The DWmegawad Club plays: Eviternity II

You know what? I have time today.

 

GZDoom/UV/Pistol Start/Saves/RC5

MAP27: Empyreal - DMPhobos and Dragonfly

100% Kills and Secrets

Time: 23ish minutes (I didn't see the final time)

Deaths: 1 (from the Duke guarding the backpack)

 

That's right, I replayed a level this month! Mainly since I've been reading the other posts and noticed a few changes since RC2 that made me curious. 

 

This map is more imposing than it actually is. It's understandable to think that this thing was going to kick your butt six ways from Sunday considering the previous map. But thankfully, it doesn't rake you over the coals too much. Honestly, the opening fight is one of the hardest fights in the map, with the astral mancs, astral cacos, revs, demons, and an archie in this small circular arena. You do get the SSG and plasma immediately at least. The plasma seems to be the weapon of choice for most of the map, as you'll get 300/300 right off the bat, and there's a decent amount of cell pickups throughout. If you want to make this map a lot easier, I recommend heading west out of the arena. You'll find a chaingun and backpack pretty quickly, plus a berserk in a corner by the honeycomb pillars. Climb these pillars to find a RL on the way to the key. Dukes are being used quite a bit now, and a bunch will appear when you hit the switch by the RL, so you may want to escape back from which you came to try to take them out. When you finally get up past the honeycomb pillars and up to the side of the arena, you'll need to unlock the path to the key. When you do, a baron will appear in one of the newly revealed spots. Check behind him to find a shootable switch. Hitting it will give you access to the BFG, a soul sphere, and a mega armor, but it's not free. Annihilators and pain elementals will make themselves known. I think I tanked like 3 rockets from annihilators in this playthrough and somehow didn't die. The east path is much easier. You have a lock-in caco swarm that leads to an imp ambush, but that's nothing for the BFG. The incidental combat here is also light. Going into the tower here will sic revs, dukes, and PEs on you, but the plasma is your friend. The next ambush is a scary one. It's a tight fight with nightmare demons being lowered in 2 at a time as 3 dukes teleport in. Try to get some infighting going, then BFG when needed. Just some small incidental stuff is between you and the other key. Now we can head north to the final fight. This is another tight circular arena, but this one has more walls inside. You'll have to deal with cacos and their astral counterparts, hell knights and their dukes, mancs, and their astral counterparts, and corporals. There's 2 soul spheres and a mega armor you can lower if you need it, but doing so will remove some cover. You'll need cover for when the archie shows up, now with a necromenace! I didn't recall fighting a necromenace in RC2 when I was reading everyone's posts, so this was the main reason I wanted to replay the map to see how this changed the fight. It made me panic spray the BFG more at least (I know I didn't have the BFG for this fight in my first playthrough, but I did have the perforator). When the dust is settled, you can grab the yellow key and hit the 2 switches to reveal the exit. You'll notice a 3rd switch that will reveal a teleporter to an optional secret fight with annihilators, dukes, and nightmare demons. This is BFG city, so waste them cells! Overall, this is a good map! I enjoyed my replay of it quite much. I love the visuals as usual, and this ep's textures are just so cool. Combat is spicy, but still not too bad, even when pistol starting. The first and yellow key fights are the hardest for sure. 

Map26 “Myriad” by Tristan Clark, Guardsoul, and Dragonfly

 

The end of the week wasn’t fun. Here’s Friday’s map and I’ll have the two weekend ones written up sometime in the next 24 hours.

 

The commencement of the last episode is as grandiose as any opener I can recall, featuring an immense battle chamber and six side areas with their own subtheme. Said chamber has an intimidating exotic color/magitek/inhuman high-technology architecture like in Sunlust or modern slaughtermaps and our authors do not see fit to subvert expectations in that regard.

 

We start with an unsettling trek across some starry rocks, overflowing with pools of acidic green fluid. We eventually find a switch that lowers a colossal… something. What is this god machine apparatus of dark, ancient power? I would only call it “celestial” in the old-testament sense. We can actually trigger the marquee fight now but let’s hold off for the moment. If you do it now you won’t have a bunch of megaspheres or a superweapon, so let’s explore these six side areas that are labeled with a word describing what to expect.

 

I’ll start with Endure, which knocks you to 1 hp then pits you against imps and troopers (DFF does this for a full level in Skulltiverse’s “Beyond Life,” a map I very much enjoy). I’m neutral on this one, hitscanners are unkind in this scenario and there’s a lot of ways to die, some which will feel cheap. If playing single segment come here first. Next, we have silence, my pick for second section to do single segment. I am, again, reminded of another map I like (Aurelius’s Ephemeral) as gameplay involves finding “silent” sectors to shoot switches on and not wake up a new cacodemon variant which will obliterate you (I’ll get to them in a bit). It’s nothing fancy until you get to this big dark cavern with specters and nm demons you can’t shoot at without dying horribly. Don’t get pinned and don’t get scammed by a rather nasty nightmare cacodemon ambush at the very end.

 

For the other four I don’t have an order preference but that’s just me.

 

The “evade” section puts us on a platform and surrounds us with enemies to dodge until the teleporter lowers for us to leave (and they all get crushed). While hundreds of monsters are present, the only two I found dangerous are the astralarachnos spamming deathstreams. I ran around in an awkward to describe pattern and was rarely getting hit, you kind of duck into the lower areas for a bit then scamper up and over to the next one. Don’t be afraid to cross the acid, it doesn’t hurt much (same with falling off). Also, this one might be cheeseable... you can stand on the edges of the teleporters at the bottom and you won't take acid damage. I didn't try it with monsters still around though.

 

The ”destroy” section is classic two-shot cyberdemon practice. BFG, small platforms, four cybers to pass, fought one at a time. Don’t get blown away by ill-timed rockets when jumping to the next platform. The “conceal” section is a Go $#%! Yourself homage, a passageway with viles on each side and a barrier moving with you for cover. There’s also some pain in the ass corporals pecking at you from the opposite end. You get a megasphere so it’s not so bad and I guess if you have the BFG from destroy you can knock a vile or two out. No real need though. And finally, the “passage” section is a puzzle grid with the correct path (rapidly) lighting up every few seconds. A cyberdemon pops up to add some tension but he’s hardly an issue, half the time he’s just shooting into the wall. You could memorize this but there’s no real point besides speedrunning, falling off isn’t lethal.

 

Oh, and each side area has a secret that in tandem opens another secret area with a perforator (and some imp stress relief). It helps quite a bit with our new enemy.

 

So now with megaspheres, a perforator, and no acid to worry about its time to dance. Hitting the exit switch initiates a bona fide slaughterfight against a cornucopia of terrifying foes. Cacos, astralcacos, astralmancs, annihilators, revs, yadayadayada… and of course the new nightmare cacodemon (no cybers or viles though). The most dangerous element of this fight, by far, is not having a rig strong enough to handle the lightshow erupting on screen. It’s pretty spectacular and I remember writing about wanting this all the way back in map01 (thanks guys!) Otherwise, the biggest threats are the nightmare cacos… these guys are brutal. Fast, flying, screeching balls of death with quick-firing projectiles that home in the same way the astralmancs amethyst fireballs do. Remember the perforator? This is why you want it. Landing meaningful BFG tracer or rocket hits against the speedy bastards is incredibly hard, but the perforator plucks them from the sky with ease.

 

I've already prattled on way too long so I'll just say this map is really goddamned good. Every element is done well and it sets the perfect tone for the final chapter.

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.

MAP28: Afterimage. Played on DSDA v0.27.4, UV, PS. 250/250 K, 3/3 S, 1/1 I. Comp. time 26:03

 

Another map that feels like a breather; Afterimage feels even shorter than Empyreal. This is not negative criticism; I think that feelings of megawad fatigue usually has to do with maps growing in size and difficulty in a linear fashion. So, conventionally we would have had MAP24, that takes a long time to complete and has some pretty difficult fights, and a few maps later you would have maps that take even longer to beat, and would have even more harrowing fights added with some other challenge factor, like scarcer resources.

