i don't quite experience joy mutants in recent fangames/mods the same way i did back in painful. i don't look at a joy mutant and think that it's a threatening and mysterious enemy that i need to prepare for unless i'm willing to risk a party member dying, i look at one and think "okay well time to pull out all my DOTs"

design-wise, they also fail to capture my interest. i can't quite put it into words, but i feel nothing when i see a guy but his torso is extended by twofold. i don't think about what this person was like pre-mutation or what caused them to end up in this situation

mid battle mutations is also something i feel has its novelty wear off, since you can pretty much predict what's going to happen once an enemy uses joy after reaching a certain health threshold

but these are just my two cents. what do you think? this is the discussion channel, after all