I just beat Memento Mori!

[Cinnamon]

UV-Max, pistol start; the gentleman's way to play DOOM. ;)

 

Not a crowning achievement for me or anything, that'd be doing Foursite in one sitting using the same rule set, I suppose. But it was a mostly pleasant experience.

 

Some general feelings along the way (and I AM keeping in mind this was made 26 years ago, in a sense*):
 

This WAD's focus on co-operative gimmicks sometimes ruins the single-player experience. I've not yet decided whether this is a bad thing, or a necessity when exploring the co-operative capabilities of our esoteric medium. ^^

Great architecture for the time.

 

The Casali brothers were good outside of Plutonia, too. Showdown, and actually Viper (after I understood it) come to immediate mind.

 

There are way too many one-time gimmicks (this mostly pertains to secrets as I'm a UV-maxer) where LineDefs can only be triggered once, a switch only works once, et.c., et.c. You (the DOOMWorld community) might defend this since you know more than me, but I generally find such map design indefensible. It's absolutely OK, encouraged, even, to make maps ridiculously hard, abstruse, or finnicky or gimmicky. But one-time things just feel cheap to me...

I've really been missing out on the mapping talent of the Möllers. Hot damn.
 

I've more than once been killed by getting stuck in "architectural protrusions." Things like an extra 8-16 units wide bar at each side of a door, or stuff like that. It's unclear to me whether this was by design, or just a happenstance. It's certainly not a deal breaker, but surely an annoyance.

 

Some of the maps are REALLY memorable. Among my favorites. I'd say that 50-75% of the WAD is good but forgettable in the grand scheme of things, but maps like:

* The Stand (MAP04).

* The Powerstation (MAP06).

* And the Dead shall Rise (MAP08).
* Mountain Depot (MAP20).
* Twilight Labs (MAP21). - My personal favorite from the WAD.

* Showdown (MAP23).

* Between Scattered Corpses (MAP26).

* City of the Unavenged (MAP28).

 

...These make you really appreciate the effort put into it, and they are hella (heh) fun to play.

 

Apologies, just needed to gush a few feelings for a bit. If you haven't played Memento Mori yet, do it! It might not be your new attire, but it's definitely a good WAD. :)

 

(* I'm a pretty devout follower of the approach that a piece of art's age doesn't make it better. I.e. art is good if it's good, and I don't really care if it was relatively more impressive when it was made).

 

EtA: I forgot to mention MAP17 (House of Thorn) which actually made me quit DOOMing for a while. XD It's not even overly hard or anything, but the sucker managed to slay me 5-10 times or so. Thank you, Eric Sambach. May you feast in hell, I suppose.

Edited May 30, 2021 by Cinnamon Killjoy

[Mr Masker]

maybe you should make your own review thread. Could be a much better area for reviews.

[Silhouette 03]

One of Us... One of Us... ONE OF US!

 

MM2 is, I'd argue, even better than it's predecessor, with even grander architecture and some really great gameplay. Maybe play requiem too, since it was a spiritual sucessor to MM2. I second Mr Maskers advice though. Solid review, man.

 

[adamastor]

I agree with the comments above. It's a pretty good, if somewhat compact, review on MM. That was also the first PWAD I completed, proper.

 

You could consider creating a thread of your own reviews, as Endless does in his WAD Reviews, as you can see in this example.

[out_of_service]

Congratulations! I do believe a celebration is in order.

[roadworx]

ayy, congrats! i'm glad you liked it, however i gotta say that mm2 is so, so much better

 

also, you should probably put this into a review thread instead of making a separate thread for one single thing

[Doomkid]

Memento Mori is one of those wads where I love it so much because I played it when I was young and had infinite patience with video games.. That "just keep trying til you win" mentality (that I lost somewhere in my teens). I think it's confusing nature would really get to me if I was playing it as a brand new creation in 2021, though of course I'd still appreciate the work put into it.

 

Also, I get people liking MM2 more than MM1 (even though I personally don't at all), but Requiem? Do people really enjoy that cramped-as-hell, paint-by-numbers approach to Doom mapping? I felt it was the weakest of the trilogy by a country mile. Give me the "weirder yet grander" adventure of either MM wad any day.

 

Jeez, I’m sorry Requiem. I had my sour hat on this day, apparently..

[out_of_service]

@Doomkid Requiem is one of all-time favorites! I'm so upset by your comment right now I can even look at Zappa. 

 

Spoiler

jk im not upset. but requiem is my cheese and bacon.

 

[Cinnamon]

1 hour ago, Mr Masker said:

maybe you should make your own review thread. Could be a much better area for reviews.