 

Instead we've been having beautiful maps with challenge level plateauing somewhere where I'm pretty comfortable; where I wouldn't bother trying to single-segment, but I'm also not hit with feelings of frustration or utter disbelief in survival.

 

There's a risk of maps being boring. Structurally this one feels a bit too samey than Empyreal; we're fetching a couple of keys on separate routes to initiate a big fight before the exit. I don't mind too much, but I'm hoping last maps are going to be different.

 

I was sorely missing a backpack here, and a SSG for a long time - I guess I took the wrong path at first :P The second path, on the other hand, hands you a BFG too  (although it's a secret... but you don't have to look too hard to access it).

 

Another good one.

Edited January 28 by RHhe82 : Typo

MAP28 - Afterimage - Velvetic (97%K/0%I/33%S):

This was clearly shorter and, maybe a bit easier to the previous E6 maps. Two ways, fights that were really packed, and a really big problem with bumpy terrain. Not only that but, visibility levels are really low, just to add tension. Said terrain makes traversing through the level a pain in the butt when fighting, as you may bump yourself into a 32px-height sector (you can't climb those) while rocketing your enemies, locking you up against targets. The difficulty of the level was not that much, but most of it came from maneuvering terrain. Also, I feel the map may be a bit hungry on ammo at times, I did struggle a bit even on continuous play, so I could expect a little bit of ammo starvation.

The map has a really nice atmosphere. It makes me remember Spyro 2's Fracture Hills a lot, for some reason, but with green lava. The standout point from this level, possibly.

Fine level, not something amusing or something that stands out, but it surely serves a lot as a breather for the last straight of the mapset.

Order of preference:
 

 

MAP27: Empyreal by DMPhobos and Dragonfly

Right of the bat you are thrown in a circular arena that holds a spicy fight. You are given plasma gun and a megasphere. You have to fight 2 nightmare cacos alongside 2 archviles and 2 astral mancubi on raised pillars. Skillfully dodge the nightmare cacos and astral mancubi projectiles (with luck, they will start infighting) while you kill the viles. Soon after, 3 paths will open up and reveal some revenants and astral cacos.

 

Once you survive the starting area, things somewhat cool down. You can now choose to take two paths (one gives red skull key and the other gives blue) and you need both keys to make it to the final part. A pretty standard Dragonfly style progression.

 

I recommend going to the west side first as that not only has the backpack, but it also contains a BFG in secret. But before getting to that secret, you have do a bit of incidental combat and also climb a hill of hexagonal platforms to make it to the top. Once you get to the end of the hexagonal platform sequence, look for a shootable switch. Hitting that will open the path to the BFG, but as soon as you grab it, some annihilators and a couple of pain elementals will pay a visit. Thankfully you also get a soulsphere and armor.

 

The east side similarly has mostly light incidental combat except for the part where you are in an arena with a couple of Dukes of Hell and some nightmare demons. That part is also easy if you have the BFG in hand.

 

Once you get both keys, you find your way to another arena. This area contains what might be one of the nastier fights in the entirety of Eviternity 2. Starting off with hell knights and Dukes, supported by corporals. Followed by regular and astral cacos, then an astral mancubus and finally the reveal of an archvile and a Necromenace. His ability to revive all those dangerous foes is what makes this fight really ruthless, especially without the BFG, which was the case when I did my first playthrough of the map (in my prepared single segment run however, I greeted him with the BFG and still barely made it out). Once that is done, you get the yellow skull key to be able to exit the map.

 

However, you will notice another button near the exit. This button opens a secret teleport that takes you to another area with another fight. This time you are given tons of rocket and you have to defeat a horde of Dukes of Hell and some annihilators in an area involving damaging floor area. Thankfully, if you have some cell ammo spared, you can soften the enemies and you also get soulspheres and armors to recover.

 

Overall, a generally easier map than the last one, but not without some nastiness stored in it

 

MAP28: Afterimage by Velvetic

Similar to the last map, you need to go to 2 different paths, each of which will give you a skull key and then you have to deal with one final fight before exiting the map. In case of this map, I recommend going to the north-west path first, as that contains a secret BFG and also has the SSG.

 

This map has similar feel to the last one, except that the incidental combat feels much more fierce here with liberal usage of dukes, revenants, veilimps, some archviles and astral cacos. Whereas the "locked in" (you aren't really locked in at any point afaik, but your escape path can get blocked by enemies at certain points) fights are generally much tamer.

 

Also, like the last map, you will come across a Necromenace again. This time however, he is sitting at the exit door and is away from the other enemies. So the best strategy I feel is to simply rush at him with the BFG and toast him before he revives too much stuff. Once he is done, the rest shouldn't be much of an issue.

 

I do have to agree with DJVCardMaster that the ammo felt tight on the map, especially when pistol starting. The map is not ammo starved per se, but I do wish there were very slightly more rockets and perhaps a backpack would be nice too (since all other E6 maps have the backpack anyway and it really won't change continuous play much anyway).

Edited January 28 by ReaperAA

MAP28 - “Afterimage” by Velvetic (Pistol start, used saves, 99% kills, 0% Items, 33% Secrets)

 

Another of these levels based on key hunting, this time ambushes are a bit more interesting and open ended, some having at least an archvile or 2. The astral caco placement is downright evil at times, especially considering they have their infinitely tall collision and can erase your health bar in seconds. 

 

Ammo is also a bit tight, for the final fight I only had left like 5 rockets and some plasma, unless there's again, a bfg hidden in the map that I didn't find, makes the final fight a bit rough for the resource starvation. Other than that, just don't be absent minded like me and this map is pretty enjoyable, if last map was more intense, this would have been a really good breather.

 

7/10

Map27 “Empyreal” by DMPhobos and Dragonfly

 

The second map of the last act starts with an intense encounter against nm cacos, astralmancs, and viles with revs and astralcacos joining in once the walls open. This opening fight looks scarier than it is, the astralmancs seem to draw everyone’s attention with their ridiculous golden bullet storms. You can get the viles caught in them if you watch the manc’s tells, which helps if they’re being uncooperative. After this we have two paths leading to the blue and red keys.

 

Neither path has particularly dangerous combat, its all incremental or brief lock-ins with nonthreatening enemies. The east one does have a snug drop-down nm demon/duke rink so make sure you have the plasma ready for that. The west side also has a tougher encounter but its not on the main path… it’s in a secret found at the top after the hexagon platforms. Upon grabbing the (very important) BFG a bunch of annihilators with backup warp in on the passage back, putting up a fair bit of resistance.

 

With both keys in hand, we may proceed to the final fight, which is in all honesty fairly challenging. As per usual, the constant waves of Eviternity exclusive foes pressure the player with lethal dps so getting stuck is generally immediate death. The real threat, however, is the necromenace that arrives at the finish, with a vile for good measure. His ghosts resurrecting astralcacos and dukes is so much scarier than the pitiful monsters from Boreas. Having the BFG is crucial for him and the battle in general, it turns an absolute nightmare arena into a “merely” moderately difficult one.

 

Oh, and if you wait a moment and hit a newly revealed switch you can go to a secret fight with dukes, nm demons, and annihilators in an area with copious amounts of acid floor. I actually find this place pretty harrowing; it’s very fast paced and with all the rockets flying around I’m scared of taking a stray one to the face.

 

So, this map is your more typical late 20s fare after the splendor of the episode opener. It’s still good of course and I like that the major encounters are dynamic, requiring quick decision making to avoid being overwhelmed.

MAP28 - “Afterimage” by Velvetic

 

It is quite strange to think that my experience deviated so strongly from others because I had no ammo issues whatsoever. I think finding the BFG was probably one of the major reasons for this because that allows you to rush the Necromenace at the end, which I guess would be the reason for blowing all of the cells in the map. This map is short, despite the grandeur of the environment it is simply a central hub, two key wings and the exit fight takes place in the central area with the uphill path to the exit.

