The constant needing jumping around on platforms really pissed me off in Eternal and I thought the 2016 Doom was much better.
My take is that I enjoyed Doom 2016 more, but I still think Doom Eternal is one of the most refined and well designed shooters ever made.
My problem was simply that it was overwhelming. I beat Doom 2016 on Ultra Violence and felt it was a fair and balanced challenge. So I started Eternal on UV as well, but after about three levels and me dying
at least once or twice on basically every new encounter and feeling up against it at basically all times, I had to suck in my pride and notch it down to normal difficulty. And it was
still really difficult, and I was still dying relatively regularly, just a more tolerable, normal amount.
I'm pretty decent at shooters, but moreso with the actually 'shooty shooty' and movement parts. I was simply not prepared for the level of multi-tasking systems management that Eternal basically demands of you. Enemies are lethal, fast and surround you more than ever in Eternal, and so that already consumes a heavy chunk of my attention, just trying to stay moving and not get hit. But you are so severely limited on ammo, so you need to constantly be paying attention to your chainsaw replenishing, constantly needing to switch weapons as needed for specific enemy types and weakpoints(along with changing weapon mods on the fly...), constantly needing to pay attention to my recharge for fire to sustain the much-needed armor, constantly needing to pay attention to the very impactful grenade refill timers(and paying attention to which one I had activated), constantly having to pay attention to the super impactful blood punch readiness.
It took me until about halfway through the game before I really felt I was gaining any kind of handle on things rather than just panicking my way through every encounter. But even by the end, I still never really felt like I had 'gotten good' at it and was forever realizing after an encounter all the things I should have been doing that would have helped, but I just didn't have the literal mental capacity for in the moment. I feel like I would have benefited a lot from a second playthrough, but it was such a grueling experience already, I just didn't want to do it.
But I dont consider this a 'fault' of the game necessarily, cuz while it demands a lot from the player and to play a specific way, it is clearly a meticulously designed combat system with fantastic encounter design to match, and I'm not surprised how many people compare it just as much to sort of action games like Ninja Gaiden Black and Bayonetta than just to other shooters. It is clearly meant to be something for people to put time into and replay and genuinely learn to get better at.
And a testament to this is that going back and playing Doom 2016 afterwards, it almost feels
too slow and easy, even though I had a better time with it the first time around. lol Even my half-baked Doom Eternal skills translated into dominating in Doom 2016.
