Doom 1&2

Decino had some amusing coverage for this as noted earlier in the topic. UV, NM, Pistol Start, 100%, etc. in addition to mechanics, bugs, findings, etc. getting coverage. Mod spotlights can show off some fine community works. I presume we're talking base, not so much Brutal.

>E4
More action this time, so refreshing to pick up shotgun immediately at the start, especially after E2&3.

E4M1&2 are very strong start - short and intense

E4M2 is especially memorable. It's amazing how much it utilizes the quirks of the Doom engine. Enemies start alert, but 2 shotgoner still stay asleep untill you fire and that Caco bodyblocking hazard suit that you have to lure out. Great use of dmg tiles, they give you space and time to clear out Cacos and other enemies. It's also funny how enemies can melee you from below due to vertical auto-aim on attacks. My first time through it, I beat it without secrets, so I had to plasma Cyberdemon, but he can be telefragged hah. Same with the platforming, there is switch that bridges most of the gaps and give much more room to maneuver. Really enjoyed how you can make it harder without secrets.

E4M3 felt really haphazardly put togehter with enemies placed with little to no thought. Nothing interesting about this lvl and no fucking way I'll be looking for those 22 secrets.

E4M6 brings back classic floor is lava, otherwise not bad lvl.

E4M8 is finally good last lvl. That fucking room with shotguner at the start and Spider Mastermind is paired with some enemy composition.

E4M9 love the chaos of it, by far the best secret lvl

Started to apperciate barons and how tanky they are. Sometimes after a fight, there would be some baron left, because I didn't have enough ammo to deal with him, so he would roam around or even stalk as I was trying to find an ammo or way deal with him.

>Decino
Thanks to his analysis vids I learned that John Carmack pulled a fucking prank and decided that there should be RNG chance that your hazard suit may not work for a sec and you take dmg from lava.

E3 is horrible imo. Both the levels themselves and how they look. The fight with the spider mastermind is also so lazy it's almost unbelievable. For all the shit E4 gets I like it way more.

>E3
Tbh, I lowkey like how horrible they look hah. Yeah, they have horrible texture work, but I don't play Doom to admire textures.

E3M1, E3M3 and E3M4 are solid levels imo. E3M5 is overhated. The whole gimmick with teleporters is easy to figure out. E3M7 is way worse, in that trash teleporters are spread out through entire map and it makes you run through that dumb lava tiles.

E3M2 isn't well made map, but I like how claustrophobic it is and how enemies are just thrown at you and unlike E4M3, you have to watch for ammo.

Tried playing Doom II, but quickly got bored of it by the MAP06. Of the maps I played, they were pretty solid, but things were escalating to slowly for my taste, so I went straight into Plutonia - UV pistol start naturally.

Currently on the MAP08. It's the most "combat puzzle" compared to previous episodes, in a sense that it really focuses on proper target prioritization and crowd control. Encounter design is so great, Revenants especially add so much replayability. They get better and better the more confident you get at dodging their projectiles. Using their homing projectiles against other enemies feels amazing.

Another thing that I like, next to no secrets. Often going for 100% secrets makes a map easier, not harder, so I don't see appeal in getting 100% in secrets category. Glad, that Plutonia skips this shit and secrets are mainly in plainsight and there aren't many of them.

>boring maps
WAD-sama, save us!

→wad-sama

I highly recommend play SIGIL1, before Doom2. This is unofficial, but it really fleshed out version of E4, John romero knows how to make adventurous feeling into map. I guess doom2 as more 'realistic' approach to make maps, rather than abstract ones like Doom1 E2 latter maps. At that time it would be revolutionary, but it ain't aged well.

Enjoying Plutonia way too much to think and analyze it hah.How it experiment with the lvls and enemy placement is amazing, though I feel it gets easier as it goes further.

Edit: Maps 12-19 were pretty tame, at MAP20 and things pick up. Section with teleporting barons is especially interesting with how unpredictable it is.

>SIGIL1
Curious to see whole map-pack made by Romero. E1 was the only episode that he did majority of and how constaint it was with its enemy roster. It's weird to think about bruiser brother as boss battle, but it's probably the best boss lvl in Doom 1 lol.

Finished Plutonia UV, pistol start. I've definitely see myself replaying it in the future. It has so many encounter variety that describing them would take too long. One enocunter doesn't stay for too long in your mind, because it then throws another creative encounter after that. I definetly need a replay to appreciate all the nuance that came into design.

MAP32 is amazing. They went Entryway, but good hah. Love the intensity of it and the Archvilles that come out after picking up blue key - the fact that they can undo all your progress if you don't kill them quickly lol. Doom is Ninja Gaiden 2 of FPS genre. It has that struggle feeling where you trying to outlast the enemies. It's properly design with BFG and ammo pick-ups are placed in some risky places, so I had to take that into account when routing.

Though If I had to pick the weakest map, I think it would be MAP029. I dunno why Casali bros felt to need to remake Downtown out of all Doom 2 lvls. While it looks better than Sandy Petersen's lvl, it the same deal of wander around untill you find where you have to go. Not much interesting fights as well. The only thing that I sort of like is using enemies in buliding as snipers - it creates sort of urban warfare feeling, but they're easy to dispatch.

I also felt that earlier maps were harder than some of the laters maps, because in the earlier maps you didn't have access to BFG. BFG not only makes dealing with crowds easier, but it also nulifies threat of Archviles in certain maps, because you can point blank them before they can do any real dmg. Some maps even even give you BFG at the start, even if it's not necessary.

Plutonia uses Pain Elementals very well. It's the enemy that causes me the most annoyance hah. The way they're placed often with others enemy shielding them and lost souls are really pain in the ass if you let too many off them spawn. And, unlike most of Doom enemies, they benefit from larger fights, because monsters will never attack them and instead treat lost souls as the target, so that only creates more lost souls.