I guess there are three complaints to this map, the first is some very rude astrocacos allow the blue key path that are there in front of the door, they gotcha'ed me good. The second is that hitting the two key switches literally unlocks the exit to the point where you can with nifty footwork avoid the final fight entirely, the final one is more a subjective one and I think this has also affected others here, I think I was expecting more punishment and given the map length I think the author could have got away with cranking the mean-ness just a little bit.

That aside the combat is fun, I especially liked rushing the start and getting the rocket launcher and plasma gun quickly and allowing everything to stir together, I guess this aggression may have also helped on the ammo front. I will say that despite some of the scenes in Map26, I think this map is the looker of the episode, the decision to provide verticality to this map was a great call, it makes the scene more grand than it actually is. Another solid map that was possibly a little on the easy side, again a subjective note on my part, though a few tweaks could have made this a real highlight moment.

GZDoom/UV/Contiuous/Saves

Write-ups from memory

 

MAP28:  Afterimage - Velvetic

 

Back to trying to remember my past playthrough. It's about time Velvetic gets a solo map in this WAD! Haven't heard from him since ep 1. This map takes place more in the natural terrain of the astral plain than in its structures. There are still some imposing structures here, but this feels more like we're on the outskirts of something than in the thick of it. This map is where I really noticed the purple textures of this set. They go really well with the greens, and remind me a little bit of Magnolia for some reason. Unlike most Ribbiks maps, this one is nowhere near as hard. In fact, it might be slightly easier than the last map. Especially since you can nab a BFG very quickly here if you head towards the yellow key path. That makes the ambushes slightly easier to take one. Another visual highlight I like here are the switch areas, and I by that I mean each switch in a circular courtyard on the key paths and the area with the blue and yellow switches. I just really like the design of these arenas for some reason. It almost feels like hitting those switches are powering up some kind of astral technology. Combat, despite feeling a tad easier than the last map, is still bringing the pressure as most of the WAD's enemy roster will show up at some point in this map, and the expanded roster will make for some interesting combos. The one ambush that surprised me was when I hit the switch on the yellow key path that was at the top of some stairs. No enemies appeared, so I thought I was safe. But as you head back down, the path the way you came gets blocked off, and NOW the ambush starts. Clever way of giving me a false sense of security. The actual ambush for the yellow key was intense, but nothing too bad. The blue key path is really easy, though the main hub where the key switches are will get repopulated once you grab it. The final fight is yet another repopulation of this area, but interestingly a necromenace will appear up the stairs toward the exit. He doesn't really move from that area, so you'd think he wouldn't be much of a threat. But this is where you really see how dangerous he is, cause he can still send out his ghosts that will revive enemies, and those ghosts will travel far. It's like an archie where he has to be on top of the enemy to revive it, he can do it from anywhere. That makes him a high priority, and that's why you should charge him and BFG his face off. Overall, this was a pretty fun one! No real complaints here.

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

 

Everyone calling this a breather level is very interesting to me. It took eight attempts to single-segment Afterimage while the last map didn’t kill me at all.

 

The core of the map is similar to many of Dragonfly’s, we have two keys that may be acquired in any order, a secret BFG, and mostly incidental combat. It doesn’t look particularly hard at first glance, pretty much the entirety of the map remains accessible for all but a couple (sedate) encounters. However, the incidental combat is far nastier than anything we’ve gotten so far. Astralcacos and dukes of hell everywhere, viles backing them up, low-lit irregular terrain… Without a surplus of healing artifacts a bad break like getting caught under an astralcaco likely ends the run. And I wasn’t even having ammo issues, I never found it scarce on any attempt.

 

Then we have the necromenace at the end which I found to be a major roadblock. Rush him and a good number of astral and nightmare cacos home in and pulverize you while killing him. Take your time and his ghosts whittle you down. Ultimately, I found the best plan is to save that secret soulsphere for this part so you can run up there with 200/200. That was enough to survive the cacos and clean up the rest.

 

Afterimage is well made and seems calibrated in its recovery and combat (and ammo apparently). It is, for me at least, the most difficult map so far this episode and a fearsome setup for the penultimate level.

7 hours ago, cannonball said:

 

It is quite strange to think that my experience deviated so strongly from others because I had no ammo issues whatsoever

I want to clarify myself; I didn’t have ammo issues from pistol start either. Me wanting a backpack had more to do with rationing (which I always do) pick-ups so as to not be wasteful, and having to go back to replenish shells.

MAP29: Maelstrom by Dragonfly

 

The penultimate map of the regular progression is an open field that sends you to look for three keys. The order of operation is up to you, there are multiple copies of plasma rifles that the map relies on. I started with the red key, which assaults you with cacodemons - red, gray and black, the last one are complete bastards with their high speed and hard-hitting attacks. Yellow key came second, at first it squeezes you between two groups of revenants and hell knights that emerge from towers, then throws more cacodemons. The last one to grab was the blue key, which tasks you with fighting two cyberdemons in a pit of damaging liquid. This was the easiest one, though I must say, dancing between tiny patches of rock, avoiding rockets and spraying plasma was an interesting scenario. Those three big fights are linked by incidental combat, so there is little dead time here.

 

With all three keys you can exit to the final map, but there's also MAP36. I wondered if I would be able to find it and uncover all secret stages of Eviternity II by myself. And I succeeded. There are two additional fights containing switches that open an additional exit. The first one can be seen on the way to the yellow key and I'd say it was the hardest fight of the map. You have a necromenece, imps and hell knights in a rather tight place and my usual strategy of BFG rush was out of question, since Maelstrom has no BFG. The second secret can be found east from the MAP36 portal, just follow a trail of candles. This one also features a necromenece, but isn't that bad - the hell nobles are all above the arena, so it's easy to just circle-strafe around the sorcerer until he dies.

 

Maelstrom is an okay map, but so far Episode 6 has been a bit underwhelming. MAP26 aside, the artstyle feels a bit too similiar - rocks, teal liquid and dark marble. I don't think I've felt this is any other episode. As such, I fear maps 27, 28 and 29 will blend into one another when thinking about Eviternity II.

 

MAP36: Kenosis by ukiro

 

Kenosis is the biggest, longest and hardest map of Eviternity II and the ultimate challenge the wad presents to anyone who seeks it. To be fair, I expected Anagnorisis part 2, but Kenosis is a whole different kind of map. It's a series of discrete fight that are among the toughest in the whole wad, connected by platforming over a lake of lava. What is this place, anyway? There are trails of rocks shaped like a seven-point star with demonic buildings in the corners and a celestial temple in the middle. The very first fight has you avoiding the gaze of archviles and pressing switches until you can exit and the meat of the map begins.

 

As I've said earlier, you have six buildings to choose from - three of them hold the keys, the rest is optional, but lets you arm yourself properly. You have the yellow key, which starts with two archviles in a maze of columns while corporals fire from the sides. I went there first, with only a shotgun and a chaingun. Not a great idea, especially since the SSG fight isn't that tough to survive (nightmare demons, astral cacodemons, revenants and turret annihilator in an arena). It is followed by a lot of lost souls, zombies and several cacodemons, which aren't that hard to take out. When playing the map blind, you have no idea what you'll encounter when investigating. After the yellow key I obtained the super shotgun and rocket launcher. The latter is probably one of the more forgettable encounters. The archvile trio that rides up and down is a pain to take out without proper guns and the rest is just a lot of revenants. My next step was the red key building, which is where I hit a wall. This bloody thing locks you in a room with a ton of lost souls. Better make a good use of invuln and rockets to eliminate as much as possible, so you can at least move around. Then two pairs of revenants and archviles appear in corners, guarding switches that lets you escape. That's not the end, as you escape from the frying pan straight into a fire - a narrow ring around the building with veilimps. After a couple of tries, I gave up and left this fight for later, crossing my fingers there is a plasma rifle somewhere.

