Hell Revealed II

Released in 2003, Hell Revealed 2 is a spiritual sequel to everyone's favorite excessive megawad from 1997, Hell Revealed. Yonatan Donner and Haggay Niv are nowhere to be found in this project, making way for a team of 14 people, such as Jonas Feragan, Sam Woodman, Yashar Garibzadeh, Martin Friberg and Andy Olivera, just to name a few. Their mission: make the hardest Doom 2 WAD ever made. They sure have succeeded, but will this result in you wanting to play it?

As early as MAP02 (High Voltage), you will see that unlike its predecessor, Hell Revealed 2 is not interested in easing your way in the level set. On paper, these levels feel like HR: the levels are small and cramped, they're full of beefy enemies that you have no room or supplies to fight with, the levels also look very basic for their time, being full of tiny hallways and square rooms, but in HR2, the game feels way less interested in giving you leeway for your mistakes and it loves to spring gotcha! moments that will assuredly kill you in almost every map. The other major difference between HR1 and HR2 comes in the form of its signature enemy: HR1 abused barons of hell to an absurd degree, HR2 instead overuses archviles. Sadly, its use of archviles is often not even that interesting: instead of letting them loose in interesting arenas full of cover and corpses to resurrect, HR2 loves to spawn archviles in tiny hallways where they trap you and freely incinerate you unless you have a BFG9000 handy (MAP22: Sewer Slaughter has the worst encounter of that kind). And even then, survival is not always guaranteed.

While Hell Revealed 2's mission statement is to be as hard as possible, it also does that at the detriment of trying to be original. There's a staggering amount of maps that are content to not only openly recycle concepts from Hell Revealed, but also other WADs as well. Look at some of the level names: Not That Simple II? The Siege II? The Path II? The Descent II? The Inmost Dens III? Some other levels go under different names but still wear their influence openly on their sleeves. MAP13 (Hardcore) is a straight remake of HR1's MAP 25 (Dead Progressive), but while the original level served as a break, Hardcore instead wishes to break you, making the gameplay much slower, calculated and grindy. It's likely one of the better examples of HR2's grindy gameplay because the map still is fun to play despite its intimidating exterior. MAP27 (Resistance Remains) is also a direct remake of HR's MAP22 (Resistance is Futile) and it barely tries to disguise the inspiration. Yet, the map fails because its archvile placement, it prevents the map from being the slaughterfest it wants to be and forces a much slower, calculated approach. Later on, the map devolves in you sniping away cages of archviles and revenants with a rocket launcher, stopping the pacing of the game dead in its tracks.

While HR1 had a simple yet distinct visual identity, HR2 doesn't. There are no distinct themes in any of the episodes and the constant author switching make it so that about no 2 maps seem to belong in the same map pack. Maps like MAP16 (The Chapel of Black Granite) feature stronger visual chops than the average HR2 map but in turn, it feels like they belong somewhere else. Jonas Feragan mostly has a basic feel to his maps, but when you feel like you got a grasp on his maps, he also has crown jewels like the majestic hellish mountain of MAP29 (Hell's Cauldron) and nice setpieces like the lighting of the opening staircase in MAP21 (Conflux). Another thing you'll see a lot in HR2 are room over room bridges, which sometimes are nice and fit the scenery well, but other times they're used for the sake of being used and very often break (MAP12, Anti Static is a prime offender). Faring better is the soundtrack, entirely composed by Sam Woodman and Petter "Thyrbse" Mårtensen. The soundtrack is a nice mixture of ambient (MAP13) and metal as all hell (MAP15: The Path II).

The failing point of HR2 is that the beginning stretch is almost all uniformly poor and punishing. MAP1 (IGNITION!) promises a fiery and fun beginning, but maps 2-6 all are clunkers, all favoring the most flavorless tiny corridor shooting where mistakes are not allowed, without any deviation to the formula. MAP7 (Not That Simple II) is the first inkling of fun you'll have in the WAD, all because it features an interesting platform switch mechanic and finally... IT GIVES YOU SPACE TO MOVE. Then you get MAP9 (The Siege II), which takes the opposite route, stuffing you in a tiny box, surrounded by hordes of revenants and flying foes you must drive back for over 4 minutes while you wait for the exit pad to be accessible. Out of all episode 1, I can only recommend MAP7 and MAP8 (Ballistics); the rest of the episode feels like a thankless chore.

