Nilla DooM (Short)

first off, i just wanna say that this is seriously an underrated gem of a mapset. i realize that it got a cacoward, but outside of that you very rarely hear about it. which is a shame, because it's absolutely fantastic.

anyways, hoooly shit this wad was way harder than i expected it to be. i went in expecting it to be fairly tame considering that it's just a short little vanilla mapset from 2004, but nope. this kicked my ass. health and ammo are pretty tight considering the large number of enemies you'll be facing, so it can be quite punishing and not accepting of many mistakes. and, mind you, that's on continuous; it'd be much worse if someone were to pistol start it.

the combat is fun and fast-paced, and it never gets old due to the odd weapon progression (for example, map01 is balanced primarily around the plasma rifle) and the wide variety of interesting setpieces. again, you'll be facing quite a number of enemies, but it never goes into slaughter territory as the forces you'll be facing are primarily lots of low-tier enemies supporting a moderate amount of those in the higher tiers. instead, it relies much more on devious monster placement and nasty traps for its difficulty. in my eyes, it's pretty much perfect.

the visuals are wonderful, although i'm a bit biased considering my love of older wads. it's not underdetailed, but it's also not highly detailed; it sits in the middle ground where it looks quite pleasing but simple at the same time. it maintains that doomy feel throughout, and if you're like me and absolutely love that visual style then you'll find yourself quite pleased.

the only real criticism i have is that one of the maps, specifically map04, ends up being tedious and honestly not very fun due to it being a complete and total hitscanner hell, and throughout the wad radiation suits are far too limited in sections where they're desperately needed. both of those are made worse by the overall lack of health, but outside of that there's not much to dislike here.

i really can't recommend this wad enough. while it's certainly not for everyone as its main focus is on the combat, those who're like me and play doom primarily for that will love this wad. it's the perfect length, where it's not too short but it also doesn't overstay its welcome. seriously, play this - it deserves so much more attention than it gets.

Fun WAD with unusual weapon progression. Might be worth it to make several separate saves on map 07 because there's a lot of big damaging floor areas.