Stinger (Nes) / Moero Twinnbee (FDS) Review

 

Stinger (NES) / Moero Twinbee (FDS) Review

Date Released: 21 November 1986

Date Played: 24 April 2022

I have played Stinger several times in my life, but have never played the original Famicom Disk System version of the game, Moero Twinbee.  Needless to say, I was disappointed after pulling out my Twin Famicom, inserting the disk, replacing the disk belt, adjusting the spring, holding down the load trigger mechanism, and having to sit 3 feet away from the system itself to constantly manipulate the magnetic arm to make the game load, only to discover that the game is exactly the same as the NES version except for the fact that you can play with up to 3 people.  Of course, no one is going to play a 35 year old game with me and my daughter just rolls her eyes when I ask.  So, it was hours of time wasted trying to get the Famicom Disk System to work... which is par for the course if you've ever used one before.

I popped the American copy into the NES and decided to play it instead so I could use a turbo controller and save my thumb from the constant tapping of the fire button.  It was a wise decision and booted up on the first try.  Regardless of all of this prep-work, I was going into this entire event knowing that I wasn't going to have a good time.  See, Stinger is the 2nd game in the Twinbee franchise; and if you've read any of my other Twinbee reviews, you will be very familiar with how much I dislike these games.  Stinger is no different.  Even though it is an early and simple entry in the series, it shares many of the same frustrating mechanics that the other games have.

This time around you're trying to save Dr. Cinnamon from his kidnappers and you have to shoot your way through 6 stages. The gimmick in this one is that the game alternates between a horizontal shmup on odd numbered stages and a vertical shmup on the even numbered stages.  Your orientation doesn't do much to change up the game mechanics or the general feel of the game and whether you are flying toward the top of the screen or to the right of it, you'll notice that it feels pretty much the same.  There are still tons of zany enemies like coat hangers, shoes, fruit, TV sets, etc. to shoot before they shoot and/or crash into you.  You can really sense that the developer, Konami, is leaning in the the comedy side of the cute 'em up genre and are working pretty hard to cut out their own little niche.  Luckily, for the most part, they nail it.  The game is colorful and charming to look at.  As far as the aesthetic of the Twinbee games, I think they're all really great.  Who doesn't love a cute little space ship with boxing gloves? At the end of each stage, you'll face off against a whimsical boss that's just as random as the enemies in the stages.  You'll have to dodge seeds flying out of a giant slice of watermelon, or avoid the bubbles coming out of a maniacal faucet.  I really can't get enough of the clever ideas Konami comes up with for these games.  Even the music is fun and really works to elevate the light-heartedness of the game.

It's just too bad that the gameplay is so wretched.

I hate that I'm having to air my grievances over the mechanics of this game once again... but here we go.  The powerup system in this game works just like all the others.  You shoot clouds and golden bells pop out and quickly cascade towards the bottom of the screen.  If you collect them before they fall off the bottom of the screen, you get a point bonus.  Or, you can shoot them to juggle them in the air.  As you continue to shoot them, they change to different colors that all align with a different powerup.  Blue is for a speed increase, white is a double shot, pink is for a laser beam, etc..  It seems like a good idea in theory, but in practice, it's one of the most frustrating game mechanics I've ever seen.  

Sometimes you have to shoot the same bell DOZENS of times to get it to rotate to the powerup you need. It takes forever and is really tedious to manage this while also dealing with the insane amounts of enemies and bullets on the screen.  If you miss a shot, the bell falls of the screen and all your work is wasted.  If you accidentally shoot the bell while it's the color you need, it will cycle OFF of that color and all of your hard work is wasted.  Also, the bells block your shots.  That means if there are a ton of enemies on the screen, and you're currently juggling 3 or 4 bells, they will block a significant number of your shots at the enemies.  This often leads to one of them smacking you right in the face and taking one of your precious lives.  Even when you are really, and I mean REALLY trying to focus on getting a powerup you need, I bet 80% of the time, something goes wrong and you miss it.  A bullet gets in the way and you have to dodge which causes your to miss the bell.  Or, you'll tap the fire button one too many times shooting at the enemies and the stray shot will hit the bell and make it rotate off of the correct powerup. Usually, you'll be juggling multiple bells and you'll have one of them right where you want it and as it's coming down, it overlaps with the other bell you're trying to manage and you accidentally hit the first one and ruin it.  It's so extremely irritating, and I hate it so much.

