Logbook of a newcomer. Sharing my experience and thoughts about multiple WADs [Will regularly update]

[Jokin]

Long story short: Youtube recommended me the Ancient Aliens OST and I absolutely loved it so much it made me want to play the WAD. However I want to give it the respect it deserves, so I have started going through the list of WAD progression for skill improvement 

By coincidence, I also found a similar post to this one, where someone was writing their experience, and I thought it would be cool to do something similar myself. However I do plan on going a bit more in depth about some levels that caught my attention.

For now I have only beaten Doom2. It was in UV, but I was saving and loading a lot, especially in some levels. Currently I'm going through TNT and just finished map 26. Im excited to go into Mount Pain, I have heard that name a lot!
 

My Rules:

•     UV Max¹
•     Pistol Start every level
•     I have to beat the level in a single segment.³
•     After some deaths I can do a practice run with saves. Usually this happens when I'm dying a lot at the beginning or I dont want to replay most of the level to go through it once.
•     Saves are not allowed. (Technically loading is not allowed, but saving is. This is just here so I can jump ahead to the practice run some times).^2 3
•     I may look online where keys and secrets are.

    
¹:I have not fully decided on this. I know that I want to aim for 100% kills, but I'm not sure about secrets. Also there have been some cases where I took the exit by mistake, but only ~5 enemies were left. When this happens I usually check what enemies they were and if it was an ambush etc, taking a bit into account the health I had left. A cyberdemon its not the same as a shotgunner after all. From there I decide if its worth replaying the level, loading a save or just go to the next level anyways.

²: Following the recommendations that I have received, I may save and load sometimes in levels. Whenever I use a save in a level to beat it, I will be mentioning it when discussing the level.

³: This is no longer true as of halfway through Memento Mori.
 

Normally I try to beat a level from the beginning. I would say that so far I have been able to beat around half of TNT's levels in 2-5 attempts.
 

Now to some comments regarding some WADs and maps that I have played until now, if I don't mention a specific level its probably one that didn't catch my attention or that I beat relatively easily.

DOOM1:

Spoiler

It's very interesting how I can recognize levels from their easter eggs in DOOM2016, I wasn't expecting to be able to do that.
 

E1M1: HANGAR
Timeless classic. can't say much more.

E1M4: COMMAND CONTROL
I liked the idea of the imps in the middle of the map, really distinguishes it from other levels so far.
 

E1M6: PHOBOS LAB
The last section with the lights turning on and off is a cool idea, but in the practice it was damaging my eyes. Maybe if lights had been flickering on and off, with longer intervals or something. My eyes felt tired after that and I barely needed time to get past that part.

 

E1M7: CENTRAL PROCESSING
I really liked the fight at the end, it really caught me off guard. All of these pinkies and spectres are really making me miss the super shotgun.
 

E1M8 PHOBOS ANOMALY:
What a weird level. I knew it was going to be the end of the episode, because it was trying to be very different from what I had seen at the time. The end gave me a big jumpscare. Fun map.

 

E2M1 DEIMOS ANOMALY:
I cant play this level without "Knee deep in the doot" playing in my head. The inverted cross is really cool and all, but did it really need to deal damage?

 

E2M2 CONTAINMENT AREA:
The first box maze of the WAD, although it's had some maze's already. I saw there was too much extra health lying around so after I picked up the berserk I decided to just punch everything to death. The developers were clearly intending that to be a way of playing the level.

 

E2M7 SPAWNING VATS:
Jesus was this map big, not challenging at all though. The corridor with a UAC carpet dealing damage confused me, I thought there was a hitscanner somewhere.

 

E2M8 TOWER OF BABEL:
The moment I saw 1 enemy, I was expecting it to be the cyberdemon. I think this is a worthy level to introduce the strongest oponent a player has yet to face.

The victory music that plays at the end of every episode, has a callback in DOOM ETERNAL, in the exultia ost. Mindblowing.

 

E3M2: SLOUGH OF DESPAIR
I found cool the fact that the map has the shape of a hand.

 

E3M7: GATE TO LIMBO
I found this level pretty weak. Fights were forgettable and I didn't enjoy the teleport/lava floor gimmick.

 

E3M8: DIS
Probably the weakest end of episode yet. I know they are introducing the spider mastermind in this level but it doesn't hold a candle to the cyberdemon.

 

E4M1: HELL BENEATH
Wow, I didnt expect the difficulty to spike so much from E3 to E4. Short and sweet, although im not sure why the rocket launcher is not a secret.

 

E4M2: PERFECT HATRED
Tougher level than I expected, many barons of hell with what I felt was limited ammo for hard hitting weapons.

 

E4M3: SEVER THE WICKED
So many hitscanners at the beginning, it felt ruthless, but there was a lot of health lying around.

 

E4M7: AND HELL FOLLOWED
HOW DO YOU GET THE YELLOW KEY? I finished the level without getting it, then I remembered the blue door and felt like an idiot. That cyberdemon was easy thanks to the invun.

Doom2:

Spoiler

Level design feels very hit or miss. I didn't enjoy too much the last few levels.

I had played half of Doom2 a couple of years ago, and the other half kind of blends together because of the savescumming. However I would say that the most memorable ones for me are MAP07: DEAD SIMPLE and MAP08: TRICKS AND TRAPS, considering I remember both of them even after a couple of years.
 

Dishonorable mentions:

 

MAP24: THE CHASM
Interesting concept for sure, and if their goal was to make it memorable they definitely achieved it, but God do I hate this level. Last time I savescummed this hard I was playing XCom.

 

TNT:

Spoiler

Overall I'm liking the map design way more.
 

MAP2: HUMAN BBQ
A bit early on the WAD, but this already took me multiple tries. Kind of expected, considering I had beaten Doom2 with saves. TNT begins to show you how dangerous hitscanners are really early on.
 

MAP4: WORMHOLE
The chaingunners at the beginning are evil. Took me quite a while to beat, and its the map that confirmed my decision of going for UV max. Interesting concept, but a bit useless when you don't even need to take the teleporter to end the level.
 

MAP7: PRISION
Oh man, the first big roadblock for me. I knew I was gonna have issues the moment I saw the plasma gun being given to me at the start. The initial room gave me so many issues. First map where I needed to beat the map with saves before completing it at once.
 

MAP8: METAL

Cool music. Found the super shotgun secret once I had beaten the rest of the level though. I got lucky and found a invisibility sphere on my second attempt, otherwise I think the last room would have been pretty hard.
 

MAP9: STRONGHOLD
The moment I saw the kill count almost reaching the 300s, my heart sank. Hitscanner hell, but cool and memorable level IMO. In retrospect I found it pretty fun.
 

MAP15: DEADZONE
I really enjoyed the level, although it seemed a bit overwhelming at first. I spent a looong time looking for the last 2 kills, and then I learnt about the enemies being glitched. Missed the entrance to the secret levels, will have to beat them after I beat map 30 I guess.
 

MAP18: MILL

Spoiler

I didn't really enjoy this one. The archvile in the small room is the absolute worst. At the beginning I thought that telporting would make him drop the aggro, but I was wrong. There was an invuln, but I was using it to clear the floor with the pain elementals and arachnotrons. Archvile spawns too close to the edges of the room, so using rocket launcher damages you, because the teleports are in the corners. Telefraging didnt seem consistent either. I ended up cheesing him by standing on his spawn point and killing him later from the outside. In last fight, when only the cyberdemon was left I got hit by two of his rockets in a row, but thankfully survived with minimal HP, thank god.

 

MAP22: HABITAT
I beat it on my first try! I liked the sewers section, although in my mind the lights looked like japanese doors for some reason. The secrets in the sewers are kinda meh though, and the blue key and blue key door was not very good design in my opinion. Barely beat it in the end, that archvile in the last section gave me problems.
 

MAP24: QUARRY
I actually enjoyed playing such a short level with not many enemies after the last few maps.
 

MAP26: BALLISTYX
The archvile at the end, and then its teleport made my heart sink. I took the tele and almost died. Very tense ending.

MAP27: MOUNT PAIN

Spoiler

This is without a doubt my favorite level in the entire WAD so far. Spawning in front of a super shotgun surrounded by shell boxes while "Into the beast's belly" was playing in the background pumped me up. Any level that begins with a super shotgun is a fun one (somehow I feel that I will end up regretting saying this). I almost beat it on my third try, but then the archvile room at the end killed me. And then it killed me again in next run. 5th time was the charm. I liked the level so much I didn't even mind dying on the end a couple of times.

One thing I noticed is that the ambushes would rarely catch me off guard, except the chaingunners behind fake walls, those got me hard the first time. I'm already used to the type of shenanigans TNT pulls on you by this point.

The only defect that I really find on the map, is the goddamn pile of lost souls it throws at you. With the name "Mount pain" I think having pain elementals would have been a better thematic choice.

 

MAP20: CENTRAL PROCESSING

Spoiler

I can't quite put my finger on why, but this map didnt seem that good to me. I think the open area at the end of the map is the reason why. The garden next to the exit of the building is nice, but then there is a door that opens a barren area. Unless I'm forgetting something, the fights in the outside seem a bit uninteresting. Finding the way to the exit took me more time than I thought too. Bonus points for early backpack though.

 

MAP21: ADMINISTRATION CENTER

Spoiler

It's kind of funny, this map suffers from the same thing as the previous one (big open area towards the end), but I believe it's better. Maybe the difference is that I had fun making the cyberdemon infight with other demons.

 

MAP25: BARON'S DEN

Spoiler

I was expecting more barons of hell. I kind of feel that I got baited with that one. Honestly I feel pretty indifferent on this one. I feel that for me to hate a map it needs to have something that makes me question what were they thinking, like the archvile in Mill. I found the last 2 pain elementals by pure chance, sorry I can't say much more about it.

MAP28: HECK

Spoiler

First life I died to the archvile in the tunnel in front of the spawn, second life I fell off and saw the weapons, beat it in the third attempt. I really liked the touch at the end with the lost souls, I was feeling very confident after I saw the kill count at 100%. It's cool having levels where you are given all weapons from time to time.

MAP29: RIVER STYX

Spoiler

Okay Im kind of salty on this one, because I was cleaning up the revenants on the hallways only to get sent straight into another pistol start after getting hit by two of their homing missiles. Took me another hour to beat the level.

There are some things in this level that kind of infuriate me. Why does the lava deal no damage? Couldn't they use sludge or something? Really? Also, am I bad at clicking or are lost souls supposed to survive a single shotgun bullet? It really made me feel like I was wasting ammo on them, which is important because I was constantly running low on ammo. But don't worry, you are given a ton of cells, but no plasma rifle or BFG, apparently it depends on the difficulty level? They really couldn't swap a couple of those for shell boxes? It's like they wanted to taunt you.

Also, I got super lucky and when I activated the spider mastermind switch I saw some goodies and went for them. I later realized that they put a spider mastermind behind a fake wall. At least that explained the partial invisibility.

MAP30: LAST CALL

Spoiler

Man at the beginning I got pumped up. I liked the music, I found the teleport instakills a bit interesting, I even found it funny how one of the platforms only kills you through one side, it was very sneaky and I found it funny.

The revenant room gave me a ton of issues at the beginning, those homing missiles are no joke. But then the problems started happening. TNT Map30 is bugged on PrBoom, so I had to take a look at compatibility options. I was VERY lucky of remembering that specific staircase as an example of compatibility issues from a video I saw a while ago. After the compatibility issues were solved, then the hallway with the enemies in cages came. Some times enemies would fall from their cages, preventing me from UV maxing the level. I got so tired of restarting the level because of that, that towards the end if an enemy would glitch I would IDCLIP and kill them "normally".

The final battle with the icon of sin was pretty frustrating, figuring out the switch took me a long time, and I was not understanding why rockets weren't dealing any damage. Had to take a look at the wiki to realize that I had to shoot from the last step of the staircase.

I'm actually very thankful I missed the secret levels, because this would be such a poor ending to an otherwise good experience.

MAP31: PHARAOH

Spoiler

The beginning seemed a bit hard until I decided to press the switches on my third attempt. Then I advanced a bit more and got stuck. I had forgotten to apply the patch, very smart.

I really liked the aesthetic and thematic of the map, and it's clear that the developers also had fun making it. The pharaohs switch that spawns the yellow key, and opens a couple of health bonuses, only for you to get crushed if you go to take them was really fitting for the idea of a pyramid, because of the trope that they are full of traps.

This map also has, what is probably my favorite moment of the entire WAD. After getting the blue key and press a switch, a gigantic wall starts lowering down. I was expecting a large number of enemies, only to find a single zombieman. That made me laugh, but it gets even better, because once you shoot him a horde of cacodemons comes out of fake walls to avenge their friend. Really memorable moment.

The only defect I would give this map is that the end area is... empty. I knew I had killed all enemies, but I was still expecting something, like lost souls coming from the pyramid because you had raided it or something like that.

Overall great level, I really liked it, shame it needs a patch to be played though.

MAP32: CARIBBEAN

Spoiler

After reading this map's name, now I'm disappointed it didn't have a pirate thematic somehow (I'm not even sure how they could pull it off). Once I pressed the switch, I got instantly dissapointed.

Overall, fun map. The plasma trap with the archvile was horrible (not in a bad way), it took me a while to figure out how to dodge it (this is my fault because looking back at it I just had to walk back, I'm not sure what I was thinking). The most memorable part of the level without a doubt the end. After map 31 I wasn't expecting too much, maybe a couple of high tier enemies plus imps or hitscanners. Only for the wall to lower and show multiple mancubus, revenants and a cyberdemon.

Also, can we talk about how they put an archvile behind a fake wall right at the end of the level? I think that if I had taken a teleporter to be in front of the door, the archvile would have damaged me for sure, because I was almost hit by him, and that was without me being disoriented from the teleport.

Final thoughts:

Spoiler

What rhymes with fun? Hitscan!

TNT has been a great deal of fun for me, my main takeaway is that there is no need to constantly rush in, that taking things slow and steady is perfectly valid. It has also shown how strong chaingunners and other hitscanners really are. The final thing it has taught me is that there is always a chaingunner behind the corner and that if he's not there you don't have to worry, because the wall covering him will lower the moment you advance a bit more anyways.

In all seriousness, I may have been playing the levels too carefully, usually my completed level times would range from 20 to 30 minutes. I would say that on average TNT had better levels than Doom2. 

My top3 maps of this WAD are:

1. Map27: Mount Pain
2. Map31: Pharaoh
3. Map09: Stronghold

Honorable mention: Map04: Wormhole

If only wormhole had made better use of its concept. The fact that you can beat the level without understanding the name of the map if very dissapointing.

FAVA BEANS:

Spoiler

E1M1: 
There wasn't that much action, only 37 enemies and a pretty short level.

 

E1M3: 
It has a cool secret level ending? I wasn't expecting that one at all, which means that DOOM1 had secret levels.... going to play those ones now.

 

E1M8: 
It's an interesting concept but a bit underwhelming as an ending.

 

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Overall fava beans has levels that remind me of ID levels in some way. However I'm surprised there wasn't a cyberdemon or spider mastermind in the whole WAD.
 

BASE GANYMEDE:

Spoiler

E1M1:
At the beginning of the map, there is floor, then a bit of damaging floor and a door. Interesting design choice to make sure you can't camp the door without any repercussions.
 

E1M3:
3 barons of hell this soon, wow.

E1M5:
This was a harder levels and it makes me feel like it should have been further away in the WAD, unless the next levels are even harder than this one. Having a spider mastermind and cyberdemon so soon in the same map caught me by surprise.

E1M6: 
If it wasn't for the cyberdemon at the end, I would say it was pretty easy. I need to get better at dealing with them.

 

E1M7: 
I finished the last fight at 1HP. I had to cross some lava to exit the level, I knew I was probably gonna die, but like some comments here suggested, there is no need to replay the whole level and torture myself for this kind of things. I just id a save and managed to cross the lava pool after a couple of attempts.

 

E1M8: 
This was a bit tough, the spider mastermind AI sometimes was ruthless though. Even with the arrow, it took me a while to notice I had to shoot a switch from the other side of the map.

 

E2M1:
Half the level was pistol only, it was interesting, and I felt rewarded when I finally obtained the shotgun.

 

E2M4:
There wasn't that much health for me to enjoy this punch only map. I acutally ended up beating it by saving because I was having troubles consistently telefragging the cyberdemon.

 

E2M6:
I usually have trouble dealing with bigger enemies like the cyberdemon or the spider mastermind, so this one felt a bit hard, especially because of the spare amunition you get for the plasma.

 

E2M7:
Surprisingly easy, I beat it on my first try!

 

E2M8:
The constantly teleporting cyberdemons were getting a bit annoying towards the end, but fun level otherwise.

 

E3M4:
So much free ammo on this level. First time I end up a level in this WAD with more than 250 cells left.

 

E3M5:
I was looking forward to getting again a BFG vs a cyberdemon again. I have been playing a WAD to practice 2 shotting cyberdemon and I managed to do it here!

 

E3M8:
I loved the concept of the last level, going through some sections of previous levels of the WAD.

 

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Overall I loved Ganymede. This WAD really showed me how much I was underestimating the shotgun and taught me some important kill ranges that previously I wasn't taking into account, because I would super shotgun everything.
 

SIGIL:

Spoiler

E5M4: PATHS OF WRETCHEDNESS
I really liked the idea of picking a path, although the middle one with the sinking platforms felt very cheap, I think the platforms might be going down too fast. Ended up using the invuln from the right path to beat this section.

 

E5M6: UNSPEAKABLE PERSECUTION
The labrinth part was tough, it's very easy for the cyberdemon to catch me off guard.

 

E5M7: NIGHTMARE UNDERWORLD
I kept constantly running out of ammo and the level seemed impossible. But once I looked at the locations of the secrets I beat it on my first try, even when I needed 4-5 BFG shots for the cyberdemon.

 

E5M8: HALLS OF PERDITION
Fun, easy level. That last zombieman hidden in the last secret was hard to find!

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Sigil has been a very cool experience and I think the best way of starting this is by thanking Romero for doing something as cool as this for DOOMs 25th anniversary. Some of the hardest levels from this WAD weren't tough because of a single fight, but from constantly having my health slowly chipped away in every fight. I would say that Sigil's maps have a better design than most of what I have played until now. My guess is this is a byproduct of it being a pretty recent WAD, where people have figured out what works and what doesn't when creating levels.  