 

Indeed, the next building I've entered had a plasma rifle, but also a really nasty fight. See, there is this small circular room, with a cyberdemon in the middle and crushers travelling around. This one also took me a while, the blast damage and peripheral mancubi will chip away at your health and once you've survived this, you have to eliminate dukes of hell in tight spaces. Blue key was next and I'd say this was the most tense part of the map. A column in the centre is topped with a cyberdemon, who is great at taking out astral mancubi, but also is a hazard when you need to jump from one window to another through said column. You have to do it a couple of times, always risking catching a rocket up-close. Also, don't try killing the cyber, I'm sure he has several back-ups. Only the red key was left, but now I had a plasma gun with a hefty supply of cells, so once I grabbed the key and escaped outside, I could just spray plasma in front of me and running in circles until all veilimps were dead. There is one more think I want to talk about before entering the temple and that's the presence of evil eyes. I've noticed a couple of them hidden around the map, they teleport away if you press use on them, I think they trigger a rather silly easter egg when you find all of them end return to the start.

 

With all keys you can enter the temple, I think the map eases up here somewhat. You don't have to platform when moving from place to place, that's always a positive, but the fights here are much more managable. The corrupted pit with an archvile tower in the centre, where you have to battle various monsters while avoiding being seen by a dozen of viles is another tense section, but not as hard as the blue key part. The two fights that unlock the finale boil down to running laps around the room while firing rockets and plasma - you know, a basic crowd control. The last fight, however, makes up for it with probably the second most cinematic moment in the wad. When you pick up the perforator, the cross in front of you turns upside-down, blood fills the place and a thousand or so gibbed zombie corpses are being thrown through the windows. First time I saw it, I was speechless. Then several archviles and necromeneces get released, immediately begining to revive the bodies. This is followed by more archviles, two masterminds and a cyberdemon. The perforator really shines here, being able to shoot through crowds and quickly eliminate even the bosses. I wish I was able to use this gun more, pistol-starting each map really screwed me in this regard. Once they are all dead, I was able to jump through the cross and after 3 hours of play complete Kenosis.

 

I'm not afraid to call this one "a magnum opus", ukiro outdid himself with grand scale, creative fights and detailed visuals. The minimalistic midi does a great job building the uneasy atmosphere of a corrupted sanctuary. At the same time though, you spend a lot of time moving from place to place, it's easy to fall down and waste time trying to get back up. In the end, I think I still prefer Anagnorisis, but Kenosis is a worthy conclusion to the secret maps and the second best behind Charge.

MAP29: Maelstrom. Played on DSDA v0.27.4, UV, PS. 264/264 K, 2/2 S, 8/8 I. Comp. time 38:52

 

You know, I *am* glad that this few last maps weren't all striving to be magnum opuses in the sense they'd all be trying to out-do one another in scale. Maelstrom as a name already invokes certain expectations to anyone who's played Sunlust, they almost share the same mapslot... come to think of it, they both involve getting three keys in separate paths (much like the last few maps), so there's that.

 

But, I think Dragonfly stated somewhere that Eviternity II is made for normal people, and while I love Sunlust, I also love the fact that this second-to-last map (excluding the secret map, whose entry portal lying here is is apparent from the get-go) lies difficulty somewhere around my comfort zone - also much like the last few maps - that I'm not frustrated, but not having it so easy as to just go in and be done with it.

 

I like the skull key fights here -- except for the BSK, that's just an very unexciting affair -- especially the one preceding YSK. The one where fight hordes on giant opposing staircases, and then release a cacocloud and HK horde... It's simple, but somehow I like it very much. Nothing wrong with RSK hordes either. This time I also enjoyed the Necromenace fights more than in previous maps. I don't know why, since the secret arenas are cramped and simple. I guess it's just that this I could focus on the bastards and their surrounding court of hell nobles.

*

 

MAP36: Kenosis. Played on DSDA v0.27.4, UV, PS. 2777/2777 K, 0/0 S, 29/34 I. Comp. time 94:23

 

At first, I thought I wasn't going to play this one - upon entering the level, the frame rate would already dip somewhere around 20, even with no enemies in sight, no nothing except a pathway forward. But then I figured to switch to software rendering, see how it would impact the situation - and to my surprise, frame rate jumped to 35? I always thought hardware rendering would be the faster option, and that software rendering would sacrifice the performance for mapping tricks and "just the right" graphical outlook?

 

Anyway... Wow. Ukiro and friends must have worked real hard on this one. It's enormous, it's beautiful, it's got some very cool visual effects, especially and specifically in the final fight. That cathedral transforming, windows breaking... Close to 2000 enemies gibbing through the infernal portals... Wow.

 

That said, I have mixed feelings on Kenosis. I was constantly feeling overwhelmed, not knowing where to go. It's a bit too big for my tastes, I suppose. Some of the fights didn't feel that fun. The Lost Soul Deluge was hysterical, but mostly I was exhausted until the cathedral part (and even there the archvile watchtower section was more like tedious), which housed some fun fights leading up to the Perforator Murder Fest. That was glorious.

 

Or would have been, if I hadn't ended up with 2776/2777 kills :P Had to hunt quite some time for the final one, a lone corporal that had gotten stuck in the corporal shooting gallery arena.

 

I don't mean to sound negative. It's still a great map, it's only brought down (and I can't stress enough this is a personal preference) by the sheer monstrous scale, and in such a big space not every fight is as fun as others. The ending is a very memorable scene.

 

I found two sigil eyes; one in a red brick shack somewhere, and one near the corporal gauntlet with the YSK; and I pressed the eyes, and they'd teleport away. What was the point of that? Did I miss any? They felt so remote and easy to miss that I almost think they might have hidden some sort of easter egg that I missed now :P

 

* - - * - - *
 

Added two hours later:

 

Watching Vytaan playthrough convinced to go back and look for more :P Worth a couple of cute sights :D Also watching ad-ridden Vytaan playthrough made me realize how silly tactics I used in some of the encounters to make them worse on me. Like the corporal arena: I would go on about unleashing everything, thinking I had to do that to deal with the archviles. End results was me savescumming for realzies, in low health situation hoping for benevolent RNG. Or: with the inverted Sunlust-carousel, I would keep the Cyberdemon alive, trying desperately to avoid splash damage. Should have shot the bastard down with plasma right away, instead. I'm fairly certain I'd have a much better time the second time around, roughly knowing how the map is structured.

Map 27 - "Empyreal" by @DMPhobos & @Dragonfly

UV, pistol start, saves, DSDA

 

The grand battle of Myriad may have been won, but the Celestial Episode has many challenges still.

The very first fight of Empyreal unleashes 2 Nightmare cacos, 2 Astral Mancubi, and 2 turret Archviles! After some time, a bunch of Revenants and some Astral Cacos join the fight. This battle includes a ‘free’ megashpere for a reason... This fight has not many monsters, but it is still a tough challenge, if one comes unprepared.

 

Compared to the initial fight, the blue and red skulls can be obtained realtively easily. But the finale of Empyreal is a hard battle once again.

 

Finale works as follows: (for reference - I came here without the secret BFG)

First wave is roaming Hell Knights + Hell Dukes and entrenched Energy Riflemen. Soon after, Cacos of normal and astral variety begin to appear. Then an Astral Mancubus gets unleashed. This all happens on a pretty small arena, and very quickly the battlefield gets filled with monsters and projectiles alike.

But the final wave is even crazier:

This wave includes both an Archvile and a Necromenace. By this stage, they have so many potential targets to resurrect...

 

Personally speaking, I think that the archvile is more deadly at this stage. First, the cover is premium in that stage of the fight; Second, all kind of monsters will do their best to chase the player right into the archvile zaps. That said, a tanky Necromenace is a scary monster too. Focusing him down in the chaotic fight is hard, and also requires some time. All this time the Necro does its best to keep resurrecting stuff - and the fight situation changes constantly.

 

The finale showcases two things:

- the full potential of Necromenace in serious battles.

- the sheer explosive potential of minislaughter battles on small arenas. After the macroslaughter of Myriad, it reminds us that monster numbers alone do not mean everything...

 

Aside from the main progression, Empyreal also has two optional (Secret) fights. Both deploy considerable numbers of Annihilators.

