Downloads

A decent (if slightly dated) set of maps with a moderate level of difficulty for the majority of it. I played it twice recently on UV, both runs played continually. Both saw me enjoying a good portion of the wad, but on each run I left the experience irritated. I feel Map 26 is the true end to the wad, as Maps 27 through 29 are extremely drab, boring slogs that fail to continue the intensity introduced with Maps 25 and 26. Map 30's Icon of Sin fight is also tedious and a poor way to end things, essentially requiring SR50 for the first elevator. Had it not been for these issues (and an excruciatingly sluggish Map 20, but slightly less so on my second playthrough), I would have given the wad four stars. It's easy to see why this was seminal at one point in time, but wads in more recent years have far surpassed it in not only map complexity, but enemy diversity and overall map/wad pacing, among other things. It's most certainly not the greatest megawad ever made, but it's still worth playing.

Visually there is a ton of attention to detail which is always a treat to look at, and the actual map designs of the first four episodes are very well done. I enjoy the "new" monsters and some of the upgraded weapons, it definitely makes certain parts of it feel fresh compared to the typical wad. The challenge on UV was just right for me with few if any parts being too overwhelming. Overall it gets a 4/5 from me because I wasn't a big fan of the fifth episode set of maps, both thematically and gameplay-wise. Ammo starvation was real there in those last few maps which isn't a lot of fun to me, not to mention its too drastic of a change compared to how the rest of the wad plays. Also, thematically I feel like these end-game maps would have made a bigger splash as mid-game maps, not finale maps. Great idea with the final boss mix-up though, I enjoyed that. I do still prefer Ancient Aliens as a whole (a wad that I feel is much better balanced overall and is more interesting of an experience), but Valiant still comes highly recommended from me.

I agree with BChricton78. Rather than being fun to play, this remake just highlights how massive of a difference good lightning and texturing makes to a level/game. I know this isn't the fault of the makers of this mod since they were merely remaking the original Doom 64 levels, but these levels frankly aren't very great when stripped of the improved Doom 64 graphics. So much in fact that it makes me wonder how important level layouts even are compared to other aspects of the visual presentation such as texturing, lightning and rendering.

Good stuff.  Only giving it four stars because though the new music was good, I just wish there was more of it.  Still, this wad is absolutely worth your time.

Umm... From the brief snippet I played, I'd definitely give them an A for effort... But this just feels... wrong to me. I'm sorry but playing Doom 64, without the lighting, atmosphere, redone sprites and ambient music? No thanks. It just takes away the things that make Doom 64 so special. Still a nice little attempt at recapturing Doom 64, but I'm better off with Doom 64 EX, for my fix.