Hell Revealed vs Hell Revealed 2

[Jeffo2448]

Hi all, I just finished Hell Revealed 2. I've never played the first one, but I felt that HR2 was pretty tough (playing on UV). Is the first one on par with difficulty? If it's significantly easier, I will pass and download something else. Thanks for any input

[Pure Hellspawn]

There's no way to legitimately put "Hell Revealed" and "easy" in a sentence together without the word "not". On UV it's definitely up there as hard.

[40oz]

Its a different kind of hard I guess. The first 10 or so maps of HR1 are pretty easy peasy excepting some annoying hell baron usage. The middle maps are where things get exciting. The later maps are kind of a blur to me, I'm not sure I've played it all the way through without saves.

HR2 definitely has a one up on HR1 in terms of difficulty I think. HR2 uses a lot of cheap shot chaingunner traps and unpredictable teleport ambushes, and the monster quantities are pretty extreme too. HR1 is a bit more light hearted and arcadey, but its age is beginning to show, especially in this decade.

[printz]

Maybe I should finish HR2 before I have an informed opinion. So far, HR2 has looked less colourful than HR, with less memorable levels, and worse music (this, however, because HR uses music imported from ROTT).

HR is indeed manageable on levels 1-10. On 11 it gets challenging, but that's a magnificent map. From level 13 the difficulty spikes up a lot!

[Pure Hellspawn]

40oz said:

Its a different kind of hard I guess. The first 10 or so maps of HR1 are pretty easy peasy excepting some annoying hell baron usage. The middle maps are where things get exciting. The later maps are kind of a blur to me, I'm not sure I've played it all the way through without saves.

HR2 definitely has a one up on HR1 in terms of difficulty I think. HR2 uses a lot of cheap shot chaingunner traps and unpredictable teleport ambushes, and the monster quantities are pretty extreme too. HR1 is a bit more light hearted and arcadey, but its age is beginning to show, especially in this decade.

Been a while since I played them, but the latter maps of HR are extremely difficult. It sounds like you may be a Doom god and I remember there was a mod just made that has UV+ difficulty levels and it sounds like playing HR on that would be perfect.

IMO Jeffo you should definitely play it. If you are up for a challenge, there's a mod that was recently made (i don't have the name off the top of my head) that implements difficulty levels above UV (but below NM) that cause the enemies to deal extra damage. I think you'll enjoy HR with this mod.

[Diamhea]

I found the original to be more difficult, but both are a riot on UV.

[Wagi]

They are definitely two different styles.

Hell Revealed 1 definitely had that oldschool Doom map charm, with bizarre looking levels and some poorly made textures. Doing pacifist runs of some of the maps is also very very fun. I feel like it was a little bit more creative than just being a "slaughter map" pack.

Hell Revealed 2 felt like it had more consistent quality in the levels and they were a tad less gimmicky. I like a lot of the music in there, especially map 16 (15?)... the one with the brown towers and blood everywhere. Some of the early maps are boring and tedious though. They were better detailed, but also a lot less colorful.

[Megamur]

I've never managed to beat Hell Revealed II. It feels cheaper and less forgiving than its predecessor, which is all the more apparent with the multiple HR1 homage maps that have been supercharged to be far more unpleasant. (The Siege was actually fun, forcing survival-type gameplay where you have to return to your house to refuel when things get tough. The Siege II is pure torture, where you're locked in a tiny cage while monsters ceaselessly poke you through the bars.) And like others have said, I miss the more carefree aesthetic of the original HR, with the gaudy, red status bar and the trippy, pink skies and the bouncy Rise of the Triad soundtrack.

I've tried to find another WAD that really feels like an HR sequel. Kama Sutra comes close, but really starts falling apart in the third episode, which begins playing more like the soul-crushing (and blissfully optional) Map32 of the original HR.

So that's what we need: a new slaughtermap megaWAD for wussier players. :)

[General Rainbow Bacon]

There's that one Survive in Hell that came out a little while ago.

http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/megawads/sihr2fix.zip

[Megamur]

I'll give it a try. Thank you. :)

[Jeffo2448]

Thanks all. I downloaded HR last night. Got through map 6 or so pretty easily but it's enjoyable. I'm sure the difficulty will pick up, but still glad to be playing it.

[ReFracture]

Hell Revealed 2's difficulty for me lies in that it is very tedious. The original is much more interesting to me.

[T-Rex]

Hell Revealed 2 seemed like a decent megawad on its own right, but much as it tried to imitate the original Hell Revealed, what with some maps being direct homages, it didn't really give the vibe.

