thoughts on Thy Flesh Consumed

[slowtorturepukechamber]

honest thoughts on episode 4? its alright but whenever i replay doom i find myself just not ever wanting to play through episode 4 again. something about it just doesn't remotely have the same charm as the previous 3 episodes, or really any of the maps in doom 2. 

 

anyone else agree?

[Nevander]

I love episode 4, more than 3 actually. So much so that I made my own improved version to include the custom intermission and add the par times.

[BigBoy91]

It gets really good after map 2, in my opinion. Those first 2 are fucking brutal.

[galileo31dos01]

Mmm, okay, I guess I'll sort of recap my first impressions from ten years ago.

 

E4M1: Memorable af. Must have been the most scared I've been of barons in the iwads, still to this day it feels intense from the start alone.

E4M2: Double memorable af. From learning the "Run" ability to what high difficulty (at that time) really meant. The conundrum of the secret exit was everything.

E4M9: Kinda unremarkable after the first two, but not bad per se. I do remember enjoying the mini hunt for items on those thin platforms.

E4M3: I was impressed with the openness and view of the bridge. I have blurred memories of going up the stairs laughing at the "secret reveal" sound.

E4M4: There was the first secret that involved a torch of a different colour, and that's all. It exists. 

E4M5: Exploring it thoroughly was lovely, including the BFG that I still don't recall ever using at that time. 

E4M6: On continuous the only problem was progression. Sniping the cyberdemon from a distance, with slow movements, was very tedious. 

E4M7: Most memorable part was zdoom-jumping to the second invulnerability secret, because at that time I didn't know what "zdoom" was nor that bunny-jumping wasn't possible in DOS Doom.

E4M8: Oh yeah, I actually never saw the SMM closely in DIS because I was too frightened to leave the start, so that was my actual first confrontation against the thing. 

 

Overall, uneven but marking a difference. I probably loved it back then, and nowadays the weird difficulty balance is more apparent to me so it's a mixed bag. M1, M2 are what gave it a strong identity and polarizing feedback, M6 is the next highly demanding map and thus one of the bests imo, whereas M3 and M7 are somewhat intense but usually more sedate, M9 is okay and M4 isn't remarkable, M5 is the bit of exploration that's cool while not feeling very E4, and M8 is overly stuffed with powerups and a pointless secret BFG. 

[Average]

I actually quite enjoy it.  I do use the E4-fix patch that re-orders the levels into a nice difficulty curve, though.  Sure, it's no episode 1 but, then again, what is? :)

 

Nevander, is your wee hack a patch that you could link to or have 'just' hacked into the main WAD?  Sounds interesting.

[seed]

Good, but the fact that progression is a little off in it, and the atmosphere isn't as good as it is in Inferno are two aspects of it that disappoint me a little.

[DynamiteKaitorn]

Here is more or less how I feel about all 9 levels:

 

E4M1 - A starting map so hard not even Plutonia's Congo is this hard. SAVE. ALL. OF. THE. ARMOUR.

 

E4M2 - Perfect Hatred. The most appropriate name for a level ever! This level is ungodly cruel in its difficulty and if you didn't save all the armour from the last map and enter here with over 100% armour and health, just re-do E4M1, you're playing this map wrong.

 

E4M9 - IMO This is the second weakest secret level, only beating out fortress of mystery. Despite this, E4M9 is decent but a little too open in the beginning. Get past that and you'll have a good time here. Bonus points for finding the plasma rifle. :3

 

E4M3 - Actually somewhat fair compared to the first two maps. I do like the wooden fortress style this map has and it's overall difficulty is actually comparable to episode 2.

 

E4M4 - Quite possibly the easiest map in all of episode 4. This map is small, simplistic and not too hard to beat.

 

E4M5 - A Marble fortress that honestly if I'm not mistaken has a super easy cheese skip you can perform to skip like half of the level.

 

E4M6 - Yo DaWg I hEaRd YoU lIkEd FoRcEd DaMaGe FrOm FlOoRs, So I pUt In A mAsSiVe DaMaGiNg FlOoR aReA tHaT yOu RuN aCrOsS mUlTiPuLe  TiMeS.

 

E4M7 - 2nd to final level and another map is a really harsh intro area, especially for pistol start. This map has killed me a good few times trying to survive through it.

 

E4M8 - Interestingly this and episode 1 are the only maps that have a proper level before the final boss. Aside from that, this is just a basic final level with another mastermind to kill.

[Andromeda]

Eh, it's alright. It has two gems (E4M1 and E4M4) but the rest is mostly below average. Still better than E1 though!

