i played hell revealed for the the first time the other day and am kind of obsessed with it

[Jayextee]

I'm now at City In The Clouds, having restarted on HMP. In the context of its 1997 release, I can totally see why this WAD has legendary status. Sure, some of the combat design has aged (and very many encounters can end up either a bottleneck-funnelling at a room's entrance, or circlestrafing a crowd to chip them down attrition-free) but there's a lot of what were probably new and innovative ideas here.

Also, I think it's pretty ugly. Not 'pretty ugly' as in it's damned foul to look at, but pretty-ugly. Its ugliness is made to work in its favour IMO. As such I kinda like its aesthetic.

[Jayextee]

Okay, I can remember MAP18 - Hard Attack. This is where my first attempt ended and I can see why. The elevator of nigh-infinite revenants was a fucking slog whichever way I chose to tackle it (inner part or upper walkway? HMMMMMM...) and the sound of all those revs creating a wall of almost-white noise in my headphones is just, ugh, fucking hell I feel bad after that.

I will soldier through regardless. This time's the charm, because I've now beaten MAP18 so presumably I can endure any torture from this point on. Right? ;)

[Devalaous]

HR only really 'begins' where the original HRE1 ends, once you hit Last Look at Eden, its all ridiculous from there. Hard Attack was probably the most obnoxious level in the set, just for the ring of near-infinite revenants and nobles.

[PsychEyeball]

MAP 22-24 is the part of Hell Revealed that will truly test you to the max. If you can beat these maps, then you can consider HR as being beaten. Nothing will come close to these 3, at least in continuous play. (Map 20, Judgement Day, is utterly joyless and ridiculous to beat on a pistol start since the game wants you to take on heavy monsters with a shotgun and chaingun. Nothing else needed!)

 

Not all of HR is as crazy as it's likely been so far. MAP 19, Everything Dies, is a nice palette cleanser after the inanity of Hard Attack and features a pretty harmless theme. MAP 21, Siege, floods you with supplies straight at the beginning and gives you a safe zone there to boot. MAP 25, Dead Progressive, is an alternative take on Dead Simple that acts as a coffee break after the madness of maps 22-24. Maps 27-29 are a far cry from the general craziness due to the maps having being made by Haggay Niv (Map 28 is hard but its worst encounters all are optional).

[Lila Feuer]

Y'all are making me wanna head right in to this after I beat PRCP 2. It's honestly a surprisingly comfy WAD for the most part.

[Kwisior]

53 minutes ago, PsychEyeball said:

(Map 20, Judgement Day, is utterly joyless and ridiculous to beat on a pistol start since the game wants you to take on heavy monsters with a shotgun and chaingun. Nothing else needed!)

There's an SSG, but it's in a secret.

[ReaperAA]

Even as someone who doesn't like HR, I don't think it "looks" ugly for its time period. For todays standards? sure. When compared against other 90s wads, it looks okay. MM1 and Icarus don't look better than HR visually. MM2 and Requiem look only marginally better than HR.

 

Also as much as I find HR sloggy due to the overuse of SSG vs Barons trope, I will probably put it above MM1 and probably above Requiem as well.

[zokum]

HR does look dated and simple compared to other good 1997 releases like Gothic DM (just after) and Mordeth (before). Focus wasn't on high quality scenery and visually stunning layouts, but on minimalism and game play. If you look at the doomwiki list of notable releases, there are many in production or released before HR that look better. HR did its own thing, but it isn't a map set you go to for the architecture. HR achieved its goals very well in my opinion.

Tetris isn't a visually stunning game, but it sure plays well. HR is a bit like that. The scenery is mostly designed for combat, not for looking at. The HR people could have spent a months polishing the visuals, but all in all, it wouldn't really be worth it. What they had was more than strong enough and they had such a strong vision with the game play that adding scenery might have detracted from it. Remember that back then the computers people most had weren't rendering Doom at a constant 35fps, especially if the maps were more complex. So for a significant part of the user base, better visuals would have hurt the experience.