On top of that.  You also have to deal with bombing ground units in both the horizontal and vertical stages.  On the horizontal stages, it's not so bad and the ground shot button is tied to your straight ahead shot button.  So, just tap away and dodge, and you'll be fine.   But, on the vertical stages, you have a reticule a set distance in front of your ship.  You have to position it directly over a ground unit and press the B button this time to hit the ground.  Trying to position yourself correctly, avoid the swathes of enemies and their bullets, and manage juggling all of the bells makes the game an incredible tense chore that I just don't enjoy at all. I don't like this mechanic either and even in games like Xevious (where it originated) and the much heralded Layer Section (Galactic) attack, I never really enjoy doing it.  If those games can't make me like it, Twinbee definitely isn't going to have a chance at converting me over to its side.  Not when it's making me want to pull out my hair over the bell juggling.

However, I will say this, if you DO manage to get fairly powered up and can start ignoring the bells, the game gets infinitely better and is actually pretty fun. On the occasions where I was able to do this on the first or second stage, I was able to plow through the game without much trouble.  But, getting up to that point is so difficult that it's not really worth it. Obviously, the game suffers from terrible Gradius syndrome and if you take a hit and die, you loose all of your powerups and become too weak to make any decent progress.  Meaning that you pretty much have to clear the game without getting hit or it's too difficult to recover and will blow through your remaining lives in no time unless you get super lucky.

I can't say I would recommend ANY of the Twinbee games to anyone.  I'm pretty active in the shmup community, and there is a general disdain for these games from a lot of people who are really into shooters. If you're really into shmups or even old school arcade games, the Twinbee games just don't play the way you would expect. They take away all the fun of shooting enemies and dodging bullets and instead make you focus on the task of juggling a bunch of bells and multitasking. It's more of a positioning game than anything.  I am fully aware that some people really like this mechanic, but it's just not for me.

I only have one game in the entire Twinbee series to play... and I can't wait for it to be over and done with.

Final Status: Played

Final Score: 4/10 (a little bad)

King's Knight (NES) Review

King's Knight (NES) Review

Date Released: 1989

Date Played: 21 April 2022

Introduction:

Have you ever heard the story where the game developer Square had lost all of their money and were going out of business?  They had one last ditch effort to make something good... one Final game.  They made a fantasy RPG, aptly named Final Fantasy... It saved the company, became one of the most beloved and highest grossing franchises of all time, and made Square one of the biggest media corporations in Japan.  But, what no one ever mentions is why they were going out of business in the first place.  Well, the reason is that they were making terrible games!  King's Knight is one of those games and is pretty much despised by everyone who has ever played it.  There is an interesting genre mashup concept here, but the execution is so dreadful that it makes this game a bit of a nightmare to play.

Gameplay:  

The game is supposed to be a blend of a vertically scrolling shmup mixed with an RPG.  While there are a few tangential mechanics that you might associate with an RPG, it doesn't really feel like anything more than an overly convoluted and frustrating shooter with mechanics that make the game less fun instead of more deep.  You can tell Square were highly influenced by the game Knightmare on the MSX computer as the graphics, gameplay, and overall presentation are very reminiscent of that game.  While Square's attempt is more... ambitious, it falls far short of that game in terms of fun and playability.

You play as 4 different characters, Rayjack the Knight, Koliva the Wizard, Barusa the Monster, and Toby the Kid Thief.  All of these characters are played in this order and each one has its own stage.  If you die as one of the characters, you lose them for the rest of the playthrough and you move onto the next in the line-up and attempt their stage. This continues until you've played as all four of the characters.  Finally, all of surviving characters team up to take on the 5th and final stage of the game and save the princess.

Gameplay consists of auto-scrolling stages where you shoot enemies coming down from the top of the screen like any other vertical shmup.  Only this time, the screen is absolutely inundated with tons of environmental obstacles that you have to either destroy or avoid.  These consist of pitfalls that are invisible until you hit them, trees, mountains, tomb stones, spires, and all other manner of annoyances.  You can destroy these with your shot to reveal powerups, healing items, items that hurt you if you touch them, secret spells, alternate underworld entrances, etc..  More often than not, though, you'll reveal an enemy that bum rushes you and takes a significant chunk off your health bar. In fact, most of the enemies in the game come from destroying these obstacles. Even though you don't want to destroy any of them because baddies come flying out, destroying these blocks is really the main objective of the game because they contain the items and powerups you'll need to succeed.  It's just unfortunate that most of the screen is covered with them, so you'll be zipping around, destroying everything you can while avoiding the hail of enemy bullets in an attempt to locate what you need. The focus of destroying these blocks makes the game feel more like Breakout to me.  Half the time you ignore the enemies on the screen to focus your shots on destroying part of a hillside or something. It become abundantly obvious that you essentially have to memorize the levels and the locations of all of the powerups to have a chance to progress.  Not only that, you'll have to memorize all of the hazards of the level like the stone walls that appear out of nowhere and cause you to get into situations where death is certain because of the scrolling. There are also sections of every stage where the character has to venture out into the water.  When this happens, there is a strange sort of slippery inertia that makes them feel like they're slipping around on ice.  It's almost impossible to control any of your party with any sort of accuracy and these sections usually spell certain death for the weaker characters.  I could see having something like this one or two times in the game, but it feels like it makes up about a third of each character's stage and is controller throwingly frustrating to play.

