Yes I know I'm late to the party, but this scenario was too good to not comment upon
I don't know why I never did before, too much of a noob I guess
But my thoughts are thus
Story
Marathon Phoenix has a very well written narrative that I enjoyed, so I enjoyed the story a fair bit, though I always found it annoying how much Phoenix yammered on about how in the first two chapters that 'there's nothing to see here, no terrible secret, nothing going on, the only real enemy is the Pfhor, go away' bit that he would go on about.
Which was somewhat annoying because if the only real enemy is the Pfhor then stop shooting at me damnit
Very well done overall, it makes a good tie into Rubicon
What confuses me though, does Phoenix take place after Marathon 2...or Infinity?
Design
In terms of the design of levels, this is where the scenarios shines so very much, between excellent color composition and gorgeous architecture, Phoenix is so good looking that I dare say in many ways it holds up to even more modern games
That's how great looking this game is, and I loved every bit of it's design bar one nitpick and a couple levels
The nitpick is that while monster closets, something I haven't really seen anything used in a Marathon scenario before but is clearly a nod to Doom here, intentional or otherwise, its not their usage that bothered me so much as the fact that Ryoko uses them a lot
A bit too much honestly, but oh well.
The levels in question that I didn't care for, was Escape Two Thousand, and Another Dimension.
Escape Two Thousand more or less embodies every single design aspect I don't like in any shooter ever, narrow perilous platforming, little room to dodge around or take cover, lots of sniper, and a single fuck up results in guaranteed death, as Ryoko is not kind enough to give you a way to escape the magma.
Another Dimension, is mostly fine, bar the fact that there are a lot of cheap tricks of popping enemies in behind you with little to no warning(teleports are pretty quiet in Phoenix), so you can find yourself with some Defenders nailing you in the backside unless you're looking for it.
That, and the final part of that mission is to be blunt, kind of horse shit, I was playing on normal and I have to say the end of Another Dimension beats out literally any other piece of Marathon content in sheer difficulty that I've ever seen, and not in a good way.
While the initial big fight is very fun, the part where you have to actually smash the circuitry for the cooling systems to complete your objective is a mountain of bullshit, a panel has to be activated to slide away, but takes a moment, and in the meantime the moment you get up there an enormous amount of dangerous enemies teleport in front and behind you, even with the 3x recharge canister right there, you're going to be hard pressed to make it out alive, especially given that the escape route isn't really immediately clear
Oh wells, I made it through regardless with determination and no small amount of swearing, I nonetheless feel like that section is way too hard, and can't even imagine playing it on Total Carnage.
Difficulty/Gameplay
For the most part, Ryoko has a very good understanding of how to handle difficulty well, Phoenix is very challenging, but fair, generally if you die it's your fault, and not the result of bad design. As long as you're cautious and don't go in guns blazing you'll be just fine, though it will still be hard.
I played it on normal difficulty, yea I know I'm a scrub, but I can safely say that I think I wouldn't be able to beat this on Total Carnage, I'm not good enough at Marathon for that, I figure in a lot of fights you could just 'Vid it' but I'm not good enough for that honestly
I digress, regardless of the difficulty, most of the entire scenario is very satisfying to fight through, though I did find fighting the sheer number of Defenders to be rather annoying.
Weapons
The weapons are all pretty good, though I often felt like I wanted a second Imp sooner, I'm sure they were hidden in secrets but I'm a total scrub at finding those so...oh well
The Imp pistols are probably my favorite weapon bar none, they're just so satisfying, and I love anything that goes dakka dakka dakka.
The reskin and sound effects for the Assault Rifle are quite welcome, it's a cool gun and nice to use.
The fusion cannon just kinda is ugly to me, I think I would have preferred the pistol but that's me.
The Fusion Mortar is hit and miss, it's either great or it's worthless, and can be sometimes wonky to hit targets with
The Katar...is a cool idea, but is just a gimmick, I knew that already though, quite dangerous regardless if you can actually get in close to land hits without taking huge amounts of damage, you're going to be whoring off of chargers if you try to use this puppy though, at least in my opinion
The crossbow was weird and at first I didn't care for it, but it grew on me due to it's ability to snipe Enforcer's
Not much else to say here
Audio
Pretty spot on almost all the time, though sometimes I don't think I'd have chosen the music that was chosen for certain levels, but whatever
Final Verdict
Level/Visual Design 5/5 A gorgeous scenario, one of the best looking without a doubt
Audio/Music: 5/5
Gameplay 4/5 A point is docked for the absolute bullshit that is Another Dimension, and Escape Two Thousand, but other then that...
Story 4/5 Docked a point here just cause of how annoying 'Karma' is in the first few chapters, but beyond that spot on and quite enjoyable
Favorite Level: S'phtstorm
Least Favorite Level: Another Dimension
Overall Phoenix is a bang up job of a scenario and well worth anyone's time.