Episode 2 is not as aggravating and likely features the most fondly remembered maps of the set. MAP15 (The Path II) goes against all odds and is a brilliant re-imaging of The Path. It features the best MIDI track of the whole set and makes the concept of the deadly giant cave with a small safe pathway work, thanks to Jonas Feragan axing the original's baron of hell count and making each encounter more massive and varied. Whether you like it or not, you remember this map. Another winner is MAP32 (Playground), which was the king of slaughtermaps back in 2003. Packing a whopping 1651 monsters and no wimps, it's a fight for your life, only hindered by its somewhat cryptic out of reach 8 megaspheres which will constantly taunt you (HINT: after climbing up any of the pyramids, go down the stairs and go in a straight line for the other pyramid in front of you). Sadly, these successes are balanced by the usual grind and gotcha! encounters of MAP17 (Eye for an Eye) and the completely disjointed MAP18 (Excess Meat) which can't commit to a singular theme to save its life.

Episode 3 is well... more of the same than Episode 2, but with bigger extremes. MAP29 (Hell's Cauldron) is the best overall map of the set, which sets a great climax to a megawad which sadly has no buildup or feel of progression. Its scenery is impressive and the fights often are a welcome change from the tear and grind in tiny hallways. It's massive, majestic and yet very oppressive. It only loses points for its completely random teleporting monsters at the very end. MAP23 (When the Heavens Fall) is ugly as sin, but features some of the best action in the WAD and features some very fun (and large) arenas. On the other end of the scale comes MAP24 (The Inmost Dens III), which takes HR2's claustrophia factor and multiplies it by 10. It's painfully linear and no fight in it can be postponed for later, while also mandating the player to find secrets to even have a fighting chance. Fighting archviles and mancubi with only a shotgun? Seriously? MAP26 (Dis 2000) is a lazy remake of Doom's E3M8, favoring similarly boring and grindy gameplay. MAP25 (The End is Nigh) comes straight in the middle with a map that both features steam-blowing slaughter gameplay in fun and roomy arenas and the usual, tiny hallways full of big monsters fare that plague most of HR2. It feels like wasted potential and it further shows the fractured identity of the pack; this map was devised by 3 people and virtually no effort was made to not make their disparate mapping styles violently clash against each other.

Then you get hit with MAP28 (Beyond The Sea). This is the most asphyxiating map I have ever played, making you fight hordes of heavy monsters (which include 4 cyberdemons, 18 archviles and 57 revenants with nothing stronger than the super shotgun and a rocket launcher with only 87 rockets. No plasma rifle, no BFG9000 and no cells. Even then, reaching the super shotgun in a pistol start is a herculean feat which require dispatching many barons, mancubi and archviles with just a shotgun and chaingun. If this seems fun to you, then go ahead and play it, but there's no way this map can ever be remotely fun for me. This map actively hates you and shows the worst possible extreme of HR2's grindy gameplay.

Thankfully, the Icon of Sin fight in HR2 is short and merciful. The demon spawner now shoots 10 cubes at once, but the spawning points are all marked so accidental telefrags won't be an issue and there's no finicky elevator to ride and time rocket blasts on. Kill the archviles, get their keys, kill the cyberdemon standing on the platform allowing you access to the brain, then get there and kill the icon. Just don't fall in the lava; there is an elevator granting you access out of this death trap but the monster spawning is so intense that climbing out of the pit is near impossible.

So there's Hell Revealed 2. It doesn't have the same ruffian or happy-go-lucky charm that Hell Revealed 1 had. It's hard for sure, but it's not enjoyable and that well made in general. Too many of its maps devolve in a slow, methodical approach that often require an in-depth knowledge of the map to disarm and its fun moments are way too far and between big chunks of tedium. If you feel like you have something to prove, then play HR2 by all means. Chances are you will not like it, though. It feels too anonymous, fractured and charmless and doesn't have anything to offer to the player other than extreme difficulty.

Hell Revealed II is technically a sequel to HR, coming 15 years later but not bearing that much more polish. Despite this, it is definitely a landmark for challenging gameplay. While it has its moments, most of the wad just doesn't bear the level of fine-tuned gameplay or aesthetic beauty I would expect from a 4 or 5 star wad.