Now in the original Hell Revealed, you have the first fewey Maps 1 - 10, which are pretty easy (though Map 9 is quite tough), Map 11 is the first spike in difficulty, which thankfully tones down in Map 12, but goes up again at Map 13. Throughout the rest of the megawad, it is pretty challenging, but doable. In fact, it rivals the difficulty of Plutonia (even though Hard Attack and Post Mortem exceeds it greatly). As far as the level design goes, it was very well done. Pretty much every map is eye-catching in architecture and flow, with not even a single map that was terrible. Yonatan Donner and Haggay Niv clearly knew their stuff very well when they designed their maps.

In Hell Revealed 2, the mapset was somewhat of a mixed bag, probably cause there was a team of mappers involved. Jonas Feragen, the team's leader, fluctuates from short yet hectic maps to large, epic, adrenaline-charged adventures (Mind Trap and Hell's Cauldron). Sam Woodman's maps are mostly boxy and cramped, which doesn't really fit well with a wad that's supposed to be a sequel to Hell Revealed. Yashar's entries are somewhat crampy, but not as much as Sam's and slightly better in design. Even so, they're all average at best. Andy Olivera's and Prower's contributions were horrendously ugly with abysmal gameplay that doesn't belong in Hell Revealed 2. Thankfully, Cyb's, PAGB666's and Martin Friberg's maps came as close to feeling faithful to its predecessor in terms of gameplay (Fear of the Dark and Dis 2000 were also one of the most beautifuly designed maps in the wad). Gameplay wise, well, some of the maps felt like Hell Revealed, but goodness, the majority of them really went overboard with the monster count. Not to mention that the level design tends to render the gameplay from tedious to just being unfair.

Despite all its flaws, Hell Revealed 2 is pretty neat. May not hold a candle to the original Hell Revealed, but is has plenty of good bits here and there, and there is considerable effort put into the maps. The soundtrack may be different, but there's some neat tunes there, especially Grave's heavy metal (and at times quasi-Egyptian) sounding tracks.

[Ashstrodamus]

HR2 is way harder. As someone said already, HR does get way harder after like map 10.

[Lila Feuer]

My memory is foggy but I thought when I played them back in 2009 that HR1 was the tougher experience despite starting slow, whereas HR2's beginnings were harder than the rest of the WAD. Therefore I found its sequel to actually be somewhat easier. Maybe HR1 just desensitized me.

[Looper]

I think HR1 is uglier and easier as I have played them both recently, couple times.

[dew]

Looper said:

I think HR1 is uglier and easier as I have played them both recently, couple times.

Yes, but also funner and betterer. I despise how hr2 makes you spam through small rooms filled to the brim with meat walls.

[j4rio]

dew said:

Yes, but also funner and betterer. I despise how hr2 makes you spam through small rooms filled to the brim with meat walls.

hr1 does the exact same with the meat walls and you are on top of that usually required to handle them with rather limited arsenal. I found hr1 much less fun tbh.

[Noiser]

Even being simpler, I think HR1 is much more consistent than the second one. I agree with T-Rex about HR2 being a mixed bag.

[T-Rex]

j4rio said:

hr1 does the exact same with the meat walls and you are on top of that usually required to handle them with rather limited arsenal. I found hr1 much less fun tbh.

True to an extent, but they're not as prevalent as in HR2, and with dealing the packs of monsters in the original HR, you have at least a lot of leeway as they're mostly in wide open areas where you can run around freely and mow them down while using the terrain as cover from enemy fire. HR2 on the other hand, you're forced to deal with dozens of monsters in tight spaces or areas with little room for movement or cover, and it's like that through almost the entirety of the megawad.

[Snakes]

HR required thought, strategy and skill. HR2 usually required a strong index finger holding the mouse down.

I've never enjoyed the sequel to what I think is a masterpiece of wad. You see for more original ideas and care put into the former. HR2 always felt like an often unnecessary retread with sparks of interesting concepts mixed in. I find it more difficult in terms of grinding through, but not nearly as enjoyable.

[Megamur]

T-Rex said:

True to an extent, but they're not as prevalent as in HR2, and with dealing the packs of monsters in the original HR, you have at least a lot of leeway as they're mostly in wide open areas where you can run around freely and mow them down while using the terrain as cover from enemy fire.

Very true. HL2 is like some unholy marriage of Hell Revealed and Plutonia, mixing together the most aggravating elements of both into one cramped, cheap-shot-filled nightmare.

[T-Rex]

Megamur said:

Very true. HL2 is like some unholy marriage of Hell Revealed and Plutonia, mixing together the most aggravating elements of both into one cramped, cheap-shot-filled nightmare.

And for good measure, the concept of Nuts.

[Diamhea]

I think HR2's sequels to "The Path" and "Resistance is Futile" were both great and nailed the intended aesthetic.

I also really enjoyed "Mind Trap" (Map19).