MOONBLOOD:

Spoiler

E2M1: INDUSTRIAL ZONE
Arachnotrons are way more dangerous than I remembered, I died multiple times in the small room with two of them.

 

E2M3: DELTA LABS INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH
The beginning was completely ruthless, however I managed to find the secret supercharge and that managed to save the run. Beat the level on my first try!

 

E3M1: MINING SITE
This level was very hard compared to the others, the beginning felt a bit ruthless, but also chaotic and fun. The arachnotrons are the stars of this level. Half of my attempts were ended by them. Overall I really enjoyed the difficulty spike.

 

E3M2: THE VILLAGE
For me the most complext part was figuring out the path I had to take, it got way easier once I understood that I had run through the middle of the map and make the cyberdemon infight at the beginning. Its the first time I need more than 10 attempts to beat one level in this WAD.

 

E3M4: DECAYING INDUSTRIES
What a beginning of a level, only a rocket launcher, a combat armor and 2 mancubus and one cacodemon to deal with. Aside from that, the level wasn't that hard.

 

ARCHIVES: DOBU GABU'S EXAM (Secret level)
Pretty fun level, but after playing Base Ganymede and Sigil and so much of this WAD, I had completely forgotten that archviles were a thing, so I panicked hard when I saw one in the end.

 

ARCHIVES: IRON KEEP
In my first attempt I died to the two cyberdemons in the end. Managed to beat it on my second attempt.

 

E4M2: BFG EXPERIMENTS
The fight with the revenants at the beginning is a bit tricky. The same thing happens with the room with 3 archviles! Overall pretty fun level, I don't mind when the hard fight is at the beginning of the map. As a fun detail, the end of level screen seems to me from this level.

 

E4M3: HIDDEN IN THE DUNGEON
The beginning is a bit hard until you find out the secret entrance and the plasma rifle. After that I wouldn't say it was hard, but I'm suprised at how quickly this WAD went from no archviles to 3-4 per level. I enjoyed the puzzle on the computer room, and I'm still surprised that you can stunlock spider masterminds with a plasma rifle.

 

E4M4: OBSTRUCTED ZONE
The use of archviles here was very good. Most of the level was pretty easy except the red door corridor, the fight after pressing switch in the berserk area and the blue key fight, which would require to not miss my BFG shot or I would instantly die after.

 

E4M5: MOONBLOOD GETAWAY
Oh wow, this map was a bit tough. I kept running out of ammo, so i decided to not go for 100% kills in order to save my sanity. Killed everything except the 2 archviles and cacos in the last room.

 

E5M2: SKELETONS GARDEN
This map was probably the hardest one to route, but once I figured it out, it didnt seem particularly hard compared to other levels.

E5M4: HANGING FORTRESS
I loved the beginning of the map with the rocket launcher. It's one weapon where I've felt myself improve with quickly during this wad playthrough.
 

E5M5: HELLTOWN
Another level hard to path but kinda easy once you figure it out. Two very interesting fights: the one with the crushers and the 4 archviles before the BFG and the final fight with 20 revenants.

 

E5M6: COLISEUM
The pathing keeps getting harder and harder, but the level didn't feel that difficult once I finished it with saves.

 

E6M1: MAGMA REFINERY
Archviles are probably my favorite enemy and this level perfectly shows why. They are just such a threat when they are present on the battlefield. Loved the details of seeing them in cages and then have them teleport to places you previosly had cleared.

 

E6M2: REMAINS OF ZETA LABS
I think this level was very generous with health and ammo (especially plasma). Hardest fight would probably be the first room with the 4 archviles and revenants, probably followed by the room with the crushers.

 

E6M3: MOONBLOOD RITUAL SITE
So far the hardest level I have played to date. The last hordes of revenants plus the area with the 3 cyberdemons was too much for me. I ended up setting up a save before the blue key and just beat the level loading from there.

 

E6M4: THE REPENANT SINNER
What the hell was enemy at the end? It felt a bit unfair, but maybe that's just me. I decided to use a save before the boss because I couldn't find a consistent way of dealing with him.

 

FINAL THOUGHTS:

I really enjoyed my playthrough of MOONBLOOD. There is this weird thing where you don't see any archviles until the secret levels, but you start getting 3-5 of them per level later on. I would say that I started feeling confident around revenants. One small detail that I love from this WAD is the ending of one level matching the beginning of the next, it gives it a nice feel of continuity. There were some sections in some specific levels (especially towards the end) where I was getting "outskilled" by the level.

In retrospect I highly enjoyed the non-trivial pathings some levels had, but starting the next level definitely ended up feeling like a chore towards the end of the WAD. I also feel like I've gotten way better at using the rocket launcher.

Halfway through memento mori I decided to stop beating it without saves. I realized it was ruining my experience, as I wanted to advance to the next level but didn't feel like grinding to beat the level I was on. 

MEMENTO MORI:

Spoiler

MAP09: HIGH-TECH GRAVE
I really enjoyed this level, although there was a ton of ammunition and health, which made it easier than it should have probably.

 

MAP12: KINETICS
For a short level, it was a bit trickier than I thought. The red key fight with the 4 hell knights was a bit hard to figure out because I kept trying to lure them to the elevator.

 

MAP14: KARMACOMA
Wheew, what a level. I managed to beat it on my second try, first one I ate a cyberdemon rocket to the face. It's a pretty long level but thankfully you are given a lot of armor and health to get through, which I really appreciate, as this being an attrition map would have been super annoying.

 

MAP16: STONED
I had automap and i kept taking a look, so the fake exit didnt get me at all. However if it wasnt for that megasphere at the end, I might have died on that last room. I found the idea of the room with the elevators activated by torches pretty interesting!

 

MAP17: HOUSE OF THORN
The small rooms with beds and things like that were very cute to see, it was fun to see them (and the bathroom). It took me a while to solve the megasphere puzzle.

 

MAP21: TWILIGHT LAB
I beat it on my first attempt going in completely blind. Man this levels are starting to become quite big. 35 minutes it took me to complete this level. Thankfully there is plenty of health, although there were a couple of moments where I was beginning to run out of ammo.

 

MAP23: SHOWDOWN
Really cool map, it was fun. When I had the three keys and saw archviles beginning to ressurect in the middle of the map, I thought I was screwed.

 

MAP26: BETWEEN SCATTERED CORPSES
The beginning seems scarier than it actually is, with 4 spider masterminds and one cyberdemon. The ambushses were predictable and not that hard, except the one with the mancubbies

 

MAP30: VIPER
I quite enjoyed the end, with the cyberdemon blocking the icon of sin's brain.
 

MAP31: TECHNOLOGY BASE
I didnt kill all the monsters because it didn't seem possible at first. Then I realized there was some platforming needed but I wasnt feeling like replaying the whole level. The final room with the pinkies was tougher than I thought. I'm not sure if I could beat that fight without the crushers.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
It's very clear this was intended for multiplayer, which made going through some levels a bit of a pain, I think MAP28: City of the Unvenged is an example of it. Otherwise, I would say that it's a pretty solid experience and I enjoyed the mapset.

PLUTONIA: 

Spoiler

MAP01: CONGO
Eh.... what? Multiple revenants, mancubus and two archviles? On the first level of the WAD? Now I understand why everyone always talks about plutonia.

 

MAP02: WELL OF SOULS
Well of souls? More like "Wall of souls". The hallway with a ton of lost souls behind switches was filthy.

 

MAP08: REALM
Man those 2 archviles at the end were nasty... Aside from that, the level wasn't too tough.

 

MAP09: ABBATOIRE
The last room was incredibly difficult, not only the enemies were tough, but falling off the platform meant death. 

 

MAP11: HUNTED
I enjoyed this map, but this is one of those gimmicks that could get tiring real fast.

 

MAP12: SPEED
This one was a tougher than the rest of the levels so far, I enjoyed the part with the 2 teleporting archviles.

 

MAP16: THE OMEN
The last room with all the hitscanners was a bit scary with only a few shells and close to no bullets.
 

MAP20: THE DEATH DOMAIN
The beginning seems to be the hardest part once again. The chaingunners at spawn are ruthless together with the arachnotrons.

MAP21: SLAYER
I really liked this map. Somehow I feel like the archvile at the red key was glitched, because he didn't do anything dangerous. The teleporting revenants and archvile caught me off guard.

 

MAP22: IMPOSSIBLE MISSION
I might have gotten lucky but this seemed a tame map compared to some others in the WAD. When I fell into the chaingunner and barrel pit I was thinking what to do and the hell knight killed them with a barrel. The archvile and baron of hell ambush in the red key was also pretty simple because I managed to drop to the bottom floor.

 

MAP23: TOMBSTONE
The backtracking for the switches at the end seemed unnecesary. Maybe I played the map wrong, but I had to backtrack a lot. It also seems apparent they knew about it, because they add some "shortcuts" in some places to reduce it a bit.

 

MAP25: THE TEMPLE OF DARKNESS
Man, some of the ambushes on this level are crazy. The one with hellknights and a baron of hell takes the cake.

 

MAP31: CYBERDEN
I thought the map was relatively easy, and then I died to the fake exit (I should have seen it coming)

 

MAP32: GO-2-IT
I really enjoy the nod of half of this level being DOOM2's MAP01. It also made me think of all the progress I've done since I started this journey. I couldn't think of a more fitting ending for the last IWAD of DOOM2. 

 

Final thoughts: In my opinion, the best IWAD. I would consider that a popular sentiment, as there have been a couple of comments requesting me to cover plutonia. I think the main reason behind plutonia's difficulty is the sudden ambushes that are waiting for you. Once you know when they happen most levels become a breeze. I'm also surprised at the fights plutonia throws at you considering its an IWAD.

SCYTHE:

Spoiler

Not too many comments until MAP14. Levels are short and sweet. I have beaten the levels without saves up until MAP20 or so.
 

MAP14: POWER OUTAGE
I LOVED the small detail of the doors not opening until you turned on the generator, hence the map name. Really cool detail.

 

MAP24: ENVY
The section with the spider masterminds (specially the first one) was pretty hard. Had to cheese it by triggering the cacos before dropping from the ledge. Also you can skip the cyberdemon fight by jumping into the end, although I finished the level normally.

 

MAP26: FEAR
I really enojed this map. Good use of BFG and infighting is key to beat it. I had a great time, and playing a level around the BFG felt unique. Probably my favorite map of the WAD.

 

MAP28: RUN FROM IT
It's funny, during my plutonia playthrough I was thinking if timed leves were a thing inside of megawads. Took me quite a few tries!

 

MAP30: FIRE AND ICE
Wow. What a level. The ice area at the left is absolutely satanic. I have NEVER been so glad of removing the "no saves allowed" rule. Super fun level, but it felt above my skill level, as I had to constantly save and load. I might revisit this level in the future once I've gotten better.

 

RUSH:

Spoiler

 

MAP01: STASIS SHOCK
MAN this level has so much detail on it its mind-blowing. It even narrates a story with the explosions at beginning of the level

 

MAP02: CHEMICAL IMPS
The big room with mancubus and revenants was challenging, especially when followed by the black mancubus room, otherwise I would say the level is great.

 

MAP03: FROZEN TECH
I got a bit overconfident after the initial fight, where you kill 1/3rd of all the monsters from your spawn point. The four archviles at the beginning are a bit sneaky, and the rest of the fights seemed manageable. I'm beginning to see that revenants are the favorite enemy of slaughter maps.

 

MAP04: WHITE FIELDS
The fight with one cyberdemon where the room swarms is not hard, but seeing enemies kill eachother is just so satisfying.

 

MAP05: VILE HOUSE
There are a couple of tricks that I discovered here. If I stand in front of idle enemies, I will not trigger enemies that wake up when I shoot. This helped me on the first room and on the last one.In the last fight, a spider mastermind teleports away when you shoot. Walking in front of the mancubus so they damage the spider mastermind, then pressing the switch to spawn the cyberdemon guaranteed an easy infighting between them before the spider mastermind teleported away.

 

MAP10: DARK CORNER
The fight at the end was super cool, with all the hellknights, cacos, cyberdemons and archviles, there were also pain elementals but they didnt make the fight more fun.

 

ANCIENT ALIENS:

Spoiler

I have to say I love the "Aliens" meme being the skull to select the things in menus.

MAP01: THE ANCIENT NAVAJO WOLF WARP
Wow... this is just in a different level compared to everything I've played until now. Everything is so colorful and the teleport at the beginning... insane. Level is cool with a cyberdemon in your face constantly shooting rockets at you until the end.

 

MAP02: SANCTUM OF THE WASTES
Love the new sprites for mancubus.

 

MAP03: ARACNOTRON ARRIVAL
From the beginning they are telling you that killing the arachnotrons is not gonna work, and they are right. Fun idea for a level, having to dodge them constantly, similar to the cyberdemon in MAP01. Also, the new arachnotron sprites and sound effects are very cool too, and I don't think the cool teleporter effect will ever get old.

 

MAP04: BAD MEDICINE MEN
I knew this level would introduce the archviles because of its name, but the position they are in its completely nasty. Well played.

 

MAP05: LAST REFUGE OF THE ANASAZI
Another map where you have to constantly avoid a cyberdemon. The rocket launcher fight was the hardest of the map for me, with a cool hidden cave behind a waterfall. Also, the secret section with a rocket launcher is amazing. The floor and the drawn alien on the ground, I love it. Also cool detail with the new plasma gun sounds.

 

MAP06: SINKHOLE SHOWDOWN
A cool transforming level, not once but twice. The stones keep being useful in each of those fights. First is good for the chaingunners and after that it helps you to drop archvile line of sight. The ambushes wtih shotgunners take a big toll on your HP, but there is more than enough health in the level. The yellow key fight is mean, dropping you into chaingunners, an archvile and a mancubus.

 

MAP07: DARE TO FLY WHERE EAGLES SOAR
Really cool map with a really fun beginning. After you clear the central area, most fights seem easy. The room with 2 arachnotrons and 5 barons of hell could have been tough, but I did get pretty lucky.
 

MAP08: ANCIENT ALIENS
Woah... The UFO are so detailed, I'm just mind blown with how good they look, and of course that stepping into the beams teleports you inside, why wouldn't you? There has been an incredible amount of detail in this WAD so far, but this level takes the cake. Fitting for one that has the same name as the WAD.

MAP09: THE NECTAR FLOW
The level felt a bit long to me. However like usual the environment is spot on.

MAP10: GIFT OF DENIAL
This map was quite a bit harder than the ones I've played until now, but I finally got my first BFG of the WAD. I was expecting it to have different sound effects, but it didn't have them.

MAP11: ON THE ORIGIN OF SPACIES
The initial shot is breathtaking, and then I turned around and saw the skybox. Woah. The new enemies absolutely decimated me on my first attempt, they seem like a cool enemy to fight and I'm excited to see what they do with them moving forwards. Also the spaceship section when you go to the moon is so cool. It's done by switching the side of the teleporter you enter from. It's such a smart design. Wait there are two new enemies? The flying ones seem like they are going to be annoying because of their small size.

MAP12: MAGENTA HEAT
Okay so the flying cubes aren't as annoying as I thought they would be, they die in one single shotgun shell and deal an explosion around them, although I feel like this second thing can end up being an issue.

MAP13: POLYCHROMATIC TERRACE
The main plaza visuals were amazing. I had one death playing this map... on the surprise archvile and hell knight. Felt kind of cheap but after I realized it's a super easy fight.

MAP14: BLAZING BOULEVARD
"Moonwalk" is one of my favorite music tracks from this WAD, and the level did not dissapoint at all. I really liked the transformation the beginning area went through during the game. Also because of the flying cube enemies, cacodemons began infighting between eachother, neat.

MAP15: WORMHOLE JUNCTION
This level begins in chaos, but there are plenty of megaspheres and soulspheres to keep you healthy. The fight covering the secret exit was tough.

MAP16: LEAVE YOUR SOL BEHIND
MAP11 showed us the UFO moving to the moon, but this map 1-ups it by seeing the stars move after you activate the UFO, amazing, I don't even know how they did it.
 

MAP31: GREY DWARF
That this one didn't click for me. I believe it's because until this point this WAD kept one-upping itself in terms of gameplay and visuals. It's a bit unfortunate, because the level is not bad, the competition is just too good.
It might be my bad here, but there were two or three times where I didn't know what to do and where to go next. Thankfully im pretty good at orientating myself so most of the times I know how to return to certain points, but I can imagine many others getting completely lost on this level. Also most secrets were basically "interact with a computer terminal", but only some of them did things, making it more of a trial and error thing (or maybe I didn't pay attention). Also the soundtrack seems to fit more a jungle than a space station, but maybe thats just me.
 

MAP32: OSSUARIUM EXOTERRE
I was a bit dissapointed when I saw the default DOOM textures, but it was a good level. This level felt a bit easy. I never understand how difficult are secret levels supposed to be. Some WADs have super hard secret levels, while others seem pretty easy.
 

MAP17: DAYLIGHT UNDER A NEW SOL
Killing the two cyberdemons felt a bit hard, but otherwise a solid map I would say.

 

MAP18: ILLUMINATI REVEALED
I don't like infinitley spawning enemies as gimmicks, so I don't have anything good to say about it.

 

MAP19: CRASH LANDING
A tyson map, not my favorites, but I have definitely gotten better at punching stuff. The fight with the 2 pinkies, multiple imps and an archvile is mean. Other than that, its not too hard.

 

MAP20: CODE
I quite liked this level, having to choose if I wanted SSG or Rocket launcher! I chose the SSG if someone is interested.

 

MAP21: CYBERBULLYING: BEYOND EARTH
Oh man, the two cyberdemon halways seemed a bit tough because i was running low on ammo.

 

MAP22: ACEROLA ORION
I really liked the teleporter bridges towards the end, and the mini-maze at the end.

 

MAP23: TRINARY TEMPLE
The running water and conveyor belt caught me off guard. Going up on the rocket launcher tower and overseeing the whole map is a thing of beauty. It gives a feeling of openness that is very cool. Once you enter the big building, its very cool to see how the lights turn on when the pillars connect. The "BFG locked" switch with an hologram was also absolutely amazing, and the end with the UFO landing? This might be one of the best levels so far.

 

MAP24: CULTURE SHOCK
Yet another scenery change. Now on the clouds? Jesus the amount of effort put on this WAD. Another small detail, but "climbing" the rope is a neat detail for an elevator that takes part on an ancient temple. Oh my god. Going up from that rope and changing from dense fog to a clear blue sky is SO cool. Man the BFG secret is SO COOL.

