DOOM 2 - Flashback to Hell

Excellent WAD. I played it a lot of times, and I still love it.

Excellent array of maps inspired from the DOOM II levels, cool story, and good gameplay. Definitely recommend!

Completed on GZDoom 3.6.0 on Ultra-Violence in a continuous playthrough. Solid set of levels that are visually great and just as great to play. The first episode is an excellent revision of the original Doom II levels with some added challenge, secrets that are more than just secret walls, and familiar areas given a fresh new look. In these levels you'll see the level themes are intact, so something like MAP07 would still have segments similar to its IWAD counterpart. However, what makes this episode so enjoyable is the creative layouts with new music and textures to help make each level feel new again. The new music for the first episode is also nice.

The real highlight of this WAD are the Hell levels, which make up the last three levels of the WAD, not counting the actual last level which I won't spoil. The Hell levels are big, open, and are fairly difficult, showcasing the WAD's greatest strengths and makes you want to reach the end sooner or later. Being original levels themselves, their layouts standout the most in the WAD and the scale here is just amazing. MAP13 is probably my favorite level in the WAD, there are many traps, stunning atmosphere, and encounters that leave surprises at every corner. I would play the WAD again just to go to the Hell levels, they are that great to me.

The WAD also has sound effects for weapons and monsters, some sounding more punchy and others just not that great. Personally I am okay with these, just not a big fan of them. Sprite changes to the monsters are mainly just recolors of the monsters, so Imps are more brown and Arachnotrons shoot red plasma instead. Again, not much of a gameplay changer, though you may or may not like them.

Overall, Flashback to Hell is a great WAD with a solid first episode and even better Hell levels, so you get both a stellar revision of the first episode of Doom 2 and original Hell levels that open things up. Not all levels are great, MAP14 has a cruddy boss fight that seems to be done out of obligation more than anything. Other maps that fell a bit flat to me were MAP03, but otherwise, it's a good experience throughout.

Done with these settings:

- GLBoom+ 2.5.1.4. complevel 9.

- Ultra-Violence

- Continuous combined with pistol start mindset.

- Saves every 10 minutes or so.

Sweet literal flashback to Doom II, a set of fun maps of nice consistent quality. The story is comically lengthy, like nothing you'll usually expect to see in contemporary wads, and I took my time to read it (too tempting for tl;dr). It's fascinating how much thought the author put into something most players generally overlook, and in spite of recalling little of it, the plot starts after the incidents in Plutonia, scientists researching ways to prevent the resurgence of the Icon of Sin, but due to outdated technology, they sent the marine back in time to help to complete their work, once again. What I wasn't expecting is to find the initial map quite familiar (I didn't do my research, as you can see). These maps are re-imaginations of the iwad levels, but with a slightly different design perspective. Yes, techbases, sewers and miscellaneous man-made buildings are back, even the classic "O' of destruction", they constitute the first and longest episode, though in a more new-fashioned, higher quality way in terms of layout design. The later section is thematically hell, my favourite since the author combined darker shades of grey/brown rocky areas with classic hot red textures, giving it strong visuals. Part of the new music is remakes of classic tracks from the game, which accompany the journey in a nostalgic way. The rest go well in their spots, such as the "Hell" maps include one of the most quiet tracks I've ever heard, very nice. On another side, the new sound effects, which are supposedly enhanced versions of the original ones, were a welcome change in general, like the cyberdemon's death now sounds more explosive. There's a "clean" version out there without the added SFXs, if anyone dislikes them, not that they impact gameplay wise.

Much of the combat is alignments of incidental cleaning and classic setups corresponding to the map's slot, that means plenty of homages (super shotgun debut in map 02, the confined zombies at the start of map 04, the helpless spiderdemon under a crusher in map 06, the famous barons vs. cyberdemon infight simulator in map 08, the zombies closets in map 10, etc.), even though the maps aren't built around them. With a higher monster count than average, the levels are still far from grindy scenarios, any casual player can feel at home playing these maps, besides the difficulty peaks near the last entries. That is not say they lack strong opposition, but the balance is adapted to encourage exploration, and to be careful mostly with hitscanners and the occasional horde in tight quarters or special trap (like the dark corridors that turn into lava in map 13), while you experience flashbacks continually. The hell maps seem to be fresh design, perhaps some The Living End vague vibes in map 13, but a deviation from the homages, which is a nice change considering the start/exit connections from the first episode kind of wore out after a while. If something valuable to rescue from them, is that the author put health and/or ammo pickups for free, presumably for continuous players' commodity. To my surprise, the hell episode doesn't contain any single former human type, not that I missed them, they reappeared in the secret maps.

Secret-wise, on this side there's plenty of nice secrets to find. Not much like misaligned textures or fake walls, a sign of good variety which includes hidden switches in many ways, and generally easy to figure. A thing I noticed, players' possible major obstacle could be to find armor for free, specially pistol starters. If you don't see one anywhere, it'll most likely be hidden. For favourite maps, could be 12 and 13, though the techbases were fun too. I'd pick 14 up until the inopportune boss fight, but that's just a personal distaste towards that kind of gimmick.

Overall, thumbs up! I find it accessible to anyone looking for throwbacks maybe, or moderately easy maps with simple difficulty progression. I wonder how the other original levels would have been interpreted here, but I guess we'll never know, unless there's a sequel somewhere. Anyway, my rate is 8/10.