The DWmegawad Club plays: Eviternity II

MAP19 - “Spellbound” by Dragonfly

Sharp and frenetic, this map is probably the best of Dragonfly's solo efforts so far, the setting is charming and the difficulty starts hot but eases as you progress, the yellow key probably offers the sternest test whilst the other fights are more fun than difficult. There really isn't much to say really, this was a really nice map. Oh I guess reading other people's reviews ruined that moment of being caught with my pants down in that secret, oh well, sorry you are not getting my pelt this time.

Just a quick note, there is a chaingunner behind a fence just beyond the yellow door that is very easy to miss, I certainly did. Not sure whether he is necessary given he never caught my attention until the moment I realised I was missing one kill.

GZDoom/UV/Contiuous/Saves

Write-ups from memory

MAP19:  Spellbound - Dragonfly

Well crap, I had to pull up a playthrough of this one too cause I couldn't remember anything other than the fact the map takes place in a village, and that it has the meanest secret in the WAD. I do absolutely love this village setting. I feel like since OTEX has been released, I have seen a lot of maps with villages like this, and I've always liked that! These textures really give of that middle ages vibe, so seeing that while blasting cybernetic demons with plasma rifles is always a nice contrast. This opening was the only thing I really remembered. It's big and open with lots of room, and you will wake a lot of things up quickly. The parts of the map where you go into the outskirts of the town and explore the great outdoors reminds me a little bit of MAP13's short natural landscape spots. There's a bit of non-linearity to this map, which is what I've come to expect from Dragonfly. The blue key fight is like a smaller version of MAP03's final fight with a surprise floor drop into an arena, but this one only has 5 enemies to deal with. They may be chaingunners, nightmare demons, and an archie, but at least that's it. Plasma them. Actually exploring the village is how you get the yellow key, and this unloads a hefty teleport ambush with a few annoying archies thrown in with the revs. At least cells appear out of nowhere. There's a soul sphere down a dark hall nearby that takes you to a surprise ambush that force feeds you a partial invis, and has you deal with chaingunners, imps, and hell knights in very tight quarters. Keep that plasma flowin' and grab the backpack. Kinda surprised that wasn't a secret. You do find a secret megasphere right behind the yellow door, but that's the mean secret. It's mean because right around the corner in this small room is an annihilator. It can and will shoot a rocket at you at point blank range. Very cheeky, and I'm surprised I didn't die to it. I think. Maybe I did, idr. Honestly tho, it's just so trollish I can't be mad. Past that back outside is a fun fight against a ton of zombies and a few nightmare demons that will unleash a pair of archies once you move on from it, forcing to you quickly backtrack. There's a surprise imp ambush shortly after that's just fun to blow up and not really a threat. Grab the red key, and now you can use that and the blue key to exit. Overall, this was a very enjoyable village romp! The MIDIs in this episode are probably the most fitting of their episode theme, giving a jovial medieval feel to the proceedings, and this one is no different. Fights aren't too bad for the most part, with the only one giving me a bit of trouble being the yellow key ambush. I think this may be one of my fav Dragonfly maps in the WAD cause of the theme and its difficulty being in a nice spot. 

MAP19 - “Spellbound” by Dragonfly
Deaths: 2

I ended up beating this in a single segment, because I had forgot to save before each of my deaths. Each was to a different arch-vile in a different part of the map. On the third time though, I did everything better in the early part of the level, didn't let any arch-viles kill me (I still got zapped a couple times), and ended up beating the level. Turns out the arch-viles are the toughest part of this map. The opening has a medium difficulty, and it's probably one of the harder parts of the map. It's not a hot start, but you can't go anywhere without waking everything up. All of the various fights after that ended up being pretty easy.

There is one soulsphere that warps you to a little room with some monsters and a backpack. Since I didn't need the soulsphere, I saved it until the end of the map. So I missed out on the backpack for nearly the entire level. Not having the backpack wasn't a huge issue however.

This map is nonlinear. You have to get a couple keys to unlock the exit, and there's a third that is a requirement for one of the other two. I had a lot of fun wandering around killing everything, and despite starting the map three teams each attempt was unique from the others, so I didn't get bored.