[unerxai]

The Romero maps (E4M2 and E4M6) are awesome designs. E4M8 is an actual level and not just another arena with a boss in it which is pretty cool.

Edited May 6, 2020 by unerxai

[Smouths]

I just replayed it for the first time in a decade and had a blast. Enhanced the nostalgia of it by playing in Boom on my old pentium-ii machine. Kind of felt it went through a bit of a slump between missions 4 and 6 though.

[Chip]

I think the thing is that the difficulty does not progress like the previous episodes. Perfect Hatred is so goddamn hard compared to E4M8. While in episode 2, the hardest level was E2M8 and it was easiest at the beginning. I think that Episode 4 was filled with scrapped level ideas that they decided to keep out of the original game, then when they went to release Ultimate DOOM, they decided to implement these ideas. I always loved the final level of Episode 4, though. It was so great at the end when all the enemies bombard you with bullets and fireballs, then when you take them all out, it is like you just saved everybody. map 6 kind of sucked, but it was so fun to complete if you find literally any secret. 

[Faceman2000]

I really enjoy it - probably my favorite episode after the first but that’s a hard call to make. Not a huge fan of E4M3 and E4M5 is only alright, but I really enjoy the rest. E4M1 is a bitch to 100%, but doable. E4M2 is tough but not as absurd as people tend to describe it. E4M4 gets a lot of hate but I really like it - there’s something really atmospheric about the level that I really appreciate.

[Egg Boy]

It has e4m2! It can't be bad. There is that really shitty mud map though, so bland.

[The_SloVinator]

It's a good episode. It's hard for the first two levels but then, it gets easier & quite fun.

It's actually my least favorite episode but not bad.

 

Love the sky texture.

[DuckReconMajor]

Episode 4 is special to me because my first time playing through Doom was on the Xbox 360, and the concept of savescumming didn't occur to me. So I had quite the time with E4. And this was on a controller.

E4M6 was especially brutal, and looked the part, so it's one of my favorite Doom maps.

[Mystic 256]

I like episode 4, its a pretty cool bonus episode. 

 

my favorite map is E4M6, i really like the sort of catherdralness of it, and all the areas are arround the big lava pit thing in middle, and the cyberdemon is placed in a way that its almost like this map's boss.  

 

My least favorite map is E4M2 I both like and don't like this map, i like the jump/gap crossing thingies its a interesting map element that i like and the main area is cool and theres a cyberdemon at the top which startled me when i got up there the first time but you can use a secret to kill him easy via telefrag and you get a bfg too which is more useful for continous play because its at end of the map,

the sideish areas kinda ruin the map for me... i don't really like the sideish areas you have to go into (the left area and right cave area) and the baron placement are pretty annoying in this map in those sideish areas, maybe if they were hell knights or revenants it would be better but this is doom 1 and doom 1 doesn't doesnt have those.

 

Im kinda dispointed slightly that the boss of E4M8 is just the spidermastermind again, i kinda wish it was a new enemy that could of been the boss but then ultimate doom would of had a monster that doom 2 didnt so they would have to probably update doom 2 and add it in somehow.

 

Also E4M9 is a very techbasey secret map which is interesting because the rest of episode 4 is marble and wooden fortresses so its a cool touch of variety for the secret map.

 

also the nice orange cloud sky for this episode is cool and goes well with the green marble and wood structures and white rocky areas

Edited May 7, 2020 by Mystic 256

[spineapple tea]

It's bullshit.

[dr_st]

4 hours ago, Mystic 256 said:

Im kinda dispointed slightly that the boss of E4M8 is just the spidermastermind again, i kinda wish it was a new enemy that could of been the boss but then ultimate doom would of had a monster that doom 2 didnt so they would have to probably update doom 2 and add it in somehow.

They should have just made it a monster already in DOOM II. The SS guy!

[Boaby Kenobi]

For me the best thing about TFC is the box art.

 

[ReaperAA]

Despite the inconsistent design, it is better than E3.

[purist]

Design-wise I think it edges E1 for strongest maps but the odd choices in ordering them gives it an unfair rep.

 

Has anyone from id ever put their thought process on record for the order of levels? I'd love to know what the logic was.

[instagib]

in my opinion thy flesh consumed is perfect.its challenging,fun, and really cool looking

[Average]

9 hours ago, purist said:

Design-wise I think it edges E1 for strongest maps but the odd choices in ordering them gives it an unfair rep.

 

Has anyone from id ever put their thought process on record for the order of levels? I'd love to know what the logic was.

 

 

I use this WAD which changesup the map order into easiest to hardest.  Can't remember where I got it so I can't link to any posts explaining the rationale but, in my opinion, it works well.

e4fix.zip

[Biodegradable]

It can be pretty fucking mean at points, but still a solid episode. American McGee fucking nails you to the wall with that first map though, good lord.

