Anyone else think Doom 1's boss fight levels are underrated?

[Individualised]

People don't seem to like them but I wish Doom 2 had its own original boss fight levels too. It pretty much only has Dead Simple and Icon of Sin and I'm not sure if either of those really count. It would be cool to see more custom boss fights and boss arenas in WADs too. IMO there's some great potential for boss fights in Doom and I think the idea is really underutilised, even in Doom 1 since they're pretty easy there.

[Foxpup]

Boss fights or boss levels? Because there are plenty of maps with memorable boss fights, but with the boss arena being just a small part of a larger map. Personally, I feel this is the correct approach in most cases; having the player fight their way through hoards of weaker monsters in order to even reach the boss builds tension and makes the final battle even more climactic*, whereas a map that consists of just a boss fight tends to be kind of boring and one-dimensional. At least in my opinion.

 

*Although this can backfire if done poorly: see for example Doom 2 MAP29, where what should have been an epic penultimate challenge is rendered hilariously anticlimactic by being entirely skippable.

[arsac]

Not really. Doom 1's boss fights were really one dimensional, their maps were only the boss fights, and like @Foxpup said, those maps didn't build any tension. E1M8,E2M8 and E3M8 just plop you into the boss arena and have nothing else of value.

 

E4M8's the only exception, because it actually is a level, not just a fight with the spider mastermind. To me, it made the map way more enjoyable than the others. 

[TasAcri]

3 minutes ago, Z50 said:

Not really. Doom 1's boss fights were really one dimensional, their maps were only the boss fights, and like @Foxpup said, those maps didn't build any tension. E1M8,E2M8 and E3M8 just plop you into the boss arena and have nothing else of value.

 

E4M8's the only exception, because it actually is a level, not just a fight with the spider mastermind. To me, it made the map way more enjoyable than the others. 

 

I agree, although i did like E1M8 because it does feel more like a short level instead of a boss arena.

[SPG]

E1M8 also has a little more theatrics behind it, whereas there's less of that with E2's and E3's boss levels. E4's has actual level leading up, but you also just sort of walk into the situation there too. Out of the actual fights, though, I'd say E2 has a certain amount of drama, where you see the dead Barons on the walls, you go out, and you rocket duel the Cyberdemon among a pillar landscape, having to be careful of the Lost Souls. As much as the Icon of Sin gets trashed, I'd probably still rank that higher than the E3 Spider Mastermind fight though personally.

[ENEMY!!!]

I always think of E2M8 as iconic.  It hasn't aged that well because nowadays so many maps have more complex Cyberdemon fights in them, but when Doom first came out I found it scary and challenging and quite a novel experience.  E3M8 always felt like a one-dimensional anti-climax though, even when I played it for the first time.

[Geniraul]

E2M8 definitely brings a challenge, IMO, especially with the original mechanics. Nowadays, it can at least be fun to play some hide-and-seek there, even through a source port.

From the historical point of view, E1M8 and E3M8 also used to test the player as levels which contain new boss enemies, which haven't been seen on the previous levels. For those new to Doom series, it still can be some sort of challenge till this day.

[Individualised]

3 hours ago, Z50 said:

Not really. Doom 1's boss fights were really one dimensional, their maps were only the boss fights, and like @Foxpup said, those maps didn't build any tension. E1M8,E2M8 and E3M8 just plop you into the boss arena and have nothing else of value.

 

E4M8's the only exception, because it actually is a level, not just a fight with the spider mastermind. To me, it made the map way more enjoyable than the others. 

I feel that E1M8 builds tension but still devotes the level to the boss fight. I was thinking more E1M8-style levels perhaps.