The overall objective is to powerup each character as much as possible so that when you reach the final level, they are all powerful enough to tackle the final boss. Sadly, this is more or less of a pipe dream because of the terrible execution of the game.  Firstly, the game is brutally difficult to a point there the developers feel like they are trolling you.  Most of the obstacles you destroy provide you with a negative benefit like an enemy to the face or a health down.  This makes all your hard work tapping away on the fire button feel fruitless and even with a turbo controller it isn't much better.  Secondly, every single character has to make it through their stage alive or you can't complete the final stage.  Lastly, every character has to locate all of their hidden spell tokens during their own stage which can be hidden not only in the stage itself, but also in the underground alternate paths you can take.  If you miss a single one of these on any of the characters, the game will put up an impassable wall at the end of stage 5 and prevent you from even attempting to fight the final boss. This means you have to play perfectly, find every single secret without missing anything, make sure to find all the powerups to max out your characters, and know exactly when to use all of your spells during the final stage.  It's basically just a repetitive exercise in memorization.  

Once you reach the final stage, all of the characters form up into a circle with the one located at 12:00 firing forward.  There are tons of symbols scattered around the floor of the stage that will let you rotate your character's formation by 90, 180, or 270 degrees.  You're supposed to memorize the order to hit these rotations so that the correct character will be in position at the correct time to use his magic ability.  If you miss one of these moments, you won't really be able to finish the stage and will have to start the whole game over. It just adds about another 20 chances for you to make a mistake and completely ruin your chance at finishing the game.  The developers couldn't have possibly thought this was a good idea when they were playtesting it, and I'm not sure I understand how it made it through quality control.

If you do manage to memorize where every single item is, collect them all, play through all of the stages without dying a single time, memorize the exact time to use each character's spells during the final level, and kill the final boss,  then, you'll get to say you finished the game.  All in all, it takes about 23 minutes or so.  So, I guess the enjoyment of this game is supposed to be derived from learning where all of the items are located, but playing the game is so frustratingly difficult that there is little here to spark any sort of joy in the player.

Presentation:

The game looks pretty bad even for an NES game.  Each character's stage is made to suit them thematically.  Rayjack the Knight fights through a colorful and forested area that is the most fun in the game.  Kaliva the Wizard fights through a white haunted town full of white ghosts, white tombstones, white buildings.   This would be fine, except that the enemy bullets are ALSO white.  So, it can be very difficult to see them.  The wizard is the weakest character of the game and his stage is the most difficult.  So, your failure on the second stage is what will usually ruin your run at the final boss.  The third stage is a green and swampy are.  You play as Barusa the Monster... who is also green.  And guess what?  The bullets are green as well.  So, you have the same issue as the white stage.  Luckily, the monster can take a bit more of a beating so you have a tiny chance to succeed.  Lastly, Toby the Theif's level is similar to the first one and has a bigger variance of color.  The bullets are contrasting this time so you'll have an easier (not easy... just easier) chance of seeing what you're doing.  

On top of the strange color pallet choices, the game is also blocky and without much definition.  It kind of gives off a Ghostbusters vibe, if you've ever seen that on NES.  There's very little texture or shading on any of the sprites and the whole experience feels muddled and flat. 

To accompany your frustrations is a short, repetitive, and oddly uplifting soundtrack that you will begin to tune out after it loops for the 10th time in one stage.  I probably got to listen to it 1000 times while playing this game, and I don't think I could hum you a single bar of it.  It's a shame, because Square is typically renowned for their stellar music.  If only that were the case here.  Square had a chance to save face with some better music, but once again, they squandered their chance in this category as well.

