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

[OliveTree]

Just now, Jayextee said:

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.

The backpack plays heavily into why I like playing Doom "semi-continuous" the way I typically do. That is, more or less how Doom would have been originally played, but saveless. So you carry over your items across map transitions but are reset to your pistol whenever you die. I find it makes a backpack a much more profoundly exciting thing to find, and a very high stakes thing to have in a map where you haven't found one yet. I enjoy that back and forth of power across a whole megawad.

 

Because I was testing a mod that changes the weapons, I thought it made more sense to have my full arsenal as often as possible, so I played Hell Revealed fully continuous. Having now played it though I suspect I'd do it continuous again if I ever tried to replay it, or I'd pistol start very specific maps that I am itching to revisit.

[Lila Feuer]

I play continuous until I've got some experience under my belt with a WAD (which can be anywhere from two to as many as four playthroughs) before I decide if I want to attempt pistol starts. Fast monsters AND pistol starts without savegames is the ultimate challenge for me and could be very difficult at times in the IWAD levels which I only recently did and that was just Doom 1 and 2, Plutonia might be fun but TNT...oooooh. Metal burned me out.

Edited October 19, 2023 by Lila Feuer

[OniriA]

I remember playing HR2 in singleplayer continuous somewhere in the late 2000's.

 

Remember a lot of camping and switching to fast monsters to let the loud hordes outside infight and wipe eachother out faster (otherwise it could take up to an half hour of them just fighting).

Later on in the wad I switched to fast monsters which made it somehow easier, as it's easy to abuse the shit out of monsters while hiding from corners and behind doors or bars as they'll just keep spamming their fireballs trying to hit you if you're in sight. 

 

Remember listening to a lot of Rammstein   aswell while getting through that shit. 

Edited October 19, 2023 by OniriA

[Lila Feuer]

@OniriA For a sec I thought this was the Plutonia 2 thread and almost responded with this:

 

WE'RE ALL LIVING IN PLU-TO-NIA, PLU-TO-NIA, IT'S HORR-ABLE

WE'RE ALL LIVING IN PLU-TO-NIA, PLU-TO-NIA

ARCH-A-VILE, REV-A-NANT

 

Oh well I made myself laugh.

Edited October 19, 2023 by Lila Feuer

[OniriA]

12 minutes ago, Lila Feuer said:

WE'RE ALL LIVING IN PLU-TO-NIA, PLU-TO-NIA, IT'S HORR-ABLE

WE'RE ALL LIVING IN PLU-TO-NIA, PLU-TO-NIA

ARCH-A-VILE, REV-A-NANT

 

Oh well I made myself laugh.

 

Thanks for making me giggle though 🖤

Edited October 19, 2023 by OniriA

[RHhe82]

I have now played first 8 maps. I understand "true HR" starts only later, but so far I've had a lukewarm reaction to it; The maps are fine, just fine; although visually they pale in comparison to IWAD maps. They're like Evilution at its worst. But I can forgive that, they're not butt-ugly, and MAP01 even looked (and played interesting). Then I started MAP09, Knockout. Am I really supposed to tyson all the enemies? I quit at the part where the shotgun was guarded by barons and hell knights (notice the plurals). Maybe I played the start of the map wrong, but if we're still in the easy maps waiting for the true HR to start, gee, I don't know. I mean, I know how to punch hell nobles, but I've yet to see compensatory appeal.

[volleyvalley]

2 hours ago, RHhe82 said:

Then I started MAP09, Knockout. Am I really supposed to tyson all the enemies? I quit at the part where the shotgun was guarded by barons and hell knights (notice the plurals). Maybe I played the start of the map wrong, but if we're still in the easy maps waiting for the true HR to start, gee, I don't know. I mean, I know how to punch hell nobles, but I've yet to see compensatory appeal.

Knockout isn't a pure Tyson map - you get the Shotgun and Chaingun later on in the level. As for the Hell Knights and the Barons guarding the Shotgun, use the Invulnerability you see a bit later on the level on them and then you should be able to dispatch them pretty handily.

[PsychEyeball]

On 10/19/2023 at 11:49 AM, RHhe82 said:

I have now played first 8 maps. I understand "true HR" starts only later, but so far I've had a lukewarm reaction to it; The maps are fine, just fine; although visually they pale in comparison to IWAD maps. They're like Evilution at its worst. But I can forgive that, they're not butt-ugly, and MAP01 even looked (and played interesting). Then I started MAP09, Knockout. Am I really supposed to tyson all the enemies? I quit at the part where the shotgun was guarded by barons and hell knights (notice the plurals). Maybe I played the start of the map wrong, but if we're still in the easy maps waiting for the true HR to start, gee, I don't know. I mean, I know how to punch hell nobles, but I've yet to see compensatory appeal.

Knockout has 2 tricky parts to it: the beginning and the 2/3 mark where you get a key and the room floods with about a hundred teleporting imps you must punch out. You get a shotgun and chaingun, but you'll use it mainly to kill mancubi since your fist can't reach them. There is a hell room shortly in the level, but you can just stay in the doorframe and let every monster infight itself to death since the room has linedefs preventing the monsters from leaving.

