DOOM Eternal (Switch) – Review

Last march we checked out the newest installment of the DOOM series, namely Eternal. We concluded that this was a great sequel to the 2016 reboot, and was a fitting continuation of the aforementioned game’s story. Now, right before Christmas, the game has been ported to Nintendo’s hybrid console to be enjoyed on the go as well. Sadly, the game is only available digitally and will actually take up a big portion of your memory card’s space. Nonetheless, even with many graphical cutbacks, we quite enjoyed this gory pocket-sized DOOM experience. If you wish to explore the complete ins and outs of the game, be sure to check our original review for Xbox One here. We could dive into the specifics of the game again, but we’d only repeat ourselves as the game is exactly the same, safe for some cutbacks to run smoothly on the Switch.

We still get to try and save the Earth with the generic Doomguy setup, who will unlock weapons, power-ups and other abilities as he progresses through the campaign. The overall offset is quite clear, but those looking for a normal shooter experience will find a retro-inspired game with a fair amount of platforming. The latter can be annoying if you’re quite bad at it, as some sections require a bit of skill to pass, even when playing on the easier difficulties. Said difficulties often only involve the monsters you’re gutting and blowing up. These can ramp up significantly when choosing to make things harder, but more than often it’s a matter of having enough ammo to get through gunfights.

Talking about gutting your opponents, or in some cases reduce them to a gory mush, the Switch version of the game did take a lot of graphical cutbacks. While, for the Switch, the game still looks good and runs smooth as butter, you can see a lot of muddy textures, some texture popping and a whole lot fewer details than the visuals on the Xbox One version, which we discussed a few months ago. Nonetheless, the game still looks quite nice given the capabilities of Nintendo’s small hybrid console. We did enjoy our toned-down DOOM experience on a Nintendo system, which is now also clearly aiming for a more adult audience as well.

Even though this was discussed in our original review, we still want to say that the soundtrack of DOOM Eternal is simply amazing. From start to finish you’ll be motivated to run around the different maps, obliterate monsters and just subtly headbang in sync with the music. The sound effects are great and have that ‘juiciness’ to them to make the gore onscreen stand out. We are truly impressed by the composers of the soundtrack.

The game’s controls feel very much like you’re playing that old 90s, early 2000s, shooter once again. Rather than having very realistic controls, the game opts for high-speed gliding, platforming, smooth aiming and explosive action, rather than pinpoint accuracy and tactical maneuvers. That being said, for a retro-inspired shooter such as this, the mechanics are properly fleshed out and are quite expansive to work with. There are many upgrades to unlock, new weapons to find and even the online modes will add some content after the already quite long campaign mode.

Conclusion

DOOM Eternal on Switch is still very much an interesting game to play if you don’t own a strong PC or anything outside of the Switch. While we can agree that the graphics will be best on a PlayStation 4, Xbox One, or PC, it’s quite nice to dismember hellish critters on the go as well. We were more than amused by playing this port, which has been properly handled.

Ibuki

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Aspiring ninja.

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