Edited January 18, 2023 by Individualised

[Pezl]

I'd say Gotcha from doom 2 could be considered as boss fight level too but I agree Doom 1 has better bossfights tho

[Xaser]

Doom's boss maps haven't aged particularly well, but they were certainly a hell of a challenge for those of us who had no idea how to play the game back in the day. *insert old man with cane emoji here* :P

I'll step in and be the one weirdo who defends E3M8: it makes the unusual choice to place the final boss "behind" the player, off to the side, so when playing the map for the first time as a kid my experience went something like: blunder into the arena, hear a weird screaming noise, go "what was that?", hear something creeping up on me from behind, go "what is that??", then turn around and come face to face with the spidey and go "WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!?!?" before getting shredded to bits.

I was legit terrified of the Spider Mastermind as a kid, to the point where I was actually scared to play E3M8 or E4M8 again. I may be one of the lucky few where the boss map's design totally "clicked", but I'll be damned if it wasn't effective, if only the once.

[Noiser]

3 hours ago, Z50 said:

and like @Foxpup said, those maps didn't build any tension. E1M8,E2M8 and E3M8 just plop you into the boss arena and have nothing else of value.

E1M8 is built with tension from start to finish: The long empty corridor, the omnious red texture, the way how the barons go out their "tombs". Even the torches as new props, everything is built around suspense. As someone who played shareware Doom as a child, that level had the biggest impact on me - the fact there isn't an actual "level", but a morbid sense of silence amplfy this notion imo. E2M8 is also very interesting, with that unique texture placement giving the narrative of barons getting ripped apart by the cyberdemon.

E3M8 feels a bit lacking in comparison, but I would not change any of them - I would just make the bosses harder and more interesting as single enemies. Heretic and Hexen did that - bosses with multiple attacks, battle in two phases, summoning, teleporting. Cool stuff!

Edited January 18, 2023 by Noiser

[Individualised]

18 minutes ago, Noiser said:

E1M8 is built with tension from start to finish: The long empty corridor, the omnious red texture, the way how the barons go out their "tombs". Even the torches as new props, everything is built around suspense. As someone who played shareware Doom as a child, that level had the biggest impact on me - the fact there isn't an actual "level", but a morbid sense of silence amplfy this notion imo. E2M8 is also very interesting, with that unique texture placement giving the narrative of barons getting ripped apart by the cyberdemon.

I've said this in another thread before but the atmosphere that E1M8 creates was always so rewarding to younger me who could barely beat episode 1 and reaching E1M8 was rare. I guess I want to see more levels trying to recreate that.

 

Maybe someone could attach part of Jaguar's Tower of Babel to the PC version to try and create an intro similar to E1M8.

 

The Spider Mastermind was never meant to be the final boss so that explains why most people find it anti-climactic. "Heretic and Hexen did that - bosses with multiple attacks, battle in two phases, summoning, teleporting." The unused Doom MIDIs contain, alongside an earlier version of Facing the Spider, a much faster, more upbeat similar sounding song that sounds like it could have been used for a second phase. Maybe someone could make use of that as well. Time to do some experimenting I think!

Edited January 18, 2023 by Individualised

[Skye_DS]

i really loved the boss fight in doom 1/2. and how they introduced the enemies you fought into newer stages, it kind of helps you deal with what your gonna see later in the game, plus i love the map design of e1m8 and the cyberdemon fight

[Not Jabba]

Yeah, there's really a lot of hindsight to people's criticism of E2M8 and E3M8. People see it very differently now, partly due to the progressively better combat design of Doom maps and partly due to the progressively more advance gameplay mechanics of games that have come out since. I mean, what do you figure is the earliest video game with really good boss battles that were both challenging and played smoothly? Something like Super Metroid, maybe? That came out four months after Doom.

 

Nobody in the last 25+ years has been able to initially approach Doom as objectively the coolest game ever made, but it did feel that way when it came out. So suppose you're playing objectively the coolest game ever made, you get through E3M7, you're thinking to yourself, "This is so great, but you know what's the only thing wrong with it? There aren't a lot of monster types. I haven't seen anything new in a while." And then suddenly you turn a corner and there's a gigantic cyborg Satan with a rocket launcher for an arm and it kicks the shit out of you.