 

With continuous play, you can save some rockets and plasma ammo from the previous levels for the more troublesome parts, but a pistol start will require you to berserk punch the hell knights and barons at the start if you want the shotgun. If the prospect of this level doesn't do you good, consider either lowering the difficulty to HMP or just skip the level. Knockout is kind of an oddity in the WAD, its gameplay is not a real indicator of how HR will shape up later and it sticks out in the sea of easy pushover levels the beginning serves you.

 

I've actually started out Hell Revealed 2 out of curiosity and made it to MAP 18 so far. It definitely is an easy WAD to dislike, the first few levels give you a myriad of reasons to hate them. The layouts are super cramped, full of gotchas and unfair encounters that leave no options for the player to take on. There's nothing fun about being in a 80 unit wide square room with 2 archviles in your face ready to toast you and it feels like so much of the WAD decides to take this course throughout its stages. Once the levels decide to open up (Not That Simple II, Anti-Static, The Path II, Playground) there is much more fun to be had but the question is, are you ready to go through a whole lot of uninspired micro killzones to get to the good stuff? At least HR's early levels are clean harmless fun, but HR2 feels like it drops a hammer on your head right away and leaves no quick impression that things will improve.

[Lila Feuer]

I will give credit where credit is rightfully due, Jonas's use of HKs are among the most evil I've dealt with so far. Making a less tanky Baron actually feel immensely threatening when you got an SSG is an amazing feat.

[Devalaous]

On 10/20/2023 at 6:54 AM, volleyvalley said:

Knockout isn't a pure Tyson map - you get the Shotgun and Chaingun later on in the level. As for the Hell Knights and the Barons guarding the Shotgun, use the Invulnerability you see a bit later on the level on them and then you should be able to dispatch them pretty handily.

 

You guys should play Slime Disposal, what Knockout used to be in HRE1. It makes the pieces of it that ended up in Knockout so much more jarring.

[Arsinikk]

Oh man... Played some more on stream last night (UV pistol start MAP15-MAP23, MAP31-MAP32)... I have reached many of the maps that just kill me inside... So enjoy my map reviews I guess. I think that Hell Revealed has some really cool ideas and set pieces, but it also likes to indulge a little too much into unfun scenarios, especially when pistol starting and going for 100% kills.

 

TLDR: When Hell Revealed is good, it's really good... However when it's bad, it can be absolutely awful to play.

 

Spoiler

MAP15: Gates to Hell
I remember this map being a bit stingy when it came to ammo. Specifically when it meant dealing with the perched Barons up top. I definitely think there’s enough shotgun ammo to deal with them, but I would suggest saving as much rocket ammo as you can to make killing them less tedious and slow when going for all kills.

 

I actually enjoy this map to a certain extent. The middle portal area where you slowly open each portal up is pretty fun. I also like how each part of the outer circle you open starts to interconnect with each other. It’s pretty neat. I think this may be the first map that actually has some bugged stuck monsters in the middle area, but luckily it doesn’t affect the map much.

 

I’d say that my main gripe with this map is the stupid switch you have to shoot for the secret exit is literally in the dark at the start of the map, and if you miss it, the secret exit is forever locked for you. This isn’t as big of a deal on pistol start, but on continuous, it’s a bit mean. I know that the infopack gives you a hint, but still…

 

MAP31: The Descent
You know, I didn’t think this map bothered me as much when I first played it, but goddamn do I hate this map. I’m actually a huge fan of The Descent II from HR2, so I have to give some amount of props to the first one, but I just don’t find this map fun to play.

 

Now I actually don’t hate the actual descent part of the map. In fact, I even enjoy playing the sequence the “intended way” (aka not blocking the one teleport destination). Even the part when you hit the bottom where the chaingunners can immediately eviscerate you, I find quite funny. It’s honestly the part afterward with the ambushes for the keys and the locked Cybers in the four corners. It’s alot of peek-a-boo shooting, especially on low health. It’s just extremely tedious on pistol start. I think the main cause of this is that there is no armour at all throughout the map, which makes it very easy to die. This is probably the first map of the playthrough that I’d probably grade as F. I didn’t like this map very much. Oh and surprisingly the secret exit platforming was much easier than I remembered.

 

MAP32: Mostly Harmful
I like this map alot. It’s probably one of the only maps with an Icon of Sin that I actually enjoy playing. It’s a bit tough to a certain extent, but if you are good at 2-3 shotting Cybers, it’s good fun slaughter. I’m actually kinda surprised that the fact that the map is symmetrical actually doesn’t bother me, cuz I’d usually complain about that. If I had one gripe, it’d be that there are Pain Elementals that are kinda unable to be killed. If it wasn’t for that I’d probably call this a perfect map. Was also surprised to see some midtex bridges since I tend to associate those with Hell Revealed II much more than the first.

