Ralgor

MAP30 - “Cosmology” by Dragonfly Deaths: 0 Wow. I figured we'd get a boss battle, but this is the best doom boss battle I've ever played. Better than Eviternity 1's boss, that's for sure. Although to be fair, this isn't a high bar to clear. I managed to kill it the first time, and it was super fun. I spent a lot of time at the beginning of each phase just trying to figure out his patterns before going on the attack. Everything was well telegraphed, although not everything was easily dodged. There was plenty of health and ammo around. In fact, there might have been just a bit too much. It felt very forgiving. I'm not sure that's a bad thing though, since Doom bosses are best a bit too easy than too hard. The between phase battles weren't that interesting though. There's so much room you can just circle strafe for a long time and eventually kill them all. I wouldn't remove it since this might be the only time I've had to deal with nightmare cacos that didn't grate on me, possibly due to them being far enough away that the sound didn't bother me. End of Episode Thoughts I have to admit this is my least favorite episode, but I still enjoyed it a lot. The whole episode had an oppressive feel, and most of the levels were dark. It finally had the difficulty I've been looking for as well! It's having to compete with the splendor of the other episodes. I suspect part of it may be megawad fatigue too. It hit me really bad around the time I played MAP29, but it was there beforehand. MAP37 - “Credits” by Dragonfly Deaths: 0 I normally wouldn't comment on a credits map, but this one is so very well done. Each episode gets its own little slice, and a teleporter takes you to a room with a display for each map. I mainly wanted to point out how when you walk up to one of the map displays, it changes the music! We have here a jukebox map. I love it. I used to have a joke in my original write-up about having died five times here. That was before I found out that there is in fact a secret fight on this map. It was pretty enjoyable, but I figured I should be honest about my deaths in that case. Final Thoughts Wow, what a ride! This may be my new favorite megawad. I haven't played some of the other greats, so it's easier for me to say that. (I REALLY need to get around to playing Ancient Aliens and Sunlust!) But I'll be surprised if this wad doesn't hold up to those. I really liked Eviternity 1, and when I played it I was blown away by everything. I wasn't expecting to also be blown away by the sequel, since I've played plenty more wads since then, but here we are. I want to thank ukiro for these amazing textures. I don't make maps (yet), but I love seeing such high quality textures in maps, and knowing these will be available to inspire and spawn whole new megawads after this is exciting! The trees are just gorgeous too. I do wish we had other colors of the wall torches though. Maybe next time. The music is also great. There are many songs in here where I ended up firing up dsda-doom just to listen to them while I did other things. I won't say every one of them was my favorite, but there wasn't a bad track in the whole wad. I'm hoping I get to hear some of them again in future projects, if that's actually allowed. I also love how this wad has introduced me to some new (to me!) mappers whose work I'm going to have to check out. Baaul, DMPhobos, and Aurelius are on the top of that list. I knew about antares' work before this, but Struggle is another megawad that I haven't gotten around to yet. So many maps to play, so little time! And finally I love the technical achievements of this megawad the most I think. The rain and snow effects are top-notch, and something that I've only seen done well in GZDoom before now. I thought they must be GZDoom-only when I started playing. Then you have the ending sequences of Temeraire and Kenosis that are jaw-dropping. There's so much that showcases MBF21 and DSDHacked. I hope it inspires others to develop for this standard. Dragonfly's map are definitely similar in design. It became really obvious toward the end, but the thing is I like his maps. All of them were good to great. I think it's one of my favorite designs anyway, so that helped Eviternity II become my favorite wad. My biggest problem is that I feel like one month wasn't quite long enough for me to properly enjoy this wad. It has 36 levels, and some of them are pretty big. Trying to compress that into 30 days with limited free time is hard. But that's a problem with the megawad club format, not Eviternity II. It will probably be another few to several months before I play another wad with the club. We'll see what comes up! Favorite Maps 1. MAP14 - “Equanimity” by Aurelius 2. MAP24 - “Temeraire” by antares031 3. MAP23 - “Thaw” by DMPhobos 4. MAP07 - “Sovereign” by DMPhobos 5. MAP32 - “Charge” by Tristan Clark, Guardsoul Most Memorable Maps 1. MAP24 - “Temeraire” by antares031 2. MAP26 - “Myriad” by Tristan Clark, Guardsoul, Dragonfly 3. MAP36 - “Kenosis” by ukiro 4. MAP14 - “Equanimity” by Aurelius 5. MAP32 - “Charge” by Tristan Clark, Guardsoul Hardest Maps 1. MAP36 - “Kenosis” by ukiro 2. MAP26 - “Myriad” by Tristan Clark, Guardsoul, Dragonfly 3. MAP24 - “Temeraire” by antares031 4. MAP27 - “Emypreal” by DMPhobos, Dragonfly 5. MAP15 - “Rubicon” by Scotty

MAP29 - “Maelstrom” by Dragonfly Deaths: 10 This map is dark. Like, really, really dark. The darkness is the biggest threat here, honestly. There's also a lot of very small challenges at the beginning that were really tough for me for some reason. The very first nightmare cacodemon killed me twice. I didn't see him coming the first time and he just obliterated me. The second time I had a good fight with him still lost. You can't run from him, since he's nearly as fast as you and has homing projectiles. Did I ever complain about that sound it makes? The next thing that gave me trouble were the two arch-viles on their little platforms flanked by revenants. There's not a lot of cover here except some poles at the edges, and I kept bouncing out of my little hiding spot. They also kept trying to zap me the instant I'd show myself. I didn't see the second one at first so he zapped me twice and I didn't see where he was. I killed his guards but apparently he didn't feel like resurrecting them, so I didn't know he was there. Sneaky guy. After another death I got frustrated and starting doing dumb stuff, which got me killed a few more times. After finally taking a break and calming down... I died again. This time because I was trying to be sneaky and got a face-full of astral caco. He was invisible in a dark area, and was being quiet until he unleashed on me at point blank range. Would you believe this little area