starmid.zip

Legendary

I really like Memento Mori for its distinct vibe. A lot of its maps feel either slightly desolate and empty (especially after you kill the monsters), or pretty cozy. Most wads don't capture the same feel, including wads from roughly the same era. My favorite maps in terms of feel are Hell's Kitchen, Not That Simple, Inmost Dens II, Stoned, City of the Unavenged.
Of course, Memento Mori has maps that are passable or are outright bad, but I see the bad maps as just road bumps in the adventure. And as you replay the wad and get more familiar with each map, you begin to appreciate even the bad maps more.
One of the most distinct things about MM is its music, because, uniquely, Mark Klem wrote not only dynamic action tracks for it, but also some ambient tracks. They make the maps they appear on feel quite eerie. The use of ambient music is one of the things that distinguishes MM from any of its follow-ups, in a good way, IMO.
Note about the difficulty: on HNTR the difficulty is very inconsistent because some maps have very bad skill level balancing (on them HNTR plays basically like UV). Maps like Showdown can suddenly proceed to destroy you if you've been playing too casually. On UV the wad is more consistent difficulty-wise, but playing MM on UV doesn't feel fun for me, especially from pistol starts. Too many bullet sponge enemies and the difficulty can get too overwhelming sometimes. Oh, and Kinetics on UV is just insane. This might actually be the map you will quit MM on if you're playing on UV only.