Conclusion:

King's Knight was built around a cool idea of leveling up a team of characters over several stages before they meet up for an epic final battle.  Even rolling this idea into a vertical shmup is a cool premise.  The problem is that the game is more focused around locating and memorizing hundreds of powerup items, secret objectives, alternate routes, and guaranteed death hazards.  To make matters worse, you have to play perfectly and find every secret or the game locks you out of completing it.  That's just unfair even for "Nintendo Hard" times.  This game can still be had pretty cheaply and if you're a big collector like I am, you'll probably pick it up at some point.  But, if you do, don't spend hours on it.  Play it a couple of times just to experience it and then put it back onto the shelf, because this game is nothing more than a curiosity and isn't really worth your time.

This game feels like some executives were out drinking one night and came up with a hairbrained idea for a video game.  They then took it to the design team and just gave them a bunch of random ideas they had scribbled on the back of some cocktail napkins.  The development team didn't really understand what the executives were hoping for and were too embarrassed to ask any questions. Plus, they didn't have the technical skills to execute it anyway, so they just phoned in the whole project to get the executives off their back...

Final Status: Played

Final Score: 3/10 (Awful) 

 

Elden Ring (PS5) Review

 

Elden Ring (PS5) Review

Release Date: 25 February 2022

Date Played: 21 April 2022

Introduction:

I'm not sure if Elden Ring is my favorite game of all time, nor am I sure if it's the "best" game ever made.  However, when I think of all of the best games I've ever played all I can think to myself is, "Elden Ring is as good as that... maybe better."  It's an incredible game that is awe-inspiring in both its scope and its attention to detail and the world that Hidetaka Miyazaki and George R.R. Martin created is unparalleled. And while the game isn't perfect, it is without a doubt a masterpiece by any metric.  

When the game was first announced back in 2019, there was a lot of energy surrounding it that never really let up until it was released.  Even then... even now, Elden Ring seems to be the only game that anyone is talking about.  It released to universal acclaim from critics and the public alike and squashed any negativity that the naysayers could muster. The world was so enthralled by this game that it honestly felt like the video game community disappeared for a month because they were all too busy playing it.

Gameplay:

Being a FromSoft developed game, Elden Ring plays much like the other games in the SoulsBorne series.  It's still a 3rd person action RPG with most of the same mechanics you'd expect.  While some of the names have changed you still have the bonfire system that serves as somewhat of a checkpoint system (now called Sites of Grace), instead of souls that serve as XP and currency, you now have Runes, and instead of Estus Flasks that serve as healing potions, they are now called Flasks of Crimson Tears.  So, if you've played Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, or Bloodborne, you're going to feel right at home here. There are still quasi-online components where you can summon people from around the world to help you, read messages left behind by other players, and even be invaded by hostile players looking to ruin your good time. The "rogue-like" components are still present as well.  If you die, you lose the current XP you're saving to level up unless you can make it back to the spot of your death to reclaim it.  The mechanics are tried and true and have a strong, "why mess with perfection?" attitude.

What is new this time around is that Elden Ring takes place in a vast and expertly crafted open world.  Due to the game's enormous size, you're provided with a horse to help you traverse other overworld much more quickly and are also able to fast travel to and from the various Sites of Grace you'll find scattered around the map. The horse is a valuable ally and you will often be platforming, exploring, and even fighting upon his back.  This mounted combat is a lot of fun and really changes up how you approach different situations in the game.  If you're getting wrecked by an overworld enemy, hop on your horse and charge at him. Boss fights that seem impossible on foot become trivial on horseback and really go a long way to add variety to an already expansive game.

At first I thought the whole open world concept was going to dilute the Souls experience that were are all so accustomed to.  Let me tell you, I couldn't have been more wrong.  The open world not only allows a greater number of different environments that range from crystal forests, snowy tundras, poison swamps, and even alien hellscapes, it also provides a respite from the stress you feel from the inexorable challenge found in the other games.  Yes, Elden Ring still has that "Dark Souls Hard" difficulty and has some of the hardest bosses found in the entire series, but it's a real blessing to be able to take a break from the hardships of combat and just get to explore on your horse and take in the scenery while hacking down weaker enemies.  The other benefit that the open world provides is that it eliminates that impassable wall issue that plagued the other games.  Often you would come to a boss or an area in the game that just felt too hard and you would spend hours and hours of time repeatedly fighting the same boss over, and over... just trying to progress past that point. This is what caused the vast majority of Souls players to give up on the game and quit out of frustration. It's hard to blame them.  The Souls games do have a draconian mindset and you can tell the developers are actively trying to troll you with how difficult they can make things. This time around, when you get stuck, the open world lets you go off an explore in another direction and progress elsewhere until you become stronger.  Then, you can come back to the section that was giving you fits and conquer it after you've become more powerful.  The sites of grace do direct you towards the next area you should visit, but these "next areas" are multiple and don't really have to be done in any set order.  Often times, I would struggle with an area before before taking a break to go somewhere else.  When I got there, I would find myself plowing through enemies easily and destroying bosses on my first try.  Upon returning to the first area, things were much easier the second time around.