was over half of my deaths? The only other time I died was twice to the first secret fight I found. There are two of them, but the one in the eastern part of the map was the one that was toughest. It wasn't as bad as the end of MAP27, since it was mostly just a massive pack of hell knights restricting your space. The two cyberdemons were kind of useless... they ended up triggering up on the ledge from the middle, so I just took them down from there. It was boring, but I didn't feel like fighting them in a amongst a lot of damaging floor. I found both secrets without much effort. They hid the best fights of the map. Oddly enough I had a harder time finding the red key. It's way out along a path, and I completely missed it. I just figured the big blood tower was part of the decor. I spent a good five minutes looking for the way forward after getting the other two keys. The music was really good. I enjoyed most of this map, but parts of it frustrated me. That's not the map's fault however. I think it's a pretty good map. I do wish it were a bit brighter though. I ended up turning up the brightness on my OLED and turning out all of the lights in my room. I usually only do that for horror games, but even then things were still really dark in places. MAP36 - “Kenosis” by ukiro Deaths: 24 Wall of text incoming! I tried to trim it down, but I failed. I'll stick a tl;dr at the bottom if you don't have the patience to read this. This is a gargantuan map with around ten events in the map, followed by a really fun finale which acts as a payoff for the whole map. Despite the non-linear look of the map, it's really quasi-linear. The scale of this map is truly epic, but while that sounds like a good thing, it really isn't. Before I get into that, I'm going to give my comments on the 11 (!) different events in this map. There are seven encounters outside, and four more inside the cathedral. Three of the seven on the outside give you keys. The keys themselves aren't needed, but being near them will open up the front locks on the cathedral. Three of the encounters contain pustules for you to shoot, which will shrink the growths blocking the cathedral. They will also open up other events. The pustules ultimately have to be done in a specific order, and the key events are a bit more free-form. You also have to do the southern wing of the cathedral before either the western or eastern wings. So you do have some choice in what ordering you do things in, but it's not completely free-form. The initial encounter involves a bunch of arch-viles in cubby-holes, and a few switches you need to hit. The challenge is that you don't have any weapons except a pistol and berserk, so you need to finesse this. It's not super difficult but can catch you off guard. My first attempt I left with just 17 health, but you get plenty of health in this map so it isn't an issue. I never even realized that the arch-vile windows kept opening and closing. I just was fast and hid in the little cubby holes down below. I think the platforming right before this might have been harder, but then I hate platforming in Doom. Next I went to the yellow skull key area in the east. I just chose this at random. I also managed to beat this the first attempt, but it was quite fun. You're given a chaingun, and with it you have to kill a couple arch-viles in a small group of pillars, with corporals shooting you from the sides. Then you end up releasing a ton of bullet shooters into the northern end, but that wasn't too difficult either. This might actually be the easiest event. Unfortunately besides getting one key and the chaingun, it doesn't unlock any other parts of the map. I should have went to the western event next if I knew what the progression was. Instead I wandered around for a while trying to figure out what to do. The western event gives you an SSG this time, and picking it up releases a large number of astralcacos, revenants, and other things. You can mostly just circle strafe this and watch everything infight. You get plenty of shells though if you want to shoot something. You just need to flip a bunch of switches around the outside, then run out of a hole and shoot your first pustule. This will open up two new areas, one in the northeast, and another in the southwest. Of course I didn't know any of this, but luckily this time I went straight southwest. Down in the southwest is another event, this time with a red skull key. You get scammed trying to go after an invulnerability sphere when it gets replaced with a rocket launcher. It gives you a ton of ammo and that invulnerability sphere, so I'm not sure why it plays keep-away. You end up having to use the rocket launcher to kill a ton of lost souls and veil-imps. I tried this without 200% health and armor at first, and so I died six times. Replaying the easy part while invulnerable isn't actually super fun after the first couple of times. I got to the veil imps a couple times but was so hurt I died anyway. Eventually I just went back to an earlier save and stocked up, and then beat it in one shot. Luckily I keep multiple saves just for that reason. After that, I should have went straight for the northeast. But again I had to wander around for a bit since I didn't know what else was open before I arrived there. You have to travel a bit around the outside to actually find the way in. There's some mild resistance, but mainly there is just a seemingly endless parade of switches. First four at the bottom, then another up top, then two more outside. That part is easy, but the last fight here with the astral cacos and specters killed me five times. Once I fell into the chasm the entrance is in, which ended up killing me. My other big mistake was me face-rocketing on specters multiple times. This shouldn't have been as hard as it ended up being, but I was being dumb I guess. Eventually you kill another arch-vile guarding another pustule you'll need to shoot. That opens up the last two areas, one to the northwest, and another to the southeast. I did the northwest next since it was nearby. This is a platforming puzzle in disguise, which may be why it took me so long to figure it out. I wandered around way too long trying to figure out how to move forward. Some of that time was spent making the cyberdemon infight with the astral mancubuses, and eventually I killed the cyberdemon. Then another one spawned in. Crap. I finally figured out that you have to raise the cyberdemon's platform so you can run around him at point blank range to get to another room on the other side. Then do it again. Then do it one more time. He never managed to rocket me, but it was pretty nerve-wracking. Despite hating platforming I actually ended up enjoying this a lot. It just