I’ve come to love it now, some scattered thoughta below.
There’s still some shit like the mostly useless praetor suit upgrades, the shitty hub world, the exp bonuses you get at the end of a level - what even are these? Multiplayer? Loot boxes? I don’t care to find out.
It starts really badly, the first 2 levels are easily the worst in the game. Level design and encounters ramp up massively after this and it feels like doom 16 on steroids for large parts of the game.
The ice bomb and flame belch are brilliant additions, I love freezing a batch of enemies, flaming and then grenading them to burst out a shower of health and armor pickups. A great way to recover from a big hit.
Blood punch is largely m’eh. Seems it exists to strip armor from the heavier demons but it’s easy to forget it exists.
Given doom is a game about movement and resource management, it really does a brilliant job of levelling this up. Dash, double jump and chain feel amazing once you’re zipping around the map.
I’ve also come to appreciate the limited ammo, divisive as it may be. It forces you to use different weapons and become proficient with all of them, saving some for certain scenarios, but there’s still enough chainsaw fuel around that you rarely completely run dry.
Weak points are also great, you can still kill them any way you want but it is very rewarding to swap to the cannon, snap into the scope and blow off a mancubus turret, snap back to the shotgun, grenade his head and then scope the other turret while he’s staggered. Loads of stuff like that just adds depth and skill to the combat where it wasn’t there in 16.
Im only in the arc tower, so it could all go to shit now but stick with it and it’ll grow on you
