Being told you’re playing a game wrong is a bitter pill to swallow, and it’s far easier to soothe a bruised ego and convince yourself that it’s everyone else who is wrong. I even started to resent Doom Eternal as old strategies left me staring at the game over screen. In Eternal, however, I was lamenting the fact I was without Doom’s dinky pistol with infinite ammo, because even that was preferable to having nothing at all.
When I went from Bayonetta 1 to 2, sure there was a few newly added wrinkles to the fights, but it was largely business as usual as I deftly dodged and punished with familiar and trusted combos. It was a strange experience, because I’d never thought I would have such a hard time readjusting to what I believed was essentially the same game but with a few extra additions. Because you see, back in my day – that being when Doom 2016 came out, which I will now just call Doom for the sake of brevity – ammo was plentiful and only became more so as the game went on, and fodder would melt underneath your fist into bloody mush. I spent the majority of the first level running around scared and confused, desperately trying to suck up any ammo I could, while fruitlessly punching demons with little to no effect. I didn’t get Doom Eternal at first, and I’ll raise my hands to that. And how I learned to be inDOOMitable again.