took way too long for the lightbulb to come on in my head. I managed to beat this my first attempt, although it was pretty close at one point. There are multiple megaspheres here so a couple of screw-ups isn't the end of the world. The southeastern event was the last one I did. I died here a few times, mostly due to my not being able to keep time with the crusher merry-go-round. Having to kill a cyberdemon while you have to move at a specific speed was something I struggled with, although my first attempt was successful. I died the first time to the dukes that come out after you shoot the switches. I tried to fight them on the merry-go-round, and that was a mistake. Once I made it back there (a couple more deaths later), I just ducked into the side areas. That made it easy. Then you shoot the last pustule (guarded this time by an annihilator), and now you can access the cathedral! There are three events in the cathedral. The one in the south involves a ton of arch-viles in the center and enemies on the outsides, with some switches you have to hit. Each switch releases more stuff into the arena. I ended up spending way too much time killing all of the arch-viles early on, which made the rest of it easy. I'm glad I did because having them all released at the end would have been harrowing. Then I tried the eastern wing here, and died a couple times. This is a standard mob of revenants on a stairway, but this time with some pain elementals and astralcacos thrown in. It's been a while though so I died doing some stupid stuff the first couple of attempts. This one was great fun and was my favorite event of the three in the cathedral before the finale. The other wing was mostly just some revenant snipers, cacodemons, and eventually imps. It didn't seem that hard but still managed to kill me once. There's plenty of room and health. Before the finale, you run into a bunch of annihilators out for a walk. When they see you they get into an argument about who should be the one to kill you. It turns into a fight, and then they kill each other instead. I was sort of in awe of how I didn't have to fire a single shot. The last two annihilators killed each other! I cackled at that. You run up, and finally get the perforator. I was a little sad because I had used most of my bullet ammo stupidly. But then amazing things happened. The cross turned outside down, and all of the windows blew out due to the pressure of the gibs coming in behind them. Gibs mixed with clips! This was on the same level as seeing those cyberdemons get blown up by the Temeraire. It was the highlight of the map. The fight that came afterwards was great fun involving many arch-viles and necromenaces, and eventually a couple spider masterminds and a cyberdemon. None of them could resist the power of the perforator. I loved this fight. It was what I was hoping to get to experience with this weapon, and ukiro delivered. There were no secrets, which made me a bit sad but isn't a problem, and the music was very eerie and a perfect fit for the map. Given all of that you would think I loved this map... but I don't. I don't even really like it. "What?!" I hear you say, but let me explain. In a nutshell, the problem is this map is huge. The pathways between events are unreliable, so you have to take it somewhat easy. If you DO fall off, which I did multiple times, it can be hard to find your way back up. Traveling around this map is a boring yet frustrating experience. I spent too much time just wandering around trying to figure out what to do next, or how to get back up to the top, or just running from point A to point B. The events themselves are great fun, but they are maybe half of the playtime. Maybe even less. The finale is fantastic, and is one of the best finales I've ever seen in a map... but it comes after so much running. I should mention I hate platforming, so I dreaded having to go anywhere in this map. The obscure progression makes this even worse since you have to hunt down what the next event will be. To be honest, I couldn't have told you what the progression of this map was supposed to be when I first exited the map. I hit switches, grabbed keys, and shot pustules, but I'd only have a vague idea of what any of it did. I just discovered that other buildings opened up, and eventually the front of the cathedral was open. Given the size of the map this was kind of painful, since I sometimes went in a wrong direction. In the end I loaded the map up in UDB to figure out what was unlocking what after I completed the map, and even that wasn't exactly easy. That's why I was able to go into detail what the progression was above. None of it is obvious in the moment, which isn't a big deal in a smaller map. I'm also not sure why the design of the map has you enter the cathedral in the south, only to have to run all of the way to the other side before entering in the north... but then the next fights are back in the south. It has you run in a big circle, and with nothing to occupy your time. Another elephant in the room is the performance of this map. I didn't have a problem on my 7800x3d with GZDoom, which managed a locked 120fps. DSDA-Doom on my older PC could run it, but not at a locked 120fps. It would drop down to 60-70fps in areas, with noticable judder. It's purely a CPU issue there, but it's a 2600k, so not exactly a slow CPU. This is not due to the mass of monsters or anything, nor due to excessive projectiles (like MAP26 ran into), but just due to the enormity of the map itself. I wonder how many people are going to have problems running this map. The scale of this map is truly of epic proportions. I hated writing those previous few paragraphs, because it's so obvious that so much love and care went into this map. The scale is epic, and the individual events are great. But I can't ignore how much I disliked my time actually traveling across the map. Ultimately if the 11 (!) events in this map hadn't pretty much all been great, I would have been really negative on this map. There's no easy way to fix it in my mind either. I hate that I don't love this map. TL;DR: The events, music, and finale are great, but traveling around the map is a boring chore, the progression is obscure, and performance can suffer due to the map being monumentally huge.

One thing I forgot to mention about MAP28: After I grabbed the blue key, I turned around and went back the way I came. I think I was going back to grab some health and hunt for secrets. Anyway, by doing that I completely avoided the repopulation of the central area. I didn't notice until after the "last" fight that I still had enemies to kill. I had to open up UDB to figure out that I guess it's intended you drop right off the balcony there.