 

MAP25: XENOARBOREUM
This map felt harder than the previous ones, but still nothing impossible. I'm suprised you can just ignore one quarter of the kills of the map before you can leave, I had to do a bit of digging to find the arena with the cyberdemon and the pinkies.

 

MAP26: EGYPTIAN METAPHYSICS
Another big difficutly spike in my opinion? The plasma gun fight was pretty hard.

 

MAP27: KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULLS
Indiana Jones reference, noice. Pretty simple level, I will never get tired of the saucers used as teleporters.

 

MAP28 FLOATING ARENA
This is one of the maps that I think i could beat saving less. I probably good a bit rusty after my break, considering I beat some slaughtermap wads. Overall very good map and one I will probably replay in the future.

 

MAP29: THE ONES BEHIND IT ALL
The last fight was specially tough for me, mostly because of those pesky archviles. I can't wait to see what MAP30 has prepared.

 

MAP30: THE END
Honestly not what I expected, but the music track for this level, Yuletilde, is one of my favorites, and so fitting for a level with no enemies that just says "this was it, thanks!". I also found the credits amusing.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
I'm going to be very biased, because Ancient Alien's OST is what got me into seriously playing classic DOOM. But I truly TRULY believe this is probably the best WAD I have played to date, and maybe for a long time. For the first 20 levels my mind kept getting blown over and over with cool details, and the maps are just fun. However what really separates this from many other WADs is the vibrant colors and aesthetic, which is a shame that this was such a "one-off" thing for these textures. This was a truly great experience, and my thanks to Skillsaw and everyone who collaborated in this project.

 

EVITERNITY:

Spoiler

MAP01: INAUGURATION
The fire rate of the pistol is insane. So far a very simple map but it was fun.
 

MAP02: SUBTERRANEAN
I really when WADs have the detail of having a map start where the previous one ended. 
 

MAP03: DRAIN
First plasma, SSG and revenants of the WAD. Levels still seem pretty easy so far, but it's just started. 
 

MAP04: REGICIDE
First rocket launcher and archviles of the WAD. The last two archviles almost got me, I barely survived the level
 

MAP05: DEMON
This is the first time I died on this WAD. Apparently turbo pinkies are a default monster in this wad, but they also have the health of a mancubus or something like that. Overall a cool and small level, I love when maps like this show that to have a good level you don't need a gigantic map.
 

MAP06: RECONNECT
Liking the futuristic vibe from this level. Relatively easy compared to the previous one.
 

MAP07: FACILITATE
Get it? Because it takes part on a facility? The hallway with a hundred zombiemen caught me off guard.
 

MAP08: STENCH
I really liked all of the water level changes of the map, continuosly revealing more and more ground. Now that I think about it, it would be a cool level gimmick, something similar to a tower (within DOOM's limits of course) where a liquid keeps changing levels showing the next level of the platform.

MAP09: DECREPITURE
It felt longer than what I've seen until now from this WAD. It felt a bit harder but still nothing serious, althought the beginning wasn't all that easy. Aside from that, finally the first BFG of the WAD!

MAP10: CREATION
Fantastic map in my opinion. Going through the multiple rings of the map was very fun. Also the cyber hell knights seem like a cool new enemy.

MAP11: WANDERER
Oh god ice physics, why. The two new enemies introduced here seem OK. The green chaingunner doesn't seem too hard, but the white cacodemon seems super strong, I can't wait to see what the WAD does with all of this new enemies.

MAP12: BRISK
I think the map was fine until the final fight. Maybe I didn't figure it out or I arrived there with very little resources left, but I wasn't able to consistently beat it.

MAP13: PATHFINDER
All of those white cacodemons along with the big amount of archviles in this map made it a very tough one.
 

MAP14: FRIMAIRE
This was a tough one, with a pretty hot start I may say! I actually needed to save before a couple of crucial fights.
 

MAP15: CRYNOLOGY
I really enjoyed this map. Really big, and very detailed. I'm really happy that I beat the fight on the "temple" in my first attempt, with plenty of health and ammo to spare. The BFG secret at the beginning also caught me by surprise.
 

MAP16: NEUTRALIZE
Going back to this kind of short and sweet levels is appreciated after the last few maps being large.
 

MAP17: SEGREGATION
If the previous level was short and sweet, this one is short and ruthless. What a spike from the previous map. Still, fights were pretty exciting, the plasma gun one caught me off guard.
 

MAP18: SUBTERFUGE
This map was very confusing at the beginning. Towards the end I was starting to understand how it was supposed to be pathed. Something that I really appreciate is how levels that can have weird pathings usually have multiple times the same weapon spread through the map to guarantee that no matter which way you choose to go, you still can fight back.
 

MAP19: DEHYDRATION
Man, this one was not only long, but really tough. According to the in game timer it took me an 1h and 20m to beat it. This map was so far the toughest one in the WAD. I think part of the reason is because I rarely use my plasma, so I was constantly running "low" on ammo (except with the plasma, where I would have ~400 cells.
 

MAP20: CONVOLUTE
Honestly, this level felt pretty easy to me. I only died once. The usage of archviles though was great, every time I returned to the main area a new archvile would have spawned to revive everything again.
 

MAP21: IMPERISHABLE
Nice short level, I liked how the theme of this maps were walls just lowering to reveal more monster closets.
 

MAP22: VISCERA
Man I haven't seen a spider mastermind in a long time. Aside from that, the fight with a ton of pinkies and the one with a ton of imps were a bit tougher than I expected.
 

MAP23: TRIBULATION
This one was pretty fun, it really feels that 200-300 monster count is the sweet spot, quick 20-30 minute maps.
 

MAP24: GOSSAMER
That last fight with the cyberdemons was really something.

 

MAP25: SLAVE
I think the most interesting part of the design of the arena is that it would have probably worked on a modern doom, good map and I beat it on a single segment, which is nice.

 

MAP26: TRANSENDENCE
The visuals in this map are amazing, and some of the surprise fights with multiple cyber hell knights and the white cacos were fun. The effects at the end of the level for the portal were great.

 

MAP27: HELIOPOLIS
Visually stunning, and on top of that it has Ancient Aliens soundtrack? Sign me up. Fights were very fun and I found interesting the idea of having many weapons/healthpacks/armors behind switches.

 

MAP28: JUDGEMENT
Another of those short and sweet maps. I felt like there was too many healing items, but since the arena fills up quickly it's not as much of an issue because backtracking is tougher.

 

MAP29: ELYSIUM
Huge map, love the architecture and the jump pads. The fight with all the white cacodemons in the hole was amazingly tough, made me question myself if I had missed a BFG pickup. [This was written mid level playthrough] The teleporting rings to the FIRST LEVEL OF THE WAD, THIS TIME WITH RAIN! What an amazing callback, and a tough fight too, took me 3-4 tries to beat it. Also, the song felt that it was never looping, so I looked it up and it lasts 45 minutes? What an absolute madlad.

 

MAP30: ETERNITY
At the beginning I "beat" the level. Then I realized it was running on the wrong compatibility setting, so I had to restart it. The boss is really cool and I was actually expecting him to move in my first play of the map. However the second phase of the boss made me really frustrated. Just the combination of insane speed plus the oneshot potential seemed too much. Especially when I ran out of cells and shooting rockets was very risky, because it could dash against me at any point.

 

MAP31: IMPERATOR
A couple of fights caught my attention, the one with a ton of hitscanners and the plasma gun pickup fight.

 

MAP32: ANAGNORISIS
This map felt a bit long towards the end, but that's mainly because I skipped the blue keycard by mistake, making it super difficult to travese the level. My highlight was the bunker fight with tons of archviles and the one on the hexagonal rooms.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
Eviternity was insanely fun and a treat to play through. The new enemies added a lot to the gameplay, even in the later levels the white cacodemons were still very imposing. Beautiful landscapes all around the WAD. I think the "heaven" themed maps were the best ones visually speaking, insane work from everyone involved.

 

BACK TO SATURN X EP1:

Spoiler

MAP01: BACK TO SATURN X: RADIO REPORT
Pretty good for a first level, great visuals, and a couple of fights that one wouldn't expect for the first level of a megawad. I also really like the "end of level" screen's music.

 

MAP02: POSTAL BLOWFISH
I'm already missing the reduced HP lost souls had on Eviternity. The final caco fight caught me off guard and I ended up doing a face rocket, causing me to redo the level.

 

MAP03: THE ROOM TAKING PLACE
First BFG of the WAD, but a bit dissapointing for what it could be used for. Other than that, pretty good level, giving good use to the SuperShotgun.

 

MAP04: A GOOD FLYING BIRD
First archvile of the WAD. The fight on the elevator was pretty tough, aside from that, I also liked the giant patio fight.

 

MAP05: TOTAL EXPOSURE
I wonder if the name of the map is a reference to the cyberdemon fight? That one was pretty hard and took me multiple attempts.

 

MAP06: MIX UP THE SATELLITE
I was SO close of beating this map in a single segment, but sadly the last fight was too much for me, but I managed to beat it on my third try. The fight on the "cemetery" also seemed pretty hard and I think I managed to luck out of that one.

 

MAP07: METAL MOTHERS
Remember when I wrote that I hadn't seen a spider mastermind in a long time? Well this map certainly covered for the lack of SM in the past WADs.

 

MAP08: GET OUT OF MY STATIONS I
While this map has no monsters, it does a very good job with the ambience, it's actually quite relaxing.
 

MAP09: SOME DRILLING IMPLIED
Beat it in a single segment again! Pretty fun map where I had tons of close calls, SSG and rocket launcher were pretty deep into the level, sadly im not a big fan of having to kill medium sized enemies (Mancubus, revenants, hell knights) with the stock shotgun.

 

MAP10: A PROUD AND BOOMING INDUSTRY
After a couple of attempts at the beginning, the map seemed pretty easy. Sadly the final fight can be cheesed by killing the archviles without triggering the lost souls and the cacos. And finally a backpack, I was starting to miss those.

 

MAP11: THE COLOSSUS CRAWLS WEST
Another one that I beat in a single segment, this is making me think stopping the climb on the improvement list was a good idea, it feels that im starting to perform way better than before in WADs of this level of difficulty.

 

MAP12: UNDERGROUND INITIATIONS
Regarding my improved performance on maps of the difficulty... this map beat my ass. There were a couple of sections where I was having issues and took me multiple attempts, because I was running low on ammo while having 300 cells ready to use. I need to begin using the plasma more often.

 

MAP13: I'LL REPLACE YOU WITH MACHINES
I almost beat this level on a single segment, only dying in the last fight once because I couldn't figure out the soulsphere secret at the end.

 

MAP14: BIG CHIEF CHINESE RESTAURANT
Pretty good map, the fight before the drop to the yellow key area felt a bit ruthless, and obviously I got rammed by revenants just on the next fight after that one.

 

MAP15: TRICYCLIC LOOPER
I cant believe I managed to beat the level without finding a single secret out of 9, with a free computer map from the very beginning, it's actually very impressive. Aside from that, the level was a bit more chaotic than I would have liked. 

 

MAP17: NAVIGATING FLOOD REGIONS
Another level that was beaten in a single segment. This time I found the one secret and the two unnoficial ones. I'm also a sucker for when levels do this thing where they telport you to a previous part of the map but that has completely changed. The cyberdemon fight seems to be trivialized with the invulnerability secret, but the one where 2 hell knights teleport behind you is evil (loved it), and the toxic waste fight is the highlight of the level for me. Beating so many levels in a single segment is making me consider enabling coop monsters.

 

MAP18: CYCLONE UTILITIES (REMEMBER YOUR BIRTHDAY)
Some really cool fights over here, I think my highlight is the fight before the yellow key on the two water containers and the three archviles fight at the end.

 

MAP19: BINGO POOL HALL OF BLOOD
This level man. At the beginning it seemed impossible, so I took a look at the routing that is usually taken and it makes an incredible difference. Even with all the invulnerability spheres, the fight with the 5 archviles after you grab the red key is pretty hard. This map also made me completely hate pain elementals, god I miss eviternity's lost souls.

 

MAP20: U.S. MUSTARD COMPANY
So many hitscanners gave me a TNT/Plutonia vibe. I'm not sure why, but this level didnt feel as engaging as the previous ones?

 

MAP21: FAILED EXPERIMENTS AND TRASHED AIRCRAFT
I say it a lot, but short and sweet, however the difficulty level seemed a bit too tame compared to previous maps, beat it on a single segment without ever dropping low on health.

 

MAP22: GONNA NEVER HAVE TO DIE
Again, the level seems to start with me having to deal with a couple of mid tier enemies with the stock shotgun before the SSG is given to you, the difference in challenge is very little, so it just becomes a bit tedius. I really enjoyed the final fight, Maybe it's just me but I've been missing big fights. The maps so far are pretty fun but there haven't been many situations where I've thought "oh shit".

 

MAP24: TOUGH SKIN RIVER
I just said that I was missing the big fights and lo and behold, here is one, finally! The last fight with the mancubus and archviles also took me a couple of attempts. The ship sinking at the end caught me off guard.

 

MAP25: THE UNSINKABLE FATS DOMINO
While this level doesn't have any gameplay to it, its another really cool setpiece, seeing my character sink along with the music was oddly relaxing too.

 

MAP31: OPTICAL HOPSCOTCH
Pretty good level, the last 3 cyberdemons were a fun challenge.

 

MAP32: HARD WAY
Honestly this felt a bit more up my alley, really solid level, especially enjoyed the BFG fight and the one with two cyberdemons and multiple barons of hell.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
Back to Saturn X EP 1 is a really solid WAD, however, through my playthrough I felt like it was pulling its punches. I'm partly to blame because I decided to play without coop monsters enabled, because I wanted to try out the "original" intended experience and because when I started running the game with -solonet I would be unable to pause the game, which is something I do from time to time to collect my thoughts and write my notes sometimes.

I also felt that there was a lack of BFG, which is probably the reason why there weren't that many big fights. Probably a conscious design decision, as the readme mentions how the maps have been designed to make non-pistol starts more of a challenge than usual. It's also possible that I missed some secret BFGs, but honestly if thats the case I'm not a fan of those. I hate feeling stuck on a fight, only to check the wiki and realize I missed a secret BFG. Sometimes they are in plain sight but the way of getting to them is the tricky part and I think that's okay, and BTSX does this at least once or twice.

When all its said and done, BTSX E1 is a really solid WAD with nice visuals, fun gameplay and an absolutely stunning soundtrack ("Liquid Luck" from James Paddock has been stuck in my head for days). Although, towards the end the WAD begins to feel a bit repetitive. It's also helped me realize that I have a preference for fights with a large number of enemies, as most of the difficulty seemed to come from fights with a small amount of demons.

RUSH (PART 2):

Spoiler

MAP01: REENTER
First of all: I cant believe I beat this level in a single segment. The initial fight seemed overwhelming at first glance but in reality is a piece of cake. The 3 secrets that I found also trivialized the map probably, as getting 2 soulspheres and a megaarmor just seems too much.

 

MAP02: DEATHBOX
Man, the first fight of the level is actually pretty easy, but the second one is actually quite a challenge, I felt like I needed to have full plasma ammo and full health and armor by saving up a previous megasphere.

MAP03: VILE CHURCH
I couldnt find how to get to the two no matter how much I tried. The last room seemed a bit evil, especially considering the caco ambush where you have to shoot a switch to get out.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
3 solid levels that made me realize I was missing a bit of slaughter in BTSX, thanks to Archie for retaking the project at least for a little while, I really enjoyed the change of pace.

 

VALIANT:

Spoiler

I was finding the levels so fun that I didn't mind restarting them, so I've beaten the entire WAD without using saves, except for MAP31, I thought it would take me too many tries to do it.

 

MAP01: BAD RECEPTION
The new imps are pretty tough with their fast fireballs and chaingunners don't drop their weapons on death, seems weird but I guess that they dont want to give out free chainguns for better weapon placement.
 

MAP02: NO RUSH
Another pretty easy map, but what the hell is that chaingun? No wonder the chaingunners dont drop it.

MAP03: TIERS OF PAIN
It somehow reminded me of a racing circuit or something like that, this shows that you dont need a complex or big map to make a fun level.

MAP04: MOONLIT STROLL
Pretty good level, the archvile hidden between the trees got me good though. 

MAP05: AGGROVATOR
Man I'm loving this short but challenging levels, it feels like they are touching the sweet spot where I dont mind completely restarting it on death.

MAP06: ENGINEERING DISASTER
A broken dam flooding an entire city, such a cool concept and greatly executed. This one took me some tries, so many cool fights on this one, the one in the roof with the rocket launcher, the spider mastermind, the one in the area of the BFG with all the revenants and the swarm of flying arachnotrons. All of those fights were great and really memorable.

 

MAP07: THE MANCUBIAN CANDIDATE
The sign literally said to not kill the mancubus twice, so... why did I do it? Such a cool level, and a great use of the MAP07 mechanic. I've never hated infighting so much haha. I dislike the cyberdemon fight at the end because it breaks the gimmick of the level, but the level was amazing and really memorable.

 

MAP08: BUSHWHACKED
Honestly another incredible level, killing the player at the end of the previous one was such a good idea, as an early rocket launcher would mean all the mancubus at the beginning would pose no threat. I had "the chasm" flashbacks at the chaingunner section, but thankfully it was possible to do slowly as long as you kept constantly moving. Also, fun fact: It's the first time I notice that the flying arachnotrons get spawned after you kill an arachnotron, I can't believe I missed that before.

 

MAP09: 14 ANGRIER ARCHVILES
I knew the name had to be a reference to something, apparently a level for Vanguard. I have absolutely 0 idea of what it is, but really, I dont mind trying to single segment levels in this WAD at all, and my god, the lowering pillars fight with the 2 archviles is such a good set piece, forcing you to constantly be changing covers.

 

MAP10: CANDLECOVE
This one took me more tries to beat, but really fun level. Ammo was a bit tight at one moments, and the final cyberdemon fight I was super tense, but managed to pull through.

 

MAP11: YESTERDAY'S INSANITY
I couldn't figure out so many secrets, how to pick up the BFG being one of them. The fire knights were put on really annoying positions, but that means they were properly placed. I think the final fight could have been a bit more nasty, as I was heavily underprepared and still managed to beat it, maybe a slower elevator?

