Return to Hadron

Wow, this is a stellar example of what a Doom wad should be.

 

I'll start out by saying it's not easy in any sense of the word- I recommend hurt me plenty, and I never do that, lol. Ultraviolence is almost too hard in my opinion, and I'm like a blood-drinking Doom veteran, so you might want to take my word for it. It's the kind of maps where anytime you find a major switch, all hell breaks loose all around you. Lots of cacodemons, lots of spectres, and big groups of imps. There's also a lot of nukage, but don't be too intimidated, a lot of it is just short lengths you can run.

 

The map design, the music choices, the gameplay? Fantastic. Very well balanced items, and not too easy either. We're talking pretty much Doom 2 amounts of monsters if not more, but in Ultimate Doom, which is also a cool aspect. There aren't very many Ultimate Doom wads these days, and I appreciate the enemies of the first game a bit more than I do Doom 2.

 

In the end? Very tasteful. This is one of my favorite wads, I think.

 

 

Great Ultimate Doom Episode with gorgeous and expansive architecture. You'll find a ton of hitscan enemies and especially lots of Caco swarms in these maps, but rest assured, there's always plenty of space to dodge about. Sometimes I wish the visuals would offer a bit more variety throughout this episode, but at least it is overally very coherent and later episodes offer different visuals.

Return to Hadron is an episode 1 replacement that provides equal bits of fun and challenge. Each level looks and plays good, the levels are open ended and have challenging encounters. My only complaint is E1M6 feels more like a gimmick than a regular map. Overall a high quality level I recommend if you're looking for a challenge just be prepared to die a few times.

This is possibly the most bittersweet WAD I've ever played. On one hand, the level design is incredible. The environment is detailed, but not in the way that it's distracting. But, on the other hand, it's possibly the most infuriating thing WAD I've played. Cacodemons were so dense, I was trapped in a cramped room with at least 30 them for five minutes with only a shotgun. Thank god for IDDQD. In every room, I had the thought in the back of my head: God Dammit, those doors are going to open, and I'm going to be raped by 20 Hell Knights, 50 Cacodemons, and a Spider Mastermind just for good measure. If you were to relax with Cacodemons, and perhaps have more health pickups, this would be 5/5.

It was great until level 6, when everything changed into slaughter map... Being surrounded by 50 Cacodemons and cyberdemon at the same time is pretty unfair. God thanks for infighting! Too many teleport traps. 4/5

Great mapset. Original Doom feel with greater difficulty and detail.

Oh no there's too many monsters it's not what Doom is about who cares that this is a mod and mods don't need to be faithful to original this should just be standard Doom 1 maps just released again. I sometimes just don't get some people's logic.

I was liking it, until it threw 260 monsters at once at my face... with shotgunners in the mix, so my health was constantly draining. -_-

What was originally a pretty good mapset turned into a slaughter wad. Yawn.

Too many monsters. This circus act, not pleasure. the original Doom was not about tha.

Most certainly an improvement from what I felt was the weakest episode in Concerned. Really fun levels, too bad there isn't more. -Firedust

Set of open area slaughtermaps. Consistent texture use, highly decorated. Gameplay @ UV is fully based on finding runpaths causing infighting, while being attacked by huge hordes. It is hard, but can be done. Having said that, gameplay is totally one-dimensional. Overall this is a vehicle for max monster count fans only; players with other likes, f.e. adventure lovers, presumably don't like it. Neutral 3* + 1 for the effort. BTW @ Zalewa: sorry, but this is *definitely not* the essence of DooM.

Another excellent vanilla episode, loosely based from his previous map set. It's up to the same high level of quality. 5 stars. -TRRobin.

i'm not sure what constitutes balance anymore. this is too hard even on the easiest settings. too much usage of teleport traps makes things unfair.

This WAD gets the essence of Doom very well. All maps are single player, open arenas where you can go absolutely anywhere but never feel lost. Gameplay flow is smooth and never gets dull. Adequate weapons are always provided when needed. Difficulty is well balanced and visuals are pleasing while keeping the simple design. This is a great addition to the archives.

Excellent choice of music with a great gameplay, 5 stars.

Featureless/plain maps.

Definitely better than E1 of Concerned (or cbspeed), and with enough changes to make it feel fresh enough for those who have already played the previous iteration as well. Levels are the right size, going from short to medium and then to borderline medium large but never too big. I would love to see the rest of Concerned and even perhaps DraftEX see something similar be released (look at the DWMC thread for specific feedback).

Pretty darn good! Pleasant detail, gameplay was challenging. ROTT music suits the levels very good IMO. 5/5 - Gunsmith

I didn't really see anything wrong with the previous version of Concerned but this is still an excellent release and in the several areas where the changes are blatantly obvious, they are all for the better.

I actually enjoyed this a lot more than the original Concerned.

While an excellent set of levels, this is basically a slight reworking of the first episode of Concerned, and I did not think the original was generally worse, just different.