MAP28 - “Afterimage” by Velvetic Deaths: 6 This one is a bit easier than the previous two maps. There's a lot of incidental combat, with some fights scattered about. Each fight uses a relatively low number of monsters, and in fact the whole map doesn't have that many compared to the previous few maps. It still managed to create a good amount of difficulty with what it does have though using good monsters combos and arena setups. I had a tendency to die once or twice in each big lock-in fight, but that's it. The final fight killed me twice, and almost the third time. The necromenace likes to hide while resurrecting things up above, and getting to him and taking him down is hard with all of the nightmare cacodemons making their racket. And this map confirmed to me that I REALLY don't like the attack sound of the nightmare cacodemons. Luckily they are only in this final episode. The secrets were well done. I managed to figure them all out. The BFG was pretty nice for the last fight of the level. The level looks good, and the music sounds good. This is my favorite level of the episode so far. It's a solid map.

MAP27 - “Emypreal” by DMPhobos, Dragonfly Deaths: 16 The opening fight here is energetic and not too difficult, but it sets the stage for this map. You need two keys to access the final battle, and each is down a differerent path. Each path loops around and comes back to the start, giving you the key in the process. After dying to the opening fight once, I didn't actually have much trouble until the final battle. I did die once to the three dukes trap where you drop down into a room. But the second time wasn't too difficult. Everything was shaping up for this map to be the easiest non-boss non-secret map since MAP22. But then I got to the final battle. Oh boy, I'm not sure where to start with this one. You drop down, and soon stuff starts teleporting in. You get a megaarmor before you drop down, and another one down in the pit if you hit a switch. Two more switches unlock two soulspheres. I do this right off the bat because I need the space and the health. Eventually, the center drops down and a necromancer and arch-vile warp in. And then the problems start. But first the good. If you have the BFG, this battle is fun and requires some strategic thinking. You can't just spam BFG all day, since there's too much, and you probably don't have time for that anyway. But with some fancy footwork many enemies will be fighting corporals, and you can BFG the astral mancubus down the instant his room opens up. Then you can BFG spam everything down, including the necromancer and his arch-vile side kick. The bad is that the BFG that makes this fight fun is in a secret. The ugly part is this fight may be impossible on UV without it. I'm sure some Doom God with a bit of luck could manage it, but anyone else is screwed. Once the necromancer and arch-vile appear, you simply don't have the dps to kill things faster than they will be resurrected. That means you have to focus on them, but there's so many enemies around (many more than if you have the BFG), that you can't spend much time actually getting DPS on target. You have to take out the arch-vile first lest you be zapped. I managed that many times, but would usually die soon after due to the number of enemies that had been resurrected and the risks I would have to take to kill the AV. If I was more conservative, I would live longer, but then I could forget about winning the fight since I would simply run out of ammo. Once I have the vile down, I could concentrate on the necromancer. I think I got him down to 20%-25% health once, but most of the time I didn't last long enough to get much DPS on him. At that point I'd be running out of health items, running out of plasma, and the monsters would keep getting in the way. You simply can't stand toe to toe with him, and he has enough hitpoints you're going to have to flee to avoid getting hit. It's just seemlingly impossible. As it is I died 10 times before going secret hunting. I was pretty dismayed at that point. I died one more time to it later due to the secret fight and not saving. My observation is this: The final battle of this map is way too hard compared to everything before this point without the BFG. It's a really fun fight with it. At the very least the lack of a BFG makes the fight so unfun that it ruined my opinion of the map. Even if I were to beat it, I'd have to chalk it up to sheer luck. The BFG itself is protected with a pretty gnarly (but fun!) fight on its own, so my recommendation is to make that area a non-secret and allow the player to go get the BFG before the final fight. One fewer secret isn't going to ruin this map, but not having the BFG might. You can say it's a skill issue and to turn down the difficulty, but honestly the rest of this wad up to this point was really fun on UV, and in many cases I would have been bored to tears on HMP. (A note here that I wrote a day after I wrote the rest: I watched brendondle's youtube playthrough, and he suggested letting the necromenace infight itself to death. That's probably the only winning strategy with the plasma rifle, but I'm definitely not good enough to pull that off. It would also cause the fight to be miserable.) The secrets themselves are pretty well done. The BFG secret is well hidden, but most people are going to drop over the wall instead of finding the switch. I pretty well found the switch by accident while just shooting random textures because I was frustrated and was procrastinating trying the final fight again. I also liked the highly energetic music. It fit well with this map. It's one of my favorites of the wad.