 

MAP12: BANE CAPITOL
The start is quite surprising, one of this maps where at the beginning you are thrown into complete chaos. The moment I managed to survive the initial slauther I could beat the level with relative easy, except for that one moment in the blue key room where 2 archviles ambush you. I also have to admit I probably got lucky with the chaingunner infighting on the final fight.

 

MAP13: THE NETWEAVER
I really like how the addition of this new chaingun, usually accompannied with two ammo boxes acts like a third heavy weapon, so maps like this can have two split paths, one with SSG and the other with the rocklet launcher. The music really made me feel like I was pushing through an enemy fortress. Avoiding all the mancubus and arachnotrons at the start while you scavenge the weapons sets up a nice payoff once you clean the area. Secret BFG is useful for the final fight, but not needed.

 

MAP14: IMPLOSION
Barrels o' fun done right. Really cool level where you aren't given the heavy weapons until after you have pretty much shot every barrel in the area, but killing the heavy enemies wasnt a problem because they would only need a few shots of the shotgun after the explosions, so it didnt feel tedious. The new kamikaze enemies scared me because I was caught offguard and I got killed by the archvile. Second try was the charm. 

 

MAP15: SCREAMS AREN'T A CRIME... YET
Hot start, the rest of the level seemed pretty fair, most memorable fight is obviously going to be the massive zombieman ambush. Really good level with an amazing track that got instantly added to my playlist. 

 

MAP16: TOXIC TRAVERSE
Back from the secret levels, it feels good to be back. This level is another showcase of how thanks to the new chaingun the SSG can be delayed without impacting enemy strength. The kamikaze enemy behind the exit gate is evil, and my most memorable fight here has to be the dual archvile one, followed by the yellow key ambush with all the fire knights.

 

MAP17: PRECIPICE
More "The chasm" flashbacks... Two really cool set pieces on this level: the rising platforms one in the toxic waste with the fire knigths and the secret massive kamikaze fight on the teleport

 

MAP18: CRUSH DEPTH
The beginning is chaotic and finding one of the switches to kill the revenants took me longer than it should have. The moment I saw I had 200 monster kills in the first few minutes of the map I thought "uh oh". Some really cool fights here, the blue key and yellow key fights were memorable, and of course the final fight with all the archviles is just very fitting for this level.

 

MAP19: THE POPES OF ROAM
A level with this name not having any archviles is a bit surprising. I have to say this is probably the first level in the WAD that didn't fully convince me.

 

MAP20: SWEPT INTO INMOLATION
I enjoyed the lava theme of this map. Obviously the big highlight is that final fight on the lava, which is really good. I like how the kamikazes fullfill a role of a stronger pinky, their attack pattern is very similar but you cant just shoot them whenever you want, their damages are crazy. Other minor highlights have to be the fight where all the enemies teleport to your exit routes the moment the wall finishes lowering, and the obvious trap in the yellow key switch.

 

MAP21: SKINDUSTRIAL ZONE
Aside from the crazy start, the level seemed to tone down a bit, until I got to the secret plasma gun. At the time I thought the plasma gun trap was too punishing, but it turns out that the next enemy is just a spider mastermind, making it perfectly fair considering how the plasma gun trivializes the fight. But man, the archvile corridor... I cant believe I actually managed to survive that one in my first attempt. I got pretty lucky, as I blew up some barrels that killed most of the archviles, it seems like the proper way of beating the fight is by slowly retreating without blowing up the barrels. Really tense level with a nice final ambush once you grab the red key.

 

MAP22: SPIRALING INTO THE NETHER
When a level begins giving you all weapons, im usually expecting a big fight. This was not the case (except if you go into the giant lava pit first, I guess). The cacodemon and flying arachnotron ambushes were tougher than I expected. Visually the level is very different from anything this WAD has shown before.

 

MAP23: GENOCIDE MOTOR
Probably the level that has taken me the most tries yet... about 5 or so, after almost beating it on my blind run. I am not a big fan of this kind of "floating in lava" maps, as I feel that there can be many secrets that can be hard to find. In this case it took me a long time to find the backpack, for example. The fight where you telefrag two cyberdemons was very tricky.

 

MAP24: NONE MORE MERCILESS
The cyberknight appears again, although this time it doesnt look like he has the machinegun, which I prefer. The toughest part of this level is whithout a doubt the start, the rest of the fights are pretty easy, except for the first cyberknight encounter where it can blast you and oneshot inmediately. The church fight with the archviles was where my blind run of the level ended, I thought it would be a hard fight but it turns out it was easy to beat it by just leaving the church as soon as you can. I liked the level but it can get a bit long towards the end.

 

MAP25: THE EAGLE HAS LANDED
Okay, I've been thinking the past few weeks about how someone could do a challenging but fun level start, when you only have a shotgun and a pistol, just to play this level and get a masterclass on the topic. Really fun level with creative use of barrels. And on the visual side, I really dig the moon texturing and skybox.

 

MAP26: BLAST WAVE
First of all: The music of this level is absolutely amazing. Very tense beginning and good usage of kamikazes all through the level. Cyberknights take less damage than I expected to kill, as you can take them quite easily with the stock shotgun or the machinegun.

 

MAP27: ROCKET ZONE II
ITS THE FINAL COUNTDOWN! Without a doubt, my favorite map of the WAD, just because of this one fight. It has to be the first thing that I mention, what an amazing secret. The difficulty seems to keep spiking, but this is almost the end of the WAD. But of course, even if the had a couple of hard fights, it deserved a bit of grinding, so I did single segment attempts and beat it finally on my 6th try or so, I think part of the reason is because of the lack of archviles on the final countdown.

 

MAP28: A LIGHTBRIDGE TOO FAR
Ok this was a very intense level, not only because some of the fights, but because during my first playthrough my health dropped very low multiple times through the level and I had to scavenge for health. Especially during the multiple cyberbruisers fight along with the tankubus. The ending fight on the bridge had me really scared at one point when I fell into the water.

 

MAP29: RED SHIFT
Hot start, this map is messy. From the very beginning slowly picking up weapons and surviving tough fights. The hardest fight seems to be the super shotgun one.

 

MAP30: ELECTRIC NIGHTMARE
Another custom boss, this time a super archvile. Not much to say except that I found very infuriating how if he would zap you once he would zap you up to 4 times in a chain, instantly killing you.

 

MAP31: CYBERWAR 7744
Along with Doomguy, my hopes of beating Valiant without saves died here too. There is A LOT of health and armor around the two big fights, to the point where I believe that if I grinded it I would probably manage to pull it off. However, in reality I know that I would get a bit lost while trying to grab the invulnerability spheres. The visuals are very unique, and while at the beginning they didn't feel right, towards the end I was actually appreciating them a bit more. 

 

MAP32: GHOSTS OF THE OLD KINGDOM
I reduced my gamma to correction level 1 just to enjoy this level more. After I saw the spectre revenants, I KNEW the spectre archviles were coming next. Thankfully they had a very big pain state chance and reduced health, otherwise the fight would have been insanely hard. 

 

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Spoiler

Valiant is my favorite WAD so far. Skillsaw is just an insane map maker. I feel like there is so much I want to say but I dont know how to begin, so lets start with the changes it does to classic DOOM. I have to say that while I was going through the skill improvement WADs I wanted to keep them as vanilla as possible, but Eviternity opened my mind and changed my opinion, and to follow it up with Valiant just solidifies it even more. I think the best types of modifications are those that don't deviate too much from the classic doom formula. 
 

One thing I realized in BTSX EP1 was how heavy enemies aren't fun without heavy weapons, and not many levels give the player a plasma gun early on, which means that usually you either get the SSG or the Rocket launcher. But then there is Valiant, that introduces the super chaingun, which is another heavy weapon that uses bullets. This is something similar to what happened in Doom2, the introduction of the SSG allowed the creation of more heavy enemies and we can see something similar in VALIANT, this new weapon is followed by new monsters, and since it uses bullets it doesn't compete with the other weapons, allowing it to have its own place.

 

Speaking of enemies, I like every single enemy and modification added by this WAD. The super imps and super pinkies are amazing, they are just more dangerous than their regular counterparts and dont deviate too much from their original selves. Arachnorbs are really fun, although apparently they aren't widely liked from what I've read in some youtube comments. They don't have a lot of health while having a great damage output which lets you use them as an early level cacodemon replacement, plus I think that them spawning sometimes from arachnotrons is a very cool detail.

The cyberbruisers are relatively squishy, dying with 6 shots of the stock shotgun and I heavily prefer this ones over their Eviternity counterpart that has a hitscan attack after rockets. The kamikazes fill the role of a more dangerous pinky and their damage output is insane and he super mancubus (I just call them tankubus) is probably the weakest addition of the bunch if you ask me.

But of course that I'm saving the best for last because I just love the pyro knight, its threatening, has a high damage output, not much health and prone to infighting. Just thinking about some of Valiant's most memorable fights and mentally replacing the pyro knights with normal hell knights already makes them seem less fun in my head. The balance all of this new enemies along with the super chaingun seems perfect too, which is even more incredible.
 

Then we get to the levels... pretty much every single one of them is amazing. I think Act 4 is the weakest, except for MAP20-SWEPT INTO INMOLATION, I found most of its levels less fun than the average Valiant map. If I had to pick some of the coolest ones or the ones they struck to me they would be: MAP06-ENGINEERING DISASTER, MAP07-THE MANCUBIAN CANDIDATE, MAP14-IMPLOSION, MAP15-SCREAMS AREN'T A CRIME... YET, MAP18-CRUSH DEPTH. Honorable mentions would go for:

 

• MAP25-THE EAGLE HAS LANDED, I was really convinced that you couldn't make encounters vs heavy enemies fun with only a stock shotgun and proved me wrong.
• MAP31-CYBERWAR 7734 has distinctive visuals and the highest killcount of the WAD, making it hard to forget.
• MAP32-GHOSTS OF THE OLD KINGDOM has a really interesting concept that I will remember for a while.
• MAP28-ROCKET ZONE II of course. This level is in my opinion the best map in the entire WAD (and my all time personal favorite so far).

 

To think that Skillsaw did Valiant just to follow it up the next year with Ancient Aliens just blows my mind, I'm definitely going to keep an eye out for his next creation. He's also made me pay more attention to map makers, so I think I'm going to be keeping an eye out for who creates the maps in each WAD from now on.

Honestly, re-reading my notes makes me think that maybe I should try to write a bit more about the level itself. Part of the reason why I dont do it is mostly because I want to hop into the next level as soon as possible. To finish up, I will say that VALIANT is so far my favorite WAD in the gameplay department, with Ancient Aliens being the one with best visuals and music so far (both Skillsaw WADs, although music was done by Stewboy). I could honestly write even more about Valiant, so if you would like to read me rambling about something in particular just let me know.

 

 

 

ALIEN VENDETTA:

Spoiler

MAP01: SUNSET
I am not sure what it was, but something felt odd when playing this level. Maybe it's the really close spaces or the return to the default DOOM textures. Pretty simple first map.

 

MAP02: RUSTY RAGE
Plenty of shotgunners and chaingunners in this level, reminiding me of some early TNT maps. I dont enjoy the green sludge not dealing damage, it doesnt feel intuitive and I hope it doesn't become a pattern.

 

MAP03: CARGO DEPOT
This is a surprisingly detailed level: The city at the beginning, the packaging area with a crane and the ship makes it a very cohesive level. I didnt find the secret rocket launcher so killing the sniping revenants took a bit more time than it should have. The big amounts of hitscan is something that I really do not mind (and even enjoy to some degree).

 

MAP04: SECLUSION
Seclusion starts with you in the train tracks you take in the previous level to leave the map. However I think that it would have been a nice detail to begin also on the wagon you take. Seclusion features a lot of imps, and 5 barons of hell, which I have never been a fan of. The red key trap with the chaingunners is pretty nasty if you dont have a lot of armor and health.

 

MAP05: CRIMSOM TIDE
This seems to take place on a temple of some sort in the middle of a lake of hot lava. This map has way less enemies than the third and fourth ones, and it seemed way easier. I wonder if thats becasue it was done by a different map maker compared to those two. It's good to see more heavy enemies in the levels, especially revenants.

 

MAP06: HILLSIDE SIEGE
There seemed to be very little positions where I could consider myself safe, the sniping mancubus and the great placement of the windows made me stay on my toes, its funny how much of a difference can be made just by putting a fence connecting two different rooms. The "stairs" to get the red key seemed very non-obvious, but thankfully the secret soulsphere explains to you how to get to the key.

 

MAP07: SHOWDOWN
Not much to say about this one, clearly inspired by dead simple, with a more dangerous initial arena.

 

MAP08: BEAST ISLAND
Continuing from the ruins of MAP07, this level has quite a hot start with multiple pinkies and a well hidden SSG and shotgun that took me a while to find. Once you figure that out the rest of the level isn't especially hard, the traps in the caves are pretty easy, but the castle area has plenty of heavy enemies and hitscanners to drop your health very low. The soulsphere secret that also lets you hide from the archvile was something nice.

 

MAP09: CASTLE GARDENS
A castle surrounded by a sea with a ship, with a dungeon and everything. It "narrates" a cool story but it difficulty match it doesnt seem to match in the difficulty curve after the previous map.

 

MAP10: TOXIC TOUCH
This time it's a sewer level. The vast amounts of hitscanners and low tier demons, together with the little armor and few stimpacks scattered around the map reminds me a lot of TNT, where its not a explosive fight that gets you, but your health slowly gets drained through the level.

 

MAP11: NEMESIS
This is the type of levels that I have found in older WADs. Its long, feels dragged out, almost claustrophobic in some places, is easy to get lost in, and it even sprinkles a couple of unfair moments to top it off. So far the weakest map of the WAD.

 

MAP12: ENTROPY
Honestly, really cool level, I enjoyed the tech. base visuals after the white marble chaos that was the previous map. If I could change something I would not make the rocket launcher a secret, as I missed it and seemed to constantly run low on ammo. The second thing that I would change would be removing the barons of hell and replacing them with multiple revenants or hellknights. Im just not a fan of them, they feel like uninteresting bullet sponges.

 

MAP13: S.T
I really like the idea of the blue key secret, it even changes the pathing you can take in the map, which seemed very cool. The red key area seemed absolutely insane and a sneak peek of what Alien Vendetta might eventually end up being.

 

MAP14: OVERWHELMING ODDS
Oh boy. This map would be really fun if I wasnt feeling like I was always low on ammo, low on health and low on armor, on top of some traps feeling really cheap. It felt very infuriating to play through even when using saves. However, I do have to admit the name is fitting.

 

MAP15: BULLS ON PARADE
After the last level this one felt like a breath of fresh air. Im a bit dissapointed by the huge area with only 10 or 20 revenants, seems like a bit of a waste in space.

 

MAP31: KILLER COLORS
The idea of three zones with different enemies and different weapons is pretty good, although the blue zone was really tiring for my eyes. I'm not a huge fan of some of the fights, like the last one with an invuln, but other than that I think the concept is pretty well executed.

 

MAP32: N.G.N.G
The beginning seems completeley overwhelming, I quite liked it, although I would have preferred some extra ammo on the initial room. Second arena didnt seem as interesting to me sadly.

 

MAP16: MUTUAL DESTRUCTION
I think the highlight fight for me was the multi revenant trap on the blue room, followed by the multi cyberdemon fight.

 

MAP17: NUKEFALL
This level felt a bit too much. Especially the cyberdemon trapped at the beginning, maybe its just me but getting rid of him seemed completely random. The revenant hallways weren't particularly interesting either.

 

MAP18: LAKE POISON
I feel a bit divided, the first half of the map seemed really fun, but in the end you get thrown into a gigantic room with multiple spiderdemons that felt a bit out of place?

 

MAP19: ALIEN RESURRECTION
Pretty solid level overall. Some fights could have been done a little better, like the yellow key one with a rising wall, that results in all the demons killing eachother without them even being able to hit you. This music track is possibly the best one so far in the WAD.

 

MAP20: MISRI HALEK
On the one hand, I really enjoyed this map. The small corridors of the pyramid with all the secret passages was a really cool experience. The lava mountain part was a good choice that kept the map less monotone. However I find the overabundance of barons of hell very tedious. I wish some of them had been replaced by some mancubus or even pain elementals, just for some variety. The concept of a pyramid built on a volcano was perfectly done.

 

MAP21: O.F.O.T.C.N
Low on health, low on ammo and a berserk. Ruthless map that I would have enjoyed a bit more if there had been bigger spaces OR a little bit more ammo.

 

MAP22: RUBICON
It seems like maps are starting to become more difficult not because of the fights, but because of the lack of resources.

 

MAP23: BLOOD SACRIFICE
So many cyberdemons in a single level, something I wasnt really expecting from this WAD. I loved the music all through this level, but now that I've started to love the rocket launcher more and more, I wish the level didn't revolve around the supershotgun so much.

 

MAP24: CLANDESTINE COMPLEX
I have a couple of critiques for this map: The first one is that I dont understand the purpose of the room that has the lights turn off, since there are no enemies on it by the time they turn off, it just becomes a nuisance to navigate. The second thing is that I wasn't sure where I had to go. Aside from that, I enjoyed this level and its music.

 

MAP25: DEMONIC HORDES
Fitting name for sure, 1325 monsters in the level, thats quite a big jump from the previous max enemy count of this WAD. It took me 1h 10m to beat it (with saves). The size of the map is astounding. While not all the rooms were "hits" most of them were pretty good actually. I really liked the cacodemon and sniper revenant castle, along with the horde of revenatnts towards the end. One of my favorite moments was returning with the yellow key just to have a ton of shotgunners teleport, suddenly I remembered the big shotgunner library and managed to get the archvile who was reviving them. And man, archvile respawns are pretty well used on this map. I skipped the final lava room because it clearly was never meant to be cleared. Fun level all around and I really enjoyed playing through most of it.

 

MAP26: DARK DOME
This leaves me conflicted. Why did I enjoy the previous match so much, when this one felt slow and very dragged out? What is the difference? They were done by the same author too. After some thinking, I believe it might be how the level is completely filled from the beginning.

 

MAP27: STENCH OF EVIL
Another level that feels like it overestays its welcome. Honestly finishing this playthrough is costing me more than any other WAD just because it feels like this laters levels are overestaying their welcome, I'm hoping for this to be turned around.