 

MAP16: The Path
Welcome to SSGing Baron simulator… Though actually this map isn’t as bad as I remember it being. Yeah, there are probably like 20 more Barons than there should probably be, but I enjoy the exploration of following the different ways of the path. I love The Path II as well, so I guess since this is pretty similar, it didn’t bother me. I will say that while I do like that the map provides a bunch of rad suits, I noticed that is sort of resulted in most of the map being covered by the green overlay 90% of the time… which is a bit of a shame.

 

There are a couple areas where there’s just too many enemies for no reason. I think of the mancubi up top and the soulsphere Hell Knight ambush… Though I never really ran into any ammo issues, so it wasn’t a big deal. I think my biggest complaint is a stupid fake wall soulsphere secret that has no hint tied to it. Also the final exit room setup is confusing. There are like a bunch of Cacos in there that do not wake up unless you fire a shot in the room, so you can basically just run into the exit without ever alerting them.

 

MAP17: The Black Towers
I was sorta dreading this map, cuz I remember it being really tight on ammo. Playing this map made me realise that one of the most important things when playing Hell Revealed is finding where the backpack is in a map. The mappers have an obsession of placing a bunch of ammo where the player walks and often they give more ammo as if you already had a backpack coming in. This results in you potentially wasting ammo without realising it since you pick up like a rocket box when at 49 rockets cuz you’re concentrating on killing the enemies in the room.

 

There are so many fights in this map that are just awful imo. The start with the “way too many Barons”, that I would try to keep alive, but each building inside is quite guarded, so keeping them alive is just a nuisance and not worth it. There’s the room with the many Barons and an annoying Archvile. There’s the berserk trap that has WAAAAAY too many demons. Like holy shit, I get what they were going for here for the trap, but you literally spend like 3 minutes punching all the demons. I think the most evil trap is the blue key trap with 3 Archviles. That was a fight I was absolutely dreading cuz if you are going for all kills, make sure you have enough rockets or you aren’t getting 100% kills.

 

I do find it quite cool that you can glide to the exit by just getting one key. Overall, I don’t really like this map very much. It’s really slow and the fights seem to be designed to waste your time. Also like all the doors are switch linedef doors meaning you can’t interrupt the opening and closing of them, which just makes the map that much more unbearable for me.

 

MAP18: Hard Attack
This is the map that I was dreading the most. Almost everything about how this map is designed is just awful. I hate this map. First off, the teleport “noise” at the beginning is awful and mappers just never do something like that ever again. The beginning of the map is actually kinda boring, like it’s super linear. Usually in Doom maps I don’t mind linearity, in fact I rather enjoy following a set path. Somehow this map brings linearity to a new level in that there are no side paths until you reach the large room. I remember the first time I played this map, when you get to the part with the Archviles in the stair room, I completely fucked myself. Luckily, I don’t know if it’s cuz I’m a better player, but I was able to avoid that clusterfuck this time.

 

The map does feel much better when you get to the open room. However the giant raised ring with revenants, barons, and hell knights is a travesty. It’s kinda cool conceptually, but it’s absolutely painful to deal with if you are going for UV max. The centre arena with the BFG is really nicely designed, when the Archviles teleport in. It’s a really fun fight and makes the map a bit more redeemable imo. Also the teleporting Cyber fight is quite fun and innovative and is a highlight of the map. But there’s just many places like a bunch of Revenants being raised behind cages, or like the double archviles in cages near the exit room, that just waste your time and ammo. Honestly I think the biggest crime this map commits is just not giving enough rockets to deal with the middle ring of enemies effectively.

 

MAP19: Everything Dies
I like this map. It’s a little tedious having to non-berserk punch out the pain elementals in the beginning, but I do like having a gimmick that they can’t hurt you cuz of the lost soul limit. I think if a berserk was given at the beginning, the map would be much more fun. I do really like the gimmick of giving all the ammo and health at the start of the map via a voodoo doll grab and have you go through the entire map on those resources. It’s not really a hard map, but I find it kinda fun and a nice breather after the last two exhausting maps.

 

MAP20: Judgement Day
This map is both not that bad but also super awful at the same time. Like it’s got some parts that are pretty fun, but then some stuff that’s just… awful. I like the start and the circle room with the damaging floor in the middle. Even the fight, while not crazy fun, isn’t too bad. However the Mancubi down below are just awful to deal with. So tedious. There are some cacos and pain elementals that are a bit hard to hit further on, but honestly I didn’t find them to be that big of a deal. The rest of the map is pretty ho-hum. Not super great, but not super awful. At first I was in love with the invisible stair section with the yellow key… However when the Archviles are released, they are absolutely a chore to deal with.

 

I think alot of people tend to complain about the random teleport Baron room, but actually I found that I could lure them all into the centre room and then bring in the Cyber from the other room across and it made the encounter way easier to deal with. I would like to give a special mention to the final room, which is probably the funniest thing ever. Basically you can leave without fighting any of the monsters… but it’s the new and “improved” stretched marble face textures that are just… amazingly beautiful. Usually I’d complain about the final room being a one-way, but honestly there’s no reason to really backtrack, so -shrug-.

