Like most fans, I used to consider this the best game in the series. And why not? It builds upon the solid foundation of The First Encounter without messing anything up.

There are new enemies and weapons that somehow fit right into the neural network of enemy-weapon combinations and improve the already-excellent gameplay. There's more visual variety between levels, more creativity in the form of secrets, gimmicks and humor. It feels like the devs were having more fun with it, and that's kinda confirmed with the ending credits where almost every developer's name is followed with a funny quote one can only assume came straight out of the development process.

This time around, instead of exploring one giant location, you traverse three smaller ones: Central America, Persia/Mesopotamia and something resembling medieval Europe. Across the levels you go through a lot of different biomes. Variety is always a good thing, but I think spending around 8 hours in Egypt made it feel like a more fleshed-out and real location.

Here, the most memorable location is Central America because it's the one you spend the most time in. And also it's the most visually consistent one. Persia/Mesopotamia kinda jumps between the more Medieval-looking Persian architecture to the ancient-looking Babylonia. The final three European levels are consistent architecturally, but have radically different tones/themes.

In the end, this makes it feel more like an expansion pack, in the sense of it being bonus levels rather than a coherent new entry in the franchise. It also doesn't help that your weapons get reset at the start of every new location.

At the time we definitely assumed TSE to be a sequel, and I think it originally was, but then Croteam surprised everyone with the announcement of Serious Sam 2. So, I guess in retrospect TSE should be viewed at as an expansion pack. And for what it is, it's actually amazing.

I will say that some levels towards the end of the Persian section and beginning of European section that have some design flaws: unfair enemy placements, a bit of an over-reliance on key-hunting, a couple of pretty confusing puzzles (not difficult, just unclear), occasional overly lengthy fights. But these are rather minor nitpicks. The game definitely starts strong and sticks to landing.

Overall, if I had to choose, I think I prefer the first game due to its sense of place, coherence and slightly tighter level-design. But it's really close. In fact, I'd argue TSE has higher hights. The penultimate level might just be the best one in the entire series.

In retrospect, TSE doesn't even seem optional. The two "Encounters" truly do feel like one game. A lot of TSE's additions feel integral to the series at this point. Sometimes it's really hard to tell which enemies and weapons were introduced here because of how well they blend-in with the content of the original.