MAP26 - “Myriad” by Tristan Clark, Guardsoul, Dragonfly Deaths: 18 Welcome to the new hardest map of the megawad, so far. This map starts out very spooky and atmospheric. It actually strikes me as being very Ribbicks influenced, with the focus on a single color in a strange unnatural world. The first part of the map is really just there to creep you out, which it does very effectively, helped by the midi. You eventually find yourself in a giant arena, and at this point you KNOW shit is about to go down, even if you didn't sneak a peek at the monster count. Around the perimeter of the arena are six challenge areas you can get to via teleporters. The first one I ventured into was the Silence challenge. I figured that you didn't want to make noise... but I had no idea how to flip the switch without making noise. The fact that the void floors absorb sound isn't obvious at all. My first attempt ended because I bumped into the new Nightmare Cacodemon. That sure scared me. The second time I shot the switch in frustration... and it was fine? It took me another death to realize what had happened after I shot the next switch and got obliterated. After that I did Passage, which is honestly pretty easy. I didn't die in this one, since you just have to follow a path and avoid some rockets. Evade was also pretty easy, since you just have to circle strafe while keeping an eye on incoming missiles in case you need to alter your course slightly. Destroy should have been easier than it was. I died 5 times, but I know how to two shot a cyberdemon. I only failed at that twice. Once I actually ate a rocket, and another due to me just missing my shots and running out of ammo. The other three times was from me eating a rocket while trying to jump between the platforms, because I was impatient. I liked these four challenges, but the other two I didn't like. Conceal was kind of annoying, though I know it's inspired by a similar thing in Sunlust (which I've never actually played). The first two sections weren't too hard, although I died once before I realized the gimmick. But the last section was nearly impossible not to eventually have them see you. I still only died three times here, and like I said the first one was before I understood the challenge. The last one, Endure, I kind of hate. You're given 1% health and have to navigate a tiny room with imps and zombieman. The imps aren't a huge problem, but for some reason those zombiemen had it out for me. I died 4 times to random pot shots I couldn't avoid, and once to an imp because I was trying to slip past. I just didn't have fun with this one. Each one of the challenges seems to grant you some sort of boon for completing them. There's also a secret in each one, and if you find all six, then a seventh secret will open up letting you grab the perforator. Sadly I didn't figure this out until I finished the big battle. The big battle itself can be started at any time. The challenges are all optional, but not doing conceal will mean you'll get zapped by the arch-viles when the battle starts. The big battle itself is straight crazy. SOOOOO many projectiles. It actually made GZDoom chug momentarily on my top of the line gaming machine. I only died 3 times here though, since I pretty much just ran around in circles while the mob destroyed itself. It was certainly a sight to behold though. You don't have to wait until everything is dead to exit either, you just have to survive long enough to be able to exit. I do want to say that the nightmare cacodemon is the first custom monster I just don't like. But it's because of the sound (taken from Hexen's Korax boss battle) that is extremely loud and annoying. The actual sprite and attacks are fine, but I DO NOT like that sound. I didn't like it in Hexen either. This map is very visually impressive and has a great atmosphere, but I can't say I liked this one much. I can't tell if it's due to the annoyingly loud nightmare cacodemons, or the challenges, or what. I like the final battle itself quite a bit, so it's not that. It's not bad, but far from my favorite. The music was perfect for this map, but it's more about setting a mood than something you can just listen to. It's very effective at that.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought of Fragport while boarding this ship. I'd love to see another map with this ship where you can go down and kill demons on the interior. For now I'll just have to imagine it.

MAP24 - “Temeraire” by antares031 Deaths: 16 Holy moly, we have here a real barn-burner of a map. The not-technically-hot start is one of the toughest yet, although I think MAP22 might edge it out. Like that map, stuff keeps filtering in, and any attempt to move forward will wake up more enemies and have them find you at the most inopportune times. I died only once though, but on the second attempt I came really close to dying multiple times. It took quite a while for things to cool down so I could begin figuring out the progression of this map. Unlike any other map in this wad, this one has six keys. And there's a door that needs all six. That means six fights that start out pretty sedate and end on two near-slaughter lock-in fights. The key card fights aren't that bad. I survived the blue and yellow ones easily, and died once on the red keycard fight. Mostly because I was in a hurry and was trying to be fancy. At this point I was thinking this map wasn't too hard. Then I started on the skull keys. I died once on the blue skull key fight, though I'm not entirely sure how I didn't die the second time. It was close. Nearly half of my deaths came from the yellow skull key fight. I blame bad health management. There's plenty of health and ammo here, I'm just bad at knowing when to grab it. I probably died around 6 times here, at least three from arch-viles, and at least two more times due to random rockets from the cyberdemons. This also happens to be one of my favorite fights in the whole wad up to this point. The next skull key fight was much easier, as I only died once. That's partially due to the secret BFG I found though after completing that previous fight. Once you have all of the keys, you can open the door and board the Temeraire. I have no clue how antares pulled this off, but it's the most absolutely breathtaking bit of "doomcute" I've seen in a map. Can a term like "doomcute" apply to something this massive and well realized? Honestly, the best part about that "BFG" secret is being able to see the ship from a good angle. Anyway, teleporting to the ship actually takes you to the bow of it, and sixty cyberdemons are in front of you and begin firing rockets. You have to kill the front cyberdemon and run through the teleporter to actually board the ship. Then man the firing controls and use the ship to blast them all back to hell. It's probably the best ending of a map I've ever seen. I'm in awe. It did kill me around 6 times though total. I actually survived the first time quite a while but wasn't sure what I was actually supposed to do. I obviously couldn't kill them all myself. I think after the second death I figured out what I was supposed to do, and it took me a few tries to not eat a rocket while doing it. After killing the cyberdemons, I stupidy walked the plank and hit the water, dying instantly. I didn't even mind because the ending was so awesome I wanted to see it again anyway. All of the secrets are well done. I only needed assistance from UDB on a single secret, that one being the shootable switch that opens up the non-shiny door to the outside. I knew this must be a secret, and I saw the differently colored alcove, but it didn't occur to me to look next to it. I used UDB to confirm that yes, this IS a secret, so I kept at it and eventually found the switch. Before I looked it up in UDB I had pretty well convinced myself it must not be a secret, but that was a mistake. The rest I found on my own, and they were all well designed. The music track for this level was excellent. It really stood out to me. I can't decide whether this one or MAP14 is my favorite map of the wad. I'm going to go for a tie for now. I REALLY liked the puzzles in MAP14, but then there's that massive ship. I just don't know. But well done. I really need to play Struggle soon! MAP25 - “Boreas” by Dragonfly Deaths: 1 This is a small boss map, with a new boss! Oddly enough though the hardest part of this map seems to be not looking at the architecture while you slowly get lowered into an inescapable pit. I have to admit I laughed at myself for that. The second attempt at the map was my first attempt at the boss, and I killed him. I wouldn't say I did it easily, but it wasn't that hard either. It was a really good boss fight though. It's so rare to see good boss or mini-boss monsters in Doom, and so that's the highlight of the map. It is a recolor of the Hexen boss called the Heresiarch. I am kind of glad this wasn't super difficult. Bosses tend to be hit and miss, and are more likely to miss if they are too awfully difficult. The previous and next maps are hard enough we needed the breather anyway. The music for this boss battle was good. It has plenty of energy. Episode Thoughts I like the episode's theme, but it's not my favorite in the wad. The maps however are some of the best in the wad. MAP23 and MAP24 are two of my top 5 maps in this wad so far, and the others were pretty good too. The effects used were great too. The reflective surfaces really stood out, and the snow was great. Seeing it work in DSDA-Doom was pretty nice too, even though I've been using GZDoom for this playthrough. We also have finally started to get some bite to the wad. I'm really looking forward to the last episode! Addendum: I really want to hear from @antares031 how you went about making that ship. That had to have been a project all on its own. That is, if you have time and the inclination to write something about it. :)

MAP23 - “Thaw” by DMPhobos Deaths: 8 This map is a sprawling, frozen tech-base. It's very interconnected, so it's really easy to get lost here. The music and visuals are pretty soothing. For the most part, the combat is too. I found most of the map to not be too difficult. The start is definitely milder than MAP22. This time though, there are a few fights that are actually notably difficult. One is the red key fight. Flipping a switch melts some glaciers in the room, releasing a bunch of long-dormant demons. This can be quite tough, since I found that no weapon has enough DPS for you to be safe. The only answer I found was to plasma my way through the enemies, grab the red key, and get out of there. I only died here a couple times though. Another is a fight on the way to the blue key. There's a switch in front of a plasma rifle that also melts some glaciers and releases cryogenic demons. I tried 5 or 6 attempts here, but I couldn't seem to kill everything fast enough without eventually dying. There's just so many projectiles that I can't dodge all of them consistently, even while constantly moving through the room. I eventually just cheesed the fight by fleeing back up the lift, and using a bunch of infinite height rocket explosions there to kill everything. I feel a bit bad about it but I didn't see a consistent way to beat this fight otherwise. I also died once to the AV and corporal swarm that gets released right after this fight. That was mostly just due to my negligence though. I also hadn't saved since the last fight, so I got to try it again. The secrets were very well hidden. There were usually very few hints that a secret was nearby. One was just a glowing shootable switch, far from where you get to shoot it. Another was just a switch hidden behind a pillar in an area the doom marine never needs to visit. The megasphere secret was kind of cleverly hinted though. The texture used is that same glacier texture that you melt in other parts of the map. I had a feeling it hid something, but it still took me a while to figure out how to get to it. The megaarmor secret was obviously visible, but the trigger was still cleverly hidden. I looked right at it and couldn't see it at first. This is just an excellent map. I think it's my favorite of the episode so far. I liked the ice/glacier melting mechanic. I'm also happy that the wad is finally getting some bite to its maps. This map served as a bit of a wake-up for me I think.

MAP22 - “Inclement” by Bauul, Dragonfly Deaths: 1 The switch you flipped last map lowers, showing you some foes with their backs turned. There's a shotgun in front of you, so you grab it, and use it. Pandemonium erupts. This is one of the spicier starts of the megawad up to this point, and it killed me the first time. I'm not actually sure how I survived the second time, but once you finally are able to catch a breath you pretty well have the map beat. The opening is by far the hardest part of this level when pistol starting. The only other fights worth noting are when two arch-viles teleport in and start resurrecting everything. They were using that monster-only teleport line and teleporting back and forth. It was kind of anxiety inducing. Eventually they knocked it off and then I knocked them out. The next is a big shin-dig when you grab the yellow key. It looks scary and I took quite a bit of damage, but I never felt like I was about to die. I took a lot more risks in this fight than I needed to really. There's also a fight with two arch-viles and a cyberdemon in a tiny room. You get an invulnerability sphere though so this fight is trivially easy and really more of a bore. I know it seems like I'm kind of down on this map, but it's still visually excellent and the open layout is great. I could play these types of maps every day and never get bored. I do feel like the megawad should be picking up at this point. I'm starting to get worried that we'll just hit a difficulty spike out of nowhere. The second best part of this map (the visuals being the best part) are the secrets. The secret exit is here, and I felt like unlocking both it and the secret BFG were well designed. I ended up finding everything on my own, but it did take a while. I love the little model of the secret exit that shows you what the switch does. I probably would have guessed it, but having that certainty is very nice. I haven't mentioned the music in a few maps, but that's because they are all good. I'm not a musical expert so it's hard to say more than that. MAP35 - “Parallel” by Dragonfly Deaths: 0 The gimmick for this secret level is essentially Wormhole (Or Duality), except here you touch some corrupted ground to shift you to hell-world. When you leave that corrupted ground you shift back. For the most part you'll be shifting between a normal medieval chateau to a hellish one. There's also a single hallowed room, although you're taken there by the same color corrupted ground. The gameplay has you finding a bunch of switches, each raising part of your stair to get out. You can find these is nearly any order, although there are a few restrictions. It's pretty much a standard Dragonfly map, which is fine by me, except parts of the level are in these other dimensions. It wasn't particularly difficult. The scariest part was when I was secret hunting at the end and woke up a astralcaco that I had somehow missed before. I ended up fighting it in a narrow hallway. I had plenty of health but no bullets for the perforator, so I still took huge amounts of damage. Speaking of secret hunting, I couldn't find the megasphere on my own. The fact that you had to teleport to it from a little hole in the ground made it more or less impossible for me to find it. I ended up just using UDB to figure it out. It's definitely possible to see the hole while you're playing the level, but if you're going back to look for it later it's going to be really hard to find. That's ok though, I don't expect to find them all. This is a very memorable level, but I was kind of hoping for more overlap between the different dimensions. It felt mostly like you just shift back and forth while travelling through a cave, hallway, or over a bridge, then shift back at the end. I really enjoyed this map, but my excitement over the gimmick faded the more I played. I think more could have been done with it. Near the beginning I was imagining a map with three overlapping dimensions, and having to find things in one dimension to manipulate another. I would have loved that, but maybe no one else would have. I also was expecting something way more difficult. As it is, this is the easiest secret map so far.