As for gameplay styles, you have more options this time around to suit your playstyle than ever before.  Sword and Board, dual wielding katanas, dragon magic, bow and arrow, etc.  If you want to give it a shot, it's probably a viable technique.  Still... items that add "bleed" buildup are your friend.  This is especially true for some bosses, especially one that might be the hardest Souls boss of all time. Still, you will get stuck on some of the harder bosses for sure.  Luckily, FromSoft provided Spirit Ashes that allow you to summon various enemies from the game to assist you in the fight.  Some of these Ashes are so powerful that they can solo many of the bosses by themselves.  So, don't despair, even if you're playing offline, you can still get some help.

Story:

Just like all the other SoulsBorne games, the story in Elden Ring is very lore rich and understated.  You're given a slight background about how Marika, the ruler of the land left her powerful and titular Elden Ring behind.  It was shattered and the pieces were gathered by grotesque demi-gods who used them to gain even more strength and influence.  You now have to slay all of these enemies and gather the pieces of the Elden Ring so you can become the next Elden Lord.  Of course, most of the story and background are filled in by studying the environments, reading item descriptions, and from piecing together bits of dialog from interacting with the game's colorful cast of characters.  If you like to delve into every tiny aspect of a game's lore, then this is probably the game you've been praying for and dreaming of your whole life.  If you don't care about the story at all, then you don't have to worry about it and can just plug your way through the game completely oblivious to all of this esoteric prattle.  Personally, I love the lore in these games, but don't really want to put forth the effort to piece it together myself like some sort of archeologist who's trying to define an extinct people's culture by discovering letters on ancient pottery and dusty tomes.  I typically do enough in these games to get the overall gist of what's going on, then after I finished the game, I watch some sort of extended internet video where someone has spent countless hours spelling it all out for me. Some people have complained that the story in these games needs to be more upfront and spelled out, but I feel like they are mistaken.  The austere story adds a lot of mystery and intrigue to the world that feels unique to the series and would fall apart if more time were devoted to filling in the story with a bunch of cutscenes, dialog, or journal entries.

Of course, there are a ton of side quests that enrich the world even more and feel like a whole game unto themselves.  Some of these span over the entire world and almost the full length of the game.  If you undertake some of the more detailed ones, they will even lead to different endings for the game.  They are all very cool and interesting, but my only complaint with them is the same as it's always been with these games.  They are very obtuse about what you have to do, where you have to go, and when you have to be there. Often times, you have to meet a character at some random location that you completed hours ago and have no real reason to revisit.  Sometimes they are looking for an item, but they don't tell you what it is or where to get it.  Other times, you'll kill a boss or an enemy, and completely derail the side quest and find the quest giver murdered in their sleep or something without any warning before hand.  I wish FromSoft would give us a bit more information during these side quests and some sort of journal to keep track of what's going on with each of them.  It's very easy to lose track of all the objectives you're working toward and a little help would be nice.  Also, most of these side quests lead to me having to lookup a walkthrough to figure out how to do them.  Like 90% of the time, I think to myself, "yeah... I never would have figured that out in a million years." It's not enough to spoil the experience, and I know that this is my personal preference and not an objective flaw.  I'm sure a lot of Souls fans would have it no other way.

In addition to this, there are optional side dungeons that usually provide you with a valuable item when you complete them.  Sadly, they are too similar and often involve some sort of hidden path or trick to progress in them and repeat the same bosses over and over.  They really do feel like they are trying to pad out the game and are reminiscent of the Bloodborne's chalice dungeons.  They feel a bit like a grind and I think the game would have been better with fewer of them... or none at all.  Since they are optional content, you can avoid them altogether if you wish.  But, completing them all was a bit chore-like.

Presentation:

Well, the game looks magnificent.  All of the graphics, animations, textures, and lighting effects are gorgeous.  The art style and world that FromSoft have created is... frustratingly impressive.  I am always shocked at the ideas they come up with.  Every time I play one of these games, I think they are going to run out of fun and interesting new concepts, but they always prove me wrong.  Elden Ring is no exception.  I'm not sure what George R.R. Martin contributed, but it definitely feels like Mr. Miyazaki still has his creative claws embedded deeply into the process. He's a master world builder, and is flexing his skill more than he ever has before. He has a certain "style" that is easy to pick out from the competition and he might be my favorite game designer ever.  Often times, I would find myself just staring into the distance and admiring the magnificent surroundings.  I know I'm not alone in this because there are messages left behind by other players at every vista in the game praising the glorious view.  