+'s: Classic challenge, some levels look and play great, some fun slaughter

-'s: Some slog (beyond the sea comes to mind), some levels don't have much detail, some maps are just slaughter.

For a wad vaunted for its gameplay, some levels don't have good arena control and come down to careful corner-shotting or other tedious forms of safe play. Some levels are also pretty much just slaughter (notably 32:Playground, although I do enjoy that a bit), or are mostly simple and easy apart from a couple frustrating 'challenges'.

Despite that there are moments of brilliance in this wad. Others have mentioned 15:The Path II, a community favorite I think, I personally thought 29:Hell's Cauldron was great, wonderfully challenging, along with 27:Resistance Remains. I actually loved the final map as well. Many others deride ALL icon of sin maps, but I thought Source Control used the mass spawns along with the small room to deliver a pretty unique and highly challenging combat finale, and it kept things short.

All in all, I wish I could rate this one higher, since it is very iconic and I loved it when I first played it. But after playing so many other quality wads, I feel like a bit of the magic is lost.

A mixed bag. Some maps are challenging and great fun, The Path II and Playground being shining examples, but some are just incredebly tedious.
Still feels good to have it beaten.

My Top 5 HR2 maps :

Map 12 - I love the minimalist aesthetics and the big compartments with lots of monsters.

Map 19 - One of the real "big" maps with a lot of verticality.

Map 32 - One of my favourite slaughtermaps ever made

Map 18 - Very good exploration in natural landscapes

Map 29 - Amazing "rise to the top" kind of level with many monsters

My Flop 5 : 

Map 03 : Boring and very grindy gameplay

Map 09 : The concept ok but I would like to have more exploration before the last fight.

Map 14 : Too symetrical 

Map 26 : This map is ok but that's all

Map 30 : Ios map

My opinion on HR2 :

I have a very strong opinion on this wad: it's one of my favorite wads despite all its  flaws. A lot of maps have aged badly, but the wad has its charm for several reasons and it's the kind of wad I can play several times.

Here are several reasons why I love this wad:

- Vanilla megawad with only stock textures (with a few exceptions).
- The maps are aesthetically simple and I like it. I really like several maps for their minimalist look and the use of brown and metal textures.
- Regular use of 3D bridges.I'll always be a fan of those little quirks that can be done with vanilla.
- Memorable music. I love this alternation between the very atmospheric music of Metabolist and the Metal music of Thyrbse.
- Good ideas for traps and gimmicks on some maps.
- Many HR2 maps are "old fashioned" slaughtermaps with an overabundance of ammunition, not really threatening enemies to kill in groups....

However, I couldn't really compare it to HR1. To be honest, I don't think it deserves the name "Hell Revealed 2". The atmosphere is not at all the same. The only real successor to HR is Kama Sutra in my opinion, for reasons I won't list here.

On one hand, the original Hell Revealed is known for featuring some 'unique' designs, which required strategy and foreknowledge of the levels to master and conquer.

On the other hand, it's known for featuring majorily poor levels (mostly Haggay's works), even for its time, when in comparison to other popular mapsets around its timeframe, such as both Memento Mori, Requiem, Eternal Doom, etc., in account of its poor, grindy gameplay and uncreative designs.

In agreement with the 'other hand', Hell Revealed's sequel is not much different, except the levels are slightly more creative with their layouts -- emphasis on "slightly", because they're still mostly empty rectangular rooms and corridor-heavy. They just look a tiny itty bit better in the visual department, which also isn't impressive, and often dull or straight up ugly.

Much like the first project, rooms are each usually filled with dozens of spongy enemies, as a cheap attempt to raise the difficulty and challenge, and require finding an optimal camping spot to shoot from. No map diverges from this pattern.

Unless one finds it fun to shoot moving walls of meat in a straight line with a Shotgun or the Rocket Launcher for half an hour up to an hour every level -- which is as deep as the core gameplay goes -- whilst roaming through tired visages, there is no reason to play this. Play Alien Vendetta instead, which does a much better job at slaughterful gameplay (for the most part) whilst granting enjoyable and diverse challenges.

