Why I dislike the Watcher
The Rot
Cool concept. Fuckin hate the Rot. I hate mold and the Rot is just Sentient Mold and just eww. Everything is dripping ooze and it can hear me and it kills me quickly and just ewwwwwwwwww. Ew ew ew ew ew. I hate it so much. Literally had to pause playing multiple times because the rot found me and I needed time to stop my heart from going 200BPM because it is the stronges horror for me. I can't even eat a lot of cheeses because of the mold in them and I love cheese!
In addition, to the rot being nasty, it also kills you so slowly and there's literally no way for you to avoid it once you're in. No fighting your fate, no going around it, nothing. Absolutely horrendous. You just get to suffer while it takes its time absorbing you into its squishy grossness. I nearly threw up a few times playing this DLC because of how I had to have Watcher wriggle through the Rot and it was so fucking nasty. Anyways, awful. Hate the Rot. 0/10
Lack of Direction
Oh, but Sushi! The original game had no direction, it's just being true to the original base game!
WRONG.
Your original directive was explore and find a way back to your sibling. Exploring was the directive, and there were plenty of ways to go if you got stuck in an area. The Watcher is not given any directive. It's way around is in fact very different from the other Scugs so its acutally harder than if you were just playing to explore like in the original. No Iterators. No helpful little signs saying "Hey, by the way, you're looking for this, or you need to do this." Pure, unguided exploration. I managed to progress through pure luck.
Look, the original game was fun because we were exploring new areas, and Downpour was fun because we got to see areas we already knew, changed slightly and with similar mechanics we already loved. Even the new areas and addition to areas included concepts we already were aware of, and really dove into the lore of how the Iterators work, and what the Triple Affirmative might be. The Watcher feels like shooting myself in the foot over and over again as I fail parkour against strong winds and get singled out by creatures (looking at you Locusts). It is painful playing this DLC and I'm so tired of trying to figure everything out.
Bugs
I know this one is a low hanging fruit. But for an entire real life week I was stuck in Unfortunate Evolution because the portal at the end was broken and would suck me in and not teleport anything. Also, the improved movement remix option doesn't work with this which means I coulnd't even make Watcher scream in terror as I died over and over again.
Conclusion
I do love Rainworld. This DLC however feels a lot like shooting myself in the foot. Its entire gamplay mechanic based around my least favourite part of the game, with a Slugcat I find mildly interesting. if you like the rot or find it interesting, you will enjoy this DLC. It however was not made in a way I can enjoy playing it. I'm not very good at playing games. I regularly die so many times in a single cycle that the Popcorn plants respawn. I will enjoy seeing everyone's lore videos, but for me, this DLC is hell to play and I will be finishing it as quickly as possible.