MAP20 - “Dominion” by Bri, Dragonfly Deaths: 0 While this is the episode ender, in many ways it doesn't feel like it. I was bracing myself for something along the lines of MAP15, but this was significantly easier than that map. For me it was the easiest map of the episode. I managed to beat this without dying, and none of the fights really put much pressure on me. The final fight isn't very interesting either, since circle strafing mostly eliminates the danger. There are some nightmare demons in the way, but they had a habit of eating fire from the new monsters on the edge. The perched cyberdemon here is probably the most dangerous thing on the map, since it can snipe you in many locations of the map. Opening the portal at the end causes a mass amount of high level monsters to come at you, but it gives you a non-secret BFG for this and you can just spam it to kill everything. I do like how it suggests we're about to travel to a really demon-infested place. The new monster is pretty cool though, and is probably the best thing about the level. I do like the look of the level and the layout. It's some sort of fortress hosting a nonlinear three key hunt. I had quite a bit of fun playing it and just sort letting myself get lost in its passages. I did end up having to hunt down one monster that I somehow missed when I got to the end. Turns out there's a platform in the center that I never entered that had another new hell noble (duke of hell?). Took me longer to find him than the secrets. I found all of the secrets on my own. I found the secret BFG because I was standing in one spot and thought to myself "I bet there's a secret around here." I then slowly turned to look at the nearby bookshelf and saw the skull. The area is so obviously ripe to have a secret that it caused me to find that secret. I didn't see a hint ahead of time or anything. It was a fun moment. Episode Thoughts I love this theme, and every one of these maps uses it extremely well. Some of these maps made use of tricks and extreme detailing to pull off some true visual wizardry. This makes this episode my favorite so far, despite being easier than the last episode. We're entering the final third of the wad, so I'm hoping to see some good fights coming up. MAP21 - “Numb” by Dragonfly Deaths: 1 I liked this map, but I didn't enjoy my time with it. The ice physics is just really wonky, and took me pretty much the entire play-time of this map to really start getting used to it. The monsters act funny on it, and completely threw off my instincts. I have to admit it is hilarious watching it. It ended up getting me killed by the annihilator by the blue armor once. The map in truth is actually relatively easy, but I'm very grateful for that considering the ice physics was giving me problems. The hardest part is probably the revenant mob after you grab the yellow key. I also can't say I really liked the platforming sections with the lifts. It just seemed designed to make you wait, without actually adding anything to the map. I tend to not like platforming anyway though, so take my opinion here with a grain of salt. At the end there's another one of those midtex bridges. I'll never cease to be amazed by that sort of wizardry. I like the theme though. I'm usually a sucker for winter themes, and this doesn't disappoint. It's the right time of year for it here, so I can actually be cold while playing these cold maps. The map makes good use of it. I don't think the ice physics will really give me any problems going forward, I just wasn't used to it here. The two secrets weren't too hard to find. It was obvious there was a secret with a soulsphere, it just took me a while to find out how to access it. The berserk pack I found quite by accident. I didn't even need it. I think I grabbed it when I already had 100% health. The promise made by the end of the last map wasn't kept here, at least not yet. If it weren't for the ice physics I probably would have done this deathless. I had no idea what you were talking about so I had to go back and open the map back up. The noclip bad texture is hilarious. Glad I noclipped over there to look at it. :)

MAP19 - “Spellbound” by Dragonfly Deaths: 2 I ended up beating this in a single segment, because I had forgot to save before each of my deaths. Each was to a different arch-vile in a different part of the map. On the third time though, I did everything better in the early part of the level, didn't let any arch-viles kill me (I still got zapped a couple times), and ended up beating the level. Turns out the arch-viles are the toughest part of this map. The opening has a medium difficulty, and it's probably one of the harder parts of the map. It's not a hot start, but you can't go anywhere without waking everything up. All of the various fights after that ended up being pretty easy. There is one soulsphere that warps you to a little room with some monsters and a backpack. Since I didn't need the soulsphere, I saved it until the end of the map. So I missed out on the backpack for nearly the entire level. Not having the backpack wasn't a huge issue however. This map is nonlinear. You have to get a couple keys to unlock the exit, and there's a third that is a requirement for one of the other two. I had a lot of fun wandering around killing everything, and despite starting the map three teams each attempt was unique from the others, so I didn't get bored. It looks good, but the previous map is a hard act to follow on that front. I do like the quiet-village-invaded-by-demons part though, so it manages to stand out anyway. One thing I noticed when I was looking at the map later was the insane number of sectors used to simulate slopes. From a moderate distance they look like real slopes. Somehow the texture still looks correct, which is kind of crazy. There's another area with a weird room-over-room trick that's pulled off very well. There's also a great little bedroom with a doomcute bed in it. The secrets were good. There is this one very cliche secret room behind a bookshelf with an annihilator in it. He gave me quite a fright! It might have been the scariest moment in the entire wad for me. I actually walked in there and didn't see at first, and somehow he let me leave alive. I don't like trying to kill something that can shoot me with rockets from point blank range! But I managed. It was a great moment.

