enemies he spawns die quickly so the fight doesn't become a clusterfuck and the fact that you need to use the hammer to stun him is just simply fun. But I wished he didn't heal nearly as much. Nothing is more annoying than almost being done with one of his hp bars, only to do a mistake and he healing half of his bar, making all of your progress obsolete. A big fuck you moment to what is a great boss and ending to this dlc, far better than Samur, I'll be honest.
Overall, a fantastic dlc that is bogged down by underutilized mechanics. I don't think I have to say it but buy it, it's more doom at the end of the day, which is always welcomed
It follows the trend of TAG1 with memorable and great areas that have enjoyable platforming, samey but still excellent arenas and stellar asthetics.
The platforming is made 2 times better with the addition of the meathook grapple points but they are terribly underutilized in combat(a pattern with this dlc)
It's easier than TAG1 but still pretty difficult(on UV at least). The escalation encounters being an example of this. I loved them. The hammer, while a bit overpowered, is incredibly fun to use and a good replacement of the crucible. I wished you needed more than 2 glory kills to be able to use it tho. At least like 4 or 5.
Like in TAG1 the music is good and fitting but not that note worthy outside of the final boss
The story was dumb but in a good way. Can't express just how, for lack of a better word, epic the end cutscene for the world spear or the first cutscene in Immora were. The lore was interesting and the ending was satisfying but the plot twist at the end is pretty stupid and bad
The new enemies are generally good, even if they are reskins, but are mostly underutilized. The screechers are great and add a layer to the encouters he's in but he should have appeared in every major fight instead of a couple few.
Armored barons are my favorite enemy in the dlc. I love that you can either instantly break off their armor or microwave beam it. Plus it feels like one of the new enemies that was used the most.
Stone imps are good, it's pretty satisfying to kill them with the full auto mod but they should have replaced most regular imps in the dlc
I also really liked the curse prawler but I obviously wished he was used more and that you didn't had to use a blood punch to kill it since if it happens to curse you while you don't have it, you're just dead
Riot shield soldiers and demonic troopers are pretty forgettable. They're fine but not that interesting as the rest.
Now here's a very hot take: Dark Lord is the best boss across all of modern doom. He was incredibly tough but I really loved to learn his moveset even if it's a bit rng based. I also really liked that the enemies he spawns die quickly so the fight doesn't become a clusterfuck and the fact that you need to use the hammer to stun him is just simply fun. But I wished he didn't heal nearly as much. Nothing is more annoying than almost being done with one of his hp bars, only to do a mistake and he healing half of his bar, making all of your progress obsolete. A big fuck you moment to what is a great boss and ending to this dlc, far better than Samur, I'll be honest.
Overall, a fantastic dlc that is bogged down by underutilized mechanics. I don't think I have to say it but buy it, it's more doom at the end of the day, which is always welcomed
So many mixed feelings...
In terms of gameplay, I had way more fun with Part 2. The encounters feel challenging but fun, and not masochistic like Part 1. Instead of just spamming spirit-buffed hell knights every encounter, now you have the addition of some new demons that add difficulty by making you aim well, think or pay attention to them. In general, this feels way more balanced and fun.
Now for the bad, why is this so short? I was enjoying it so much, and then it just ends. Part 2 is more or less one hour shorter than Part 1, and I wish that was flipped. Part 1 felt too slow and long, and Part 2 too fast and short 😑. Also, the final boss, considering that it is the "final" fight of Doom as a whole, feels waaay too underwhelming.
So yeah, really disappointing DLCs in general, specially because I love the base game so much.
I actually had one more complaint, but it's kinda spoilery, so I'll just say that I fucking hate marvel movies.
★★½ – Average ✅
In terms of gameplay, I had way more fun with Part 2. The encounters feel challenging but fun, and not masochistic like Part 1. Instead of just spamming spirit-buffed hell knights every encounter, now you have the addition of some new demons that add difficulty by making you aim well, think or pay attention to them. In general, this feels way more balanced and fun.
Now for the bad, why is this so short? I was enjoying it so much, and then it just ends. Part 2 is more or less one hour shorter than Part 1, and I wish that was flipped. Part 1 felt too slow and long, and Part 2 too fast and short 😑. Also, the final boss, considering that it is the "final" fight of Doom as a whole, feels waaay too underwhelming.
So yeah, really disappointing DLCs in general, specially because I love the base game so much.
I actually had one more complaint, but it's kinda spoilery, so I'll just say that I fucking hate marvel movies.
★★½ – Average ✅
THEY DID IT AGAIN. THEY MADE NEW ENEMIES JUST TO GET PEOPLE TO ACTUALLY USE THE FULL AUTO AND REMOTE DETONATION. THE MAD LADS.