 

MAP28: WHISPERING SHADOWS
Well... another one of those levels. I really dont like the idea of a lengthy map combined with very little health, armor and ammo.

 

MAP29: FIRE WALK WITH ME
This one was a hit. The BFG fight and both chaingunner ambushes were fun to take. I also really appreciated the abundance of ammo.

 

MAP30: POINT DREADFUL
And another Icon of Sin map. The first elevator seemed almost impossible to reach, not much else to say.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Spoiler

Alien Vendetta leaves me conflicted, and makes me constantly doubt my thoughts on DOOM mapping. Alien Vendetta seems to be widely loved in this site, and I was really excited to get into it.

 

Some maps were really fun to play through, however, finishing other maps felt like a drag. During my playthrough, some levels just felt so frustrating that I had to take some pauses, either playing through another WAD or not playing DOOM at all, and this is shown on the almost 3 months that took me to finish it.

 

And at this point is that I'm confused. I've heard so many good things about this WAD. Did I fail to see them? Maybe I didn't appreciate some things enough? Maybe I'm not good enough? Maybe I wasted too much ammo? Maybe I was taking too much chip damage? Maybe this fight is totally fair and I'm just underprepared? Maybe people look at AV in a different way because of nostalgia? Maybe I've been spoiled by some modern WADs? Or am I the one who has a prejucide against older ones?

 

It's a weird sensation where I feel that I'm not playing the maps right. And it's a shame, because there were many levels where I was having a ton of fun, where I thought the level was good, only for the level to last for another 10 minutes that would end up in pain. One example of this would be MAP25, I believe it overstays its welcome after the huge fight with archviles resurrecting everything.

 

Overall I would say that AV has high peaks and low lows, levels like MAP20: MISRI HALEK maybe weren't stellar on the gameplay side, but it's been probably two months since I played it and I can still remember the pyramid built on a volcano, because the concept was flawlessly executed.

I really enjoyed the Alien Vendetta MIDI pack though. Some of my highlights are highlights: MAP32, MAP16, MAP17, MAP19, MAP23 and the amazing track of MAP24.
 

I'm really interested on hearing some of your thoughts about Alien Vendetta, maybe this is a megawad that I have to eventually revisit.

 

 

HELL REVEALED:

Spoiler

Part of the reason I haven't posted in so long is because I've had multiple playthroughs dropped. I've been playing Struggle, but left it halfway through, as some levels weren't exactly my cup of tea, I will probably continue it playing at a different time.

 

MAP01: INTO THE GATE
I really liked the credits. I can't wait to see what's coming. It felt a bit weird to have the normal shotgun again after my struggle playthrough.

 

MAP02: GATEWAY LAB
Man, I was really missing the stock shotgun. This seems like a classic early level, hitscans, imps and some pinkies. I found the blue key lab interesting, although the ambush after grabbing the blue key could have been done a bit better. I think it's interesting how the switches weren't obvious on what they were activating but I still knew where to go.

 

MAP03: THE DUMPSTER
Another short level. I think that "abstract" is a fitting definition. I get the dumpster theme, but I could not see what some rooms were trying to represent. 

 

MAP04: THE GARDEN TERMINAL
Another short level. A recurring thing seems to be small 4-5 roon maps where you have to constantly move from one to the other, like a pimitive attempt for non-linear map design. Nevertheless, it was a pretty simple map with a BFG put there to... taunt the player?

 

MAP05: CORE INFECTION
This level surprised me. Multiple Barons of hell and even mancubus before I get anything other than the chaingun or the stock shotgun? I was thinking "What is this madness?!". This level helped me rediscover the strenght of the stock shotgun, and I appreciate it for it.

 

MAP06: THE ROUND CROSSROADS
This level somehow gives me some TNT vibes, but I'm not sure why. It feels good to use again the stock rocket launcher, I was missing it a bit after my time in Struggle.

 

MAP07: ARACHNOPHOBIA
Well, circle strafing made this map easy, but the map having a shape reminds me of E3M2 having a hand shape.

 

MAP08: THE JAIL
Another hitscan heavy level, with not much healing until the last room. I've always been a fan of hitscans as an alternative to ammo.

 

MAP09: KNOCKOUT
I would say that the only part of the map I disliked was the imp pit on the yellow key. The fight doesn't seem possible with infighting, even with the invulnerability it still seems RNG. The only consistent way I found of beating it was killing everything after the yellow key with punches and saving up all the ammo for that fight.

 

MAP10: CHAMBERS OF WAR
Pretty simple level, with a lot of ammunition. I think the megasphere wasn't needed in the level and I kinda appreciate the labrynth not having tall walls, just so it was easier to navigate.

 

MAP11: UNDERGROUND BASE
This level suffers from one or two dragged out fights that take away from the rest of the level. Killing two cyberdemons with the rocket launcher is not fun, but after that you get a massive room (with another cyberdemon) that just forces you to make them infight, but with the barons, hell knights and the revenants on ledges it takes away all the excitement from that room. The two spider masterminds werent used to great effect either, but it wasn't as tedious. The last fight with the caged hell knights and barons was an interesting concept.

 

MAP12: GREAT HALLS OF FIRE
The hitscanner maze at the beginning gives me IWAD vibes for some reason. I think the baron of hell elevator room was interesting, but maybe switching them for 2 hell knights would have been a bit more interactive by threatening to flood the room.

 

MAP13: LAST LOOK AT EDEN
What a difference between this level and the previous ones, difficulty wise. Getting out of the initial room is a bit tedious. Other than that, I think the main garden is a really fun fight: Tons of mancubus, a spider mastermind for infighting and some revenants and barons. Pretty good stuff. The blue key ambush seemed a bit mean but quickly getting rid of the chaingunners makes it way easier. I have to mention "Going down the fast way" as music for the level, it's probably one of my favorite tracks I've discovered in my journey through DOOM.

 

MAP14: CITY IN THE CLOUDS
And another huge difficulty spike. No weapons from the beginning, and not only they are guarded but also boobytrapped. I will have to admit that the pacing of this level didn't feel fun to me. I can understand a slower beginning, but having a level that is slow paced all of the time is not my thing. However I have to admit two things: The first, is that the idea of this level coming from a dream seems really interesting, and I know for a fact that I would have done the same and built the level. The second thing, is that the map is memorable, and probably one of the HR maps I'll remember.

 

MAP15: GATES TO HELL
Finding the secret exit required me to look it up online. The level itself was a bit confusing at the beginning but it felt fun to play and definitely memorable. I decided to replay it and I can say that the only thing that I found a bit frustrating was the amount of time I had to waste shooting the barons and hell knights on the ledges, and the initial fight where I had to kill the first archvile being a bit less consistent than I would like.

 

MAP31: THE DESCENT
At the beginning I didnt know that the elevator had to be attacked and I didn't understand the long way down for no reason. The level felt impossible until I discovered the ammo secrets. After I discovered those two things, the level became way easier. 4 cyberdemons in the corners invite you to kill them with the SSG, each of them guarding 60 shells and a supercharge. The platforming to reach the secret exit felt a bit harder than I expected, probably because I'm a bit rusty.

 

MAP32: MOSTLY HARMFUL
Pretty straightforward map with 4 identical rooms, although it wasn't clear at all the fact that you have to die in the middle platform in order to end the level.

 

MAP16: THE PATH
This is what TNT's map 25, baron's den, should have been. It doesn't mean that it's a good level, but at least it actually has barons. I've said multiple times that barons as a non-threatening enemy just for the sake of placing a stronger hell knight is something I dont like, and this map didnt make me change my opinion of that. The mancubus corridor forces some infighting with them, justifying some of the baron placements. The spider mastermind ambush caught me a bit by surprise too, and if you fall in the final teleporter room, well, you are dead! Probably one of the weakest levels so far, but extra points for not making radsuits a rare resource, that would have made this level horrible to play through.

 

MAP17: THE BLACK TOWERS
Honestly, what's the deal with so many barons! The level was fun if I ignore the first 5 minutes that I'm forced to spend throwing 5 rockets to the barons. Sure, I can just use them to infight the cyberdemons, but that means clearing the rooms from the outside is way harder. Other than that, the level was quite good and I enjoyed  most sections, except for the 3 cheesable archviles on the exit and the arachnotron specter pit with the stairs, forcing you to take a very slow approach to clearing out the room.

 

MAP18: HARD ATTACK
It's a shame that I couldn't cheese the cyberdemon by getting inside of his hitbox and punching him because of the spawned enemies. Other than that, the level is pretty nice, althought the secret plasma gun is kind of needed if you want to pistol start it. Other than that, the big square area was fun, until the cyberdemon died and infighting was basically not possible anymore, resulting on 50 revenants/barons on the top balcony without a non-tedious way of killing them, so I just skipped those kills. I think the exit teleport that puts you back into the big room is a fun idea, and it caught me by surprise.

 

MAP19: EVERYTHING DIES
The music gave me PTSD of map30 of Scythe: fire and ice. Its a cool, short level where there is no ammo or health aside from the one you get at the start. I also think the level had the right amount of length for something like this, maybe one more room could have been added, but it wasn't something that had to be done for it to be a good level.

 

MAP20: JUDGEMENT DAY
Honestly, probably one of the weakest levels on the WAD, if not the weakest. There was too much "room clearing" needed at some times.

 

MAP21: SIEGE
I liked the doomcute at the beginning of the level, the idea of having everything laid out from the beginning, but the cyberdemons and mastermind at the end didnt seem like a fun fight.

 

MAP22: RESISTANCE IS FUTILE
This map reminds me of No Guts No Glory from  Alien Vendetta. Maybe its the bridge in the middle of the level with the cyberdemon that can be telefragged, or the the positioning of the archviles.

 

MAP23: ASCENDING TO THE STARS
Pretty weak level in my opinion. The beginning is just an impfest that doesn't seem to have much thought, and there are a few fights that seemed a bit of head scratchers, mainly the one with the cyberdemons and barons of hell and the one at the end with a thousand archviles or so (note: this number might be slightly exaggerated).

 

MAP24: POST MORTEM
This was a tough level. Really hot start with tons of sniping revenants and of course, plenty of cyberdemons and archviles. A memorable level, but not one I would find myself beating over and over for fun.

 

MAP25: DEAD PROGRESSIVE
This level was a breath of fresh air. Pretty small, quick level that had a couple of nasty traps and where restarting felt really fun.

 

MAP26: AFTERLIFE
This level definitelly challenged my skills. One of the hardests of the entire WAD, I have to commend the use of ghost monsters in this level, as its my first time facing them.

 

MAP27: CYBERPUNK
I appreciate the chill level after the bloodbath the previous one was. The labrynth section was a bit dissapointing. Thankfully I read about the secret BFG because killing the cybers would have been a pain otherwise.

 

MAP28: TOP HELL
This map gives me the feeling of an ID map. Its open, with some threatening cyberdemons, but nothing feels too much, maybe even a bit too little? However, the room with the cyberdemons and the baron of hell I just straight up ignored it, its just a small reference to tricks and traps.

 

MAP29: TEMPLE OF FEAR
The start with the swarm of pinkies chasing you was actually pretty fun. I think the highlight fight for this map was the room with the lights off, it seemed pretty challenging at first and I needed some time to find a consistent strategy. I wish the map had hinted somehow that a small door was going to open at the start of the map and that I had to backtrack. 

 

MAP30: HELL REVEALED
I've mentioned multiple times that I dont like icon of sin maps, and this is probably the worst one I've played yet. Not only there are a lot of meatshield enemies, not only the spawner summons 4 monsters each time, but there will be monsters blocking the rockets because of the autotarget.
 

Final thoughts:
Hell revealed was overall a pretty sadic experience. I understand that its an old WAD, but the amount of high HP enemies that didn't even pose a threat just halts the flow of the game to a crawl, this happens especially with barons of hell. I think that Hell Revealed just hasn't aged well. However, some levels actually were pretty good and fun to play through, despite me not liking the ecounters too much, I have to admit the creativity of map26. I don't think I will be replaying hell revealed any time soon except for maybe a couple of maps.
 

 

SPEED OF DOOM:

Spoiler

MAP01: FIRST BLOOD
Some hitscanners and shotguners and a couple of tomatoes and pinkies, pretty standard first level for a WAD.

 

MAP02: MYSTERIOUS COVE
I really really enjoyed playing this level. The elevator with the two buttons was something that instantly caught my attention, and the secrets done around the elevator were really fun to find. The ambience of the level is amazing, the music perfectly builds an ambience of uncertainty for the small ambushes you find throught the level. Exploring what it seems to be an abandoned UAC base inside of a cave was really fun.

 

MAP03: CONSTRAINED BASE
The start where you have to deal with imps by only using the pistol felt a bit forced, maybe putting a couple of zombiemen would have been better than just placing a case of bullets at the start. The trap with the 2 spectres and the shotgunner got me multiple times, but after that the level seemed pretty easy. The red key revenant almost got me, and man am I glad that I only saw hell knights instead of barons like Hell Revealed would have done.

 

MAP04: SEDGEMIRE
I have to admit that this map also has pretty good ambience. Probably my favorite sewer level to date, but I'm guessing that it's not a coincidence with the fact the ooze wasn't dealing damage. The super shotgun trap was fun, and the fight with the imps and the barrels was clever, although you kind of need to play the level before to guess what's going to happen, which would be my only complaint.

 

MAP05: CLIFFSIDE SIEGE
A level featuring a great number of hitscanners and good use of teleporting monsters. The surprise pain elemental, followed by the teleported archvile was quite fun too. So far I've liked every single level in speed of doom so far and I really hope this keeps up!

 

MAP06: DREAMSCAPE
Another fun map that similar to MAP02 it had music building up a great tension for those fights, really enjoyable level.

 

MAP07: SIMPLE PRISON-YARD
Living up to its name, this was a great fun to play through. The amount of shotgunners and chaingunners acting as guards and the pinkies acting as dogs (or something like that I am assuming) gave a lot of flavor to the map. It took me a couple of attempts to figure out a good strategy for the final fight against the mancubbi and the arachnotrons.

 

MAP08: FRENETIC
This level reminded me a lot of a Mouldy (AKA Cyriak) level. This kind of massive imp waves is something that happens a lot on his levels. There were a couple of tricky archvile spawns and the arachnotron towards the end almost caught me off guard, but there is plenty of healing around the level, and the secret armor helps more than enough.

 

MAP09: DEPREDATION
I think that 90% of my runs were over at the start, before I even managed to grab the super shotgun. Aside from that, the rest of the level was pretty simple, a swarm of zombiemen, some tomatoes, some pinkies and a couple of barons to end the level. I am grateful of how small this level was, considering how unforgiving the start was (at least it felt to me that way).

 

MAP10: VILE PAIN
I can't believe I beat this level on my first try completely blind. Almost until the end of the level ammo and health were really rare resources so I had to constantly be on my toes. The possibilities of meeting a pain elemental or an archvile in every corner made me hyper aware of my surroundings.

 

MAP11: TRANSCENSION
The archvile at the beginning is the tankiest archvile I've ever seen, I couldn't manage to three shot it for some reason. Other than that, the layout of this level feels like something that I could have come up with, but the enemies make great use of the layout to the point where it's motivating me to pick up the map editor and try to see what I come up with.

 

MAP12: THE MEAT GRINDER
Another level that I managed to beat blind on my first try. I really enjoyed how most of the fights show you ou what you are going to face, giving you time to think of a plan and then execute it. However, there were a couple of ambushes in-between those fights to keep things fresh. I found really cool the ending sequence where it would seem like the whole building was going down, although the final fight felt a bit underwhelming, maybe I was overprepared, but it seemed way too easy.

 

MAP13: LUCIFER'S TEARS
This felt like the first difficulty spike of the WAD, mostly because of the red key room where mobility is limited and some mancubbi are shooting at you was a bit tricky. Aside from that, giving you the SSG and then spawning a ton of shotgunners is a mean trap and I fell right into it the first time.

 

MAP14: SLEDGE
I am actually really proud of having beaten this level in my first try completely blind, there were a couple of lucky archvile pain states, and a few close calls with the revenant swarm towards the end, where I was already out of plasma, only with a few rockets left and because of a mistake I did with my movement, I was getting pushed back to the start of the map, where there was no ammo or health. Thankfully those were the last 50 revenants or so, and I still managed to pull it off. I find really funny how I used part of the invulnerability sphere to go check what were those health bonuses on the distance, just to return and realize latter that I missed a secret teleporter, that of course had the BFG. Honestly, the only complain that I have about this level is that the music's loop was really abrupt, which kind of killed the mood sometimes. 

 

MAP15: DESCENT TO CORE
Maybe its just me but ammo felt really scarce in this level, I barely had enough to kill the cyberdemon and the archvile at the exit. The level was nice, my only complaint is that I couldn't figure out you needed an archvile jump to get the red key for the secret exit.

 

MAP31: 1010011010 (with saves)
Also known as 666 in decimal. The first thing that caught my attention is how they managed to do a fun level only using 4 types of enemies and 3 weapons. I also found the commander keen hunt very fun, I think that my only grip with this level is that the first fight seems a little bit slow paced compared to the rest of the level, but the reason for that is probably because I felt the best way of doing it was with infighting. The second fight felt a bit RNG, but probably I just didnt find a consistent strategy. The last fight with the cyberdemons seemed scary but it was actually a bit too easy in my opinion. Although the texturing of the outside wasn't the best I enjoyed playing through 666.

 

MAP32: THE PYRAMID OF DEATRH
I'm a bit split about this level. I personally dislike how RNG heavy the first fight seems to be, but after the initial area gets cleared up, the rest of the fights seem very consistent to do. I really really enjoyed the fight at the third area. The archviles have great area denial, the hell knights are pushing forward trying to trap you and the revenants are sniping you. But you have to be quick, because a swarm of cacos and pain elementals will spawn soon and catch you from behind. I found that a very clever way of adding tension to the fight as opposed to just adding more enemies, and made coming up with a strategy very fun.

 

MAP16: THE CORE
Honestly, I think the level is a bit too easy, just running around the core made all enemies kill eachother with infighting. However I have to say that blowing up the core by throwing a rocket into it felt really satisfying. The theme was pretty on point, but I just wish it had been a bit more challenging.

 

MAP17: THE SHRINE
The start of this level seemed unusually tough? for some reason I couldnt properly deal with the revenants and mancubbi. Aside from that, the level is very manageable and enjoyable, thanks for all the radsuits too.

