My thoughts after finishing Nihilanth

[User220N]

It is amazing, it felt fresh, exciting and, epic sometimes. But it has a couple of problems.


PERFORMANCE

I play in a laptop so my performance was already terrible at 25-40 fps in intense chapters like Surface Tension. Even with lots of effects in low or off.
In some parts of Interloper, the performance is even worse, dropping to 10 or 9fps like in the ascension towards the portal of Nihilanth. I think it has to do with the amount of objects on-screen and effects in play.
Furthermore, the portal to Nihilanth has terrible performance! Worse when it shows on the Main Menu before loading your game.


DIFFICULTY

I played on Hard difficulty throughout the entire game. Even though there were chapters that became very difficult, you could still overcome them.
In these Xen chapters, difficulty spikes ridiculously. I dropped to Normal difficulty and still it was so ridiculously tough I struggled a lot.
Alien controllers can throw a lot of objects at you, but it leads to frustrating (and unfair) deaths if they throw as well explosives! Sum up that they have an unbelievable accuracy with their fire orbs (?) & they become frustrating.

3 sections stuck to me that became really really difficult.
- One was Gonarch's Lair. Gonarch is ridiculously fasts and never misses while also spawns a lot of mini-headcrabs that I don't have any idea how to eliminate without losing a ridiculous amount of health & suit (40 & 60 respectively).
- Second was the chapter where you find the Vortigaunt's home where they open you the electric door (sorry for the poor description).
After the Alien Controllers appear, the section is too small & too cluttered to move so I got stuck there trying to beat it given the amount of space and how OP I feel the Alien Controllers.
- Third was the conveyor belt part in Interloper. This part was ridiculously frustrating. Not only Alien Controllers have accuracy, control Vortigaunts, & open the barrels of Alien Grunts, but there is no space to move around the conveyor belts. Also, you can get crushed by the barrels. On top of that, their shots (and yours) can also open barrels of Alien Grunts behind you, leading to deaths that feel more cheap and unfair rather that a "I have to git gud" scenario.
My way to fix it would be to have the conveyor belt working slower or with half the barrels and it would feel way better.

In comparison to this sections, Nihilanth felt just okay to me. Probably needs a Health buff to compensate? But the Nihilanth fight was on point. Hard enough to be challenging.


BUGS FOUND

- With "always run" enabled, after a level change or when you load a save, the option "disables itself".
It gets fixed by pressing SHIFT (to walk) and moving.
It is frustrating when you quick-save & load a lot like me.
- With "always run" enabled I cannot super-jump if there is a minimal amount of slope upwards. Probably an engine thing.
- After "super-jumping" in the Xen chapters, you bounce a lot on every tiny prop / rock / scenery. It leads to frustrating falls.


I really hope this post helps. I really enjoyed these chapters and after ironing these hiccups, they would be a 10/10, would play again!