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A good map that was part of a abandoned episode 1 replacement, despite it's simplicity in layout area, is a pretty fun map in gameplay format, even too sadistic in some parts like the caged room in the blue key locked room. I'd enjoyed this one!

This was pretty good, though it does have some things. That long elevator at the end of map2 and then repeated on map 3 could have been much shorter or faster, which is my only specific example. The maps are rather generous with the pickups in some parts with multiple megaspheres and the like. One thing that killed me far more than the monster were the inescapable death pits, many of which you have to go in to get something like a key, but if you misstep or aren't fast enough, there you are. There's usually some damaging floor to kill yourself on but they are low damage and because of all the mega and soul spheres it's rather tedious waiting patiently for your massive pool of health to slowly tick down.
Complaints aside, my favorite map was map04. It's a bit big and confusing, but I thought the lowering hall that changes the routes kinda neat. The pile of crushed imps in front of the archie trap in map05 was pretty nasty,
I had fun.

Now, i wouldn't say this wad isn't good just because every single action you take results in traps, but unless you have a trap-fetish you're gonna have a bad time. Add tons of archviles on top of that, and you will get rekt so much that you'll start saving before every linedef. But i wouldn't say that's necessarily a flaw, that's more of a "taste".

That being said, you can notice a pattern very early - everything you do, every suspicious hallway will result in ambush. With that in mind you can easily predict dangerous moments and come prepared, and i'm sure that author knew it too, because the closer it is to map 30, the more unfair traps become, and you have to predict them to survive. Again, it's not that cheap if you consider how easy it is to predict the next fight, though it's hard to say what exactly there will be, you'll get surprised by more and more ambush ideas until the end.

Maps are pretty fun and look interesting, with lots of optional paths, inter-connections and fights despite being short, and secrets aren't cryptic, you just have to try to look around. Battles are challenging, to say the least, but you can skip many of them and just run when overwhelmed, which i'd say is a good design - the fighting gets mainly forced on you by monsters, not the map. Author also considered camping and retreating, so not a lot of cheese is available. And one of the best things there - lava and blood doesn't hurt you most of the time! So it's mainly you vs creative ambushes, no damaging floor butting in to ruin your day.

The music is amazing, the main reason i even endured that trap-fest. All in all maps look exactly as they are intended to be: fun, challenging, and even fair if you consider how easy it is to predict the next ambush, but this kind of combat is not for everyone, and not for me either.

I want to like this, I really do. There are several maps that I really like, for example, the visuals of Hotel Hell (map20), which I thought was pretty cute if a little hard to figure out. Overall though, I don't care for this megawad. The difficulty swings wildly from "sudden slaughter-wad" to "was this supposed to be a deathmatch map?". Not for me, did not jingle my bells.

While there is a bit of an ammo issue in places on UV, and a few of the areas feel almost cramped, this was overall a solid set of maps that starts small and gets bigger while still being overall quite compact with a nice level of detail. The architecture is really nice at times, and the MIDI choices are all on point. Worth checking out, though hopefully the balance is a bit better on lower difficulties. YMMV, I quite liked it though.