EPIC

One of the best megawads I've ever played. I especially like map05, though the

Excellent five maps! I found the pacing to be great and the levels themselves were very, very fun to play and of great design. Good wad to sit back, relax, and enjoy the environment (oh, and killing demons, of course).

Played with:

GZDoom

Hurt Me Plenty

Wow! Totally Amazing!
EPIC is a good sustantive to define this little mapset.
The maps are awesome and full of details. Just what i like!
I got nothing to say against it. Maybe that its too short and boom, but well EPIC 2 solved that with its vanilla epicness ;)
With this, Eternal shows that he was really capable of amazing things.

Gonna try everything he made, as by now, he is the one that most digged the TNT style aside from Gwyn Williams.

Done with these settings:

- GLBoom+ 2.5.1.4. complevel 9.

- Hurt Me Plenty.

- Continuous combined with a pistol start mindset.

- Saves every 10 minutes or so.

First of all, there are 5 maps not "one level", might be a mistake in the text file. Back to the review, this is a very nice adventure-like mapset. Apparently the author is a master in aesthetics, and this was a lovely introduction (for me) to what he's capable to do. The textures are really neat, you get to navigate into the ruins, in a desert which is also set as a war-zone, although there's vegetation and water too... anyway, I really liked the environment in this mapset, Eternal did not limit the player to indoors exploration only but also on the surroundings, parts of the maps that normally would be just for visuals, like in map 03 where you must find a key in between a lot of palms. Also, there are many parts with deep-water, an effect used really cool here. The music selection is nice too, well the midi in map 01 starts a bit too loud but gets better soon, the menu screen midi is my favourite so far. 

Gameplay is more on the low pressure side, with incidental combat being the most present. The mapset is clearly meant to be played from a casual adventure/exploratory perspective, slow-paced, rather than full slaughtery. I think it's pretty consistent with the kind of monster placement throughout the levels, not suddenly turning into something out of place. Usually you'll find them hidden on corners prepared to attack the player in their moments of distraction, if not they will pop up in front of you or teleport in spacious rooms. It gradually gets harder but overall the level of threat is according to progression, and for example enemies like archviles or arachnotrons rarely make an appearance until the last map. Talking about progression, some of the maps are very big and moderately non-linear, with keys and switch-hunts, except you may never get lost unless you want to find all the secrets, and there are a lot! There's only one straightforward map which is set on a train working, creating an effect I don't know the name of, though it was funny how it left a caco corpse behind disappearing.

In regards to the secrets, pay attention to the linedefs in the automap, and the gore-ish details Eternal put to tell you something. I personally liked the ones that you go underground and end up navigating tunnels on deep water. Without the secrets you'll be fine anyways.

For favourite maps I'd pick 02 and 03, but I liked them all in more or less the same way.

Overall, not sure if this was "epic" but I had a lot of fun, there's just something about exploration in Doom I can't help myself but to love it, and I truly recommend it to anyone that likes this theme as much as I do. If not, avoid it completely, or play for the visuals only. This is a 9/10 for me. 

quite odd that it is considered one level according to the textfile. it's actually five levels, but it probably would have been cooler if it went Deus Vult style aha.

anyways, awesome thematic mapset which is very immersive and balanced. it gives subtle changes to monster sprites and sounds but the gameplay is fresh Doom, this time set to Egyptian themes mostly. opening level gives what you want to try, and then the second level comes and you're in exploration mode. Eternal's monster placement is intriguing to say the least, enemies are tucked in many corners and are quite sneaky, so every corner should be observed closely. it's quite literally a sandbox until you figure out what to do and where to go. the third level is a nice, linear adventure evoking shades of Eternal Doom quite well. then you get to the train level, and train levels are usually memorable, stay on, fight enemies to and fro. this all comes before yet another sandbox, the last map. it's certifiably difficult, but worthwhile to explore.

Epic 2 offered less in exploration, Eternal had more maps to work with and accorded them well, but most were made shorter and "less" epic, while the original Epic basically gives a lot more immersion.