Removing 12 maps from Final Doom & Master Levels, make your pick

Seeing this thread, I got the idea why not expand it to all of Final Doom and the Master Levels as well, so what 12 would you remove?

Here's mine:

Evilution:

• MAP04: Wormhole
• MAP10: Redemption
• MAP12: Crater
• MAP16: Deepest Reaches
• MAP22: Habitat

Plutonia Experiment:

• MAP03: Aztec
• MAP11: Hunted
• MAP12: Speed
• MAP14: Genesis
• MAP24: The Final Frontier
• MAP31: Cyberden

Master Levels:

• The Garrison (GARRISON.WAD)

Evilution: Habitat, The Dead Zone, Shipping/Respawning, Metal, Deepest Reaches, Administration Center.

The Plutionia Experiment: Ghost Town, Onslaught, Slayer, Neurosphere.

Master Levels: Canyon (CANYON.WAD), and The Catwalk (CATWALK.WAD)

Uh, sure. On a real note, none of them. If someone puts a gun on my head, then Metal, Habitat, Quarry, Cyberden and The Express Elevator to Hell, actually that last one can go sink in a cup of diarrhea.

Final Doom

• MAP24: Quarry (TNT: Evilution)

• MAP11: Storage Facility (TNT: Evilution)

• MAP23: Lunar Mining Project (TNT: Evilution)

• MAP24: The Final Frontier (The Plutonia Experiment)

• MAP09: Stronghold (TNT: Evilution)

• MAP17: Compound (The Plutonia Experiment)

Master Levels for Doom II

• The Combine

• The Catwalk

• Subspace

• Titan Manor

• The Garrison

• The Fistula

Well, I already threw up ten for TNT. If it's going for twelve total...

From my previous list, I'd remove TNT's MAP10: Redemption, MAP12: Crater, and MAP16: Deepest Reaches (because as I said, they're not actually bad, just need some tweaking). Most of the last third of TNT can still definitely go, full stop, and I stand by the other seven entries.

I'd then add:

1. Plutonia MAP20: The Death Domain
   • Tunnel after tunnel after tunnel. Basically almost all this map is, is tunnels. There's definitely some high spots - the chaingunner trap, for example. But it alternates between tunnels and huge rooms that feel strangely empty, especially considering there's only 89 monsters on the map on UV, and nearly a third of those (28) are Chaingunners, with Revenants being the bulk of the rest (13) and nothing else topping 8. It feels like it was a few cool pieces thrown together more than a cohesive level in and of itself.
2. Plutonia MAP21: Slayer
   • Slayer itself is fine, it's just such a calque of Doom II's MAP11: Circle of Death/'O' of Destruction! that it hurts. Frankly it puzzles me that this would be totally okay to put in, and yet American McGee threw a fit with Tom Mustaine's Map 14 Homage and refused it as part of the Master Levels when it itself was a calque of The Inmost Dens (which Plutonia's Neurosphere was also clearly inspired by). Apparently Romero is fine with his work being imitated, but American's skin was thinner? The world may never know.
3. Plutonia MAP24: The Final Frontier
   • This one... yeah, this one can just go the hell away. I've always hated maps that make you walk tightropes, and this one amps it up by adding tightrope fun with a  combination of strong attacks that can push you (Revenants/Cacodemons), if those don't get you the Lost Souls spit by the Pain Elementals will, and if you get through all that you get to enjoy being the star attraction of the Shotgunner shooting gallery while a Cyberdemon tries to make you suck rocket and a pair of Mancubi join in with some suppressive fire. No thank you!
4. Master Levels: The Garrison (GARRISON.WAD)
   • Frankly, a lot of Christen Klie's levels feel awfully plain and boxy to me, but this one feels more plain and boxy than most of his stuff. It doesn't help that it's basically Throw Lots Of Imps At You: The Movie The Game. Seriously, nearly 60% of the enemies in this map are Imps! I get that it was very early on in the Doom level editing era, but while most of his levels are at least tolerable, this feels like the sort of thing that had minimum effort behind it and was more of an experiment than anything. It doesn't even feel like a garrison for god's sake! Finally, almost all of Christen Klie's Master Levels output got ported into Playstation Final Doom. Almost all - except this one. Need I say more?
5. Master Levels: Trapped on Titan (TTRAP.WAD)
   • You should try not to speak ill of the dead, but damn does Jim make it hard. When I think of Jim Flynn levels, I think of verticality, almost to a T, and that's amazingly rough in an engine where (unless you're on source ports, or later stuff derived from it like Heretic/Hexen) you don't get to look up and down. Jim can sometimes do some amazing things with this, but at other times, it's the epitome of frustration, and this is one of those cases, where it feels like every other thing you come across has to move up, down, or up *AND* down. Throw in his penchant for winding architecture (check out some of his other Titan series for excellent examples, especially Mines of Titan) and you just get a map that feels like you're going everywhere except where you need to go. No wonder none of his maps got ported to Playstation Final Doom, a trait he shares only with Sverre Kvernmo/Cranium.

