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Egyptian Guardian

Sunder vs Sunlust:Which one takes the cake?

Sunder vs Sunlust?  

51 members have voted

  1. 1. Sunder vs Sunlust?

    • Sunder
      16
    • Sunlust
      35


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Sunder and Sunlust are both known among the doom community as some of the most smartly-built, texture-defined, difficult, and groundbreaking wads of the Doom Community. But which one is better? Give your opinion at the bottom as to which is better, and include your reasons for why it stands out from the other. Be sure to include different parameters such Architecture, difficulty, smart placement of traps, and other goodies. Peace!

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rdwpa said:

Sunlust stole two chocolate cakes from me. I demand a voucher for a replacement from danne/ribbiks.


And a package deal for Stardate 20X6/Swim with the Whales

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They're so different it's hard to make any meaningful comparison tbh. Sunder, despite its many faults, has a special place in my heart that newer things can't really rival, but I think Sunlust's gameplay is more purposeful and successful overall.

It might be more interesting to compare Sunlust to Speed of Doom.

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Grain of Salt said:

They're so different it's hard to make any meaningful comparison tbh.

This is a very important note to make because we often have a tendency to group "slaughtermaps" together, but outside of a couple encounters, Sunlust plays entirely differently to its elder kin... I'd say it's about as useful as comparing Doom 1 to Plutonia.

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Sunlust also had a bunch of easy maps at the start. I didn't play them on UV, though I could have, probably right up to Map15, which laid a real smackdown on me on HMP. Sunder didn't have any easy, let's shake hands and have a couple beers maps, because it was an episode where Sunlust is a megawad. Makes the comparison more difficult.

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To me, Sunder goes to the edge of impossibility on higher difficulties and steps back just a hair. I think I stopped at level 5.

Sunlust takes the detailing and slaughter of Sunder (and other wads), digests it, and uses it to inform a megawad that most modern players can play from beginning to end and enjoy.

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SteveD said:

Sunlust also had a bunch of easy maps at the start. I didn't play them on UV, though I could have, probably right up to Map15, which laid a real smackdown on me on HMP. Sunder didn't have any easy, let's shake hands and have a couple beers maps, because it was an episode where Sunlust is a megawad. Makes the comparison more difficult.


Yeah. Also, it's kind of difficult to imagine now, but back when Insane_Gazebo made Sunder, there weren't many recent slaughtermaps around. There was Deus Vult 2 and some gimmicky maps by TOD, and otherwise slaughtermaps seemed to have died off when Death-Destiny left Doomworld in a huff after mismanaging Claus1024. A lot of the current crop of slaughtermappers got their inspiration from Sunder: Phml, ArmouredBlood, dannebubinga and gggmork all wouldn't be making slaughtermaps now if it wasn't for it.

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Sunder gets point for originality, as it was the pioneer in the trend of massive battles in impressive architecture. Sunlust gets point for being a finished, completed product.

Over all Sunlust is technically better but Sunder is more significant.

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Yes, I don't think it's a particularly apt comparison, though one can of course see echoes of some of Sunder's defining design ideas in some of Sunlust's (mainly aesthetic). When you get down to nuts and bolts, the playstyles of the two WADs are very different, particularly where pacing is concerned, and I can certainly envision a scenario where someone might quite enjoy one of the two but not particularly care for the other. Sunder's status as a fragment/unfinished work (a dead project, in other words, though there's a part of me that wants to live in denial and happily anticipate it being finished "someday") makes the comparison even more difficult, naturally. As Grain of Salt says above, it's probably a little more workable to compare Sunlust to Speed of Doom--not too difficult to liken Ribbiks to Joshy and Danne to Darkwave via mental shorthand right out of the box--since both have many parallels as finished projects, even if again the actual gameplay in the two WADs differs significantly.

All that aside, which one do I like better? Hell, I dunno. Ask me when I'm done being in denial about Sunder being dead. :D

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I wanted to like Sunder, but the gameplay leans too much into infighting simulator for my tastes. Also, playing the maps for the first time is an extremely grindy affair as the pre-knowledge reward of running past stuff and activating switches to maximize infighting is too great. I much prefer Sunlust + misc Ribbiks/Danne wads since the pacing and design is much more friendly for first time players while remaining just as difficult.

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Sunder for not being claustrophobic and more on the grand side, I hate it when the size is the challenge, it becomes a bumpfest grind, it's why 1024abc is hated that was made way back before cluttered overpopulated maps were cacoward material.

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Game play wise you cannot compare the two but..

I like both. Because Sunder was the reason I began playing this game I have to say it is my favorite over Sunlust because the game play suites my taste more than Sunlust.

I feel like Sunlust is a better wad overall. Most notably because you can actually max all of the maps. Sunder has some dumb gamebreaking bugs. Also the pacifist run of map 9 is LOL.

I don't think comparing the aesthetic of either wad will lead anywhere in my eyes. Both look amazing.

Obviously Sunder came first and appears to have inspired a lot of other works from mappers. Which is awesome. So no matter what Sunder is a very important wad.

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joe-ilya said:

Sunder for not being claustrophobic and more on the grand side, I hate it when the size is the challenge, it becomes a bumpfest grind, it's why 1024abc is hated that was made way back before cluttered overpopulated maps were cacoward material.

i'm pretty sure that most, like, all of the combat in Sunder takes place in you being stuck in cramped areas filled to the brim with enemies, and congestion takes place to flush you out. also, Sunder has one of the worst maps i've ever played, Precarious, which is basically The Chasm but with bumpy architecture and platforming with no ways of getting up.

i remember liking Sunlust more than Sunder, but Sunder was first, and it was certainly something to play back when it was released. i can't hate on Sunder at all for that, but Sunlust felt more enjoyable to play as a means of being more refined.

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Gave Sunder another go earlier and fell asleep somewhere during map 03 after the third encounter in a row centered around getting the Cyberdemon and Revenants/Nobles to fight with each other.

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I adore Sunlust but I don't think there's anything in the set quite as BRAVE as Precarious from Sunder which seems designed to piss off the average doomer

not that I can really make headway in either set without cheats or lots of quicksave lol

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I prefer Sunder. First slaughterwad I've ever played. And it's way tougher than Sunlust imo, where the only tricky map is Go f Yourself.

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Firedust said:

I prefer Sunder. First slaughterwad I've ever played. And it's way tougher than Sunlust imo, where the only tricky map is Go f Yourself.


What difficulty do you play on? I have been playing doom for little more then a year and attempting to play Sunlust on Hurt me Plenty is almost overwhelming for me.

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On UV. Precarious (I think that's what it's called) is hilarious. The only real bitch of a level for me is the last one.

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Firedust said:

On UV. Precarious (I think that's what it's called) is hilarious. The only real bitch of a level for me is the last one.


God Machine? Yeah, I have tried that on zdaemon co-op with some buddies. We didn't get very far.

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