videogames is one word

I have a sort of love/hate relationship with Doom Eternal. I love the core combat loop, I actually do enjoy the platforming, I love its big focus on forward momentum, but I hate things like its three separate upgrade trees, pretty much every voiced line, the absolutely bizarre levels of reverence it puts on Doom as a cultural idea but especially the Doom Slayer…

But there’s one thing that bothers me more than any of those things I hate because it’s tied deeply to something I actually love. One thing I fucking adore about Doom Eternal is the way you can enter a very specific flow in each combat arena, zipping from place to place, launching off boost pads, executing dashes at just the right time, and reaching a skill level where you’re also exploiting enemy weaknesses while moving at this speed. It’s a fucking blast, really.

For about two minutes.

Because eventually it reaches a point, especially in longer encounters, where you can’t help but notice that you’re just running laps, but with a gun in your hand. There’s very few arenas where you’re afforded more than one or two loops, especially the later into the game you get. There’s very little room for experimentation or deviation from the set path, which is very weird in a game where you’ll often be given a near-guided tour of the larger arenas before they get flooded with enemies.

And it sucks! It sucks so bad! About two or three hours into the game I went from being absolutely psyched for combat encounters to just letting out a really kinda weary sigh. I had a lot of issues with Doom 2016’s combat arenas as well, mostly related to how often it felt like my momentum was being stunted by the traversal system, but Doom Eternal feels like a massive overcorrection that feels really fun for a while, especially if you’ve managed to get the upgrade points you need to hit the ammo capacity sweet spot, but then just hits a wall.

I could rant about other things, like how the Doom Hunter boss fight is fucking atrocious in both idea and execution, but this is the thing that really gets me. For all the times it felt like my momentum was being stunted in Doom 2016, I was also always visualizing new paths when it came to combat. I was always adapting to the situation and finding new ways to get around to deal with the enemies that were being added.

Eternal just fumbles the fuck out of that and that sucks in a game where you’re constantly doing a Shooty McBangbang.

The last time I posted this opinion somebody tried to doxx me for it on twitter, which personally I find hilarious.

I'll give the general rundown for people who are unfamiliar with The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker or who haven't played for a while of what the triforce hunt is. Once you've completed almost every single dungeon in the game, it's revealed to you that you need to reassemble the pieces of the legendary triforce to defeat Ganon. Iif you're really unfamiliar, the triforce is basically the series MacGuffin that grants wishes and seals away evil and shit like that. Its powers are whatever are most plot convenient so long as they could be used for good or evil.

Up until that point, the game has been moving at a breakneck speed. You're basically being shuffled from island to island, dungeon to dungeon, with very little opportunity to do sidequests or collect various upgrades unless you make the time to do so for yourself, and even then a lot of the side stuff is gated off until you have the right items. The triforce hunt entails collecting maps, paying to have them decoded, and then going to that location to get the piece you need. In some cases it's things like getting on to a ghost ship that only appears at certain points of the full moon, or after a gauntlet of loads of enemies.

It also takes place all over the map of the game.

See, what the triforce hunt does is give you a quest that takes you all over the game world, but also allows you to collect all the upgrades, finish up things you may not have had time for before like the photo taking quest, get some collectibles, cure grandma's depression, all sorts of shit. It is basically telling you "listen, the final battle is coming up, it's time to make sure you're fucking ready" and gives you the opportunity to start getting shit done.

Now, it's not perfect by any means. The map decoding costs money, and while the economy in Zelda games is basically "lmao here you go buddy" before shitting more precious gems all over you, but also one of the upgrades you may have missed was a significant update to your wallet capacity. The maps cost 398 rupees to decode, so if you don't have the final wallet upgrade, you can only decode two at a time because you can only hold 1000 rupees. This is a problem when there's eight to collect.

That's an annoyance, mind, but it's hardly some damning thing. If you're already doing the triforce hunt, you're gonna probably end up getting that upgrade unless you decide it's time to just beeline through the game. If you're beelining through the game when it finally gives you a chance to do something other than do that though? Ehhhh... you're kinda just missing out on some fun stuff.

Note that in the HD version, it fixes the map decoding issue. Instead of there being eight charts, there's only three. I'm mixed on this change since I'd probably have just cut the price of decoding down to 198 and the amount of charts down to five. That way you'd be able to get them with a single full wallet if you had the 1000 rupee upgrade but you'd still have plenty of excuse to do some wider exploring. Honestly I have a whole bunch of issues with the HD version in general but that's a whole-ass other post.