The spore charger is pretty neat and the mega hive is proper intimidating and tough, with an egg you can carry to extract for extra samples (got 2 pinks and 4 rares with mine). They did what I feared they would do with the impaler and let it place and attack with its tendrils wherever it wants. So the game design language from the first game letting you know where it is to go take it out isn’t there. Just like charger butts not being their weak points. Baffling really.
I’ve been tentacle splatted against a wall once so far, and it was retracting when it did it. Give those things some space.
On the other side of things, impalers are bulky as hell, so it’s not hard to spot them assuming you’re not in a fog bank, night, jungle, or god ray land… Which to be honest is a lot of places a lot of the time.