been playing this mod for the last week or two and OH BOY what a mod! i have A LOT of things to say about it and still so much more things left to think of an opinion on.
first of all, NEW ENEMIES: most new enemies are surprisingly well balanced, have great sound design AND are fun to fight. pirate cove area seemed really overwhelming at first but turns out parrots and whales are much easier to deal than they seem. their attacks are really well telegraphed and pretty easy to dodge (i would prefer if whales would to have a more distinct pre-fire sound tho or some other way to more clearly tell they're about to shoot you.) graveyard enemies are also great, i love the concept of voltergeists even tho i'm not entirely sure what they do to non-graveyard enemies. however, some of the gray-colored enemies blend in the background WAY too well which feels incredibly cheap and unfair to take damage from, these enemies mainly being the robocenter enemies and powderfish (i know it's name only because i died to it while it was masking.) i haven't fought the new boss enough times to form a solid opinion yet but so far i see no issues with it. also gup guardians are incredibly satisfying to massacre lol.
NEW STAGES: i adore them a lot and usually always take the alt path(s). i find the idea of going to an alternative area for unique weapons (cove and deeplabs) with harder enemies simply brilliant, it makes runs much more dynamic and varied. i just wish there were more pirate versions of lower tier or just straight up bad weapons like toxic weapons and such. also i feel the graveyard enemies are significantly easier to deal with than the frozen city ones? at least pre-loop for sure, so (at least for me) it's more preferable to take the alt path, which is why i switch it to be random for myself. also also, i feel like the crystal caves generation type doesn't really fit the "split pathways" level since a lot of the time the portal can spawn in a really awkward spot that prevents you from going back to the cove hole. 3-3's open arena-like generation never has this problem so i personally prefer that (shout out to the green crystals btw.)
AUGMENTED MUTATIONS: love the idea but some of their descriptions are extremely unclear. like what does "EMPOWERING" mean in the "EMPOWERING BEACONS SPAWN IN LEVELS." does it mean they grant faster fire rate? didn't really feel like it. more weapon damage? couldn't tell either. damage resistance? something else? it's not really instantly clear like how it is with any other normal mutations. and i have question for augmented bloodlust, lucky shot and rabbit paw: don't the normal mutations effectively already do the same? what's the benefit then? "CORPSE CHARGE UP A POWERFUL PIERCING DRONE" uhh "corpses"? implying it's not just kills then how exactly does it charge? otherwise i think augmented mutations have huge potential and i can't wait to try them all out and try to run builds for them.
RANDOM [WEATHER] EVENTS: i'll be honest, i have really mixed feelings on all of them. first of all, i don't quite get the weather and night time events, like, they mostly either don't change anything or are just frustrating? i really don't fw frozen city's storm and labs' darkness, it's incredibly frustrating to be suddenly hit with 4-10 contact damage just because you didn't see a snowbot/explo freak flying at you at mach five with your incredibly limited vision. these areas are just not designed for this. the lab darkness event slows the gameplay to a CRAWL and it's especially bad on loops. and i did give weather events a fair chance: i was rocking the crown of storms a lot and i simply don't get what should be the appeal. i feel like such harsh events should be followed with a compensation or an upside to make it not feel like the game just decided to say "FUCK YOU" just because it felt like it. at the VERY LEAST one extra chest would be enough for me personally but idk what would be a universal solution. i liked the scrapyard thunder event tho, i like that it's a hazard both for you AND for the enemies or at least destroy walls which spices up the gameplay in the tunnel-y generations of this chapter. (also, i didn't record this but i had lightning strike in the very same place twice in a row, lmao???????)
PAINTORS AND PALACE TRAPS: i like the idea of random enemies that can spawn in any area to spice up the game but i just don't like the paintors for their paint clouds, it's just not fun to not see what's hitting you, not in this game at least. the palace additions (minus the gup guardians) i feel are a bit excessive and make already the hardest area in the game even more harder. this includes the serpent btw, it's way too oppressive for an area with 6 contact damage puppies and 5 damage circles spammed everywhere. also i really dislike crush traps, i lost so many runs/strong spirits to them it's not fun. they tend to spawn in tight corridors where they pretty much have no counter if you don't have a wall destroying weapon. sometimes i deadass have to wait for a guardian to come and die nearby to destroy them, it's so annoying ngl. the fire traps are fine i guess.
overall i think the mod is fantastic even with some of the frustrating things. it really did breath a new life in the game for me and i'm having a lot of fun! my current PB with the mod is 3-3 L5 btw. idk if you plan on updating the mod but i can't see what else you got in store! i have so much more i could say about the mod but it's up to you if you'd like me to yap even more. also THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR PELAGIC PREDICAMENT.
TL;DR amazing mod, keep up the good work, vision obscuring mechanics suck tho