Gibbitudinous

So that sounds about right.

Of the various soundfonts I've used, I find the Hyper-VSC one to sound the most reliably good. I believe it's based on a combination of Hypercanvas and Virtual Sound Canvas samples (hence the name), so not directly based on the SC-55 or 88 but closely related, and in my opinion more natural-sounding without being remotely as bloated as many other soundfonts that specifically aim at sounding natural. https://soundfonts.kor.ninja/?dir=other stuff

Hence why Quake (and most modern Doom source ports) has the HUD show your armor type, because it's actually relevant information. E: More so in Quake since it has three different armor types compared to Doom's 2.

Oh my wad files! I just made a giant masterpiece for all the world's greatest Doom-mapping nerds.

Played thru the demo and it was very much a fun selection of maps that I'd be interested in seeing continued. The Hexen namedrop helped a lot with expectations since it's clear the emphasis is more on exploration and atmosphere than combat, but I will still say that most of the combat was really easy on UV. Some encounters definitely kept me on my toes but for the most part pretty easy on the fighting. Not necessarily a complaint but felt worth an observation.

Thanks for drawing attention to this. Very much not fluent in Japanese but after looking it up, that's both quite amusing and makes me more intrigued to check out this wad.

That tends to happen when you don't dodge a cyberdemon rocket yes.

You are entering a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of holes. A land of mouths and hissing, of eyeballs and flesh. A place John Romero cannot talk about. You have just crossed into... THE CACO ZONE

Alright this wad was badass. Excellent Doom 64-esque atmosphere, engaging environmental storytelling, and fun level design with well-calibrated combat that's definitely hair-raising at times but never feels impossible. The one quibble I do have is with the secrets, which are pretty fair all things considered but it took me looking up how to get them for a couple maps to grasp the pattern: if you can see something that's out of reach, the means to get to it is never too far away. Other than that, an excellent redux and recontextualization of Doom 2's level concepts into something totally fresh, and I'd dare say this is easily the best iwad remake I've played because of it.

Less a thing I just found out and more just realized: how weird it is that seemingly nobody used the evil eye sprite as a shootable switch prior to John Romero doing it in SIGIL. With how much eye-shaped objects are synonymous with shootable switches thanks to series like Legend of Zelda, you'd think that somebody would've had that idea in a Doom wad long before 2019 and that it probably would've caught on pretty quickly, but that's simply not the case afaik.

I don't recall any personal attacks offhand, but I honestly agree with the assessment that the BTSX series is an example of map design that goes a bit too hard on the "look at what we can do with vanilla Doom" angle and winds up becoming easy to tire of despite (or one might even say because of) how high-quality and high-effort everything about it is. I feel similarly about wads like Ancient Aliens and Eviternity: absolutely gorgeous to behold but tiresome to play thru due the maps' sheer grandiosity.

Speaking of Doom 64, it's funny to think about how completing it the "intended" way with all the demon keys means rendering the final boss an utter fart in the wind compared to the gantlet you have to face if you never find the keys. I know id really struggled with the concept of boss fights after getting rid of Tom Hall*, but it's really funny to contrast that with something like a JRPG where the idea of the secret "true ending" path not having a way more difficult boss at the end would be unthinkable. *Yes, the game was made by Midway San Diego, but they were clearly following up id's design philosophy as best they could so the weak interaction between bosses and extra content feels very much like an id thing regardless.

The grades are frankly the least useful or interesting part of any Dean of Doom episode, as grades are wont to be for most anything. The whole conceit of quantifying the quality and challenge of a Doom map is just an inherently pretentious but sadly normalized and expected way of framing sentiments like "I liked/disliked it" or "I found it easy/hard".

Not every map needs to be easy or experienced at its most complete/fun from pistol start but they should be feasible to pistol start since pistol start was the back-up option from the beginning if you messed up so badly that you didn't have a viable save to reload from.

It's funny how I had started playing Rebirth and Requiem at the same time for some reason but felt like one of them had to go so I could focus on the other, and I picked Requiem but was only like halfway thru it regardless when the Dean of Doom on it dropped. Unsurprisingly I think I'll have another go at Rebirth instead since it seems like I've seen the best Requiem has to offer anyways.