It looks good, but the previous map is a hard act to follow on that front. I do like the quiet-village-invaded-by-demons part though, so it manages to stand out anyway. One thing I noticed when I was looking at the map later was the insane number of sectors used to simulate slopes. From a moderate distance they look like real slopes. Somehow the texture still looks correct, which is kind of crazy. There's another area with a weird room-over-room trick that's pulled off very well. There's also a great little bedroom with a doomcute bed in it.

The secrets were good. There is this one very cliche secret room behind a bookshelf with an annihilator in it. He gave me quite a fright! It might have been the scariest moment in the entire wad for me. I actually walked in there and didn't see at first, and somehow he let me leave alive. I don't like trying to kill something that can shoot me with rockets from point blank range! But I managed. It was a great moment.

MAP20: Dominion by Dragonfly, Bri

The final stage of Bastion wastes no time to introduce another new enemy. Duke of hell is the fourth member of infernal nobility you face in Eviternity 2, he's a bit tougher than a hell knight and fires two fireballs, followed by a burst of plasma. He's a great infighter, at the very end I got a crowd of them to demolish a cyberdemon.

Dominion leads you to a castle, where you are free to search for the three keys, taking out the incidental foes along the way. You can enter the place through one of several access points, but the fights here are mostly incidental and on the easier side. If you don't trigger too many monsters at once, you should be fine. The only things that killed me was one up-close astral mancubi that is best ran from before pumping rockets or plasma, and an elevated cyberdemon that, through gaps in walls has a considerable range of attack.

The keys unlock a two-stage final fight around the cyberdemon's column. First you need to survive the attack of nightmare demons and hell dukes until the stairs raise, then grab a BFG and demolish a horde of Eviternity 2 exclusives plus two archviles for a good measure. 

Like the rest of the episode, Dominion is a pretty map, I'm sure I'll miss those autumn atmosphere. I have a feeling E4 was a bit easier than E3. Not that I mind, after maps 14, 33 and 15, a small break is welcomed, but I think I'll remember this episode primarly for its visuals.

Ultra violence 100% kills/secrets, Pistol start, Using saves
Played on DSDA Doom v0.27.5 -complevel 21

Map 17: Perdita - 19:16

Even more "medieval village" feeling than map 16 by way of the architecture and the MIDI, Perdita is both charming to look at and quite a bit nastier combat-wise than the previous two maps. The natural scenery is continues to be really evocative too; it has a strange sort of nostalgic aura for me personally that I really like. The opening fight in itself is one of the hardest in the map, where you're bombarded with imps, prowler imps, and a couple higher tier demons with just a single barrel shotgun and little chaingun ammo. Be sure to obtain the nigh-unmissable secret SSG in the next room - it's very useful for until you get another SSG halfway through the map. The ambush after the red key is also blistering, and I don't think I've beaten it without cheesing it slightly and running back through a door into the area I was just in. The final few battles are a little overgenerous with cells (can just spam plasma until things die), but I really like the time-travelling premise and the infighting potential with releasing the cyberdemon early is awesome and fun to watch. Overall the best map in the episode so far, and a highlight in the wad. 
Difficulty: 6/15

Map 18: Malaise - 24:57

Malaise feels to me like an expanded on version of map 4 from Eviternity 1. Not that I didn't love that map too, but this map improves on that original concept for the most part. Combat takes a back seat for a lot of Malaise's runtime in favor of exploration and atmosphere, but there are several nasty traps and fights that can kill you quick. Shoutout to that yellow key battle. I do wish there was a little more time spent outside the castle though; what little there is was really neat and I would have loved if there was a secret battle out there or something. I'm also not quite sure how to get the secret megasphere, I tried for a few minutes and ended up using mouse look to aim my jump down there. A powerup like that should probably be a bit tricky to acquire so I can't complain too much. One small extra thing I noticed while iddt'ing for the last few secrets is that a lot of map 19 is visible on map 18's automap - I found that pretty cool. I'm not too keen on the close quarters combat for the most part, but Malaise is undeniably well crafted and a pleasant time overall. Folks who enjoy secret hunting will also love this one.
Difficulty: 6/15