On top of this, the soundtrack is spectacular and typically consists of somber strings playing sparse and minimalistic melodies while you journey around the isolated and forlorn world.  Of course, when you enter into one of the game's many memorable and epic boss fights, the full choir kicks into gear with lots of "oohs" and "aahs" that accompany the grandiose orchestral pieces.  It has a very gothic and epic presentation and seems as if it could have been composed by the great Carl Orff. There's nothing like tense classical music pounding in the background to make a white-knuckle boss fight tip over into cardiac arrest territory.  

The cast of characters is as crazy and unique as ever.  The Deathbed Companion, Iron Fist Alexander (the giant jar), Renni the Witch, Dung Eater,  and many others are so unique that they could star in their own games and I wish I got to spend even more time with them.  FromSoft never lets you down when they design characters and I think this is some of their best work.  I'll probably get some art prints depicting these characters and hang them up in my game room alongside some of the other awesome video game characters from the past.

I have nothing negative to say about the presentation in this game and it rivals and/or surpasses every other game I've ever played.  

Conclusion:

Elden Ring did something I don't think I've ever seen any other game do.  For 3 years, it was the most anticipated game out there.  The hype surrounding it was palpable.  Normally when this happens, it seems like everyone is really let down once the game releases.  I think back on all of these huge game that were released in half-finished states, full of bugs, were boring or repetitive, rehashed the same concepts, or just generally disappointed the public.  Not only did that not happen with Elden Ring... it seems to have SURPASSED everyone's expectations.  It's much better than I thought it could have ever been.  It is almost guaranteed to win Game of the Year and will probably start appearing towards the top of Best Games of All Time lists.

Other than the repetitiveness of the the optional "chalice" dungeons, and my inability to keep up with what's going on with the side quests, I have nothing to complain about in Elden Ring.  It's probably the best SoulsBorne game ever made. It's so good, in fact, that it completely destroyed my desire to play any other games.  I was in the middle of 4 other games when I started Elden Ring, and I just put them to the side to dump 71 hours into this game.  Honestly, I would have kept playing on New Game +, but I have so many games in my backlog that I need to get to that I was starting to feel guilty about it.  I could see someone putting thousands of hours into this game... and I wouldn't fault them for it.

Everyone needs to play this Elden Ring.  It's sheer scope and high difficulty will drive many people away, but don't let those two aspects deter you.  They are benefits rather than faults.  You need the tense aspect of the combat encounters to give you that rewarding feeling and you need the open world to take a break from the intensity.

To reiterate, is Elden Ring the best game that's ever been made?  If it's not, it's really close.

Final Status: Beaten... and all bosses cleared

Final Score: 10/10 Masterpiece

Doom Eternal (PS4) Review

Doom Eternal (PS4) Review

Date Released: 20 March 2020

Date Played: 7 April 2022

Introduction:

As I was playing Doom Eternal, I kept thinking something was wrong with me. After playing Doom reboot back when it released in 2016, I was thrilled to play this sequel.  This enthusiasm was only bolstered when I saw the rave reviews upon the game's release.  Not only was it pretty much universally acclaimed by critics and the public alike, it made many top 10 games of the year list and even has a loyal group of followers that hail it as the best first person shooter of all time.  Needless to say, I felt like I was doing something wrong while I was playing.  I kept dying repeatedly when I would dive into the fray against Hell's legions, I found myself constantly out of ammo, the story was convoluted and full of too much terminology, there were long platforming segments that felt out of place, and there was a sort of resentment and distain building up inside of me as I played.  I couldn't put my finger on it at first, and would find myself playing for an hour and then being thankful when I could find a stopping spot so I could go play a different game.  It took me months to work my way through Doom Eternal and in the meantime I completed 11 other games.  

In a moment of frustration, I decided to do an internet search to see if there was anyone out there that felt the same as me, and unsurprisingly, there is a significant selection of gamers that felt exactly the same as I do.  After watching several video reviews and essays detailing the flaws of this game, it finally came together in my mind why this game fails to live up to the standards of 2016 Doom and falls rather flat in terms of game design.

Gameplay:

Doom 2016 was a fast-paced slaughter fest where you played as a god-like superhuman called the Doom Slayer who wants nothing more than to annihilate the denizens of Hell. You would enter these mini-combat arenas that were filled with waves of enemies and you just went to town having your way with them.  After dealing enough damage to an enemy, it would flash and allow you to perform a glory kill.  This would allow you to refill some of your health while you strung together kill after kill after kill.  The enemies stood no chance and you were a literal killing machine. It felt almost liberating being so overpowered in that game that you were essentially untouchable.  All along the way you find these bits of lore that the demons have written detailing how you are their coming apocalypse and how much they fear you.  It was an amazing power trip and I had a really good time with it.  