Resurgence is a spiritual sequel to Speed of Doom, this time led by Josh Sealy almost exclusively: Darkwave0000 will only appear to take the MAP32 slot this time around. Most of the maps in this project are remade versions of an unfinished WAD named Surge, whose mission statement was hot level starts forcing the player to go deep into the level to get the supplies they need to start fighting back the opposition. While Resurgence features plently of that, it also isn't afraid to pursue new ventures and go off-script every once in a while. I'll admit it right here: I was not the biggest fan of Josh Sealy's work in Speed of Doom as I found a lot of his work to be shaped by abject cruelty and a desire to annoy the player as much as possible. However, this WAD sees Josh take a huge leap forward in mapping maturity.   Like Speed of Doom, Resurgence is split into episodes and is more or less a continuation of the events in Speed of Doom; you actually start out the action in Hell. You eventually get teleported to an infested moonbase then ride a time spiral vortex thingy to be whisked several hundreds of years in the future. This also means you will be forced to do a few levels with pistol starts, as some levels will kill you in order to escape. As for the looks of the chapter, Josh clearly have picked up a few tricks ever since Speed of Doom: the levels all look gorgeous, with the moonbase levels being the most meticulously crafted. The hell levels also look very good and take inspiration from Scythe 2's hell aesthetics. My least favorite chapter looks-wise would be the future techbase (with the exception of MAP 26 "The Library" which is beyond stunning), but I'll overlook it mainly because it looks a lot like a souped up Plutonia Experiment, whose looks I never enjoyed in the first place.   If you disliked the popup monsters from Speed of Doom, you will still have to contend with those in Resurgence, but with far less frequency. However, there's gonna be a few parts here and there where Resurgence will want you dead and there won't be much you can do about it the first time around. Pop up cyberdemons and archviles at point blank range is not a gesture I appreciate. Chaingunners, arachnotrons and mancubi might be the most represented monsters in the WAD, so make sure your dodging and hiding game is up to par. Also, something which will be tested throughout the whole WAD will be your straferunning skills; Josh is fond to make gaps look impassable or impractical to get through and we're talking about jumps that need to be done to finish levels, not only to get secrets!   Difficulty-wise, this is a little easier than Speed of Doom but don't come into Resurgence thinking this will be a cakewalk. Even the "puny" Hell episode still has some hot scenarios that will be difficult to tackle; other episodes won't turn the heat much higher but as you advance through the WAD, so do the frequency of slaughter maps. MAP 11 "Twi-Lite Massacre" is the first taste of absolute carnage one gets, but Josh is surprisingly accomodating to the player here. Supplies are over abundant and problematic monsters (Pain Elementals and Arch-viles) are kept to a minimum. It's non-stop feel good carnage in this homage to Darkwave's Twilight Massacre (get it? Josh's map is Twi-lite because it's easier and leaner!). Other highlights of the Hell chapters are MAP 4 "A Fistful of Imps", MAP 7 "Gauntlet", MAP 9 "Scorching Savannah" and MAP 10 "The Courtyard", which features pretty floor pattern to keep your feet safe from the lava.   The techbase episode is the most consistent of all 3 episodes difficulty-wise, with the harder levels hidden away in the secret map slots. MAP 12 "Homecoming" has the patented Surge formula with one of the WAD's most explosive beginnings, but the action afterwards is no slouch either. MAP 14 "Hyper-Spelunking" is one big encounter in a cavernous tech facility with a cyberdemon monitoring your progress throughout the whole map. MAP 18 "Excavation Project" mostly eschews the usual template and gives way for the largest and biggest level of the WAD. Josh has a tendency for his maps to feel claustrophobic to the player so it's nice to see him explore new territory. Speaking of exploration, Josh uses the MAP31 slot to attempt to emulate Xaser in the totally bonkers "Festering Wicked Helix Sectors". whose time travel and shapeshifting shenanigans make it instantly memorable. MAP32 has Darkwave0000 try to imitate Josh's Poison Ivy II; the mid-sized overstuffed jungle nightmare becomes a giant slaughter behemoth sprawling with over 2000 monsters and is very reminiscent of his work in the 3 Heures D'Agonie series. I still like this more than Poison Ivy II.   The future techbase episode starts with a bang: MAP 21 "Ravages of Time" is a redux of MAP 20 "Waves of Darkness", but set in a troubled future where the base got overgrown with vegetation. Scythe 2's influence comes full circle as Resurgence decides to appropriate itself its custom monsters: the plasma marine and the Afrit. Both monsters thankfully got a nerf: the plasma marine is much, more slower and the Afrit lost about half its HP pool. Combat in this map is much more meandering and meditative, which makes it stand out from the rest. But MAP 22 is there to remind that you're playing Resurgence: "Mount Katoomba" is a gorgeous mountain level with nice sceneries and deadly combat. MAP 24 "Nuclear Winter" takes you back to Speed of Doom's first 5 maps, except Hell froze over. But from here on out, Resurgence plays the slaughter card, so continue no further if the word "slaughter" annoys you. MAP 25 "Technoprison II" has you stage a prison break, except the inmates still hate you more than their captors and results in the densest, craziest fight yet. MAP 27 "Where The Poison Ivies Grow Wild" scales up the Poison Ivy formula to a much bigger battlefield, but expect the journey to be as plodding and glacial as you desperately try to carve some safe space for yourself. MAP 30 "Eternal Redemption" starts out as the most claustrophic map yet, as you attempt to escape a small pyramid only for the fight to spill outside in a giant hurtful lava lake where supplies are not abundant. Depending on how you proceed, you may legit make this level unwinnable so plan carefully.   I held back for a while with this WAD because I was left with somewhat a bad taste with Speed of Doom. Maps like Resurrection, Poison Ivy II, Hais Temple and The Ruins of Kalnik gave me a negative opinion of Josh as a mapper. He's not always perfect with Resurgence; I disliked the platforming segment of MAP 3 "The Cavern of Lost Souls" which takes center stage over everything else, a few maps like MAP 5, 16 and 17 don't really stand out in any way, MAP 19 "Quadrilateral Rampage" takes an attempt at a freeform sandbox map but fails in its execution by being too unclear in its intended progression and MAP 29, "The Quiet Before The Storm" is neither a wind-down map or a good action map; it overstays its welcome and goes on for way longer than it should. But otherwise, this map set greatly exceeded my expectations and turned me into a Josh believer. This is a big improvement from Josh's contributions to Speed of Doom and here, he has proven he has the skills, muse and capabilities to make a compelling, must-play megawad. Four and a half stars, rounded down this time, due to issues that keep nagging me.

Very impressive levels, joy to play in 2024

5 Imps out of one Revenant.