Sinister Seven - Vanilla Maps by Doomkid

I finished it , very fun classic wad!  I liked the subtle references to Ultimate Doom in some maps.

TL;DR: Despite some weird graphics replacements, this WAD is mostly competent and fun, though encounters can feel a bit spammy in the final maps.

So, the first thing you notice when starting this WAD is the new graphics. Most sprites have been recolored or replaced entirely. For example, the fist, pistol, and shotgun have been replaced with their Doom Alpha counterparts, the imp is now grey with green fireballs, and there are now like 4 types of barrels for some reason. One change that I enjoyed was for the SS soldier, which is a modified Doomguy sprite that allows it to be used as a standard enemy who makes frequent appearances. I'm not too keen on the other replacements since they feel unnecessary, though they don't really detract from the experience in any meaningful way.

As for the rest of the visual design, it's pretty good for the most part. The overall style is techbasey with a lot of cues taken from Doom 1's visual style. Areas are generally well thought out and pretty well decorated. It's nothing mind-blowing, but the levels are generally visually coherent and have some nice looking areas for the vanilla limitation. The layouts have plenty of interesting rooms and designs which nicely avoid the "boxes connected to boxes" feeling, though they sometimes feel a bit too flat (heightwise, that is). Also Map05 has a FIREBLU/FWATER1 building which I think is fantastic.

The actual combat is... interesting. The first few maps play a lot like a Doom 1 set with the occasional revenant or hell knight. This means no SSG, roaming monsters rather than setpieces, and generally attrition based difficulty. The latter half keeps that same style while turning the difficulty up considerably and focusing on the more powerful monsters (and giving you the SSG, thankfully). Unfortunately this doesn't mesh too well with the gameplay, and encounters can end up feeling a bit spammy and annoying especially in the last two maps. The combat is otherwise pretty fun for the most part.

Overall, I think this WAD is pretty good. The graphics replacements don't really work for me, though the rest of the visual design is well executed. Combat is pretty good as well apart from a few annoying encounters in the final two maps. I'd say that it's worth a play, though it might be wise to play on HMP to take the edge off of some of the more annoying encounters.

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Oh, and it's weird that Map07 isn't vanilla compatible. Like it benefits from the extra detail but c'mon, "Vanilla" is in the name for God's sake!

fun levels. I remember playing a few of these from other maps but they still hold up.