 

I can't remember if my dad ever actually beat the Cyberdemon in E2M8 the first time he played the game. I know I watched him try it dozens of times. We all know it's a myth that Doom wasn't meant to be played with a mouse, but it's still true that at the time, most people didn't have comfortable strafing controls, and it made the Cyberdemon hard as balls.

 

The Mastermind was easier by any standard, assuming you have the BFG. But if it's 1993 and you have no comfortable strafing controls and E3 of Doom is about the hardest video game maps you can handle, then just fighting another unique monster was pretty much all you could ask for.

[Shepardus]

12 minutes ago, Not Jabba said:

I mean, what do you figure is the earliest video game with really good boss battles that were both challenging and played smoothly?

Gunstar Heroes precedes Doom by several months, but that's probably not a fair comparison. =P

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

Not really, to be honest.

 

E1M8 is already recognized as being a decent suspense-builder, and it's talked about a lot since people have fond memories of shareware DOOM. So I can't really say it's underrated.

 

E2M8 is okay, and the general consensus is that it's "okay".

 

E3M8 is simply a shitty map.

 

Even when I first played DOOM, I never looked at any of these as "boss fights", even if they were challenging. They just lack everything that makes a boss fight memorable, even if they're not offensively bad. They have one method of attack, one phase, and AI that is too similar to other normal enemies, so in turn they just feel like stronger versions of normal enemies, which is a chief complaint about poor video game boss fights in general. Even when it comes to E1M8, which is considered by a lot of people to be the best one, fighting a Baron just feels like fighting a spongy Imp. Except you get two for the price of one, because one would have been boring, another trope that is still frowned upon today when it comes to boss fights.

 

Are they memorable? Sure, depending on when/how you played the game. Are they particularly good? Not really.

[Murdoch]

I think it is a matter of perspective.

 

I think they had a better chance of making an impact at the time. I remember them initially being quite challenging and good finishes, though I found the Spiderdemon underwhelming even then. But keep in mind, it was 1994 and I was 14 years old, with my only prior experience with FPS being Wolfenstein 3D and Blake Stone. Nowadays though with almost three decades of FPS playing under my belt, yes, they are pretty overwhelming and not challenging. And I think that anyone today playing those maps for the first time who was experienced playing other FPS games would probably have the same opinion. They might get startled by especially the Cyberdemon at first, but would quickly learn the patterns and conquer them without much fuss.

Edited January 18, 2023 by Murdoch

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

I feel like it's important to note that I mainly believe the underwhelming boss fights are to be expected with old FPS games in general due to engine limitations. Blood has boss fights that are even worse than DOOM's because they are both underwhelming and fucking irritating. All on the mighty Build Engine with all its fancy DOOM-killing tricks. And I love base Blood more than I do base DOOM. People like to brag about Heretic's boss fights, but even those are far from being anything spectacular. Even in 2023, there are very few pwads I've played where my reaction to a boss fight was anything more than "that was supposed to be a boss fight, I think". I still can't excuse the Spider Nerd, but the rest is understandable and I think they work fine on their own as long as you don't think of them as boss battles. 

Edited January 18, 2023 by TheMagicMushroomMan

[DNSKILL5]

For the first time the bosses are great, but after repeated play-throughs, I find E3 and E4 to not be as enjoyable as E1 and E2.

The ending to episode 1 was the biggest mind fuck in a game for me at the time. It isn’t so much the battle itself but the conclusion. Imagine only having the shareware and having to wait to see the rest of the game after that. 

 

The cyberdemon speaks for itself for E2.
 

But E3, it is too easy in my opinion, and loses its charm after the first encounter. Now, it is much more challenging if you Pistol-start it and cannot rely on the BFG to defeat the spider with, but it just doesn’t feel as epic as the battle against the cyberdemon. 

 

Episode 4, well, I just feel that it deserved its own boss, even if it was just 4-6 archviles, that would’ve been far more shocking for someone who hadn’t played Doom II to witness than just the E2 and E3 bosses in the same level. Even something a bit like the Icon of Sin, would’ve at least been a different encounter to end the game on.
 