This time around, you play as the same character with basically the same premise. Like all of the other Doom games, Eternal is a first-person shooter where you explore different environments while searching for collectables and upgrades until you enter a combat arena where you square off against waves of demons. The gory and gruesome glory kills from Doom 2016 return that will allow you to refill your health while you battle.  You still have your array of weapons like the shotgun, chain-gun, BFG, rocket launcher, etc., and they all have multiple upgradeable firing modes and secondary abilities.  You can jump, grapple, and use launching pads to bounce all around the combat arenas that are more designed as a fun playground for combat.  At first, it seems like a continuation of Doom 2016 with more of a good thing.  However, everything isn't exactly as it seems this time around.  This leads me to my first issue with Doom Eternal.

1) Doom 2016 was so good and well thought out that the developers, ID software, didn't know what to do to improve upon it so they just started adding a bunch of new abilities.

Not only do you have to glory kill enemies to refill health, now you also have to chainsaw them to refill your limited ammo.  The chainsaw uses gasoline that you can find scattered around the levels. In order to kill larger enemies, you need a full gas tank of fuel to saw them apart, but lesser enemies will have to be killed constantly to keep your other weapons loaded with ammunition.  Luckily, the chainsaw always has a minimum amount of fuel that will replenish over time, but you'll need to keep an eye on its timer.  You also have a flamethrower that also works on a timer that you use to make enemies drop armor.  There's the super punch that allows you to instantly melee kill enemies if it's charged up.... There's the grappling hook that pulls you toward enemies, multiple shot modes for every weapon, multiple type of grenades you can cycle through that are also on a timer, a sword that you can collect charges for to instantly kill enemies, and probably several more that I'm forgetting. 

Overwhelmed? Me too. This is a whole lot of mechanics at your disposal that you would think would be really fun to use after you get the hang of things, but they honestly feel like they get in the way of what would make the game fun. This leads me to my second issue with the game.

2) Doom Eternal wants you to play it the way IT wants.  Not the way you want.

In Doom 2016, you got thrown into these awesome combat arenas where you felt like this overpowered machine that could just mow over waves of enemies in the most awesome ways possible.  You were constantly trying out new weapons, getting in close and killing enemies, and stringing together these awesome kill chains.  In Eternal you're constantly low on resources to the point where you spend a lot of your time running AWAY from enemies instead of running TOWARD them. You run out of ammo, so you can't kill anything.  So you have to run around until your fuel for your chainsaw recharges.  Then, you chainsaw an enemy, get some ammo and dive back in.  But you take a few hits and your health is low, so you try to glory kill an enemy to get more health, but you get swarmed in the mean time so you run away.  You use your flamethrower to get some armor to stay in the fight, but now you're low on ammo again, but your fuel hasn't recharged.  You get low on health, but you can't damage the enemy because you have no way to deal damage with no bullets, so you run away from them waiting for your fuel to recharge so you can get some ammo... so you can shoot them... so you can glory kill them to get more health... rinse... repeat...   It starts to feel more like a puzzle game where you need to figure out the correct order to use your skills and which optimal weapons to use in every fight if you want success.  This leads you to dying a lot where you're thrown into situations that seem overwhelming unless you already know what's coming.  This leads me to the 3rd fault of the game.

3) The game feels like you need to memorize the combat encounters rather than improvise your way through them.

That's what made Doom 2016 so fun.  All the mindless killing and the awesome flow state you get into when you're in the thick of the battle.  Now, there are enemies that appear half-way through combat encounters that summon infinite baddies (the Archvile for you old school fans) until they're eliminated and there are totems that buff all the enemies that are hidden around the arena.  Both of these you'll have to search for in a frenzy to destroy them before things get too out of hand.  Almost every time one of these archviles appeared, I died because I had no idea they were coming and flooded the area with too many enemies.  I got tired of repeating the same combat scenarios over and over again until I slowly memorized where everything was and the correct order to kill everything.  It was exhausting.  It artificially adds a lot more difficulty to the game that's rather off-putting.  A lot of people will say the game is "harder."  It's not really much harder, it's just a lot less forgiving if you don't play each scenario in it's most optimal way.