I remember Quake being a very polarizing game. Many didn't have the hardware to play it properly, so they played older / less demanding FPS games. I did like Quake 2, but it honestly ran so slow on my computer that it hurt my enjoyment of it. Quake ran well enough, but Quake 2 was the tipping point for me. I reckon many others had similar experiences with complex Doom maps. I had a P100 back then and it did well enough on all the Doom wads I remember playing.

[roadworx]

15 hours ago, Lila Feuer said:

Y'all are making me wanna head right in to this after I beat PRCP 2. It's honestly a surprisingly comfy WAD for the most part.

shit, now i think i'm gonna take another shot at finishing hr as well. good job op lol

[Jayextee]

Just beaten MAP23 and I can remember the red key area vividly. So apparently I didn't stop where I thought I did. Looking at the beginning of MAP24, and I can remember this as well! Y'know, I may well have completed this back when, I just can't remember if I did; several sections do jog my memory though. It's starting to get *very* grindy though, very burnout; especially for my poor attention span. I may have to play something lowkey and relaxing after this.

[Lila Feuer]

1 hour ago, Jayextee said:

I may have to play something lowkey and relaxing after this.

 

Yeah don't do what I did and head right into HR2. 🤪

[Devalaous]

6 hours ago, Jayextee said:

I may have to play something lowkey and relaxing after this.

 

I moved onto Alien Vendetta afterwards >.>

[Jayextee]

Afterlife.

I just can't anymore. Whilst doing some preliminary scouting to check out the initial area and assess how I'm going to tackle it, an unmarked teleporter led me to a floating tunnel and then a barrel trap of sorts which killed me outright.

I'm done. This WAD is for people made of sterner stuff than I. The grind has worn me down to a level of tiredness I cannot deal with.

[Kwisior]

2 hours ago, Jayextee said:

Afterlife.

I just can't anymore. Whilst doing some preliminary scouting to check out the initial area and assess how I'm going to tackle it, an unmarked teleporter led me to a floating tunnel and then a barrel trap of sorts which killed me outright.

I'm done. This WAD is for people made of sterner stuff than I. The grind has worn me down to a level of tiredness I cannot deal with.

You can archvile jump to the exit if you want. The last few maps are less grindy.

[Arsinikk]

I will not lie, reading this thread really does make me wanna replay HR, even if I did only stream it a little more than a year ago. (Which apparently was a blind run) :P

Edited October 17, 2023 by Arsinikk

[Arsinikk]

Ok, so I ended up replaying the first 14 maps on stream (UV Pistol Start), so I thought I'd do like a map-by-map review / journal of my thoughts on replaying each map so far.

 

Note that this isn't really a blind playthrough, so I do remember where some of the secrets are.

 

Spoiler

MAP01: Into the Gate

This is actually one of my favourite HR maps. It's not really hard, but I find the map to be quite memorable. Aesthetically, it's actually one of the better looking early HR maps. I'll never forget the invisible door hack to hold all the pinkies until you get to the exit room.

 

Also don't forget to enter the beginning portal like 4 times to find the secret credits room :)

 

 

MAP02: Gateway Lab

Well, it's not as good looking as MAP01. I will say that HR's early levels do have a certain simplistic charm to them. Progression wise, this map is kinda wack. I sorta love / hate that the room with the blue key door is barricaded by a door, which must be opened before getting the blue key... lol doesn't that make the blue key locked door pointless, since by the time you open the first door, you also have the blue key? Also having a loop around while opening the blue door is kinda hilarious to me.

 

Fun fact: you can hit the switch to raise the exit stairs at the start of the level, however the mappers knew about this and added a sector behind the exit door that only raises once you are in the dark blue key locked area. Funny way of trying to fix pressing the switch early (due to being able to press a switch at any height).

 

Fun fact 2: DM arena is literally just "Dead Progressive" but in DM form.

