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An adorable but still gruesome DOOM Mobile spin-off | Full Review - Mighty DOOM

814 View2023-03-24

Mighty DOOM is a top down single handed rogue-lite shooter set in the DOOM universe. It is available for Android and iOS as a free-to-play title with in-app purchases.

🟩Pros

+Engaging rogue-lite mechanics

+Fun and satisfying combat

+Awesome takedown animations

+Adorable graphics but still gruesome

🟥Cons

-Artificial difficulty spike to encourage spending money

-Playtime is heavily limited by the energy system

One-handed play

Mini Doom, Mini Everything

Everything in this game is “mini” and adorable, because it is set in the “animated DOOM universe”, an alternate reality featuring DOOM’s collectible toys. Make no mistake, the visuals are adorable and cute, but it is still gruesome and as gory as the mainline games, with blood splatters and dismemberments being a regular sight for players. It’s still not for kids.

Gameplay Analysis

The gameplay is simple: using just one hand, control the mini Slayer to avoid enemy attacks and position shots. His regular shots automatically fire, while the secondary weapons and abilities are manually activated.

There are various weapons and gears that players can acquire in Mighty DOOM, such as regular rifles, laser guns, or swords and chainsaws. Players can incrementally upgrade them as well by using materials and currency earned from runs. There are also other playable characters and cosmetics, but most of them are locked in a paywall or hard to get in-game currency.

In a rogue-lite fashion, players start off with a basic weapon behavior, and proceed to get 3 random choices for upgrades every once and a while once the ability meter fills up. This choice ranges from a simple stat boost such as an increased health or damage; to a more substantial way that changes how the weapons operate, such as adding another projectile, or making bullets bounce out to other enemies. This makes the gameplay a lot more emergent, and can leave the player excited to wait for and choose the next upgrade.

Once players are a couple of stages in and their weapons are abundantly upgraded, the game is at its best — bullets, missiles and lasers are flying, ricocheting between or piercing through enemies, players are gloriously mowing down groups of mini demons with ease in what seems like a pretty artistic display of fireworks. In Mighty DOOM, beauty is mayhem.

Aside from the three choices, there are other opportunities to gain in-run upgrades as well, such as a mod-bot spin roulette that appears after every boss fight, and a boon+curse offer that you can either accept or reject, depending if the pros outweighs the cons.

When you die, there is a one-time option of continuing the game via an Ad or an in-game currency, after that, players have to reset the whole chapter from start. Not all progression is lost however, as you can upgrade your character, weapons, and gear to get a better chance on the next try. Every run consumes energy, which is the time-currency of Mighty DOOM, meaning players won't be able to delightfully play as often as they like.

Instead, there are also a lot of incentives for players to keep playing it in a daily manner, providing events, daily missions, and login bonuses giving off additional rewards to help in the progression.

Glory Kills are here

It would not be the modern DOOM that we know and love, if there weren't brutal melee takedowns and challenging boss fights present. And the Mighty DOOM does indeed feature both. Every chapter contains a total of 40 stages, and every 10 stages will feature a boss fight, which is taken from regular mobs but bigger and badder (still a mini though), each with their own style of attacks that players have to master.

In addition to the regular top-down shooter combat, there are also awesome stylish takedowns for regular mobs and bosses alike. Once defeated, regular mobs have a chance to be “staggered” that when approached, instantly triggers a takedown that, like the main games, heals the player.

There are a total of nine chapters that get progressively harder to complete, and while it is only nine chapters, the game will still take a considerable amount of time to complete even if there are unlimited energies, due to the difficulty spikes per chapter. The resulting game is a challenging one, with the biggest factor being the ability of players to avoid and withstand enemy projectiles and attacks, which in turn is partly augmented by their level and gear.

The difficulty spikes felt artificially made, with exponentially harder chapters and scarce loot drops, probably to encourage the players to spend some cash. If you are hardcore enough, you can still opt to keep playing without ever spending a dime since the game is fun enough to cater some grinding to the player, and the traditional energy system will limit your playtime per day anyway preventing burnouts.

After experiencing Mighty DOOM even for a short while, I feel that this game should have been a premium game instead, offering a steady flow of progression to the player, with more fun and less grind and money spent.

Conclusion:

Mighty DOOM is a fun adorable but still gruesome rogue-lite top down shooter that offers brutal non-stop action, that is until you run out of energy for the day. It is better suited for players who only play small bite sized sessions, or those who won’t mind spending a dime or two to help in battling mini demons.

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