Thread:Vorknkx/@comment-3547390-20161116194210/@comment-1496755-20161220133920

Mmmm, nothing like a good chunk of beef roasted on Phoenix Rod.

Some contemporary games don't have stats screens but they have challenges... and this means a player often has to go out of their way to do something weird, just for the sake of completion. And do ing something weird is often a good way to disturb your game flow and not beat a level the way you really want to. (sigh)

Well then, you'll be pleased to know that this is the only game in the series to have this form of respawn/reinforcement mechanic, so you will have plenty of ghost towns in the other games, if you get to them some day :)

I guess they wanted to keep the player on edge at all times, which was a relatively new concept in those days. This isn't much of a consolation, but there are worse cases out there. And some of them are pretty random - I remember a more recent game where you can pass through several empty areas. You reload your game (probably because you died) and then these areas are suddenly swarming with evil things that want to kill you. And this unpredictability makes you nervous.

Exactly - an experimental period. Many developers back then went to great lengths to add something (even it's something small) to show how their engine is level design is superior to Doom, which could lead to poor design choices (innovation for the sake of showing off that we're better than those other guys from Mesquite, Texas).