 

MAP21: Siege
Map starts with some fun doomcute which is quite adorable. This map is mostly a breather map I’d say, giving you a bunch of ammo at the start, but you are able to traverse back at any time. It kinda feels like a more chill “Everything Dies”. It is a bit awkward cuz apparently you have to walk over a very specific linedef to teleport the Archvile in, which apparently I missed the first time going in the room. The Cacos and Revs take quite a while to teleport in, which kinda makes the map drag. I can’t say I’m a very big fan of the final Cyber room setup. The Cybers are a bit of pain to deal with. I was able to get one of the Cybers stuck on the edge of the lift in which I shot him helpless until dead which I was pretty psyched about. Not much to say besides that final room was awkward and a bit of a slog.

 

MAP22: Resistance is Futile
This is the most fun map out of the set so far. I don’t know if I’d call it very hard, and I’m actually surprised about how slow moving the map ends up being, but I found it quite enjoyable. The fights are all separated but they are well crafted. Not much more to say besides that I liked the map. Even aesthetically it doesn’t look too shabby either imo.

 

MAP23: Ascending to the Stars
Oh lord…. This map. I know people complain about the beginning start of shotgunning imps, but tbh that part of the map isn’t that bad. I wouldn’t even say that slowly killing the hell knights after that is that bad (just as long as you draw them out away from the lower Archviles). Even the next room isn’t too bad imo. However the room with the Mastermind and the Mancubi is literally the worst room of all time. Oh my gawd… Even if you do make it through to the other side, and kill the barons and archviles, dealing with the Mancubi is just painful. You can’t shoot them by opening to doors since you’ll hit yourself with splash damage, so you have to slowly and painfully peek-a-boo out in the bottom and slowly shoot them until enough are dead. It’s just tedious.

 

The next room with the barons on the ring and the Cyber is actually not too bad. I do think that there are just too many Cybers in the queue that teleport in though. There are 2 starting cybers and then 3 in the queue which is just tedious to clean up. I kinda love the two teleports in this room, as one just fucks you up with archviles and then the other fucks you up with chaingunners. Obviously you are not meant to do the Archvile teleport yet, but the chaingunner trap is just so harsh. There is very little health and armour in this map, that the chaingunner ambush is often a roll of the dice whether you live or die. I do enjoy the blue sector sequence, however i will say that it is worth killing the barons during that sequence, as if you ever wanna backtrack later on, you’ll be fucked by infinite height. Even the stuck cyber gimmick of the next room is pretty interesting.

 

The final room is just… why… I don’t actually mind the peek-a-boo aspect of shooting the Archviles… it’s the fucking teleport that you have to take every single time to run away from them that is just… oooooohhhhhhh man. This map is probably the best example of all the bad elements of Hell Revealed put into the map. The biggest shame is that there are some really interesting and cool elements that this map has and does. The gameplay is just… tedious. Also figured I’d mention that I was disappointed that one of the Arachnotrons didn’t teleport in at the start since the monster closet used W1 teleport lines and apparently something was in the way. There’s no use complaining about this in a 90s wad such as this, but never use W1 teleport lines in a monster closet… or at least have one WR please.

 

Edited October 21, 2023 by Arsinikk

[OniriA]

 

Either I'm imagining things or this cat turned from purple to orange.

Edited October 20, 2023 by OniriA

[Arsinikk]

1 hour ago, OniriA said:

Either I'm imagining things or this cat turned from purple to orange.

My avatar has been spookified for the season :)

(with an extra spiderweb and fangz)

[OniriA]

5 minutes ago, Arsinikk said:

My avatar has been spookified for the season :)

(with an extra spiderweb and fangz)

That's very spoopy indeed.

 

I heard you made a HR3 by the way, is that true? 

Edited October 21, 2023 by OniriA

[Arsinikk]

9 minutes ago, OniriA said:

I heard you made a HR3 by the way, is that true? 

In a way, you could say that. I led a recent HR I and II inspired project called Hell Revealations.

 

I'd probably call it more of a love letter to both Hell Revealed and Hell Revealed II, in that it takes elements of both to emulate the best of both WADs (obviously subjective).

 

Also, technically Doomer Boards is doing the "official" Hell Revealed III, but after playing the part 1 demo, I don't have much hope on how faithful of a sequel it will be. TBH that was part of the reason I wanted to do a Hell Revealed style project is cuz I felt that I understood what made Hell Revealed 1 and 2 so Hell Revealed-like.

[volleyvalley]

9 hours ago, Devalaous said:

 

You guys should play Slime Disposal, what Knockout used to be in HRE1. It makes the pieces of it that ended up in Knockout so much more jarring.

I have already played it. In HRE1, it's the later half of Knockout in the complete version of that map, which has a somewhat stilted quality to it compared to the first, more polished first parts of the level.

[OliveTree]

7 hours ago, Arsinikk said:

In a way, you could say that. I led a recent HR I and II inspired project called Hell Revealations.