 

Ah yeah you're probably right. I didn't feel like a review was in the spirit of how I engaged the WAD (I haven't been taking notes or whatever). But I'm commonly pretty terrible at sorting my random thoughts under the correct forum labels. xD

[Cinnamon]

1 hour ago, Silent Wolf said:

One of Us... One of Us... ONE OF US!

 

MM2 is, I'd argue, even better than it's predecessor, with even grander architecture and some really great gameplay. Maybe play requiem too, since it was a spiritual sucessor to MM2. I second Mr Maskers advice though. Solid review, man.

 

 

Thanks for the tips! Yeah I've gathered that the common view is that MM2 > MM1, but I thought I'd start in the chronologically appropriate end. ;)

[Cinnamon]

46 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

Memento Mori is one of those wads where I love it so much because I played it when I was young and had infinite patience with video games.. That "just keep trying til you win" mentality (that I lost somewhere in my teens). I think it's confusing nature would really get to me if I was playing it as a brand new creation in 2021, though of course I'd still appreciate the work put into it.

 

Also, I get people liking MM2 more than MM1 (even though I personally don't at all), but Requiem? Do people really enjoy that cramped-as-hell, paint-by-numbers approach to Doom mapping? I felt it was the weakest of the trilogy by a country mile. Give me the "weirder yet grander" adventure of either MM wad any day.

 

Yeah some parts about MM(1) was a bit... Like, seriously? I'm not a mapper or game designer, but even I can tell this was a dumb idea. xD Haha.

 

I have no opinion on Requiem yet. Haven't played it! But it'll happen eventually. .)

[Cinnamon]

2 hours ago, Adamast0r said:

I agree with the comments above. It's a pretty good, if somewhat compact, review on MM. That was also the first PWAD I completed, proper.

 

You could consider creating a thread of your own reviews, as Endless does in his WAD Reviews, as you can see in this example.

 

I wasn't exactly thinking about my post as a review, so it's probably there I went wrong and put it under the wrong category, hehe.

I just completed a WAD and felt like sharing my stupid, unsorted, intuitive reactions to it. If I wanted to make a case for or against it, I would be taking notes. ^^ But yeah you (the DW community) know the best, after all!

But going forward as I complete WADs, because that's a compulsive thing I do (lol) I'll be sure to put my musings in the review-part of the forum. Point taken. :D

[Dubbag]

My favorite megawad ever! Now try the second one, it's great as well!

[Cinnamon]

Just now, Dubbag said:

My favorite megawad ever! Now try the second one, it's great as well!

 

From what I can gather from the general opinion on MM/MM2, the latter is the better, so without doubt, yeah I will! Just have a few WADs to re-check before that. ^^

[roadworx]

2 hours ago, Doomkid said:

Also, I get people liking MM2 more than MM1 (even though I personally don't at all), but Requiem? Do people really enjoy that cramped-as-hell, paint-by-numbers approach to Doom mapping? I felt it was the weakest of the trilogy by a country mile. Give me the "weirder yet grander" adventure of either MM wad any day.

yeah, i've honestly never understood the love of requiem. after hearing that it was the spiritual successor to one of my favorite megawads ever, i played it, and...ended up being really let down. there's some great maps in it for sure, but it doesn't come close to being as good as the first two memento moris. it kinda just felt...bland and uninspired in comparison.

 

even the music, which while still being good, didn't sound as good as mm1 and 2's soundtracks

[Capellan]

4 hours ago, Silent Wolf said:

Maybe play requiem too, since it was a spiritual sucessor to MM2.

 

Only in the sense that it was a big community megawad in a time when such things were relatively rare.  Different project leader, different texture artists, different set of map-makers.

[I Drink Lava]

Nice to see some Memento Mori 1 positivity around here for once instead of the usual "accentuate the negative" post that gets hung up on MAP12. I personally prefer it to both TNT: Evilution and Icarus: Alien Vanguard, though I haven't played it in years for fear of the "good" maps being worse than I remember. I still love the MAP05 music, as well as the one track that turns into a Scooby-Doo metal remix halfway through (MAP09?)

[Final Verdict]

 

Memento Mori was the first Wad I ever played so it holds a special place in my memories. Same for Memento Mori II, although I played that one a bit later around 2001 I think.

 

Normally the mere mention of Memento Mori would cause me to engage fanboy mode and write up a really long post. But I feel Doomkid already covered it with his post earlier so I would only be repeating the same stuff. Same for his view on Requiem, though perhaps not as harsh. It was no where near the level of MM & MM II but I had some fun with it.