 

 

MAP03: The Dumpster

This map is probably most remembered for the drop at the beginning of the map. Basically if you shoot, monsters will tend to block you via infinite height. Though I've found you can get kinda lucky and shooting at the beginning doesn't necessarily spell your doom. Besides that, the map has the most crate maze of crate mazes. Usually I'd complain about that, but this is kinda before crate mazes had become overdone. I find a certain switch lift sequence to be quite funny. There's this kinda fun choose your own path thing the map does, where once you enter one side, both paths close... The only minor problem with this setup is that it only takes like 5 seconds for you to realise that the paths converge and so there's really no point to choosing anyway :P

 

Also more maps need to use the slow building stairs for pointless reasons, like the switch in front of the start room. It's quite entertaining.

 

 

MAP04: The Garden Terminal
I have a soft spot for this map. Something about the beginning "super detailed" nature path, to the inaccessible BFG in the fountain. Probably one of the more enjoyable early HR maps imo. Wouldn't say it's very hard, but it's memorable.

 

 

MAP05: Core Infection

I would actually say that this is probably the first sort of "difficulty spike" in the megawad. Not by a crazy amount, but it's the setup of tight corridors and the first baron appearances. I'll probably always remember the weird plasma gun grab (even though it's probably intended to be grabbed by jumping off the raising sector later on). I hope you like shotgunning / chaingunning Barons :)

 

 

MAP06: The Round Crossroads

I kinda like this map. I like how it's kinda like a hub with all the areas connected to it. Also some outside air is nice after the last map. Still though the barons are a little tedious to get rid of, especially in some not-as-tight corridors. I love the placement of the crusher next to the lift; it's kind of evil. The final encounter is a little bit trickier than I would have expected, especially when coming in at a bit of low health.

 

 

MAP07: Arachnophobia

You know, ironically I kinda like this map. It is very tedious, but surprisingly requires you to pay attention or else the Arachnotrons will get you. Lol I remember this map being tedious, but it's surprisingly even more tedious than I actually remembered. I love how once you kill the spiders, the big mama shows up, but you can kinda just ignore her and exit :P

 

 

MAP08: The Jail
I have a soft spot for this map for one reason, and one reason only: because of the super obvious silver bars that offset specifically so you can glide through them. The thought of putting the bars like that makes me so giddy. I'd say the downside to this super awesome glide is that it's really not too helpful when it comes to beating the map. You don't really get any boons that would help you in the previous areas. It's literally just there so you can beat the map faster. I find the cave maze design to be "cute".

 

 

MAP09: Knockout

So I kinda like this map, or map(s) I should say. To me, this map feels like 2 maps strung together. The first berserk heavy punching imps and occasionally barons simulator, and the other toxic radiation corridor simulator. I kinda like both parts to a certain extent, but they both feel a bit at odds with each other style and gameplay wise. This is also the first instance in this wad of what I like to call "didn't immediately enter the room? Well fuck you! now you have to deal with all the enemies bunching up at the door". I am specifically talking about the room with the crushing pillars where I messed up and ended up punching everything at the door... which was fuuuuuuun :P

 

Probably the most memorable part of this map is the 100 imps teleport ambush. What's so funny about this setup is 1) the monster-blocking linedef which is an HR staple, and 2) the Mancubi are positioned just high enough that you can't really use them to infight the imps. It's almost so deliberate that it's almost commendable.

 

Also I'm extremely salty about that one room where you have to shoot a random wall between two metal pillars to kill all the enemies.

 

 

MAP10: Chambers of War

I think the general consensus on this map is that people think it's not very good. Strangely enough, I actually really like this map. It's a bit brown and not too pretty, but the gameplay isn't too tedious imo. There's something about this map's exploration that makes my brain happy. Also the waist-high hedge maze is literally the funniest, best idea ever. Probably my second favourite map so far during this playthrough.