 

MAP18: SILENT HOUR
Another difficulty spike, this level has a couple of fights where you can easily die with the chance of things going south vs the archvile clumps. The level has plutonia vibes, probably because of the texturing, and made me consider playing it again.

 

MAP19: IMPURE SERENITY
Pretty simple level with a couple of tricky encounters at the beginning, mostly because of all the windows allowing for the sniping revenants to be annoying. The cyberdemon fight is pretty easy if you store some plasma cells.

 

MAP20: THE PATH TO HELL
With plenty of archviles and almost the same barons of hell than hell revealed, this was a really fun map. The last 2 fights seemed pretty easy, but the blue key trap seemed really tough.

 

MAP21: RESURRECTION
Probably my least favorite level so far in Speed of Doom. It feels like this is suppossed to be mainly a tyson level, but even then, it still felt a bit unfair to me? I have to say that its really surprising it took me so long to find one map I wasn't fully enjoying, and I say this as a way of praising SoD as a whole.

 

MAP22: DEAD ECHO
This level felt suprisingly easy, considering that we are nearing the end of SoD. I could have imagined a level of this difficulty around map15 or so. This doesn't mean the level is easy, considering the archvile traps and cyberdemon fights, but I almost beat it completely blind on my first attempt, while MAP17 or MAP18 gave me more issues. 

 

MAP23: POISON IVY II
The start seems a bit hard, getting the cyberdemon to not block the room with the plasma felt inconsitent. Other than that the level seems to be pretty tame (compared to the absolute massacre of the beginning), maybe except for the two archviles on the yellow key door.

 

MAP24: HELL'S HONEYCOMB
I have to admit that I really like the thematic they were going for with the honeycomb pattern rocks, it makes the level very memorable and enjoyable. The surprise archviles add some level of tension, but the environment is always fair allowing you to take cover easily. The swarm of imps on the blue key can catch you by surprise if you dont have enough rockets or the BFG, but there is enough ammo laying around. The final three cyberdemons covering the exit can be a bit of an issue if the one that spawns behind you catches you by surprise, but the supersphere and megaarmor just before are already letting you know something is going to happen. Really fun level.

 

MAP25: DEATH'S NOCTURNE
The first two rooms were the toughest ones for sure. The start seems a bit rng heavy and thankfully the second fight has a couple of columns you can stick to in order to safely clear the enemies after you get rid of the chaingunners, but even then, most of my attempts would die in the first few seconds. The rest of the level is really manageable, but I have to commend the pain elementals on the library, that encounter can get quite tricky if you dont clear them up really quickly. The only things I disliked about this map is the damaging blood floor and the final fight with the archviles that keep teleporting in circles constantly. 

 

MAP26: BLESSED HELLSCAPE
The first two swarm of enemies seemed really trivial encounters, you are able to get most revs out by just circlestrafing and making good use of infighting. However, it lulls you into a false sense of security, the next fights can get quite tricky if you don't approach them right: There is a tunnel that leads you to a room, grabbing the supersphere and shooting out of panic will get you surrounded in seconds, and you better make sure you cleared out the archviles on the elevator before that. The BFG teleport fight is really simple if you just manage to get some infighting going on, and the fight in the bridge becomes way easier if you have the BFG (which was not the case on my first play of the level). The final fight is really simple because of the ton of healing laying around, unless you pick up the pack of cells that triggers the archviles in the exit. Yeah, as you can guess by the detailed narration, this level was really fun to play through, maybe the first swarm of revenants could have been done a bit better, but other than that, really enjoyable level.

 

MAP27: HAIS TEMPLE
And after the amazing map26, we get hais temple, which seems to do better the visual aspect of the level, but is way more hostile on the gameplay department. The more I play the more they seem like my kryptonite.

 

MAP28: TWILIGHT MASSACRE
On the surface it seems like a map where you are given a BFG and 3000 enemies to kill, and while it certainly has that, it also has carefully planned encounters, giving you a time to think how you want to approach them. I really liked the enemy combinations chosen in this map, and I think that there were four shining monsters: The pain elementals, able to apply massive amounts of pressure if you leave them unchecked, the revenants, that can end up stacking rockets and oneshotting you, a few rare archviles, that can undo your hard work and deal some damage with their hitscan and the cyberdemons, which help you a lot with infighting, but catching a stray rocket will force you to grab one of the megaspheres of the level. The level has lots of ammo, plenty of health, and really good visual theme that ties everything together. I find hard how to express how much I liked Twilight massacre so I will tell you this: The moment I finished the map for the first time, I hopped back in to do a saveless run and while I got it on my first try, not a single moment of the 1h 10m it took me to beat the level was boring. Really fun slaughtermap, great job.

 

MAP29: THE RUINS OF KALNIK
Honestly, the difficulty of this level seemed through the roof, mostly because of the lack of armor, the lack of ammo and especially the damaging floors. There aren't that many radsuits and they might as well be megaspheres in terms of value because the lava will quickly kill you. Usually I find fun fighting a scream of revenants or a cloud of cacos but somehow it wasnt enjoyable fighting them on this level. 

 

MAP30: DARKNESS WITHOUT END
From the bottom of my heart: Thank you for not making this an icon of sin map. Man do I hate having to use the elevator to shoot rockets into it. Its a fun time-based survival level, and in my opinion, much better than a classic icon of sin.

 

MAP33:  DESCENT TO NOWHERE
I think this is the first WAD I've played with a MAP33, and it reminds me of MAP31 of Hell Revealed. Not my favorite map, and the secret BFG (that requires an archvile jump) was a poor decision in my part.
 

FINAL NOTES:
Joshy has gotten a lot of flak on his maps during my review, so I will try to have a positive note: I think your work on Ancient Aliens (MAP09 THE NECTAR FLOW and MAP28 FLOATING ARENA are really enjoyable. I am just not a fan of increasing difficulty by limiting movement, which seems to be his way of doing things on Speed Of Doom. SoD has been an absolutely amazing experience, and it inspired me to do some mapping (that you will probably never see, because I dont have the confidence on my mapping skills). Seriously, I need to insist: this is an amazing WAD, probably on my top 3, I had a great time playing through it.

 

Plutonia 2:
 

Spoiler

MAP01: COMEBACK
Done by Gusta, comeback is a simple map that somehow managed to kill me twice. The berserker used as a bait into a trap with a revenant and two chaingunners acted as a reminder of what Plutonia means.

 

MAP02: JUNGLE SPIRITS
Gusta did another great map here, and dear god, when I decided to "go back to plutonia" I don't think I remembered what I was getting into. The chaingunners have been relentless and I kept having to look for health. The ammo seemed well placed, considering that I always barely had enough to get past the fights. Gusto mentions on the .txt that he is happy with how the level turned out, and so am I, fun level.

 

MAP03: SKULL ISLAND
The info file says this map was a joint effort by Gusta and Pipicz, and I have to say that it didnt feel like that when I was playing it. The map felt very consistent, except for maybe the last room, but it was inserted there as a reference to the original plutonias map03, so I dont mind it much, I even like it!

 

MAP04: FILTH
Filth is the first map done by Fredrik in this WAD, the name is really fitting, this is a small level full of muddy water that deals damage that is accompanied by the plutonia formula of chaingunners and revenants. The supershotgun and the rocket launcher might be a bit tricky/non obvious to grab, but I thought the map was very enjoyable.

 

MAP05: FLOODED CHAPEL
With a very hectic start, this level begins with the gas pedal pressed and gives you very little time to adapt to the environment for the first few minutes. Once you get past the initial meatgrinder, the level is pretty fun, with almost every weapon or keycard having some kind of boobytrap to keep you on your toes.

 

MAP06: COLLIDER COMPLEX
This level was started by Metabolist and modified by PerOxyd. The level has a small bug with chaingunners being able to open the red key door, but it doesn't seem very critical. This level whooped my ass, straight up. Maybe I needed 7 or so attemps to make it past the first section of the map? After that it seemed pretty easy, especially because of the extra secrets spread through the map.

 

MAP07: ENEMY CAUGHT
Kira's first map according to the info file, and a fun one at that. Honestly, I really like how similar it is to CAUGHTYARD from the original plutonia, and as a small note: I absolutely love the way the secret is handled: Not only gives you a megasphere, but once you arrive to the end of the level, it also allows you to snipe the archvile from there! Secrets shouldn't always be about the loot inside of them, advantageous spots are something very underutilized.

 

MAP08: HARMANY
First of all, I love the name. Tango created a pretty compact level that had me run out of ammo in multiple attempts. Throught the level, every time I was clearing the main room, it would just get filled back with mancubi and revenants, and the trick archvile towards the end can be a bit nasty if you aren't expecting it. 

 

MAP09: WORMHOLE ZONE
Honestly, I've been loving all of Gusta's work so far in Plutonia2. At the beginning I was completely lost on what to do, low on ammo and low on health, but after picking up the super shotgun everything seemed to smoothly move forward. The archvile guarding the rocket launcher caught me off guard on my first run. I really liked the "shipyard" area with the huge elevator to the control terminal.

 

MAP10: COSMODROME
Thomas introduces himself with a flying spaceship that had a lot of charm, and its the most memorable part of the map for sure.

 

MAP11: ARCH-VIOLENCE
Another great nod to plutonia. This level can get pretty messy at times and I was consistently getting lost, but it put a lot of pressure and kept me constantly on my toes. I loved the main building that was upside down, it was such a cool detail, and really fun to explore, although I think that it overstays its welcome.

 

MAP12: IMPRISONED
There are two parts of this map that caught my attention: The gigantic room filled with enemies containing the rocket launcher and the metal "fortress" at the end.

 

MAP13: HARD FACILITY
Another non-linear map that is incredibly fun. The final room is actually quite tough if you are unable to snipe the archvile and clear the room before you lower the blue barriers. Really enjoyable map.

 

MAP14: CHARON ECLIPSE
The first level of Eternal in this WAD. This level felt very tense, I was usually sufferening to get enough health and armor to get through the next area. Ammo felt lacking on my first attempts but it seemed to be caused by poor pathing on the level. 

 

MAP15: WHERE HATE RUNS RED
This is a pretty short level with not many enemies, I found it pretty fun, although it took me a bit longer than I would have to realize I could telefrag the cyberdemon haha. The archvile jump to reach the secret level was actually pretty tough at first, but now I realize how simple it was.

 

MAP31: CYBERNATION
This was a super fitting copy of MAP31, it even had the fake exit and the feeling of "where the fuck do I have to go now?". Its a map that in any other wad would be mediocre at best, but in plutonia 2 it fits like a glove, amazing map.

 

MAP32: GO 4 IT
Not only a great nod to plutonia's Go 2 it, but also an incredibly solid level. The level might seem overwhelming at first but with proper pathing and some infighting it becomes very manageable. Hell, I didn't hate the icon of sin section, which means a lot coming from me. 

 

MAP33: CHOCOLATE
Pretty simple level that one would expect on the first 10 maps of the WAD because of its simplicity. Chocolate is a good level, but suffers from being played after MAP32 or MAP30.

 

MAP16: PREDATORIUM
This might be my least favorite level START so far. The first 30s were a bit of a pain to survive through. After that, the level is pretty fun, especially killing the archvile ball next to the start once you have the rocket launcher.

 

MAP17: NUCLEAR HORROR
This might be a big map, but it didnt feel like a drag to play. I think that's because everything is interconnected and gives a lot of freedom of movement. One of Gusta's goals was to have non linear maps and this is a great example of one.

 

MAP18: BUCKETS OF BLOOD
This was a crazy level, I highly enjoyed how much of the map gets opened once you have the yellow key, you still can choose where to go with a lot of freedom though. The red key ambush was really fun. The final fight with the cacodemon cloud a couple of pain elementals and the spider mastermind was a bit too easy from my point of view, I would have liked to see something more.

 

MAP19: HECKNOLOGY
The biggest highlight of this level is the middle room, the fact that so many encounters happen on it is, in my opinion, a really good usage of a fun setpiece. The "respawning" enemies were also a nice touch in my opinion.

 

MAP20: LURKING FEAR
I think that lurking fear overestays its welcome towards the end. The first half of the level or so it seems perfect, the first area changes multiple times and thats always something that catches my attention in a level. Grabbing the red key without killing the cyberdemon first is absolute pain, but there doesn't seem to be a better way to kill it other than using the super shotgun or ignoring it until you have the BFG. Another thing is that the secrets seem very tough to figure out. Also, it might be just me, but the door that leads to the yellow switch can leave you trapped?

 

MAP21: ASSASSIN
The start reminded me a bit of TNT map28. I really liked the map, but I wish the doors would stay a bit open for a bit more, as going back and forth to press the switches was getting tedious at times. The last room is a bit dissapointing compared to the rest of the level, it feels a bit empty?

 

MAP22: LOCUS PERDITUS
Man, I dont know what was but the start felt super hard to get through, and I couldnt figure out a consistent way of getting past it, it even felt "bullshit" at times. That is, until I watched a playthrough, at that point I understood that the pathing I chose to do for the level was pretty horrible, and it made the level very manageable. Aside from that, the level was enjoyable with the crossfire in the two arenas constantly kept me on my toes.

 

MAP23: AZTECORUM
Lately when I dont enjoy a level, I decide to play through it again. More often than not, the second time becomes way more enjoyable and this was one of those levels. Aside from the chaotic start that screams plutonia, the level is pretty straightforward, there are a couple of tough fights you have to get through to get the secret megasphere, but its well worth it. The slaughterfight to catch the yellow skull key was short but fun, the 3 radsuits seemed to be perfectly calculated, in my 2 playthroughs i never needed an exctra one, but they ran out when I was about to leave the area.

 

MAP24: OUTPOST OF THE EVIL DEAD
At the start I was dreading for this map to be a Tyson level, and me not finding the super shotgun or the chaingun didnt help. This was a small level featuring a cyberdemon that bullies you through some sections of the map

 

MAP25: BLACK ICE
The last few maps have ramped up the difficulty quite fast. Surviving the first two sections was tough, but after that, just like always, the map becomes very manageable. There seemed to be a bug with two revenants stuck under the ground in a section with a bridge, next to the mega armor secret. I really appreciate the glaciar aesthetic of this level, it inmediately caught my attention.

 

MAP26: PLUTOPIA
A small breather map, or at least it feels like one. Plutopia is a short level and I think it's the first one in the wad that has a section that uses using the gut/flesh textures. The flesh elevator was the highlight of the level for me, mostly because how different it is to anything else that Plutonia2 has offered.

 

MAP27: RED HOT
The first thing that struck me from red hot is the architechture. Visually speaking, this level feels somewhat familiar, but I am unable to say why. Probably the most memorable fight is the spider mastermind and pinkies ambush and the yellow key area fights, especially the shotgunner swarm. The only thing that I dont really like is how you get a rocket launcher, but only 4-6 rockets, feels like a bit of a letdown.

 

MAP28: THE BLOODWALL
From the start I knew this level wasnt going to be similar to any other plutonia maps, and I was right, starting with a plasma gun you mow down a scream of revenants and move forward into chainguner hell. The constantly resurrected revenants on the red key was a nice touch, that area felt very threatening at the start. There is one thing that I dont like about this map, I think the BFG fight could have been more, it felt very underwhelming. The ending allows you to exit the level, or to exit by dying, which was an interesting choice.

 

MAP29: TICKET TO ETERNITY
This map was very different to other maps on plutonia 2. It's big, its filled with fights, and ammo can be tight, but I can't bring myself to hate this map, it clearly had a lot of soul put into it. The commander keen hunt was super fun, and the secret room with all the collaborators was something that made me stop play and think about it for a moment. Plutonia2 has been a journey and this felt like the perfect ending to it.

 

MAP30: THE GATEWATCHER
For an icon of sin map, this was pretty good. I like the idea of having to shoot the eyes instead of the brain, and I like how the icon of sin has a body this time around.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Spoiler

 

Plutonia2 might not be a perfect megawad, in fact, I think it suffers from some borderline unfun hot starts, the worst one being MAP16: PREDATORIUM. Despite any flaws it might have, I wouldn't change anything in P2. Playing through this WAD made me revive the feelings I had during my first playthrough of plutonia, which I was expecting, but to a lesser degree.
 

I have to thank everyone who took part on this project and especially Gusta, for taking over so many of the maps and making sure this project saw the light of day. 

This WAD made me want to play TNT: Revilution, which I will probably do after Scythe2 or in the middle of it if I want a break from its latest levels. 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 23, 2023 by Jokin
Plutonia2

[Megalyth]

Mount Pain is a great map, quintessential Evilution style with the signature questionable texturing choices in places. I've never thought that the music was fitting for such a large atmospheric map, not to mention that it also appears again three maps later. IDMUS06 is the only cheat code you need.

[Jokin]

Mount pain:

This is without a doubt my favorite level in the entire WAD so far. Spawning in front of a super shotgun surrounded by shell boxes while "Into the beast's belly" was playing in the background pumped me up. Any level that begins with a super shotgun is a fun one (somehow I feel that I will end up regretting saying this). I almost beat it on my third try, but then the archvile room at the end killed me. And then it killed me again in next run. 5th time was the charm. I liked the level so much I didn't even mind dying on the end a couple of times.

One thing I noticed is that the ambushes would rarely catch me off guard, except the chaingunners behind fake walls, those got me hard the first time. I'm already used to the type of shenanigans TNT pulls on you by this point.

The only defect that I really find on the map, is the goddamn pile of lost souls it throws at you. With the name "Mount pain" I think having pain elementals would have been a better thematic choice.
 

3 hours ago, Megalyth said:

Mount Pain is a great map, quintessential Evilution style with the signature questionable texturing choices in places. I've never thought that the music was fitting for such a large atmospheric map, not to mention that it also appears again three maps later. IDMUS06 is the only cheat code you need.

While I disagree with the music choice I do have to agree with you, it really is a great map. I had a ton of fun.

[Llednar]

What was your favorite map in Doom 2?

Regarding TNT: Evilution, what are your thoughts on MAP20: Central Processing, MAP21: Administration Center and MAP25: Baron's Den?

Btw, great thread. I should probably do something similar.

[RHhe82]

I have for sometime wished there was a subforum for just this sort of stuff, as I'm hesitant to make a thread here.

[Jokin]

13 hours ago, Llednar said:

What was your favorite map in Doom 2?

It would be hard to say, I had played half of Doom2 a couple of years ago, and the other half kind of blends together because of the savescumming. However I would say that the most memorable ones for me are Dead Simple and tricks and traps.
 