And once more, some notable ones I'd not remove:

1. Plutonia MAP05: Ghost Town
   • This is actually the first hard map of Plutonia, in my opinion. Others have you dealing with tough traps and whatnot, but this starts the difficulty at high and gets higher. That said, near the end, the traps do get downright dickish (beat the Mastermind? Have some Revenants. Near the end? Have a couple Archies!). IMO it does a good job of setting the tone of Plutonia though, with the first few maps toying with you, and this one cluing you in: "Okay, the Casalis are going to try to straight-up shank you from now on." It works pretty well.
2. Plutonia MAP10: Onslaught
   • I've loved this level for a long time. The first time you play it you're all but guaranteed to screw yourself getting the blue key, and despite the relatively open courtyards, you still don't feel safe. The switch that turns into an instant lift trap with two Pinkies immediately chewing you up is great, and from there you get a difference in the formula - you go from "open but attacked on all sides" to "cramped and with lots of beefy enemies bearing down at you." And let's not forget that final sprint to the exit that can kill you just short of the finish line if you don't get the hell out of there within about three seconds once the Barons and Hell Knights are triggered - and just in case you got them, one final swerve of Shotgun Guys if you dared to pick up those energy cells.
3. Plutonia MAP11: Hunted
   • Don't get me wrong... personally, I'm not a fan of this map. Its linedef triggers are pretty fucky to me, and it's definitely a gimmick map. But THEMATICALLY it's a brilliant idea. The music choice is evil, knowing Archies are one of the enemies that can always instill a panic reaction in players makes it the perfect choice, and of course, tight cramped corridors with long lines of sight against an enemy who WILL hit you if you're in its line of sight, guaranteed - and perfectly easy to get walled into a dead end. I may not personally like this map, but it's simply way too good in themes and execution to ever justify chopping this one. Not in a million years.

Hababitat × 12

Evilution:

System Control

Metal

Central Processing

Last Call

Plutonia:

Caged

Neurosphere

NME

Slayer

Anti-Christ

Master Levels:

Nessus

The Combine

Bad Dream

On 8/25/2019 at 11:51 PM, galileo31dos01 said:

Uh, sure. On a real note, none of them. If someone puts a gun on my head, then Metal, Habitat, Quarry, Cyberden and The Express Elevator to Hell, actually that last one can go sink in a cup of diarrhea.

Do you mind some reasons about Cyberden? (I seriously want to know, not joking or anything.)

TEETH though, I actually like the idea of it, but it can be done way better than it actually is.

On 8/27/2019 at 2:34 PM, GarrettChan said:

Do you mind some reasons about Cyberden?

Yeah, it bores me, more than The Death Domain. It's the only map a very simple thing as actually returning to the start point each time did a 180° turn on my perspective of it, like "what, I could have just done this all the fucking time". Much prefer Cybernation in PL2 over it.