Sacrament

Quite specific wad of the russian doom community, consisting of 13 levels (no secrets onces). Attention to details and atmosphere is often "compensated" (in a bad sense of the word) by bad gameplay and a lot of dead-end branches. Maps are different and generally do not have a common style - the wad, which begins as pure surrealism, which was interesting choice, turns into a kind of collection of typical locations. After level 13 picture ends without any specific epilogue.

Settings and other:

* GzDoom.

* Complex Doom. Wad has his own weapons, inspired by Duke Nukem, but I didn't like them.

* Difficulty - "Ultra-Violence".

* I did not collect 100% of secrets.

* On M2 "Doxylamine Moon" you can find 3 keys, more precisely the yellow skull, red and blue keys. The latter must be used in the location with the clock, then in this place you can go to the exit. To get to the clock you can guide which is marked by the brown arrows on the road. The map indicates that there are 53 enemies available, but I've met only 9... Update: I see that it's marked as a bug in the description.

Pros:

+ Atmosphere and sometimes soundtrack.

+ M6: Pandora's Box.

+ M7: Arena resembling a colosseum.

+ M11: Seaport.

Contras:

- New weapons sprites.

- M2 "Doxylamine Moon" looks more like an arthouse object than a playable map.

- Beside it's pros wad looks more like a "hodgepodge community pack" of random maps, designed completely by different people, rather than some complete/finished work.

Wad was featured in "Top 25 Missed Cacowards"... But in my opinion there is no point for potencial Cacoward material here in such condition - you can find less/more good maps in long list of "fogotten for good" wads, but this isn't enough to take them back from the dust.

From the get go, one just notice the impressive mood that this mapset offers. And solely for that this leaves a watermark of how mood maps can be made. Some of the maps here are probably masterpieces of atmosphere and mood.
This large episode map has a really good start, first maps its pretty much an introductory map, and map02 is the famous Doxylamine Moon. I'm really proud of myself as i solved the map puzzle without any help, but it doesn't offer much after that. But its an impressive effort by Lainos. The subsequent maps continue to be really good and moody. And map11: Seaport seems to be the properly end of the wad... but no, there are three more maps in the set.

Map12, aside for the impressive architecture, its really annoying as it abuses the darkness, making it pretty difficult to navigate.
Map13 made the same mistake, but its a little more easier to navigate and it comes to be somewhat fun.

Map14 its a no exit map intended as the end of the mapset.

This set up makes me wonder if the Clan [B0S] intended map12 and map13 as just bonus maps. Don't know if there is answer to this (maybe @Wraith777 knows something).
 

Returning to the review, the first six maps are glorious and i loved Doxylamine Moon for being soo different, and Lavatrazz a remake of TNT map07: Prison. The rest of the maps from ma07 to map11 are just big good maps.
I didn't like much of map12 and map13 aside from the awe inspiring architecture they offer.
And map14 is spooky and marvelous. Could be a really neat feature and not just and no exit end map.

All in all, i liked this mapset, much more in the first part than the second part (even when map07 starts with Serial Experiment's Lain theme song, a soundtrack i love soo much).
I would really like to see the story of Sacrament properly developed. Maybe someday...

Done with these settings:

- Crispy Doom 5.3.

- Ultra-Violence.

- Continuous combined with pistol start mindset.

- Saves every 10 minutes or so.

A nice peculiar set of maps by authors from the Russian community. This is (mostly) an adventure lengthy episode that features an extensive package of custom cool textures, flats, amazing skies and other stuff to give shape to the story, which more or less revolves around the apocalypse. The design favors an hypothetical realism, apparently it begins in your nightmare, and when you wake up, you see humanity had gone forever. Truth of the fact is, after the first couple of maps (the second being a very realistic deserted city), it's hard to tell where the plot is going to, until the intermission screens vaguely tell the rest. Well, I'm not one who plays Doom for the stories. Anyways, in aesthetics, this wad wins the prize, the usage of stock textures in most maps is really beautiful, sometimes inclining to the standard OG Doom style and in other cases in impressive scenery, such as the giant cavern and several boats in map 11. A thing that characterizes Sacrament is the absence of light throughout the maps. The skies also contribute for that, for better or worse. It's not like you can't see nothing, but the moments you need to stop monsters like spectres it can turn harrowing, and I fancy darkness a lot. In fact, my favourites cases were maps 12 and 13, all the spooky ambient was darn intense to explore through. Sacrament also comes with a lot of music in ogg format, I believe part of it are Russian songs or tracks from other games. Either way I found them fitting, and weird sometimes, but that's ok.

I'm not sure if the designers took inspiration from anything else, or if its approximation to Eternal Doom is mere coincidence. Probably not, considering the trickery in the second map, but a way to describe Sacrament in a nutshell could be "touristy". The maps range from mid to large sized and focus primarily on the visual-atmosphere department, and there's no complain on that side. They also require your inner explorer to take command of the situation in most maps, which not always is your standard key hunt, and the task becomes a mad search for what to do next in the sprawling non-linear affairs (not in the level of Eternal Doom, but close). In between, you get some smoother classical entries, with an iwad-difficulty tone in progression and encounters, even an obvious imitation of a TNT level. Speaking about monsters, it's light on threat for the most part, sometimes underwhelming in connection to the space, and other times you'll beg for some light to see your opposition better. Again, I'm not against the combat in very dark areas, it adds some tension, and at least while they're not loaded with zombies. On another side, the new weapon sprites were a bit of a letdown, looking dull and almost hard to distinguish, particularly the shotguns, and I don't know what the new BFG sprite is supposed to resemble, not that there was any crucial moment to actually test it. Besides, they fact they're not centered confused my aim in many occasions, but I guess crosshair users will omit that.

Secret-wise, the more complex a map is, the more secrets you can find. This may sound redundant but for a secret hunter like me, it's been generally well received, though a shame when it didn't felt like a true reward: I would have liked something more blood-pumping after the skull hunt in "Doxylamine Moon", instead of walking around a second time to find a few shells to confront a weak invasion. Favourite map was 13, and maps 03, 06, 07, 08 and 12 were fun too. The only map I disliked was 04, not a fan of maps that ultra straightforward maps, nor when they deprive you from kills. The rest didn't impress me in gameplay terms, but Azamael's maps did on the artistic side.

Overall, Sacrament is worth to check every deep nook as much as the human eye can see. For what typical Doom gameplay concerns -murdering monsters, then hit exit switch-, it might be wise to overlook this or part of it, as there exists an elder counterpart called "Da Will", but for a trip through whatever post-apocalyptic puzzle-ish context the wad takes place in, look no further. Oh and, mind using a Boom compatible source port for map 10 if you plan on maxing it. Anyway, my rate is 6,5/10.

A masterpiece of mood and atmosphere, with level design that is both spectacular to behold and very structurally accomplished. Combat is generally lighter than puzzles and than the overall norm in PWADs, but isn't usually a complete walk in the park either.