MAP18 - “Malaise” by Bauul Deaths: 1 This map reminds me a bit of "The Citadel" from Doom 2, just much better. It has a moat and everything. There is an insane amount of detail in this map. Just a few moments here, looking around at the exterior of a huge keep, made my jaw drop. It's just a run-down old castle, but damn does it look great. Some of the map features use an insane number of lines and sectors to pull off. That crazy grate above the slime blew my mind. It ends up being a pretty relaxing map, since it's not as difficult as some of the previous maps. Only the final battle really puts real pressure on the player, and my second attempt on that (my only death) I won without taking too much damage. The first time I hesitated and then made a couple bad initial decisions which made winning impossible. I found all but one secret on my own. The final soulsphere after you use the blue and red key eluded me. Once I used UDB to point me in that direction, I ended up figuring out the trigger on my own pretty easily. Had I actually seen the soulsphere I would have figured it out easily, but that's how it goes. I didn't need the health at all, so at that point I probably wasn't paying enough attention. The secret megasphere is very well hidden. There's barely any hints, but there was enough for me to investigate further. The other secret soulsphere was kind of insane. There's a section that looked like a switch near it, and I kept trying to figure out how to activate it. I only accidentally saw the gleam in a skull's eye across the room. It was purely accident that I saw it at all. I wonder if it's even visible on lower resolutions. Even knowing it was there I could only barely see it. It's funny that I found this soulsphere, but not the other one. The visual and secret design are the highlights of this map. It very nearly feels like a real place, that normally would only be possible in a much more advanced engine. This is going to be one of the most memorable maps of the wad for me just on those factors. The combat is good and fun, but lacks the bite I would expect this late in the wad. That's not terrible or anything though. The music is good too, and fits the map pretty well.

I loaded my save right before that fight (I still had it) and it took me 4 attempts with the rocket launcher and plasma rifle. Mostly the PR because I was nearly out of rockets. Not an easy fight by any means, but I don't think it's that insane. Although I did go in with an effective health of 204, but I didn't leave many medikits lying around either. I had a ton of cells too, so ammo wasn't an issue. You really don't want to wake up that second arch-vile, so try not to go past the plasma rifle that lowers. Use the rockets to kill a bunch of them near the wall so the arch-vile that does wake up has something to do instead of zapping you. Then it's just a matter of dodging, which is easier said than done. Honestly, the crusher fight in MAP15 was harder for me.

MAP17 - “Perdita” by Liberation Deaths: 7 This map has significantly more bite than the previous two. That bite comes mostly at the beginning and end, with the part in between being pretty laid back. When you start, the door opens, and a chaingunner comes for you. Moving forward and shooting immediately sets off a hell of a battle in the opening room and hallway. I died twice here trying to figure out what to do. I found going up some stairs to another room gave me the breathing room I needed. It's so hard because you don't realize how many veil-imps are going to show up until you're in serious trouble. Once you get some breathing room eliminating everything isn't that difficult. What follows is a very beautiful adventure admist some sort of village. I really like this episodes' theme! You can see little houses all around the play area. It's very nice. There's a lot of places where monsters can surprise you, but it isn't too difficult. Until you make it to the end anyway. You eventually lower some bars that initially block your access to a courtyard. The yellow key is here, but your access is blocked by some annoying barrels. In other games, you might be able to just break them, but this is Doom and they are indestructible. You have to flip a switch which releases a ton of blood to power some infernal teleporter in the center of the courtyard. Your only option is to go through, and you're taken to the same place in the shadow realm (or whatever, that's what I'm going to call it.) The blood has been replaced by lava, and you're immediately mobbed by a ton of astralcacos. I died here four times. It's pretty brutal. The astralcacos love to dodge around and box you in, especially once they get to infighting and you can't predict their movements. It's extremely chaotic. Once you're done you can collect the yellow key in the now burned out house, and go back to our normal plane. But now there's more astralcacos and other things here! So you have another tough fight. Another death for me. This ending sequence is really great, though tough. It's one of the more memorable moments of the wad for me. It really reminds me of Wormhole from TNT, just better done. And way harder. Overall this was a very memorable and enjoyable map. The music sounds like something you would hear while in town in an RPG. It's a good song though.