I need to play that but I'd like to play HR2 first so I can appreciate it in its full context

[Andromeda]

On 10/13/2023 at 1:22 PM, plums said:

At least HR2 had the blessing of Donner & Niv. (I thought? can't seem to find anything that says that ATM.)

Indeed!

 

  

(from Yonatan's home page: https://www.oocities.org/hollywood/4704/)

[Lila Feuer]

That's pretty sweet of him.

[Arsinikk]

Finally finished streaming through the rest of Hell Revealed (UV pistol start MAP24-MAP30).

 

I think I came out of playing HR liking it a bit more than I originally had, interestingly. However, there are some maps that I remember hating, that I ended up hating even more as well. It's definitely a mixed bag, but I think that HR is definitely worth playing just for maps such as Last Look at Eden, The Path, Resistance is Futile, Post Mortem, Dead Progressive, Afterlife, etc.

 

It is true that the the first episode of HR, is a bit of different beast but I do think it has its own charm. In short, when HR is good, it's good, but when it's bad, it's really bad.

 

Anyway here's my review of the final maps:

Spoiler

MAP24: Post Mortem
What a wonderful palette cleanser after the last map. This map actually really surprised me, in that this may in fact be my favourite HR map gameplay-wise. This map is just genuinely fun to play. I think part of the enjoyment comes from the vast amount of ammo given to the player. The start is pretty hectic, but there are so many rad suits and secret invulnerabilites, it’s plenty doable. Probably the most awkward part of this map is the Archvile midtexture bridge that you can just never walk under… Idk that felt really weird to me.

 

The ideal strat to beat this map, at least for me, is to basically snipe out all the revenants and possibly some of the archviles from the bottom floor. The Revenants are really what’s stopping you from using the beginning area as a safe area, so once you clear them out, you can use it to your advantage. Once you get a foothold on the map, it becomes pretty straight forward. Will admit I was dumb and didn’t figure out you could just run off the step to grab two secrets.

 

I have to give props to this map, because I typically do not like maps that have “The Living End” aesthetic. I find that aesthetic to be overused and not that nice looking (obviously personal preference). However this map was so fun to play that it allowed me to look over the aesthetic. Genuinely the surprise favourite map of this playthrough.

 

 

MAP25: Dead Progressive
This is probably one of the most remembered and favourite HR maps… And you know what, it deserves it. It’s weird to see this map as a “break” map in HR, seeing that in HR II, there’s Hardcore, which is a much harder riff off the original concept.

 

Not too much to say about the map, except it was fun to play and I enjoyed it. I do think that the map sorta seems pretty chill compared to the rest of the maps in the final episode.

 

 

MAP26: Afterlife
This map probably sucks to play blind lol. I have to say that since I’m a huge fan of Vanilla quirks and oddities, I absolutely adore this map for using ghost monsters. I find alot of this map to be so interesting and experimental. Having the weird midtex scrolling stars take you to the two separate areas of the map is so strange, but kinda works. However the barrel explosions hurting the player while entering those sections, is so totally wack, I don’t know how to feel about it.

This map is waaaaay harder if you don’t know to try and grab the SSG before entering those two areas. It’s actually pretty easy to skip the SSG, but trust me you’ll want it. I do love the chessboard SSG fight though. Aesthetically and gameplay-wise it’s interesting. The other room for the backpack is a little strange, but I think it works.

 

I ended up taking the marble area first with all the barons and chaingunners. The beginning of this area can be a bit brutal with the sniping chaingunners and taking the teleports almost always results in Hell Knights scratching you. Mostly it’s just hit each of the switches slowly and take each fight one-by-one. I’m sure you can do everything at once, but I think it’ll just make it way harder for you. I wonder how the ghost imps section would feel to a player in the 90s? It definitely seems like it would be much more of a nuisance. Luckily since I know how to deal with ghost monsters, the ideal strat here would be to get the ghost imps to hit the Barons, resulting in the Barons scratching them to death. While you may not be able to hit them with your weapons, other monsters can melee ghost monsters to death. It’s slightly slow, but doable.

 

The other section is what I’d call the dark road and void area. I love the aesthetic and how experimental this area looks. Combat-wise it isn’t too bad, and can mostly be done using the SSG. The Cyber up top is a great sniper. Regarding the final void fight of this area, I really like it, though I find that it can be hard to tell where the play area is, and the monster closets that open up can make circlestrafing harder in this area. However this fight can basically be solved via circlestrafe.

 

Of course once you’ve done the both sections, the finale happens with out-of-bounds archviles resurrecting a bunch of ghost monsters. I think this fight works great, mostly cuz of the blue pillars that you can use to kill the ghosts with splash damage. Once you do that, you can then grab a rocket launcher on one end, and exit via the other. Note that you can technically get a rocket launcher earlier via an AV jump, but I don’t really think it’s that needed in the map.

