Deus Vult

Deus Vult infidel!

Ouch, it seems the end draws near. Therefore, Deus Vult has been completed, played through GlBoom+ 2.5.1.5 on HMP.

Now where to start? Probably the beginning, as usual. Deus Vult is a short wad that emphasizes smart and skillful gameplay, requiring the player to plan their tactics before engaging combat. It comes with new music and textures, ENDOOM screen, end level screens, but no new enemies, weapons, or sounds. It is also distributed in 2 ways. The first one comes with 4 action packed levels, which are basically a split version of the one gigantic map. They run from MAP01 up to MAP04, with MAP05 being the giant map. It is designed and balanced for both co-op play and singleplayer.

The action takes place on techbases and it slowly progressed into more hellish areas, eventually culminating in Hell itself where the player faces... Sauron at the very end, acting as a replacement for the traditional Icon of Sin. The gameplay is pretty much slaughter exclusive as the enemy count is pretty high (a few hundreds at lowest), peaking at little over 800 on MAP04, and so is the difficulty, the hardest being, surprisingly, MAP03 and not MAP04. The balance is great most of the being, giving the player enough resources to face a pretty tough opposition, but, as I said, most of the time. This is probably the one big problem of Deus Vult. Although it is challenging from the beginning, there are a number of instances where it does seem outright unfair, with MAP03 being the worst offender. It's simply asinine, and its difficulty lies on an absolute abuse of AVs. Far too often it is incredibly easy to get burned by one, almost all traps have at least one, and they are in the majority of alcoves or pillars, making sniping extremely easy for them and frustrating to the player. Once the starting area is cleared of its vilest traps it proves to be enjoyable, but the beginning is really, really rough, that and another area with damaging floors and little room to kill the much expected AVs. Escaping alive is one insane challenge, I don't remember dying so much in anything I've played until now. MAP03, with all its teleporters and spots also underlines the fact that it's best to know it inside out to get the most out of it, otherwise you will find yourself dying every few minutes, if not even earlier.

MAP04 tones down the abuse of AVs significantly and the level proves to be much more challenging by pushing the player to their limit as opposed to throwing as many enemies as possible in an encounter and adding an absurd amount of AVs or little room to walk and dodge projectiles on top of it. It proves to be a fun and fitting finale after the giant frustration that can be experienced on the previous level, and Sauron being the IoS of DV is a neat little surprise.

Overall, it's a good wad, but it could've been better from my POV. Cutting the obscene amount of AVs on MAP03 alone can vastly improve the experience and contribute to the fun part of it, which is why I wouldn't recommend playing that map alone, unless you're a veteran or know it inside out. Otherwise, have fun slaying demons. "Can't stop the killing... ".

• Impressive visuals and scale for its time.
• Epic memes are thankfully limited to secret areas.
• map04/final quarter stretch is extremely cheeseable compared to the rest.
• Plenty of time spent cleaning up turret enemies.
• 3/5

One of the greatest. The Focus ... what a finale :)

Don't usually like slaugther maps but I loved this one.

I wish my first wad was like this (Don't we all?). very insane maps, although the Icon of Sin/Sauron at the end seems broken or something. regardless of all this, yes, still very insane maps, first one gives indications of what is to come, warping from techbase to immediate hell with just a few rooms. loads of secrets, many of which are weird easter eggs or some shit. second level is one hell of a level, literally, while MAP03 is a bit of a breather before the finale area. you know what you're getting into with Deus Vult, whether you go for the MAP01-MAP04 route or the full thing wit hMAP05, especially once you start with the various arena areas. knowledge of where invulnerabilities are can definitely make some of the harder fights a little easier.