Demonastery

Nice gory castle aesthetic.  Not overly challenging.  A solid map, akin to Brigandine.

Architecturally solid level with loads of detail right from the start to the end of it. While it is a big level, it never feels too confusing to navigate so the interconnected level design flows well. You get the Super Shotgun and Rocket Launcher early on so you never feel unprepared for what you'll be facing, although a good chunk of them are mid-tiers ones like Revenants and Mancubi. There are small arenas as you go for the keys, and personally I kind of like how they differ from the monastery as instead of exploring for secrets and going from place to place, you stay in one room against some tougher monsters like the Barons. The final arena is packed with detail and a nice challenge, assuming you don't pick up or use the BFG anyways. Health can be a bit scarce though if you don't rush things out or have ill-timed shots the map is pretty fair.

Excellent single-map, lots of little setpieces to keep things interesting.

Demonastery is an architecturally superb level that honestly wouldn't feel out of place if it were in Hellbound or something. the overall interconnectivity is alright, with three fleshy areas dictating where the keys are, and each with their own little setpieces. look out for enemies when you backtrack though, and try to find the eye switches to get the BFG secret. LOADS of detail went into that final arena and it is amazing, not to cut out the actual monastery itself which is also pretty rad. combat is...honestly a lot easier than expected though, but it's a fine level.

A great opening view first of all. This is like a PhD in midtex, where they are deployed so abundantly and skillfully that you're almost fooled into forgetting Doom's inescapably rectilinear nature.  Everything is quite interconnected, and I liked the incremental expansion of the central play areas.

The level is mainly occupied by mid-low tier enemies and you're tooled up with SSG and RL fairly early on, so it never feels grindy. It also flows really well-- there isn't a huge reliance on arenas here, probably in part due to the complex, overlapping paths through the map. It means you're usually free to move and still getting attacked from multiple dimensions and oddly it reminded me of E1 in this flowing, exploratory feel, despite the vastly different theme. Right up my alley anyway, I feel like the arena is a little overused these days.

As for the secrets, they were mostly overtly flaunted right in your face, as they should be. Unfortunately for me, the BFG was flaunted right to the end -- never got those fleshpoles unlocked.

Architecture. If I didn't stop to look at it so much, I'd have been done in a third of the time. Amazing. The huge outer walls and vista outside the monastery give it a great sense of place, of being situated in something bigger rather than just being a potemkin village play area.  The use of midtextures, as mentioned before, is incredible.  So's the geometry -- usually you can see Doom's natural constraints written into the architecture all over the place, especially with the weird tallness of many maps, but here the architecture looks totally coherent and natural.

Put it all together with the excellent detailing (blood running between the cracks of tiles, the fleshy core of cracked green brickwork) and only some real thinking would betray the engine's 2.5D nature.

Inspiring work, enjoyed it loads.

EDIT: The doomworld link is broken, actual link is: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/d-f/demonastery