 

I think there are two flaws in this map to keep it from being a perfect map in my eyes. 1) four archviles (the ones that resurrect the ghosts) are impossible to kill and that sucks. I feel like a simple crusher would be nice to get 100% kills. 2) I think it sucks that you can’t traverse to the marble area nor the void road area after teleporting back, as they are each blocked once you complete their section. I assume maybe this is due to not being able to trigger the barrel explosion again, though I always found that part strange to begin with. I’m just not a fan of not being able to backtrack in general.

 

 

MAP27: Cyberpunk
Let’s get this out of the way right now. The fact that there’s a secret SSG near the start and if you miss it, you have to kill like a hundred imps is just bad design. Sorry not sorry. However if you come into this map knowing that fact, the map is ok. I struggle to call this a good map, but it’s not really bad either I guess. However the imp teleport closet is super fucked and is literally one of the worst designed teleport closets I’ve ever seen.

 

I don’t really mind killing all the imps, though because of how the teleport closet is designed, it takes far too long for all of them to teleport out. Even SSGing the mastermind isn’t too bad for HR standards. The rest of the map is alright. There’s a bunch of shotgunners in a pit for some reason. I kinda like the cybers teleporting after hitting the switch and the Archviles are something.

 

The highlight of the map is obviously the cyberdemon maze. Trying to do the cyberdemon maze without the BFG seems like just pain. Maybe it’s due to me getting used to the HR playstyle, but it’s pretty easy to find the BFG when you end up SSGing the cyber guarding it to death, since one of your shots will probably hit the door opening it.

 

I can’t say I’m a big fan of the final “fight” near the exit. There’s a cyberdemon that you can try to get to infight the barons, but it’s honestly a huge pain. During my playthrough I actually thought the cyber was blocked in the exit room, but it actually turns out he can get out. I think the fight would be slightly better if the door just stayed open, but no use complaining about a 20 year old wad 😛 Overall, I kinda like aspects of this map, but the execution is just bad.

 

 

MAP28: Top Hell
This map is pretty fun. I kinda struggle to say that the map is very hard though. The hardest part is definitely the start of the map. The general amount of Cyber snipers can be a bit overwhelming if you don’t know what to do. As with some other Hell Revealed maps, the key is finding the weapons to deal with your foes. In this case, the BFG. Once you find the BFG, the map is basically won. There’s so much ammo in this map that you really don’t have to worry about running out.

 

I can see how back in the day, with how many Cyberdemons there are, how this could have been seen to be a very difficult map. However with lots of easy 2-3 shotting cybers, this map is pretty chill once the BFG is acquired. I’d say my main complaint about this map is that it kinda loses steam after going through the key doors. Pretty much all the fights behind key doors are way easier than the fights that can be accessible anytime. Especially the exit room, just feels extremely underwhelming.

 

 

MAP29: Temple of Fear
I’ll admit that my experience with this map, at least for this playthrough, wasn’t probably a typical experience as I had a ghost pinky following me for a lot of it, which kinda resulted in me rushing a few things to get away from it.

 

The hardest part of the map is the beginning part. Not the part with the pinkies behind you (I just sat in a corner for a minute or two chainsawing all the demons dead), but the fight with the revenants and the two archviles. What makes this so challenging is that you only have an SSG to deal with them. Once you get past that part of the map, it isn’t too bad imo. When I did that section, I strategically brought the barons into a room to kill them so that the archviles wouldn’t raise them.

 

I know that this map has alot of fights and areas, but tbh I don’t really have much to say about them. I kinda thought the dark room that you could turn the lights back on was kinda fun. I also enjoy the final pentagram room fight… not really the fight itself, but damn that’s a good big pentagram. I will say that some of the progression in this map is pretty wack. Especially because at some point, the player is supposed to go back to the very start of the map, but imo there’s nothing really telling the player to go back there. Imo that’s actually the only time in this megawad that I got lost.

 

Surprisingly I used to really hate on the darkness maze (if you know you know), but I actually found it’s not as bad as I originally thought if you go in with an automap since it shows where the secret room is on it.

 

 

MAP30: Hell Revealed
I think I saw somewhere (not sure if it was this thread or not), that this was considered one of the worst Icon of Sins of all time. I’m glad to confirm that this Icon sucks and I hate it. Let me preface the fact that in general, I do not enjoy icon of sins in general. Most of the time, they are my least favourite maps in megawads. I just don’t enjoy the stupid minigame of having to run on a pillar and time when to shoot a rocket into the brain.

 

This Icon of Sin is exceptionally harsh though. In a way, its design is commendable though. Obviously its minigame is the same as any traditional icon of sin. What makes this Icon exceptionally hard is 2 things. 1) the amount of spawn cubes it shoots at a time is quite alot, meaning that the further you get into the map, the harder it tends to get… and that threshold comes fast, and 2) the way the map is designed seem to result in monsters aggregating in the middle of the area blocking access to firing rocket into the brain. This kinda means that it’s especially hard to get a clear shot after a while since all the monsters will congregate in the middle. Compound that with the fact that the cell ammo distribution of this map is actually really low, so make sure to make those BFG shots count.