Would give 0 stars if possible. The original project featured a few fun and memorable arenas, which Hell Revealed 2 attempts to rip off, and does a poor job in doing so, for they're no more than a copy and paste of those levels with the addition of more monsters to shoot.

This megawad was a bit late for its years, it was noticeable that some map slots were filled just for show. Although there are also few decent maps that are lost among other mediocre ones, the quality is very different and for the worse. It really lacks testing, especially in the gameplay part.

This is a really good WAD - that I played many times: Levels designed ok (except map09) and it gives the best feeling of old-style gameplay. In one hand pity I could not save in map 25 (doom  v.1.666 crashed) but I finally passed it without saving too (then saved in map29). Though playing it in GZdoom still can give good feeling. (5/5)

The WAD prides itself with being one of the the most difficult WADs that exist. The first few levels are hard but fun. You're curious if you can escape the situations you are put in. But by level 10 or so it becomes clear that HR2 is not hard, it's just unfair and tedious.

You are put in situations where you're forced to take damage. You're trapped in a room with four baron of hells. You wasted all your energy ammo on the boss battle before, not anticipating the situation you were put in and you cannot use rocket launcher because there is no room to evade the splash damage. Unfortunately, this happens in every map.

After reloading and planning for those situations (that do not require skill but only the use of the quick load button) you again have to chew through dozens of hard-to-kill monsters. When you press that button and are greeted again with 20 revenants, 10 hell knights, 10 baron of hells and 3 arch-viles. There is an abundance of ammo and enough cover to easily kill them off, but you still question every action that took you to reload and tediously gun them down again for 5 straight minutes.

In short: The map design is uninteresting. The layout mostly alright. This WAD puts you in unfair positions and makes you tediously chew through hordes of monsters without any real demand for skill. There is a lack of interesting monster encounters. All in all, 2/5 stars, do not recommend.

And the sequel has been finished. Oh boy what a journey it was, one that didn't really pay off unfortunately, so let's see why that was.

First of all, as the name implies, this acts as a sequel to the original classic and popular megawad Hell Revealed, however it is mostly HR in name only. This is a consequence of multiple factors. The main factor is the drastic deviation in style from the original for more than its half, and it's not for the best. The first 15 maps or so, with very few exceptions, are not slaughter-esque at all, and there's barely anything of even decent quality to be found at this stage. Their design, the enemy placement and usage is absolutely mediocre at best. These levels are very boxy in their design and pretty short, but they are full of often almost unfair enemy encounters that don't push your skills to the limit and are instead meant to be simply deadly and nigh impossible to survive with no fun, forcing you to take damage in the best case scenario. A perfect example to illustrate this would be MAP04. This level is extremely boxy and the enemies are placed in such a way that they are lethal and extremely difficult to avoid, besides always forcing you to take damage of some sort. It's full of Arch-Viles, the last 2 being almost impossible to avoid as you don't have very powerful weapons, save for the Rocket Launcher, and using it will likely result in taking splash damage since the area is very small and there's nowhere to hide. If this isn't enough, up ahead are 3 Hell Knights waiting in a very small room where you must press a switch. In front of that switch is also a Lost Soul, sitting on a Berserk, and the door closes behind you once you step inside... Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case. As I've previously stated, over half of the maps are similar to MAP03 in terms of overall design and gameplay, but a bit better with less deadly encounters. These maps are not fun to play but instead frustrating because they do not make you think and act smart as the original did, instead resorting to terrible design and enemies placed in such a way it's more or less guaranteed to take damage, if not die, which can be extremely quick early on.

