47.9 hours played
Written 29 days ago
Doom Eternal is the sequel of Doom 2016, and is basically where Id Software decided to take literally everything up a level. Before I get into the details, I've played the original Doom and Doom 2. I've also completed Doom 2016 on Ultra Violence, and I've completed this game on Nightmare. I haven't played any of the DLC yet for Eternal, but I probably will.
The game itself puts you in the shoes of the Doom Slayer once again, on his quest to murder literally every demon in sight and save humanity. Simple story at first, gets real complicated a bit later. But let's be real, nobody plays Doom for the story, most people play it for the gameplay. So how is the gameplay?
BY GOD IS IT GOOD.
The gameplay is extremely fast-paced, and in my opinion, superiour to 2016's gameplay (you may think different, this is just my opinion). Your arsenal grows at a constant rate, and each new weapon opens up new possibilities and ways to fight. I found myself subconsciously swapping between my weapons every few seconds, basically using my entire kit. The flow of combat is incredibly smooth. The dashing, the meat-hook, the flame belch, the grenades, the chainsaw, and your guns, it all comes together to make something that just feels exhilarating to play. It's so energetic, I found myself taking a break after the more intense fights on Nightmare, simply because I had that much adrenaline post-fight.
The enemy variety only complements this further. Each one has a counter, but you can basically hit them with anything and get the job done. This pseudo rock-paper-scissors actually works brilliantly. If I'm not in danger, I can use their counters and take them down decently quickly. But if I'm in dire straits, I don't need to worry about the counters and I can just hit them with whatever if it means I get out alive. Personal favourites of mine from the roster include the major enemies later, such as the archvile, barons of hell, mancubi, and of course, the marauder.
I feel like this guy deserves a whole paragraph, since he did get a lot of hate when the game came out (I don't think that's the case anymore, but still). People say that the marauder is unfun and unfair to fight. Honestly? I don't see it. Every time he showed up, it felt like a challenge, and he was really fun to fight. He demands your attention, and you have to learn to deal with that or die. Plus nearly every gun works against him, and if you know what you're doing, you can command the pace of the fight. Falter him with the shield, bomb his feet with sticky bombs, shoot him with your own super shotgun. Hell, the BFG distracts him, letting you kill him real quick. He's a fun fight. Takes some learning to get used to it, yes, but he fits nicely into the flow of combat, just like every other demon. Hell, I started to wish at one point that they doubled the amount of health he had, sometimes I kill the guy too quickly (I have heard that int he DLC, they throw two marauders at you at the same time, and that is something I gleefully await).
One last thing about the gameplay, there's a lot. The upgrade system is really, REALLY good. You have four major ways of upgrading yourself - sentinel crystals (argent energy replacements), runes, weapon mods, and praetor tokens. This may seem like a lot, but each one is introduced just in time once the player has had some time to play with the previous upgrade type. That, and these are the same upgrades from Doom 2016. Although I feel like in Eternal, they handle it a lot better. Praetor tokens especially, there's quite a bit of early customisation you can get out of it, and I found myself using my grenades more as I upgraded them (compare this to 2016, where I treated all of the praetor upgrades as passive upgrades). There's a lot of customisation, and it makes for a really fun progression system.
Okay, enough about the near-perfect gameplay. How does the story hold up? It's a bit confusing if you don't read the codexes, although I suppose if you don't read them, then you're not interested in the story at all. The story itself is actually handled pretty nicely, and I love how it ties the Doom Guy from Doom 1 and 2 to the Doom Slayer we play as here. I won't go into too much depth here, I haven't fully understood the story yet. But from what I've seen, it's also pretty good.
Graphics-wise, the game does extremely well here as well. Everything looks fantastic, from the enemy design, to the weapons, to the arenas. However, by FAR my favourite part of this game is the backgrounds and set pieces. By god are some of them fantastic, personal favourites are Mars Core and Super Gore Nest. They invoke the exact feeling they want to, and are really well-designed. All-in-all, this game looks great.
Last thing is the music. Honestly, this is the only major nit-pick I can give the game, and it's not even that big. The music just isn't exactly what I think it should be for a Doom game, most of the combat tracks felt a bit slower than I felt like it should've been. By no means is it bad music. Hell, it's fantastic music and would fit any other game perfectly. But for Doom, I was kind of hoping for more intense combat tracks. Of course, they did deliver with some of the tracks. BFG Division returns from 2016, and the best track in the game in my opinion is The Only Thing They Fear Is You. So not all of the music is like this, just some. Also the ambience tracks hit well, Cultist Base is one good example of that.
To finish, Doom Eternal is a worthy sequel when compared to Doom 2016. I haven't played Dark Ages yet, but between 2016, Eternal, and Dark Ages, I have a good feeling that Eternal would be my personal favourite out of the three, by a landslide. It's got fantastic gameplay, a good story if you want to read about it, it looks amazing, and even if the music doesn't feel like Doom in some places, it still is amazing. I would absolutely recommend this game to any Doom veteran, or someone who likes really fast-paced games.
Gameplay: 9.5 / 10
Story: 7 / 10
Graphics: 9 / 10
Music: 8 / 10
Final Score: 8.4 / 10 (Excellent)