 

I will admit that when I played this on my recent stream I save-scummed the fuck out of this map. I think the map isn’t too hard if you deal with the icon rather quickly. Of course going for 100% kills is a bit trickier as by the time you kill everything the place is invested by spawned clusters of monsters. Definitely one of my least favourite icon of sins that I’ve played. Not gonna complain too much, since alot of 90s wad ended in icon of sins, and I didn’t really like those either.

 

[Arsinikk]

On 10/22/2023 at 5:28 PM, Andromeda said:

(from Yonatan's home page: https://www.oocities.org/hollywood/4704/)

Btw thanks @Andromeda for sharing this.

 

I've updated both HR and HR II Doomwiki pages to mention Yonatan's approval with your source.

 

Previously, only HR's page only mentioned it, but without a source, while HR II's page had absolutely no mention.

[Jaws In Space]

On 10/20/2023 at 9:18 PM, Arsinikk said:

Also, technically Doomer Boards is doing the "official" Hell Revealed III, but after playing the part 1 demo, I don't have much hope on how faithful of a sequel it will be. TBH that was part of the reason I wanted to do a Hell Revealed style project is cuz I felt that I understood what made Hell Revealed 1 and 2 so Hell Revealed-like.

Someone putting a 2 or a 3 in the title of their project doesn't make it an official sequel in any capacity. In my opinion the only way for a sequel to be official is if the original authors significantly contribute to a sequel, for example Memento Mori 2. The next best thing one can hope for is approval from the original project creators like with Yonatan Donner giving his approval to the creators of Hell Revealed 2. I mean lets be real here there are wads called Plutonia 3 & Plutonia 4 but nobody considers them to be even remotely official yet they both have a number in their title.

 

The thing with calling a project Hell Revealed 3 specifically is that for a very long time after the release of HR2 Andy Olivera, the guy who finished and released HR2, was here & very active on Doomworld so anyone could have just asked him if they could have called their project Hell Revealed 3.

[OliveTree]

For anyone wondering what my aforementioned weapons mod plays like, I've released it in this thread:

 

 

[elborbahquarama]

my favorite part of hell revealed is the title screen, it's just so funny

[zokum]

In my opinion any sequel approval should be done by the original authors of a release. A HR3 should be approved by Donner and Niv. HR 2 does change some things from HR, but nothing drastic. A HR 3 that slightly changes things from HR 2 might have too little left of the original HR vision. The original release is 100% identical to the vision, and HR 2 is perhaps 80%. A new HR 3 that is 80% of HR 2 will then maybe be 64% of what HR was about etc. By only looking at the previous entry in a series, one can easily drift away from the essence of the original.

New entries in a series can expand and twist, but shouldn't stray too far from the original source. If they do, just give it another name. It's not hard to come up with cool project names. If your project uses a well-known name, it should stay true to that brand.

If you are doing an unauthorized fan-inspired take on HR, call it something like Hell Unveiled or Hell Revisited. You can make it obvious what you refer to without resorting to using an establish name to increase interest in a project. Want to make a sequel to Plutonia, then call it Urania (based on the element) or Dis Pateria (based on the roman version of the greek god). A project name is the easiest part.

I think you'll get a lot more respect and recognition if a map set has its own brand. That also opens up the possibility for sequels, where you get to decide what is acceptable or not.

[OliveTree]

 

On 11/15/2023 at 3:26 AM, zokum said:

call it something like Hell Unveiled or Hell Revisited.

"Hell Revised" would be an unironically pretty appealing name for something like a HR remake wad

[T-Rex]

I was just playing through Hell Revealed again and got past the secret levels, so I thought I would pop in and give my thoughts on it, as I feel it's slightly changed a bit since the last couple of years.

 

