"Final Doom" is a video game released in 1996. It is the sequel to Doom II and runs on the same engine.
"Final Doom has two 32-map episodes: "TNT Evilution" and "The Plutonia Experiment." I'll be reviewing them both in this one blog.
"TNT Evilution" has a really cool story that unfortunately has no cutscenes to show it. The disastrous UAC sets up base on one of the moons of Jupiter. They are continuing their teleportation research there. A huge ship approaches the base which ends up being a giant demon spaceship on the offensive. Doom Guy is forced to fight off another attack. Wouldn't you have liked to see that ship? It's too bad we only get to see these stories in text. (The introductory stories are always in the manual and not in the games themselves.)
Story aside, this map set is notoriously more difficult than Doom II, but it is really there to train you up for the next episode. I'll get into that in a bit. I was able to play these maps on the middling difficulty (Hurt Me Plenty) with only minor problems. It was certainly challenging.
But are the maps any good?
Some of them are. Some are them are trash. "TNT Evilution" actually has a map most consider to be the worst official map in Doom history, that being "Habitat." And you know what? I agree. I think it really is kind of stupid. It feels like it was unfinished. You can actually just skip everything in the map and run directly to the end. Seems like a huge oversight. And on top of that, it's pretty ugly.
The other maps look really good, but the problem that I ran into a lot was just a lot of running back and forth. They would often give you a keycard for a door that was clear on the other side of a really huge map. This often left me feeling frustrated and bored. They are not all like this, but a lot of them, especially towards the end, pulled this on me.
Also... do you like Revenants? This episode has plenty of Revenants! I actually think Revenants are a good way to make things tense cheaply. They actually are not that bad to deal with, but if you are on edge, a bunch of Revenants will make you feel like things are worse than they really are.
The secret levels were pretty good! I especially liked Pharaoh which did a really good job at making a map look like an Egyptian Pyramid. I'm not joking! It looked really good! It was hard too, but the atmosphere of it all was worth the trouble.
The whole map-pack ends with an instant-death puzzle of all things. There are these colored torches at the beginning and they are telling you the order of these platforms you have to jump to. If you jump to them in the wrong order, you'll die instantly. By the way, the "voodoo" it took to make that work is really interesting. The game does not actually have an instant death feature. They had to actually place a voodoo doll of yourself in a separate area that would get crushed if you went to the wrong platform. Anything done to that doll happens to you. Talk about clever map design!
The final fight is another Icon of Sin fight. It was a lot easier than in Doom II (thank goodness). I liked it, but I consider the entire episode to be a mixed bag. I liked the design of everything, but some of it could just be frustrating and boring. I think at the end of the day it was a decent episode, and I do recommend it.
"The Plutonia Experiment" is where the difficulty ramps up considerably. In fact, I had to play this on "Hey, not too rough" in order to actually barely make it through the campaign. From the very first maps you are dealing with high level monsters... even Arch-viles. In fact, a common tactic the game will use is to place hidden Arch-viles behind Chaingunners so that when you kill the Chaingunners, they seem to revive on their own. That's great map design... while also being incredibly sadistic.
The story here is that the UAC finally gives on up trying to control Hell and decided to use a number of quantum accelerators to close all the portals to Hell. It almost works, but the demons overrun the facility. The UAC is worried that the demons will use the quantum accelerators to their own ends, so Doom Guy is once more dispatched to stop them before they can do that.
Like I said, these missions are hard, but most of them are well made. They are fun to explore, and I really appreciated them for their interesting design. It seems to be a tradition in these missions to throw a lot of Arch-viles at you right near the map's exit. I saw this happen so many times. It can make the last moments in a map a major butt clencher.
Another thing that is absolutely bizarre about this map set is that you never actually know what floors will hurt you or not. Sometimes slime and lava are perfectly okay to walk on, and sometimes, even in the same map, they end up hurting you. And then there is that one weird moment where water actually hurt you. It's all very inconsistent, but it never actually bothered me. I thought it was funny.
The two secret maps are a doozy. Usually in a Doom II map pack there are two secrets. You find the first one in one map, and then the second secret map is hidden within the first secret map. "The Pluntonia Experiment" does not do this. Once you find the first secret map, you are committed to do both.
The first secret map is no big deal. You have to fight five Cyberdemons, but one at a time. Easy. The real problem for me was the second map called "Go 2 It." This is an infamously difficult map with more enemies in it than it really should have. To most people, it might not even seem possible. People these days refer to this one as the very first "slaughter map." Slaughter maps toss a ton of enemies at you, usually more than seems killable. The trick is to get them to infight, but that is easier said than done, especially when these enemies have Arch-viles sprinkled about them. Truth was that I actually barely made it through this one. I stopped fighting them at some point and tried to make a mad dash to just get out of the map. It was hell, and I am not sure I really enjoyed it. I feel bad for people who found the secrets and realized they could not complete the episode because it was too hard.
The ending was yet another Icon of Sin fight. This was harder than the one in "TNT Evilution" but easier than the one in "Doom II." You still have to ride up a pillar to shoot a timed rocket into the brain of the Icon, but it is a lot faster to set up and you don't have to walk around in lava while you do it. I liked it, and I really do recommend this episode. It was very enjoyable, although I was not really having any fun with "Go 2 It." Seriously watch a video of someone playing that mission. It's insane.
With that, I am happy to say that I do recommend "Final Doom" as a whole unit. It has its ups and downs, but the whole package makes it worth it. Just know that you are in for a very difficult time. This is one of the hardest Doom titles ever released.
This blog was written on October 7, 2024.
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