Doom II and Final Doom, having the big bads as more common enemies also makes their impact in Doom a bit less meaningful, especially for those who returned to The Ultimate Doom after playing Doom II first.

[CFWMagic]

E1M8 is great actually. Thanks to decino, I had some fun trying to get the barons to kill each other. There's even an extra challenge: Kill as many things in the death exit as possible.

E2M8, at the time, was actually challenging to me. The mix of lost souls, cyberdemon and rocketlauncher really used to mess me up, either by face rockets on a lost soul, or a random rocket that missed a lost soul and found me instead.

E3M8 ... Dis. It actually took me time to remember that it's Dis. The only thing that I remember about that level off the top of my head is that it has a spider mastermind. And that about describes the whole map. Again, I found my own fun here by getting her to infight, but ... It's forgettable.

I REALLY don't like E4 as a whole (lots of stone/rock/blood textures, lots of greens and browns. Something I absolutely hate because I'm colorblind) and it shows. I can't remember a single thing about E4M8. Nada.

I kinda like E5M8 though. E5 is a kinda like E4, but better because it uses darker textures, making imps visible again.

[Herr Dethnout]

10 hours ago, Z50 said:

didn't build any tension. E1M8

Are you sure about that?

[SealSpace]

14 hours ago, Individualised said:

People don't seem to like them but I wish Doom 2 had its own original boss fight levels too. It pretty much only has Dead Simple and Icon of Sin and I'm not sure if either of those really count. It would be cool to see more custom boss fights and boss arenas in WADs too. IMO there's some great potential for boss fights in Doom and I think the idea is really underutilised, even in Doom 1 since they're pretty easy there.

It was my impression that Dead Simple with the Mancubi and Arachnotrons was more of a mini-boss fight map akin to your first two Barons of Hell on Phobos Anomaly.  

 

But that said, I definitely do agree with you that I wish Doom 2 could have introduced at least one more original major boss besides the Icon of Sin (and a better and more effective version of such).

 

Like I think Doom 2 could have given us maybe the Vanilla Doom version of the Mother Demon from Doom 64. 

 

And then Doom test maps would have yet another additional monster slot besides the Cyberdemon and the Spider Mastermind to server as an actual boss monster slot. 

[SealSpace]

That being said as far as 90's (and 90's-style) Boomer Shooters go, 2D Sprite-based ones especially, whether on the Doom, Build, or Wolf3d engine or not...

 

As badass as the Cyberdemon and Spider Mastermind really were, they were pretty mediocre, disappointing, and underwhelming and very "bitch basic" in the grand scheme of things. 

[Lucius Wooding]

Any decent archvile fight is better than any of the main boss fights in Doom 1+2. Clearly by the time Doom 2 came out they had better ideas of how to use the boss monsters and certainly E4 had a couple better designed ones. 

 

E1M8 had good music and is probably the best of the episode enders in Doom 1. Icon of Sin is probably the worst of the lot. I think map 32 is just a tribute to a Wolfenstein boss map but it's still better equipped than just rockets, less of a drag than, E2M8 and I suppose it's nice on a continuous run to stock up.

 

Maps that would have been better boss maps than the ones they picked:

-Fortress of Mystery

-Warrens

-Refueling Base

-E4M2

-E4M6

-Hell, I'll even include Gotcha

 

Imagine one of these had been the first time being introduced to a Cyberdemon or other baddy, it'd be way cooler.

Edited January 19, 2023 by Lucius Wooding

[Azuris]

I really like E1M8.

[ZethXM]

Doom as the precision clockwork of game design it is known as today?  Quaint, sparse, piss-easy, dull.  Doom as the fathomless dungeon depths sprawling before the minds of children, flying by the edge of their keyboards, that it was decades ago?  Behold, what new horrors await.

[Individualised]

5 hours ago, Lucius Wooding said:

Any decent archvile fight is better than any of the main boss fights in Doom 1+2. Clearly by the time Doom 2 came out they had better ideas of how to use the boss monsters and certainly E4 had a couple better designed ones. 