Now, Hell Revealed has always been and always will be one of my favourite wads to play through, especially for the Rise of the Triad soundtrack, but I don't consider it so high up as I once did, though I regard it to be very good with many fun moments and to play the wad is to get acquainted with Plutonia and other wads similar like Malcolm Sailor's Chord and No Sun series, though the converse is not true. That said, while it has a couple of stinkers, which I will admit, they can't be any worse than certain maps made back in the 90s, looking at those found in TNT Evilution and Memento Mori 1 as they obviously have some really, really awful maps. In terms of level design, the first episode has nothing all too much to brag about. Some may call them "ugly," but I honestly don't see anything of the sort. There's nothing really offensive about the maps, they mostly feel like standard Doom maps made back in the day and meant to give the players something to breeze through before laying down the hammer in Underground Base, which sets the tone for the rest of the megawad. Keep in mind these are the same maps found in the "demo" version which play more or less the same with a few exceptions, like Map 01 being a completely different map, Map 07 not being filled with arachnotrons, Map 09 having a bit of the same layout, but offering different gameplay, and Map 11 not being the ballbuster of the final release, so they are very much Yonatan and Haggay's early maps, which justifies their more simplistic and rudimentary design aesthetics. Both the second and third episodes are where Hell Revealed starts to exhibit much more striking design sensibilities, though still retaining a sense of minimalism as they focused more on combat, so it shows that the first episode was more or less a learning experience for the two on designing levels. I'm going to agree that the Baron abuse in many of the levels may wear you down and is one of the things that marred the overall experience, but thankfully, whenever you're not forced to take out groups of them with a super shotgun, there are times where they serve a purpose, like in Map 17: The Black Towers, you can get them to infight the revenants on the blood fountain in the large main outdoor area, plus once you unleash one cyberdemon (least on UV as on HMP they're arch-viles), they can thin out the barons while at the same time, the barons will have done enough damage to weaken or even kill the cyberdemon, something which you can also do on Map 20: Judgement Day, where the teleporting barons can be lured over to the central hub and you also get the unfrozen cyberdemon to come in and they'll duke it out. And this is one of the many charms of Hell Revealed, where it gives you choices in dealing with the opposition, where you can either try to gun them down firsthand, which can be time consuming, but with a limited arsenal (apparent on pistol starts), you might resort to infighting which requires careful planning and positioning while having the RNG on your side, or you can try to weave through the opposition and come back once you're better equipped, case in point Map 13: Last Look at Eden, so you're given ample freedom on facing what you'll have to face, in contrast to Plutonia, where despite its lower body count than Hell Revealed (save for a few levels like Go 2 It), the level layouts which are mostly compact and often crampy, work against you, deliberately designed to kill you and you must act fast and use the right weapon to defeat the monsters.

 

Some of the really best maps Hell Revealed has to offer include Last Look at Eden, City in the Clouds, Everything Dies, Resistance is Futile, Ascending to the Stars, Post Mortem, Dead Progressive and of course, Afterlife. Both Everything Dies and Dead Progressive are very nice breather levels allowing you to take the time to have a respite after coming out of some the preceding gruelling maps, Resistance is Futile is more or less like Go 2 It in that it's a small level stuffed to the gills with some of the toughest monsters, though thankfully unlike Go 2 It, this level applies difficulty settings, so if you're playing on a skill level lower than Ultra-Violence, you won't be dealing with 13 cyberdemons, with Hurt Me Plenty having no more than 9, and I'm Too Young to Die / Hey, Not Too Rough having a mere 3. While the final map is well-designed, I won't say that it's the worst Icon of Sin map, but it's a rather annoying one since the Monster Spawner shoots four spawn icons at once, and on top of taking out the cyberdemon and having to pump rockets into the spawner to waste Romero's head, you better pray that you won't be telefragged or that the arch-viles behind don't blast you while you're firing your rockets, and besides the cyberdemon, the spawned enemies that are sure to give you the most trouble with the process, especially if they ride on the elevator you need to board on are the arch-viles, pain elementals and mancubi. Nevertheless, the safest strategy to beat the level is forget about going for 100% kills, just speedrun the level and destroy the monster spawner as fast as you can. That's one thing many of the Hell Revealed detractors failed to pick up, that a lot of the maps were designed with speedrunning in mind as Yonatan Donner was a prolific speedrunner back in the day, and given that the megawad came out back in 1997, that was at a time before Doom source ports came out where you couldn't tell which are the enemies that needed to be killed from the ones that have been spawned. All in all, Hell Revealed is not as bad or overwhelmingly difficult as many make it out to be and is today one of the most overhated megawads. Many of its detractors either judge it by the standards of today's Doom mapping or don't really understand what it sets out to accomplish, which is to expand on the concept of a hard mapset that was pioneered by the Casali Brothers. And speaking of the Casalis, I consider Hell Revealed to be equal to Plutonia in terms of difficulty and quality, and as such when pitted against each other, it ends in a tie. I know there will be people out there who are going to say that statement not to be right, but let me explain, my viewpoints on Hell Revealed and Plutonia are just a reflection of how I feel about both wads. They are great and the foremost wads to introduce players to super hard levels that deliver challenges unlike any wad that came before or with them, so to me, it is absolutely pointless arguing over which megawad is better, especially to the point of putting down the one you believe to be inferior, something which many of the Hell Revealed detractors are guilty of. We should be grateful to have two megawads that drew inspiration for megawads like Alien Vendetta, Scythe, Kama Sutra, Speed of Doom, and others, and while Hell Revealed is undoubtedly pretty tough, it is very tame by today's standards, isn't truly a slaughter wad as many exaggerate it to be (there's only a handful of maps in HR1 that qualify as slaughter), and there are wads out today that are far more insidious and insane than Hell Revealed. So to me, Hell Revealed is a real winner, back then I gave it a 9 out of 10 while playing it with the DWMC, but now I can't give it any higher than an 8, which is the same rating I gave to Plutonia.

 

Anyways, I'm glad there are people out there who are going back to and giving Hell Revealed another chance. It's one of my most recommended wads to play, though I would suggest playing through Scythe first, then the 3 Heures d'Agonie trilogy, then Plutonia and then Hell Revealed so that way you can be well prepared and get the hang of taking on very hard maps.

Edited February 25, 2024 by T-Rex