[printz]

I played Ultimate Doom before getting Doom 2, so my impression of E4 was really fresh and undiluted of seeing Doom 2 first.

 

I really liked its alien, inhospitable nature. It didn't feel cliche like hell. It was quite wild compared to Episodes 1-3, with its strange door effects and design decisions. Having no intermission made the episode feel mysterious; the replacement twisted image was rather creepy. The new stuff such as turbo doors, gargoyle and locked switches also made it feel strange. Also liked the liberal use of Cacodemons and Barons. It does have some rather easy levels, but it was all compensated by E4M6 which was hard and epic again. E4M7 again isn't that hard, but back then it was pretty ominous looking. I remember I wasn't quite impressed with E4M8 back then (nothing made it look like a boss level, except the sudden spider mastermind encounter). But I like it now, as I realize it has a pretty cool buildup up to an epic boss fight (which can't be epic because it's just a spiderdemon).

 

I think all my nostalgia is confined in that episode (compared with it, episodes 1-3 are Wolfenstein).

[Pseudonaut]

I recently replayed it, without saves and with only pistol starts, and I think it's my favorite Ultimate Doom episode now, mainly for those three hard maps that I don't need to specify. M6 might be the single hardest map in Ultimate Doom (it's at least the one that killed me the most), and I really like the non-obvious quick method of killing the cyberdemon (get BFG, grab invulnerability, teleport to his platform, spam BFG).

[_bruce_]

On 5/6/2020 at 5:17 AM, ditchdigger said:

honest thoughts on episode 4? its alright but whenever i replay doom i find myself just not ever wanting to play through episode 4 again. something about it just doesn't remotely have the same charm as the previous 3 episodes, or really any of the maps in doom 2. 

 

anyone else agree?

 

Same here, albeit I have to say it does not have to do with the quality of the maps per se - they're REALLY good for the most part.

 

Some things are overdone - like E4M1 featuring a tight room with Barons Of Hell, but that has to be expected as the id mappers faded out Doom and wanted to add some "crazy"(see also NIN association) before it would eventually meet its commercial death.

 

The whole episode has a great look and the new style can be seen as a distinct form of the official ones(even the sky's cool despite the restrictive palette and of course it reconnects, color wise, to the ending screen ).

• There could be the first oddness factor - the ending screen after episode 3 connects, relative to the city scape, "directly" to DoomII but sky wise to Episode 4. Since DoomII came out after the original Doom, it established itself as the new Doom experience... hence Episode 4 felt like an appendix that does somehow not fit.
• Another factor may be that Episode 4 feels pretty professional when compared to the original. One can sense that DoomII mappers sat down and took another try at the original. It seems a lot more focus'd and less playful. The sometimes sprawling fluff(in some of the maps) that made Doom and DoomII what it is, seems to have vanished. Mapping quickly/violenty evolved in those times and I often get the feeling of too much style concerns oozing into the process...
• It could be that I had only access long after I came in contact with DoomII and then Doom, but I really dug Doom despite having had all of Hell On Earth for more than 6 months.

• Or maybe one can't accept it as being part of the official Doom due to it just missing the boat and appearing as something that feels deliberately attached.

 

And, as a final brain fart, id could have dished out some dollars and invited some "talented enthusiasts"(with whiz demo as a portfolio) to just take a huge office room for a few months  and churn out a proper windows port. Add to that some dollars fleeced to the Punchatz duo which could have made a proper new final boss. Needed code changes could also have been delegated to the enthusiast guns for hire. Maybe Ultimate Doom could have been something even more awesome or... we'll never know.

 

Btw, the box art is truly mind blowing - one seldom sees something of such visual impact... does truly do Doom's impact justice!

Edited June 2, 2020 by _bruce_

[Mayomancer]

It's kind of on-par with episode one as my favorite episode from The Ultimate Doom, the maps really dial up the challenge compared to the base episodes and the stony ancient fortress kind of look is an awesome aesthetic.

[Can't play on Nightmare]

Episode 4 is difficult to play on UV Fast, unlike the first 3 episodes.

 

The problem in Episode 4 is first 2 levels.

[SaladBadger]

I think if I have any problem with e4, it's that its nature as a low-priority project to quickly create a new bonus for the retail Doom release is pretty apparent.

 

American poured quite a lot of love into E4M1, and Romero did their best with E4M2 and E4M6, but most of the other maps don't stand out to me at all. It would be nice if the rest of the levels could have kept up to those standards, as the rest are about normal id difficulty and aren't very interesting.