Quote

MAP20: Central Processing

I can't quite put my finger on why, but this map didnt seem that good to me. I think the open area at the end of the map is the reason why. The garden next to the exit of the building is nice, but then there is a door that opens a barren area. Unless I'm forgetting something, the fights in the outside seem a bit uninteresting. Finding the way to the exit took me more time than I thought too. Bonus points for early backpack though.

Quote

MAP21: Administration Center

It's kind of funny, this map suffers from the same thing as the previous one (big open area towards the end), but I believe it's better. Maybe the difference is that I had fun making the cyberdemon infight with other demons.
 

Quote

MAP25: Baron's Den

I was expecting more barons of hell. I kind of feel that I got baited with that one. Honestly I'm pretty indifferent on this one, for me to hate a map it needs to have something that makes me question what were they thinking, like the archvile in Mill. I found the last 2 pain elementals by pure chance, sorry I can't say much more about it.

While we are at it might as well post about the last map I have beaten:

MAP28: HECK

Spoiler

First life I died to the archvile in the tunnel in front of the spawn, second life I fell off and saw the weapons, beat it in the third attempt. I really liked the touch at the end with the lost souls, I was feeling very confident after I saw the kill count at 100%. It's cool having levels where you are given all weapons from time to time.

MAP29: RIVER STYX

Spoiler

Okay Im kind of salty on this one, because I was cleaning up the revenants on the hallways only to get sent straight into another pistol start after getting hit by two of their homing missiles. Took me another hour to beat the level.

There are some things in this level that kind of infuriate me. Why does the lava deal no damage? Couldn't they use sludge or something? Really? Also, am I bad at clicking or are lost souls supposed to survive a single shotgun bullet? It really made me feel like I was wasting ammo on them, which is important because I was constantly running low on ammo. But don't worry, you are given a ton of cells, but no plasma rifle or BFG, apparently it depends on the difficulty level? They really couldn't swap a couple of those for shell boxes? It's like they wanted to taunt you.

Also, I got super lucky and when I activated the spider mastermind switch I saw some goodies and went for them. I later realized that they put a spider mastermind behind a fake wall. At least that explained the partial invisibility.

I don't really know what are the community's opinions in some maps, it would be funny if I'm roasting some fan favorites.

As an ending note, the next two entries in the WAD progression list are Base Ganymede and Sigil, both Doom1 WADs. I'm not sure how do I feel about a Doom1 WAD. Archviles are probably my favorite enemy and while revenants are a pain in the ass with their homing missiles they have a cool gameplay. Also no super shotgun. 

Edited January 20, 2022 by Jokin
ranting about Doom1 WADs

[Captain POLAND]

What about Fava Beans? Have you played that one yet?

[Jokin]

9 hours ago, Captain POLAND said:

What about Fava Beans? Have you played that one yet?

I haven't played Doom1 or Fava Beans, I started the list directly at Doom2. I want to move forward on the skill progression list. Are they still going to be challenging even if I beat TNT? Maybe I should play them in the future with fast monsters enabled? Fava only has 9 levels so I might play it as a breather after TNT.

While we are at it, I played map 30 so might as well add it to the post.

TNT MAP30: LAST CALL

Spoiler

Man at the beginning I got pumped up. I liked the music, I found the teleport instakills a bit interesting, I even found it funny how one of the platforms only kills you through one side, it was very sneaky and I found it funny.

The revenant room gave me a ton of issues at the beginning, those homing missiles are no joke. But then the problems started happening. TNT Map30 is bugged on PrBoom, so I had to take a look at compatibility options. I was VERY lucky of remembering that specific staircase as an example of compatibility issues from a video I saw a while ago. After the compatibility issues were solved, then the hallway with the enemies in cages came. Some times enemies would fall from their cages, preventing me from UV maxing the level. I got SO tired of restarting the level because of that. Towards the end if an enemy would glitch I would IDCLIP and kill them "normally".

The final battle with the icon of sin was pretty frustrating, figuring out the switch took me a long time, and I was not understanding why rockets weren't dealing any damage. Had to take a look at the wiki to realize that I had to shoot from the last step of the staircase.

I'm actually very thankful I missed the secret levels, because this would be such a poor ending to an otherwise good experience.

As a semi-related note, I'm trying to not make too many posts. I will post my opinions about maps in batches, unless a specific level has caught my attention somehow, as I don't enjoy the idea of constantly bumping the thread. I think a good example of this is Mount Pain.

Don't let that stop that from asking questions though! I will try to answer those as soon as I can, and probably also add my thoughts about the maps I have played since my last update, so I don't double post.

Edited January 20, 2022 by Jokin

[RHhe82]

9 minutes ago, Jokin said:

Are they still going to be challenging even if I beat TNT?

Have you ever played Doom 1? If you haven’t, then you owe it to yourself. I personally think Doom 1 maps are on the average better than Doom 2’s. It won’t be challenging, though, outside of three maps in Episode 4. Consider it relaxation or flexing the muscles before you start that day’s actual wads.

 

I happened to play Fava Beans just last week, and I think it’s even easier than Doom 1. Didn’t take long on UV-Max, pistol starts and saveless. I don’t think I died even once, and I’m not that good of a player.

 

Edit: from Doom 1, you should play episode 4 (Thy Flesh Consumed) from skill-progression standpoint anyway, if I wasn’t being clear 😛

Edited January 20, 2022 by RHhe82
Flesh, consumed

[head_cannon]

I always enjoy seeing the chronicles of a person's journey through WADs as they jot down their first impressions and opinions. And while it distresses me seeing newcomers arrive with the mindset not of "I have to get out alive and escape with my skin intact" but instead "I need to do all my chores", I appreciate every example I can use to try to understand the mind of a person who enjoys Evilution.

 

Congratulations on beating Last Call and reaching the ending. I was amused to read about you giving yourself extra grief and restarting the level over and over in the cage hallway - In complevels 2, 3, and 4 (the Final Doom one), it is impossible for live monsters to be pushed off a ledge, so there may be something to fix in your compatibility settings if you want to avoid this scenario happening again.

[Jokin]

11 hours ago, RHhe82 said:

Have you ever played Doom 1? If you haven’t, then you owe it to yourself. I personally think Doom 1 maps are on the average better than Doom 2’s. It won’t be challenging, though, outside of three maps in Episode 4. Consider it relaxation or flexing the muscles before you start that day’s actual wads.

I have played the first couple of levels, but that's about it. I really like your suggestion, maybe I play a couple of Doom1 maps followed by 1 map of whatever WAD I'm doing at the time. We will see.
 

5 hours ago, head_cannon said:

I always enjoy seeing the chronicles of a person's journey through WADs as they jot down their first impressions and opinions.

To be completely honest, I'm loving sharing my experiences here, it really makes me think about the maps and their design more than I would otherwise.
 

Quote

And while it distresses me seeing newcomers arrive with the mindset not of "I have to get out alive and escape with my skin intact" but instead "I need to do all my chores"

I do kind of enjoy the self imposed challenges. In my case I enjoy UV maxing because usually that means that you will have experienced everything the map has to offer. I think TNT's map04 Wormhole, is a very exaggerated but great example of what I mean.
 

Quote

I appreciate every example I can use to try to understand the mind of a person who enjoys Evilution.

This kind of pickles my interest, is Evilution not regarded as very good? I only have played Doom2 and TNT so far, so I can't really compare it to other levels, although I would say that TNT is overall better than Doom2.
 

Quote

Congratulations on beating Last Call and reaching the ending. I was amused to read about you giving yourself extra grief and restarting the level over and over in the cage hallway - In complevels 2, 3, and 4 (the Final Doom one), it is impossible for live monsters to be pushed off a ledge, so there may be something to fix in your compatibility settings if you want to avoid this scenario happening again.

Thanks for the heads up. I don't understand too much about complevels to be honest, is there usually a recommended generic complevel or something like that? 

And with all of this being said, I finished Evilutions secret levels. Some thoughts about them and the WAD as a whole:

MAP31: PHARAOH

Spoiler

The beginning seemed a bit hard until I decided to press the switches on my third attempt. Then I advanced a bit more and got stuck. I had forgotten to apply the patch, very smart.

I really liked the aesthetic and thematic of the map, and it's clear that the developers also had fun making it. The pharaohs switch that spawns the yellow key, and opens a couple of health bonuses, only for you to get crushed if you go to take them was really fitting for the idea of a pyramid, because of the trope that they are full of traps.

This map also has, what is probably my favorite moment of the entire WAD. After getting the blue key and press a switch, a gigantic wall starts lowering down. I was expecting a large number of enemies, only to find a single zombieman. That made me laugh, but it gets even better, because once you shoot him a horde of cacodemons comes out of fake walls to avenge their friend. Really memorable moment.

The only defect I would give this map is that the end area is... empty. I knew I had killed all enemies, but I was still expecting something, like lost souls coming from the pyramid because you had raided it or something like that.

Overall great level, I really liked it, shame it needs a patch to be played though.

MAP32: CARIBBEAN

Spoiler

After reading this map's name, now I'm disappointed it didn't have a pirate thematic somehow (I'm not even sure how they could pull it off). Once I pressed the switch, I got instantly dissapointed.

Overall, fun map. The plasma trap with the archvile was horrible (not in a bad way), it took me a while to figure out how to dodge it (this is my fault because looking back at it I just had to walk back, I'm not sure what I was thinking). The most memorable part of the level without a doubt the end. After map 31 I wasn't expecting too much, maybe a couple of high tier enemies plus imps or hitscanners. Only for the wall to lower and show multiple mancubus, revenants and a cyberdemon.

Also, can we talk about how they put an archvile behind a fake wall right at the end of the level? I think that if I had taken a teleporter to be in front of the door, the archvile would have damaged me for sure, because I was almost hit by him, and that was without me being disoriented from the teleport.

Final thoughts on TNT: Evilution
 

Spoiler

What rhymes with fun? Hitscan!

TNT has been a great deal of fun for me, my main takeaway is that there is no need to constantly rush in, that taking things slow and steady is perfectly valid. It has also shown how strong chaingunners and other hitscanners really are. The final thing it has taught me is that there is always a chaingunner behind the corner and that if he's not there you don't have to worry, because the wall covering him will lower the moment you advance a bit more anyways.

In all seriousness, I may have been playing the levels too carefully, usually my completed level times would range from 20 to 30 minutes. I would say that on average TNT had better levels than Doom2. 

My top3 maps of this WAD are:

1. Map27: Mount Pain
2. Map31: Pharaoh
3. Map09: Stronghold

Honorable mention: Map04: Wormhole

If only wormhole had made better use of its concept. The fact that you can beat the level without understanding the name of the map if very dissapointing.

If you would like me to discuss some more things about TNT, please let me know!

My next WAD might be DOOM1, we will see.

Edited January 20, 2022 by Jokin

[Jaccident]

Ngl your rules of UV-maxing everything, alongside pistol starting and single segmenting everything, sounds like absolute hell, especially for a newcomer!
While it’s worked for you so far, and I massively recommend you play through doom 1 (second best iwad after Plutonia imo), when you move on to some of the harder wads out there, or even just the wads with really long levels, just remember that it’s perfectly ok to not pistol start and single segment everything!

[LadyMistDragon]

On 1/20/2022 at 12:38 PM, Jokin said:

 

 

 

This kind of pickles my interest, is Evilution not regarded as very good? I only have played Doom2 and TNT so far, so I can't really compare it to other levels, although I would say that TNT is overall better than Doom2.


 

 

 

Oh yes. It's honestly probably much better than Doom II overall, but Nirvana and the Factory stink nowhere near as bad as Administration Center or god forbid, Habitat. The last 1/3 stands out in most people's minds as failing in almost every single aspect outside of Maps 28 and 29. I don't personally agree, but it's in those maps where the silly invisible walls in many TNT maps become much less forgivable.

[head_cannon]

On 1/20/2022 at 4:38 PM, Jokin said:

Thanks for the heads up. I don't understand too much about complevels to be honest, is there usually a recommended generic complevel or something like that?

Sort of. complevels 2, 3, & 4 are the ones that exactly emulate how the IWADs behaved, and they are arranged chronologically in the order that Doom 2, The Ultimate Doom, and Final Doom were released.

 

I have to clarify here that I go about things in an inefficient fashion because I never tried out any middleware Launcher programs and never learned how to build Batch Files, I just made shortcuts to my source port's executable and added the parameters there because that was fast & easy. I put all four IWADs into the folder, and made four different shortcuts which would launch the game in the correct compatibility mode.

 

The parameters on my Doom 2 shortcut are:
prboom-plus.exe -iwad doom2.wad -complevel 2

 

The parameters on my Doom 1 shortcut are:

prboom-plus.exe -iwad doom.wad -complevel 3

 

And my parameters on my Evilution shortcut are:

prboom-plus.exe -iwad tnt.wad -complevel 4

 

Note that this is only really necessary if you intend to record demos (since they all need to be using the same rules in order to ensure that they all play back successfully with no desyncs). But still, as I said before, all of these modes are ones which guarantee that live monsters will never get knocked off ledges. That behavior only happens when playing in -complevel 9: Boom-compatible mapsets like Sunder or Haste. There's all sorts of wizardry people can do in Boom maps which makes them wildly imaginative and cool, but I've seen speedrunners (who have actual rules for their competitions and things at stake) and content creators (who have obsessive-compulsive brain worms) lament about "losing" a monster during their run.

 

-

 

As for Evilution, well... I'm not a monolith, just one individual who enjoys debating. There's very little "consensus" here - if you make a thread boldly declaring "THIS mapper's output is universally beloved!" or "NOBODY likes this particular gameplay mechanic!", then you'll get at least half a dozen people disagreeing with you. That's one of the things I like so much about this art scene: as you get a sense for all the different "flavors" of Doom, you get a better sense of what you treasure and are drawn to, and being able to describe exactly why you find something appealing is a very useful rhetorical tool.

 

So, with that caveat of "There is no universal dogma, I'm only speaking for myself" established, I will now elaborate on my initial snark. To me:

 

Doom 1 is the one concerned with atmosphere and mood, the one that took the relatively new idea of the first-person perspective and leaned into the disorientation of navigating mazes and the fear of the unknown that happens when you can hear the noises of a monster hunting you but don't know exactly where it might be.

 

Doom 2 is the wildly experimental one, which laid the groundwork for the next 30 years of people using the established objects & line actions in new ways which would surprise, baffle, or confound players who already assumed that they knew everything that could possibly be thrown at them. Not all of these experiments land, but it's the one with all the best jokes, gags, and rug pulls, and that playfulness is what I cherish.

 

The Plutonia Experiment is the one which gets down to brass tacks and really interrogates exactly what the capabilities of the monsters and the player really are. It focuses on the nitty-gritty details of architecture and attack patterns, and I was drawn to it like a moth to a flame, accepting every death with a "Thank you sir, may I have another" and feeling a real satisfaction every time my understanding resulted in a saveless run through its brief, high-energy obstacle courses.

 

TNT: Evilution is... fine, I guess? It certainly is A Mapset. You can certainly play it, and it delivers with no major bugs or problems. Beyond that I got nothing.

 

-

 

That last one is why I try my best to listen to people who see something in it that I cannot. As MtPain27 once said, this is about spreading the joy of Doom, and while I might never enjoy the specific things that others enjoy, I celebrate the weird folklore we're all creating.

[Jokin]

On 1/20/2022 at 10:54 PM, Jaccident said:

Ngl your rules of UV-maxing everything, alongside pistol starting and single segmenting everything, sounds like absolute hell, especially for a newcomer!
While it’s worked for you so far, and I massively recommend you play through doom 1 (second best iwad after Plutonia imo), when you move on to some of the harder wads out there, or even just the wads with really long levels, just remember that it’s perfectly ok to not pistol start and single segment everything!

Thanks for the heads up. You are right, I will eventually reach a point where it will become really hard. The single segment restriction will probably be the first thing to go. I just don't want to beat fights because I've been savescumming and surviving them because of RNG.
 

12 hours ago, head_cannon said:

 

I really, REALLY appreciate the time you took to write all of this. It's really interesting to read other's perspectives, its the reason I created this post in the first place!

Been playing some DOOM1 and BASE GANYMEDE, some of my thoughts go over here:

DOOM1

 

MAP01: HANGAR
Timeless classic. can't say much more.

MAP04: COMMAND CONTROL
I liked the idea of the imps in the middle of the map, really distinguishes it from other levels so far.
 

MAP06: PHOBOS LAB
The last section with the lights turning on and off is a cool idea, but in the practice it was damaging my eyes. Maybe if lights had been flickering on and off, with longer intervals or something. My eyes felt tired after that and I barely needed time to get past that part.

 

MAP07: CENTRAL PROCESSING
I really liked the fight at the end, it really caught me off guard. All of these pinkies and spectres are really making me miss the super shotgun.

It's also very interesting how I can recognize levels from their easter eggs in DOOM2016, I wasn't expecting to be able to do that.

BASE GANYMEDE:

E1M1:
At the beginning of the map, there is floor, then a bit of damaging floor and a door. Interesting design choice to make sure you can't camp the door without any reprecussions.

E1M3: 3 barons of hell this soon, wow.

E1M5: This was a harder levels and it makes me feel like it should have been further away in the WAD, unless the next levels are even harder than this one. Having a spider mastermind and cyberdemon so soon in the same map caught me by surprise.

Edited January 23, 2022 by Jokin

[Captain POLAND]

Play Fava Beans before BG.

[LadyMistDragon]

E1M5 in Base Ganymede was absolute hell playing keyboard-only. But personally, that megawad was cool.

[Maribo]

On 1/23/2022 at 12:36 PM, Jokin said:

I just don't want to beat fights because I've been savescumming and surviving them because of RNG.

Saving before and after significant fights (not during) will allow you to replay them in a much more time efficient way, and let you experiment for consistent strategies. Far more efficient (and usually more fun) than throwing yourself through the gauntlet every time you die.

[Nefelibeta]

Go play plutonia, you will like it. :)

[Jokin]

On 1/24/2022 at 8:12 PM, Maribo said:

Saving before and after significant fights (not during) will allow you to replay them in a much more time efficient way, and let you experiment for consistent strategies. Far more efficient (and usually more fun) than throwing yourself through the gauntlet every time you die.

Thanks for clearing it up, it makes a lot of sense!