I guess the developers realized how demoralizing these combat encounters were because they decided to book end them with a ton of platforming segments. These were the worst part of the game and almost made me quit several times. They often require the use of swinging from suspended poles, dashing through the air, hitting air currents, and wall grappling and climbing.  Many times, I would waste several of my extra lives during these platforming segments that were supposed to be easy... but I never felt like the controls were good enough.  This is the next issue.

4) Precision platforming in first person needs better controls than Doom Eternal provides.

Having to swing from bar to bar, dash to a crumbling wall, jump off it and dash through the air a number of times before going through a ring to replenish your dashes, etc., feels like a parkour obstacle course and would be better suited for a 3rd person action game rather than Eternal.  It just never feels like it works and I'm shocked that such a large portion of the game is devoted to it.  Not only that, but there are some swimming segments in the game that evoked an audible groan and eyeroll from me. I like exploring in Doom.  In fact, that's one of the big draws of the franchise.  But, I don't want to Ninja Warrior my way over giant bottomless pits in every level.

The last issue I have with the game doesn't involve gameplay.  The game requires a day one patch to add a bunch of content and Bethesda, the publishers, require you to make a Bethesda account before they'll let you play the game (even in single player) unless you completely disconnect your console from the internet.

5) Don't add DRM to single-player games.

Some of us gamers go back and replay their games 5, 10, even 20 years later.  You don't need to add online components to prevent players from accessing the single player content years down the road.  Bethesda's recent practices with requiring you to be online to play single player games has been so bad that it's actually deterring me from buying anymore of their games. What are you supposed to do when the online servers go down a few years from now.  At least you can still access the game by turning off your internet connection, but you shouldn't even have to do that.

In general, the game isn't as much fun as Doom 2016 and feels very tedious and like a chore to play. When I play Doom, I want to charge into the fight and wreck some demons.  I don't want to run away from combat waiting for abilities to recharge and looking for weak enemies to kill to heal myself or to get ammo.

Story:

Like I mentioned, you once again play as the Doom Slayer.  After the events of the reboot, you find yourself on a space station and realize that Earth is being consumed by Hell.  You have to find all of the Hell Priests that are hidden not only on Earth, but also in other dimensions and kill them to prevent all of this from happening.  It's a serviceable story and does a good enough job of carrying the action forward.  But, unlike the reboot, this time you're inundated with a ton of lore that's full of zany terminology that recounts the history of the Earth, the demons, the Doom Slayer, space exploration, and alien race, energy consumption, and a whole bevy of ideas that ID software have decided to include to try to fill in every nook and cranny of all the cracks in their story.

6) Show me the story, don't tell me.

There must be over 100 pages of text that you can collect in the game that recount all of this complicated information about what's going on and how everything came to be.  Now, don't get me wrong, I like lore in games.  The Dark Souls games don't tell much of a story but do some fantastic world building with the lore you gain from the clues you find around the world.  Even Doom 2016 did a great job building the mystique of the Doom Slayer by leaving fragments of information hidden around the maps.  But, this time ID software jumped the shark with the amount of information they dumped on us.  It feels like all of this should have been compiled into some sort of fictional history of DOOM and published as a novel (a la Tolkien's The Simarillion) or something similar.  Most reviews I read and watched said they stopped paying attention to the story after a while.  I'm no exception.

Presentation:

There's not much to find fault with in this case.  Doom Eternal is probably the best looking of all of the PS4 games.  I was playing this game at the same time I was playing some PS5 games, and Doom Eternal holds up against them and even looks better in a lot of cases.  The graphics and textures are sharp and clean and the game runs at a pretty steady framerate.  Some of the areas like the hub area between levels and Exultia are beautiful and a nice departure from the heaviness of the rest of the game.

The music is industrial with a bit of a Djent flair and is right in line from what you would expect from a Doom game.  It serves its purpose, but I didn't especially find it memorable or catchy. This is coming from a life-long metal fan, but I found the riffs and chord progressions to be banal and almost intentionally pedestrian. At times the music lifted the experience, but mostly it felt phoned in.

Conclusion:

Doom Eternal is a great looking game that is bloated and inferior to the game that came before it.  The combat isn't as fun and has a really repetitive gameplay loop that sucks all the enjoyment and enthusiasm right out of me.  I could rarely play more than an hour at a time without getting frustrated or bored and it took me many sessions over several months to finish the experience.  While the game did start to pick up in the second half as I became more experienced with the mechanics and reconciled myself to play the way the game wanted me to, it never reached the grand highs that the critics lauded in their reviews.  It's still a decent game and there is some fun to be found there, but it doesn't hold a candle to Doom 2016.

Final Status: Beaten

Final Score: 7/10 (disappointing)