 

 

MAP11: Underground Base

So this is the map where people tend to point to when it comes to the map's difficulty spike. And you know what, they are right. I think for me, it's mostly the start that's really tricky to figure out. I probably died around 20 times before I figured out a route that allowed me to get a foothold. Once you do get a foothold, the map gets a bit more fun. I do enjoy the area with wood pillars with the Archviles in them. Also I think I remember seeing some people complain about finding the walk-through wall secret here. I mean there is literally a sector arrow on the floor, so that seemed obvious enough to me. The most memorable part of the map is probably the wide open BFG area with the funniest monster blocking line ever creating an amazing flesh wall of pinkies. The downside to this area is that it's kinda awkward to get the cyber to infight the enemies on the ledges up top.

 

My least favourite part of this map is basically everything past the blue key door. It's pretty claustrophobic, and just kinda not that fun to play. Also while the cage labyrinth looks pretty cool and interesting, killing all the barons and hell knights in there is quite the chore.

 

 

MAP12: Great Halls of Fire

I actually really enjoy this map gameplay-wise. aesthetically it's definitely not the prettiest. The Pain Elemental that can't hit you is amazing. I will say that this map does kinda feel stitched together. I can't decide whether I love/hate the SSG baron sequence. It's sorta awful, but in a way it's impressive how much the mapper commits to it.

 

 

MAP13: Last Look at Eden

Look, I've played through this map before, so I knew what to expect, but damn this map kicked my ass. I think I may have made this map harder for myself by rushing through it a bit and allowing the Archvile to end up on the side stairs near the start. The big descending staircase thing (idk what to call it. It's before the courtyard) is absolutely brutal. I think it's mostly the chaingun ambush at the bottom. I ended up finding that rushing below was not the intended strat, and it was better for the Chaingunners to thin their numbers and infight with some of the monsters above instead.

 

Speaking of what I like to call "didn't immediately enter the room? Well fuck you! now you have to deal with all the enemies bunching up at the door". Whatever you do, when you open the door to the courtyard, get out there ASAP, or you will have to do what I did and wait for all the mancubi walking into the door single-file and literally have to wait a torturous amount of time. However once you do make it to the courtyard, I quite enjoy this map. The cage fight is also amazingly brutal but still very memorable. Can't say it's my favourite map, but it definitely has it's set pieces.

 

 

MAP14: City in the Clouds

This is the only map from HR that I've played rather recently. I feel this map is much more enjoyable if you already know what to do. I find it interesting that even though the map feels very open, it's really not. I'm pretty sure that there's sort of a set progression that the player is meant to take. I tend to do: Shotgun, rocket launcher, room with blue key, blue building, yellow building/walkway, red key building, BFG and then final monster cleanup.

 

This map is pretty rough when it comes to gathering weapons, especially on a pistol start. I kinda love how the measly shotgun is first guarded by 3 imps and a Baron, when all you have is a pistol. Then grabbing the shotgun releases 2 Archviles and 2 hell knights, so you'd better GTFO. I do like how the player is forced to earn their weapons though, and once you gain a foothold the map does become more enjoyable.

 

I will say that the BFG jump is quite painful to do. It's a very precise jump. Also I find the general idea of the southeastern teleport hub to be strange. Like it's not that useful because: 1) you don't know where the teleports go, 2) teleporting into certain buildings with monsters is most likely gonna fuck you up, and 3) the map isn't that large to really require a teleport hub imo. I will say that it's also really strange that they decided to make one of the teleports teleport you to different ledges depending on which side of the teleport you take.

 

Overall, I do think this map is worth playing at least once. I think it's one of the best HR maps in general, as it's well crafted.

 

Edited October 18, 2023 by Arsinikk

[RataUnderground]

On 10/17/2023 at 1:18 PM, Jayextee said:

Afterlife.

I just can't anymore. Whilst doing some preliminary scouting to check out the initial area and assess how I'm going to tackle it, an unmarked teleporter led me to a floating tunnel and then a barrel trap of sorts which killed me outright.

I'm done. This WAD is for people made of sterner stuff than I. The grind has worn me down to a level of tiredness I cannot deal with.

