Return to Phobos

A decent E1 replacement. The maps are mostly non-linear and they feel good to play, although there's a few odd design choices that lead to dead-ends in couple places. The maps are too easy, mostly thanks to an overabundance of items, but they're still fun enough to navigate, thanks to a good handle on basic architecture. The standout is easily map 5.

These maps were a lot of fun. Mostly larger maps with some interesting features that made me think a bit occasionally, and plenty of demons to kill along the way. E1M2 has a bug due to an engine change, so if you can't play on... I think v1.2 or lower, maybe v1.3, a switch fails to properly raise a bridge leading to the exit. Chocolate Doom doesn't support that old of a version, so I had to use a noclip cheat to clear the gap, but that aside, everything else went well. It's nothing amazing, but it's a solid set of maps, and it's part of an impressive start for the modding community, so I definitely recommend trying it.

That said, there were a couple minor complaints for me. One, there's a few levels that have multiple switches that control a single secret, and they only unlock the secret if they're hit in the right order with only one chance to do it. I'm not a big fan of getting force locked out of a secret just because I didn't even realize there was a puzzle being solved in time. Two, even on UV, it didn't feel that challenging, and I don't feel like I'm that great a Doom player. Blue armor and supercharges are found on a lot of levels, even multiple in some later levels, and ammo is rather plentiful, so I rarely felt like I was in a bad spot. By the final level, I had entirely full ammo for just about every gun, so I just liberally sprinkled the map with rockets.

Needs more textures, but I'm a fan of the large military base type levels, especially E1M5. Worth a play for sure!

Episode replacement. I like e1m5 (the big columns pattern on several areas). But I reached the exit too quicky on the non-linear ones. Switch after switch. 

Crude, simple, yet surprisingly inventive for 1994. There's a lot of switches and the layout is very non-linear and sometimes quite confusing. In one level I had to idclip to the exit because I had no idea how to get there otherwise. Overall, this was a nice nostalgic experience.
Difficulty: easy. Mods: Project Brutality 3, UDV.

This mapset is a little too "switch hunty" for my personal tastes but for a WAD designed in 1994 it's actually fairly impressive. I can see why it was included in Doomworlds "The Top 100 WADs Of All Time" list back in 2003. Michael Kelsey really seems to have a "freeflow" sort of mapping style as most maps are very non-linear. But i digress, there are plenty of switches to behold.

Also as most people know there is a bug in Doom versions above v1.2 where the bridge for the exit in E1M2 doesn't rise. Besides that, i didn't experience any other bugs while playing through the WAD using GZDoom 4.1.2 (w/Doom Strict compat). The enemy count isn't very high in this mapset so i wouldn't go in expecting a ton of enemies (the very highest is around 180-ish). It is very much based on switches and puzzles as well as exploration, although a few maps tend to be easier and more action based then others.

Speaking of easy, the last map (E1M8) is a bit of a letdown challenge wise. I suppose back in 1994 it was really impressive and i did like the design/layout of it. I guess i was just expecting a little more of a challenge, especially after coming out of E1M7. 

Overall it was a decently designed mapset for the era that's more keen on puzzles than action but it's not one that i personally would constantly re-visit. I do think it's worth a playthrough at least once though, especially if you like non-linear puzzle/switch oriented style maps.

couldn't seem to extract the file from the download, so I downloaded the one from DSDA. it's an okay '94 episode replacement, but it's not very well done with quite a few bugs and confusing layouts. I could probably list them from the top of my head, but in all honesty why bother, the set is actually very unmemorable and there's just nothing that sticks out. for those still interested, you're looking at low monster counts, but even those monster counts don't help make the wad seem nicer at all, it's just really boring and okay.