1) The first bonus fight is hidden in Red key subsection. This battle can be accessed by either shooting a particular switch, or by running on top of the wall after the hexagonal section. This fight awards the BFG-9000 and uses Pain Elementals to support the annihilators.

2) The second secret fight happens right after the final battle of Empyreal. Here, the bonus fight itself is its own reward. This time Annihilators appear together with Hell Dukes. The infight potential between those demons is high, so that’s a plus. However, the battle is not an autowin by any means: both Hell Dukes and Annihilators have powerful attacks, and catching one salvo too many can mean death.

 

Compared to Myriad, Empyreal is an easier level. But compared to other 200-300 monster maps in Eviternity 2, Empyreal seems to be among the harder ones. And there is also the whole "secret fights" angle. Episode 6 seems to be related to the modern "challenge-focused combat" map genres. Gamplay-wise, we have grand slaughter, we have dedicated test-of-ability challenges, and we also have smaller-scale hardcore setpieces. Aesthetics-wise, Episode 6 does look related to the "Cosmic & Void" visual themes, which are very prominent in many challenge-focused pWADs.

 

Map 28 - "Afterimage" by @Velvetic

UV, Continuous, saves, DSDA

replayed on UV, pistol start, saves, DSDA

 

In my case, there were lots of dying in this level, even on Continuous with saves. And even more dying on pistol start replay of this map.

 

I fully expect Afterimage single segment to be much more difficult for me, than Myriad single segment was.

At first, Afterimage looked like an easier map. However there are so many things, that can go wrong… The gloves are fully off by now: there are Astral and even Nightmare cacodemons attacking from high above, there are archviles trying to resurrect everything back, there are many revenants in hard to dodge spaces.

 

Yellow key section was really nasty on a pistol start...

Rev seeker missiles, Hell Duke salvos, High-Flying Astral Cacos and Nightmare Demons – this is terrifying combination!

Such different threats are very hard to track at the same time. The arena is small, the healing is limited, and there is also that one archvile which can light its flame from nearby room (Hey, sometimes that Vile comes out and joins the fight! Things can go very wrong indeed...)

 

Final area, with the Necromenace hiding on top of a cliff, was also quite hard (even on continuous, this battle required a lot of care. Nightmare cacos getting resurrected is a terryfiyng turn of events...).

 

In the end, this map feels like a smaller @dannebubinga & @Ribbiks map from Sunlust. Technically, there is nothing really devastating here. However, there is endless opportunity for disaster. And thus, the map requires both high performance and an ability to quickly re-improvise, in case the things start going out of control in some novel way...

 

In the end, Afterimage is a very appropriate map for slot 28. The map frustrated me at times, but this far into the final episode nobody should expect much mercy. Episode 6 began with Myriad, after all!

 

Map 29 - "Maelstrom" by @Dragonfly

UV, pistol start, saves, DSDA

replayed on UV, Continuous, saves, DSDA

 

Compared to previous maps of Episode 6, Maelstrom has two notable traits:

1) Very non-linear structure (despite the map being rather small)

2) Heavy focus on stock Doom 2 monsters.

Point 1) is self-explanatory. Maps 27 and 28 each had 2 separate key areas and one final fight in the end. Map 29 has more keys, and the respective colored key sections are often connected in unexpected ways.

Point 2) works as follows: there are still many Eviternity 2 demons on Maelstrom. However all the crucial fights (both secret and non-secret ones) deploy a considerable number of Doom 2 foes. Hell knights are especially easy to note, but there are also many old-school cacos (newfanged cscodemons are still there, don't worry), nefarious reverenants, a dedicated cyberdemon setpiece, and other beasties.

 

Specters and pinkies felt pretty underwhelming in their respectable fights:

- pinkies of Maelstrom get overshadowed by both the astral caco strike team and the huuuuge pinkie flood of map 32.

- specters are just SSG-yes / Rockets-no checklist. IMO, the specters would be better replaced by some mix of nightmare demons and, say, vileimps or other in-your-face threats...

But other classic monster played their respective roles very well. Even on continuoius playthrough, situation did go south a few times.

Revenants once again demonstrared their inherently Plutonian nature, Hell Knights marched around menacingly, and did their best to limit combat space, and clouds of old-fashioned cacodemons showed that non-mutant tomatoes also know a few tricks.

 

In conclusion, gameplay of Maelstrom is, once again, pretty good. The map feels distinct from maps 27 and 28 due to a unique monster composition and thanks to different progression structure.

 

But my favorite part of map 29 is the MIDI. "A Dremaless Eternity" is a very catchy and memorable tune on its own. And it also perfectly captures the feel of both the map 29 itself, and the episode 6 as the whole. Moreover, for me personally, this MIDI feels almost like the musical theme for the whole second half of Eviternity 2.

 

Map 36 - "Kenosis" by @ukiro

I played Kenosis once in rc2 version.

Sadly, I don't have the time to replay it again right now. And even if I would replay it - I would require just as much time to make a proper detailed review.

So I'll be super short:

1) My favorite gameplay sequence of Kenosis - the final fight. Thanks to its absolutely METAL intro sequence, that fight is another super memorable moment of Eviternity 2, not far behind the Battleship sequence from map 24, or the Grand Battle of Myriad.

2) I also really like the astral Caco+Rev+PE rocket brawl (Edit: NE rocket launcher area), and the battle against Vileimps on narrow castle wall in the Red Key section.

3) I think that Kenosis is a successful continuation of Eviternity 1 Anagnorisis. @ukiro wrote once, that idea of Anagnorisis was to make the player experience the same feeling that someone playing Doom in 1993 for the first time did experience.

Kenosis, with its marble-brimstone-and-blood aesthetics, nefarious challenging setups and overwhelming scale, seems to invoke a somehat similar type of experience (Edit: for me personally, ofc):

To me, playing Kenosis felt pretty close to playing those old-school grand-scale challenge maps for the first time (be it Go2it, Lake Poison, Punishr2, Fire and Ice, or Mucus Flow). So yes, Kenosis is a worthy successor to Anognorisis.

BTW, Anognorisis is so grand, that there are multiple ways to develop its ideas further. For example, Eviternuty 2 Charge also feels like a successor to Anagnorisis. And I think that Kenosis ideas can also be developed in multiple unexpected directions.

Edited January 29 by Azure_Horror

21 minutes ago, Azure_Horror said:

Moreover, for me personally, this MIDI feels almost like the musical theme for the whole second half of Eviternity 2.

Dragonfly did put in the description of the YouTube upload that, since Maelstrom's music was done relatively early, he'd IDMUS29 while testing maps that didn't have a MIDI yet so this checks out surprisingly well.

MAP29 - Maelstrom - Dragonfly (100%K/I/S):

A really cool penultimate map before the end. You are quickly introduced to the secret exit, but to access it, you will need to win two secret fights, so let's talk about them later.

There are two ways to tackle this map at first, by choosing the red or the blue key path. Getting one of both will reveal the main hub where there is an exit teleporter that will require you to get the three keys. Each part of the map that is holding a key, will naturally reveal a massive fight. The hardest one was the one at the red key, for sure, given the openness of the arena, combined with the stupid amount of flying tomatos and low tier enemies blocking your way will make your life pretty miserable. I tried to escape this area, but flying enemies can easily get you from anywhere at this big complex. I did it anyways. The other two arenas where: a small grotto, around two towers, with a lot of hell knights and revenants trying to hold you from getting the keys, and the blue key arena, which was a small area with flying enemies and two cyberdemons. A fun thing to do is to lure some enemies from the red key area to the blue key one, so they infight with the cybers. This will reduce a lot of enemies without wasting too much ammo. The yellow key area with the towers was a bit meh for me.

You have two secret fights, those are required for you to access the secret exit. Both of them will hold some necromenaces with some hell bruisers guarding him. Both arenas are pretty similar, and not that hard, specially the one hidden at the site where you need to do some parkour over the little bumps at the terrain. (It's marked with candles). The other secret fight is a bit trickier as you may access it by jumping from the ramparts next to the yellow key towers. It's a small sector marked with a candle aswell, but you may even see the secret arena from far away if you are gliding on top of said ramparts.