 

In any case, it's nice to see Memento Mori is still entertaining people after all this time. Congratulations!

 

[Cinnamon]

6 hours ago, Final Verdict said:

 

Memento Mori was the first Wad I ever played so it holds a special place in my memories. Same for Memento Mori II, although I played that one a bit later around 2001 I think.

 

Normally the mere mention of Memento Mori would cause me to engage fanboy mode and write up a really long post. But I feel Doomkid already covered it with his post earlier so I would only be repeating the same stuff. Same for his view on Requiem, though perhaps not as harsh. It was no where near the level of MM & MM II but I had some fun with it.

 

In any case, it's nice to see Memento Mori is still entertaining people after all this time. Congratulations!

 

 

Yeah I have a (long) list of WADs that I feel like I should play. Mostly inspired by The Top 100 WADs, Decino, and the thread on progressive skill improvement/challenge. So I'll at the moment play anything, old as new. ^^

But aye to be frank, for being made in 1995 (!) MM is stupidly good. It doesn't seem to hold up as well as e.g. Plutonia does by modern standards, but it's still decidedly entertaining, which in a sense is the only thing you can ask for. :)

[Hypercube]

I started playing Doom at 1997 (even though I only recently made my account here). Both Memento Moris were one of the first fan-made pwads I stumbled upon. I had played few shovelware-quality wads before them (with names I can't even remember), so the quality of Memento Moris really blew my mind. They felt like official "lost" expansions. For long time they were my favorite wads. Now there is just so many quality wads, that I couldn't even pick a favorite.

 

13 hours ago, Doomkid said:

Also, I get people liking MM2 more than MM1 (even though I personally don't at all), but Requiem? Do people really enjoy that cramped-as-hell, paint-by-numbers approach to Doom mapping?

Maybe it's nostalgia, but I do enjoy Requiem. It does have those 90s mapping sins just like MMs (different ones though), but that certain roughness just adds to the atmosphere.

[Final Verdict]

30 minutes ago, Cinnamon Killjoy said:

 

Yeah I have a (long) list of WADs that I feel like I should play. Mostly inspired by The Top 100 WADs, Decino, and the thread on progressive skill improvement/challenge. So I'll at the moment play anything, old as new. ^^

But aye to be frank, for being made in 1995 (!) MM is stupidly good. It doesn't seem to hold up as well as e.g. Plutonia does by modern standards, but it's still decidedly entertaining, which in a sense is the only thing you can ask for. :)

 

If you haven't already you should also check out MM II, it's even better than the first one. After that you have other classics like Alien Vendetta. You'll also have quite a few big hitters to chew threw through once you get to 2010-2020 Wads. There are also many lesser known gems around.

 

In any case, work through them at your own pace and enjoy.

 

[Cinnamon]

3 minutes ago, Final Verdict said:

 

If you haven't already you should also check out MM II, it's even better than the first one. After that you have other classics like Alien Vendetta. You'll also have quite a few big hitters to chew threw through once you get to 2010-2020 Wads. There are also many lesser known gems around.

 

In any case, work through them at your own pace and enjoy.

 

 

AV is actually (so far) my personal favorite WAD. Hard to go wrong with things like MAP20, ey...

And yeah I've noted that the common perception is that MM2 is better than the first one, so it's already noted, with sweetness, in my backlog, hehe.

[General Rainbow Bacon]

Great job man!  I remember my first time playing through this one.  It was a blast.  Map 28 sticking out as one of the most difficult early maps I've played.

[LadyMistDragon]

I loved this one SOOO much, back when the only megawads I had played at that point were Icarus, Hell Revealed and New Doom Community Project. MM2 has better design....but it kind of lost something in the transition, and there's maybe 1 or 2 maps I recall not liking at all in MM(Stoned, for one. People often hate on The Mansion, but that was worst in its own way).

 

On the designers, I think the real winners are Denis Moeller, Tom Mustaine, Jens Nielsen, and of course, the Casali brothers. Andy Badorek, Mark Klem & Eric Sargent (I most remember the latter for an extremely nasty Map 23 trap in MM2 involving Pain Elmentals!), Florian Helmberger, and Thomas Moeller also had some awesome ideas, but the first ones I mentioned stood out the most to me.

 

Also, the OST is absolutely bitchin'. I''d even argue that it was the first real inspiration for high music quality in the Doom community (though I think the demand's also grown over the years).