The other half on the other hand is mostly slaughter-esque stuff similar to what's seen in the original, and yet, even these maps suffer from the same problems, but to a less extent. It would seem the authors tried to craft challenging levels in the vein of the original but which ultimately turned out as maps that offer no real satisfaction or sense of difficulty, because they are poorly designed and suffer from almost unfair traps and encounters. The environment is not used efficiently. The original required you to act smart and fast whereas HR2 seems to want you to be just fast most of the time, as this is how the most "challenging" levels seem to work... MAP21 for instance is one of the worst levels in the megawad. It exhibits most, if not all the gameplay and design flaws mentioned. Boxy design, poor navigation, boring or outright terrible encounters, such as Barons waiting for you on very small elevators who block your path and damage you with their melee attacks when you're standing close to the said elevator to activate it since its height is very low, and waves of 'em + Hell Knights teleporting in near the end, but you can just climb a floor and blast them to pieces, easily avoiding all damage. There's also a few waves of Pinkies in cramped spaces at the beginning but they feel more like they're placed there just so that there's an obstacle in your way or something to kill. Not challenging, and nothing interesting to see in action. MAP22 is not a whole lot better either, being easily summed up in a few words as "a sewer mess". Lots of Chaingunners, possibly unfair Arch-Vile traps, uninspired teleporting waves of Hell Knights and Spectres, general ugliness accompanied by a few strange design choices, potentially insufficient ammo, and so on.

Another difference in design is the final level, MAP30, which requires the player to destroy a reactor similar to what's seen in Icarus as opposed to an Icon of Sin as it was the case in the original, but both are working the same way so it's a change that doesn't really impact the actual gameplay, with the only exception that you also need to pick up the 3 skulls to open the door with the switch that makes the pathway to the core accessible, and they're not hidden. A requirement that doesn't add anything to the experience, but neither complicates the situation.

One of the problems in the original were the overused enemies, though it wasn't that big of a deal to be honest, as I've already said in that review. HR2 however does not correct this but does the exact opposite. It does indeed add more hitscanners overall, but most of the enemies who were overused in the original are overused here as well, to an ever greater extent, those being the Hell Knights, Barons, Revenants, and especially Arch-Viles. It is simply ridiculous how common they are, which only gives the impression the authors were struggling with ideas of how to make the combat more interesting but failed, instead over-complicating everything. Be it a trap, a cage with other enemies which makes them very hard to reach depending on your position and angle (and infighting doesn't always work since there may not be any tough enemies around such as Cyberdemons to use the technique to its fullest potential), whatever, it's absurd how frequent you run into Arch-Viles who are coming for you, and in sheer numbers on a couple occasions no less, thus overwhelming the player, while other times they may block your way out, giving you a very quick death.

HR2 also includes a couple of maps from the original that were redesigned, such as The Path, which is MAP15 here. This is also my favorite map in HR2, just like it was in the original, even though there were technically better levels in it. Not so much here... Either way, MAP29 was pretty interesting as well, and probably one of the best maps in the megawad, excluding the remade levels from the original which are honestly very faithful to them, and a bit more difficult. Surprising, considering the vastly inferior quality of HR2 compared to HR. Still, MAP29 is a simple, straight to the point level with overall good enemy usage, but as expected the number of Arch-Viles is crazy in some parts of this level. Eh, at least there's Invulnerability spheres around I guess.

The sequel also includes a new status bar, menu background, an animated ENDOOM screen which is just sick, new music, and a few (sky) textures. Now the music. There was some confusion here as some of the tracks are credited to the death metal act Grave, but these songs are apparently mistakenly credited as such. From what I could find they were in fact composed by a guy who goes by the name "Petter Mårtensen". The soundtrack is of course not limited just to death metal, there's some brilliant, very atmospheric and epic stuff in it as well, some of the songs reminding me of the Hammerheart era Bathory.

To sum things up, Hell Revealed 2 is unfortunately Hell Revealed only in name. It does a few things right, particularly the remade levels from the original, it has some nice new textures, some interesting levels here and there, but falls short due to the mediocrity of over half of the maps, and even those that are not bad are little more than decent, nowhere near the expected quality from a sequel of a classic. The only reasons I've finished this were my willingness to complete the duology since both megawads are classics that are held in high regard (the first one justifiably so, the sequel, not at all), how enjoyable and satisfying the original was, and because if I start something, then I finish it, I'm giving it a chance until the last moment so that I can best evaluate it and make a solid opinion. No, I cannot recommend this to anyone, especially to a fan of the original because it just fails to deliver, it doesn't live up to the name. And if you're looking for slaughter-esque, pure slaughter, or challenging megawads that make you think and act fast and smart while still being fun and enjoyable there's much better stuff out there. I'd recommend the original, Alien Vendetta, Ancient Aliens, and maybe Scythe instead, although there's very few such levels in the latter, and play HR2 only if you want to experience and complete the duology, because there isn't any other reason to do it.