It is a really nice 29th map, but if I have to be honest here, I think MAP26 would have served as a better MAP29, in my opinion.

MAP36 will be our last secret map before the final fight, and I hope it will give us our last Perforator.

Order of preference:
 

Kenosis review is a bit longer, so it will be written separately from MAP29's just not to overwhelm the reader.

MAP29 - “Maelstrom” by Dragonfly (Pistol star, used saves, 100%K/I/S)

 

Penultimate map to the bone, atmosphere and music play in tandem to try and make this map as ballbusting and epic as possible, altough I may say, the gameplay compared to the juggernauts of the set is a lot more suppressed, trying to trick your brain with large scale fights and limited resources for most of the map to make you think it is difficult. This is actually a good thing from a megawad pacing standpoint, sense the player not only tackled another 30 maps earlier, but what's coming next is the sequel to Anagnorisis.

 

For example, the red key fight can destroy you if you are unprepared for it and just keep waiting until the astral cacos come around and corner you, also that there isn't much room for error with the ammo lacking unless you fight more ambushes like the astral manc/imp one. But when you actually do it, you'll notice is basic crowd control stuff, and you can comfortably go around the large arena to dismantle it. The 2 cyber demon surprise in the Blue key is also like this, and like a not good Romero map would do, the damaging floor is more threatening than the cybers themselves, just plasma them. Not to count, the real hard hitters like the necromenace ambushes give you a megasphere for free, so there isn't much to fear playing this map.

 

The secret ambushes are also not a big deal, especially the candle trail one, but the second one after you open the yellow key path is possibly my favorite use of the necromenace in the wad, just being around suppressing your space as much as possible, not relying in killing its hellknight army or he'll just mess you up badtime. Better than just summoning him where he has a big pile of monsters or threating him like a cyber sniper.

 

At least for what it is, enjoyable as an penultimate challenge, and a good way to ease your way into 3 hours of misery.

 

8/10

MAP29 - “Maelstrom” by Dragonfly

 

The monster count suggests another fairly short map, however despite how far we have gone, I still think this draws a lot from the likes of Plutonia, the map might have a fairly modest monster count but every monster makes its mark here and the astral cacodemons really run havoc at times here. The blue key was by far the easiest to grab, two cybers aren't that much of a bother, especially if you can draw a couple of other monsters to where you drop in and distract one of the goats. The other keys involve a lot of flyers and they can cause real havoc as there is nowhere to hide. Once the keys are grabbed, reach the central building and exit, no questions asked.

The secret exit involves finding two secret fights, one that is pretty darn perilous is found on the yellow key path, it involves a necromenace, imps and hell knights that will be repeatedly revived to the point where you wonder whether you will make it out with any ammo. Target that menace like your life depends on it, the other fight accessed by doing some island hoping was nowhere near as stressful, you have another necromenace but this time the other monsters are perched and easily avoidable. 

Overall despite my initial fears, this one delivers a pretty impressive penultimate map experience, it is tough and probably tougher than the other maps in this episode (By a small margin), the scenery is imposing and foreboding and the midi just reeks of that penultimate map essence. 

 

I will play Map36 tomorrow.

GZDoom/UV/Contiuous/Saves

Write-ups from memory

 

MAP29:  Maelstrom - Dragonfly

 

This penultimate map surprised me, mainly since I'm so used to penultimate maps being the toughest map in the WAD before the final boss. I don't think that is the case here, but it's for sure not easy. First off, this map gets the feel of being a penultimate map at least! The giant main structure you see from the start just looks imposing and mysterious. While not really the same architecturally or graphically, it invokes the same feeling I get when I see big structures in void-scapes like Lullaby or even Struggle MAP28. Maybe it's all the purple towers. Once you grab the rocket launcher and deal with the revs and hell knights, the map opens up. I took the path directly across from the secret exit and delt with the veilimps in the damaging floor. This path isn't too bad, tho the ambush that happens shortly after dealing with an explody noble involving mancs and lost souls did somehow kill me. It's the only death I recall getting, but there was probably more. You'll find the plasma shortly after along with the first key. Granted, going to grab said key sends pinkies, cacos, and their astral versions after you. I then continued around through the long rocky ravine with damaging floor. Nothing too exciting here, but it leads to one of the more unique fights. Grabbing the plasma here lowers a few columns with enemies at the top of opposing staircases. Looks like height differences are playing a factor in this fight! It's an interesting one that you'll want to cause infighting with, and to try not to fall off the stairs too much as it is kinda annoying have to climb back up. Hitting the switches behind the columns opens a path to the yellow key. The blue key is in the center of the big tower. It's a duel against 2 cybs in a circular arena filled with damaging floor. It's pretty tough since there's not a lot of safe ground. Once you have all 3 keys, you can head back into the tower in exit through the portal. If this was where it ended, I would say this was a solid map with fun fights and fantastic visuals, but not as much bite as I was expecting from a penultimate map. But this isn't the penultimate map. Like I mentioned earlier, there's a secret exit, so MAP36 is actually the penultimate map. Accessing the secret exit is simple. There's 2 secret paths in the map that lead to some small arena fights. They aren't too hard to find as long as you keep an eye out for candles and item bonuses that seem to lead to new areas. The fight accessed from the staircase fight is possibly the toughest fight in the map. Now, I'm watching a playthrough of this, but I don't recall there being a necromenace in this fight back in RC2. There could have been, and I just perforated it before it could cause havok. Because if you don't take that thing out ASAP, the hell knights and imps that surround it will just keep getting resurrected. And that is no good. The other secret arena has a similar setup, but the menace is on the ground with you and the nobles are on the surrounding walls. Those walls will lower eventually allowing them to get on your level and attack, but at least until that happens, you can just focus on the necro and take him out quickly. With those done, now we can go to the final secret map. And boy oh boy is it a doozy.

 

MAP36: Kinosis - ukiro

 

This map may have been the one I was the most scared going in to. I didn't know what ukrio was going to throw at us this time. Was it going to be another multi-hour, non-linear, very open magnum opus like Anagnorisis? Or was it going to be something completely different? Turns out, it's pretty different. While it is still non-linear and long, this map is all about set-pieces. It's not a giant exploratory map in that regard. First off, this map takes place in a giant rocky outpost filled with lava. You won't see much of this at first, as the path only shows up to the first building. There's 8 buildings, and this first one is a Tyson one. There's a carousel of rising and lowering archies around the arena that can zap you, so you'll have to use the center pillar and the lower switch areas as cover from them, all while dealing with a few enemies on your level. Once you hit all the switches, the archies will die, and the path forward will reveal itself. Step out to find a shotgun and one of the most grand views in the WAD. You'll see a heavenly cathedral in the center of a heptagram. This entire area is over lava, with the heptagram being made from rocky paths. Each point of the heptagram has a building at the end of it. Combine this view with the dark ambient MIDI, and this is one of the more unsettling vistas I can think of in Doom. 

 

I don't remember the exact order I did the buildings outside of the first one after the initial one, so I'll just describe my experiences based off the order in ukiro's blog post. The first building I did was the SSG arena. This was kinda tedious, as SSGing revs, astral cacos, and nightmare demons takes forever. The annihilators didn't seem to do much in my fight. Getting out of this arena has you shoot a gore nest, making their first appearance since their introduction in MAP03. I'm surprised they haven't shown up since then.

 

I think I did the chaingun one next. Using the SSG to take out the archies was easy, and then chaingun the corporals, and all of the enemies that show up after. Nothing bad here at all

 

The northeastern rocket launcher area killed me the most I think. At first it's a little doable, just take your time to not get zapped by the archies. But once the walls lower and all the revs appeared, that's when things got dicey for me. It took me a lot of attempts to get out of there and outside, and once that happened I was able to finally stand my ground. It was still tough since there's a bunch of demons outside too, but being able to get more movement options makes it more doable. 