Edited June 1, 2021 by LadyMistDragon

[roadworx]

20 hours ago, Cinnamon Killjoy said:

 

Yeah I have a (long) list of WADs that I feel like I should play. Mostly inspired by The Top 100 WADs, Decino, and the thread on progressive skill improvement/challenge. So I'll at the moment play anything, old as new. ^^

But aye to be frank, for being made in 1995 (!) MM is stupidly good. It doesn't seem to hold up as well as e.g. Plutonia does by modern standards, but it's still decidedly entertaining, which in a sense is the only thing you can ask for. :)

yeah, while i am a shameless mm2 megafan i gotta admit that the first memento mori is honestly more impressive considering the time of its release. i can imagine that the quality of its levels (at least, most of them) would've blown people away more than mm2 would've, considering that things like dystopia 3, 99 ways to die, and plutonia were already out by the time mm2 was released

 

[ReaperAA]

I know some people might call me a Heretic for saying this, but when I played MM1 for the first time a few years ago, I didn't find it that good. Maybe I am spoiled by the modern wads, I don't know. Though even compared to the iwads, I found most of the maps in MM1 very underwhelming, both from aesthetics and gameplay point of view. The only real standout for me were the Casali maps and Map28.

 

On 5/30/2021 at 10:58 PM, Cinnamon Killjoy said:

There are way too many one-time gimmicks (this mostly pertains to secrets as I'm a UV-maxer) where LineDefs can only be triggered once, a switch only works once, et.c., et.c. You (the DOOMWorld community) might defend this since you know more than me, but I generally find such map design indefensible. It's absolutely OK, encouraged, even, to make maps ridiculously hard, abstruse, or finnicky or gimmicky. But one-time things just feel cheap to me...

This is one of the aspects that I didn't like about MM1. The wad was clearly designed for co-op and it shows. Many maps have secrets that can't be obtained by a single player. Even the Casali maps(which are among by favorites) are filled to the brim with ammo which screams co-op.

 

Though I guess I shouldn't be too harsh on a wad made in the 1995 pre-Final Doom era. For it's time, it is hell of an impressive wad.

 

And speaking of MM2 and Requiem, I haven't played them yet (though I do plan to atleast MM2 one day). So I have no opinion on those. Though from what I saw on youtube, MM2 looked somewhat interesting while Requiem's level design just bored me.

 

On 5/30/2021 at 10:58 PM, Cinnamon Killjoy said:

I'm a pretty devout follower of the approach that a piece of art's age doesn't make it better. I.e. art is good if it's good, and I don't really care if it was relatively more impressive when it was made

I completely agree. If a newer wad is better designed than the old wad, nothing will stop me from comparing them and saying that the new wad is better than the old wad (no matter the release date difference).

Edited March 3, 2022 by ReaperAA

[Rudolph]

@ReaperAA I got to agree with you so far. I have finally decided to give Memento Mori 1 a shot after putting it off for so long and as of MAP06 I am honestly quite underwhelmed. MAP01 especially ought to be one of the worst first levels I have played in a Doom map; while it is technically not bad per se, it is just so boring. I am still willing to soldier on to see if things get better, but for the time being, I am not impressed by this supposed classic.

 

However, the Mark Klem soundtrack is really good and I might use it to make Doom II replacement soundtracks!

 

EDIT: Okay, MAP07 is kind of cool. Now the mapset is starting to feel like Doom II's Thy Flesh Consumed counterpart.

Edited March 3, 2022 by Rudolph

[Andromeda]

1 hour ago, Rudolph said:

EDIT: Okay, MAP07 is kind of cool. Now the mapset is starting to feel like Doom II's Thy Flesh Consumed counterpart.

If you thought that about MAP07, wait until you see the following one ;)

 

But yeah, as much as I like Memento Mori it is quite the mixed experience for the modern player, like many other classic wads. I feel it's still a journey worth taking nonetheless.

[Astronomical]

On 5/30/2021 at 8:16 PM, Doomkid said:

Do people really enjoy that cramped-as-hell, paint-by-numbers approach to Doom mapping? I felt it was the weakest of the trilogy by a country mile. Give me the "weirder yet grander" adventure of either MM wad any day.

Yes

Here is my review talking about how much I like it, but specifically comparing it to Memento mori.  The maps are far easier to navigate, the visual language is at the level of the original iwads and I only had to look up a guide for 1 map, unlike MM1 where each map requires the player to pull up a guide (at least to me).  The soundtrack is literally perfect and has no issues at all.  I don't even think it's the most cramped entry in the series, as shotgunning barons is more common in MM1 then any other. 

 

 

[Doomkid]

I have no idea why I was being so harsh. I've only ever played Requiem a number of times in old ZDaemon/Skulltag servers years ago, and I honestly thought it was decent despite the cramped style, from what I remember anyway. Maybe I didn't have my cheerios that morning..