Finished DOOM1, here are some of my thoughts.

 

Spoiler

E1M7: CENTRAL PROCESSING
I really liked the fight at the end, it really caught me off guard. All of these pinkies and spectres are really making me miss the super shotgun.

 

E1M8 PHOBOS ANOMALY:
What a weird level. I knew it was going to be the end of the episode, because it was trying to be very different from what I had seen at the time. The end gave me a big jumpscare. Fun map.

 

E2M1 DEIMOS ANOMALY:
I cant play this level without "Knee deep in the doot" playing in my head. The inverted cross is really cool and all, but did it really need to deal damage?

 

E2M2 CONTAINMENT AREA:
The first box maze of the WAD, although it's had some maze's already. I saw there was too much extra health lying around so after I picked up the berserk I decided to just punch everything to death. The developers were clearly intending that to be a way of playing the level.

 

E2M7 SPAWNING VATS:
Jesus was this map big, not challenging at all though. The corridor with a UAC carpet dealing damage confused me, I thought there was a hitscanner somewhere.

 

E2M8 TOWER OF BABEL:
The moment I saw 1 enemy, I was expecting it to be the cyberdemon. I think this is a worthy level to introduce the strongest oponent a player has yet to face.

The victory music that plays at the end of every episode, has a callback in DOOM ETERNAL, in the exultia ost. Mindblowing.

 

E3M2: SLOUGH OF DESPAIR
I found cool the fact that the map has the shape of a hand.

 

E3M7: GATE TO LIMBO
I found this level pretty weak. Fights were forgettable and I didn't enjoy the teleport/lava floor gimmick.

 

E3M8: DIS
Probably the weakest end of episode yet. I know they are introducing the spider mastermind in this level but it doesn't hold a candle to the cyberdemon.

 

E4M1: HELL BENEATH
Wow, I didnt expect the difficulty to spike so much from E3 to E4. Short and sweet, although im not sure why the rocket launcher is not a secret.

 

E4M2: PERFECT HATRED
Tougher level than I expected, many barons of hell with what I felt was limited ammo for hard hitting weapons.

 

E4M3: SEVER THE WICKED
So many hitscanners at the beginning, it felt ruthless, but there was a lot of health lying around.

 

E4M7: AND HELL FOLLOWED
HOW DO YOU GET THE YELLOW KEY? I finished the level without getting it, then I remembered the blue door. That cyberdemon was easy thanks to the invun.

This playthrough really made me appreciate the enemy variety DOOM2 offers.

[Jokin]

On 1/26/2022 at 2:18 PM, Nefelibeta said:

Go play plutonia, you will like it. :)

I will, but when it's due. It's one of the names I've heard the most, so I'm very excited to play it.

Well, I haven't posted in a while, but since my last message I have finished 3 WADS: Fava beans, Base Ganymede and Sigil.

FAVA BEANS:

Spoiler

E1M1: 
There wasn't that much action, only 37 enemies and a pretty short level.

 

E1M3: 
It has a cool secret level ending? I wasn't expecting that one at all, which means that DOOM1 had secret levels.... going to play those ones now.

 

E1M8: 
It's an interesting concept but a bit underwhelming as an ending.

 

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Overall fava beans has levels that remind me of ID levels in some way. However I'm surprised there wasn't a cyberdemon or spider mastermind in the whole WAD.
 

BASE GANYMEDE:

Spoiler

E1M1:
At the beginning of the map, there is floor, then a bit of damaging floor and a door. Interesting design choice to make sure you can't camp the door without any repercussions.
 

E1M3:
3 barons of hell this soon, wow.

E1M5:
This was a harder levels and it makes me feel like it should have been further away in the WAD, unless the next levels are even harder than this one. Having a spider mastermind and cyberdemon so soon in the same map caught me by surprise.

E1M6: 
If it wasn't for the cyberdemon at the end, I would say it was pretty easy. I need to get better at dealing with them.

 

E1M7: 
I finished the last fight at 1HP. I had to cross some lava to exit the level, I knew I was probably gonna die, but like some comments here suggested, there is no need to replay the whole level and torture myself for this kind of things. I just id a save and managed to cross the lava pool after a couple of attempts.

 

E1M8: 
This was a bit tough, the spider mastermind AI sometimes was ruthless though. Even with the arrow, it took me a while to notice I had to shoot a switch from the other side of the map.

 

E2M1:
Half the level was pistol only, it was interesting, and I felt rewarded when I finally obtained the shotgun.

 

E2M4:
There wasn't that much health for me to enjoy this punch only map. I acutally ended up beating it by saving because I was having troubles consistently telefragging the cyberdemon.

 

E2M6:
I usually have trouble dealing with bigger enemies like the cyberdemon or the spider mastermind, so this one felt a bit hard, especially because of the spare amunition you get for the plasma.

 

E2M7:
Surprisingly easy, I beat it on my first try!

 

E2M8:
The constantly teleporting cyberdemons were getting a bit annoying towards the end, but fun level otherwise.

 

E3M4:
So much free ammo on this level. First time I end up a level in this WAD with more than 250 cells left.

 

E3M5:
I was looking forward to getting again a BFG vs a cyberdemon again. I have been playing a WAD to practice 2 shotting cyberdemon and I managed to do it here!

 

E3M8:
I loved the concept of the last level, going through some sections of previous levels of the WAD.

 

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Overall I loved Ganymede. This WAD really showed me how much I was underestimating the shotgun and taught me some important kill ranges that previously I wasn't taking into account, because I would super shotgun everything.
 

SIGIL:

Spoiler

E5M4: PATHS OF WRETCHEDNESS
I really liked the idea of picking a path, although the middle one with the sinking platforms felt very cheap, I think the platforms might be going down too fast. Ended up using the invuln from the right path to beat this section.

 

E5M6: UNSPEAKABLE PERSECUTION
The labyrinth part was tough, it's very easy for the cyberdemon to catch me off guard.

 

E5M7: NIGHTMARE UNDERWORLD
I kept constantly running out of ammo and the level seemed impossible, but once I looked at the locations of the secrets I beat it on my first try, even when I needed 4-5 BFG shots for the cyberdemon.

 

E5M8: HALLS OF PERDITION
Fun, easy level. That last zombieman hidden in the last secret was hard to find!

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Sigil has been a very cool experience and I think the best way of starting this is by thanking Romero for doing something as cool as this for DOOMs 25th anniversary. Some of the hardest levels from this WAD weren't tough because of a single fight, but from constantly having my health slowly chipped away in every fight. I would say that Sigil's maps have a better design than most of what I have played until now. My guess is this is a byproduct of it being a pretty recent WAD, where people have figured out what works and what doesn't when creating levels.  

My next stop will be Moonblood, a DOOM2 WAD. Can't wait to get destroyed by revenants, pain elementals and of course, archviles.

Edited February 7, 2022 by Jokin

[Captain POLAND]

You might want to include Going Down at some point, as it's just a good WAD overall. Probably somewhere around the Scythe/Rush level.

[ImproversGaming]

Hey @Jokin,

This is great, sorry I have only seen this now. I am following the exact same plan and started at the beginning of January.

 

I run UV, 100%, Pistol Starts and no saves as well. I have made it through Fava Beans, Base Ganymede and Sigil. Am half way through Moonblood now and it is definitely stepping up. I have run most of this by just starting from the beginning of the map if I die. As @Maribo says this has been ok for now but is wearing off a little as the maps become larger - now if I don't complete in a reasonable number of runs I do it a different way, like having a no-monster run to check the routing (key/ammo/weapon placements). I enjoy it more this way. I also look for all of the secrets, which takes time. There is no rule, I recommend that you just play it the way you enjoy. I am capturing the entire journey on YouTube and have been really enjoying my playthroughs so far.

 

There have been some tough levels along the way but I find that once I have completed them it was not too bad to complete them again. Toughest for me was Base Ganymede E2M4 - the tyson Imp punch level (took ~100 runs, all from the start - took two more runs to finish it again) and probably Sigil E5M5 Abaddon's Void - just managing ammo and health (took ~60 runs and finished it again on the next attempt). This will sound very grindy and horrible to some, but these were two of my favourite maps and I loved beating them in the end.

 

Please keep this thread updated, I would love to follow your progress and hear about your experiences and thoughts on the WADs as you play through.

[Shepardus]

I just happened to finish playing Moonblood the other day. I enjoyed it a lot, the nonlinear layouts and modest map sizes are very much my thing. In my opinion, in contrast to what the WAD Progression thread suggests, it's more difficult than Plutonia, at least when pistol starting. Resources tend to be pretty scarce, so in combination with the nonlinear layouts, you have to put some work into charting a route that lets you gear up and get a solid footing. On at least one map I opted to do a run with the -nomonsters parameter so I could figure out where all the weapons were. I also wasn't playing saveless; I made use of dsda-doom's rewind feature to undo mistakes made "far enough" into a level, when I didn't feel like redoing everything up to that point. I actually started a strictly saveless playthrough about a year ago but dropped it about halfway through; it was one of the first WADs I played on UV from pistol start, and I think holding myself to also not use saves was biting off more than I could chew. I only came back to it after playing Deadwing's new WAD, Ozonia. I'll probably give Exomoon a shot later, too.

[RHhe82]

1 hour ago, Shepardus said:

In my opinion, in contrast to what the WAD Progression thread suggests, it's more difficult than Plutonia, at least when pistol starting

I had first a good experience with Moonblood and then it turned sour, because I was insisting on UV pistol starts, and I was still expecting it to be easier than Plutonia. Once I dialed down to HMP very late in the megawad (map25 or so) I had much more fun. UV-continuous could also have been a very good option to consider.

[Jokin]

On 2/7/2022 at 9:02 PM, Captain POLAND said:

You might want to include Going Down at some point, as it's just a good WAD overall. Probably somewhere around the Scythe/Rush level.

I have seen Decino play it, but it's definitely on my list. I loved watching him play so I want to draw my own experiences from it.
 

On 2/8/2022 at 5:50 AM, Shepardus said:

I enjoyed it a lot, the nonlinear layouts and modest map sizes are very much my thing. In my opinion, in contrast to what the WAD Progression thread suggests, it's more difficult than Plutonia, at least when pistol starting. Resources tend to be pretty scarce, so in combination with the nonlinear layouts, you have to put some work into charting a route that lets you gear up and get a solid footing.

You were absolutely right. Some maps (e.g.: E5M5: Skeleton's garden) seemed absolutely impossible until you find the right path for them. After you figure it out, the difficulty drops off a cliff in some of the later levels.
 

Quote

I had first a good experience with Moonblood and then it turned sour, because I was insisting on UV pistol starts, and I was still expecting it to be easier than Plutonia. Once I dialed down to HMP very late in the megawad (map25 or so) I had much more fun. UV-continuous could also have been a very good option to consider.

I understand what you say. The two last levels of the wad had two parts where I knew I could eventually get them right if I kept throwing myself at them, but decided that it wasn't worth the effort.

 

This being said, I have finished MOONBLOOD and MEMENTO MORI is next!

MOONBLOOD:

Spoiler

E2M1: INDUSTRIAL ZONE
Arachnotrons are way more dangerous than I remembered, I died multiple times in the small room with two of them.

 

E2M3: DELTA LABS INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH
The beginning was completely ruthless, however I managed to find the secret supercharge and that managed to save the run. Beat the level on my first try!

 

E3M1: MINING SITE
This level was very hard compared to the others, the beginning felt a bit ruthless, but also chaotic and fun. The arachnotrons are the stars of this level. Half of my attempts were ended by them. Overall I really enjoyed the difficulty spike.

 

E3M2: THE VILLAGE
For me the most complext part was figuring out the path I had to take, it got way easier once I understood that I had run through the middle of the map and make the cyberdemon infight at the beginning. Its the first time I need more than 10 attempts to beat one level in this WAD.

 

E3M4: DECAYING INDUSTRIES
What a beginning of a level, only a rocket launcher, a combat armor and 2 mancubus and one cacodemon to deal with. Aside from that, the level wasn't that hard.

 

ARCHIVES: DOBU GABU'S EXAM (Secret level)
Pretty fun level, but after playing Base Ganymede and Sigil and so much of this WAD, I had completely forgotten that archviles were a thing, so I panicked hard when I saw one in the end.

 

ARCHIVES: IRON KEEP
In my first attempt I died to the two cyberdemons in the end. Managed to beat it on my second attempt.

 

E4M2: BFG EXPERIMENTS
The fight with the revenants at the beginning is a bit tricky. The same thing happens with the room with 3 archviles! Overall pretty fun level, I don't mind when the hard fight is at the beginning of the map. As a fun detail, the end of level screen seems to me from this level.

 

E4M3: HIDDEN IN THE DUNGEON
The beginning is a bit hard until you find out the secret entrance and the plasma rifle. After that I wouldn't say it was hard, but I'm suprised at how quickly this WAD went from no archviles to 3-4 per level. I enjoyed the puzzle on the computer room, and I'm still surprised that you can stunlock spider masterminds with a plasma rifle.

 

E4M4: OBSTRUCTED ZONE
The use of archviles here was very good. Most of the level was pretty easy except the red door corridor, the fight after pressing switch in the berserk area and the blue key fight, which would require to not miss my BFG shot or I would instantly die after.

 

E4M5: MOONBLOOD GETAWAY
Oh wow, this map was a bit tough. I kept running out of ammo, so i decided to not go for 100% kills in order to save my sanity. Killed everything except the 2 archviles and cacos in the last room.

 

E5M2: SKELETONS GARDEN
This map was probably the hardest one to route, but once I figured it out, it didnt seem particularly hard compared to other levels.

E5M4: HANGING FORTRESS
I loved the beginning of the map with the rocket launcher. It's one weapon where I've felt myself improve with quickly during this wad playthrough.
 

E5M5: HELLTOWN
Another level hard to path but kinda easy once you figure it out. Two very interesting fights: the one with the crushers and the 4 archviles before the BFG and the final fight with 20 revenants.

 

E5M6: COLISEUM
The pathing keeps getting harder and harder, but the level didn't feel that difficult once I finished it with saves.

 

E6M1: MAGMA REFINERY
Archviles are probably my favorite enemy and this level perfectly shows why. They are just such a threat when they are present on the battlefield. Loved the details of seeing them in cages and then have them teleport to places you previosly had cleared.

 

E6M2: REMAINS OF ZETA LABS
I think this level was very generous with health and ammo (especially plasma). Hardest fight would probably be the first room with the 4 archviles and revenants, probably followed by the room with the crushers.

 

E6M3: MOONBLOOD RITUAL SITE
So far the hardest level I have played to date. The last hordes of revenants plus the area with the 3 cyberdemons was too much for me. I ended up setting up a save before the blue key and just beat the level loading from there.

 

E6M4: THE REPENANT SINNER
What the hell was enemy at the end? It felt a bit unfair, but maybe that's just me. I decided to use a save before the boss because I couldn't find a consistent way of dealing with him.

 

FINAL THOUGHTS:

I really enjoyed my playthrough of MOONBLOOD. There is this weird thing where you don't see any archviles until the secret levels, but you start getting 3-5 of them per level later on. I would say that I started feeling confident around revenants. One small detail that I love from this WAD is the ending of one level matching the beginning of the next, it gives it a nice feel of continuity. There were some sections in some specific levels (especially towards the end) where I was getting "outskilled" by the level.

In retrospect I highly enjoyed the non-trivial pathings some levels had, but starting the next level definitely ended up feeling like a chore towards the end of the WAD. I also feel like I've gotten way better at using the rocket launcher.

Edited February 28, 2022 by Jokin

[Shepardus]

2 hours ago, Jokin said:

You were absolutely right. Some maps (e.g.: E5M5: Skeleton's garden) seemed absolutely impossible until you find the right path for them. After you figure it out, the difficulty drops off a cliff in some of the later levels.

Skeleton's Gardens is exactly the one I was talking about when I said that I did a -nomonsters run first. Not too bad once I knew where to go, but before that I would run around randomly and couldn't even remember where I found each weapon (I even missed the shotgun and backpack right under my feet at the starting location because I was in a hurry to get away).

Edited February 28, 2022 by Shepardus

[ImproversGaming]

Great work getting through Moonblood. I am on Map 27 now and looking at Memento Mori next too.

I am starting to think about interspersing with with some other content as well, just to keep it fresh. I will look at your Moonblood review once I am done, but the last couple of levels have actually been a bit easier than some I those I have run before it, but I am getting close to the end now.

Thanks for your feedback on training with a cyberdemon this has helped me a lot.

[Jokin]

On 2/28/2022 at 8:18 PM, Shepardus said:

Skeleton's Gardens is exactly the one I was talking about when I said that I did a -nomonsters run first. Not too bad once I knew where to go, but before that I would run around randomly and couldn't even remember where I found each weapon (I even missed the shotgun and backpack right under my feet at the starting location because I was in a hurry to get away).

The worst part about Moonblood is that when I was looking for ideas on pathing on youtube, the few videos that were uploaded didn't do pistol start (I had overtaken ImproversGaming). But there was one legend that was uploading them from pistol start on DOOM VR. Sometimes not getting lost during the videos because of the VR element was more of a challenge than finding the pathing myself.

 

On 2/28/2022 at 10:13 PM, ImproversGaming said:

Great work getting through Moonblood. I am on Map 27 now and looking at Memento Mori next too.

I am starting to think about interspersing with with some other content as well, just to keep it fresh. I will look at your Moonblood review once I am done, but the last couple of levels have actually been a bit easier than some I those I have run before it, but I am getting close to the end now.

Thanks for your feedback on training with a cyberdemon this has helped me a lot.

No worries, we are all learning here. Good luck for Map29, I decided it wasn't worth grinding it to beat it in a single segment.

As a recommendation for your channel, try to have a blind reaction recorded for map30, it will be fun to see you react to some ambushes.
 

[Shepardus]

6 minutes ago, Jokin said:

The worst part about Moonblood is that when I was looking for ideas on pathing on youtube, the few videos that were uploaded didn't do pistol start (I had overtaken ImproversGaming). But there was one legend that was uploading them from pistol start on DOOM VR. Sometimes not getting lost during the videos because of the VR element was more of a challenge than finding the pathing myself.

I'm not sure what source port you're using, but if it's one that can play back demos (e.g. PrBoom+, dsda-doom, or Woof!), you can watch the demos on DSDA. There's a full set of UV Max demos there: https://dsdarchive.com/wads/moonbld