 

The western RL area is an invul-fueled lost soul ambush, where you just rocket the crap out of them as quickly as you can before the invul runs out. It's not hard, but it's fun! You have some other enemies to deal with behind bars by the switches, but that's not bad. 

 

I think the northern plasma area is where I went to after the chaingun arena, and it's probably my favorite building outside of the center. This has a center cyb putting pressure on you as you raise its platform to do some platforming to ascend the building, all while using the cyb to infight the astral mancs. There's some astral spiders inside too. It's a fun arena I think! 

 

Finally we have the southern plasma, which has you take out a cyb in a circular wave crusher. You want to keep moving anyway, so the crushers aren't too bad, but you don't have a lot of leeway in terms of space. 

 

Finally we have the center cathedral. There's 3 fights in the southern wings, followed by the final fight. I think I did the western side first, which is the least gimmicky fight in the map, and is just all about movement. The eastern one is another stair fight with some inconvenient archies. The southern one has a center filled with archies and an arena with a layout that gets altered. I think the staircase one was the only one I died on. 

 

Now we have the final fight. You climb some stairs over the main hall of the cathedral and find the perforator. You grab it and hit the switch. What unfolds is one of the more horrifying scenes in a non-horror map. The cross across from you inverts and turns red. Blood oozes onto the floor. The stained glass windows explode revealing flesh portals. Thousands of gibbed former humans will spurt from these windows, just littering the floor with disembodied gore and bullets. That's when the archies and necromenaces show up. This is the perfect perforator fight! You want to take out the medics ASAP, but all of the zombies they revive will act as meat shields. And once the menaces die, EVEN MORE archies appear, along with 2 spider masterminds and a cyb. Once all the enemies are dead, climb back up to where the perforator is, platform across the new flesh pillars, and jump into the now golden cross to end the map.

 

Overall, this is a fantastic penultimate map. Each set piece was different and offered a unique challenge. The atmosphere is foreboding as all hell, and the map design on the automap looks demonic AF. And the intro to the final fight is straight up cinematic. Outstanding work all-around! Idk if I like it more than Anagnorisis, but I do appreciate it's not as long. It took me probably around an hour and half? It was definitely less than 2 hours. I do want to replay this one, as I hear that the fights are different depending on the order you take them on. That's a cool touch. 

MAP36 - “Kenosis” by ukiro (Pistol start, used A LOT of saves, 99% kills, 76% Items, 100% secrets)

 

Oh boy, the big man. Funnily enough, I've never actually completed anagnorisis before, so yesterday I played a bit of it to have a taste of what was coming now in its spiritual sequel, and after enduring a long hour of punishment, I may say it differentiates a lot from its gargantuan brother, and its more akin to other brutal slaughtermaps like post 2009 sunder, obviously in difficulty gazebo's maps are in a whole new level, in sheer scale it appears to be in that league, come on, the layout is literally a satanic sigil.

 

If anagnorisis is the critical discovery of out there being levels that greatly surpasses your level of tolerance, kenosis like its meaning suggests, it will empty your spirit, it will grind you down until your will is pulverized.

 

To start the map, a berserk ambush opens it, with a lot of archviles watching over you in a rotating faction, similar to the infamous ambush in sunlust map29. After you clear the switches and survive that, possible ways present to you, some blocked by meat structures you open after dealing with certain wings containing especific ambushes.

 

Just start with the ssg one, It is basically the best, since it dismantles itself with some infighting, altough it takes a bit of time. The alternative, which is the corporal ring, has 4 archviles you have to berserk punch or chip with the chaingun if you don't have it. The reward, appart from the ssg, is opening the way to the paths blocked by the meat structures, in which you unlock a way to either the red key or to unlock the other meat structure.

 

The red key fight is actually a good breather, basically you have an invulm, a rocket launcher and a hundred lost souls. Just kill the ones at the sides and you win, so you can press the switches and get out of that room. If you are considering 100% this, cleanup the last remaining goons.

 

The alternative was a deadly arena with 4 archvile snipers, 2 pain elementals, and way more after that, including a horde of revenants. Not to talk about after you deal with that, astral cacos and specters are coming at you to ruin your day, if you don't have much health left after that fight, yeah you are gonna die a plenty.

 

The 2 areas left that open actually are some of my favorites, the circle strafing crusher obviously is the more direct reference to sunlust map29, kill the cyber with plasma while you can't comfortably dodge mancubus fireballs, then press switches and summon the pyro knight reskins to try and surround you. Very interesting ambush applying a lot of advantages and disadvantages of its gimmick. The other one is a place with a cybersniper and a lot of astral enemies, the neat things is that you actually don't depend on combat since there's very little ammo in the structure, so you need to make some infighting, and oh boy that's easy to do considering how there are the best in the game, you know cybers and the astral variants of the arachno and mancubi.

 

And then, with the keys assembled, you go to the final area, sporting 3 brutal ambushes before the final fight. 2 of them are in very different ways, approaches to crowd control, in one you bait enemies in one spot to not get surrounded, in the other you try to concentrate them in the center so they can be rocket food. Really good and intense, then it follows a breather about maintaining archvile cover while you eliminate quickly certain demons like pinkies, hell knights or revs with plasma, or whatever you have, there are 3 megaspheres, so use them cautiously.

 

Then the final fight start, more than 2000 enemies are killed, you have a perforator, and you have to quickly take advantage of how good the perforator is at instakilling almost everything in the game, just make sure to not choke or get many zappings, and then you can rest after an hour-long abuse.

 

Idk where to put this map in my humble opinion, despite the fact is a technical achievement by itself and has many positive qualities, maybe i would never play it again, I just don't like these levels of abuse and patience you must have to enjoy something like this. Nevertheless, good thing to leave this in the end.

 

???/10

I’ll post Kenosis tomorrow, I’ll need to get to bed before that behemoth is finished.

 

Map29 “Maelstrom” by Dragonfly

 

Sunlust veterans will no doubt bristle upon loading the penultimate map but have no fear. Maelstrom is in line with the design philosophy of the rest of Eviternity II and with the exception of a secret fight doesn’t present an inordinate challenge.

 

First things first, there is a blue armor behind the SSG shrine, I’ll throw that one out for free. After a handful of troublesome but singular monsters we get the first and in my opinion toughest non-optional encounter of the map. Upon grabbing the RL all three passages open with each one containing a pair of revs and four hell knights. You want to quickly blow through one of the packs to duck into a passage, and while the barred secret exit works, I would not pick the northern one, you draw out more trouble than you want.

 

After this you have the usual incidental fighting and a few key fights that aren’t any harder than what we’ve generally been getting. The red key lets loose copious amounts of caco and astralcaco fun so make sure you’re well stocked before you trigger it. The yellow key gives the enemy the high ground but unlike Anakin we all know how to handle that. The secret necromenace arena to the west is a kid’s glove fight for sure, you’re given plenty of time to down him before reinforcements arrive. The cyberdemon tag team for the blue key would have been challenging if you had to ride lifts or something to get out of there. Instead, it’s a timed arena before stairs rise, so you don’t actually have to kill them before the damaging floor does you in.

 

And we can leave now but… oh… right there’s a secret exit on this map. To reach it we have a second secret necromenace fight to the east and this one is the real deal. Not a lot of space, many hell knights, imps, and we’re stuck with the rocket launcher and plasma. This is one of the hardest single arenas we’ve had in the entire megawad, it’s tough to get prolonged damage on the necromenace and easy to get cornered by hell knights. I find a bit of patience goes a long way; everything is getting revived anyway so instead of trying to brute force it try to move around until the nobles are all on one side… then move to the other so the faster necromenace advances alone.

 

Maelstrom is a good semifinal but the restrained combat and presence of the secret exit make things clear. Map36 is going to be the big boy challenge of Eviternity II and Dragonfly is telling us to only advance that way if we dare. The nasty necromenace secret is his way of giving us fair warning.

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.

