YMMV / Serious Sam: The Random Encounter

• Anti-Climax Boss: Ugh-Zan III appears as the Final Boss for the second time in the series, but he puts up a much weaker fight than in the first game. The only threats in his fight are the endlessly spawning minions, as he himself has no attacks whatsoever.
• It's Hard, So It Sucks!: Thanks to the Scrappy Mechanic below, the game has a very steep Difficulty Spike. The first two levels aren't all that bad, since enemy numbers are still fairly small and you only have two characters to control, but the game becomes very frustrating once you pass the third level.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: One of the game's many issues is its length. It only has nine short levels and can be beaten in under an hour.
• Scrappy Mechanic: The game's Bullet Hell nature means that being able to dodge enemies and their projectiles is vital to surviving. This isn't too bad at first, but the way the game handles multiple characters is incredibly problematic. You control all three characters at once and they run in a line next to each other, but they always keep the same distance to one another. This means that every additional party member severely limits your freedom of movement, making it almost impossible to dodge attacks once all three characters are in the party. And since the game throws more and more enemies at you the further you get, this problem only gets worse as the game goes on.
• So Okay, It's Average: The general consensus for the game is that, while the idea of a game that combines Bullet Hell with Turn-Based Combat has potential, its short length and underdeveloped mechanics make it little more than a mediocre experiment.
• That One Boss: The giant Lava Golem in the third level is where most people will meet a roadblock. It has tons of health and summons hundreds of smaller Lava Golems that block your shots and quickly overwhelm you. Since it is encountered before you obtain the game's more powerful weapons, using one of the limited Serious Bombs to kill it in at most two turns is practically required to beat it.