You are now filled with determination

[Jayextee]

2 minutes ago, RataUnderground said:

You are now filled with determination

Underfail references won't restore the savegame I have now overwritten. I had enough, I'm not doing it.

[Lila Feuer]

You are now filled with despair

Edited October 18, 2023 by Lila Feuer

[Devalaous]

The final map was the one I was tempted to give up on. A lot of IoS maps from that era are nigh impossible due to being made by speedrunners or challengefiends, all trying to perfect that sheer chaos monster spawner + lift action. At least I managed to beat HR's IoS, unlike the physically impossible on a controller AV IoS

[plums]

@OliveTree or any other new HR fans, have you played Kama Sutra? It's very much in the same vein and more Hell Revealed-y than HR2, the latter's direct references and homages aside.

[Lila Feuer]

Kama Sutra comes as highly recommended, I had an amazing time with that megawad.

[OliveTree]

On 10/17/2023 at 4:18 AM, Jayextee said:

a barrel trap of sorts which killed me outright.

ive felt like an insane person W.R.T that barrel "trap". It's not even really a trap because as far as i can tell going into that path is necessary for progression in the map. I don't even see what the explosion does to benefit the map?

 

That said, it's a shame you gave up so close to the end. As other's have pointed out, you're already past the peak of difficulty in Hell Revealed!

 

2 hours ago, Jayextee said:

the savegame

Were you playing continuous?

 

34 minutes ago, plums said:

have you played Kama Sutra?

i have not, but ill check it out :>

[OliveTree]

also @Arsinikk im loving these notes on each map :>

[Maribo]

Cool thread, shame about the HR2 distaste present in here though. I wrote a short thing a while ago about HR2 Map13: Hardcore, but never had a real reason to post it, anywhere so here that is, I guess:

Spoiler

Violent pressure cooker experience. Makes you fight tooth and nail to even get your first foothold, and continually tosses you right back in the grinder when you think you're ready to go deeper. One of those maps that feels like defusing a bomb, it lives off that feeling of imminent self-destruction at every turn, squeezing both you (mentally) and doomguy (between monster masses) in tandem. That revenant flood is one of the most classic "Oh Fuck" moments in any map. The whole experience of breaking this map apart piece by piece and understanding how to approach it is wonderfully daunting, and I think it's made better by how overwhelming and sinister it is in its presentation.

I think Jonas Feragen's HR2 maps are far and away the most fascinating pieces of work in the WAD, and it pains me that there's not very much else he did outside of it. It also crossed my mind to write about Maps 09, 18, and 21, but I never really got around to it.

[OliveTree]

4 hours ago, Maribo said:

squeezing both you (mentally) and doomguy (between monster masses) in tandem.

mfw im being squeezed between monster masses

 

On topic: I haven't played HR2 but I tend to be more moved by positivity than negativity

[Lila Feuer]

@Maribo True, I remember liking the majority of his levels overall, and between the two HRs I did like the first 11 or so maps much more than the original, even if the subtlety was gone out the gate (MAP01 is undeniably a banger start though.)

[Jayextee]

11 hours ago, OliveTree said:

Were you playing continuous?

Yes. It's how I play DOOM, and I don't care if it upsets the balance of any given map.

[OliveTree]

10 minutes ago, Jayextee said:

Yes. It's how I play DOOM, and I don't care if it upsets the balance of any given map.

I mean, it's how I played Hell Revealed as well (as I've mentioned elsewhere in this thread). No judgement from me, especially because there's no reason it would ever make sense to judge someone for that. It's literally not even cheating imo (it actually takes more technical effort to intentionally pistol start every map).

 

But I asked if you were playing continuous because, if you werent, it would be a really handy time to mention that being beholden to a save file makes zero sense :P

[Jayextee]

Just now, OliveTree said:

it actually takes more technical effort to intentionally pistol start every map

Yeah, this. Plus there's a relatively-modern mapping trope of withholding access to the backpack until later maps, and even then not ever map has one, which makes continuous play just make sense to me. I doubt I'd have got as far as I did in HR were it not for carryovers.