 

E1M8 had good music and is probably the best of the episode enders in Doom 1. Icon of Sin is probably the worst of the lot. I think map 32 is just a tribute to a Wolfenstein boss map but it's still better equipped than just rockets, less of a drag than, E2M8 and I suppose it's nice on a continuous run to stock up.

 

Maps that would have been better boss maps than the ones they picked:

-Fortress of Mystery

-Warrens

-Refueling Base

-E4M2

-E4M6

-Hell, I'll even include Gotcha

 

Imagine one of these had been the first time being introduced to a Cyberdemon or other baddy, it'd be way cooler.

Interestingly a version of Fortress of Mystery is Dis in the Jaguar-based ports. Though I always felt like that was anti-climactic. I know that the original Jaguar port was so simplified due to space limitations but IMO they should have gotten rid of some textures and spared some space for Cyberdemon and Spider Mastermind sprites instead. Then, they could have added boss rooms to Tower of Babel (Hell's Gates on PS1/Saturn) and Dis (Fortress of Mystery on PC) in order to retain the story from the PC game. That would probably make me appreciate the Jaguar-based ports a bit more too, if they had tried to retain the feel of the original.

7 hours ago, SealSpace said:

It was my impression that Dead Simple with the Mancubi and Arachnotrons was more of a mini-boss fight map akin to your first two Barons of Hell on Phobos Anomaly.  

 

But that said, I definitely do agree with you that I wish Doom 2 could have introduced at least one more original major boss besides the Icon of Sin (and a better and more effective version of such).

 

Like I think Doom 2 could have given us maybe the Vanilla Doom version of the Mother Demon from Doom 64. 

 

And then Doom test maps would have yet another additional monster slot besides the Cyberdemon and the Spider Mastermind to server as an actual boss monster slot.  

If id had more involvement with Final Doom, maybe the Mother Demon could have been the final boss in either TNT Evilution or Plutonia. It would have been cool to see more original content/new features in Final Doom as a whole I think.

Edited January 19, 2023 by Individualised

[Trar]

I'll vouch for E2M8 being iconic, if easy now that people have had 30 years of experience, and for E1M8 also having a certain iconic sense of dread. E3M8 is the weakest of the bunch because all it would really have taken to spice it up a bit was add more enemies. Make it a real onslaught, you know, kind of like E4M8 but more memorable and to-the-point. But as people have already said, id was writing the proverbial book on boss fight design back then.

[SealSpace]

4 hours ago, Individualised said:

Interestingly a version of Fortress of Mystery is Dis in the Jaguar-based ports. Though I always felt like that was anti-climactic. I know that the original Jaguar port was so simplified due to space limitations but IMO they should have gotten rid of some textures and spared some space for Cyberdemon and Spider Mastermind sprites instead. Then, they could have added boss rooms to Tower of Babel (Hell's Gates on PS1/Saturn) and Dis (Fortress of Mystery on PC) in order to retain the story from the PC game. That would probably make me appreciate the Jaguar-based ports a bit more too, if they had tried to retain the feel of the original.

If id had more involvement with Final Doom, maybe the Mother Demon could have been the final boss in either TNT Evilution or Plutonia. It would have been cool to see more original content/new features in Final Doom as a whole I think.

Yeah one more major boss to compliment the Cyberdemon and Spiderdemon and a better Icon of Sin would have made the two classic Doom games (and its subsequent expansions) complete. 

[Uni]

Yeah the end levels in Doom have not aged particularly well. I simply think Id just made really simple arenas just to plop down a new, big and menacing monster that the player haven't encountered yet and let it steal the show. I think E1M8 is the coolest because of those two closets the bruiser brothers come out from, I always thought it looked sort of unique and interesting.

 

E3M8 has a decent look to it and I think if Sandy added damaging blood to the main area, it would actually be a pretty solid boss level from pistol start. Heck, he even used the marble texture with the blood in the lower part!