MAP36 - Kenosis - Ola Björling (100%K/I/S):

Phew, almost two hours of gameplay. One of the longest behemoths I've ever played in my Dooming career. For sure.

What a map, WHAT A MAP. This is clearly an spiritual successor to Anagnorisis. And in Anagnorisis fashion, Ukiro will showcase everything in his texture arsenal to make another one of those magnum opuses of Dooming history.

I will anticipate and say I prefer the First Eviternity's counterpart a bit more, but this one does not leave anything to desire from said map, maybe a little bit of color. But let's be honest here, we are not here because we want color, as we are deep in the nest of some hellish entity.

I don't think there is something as big as this in modern Doom mapping, not in length nor playtime, I'm talking about size. In fact, I'm sure we are right at the limits of the possible size of a Doom map right here. Going from point A to point B feels like an eternity, like going for a walk to your friends house that lives 10 squares from home. This is a good way to actually start talking about this secret level. The map wants you to go to six places, marked in different spots in the map. Those are separated with long distances, and you will have to carefully cross over some tight catwalks over the eye of the volcano to reach each desired place. Most of the time at the first half of the map you will be wandering around this humongous landscape. Each of the buildings have different fights and things to do. And you will recieve most of your arsenal here. Most tasks are really fun and creative. Others are just fighting and surviving as much as possible. The one that I did last (the furthest one from the starting area) was the least interesting for me, as it involved some pillar-raising in order to escape a maze, with a cyberdemon at the middle of the pillar making things difficult. I do remember another one in particular which I've really liked, with a circular arena, a cyberdemon at the middle, and a lot of crushers that follow the circular shape of the room. Each of those buildings, have some hearts like the ones seen at MAP03 that you will have to break in order to reveal more paths to other buildings.

I'll be honest with you all here, not sure how was progression intended to be here. I was just lost in immersion, so I just grabbed the keys, broke the hearts, and proceed. In fact, I don't remember using the keys apart from the blue key at the cyberdemon maze (When grabbing them, you will trigger a lowering wall). After a while cleaning each building, you gain access to the great building at the middle. This one appears to be a MASSIVE church, in the middle of hell, and this will be the breakpoint between the first half of the map, and the second one. The second part of the map is not as long, but forces you to complete three more fights, one at each end of what appears to be a cross-shapped complex. Some fights later and FINALLY, your reward, a new Perforator for your troubles. But it's not over, you will have to use it at the proving grounds.

What a magnificent sequence we see after getting the Perforator. Slowly, the stained glasses at the walls will break, and de columns will turn into meat. The holy cross will now turn into a bloody, inverted, hellish one. From the broken windows a pile of dead, splattered zombiemen will be vomited, giving you ammo for the perforator. This is where half of the +2700 enemies will come from. The last fight has a lot of liches and arch-viles trying to resurrect those zombies to use them as fodder, and you will have to quickly mow everything down with your practically unlimited perforator ammo.

Hey, am I wrong or those are the only two spiderdemons in the entire mapset? I must be wrong, but I don't even remember them being used. After all that carnage, the hellish cross will turn into a giant portal for you to finally exit this hour-long map and beat the final boss of Eviternity.

What an epic level, it really deserves a playthrough, and is clearly THE highlight of Eviternity II. One of the greatest maps out there. Again, I do prefer Anagnorisis over this, but I can really see that people could prefer this one over it. Ukiro did an amazing job, and I suspect it should have been painful to make every single sector that composes the catwalks and the rocky landscapes themselves. What an astonishing work, Ukiro did his job yet again to leave the mapset at the highest spot.

It's difficult to find any more words for Kenosis. Anagnorisis is for me the best map in Doom's history, but this one comes as a really close second (At least, talking about the maps I've played so far).

Order of preference:
 

 

2 hours ago, DJVCardMaster said:

Hey, am I wrong or those are the only two spiderdemons in the entire mapset? 

Off the top of my head, one in MAP32 and two in MAP15.

MAP30: Cosmology by antares031 and Dragonfly

 

The final boss of Eviternity 1 was the weakest part of that wad, so let's just say I didn't expect much. Cosmology shares some aspects with Eternity, chiefly how its boss works. Eviternatus (portrayed by a seraph angel) is a flying mountain of health that launches several kinds of attacks (various kinds of projectile pattern, archvile's magic and, in the final round, a BFG shot). There are three phases of this fight, separated by flocks of astral and nightmare cacodemons respectively. Of course, each new phase makes him faster and adds new attack paterns. On top of this, from phase 2 onward, part of the arena can collapse into a pool of lava that you can't escape for several seconds and phase 3 has a chance to spawn turrets that turn the place into a pure bullet hell.

 

I'd say everything went fine until the very last phase. This is where Eviternatus borrows veilimp's pseudo-teleportation, making the fight even more chaotic. But still, a couple of changes made this more manageable. The attacks are clearly telegraphed and you fight the boss on his own, so you can focus more on reacting to his patterns. It's still a tough fight and I resorted to saving mid-fight in the final phase. I can never tell how much those custom bosses have health left, so I just wanted to get through. 

 

I have to congratulate Antares and Dragonfly here, they greatly improved a flawed map from the first game and turned it into a great finale. Tristan's midi is a huge element of this, this track has this energy that drives you forward.

1 hour ago, Celestin said:

Eviternatus

 

This was a dev name Antares came up with; I believe this is still it's name within the dehacked/decorate?

 

Either way so everyone knows, it's name is "The Origin". :)

MAP30: Cosmology. Played on DSDA v0.27.4, UV, PS. 68/68 K, 0/0 S, 7/7 I. Comp. time 17:45

 

We've reached the end. Cool music kicks in, we pick supplies and press the switch to unleash some sort of albino owl The Origin.

 

At first I liked the enemy and the map, but with each phase of the fight I grew weary, and in the third phase creature's attack felt bullshit, like archvile fire you have to hide from, but at the same time it fires missiles that homes in on you around some very sharp corners.

 

At least it's not Icon of Sin, but these final mega bosses in Doom don't sit with me well. I can't think of one time a powerful final boss made a positive impact for me (except for the Cyberdemon back in Shores of Hell, when it still was a boss enemy). I like finale more like in Scythe 2 (MAP30) or Ancient Aliens (MAP29): an actual map with possibly power-trippy elements. That said, The Origin still is on the better end of final boss enemies; it looks great, and for a moment there I enjoyed it, it just outstays its welcome. I guess it's the phase 3 that annoyed me.

 

---

 

Eviternity II. Played on DSDA v0.27.4, UV (and MAP33 on HNTR; never went back to replay it), PS. 14961/14961 K, 130/130 S, 200/212 I (or 200/213, if you count in Credits map). Comp. time 1227:04 = 20 hours, 27 minutes and 4 seconds. Not counting reloads.

 

That's it for Eviternity II! I knew we would be in one hell of top-quality ride, and I wasn't mistaken. Even at worst we have grade A maps, with perhaps one of the secret maps being a very acquired taste, and perhaps the final map being inevitern--- inevitably a slight disappointment -- and even so, it doesn't come even close to derailing the final stretch of the wad, let alone the whole wad.

 

If there is one true downside to Eviternity II, it has to be the fact that it is long. 36 maps is a lot to take on, especially when the average completion time gets quite high. This, of course, is entirely a personal preference issue, and a personal life issue, because being over forty, I just don't have as much time for video games as I'd like to, and thus I'm generally attracted to shorter affairs. (Part of the problem might have been playing this in the club; otherwise I would have taken somewhat longer time to complete Eviternity II, and probably 'megawad fatigue' wouldn't kick in so easily.

 

Was Eviternity II better than Eviternity? Comparison is not easy to make, but I think so. Was it harder? We were warned that it would be, but at the end, I'm not sure. I guess it is, some of the custom enemies compensate for some nerfs (like Annihilator chaingun turned into projectile weapon), and in the Hyperborean/Celestial episodes some of the starts are pretty hot. I guess I've just gotten slightly better at Doom since I played Eviternity the first time.