The DWmegawad Club plays: Nostalgia

[Magnusblitz]

MAP29: Chambers of Dis

100% kills, 4/4 secrets

 

Nice marble-and-blood theme, and the curves help alleviate some of the corridorishness of it. The first cyber was fun to use to infight, especially racing ahead to let the AVs out too for some spice. Ended up with one lone hell knight surviving Mr. Cyber. Also, I think I found all the missing ammo from last map... it certainly is more fun to blast through stuff like the caco wave when you can just let loose with the rocket launcher and not worry about ammo. The second cyber-vs-knights fight is pretty meh IMO, as the cybers just turn out to be a giant meatwall easily taken out with the BFG after being softened up by the hell knights. I found all the secrets but only after going back to look for them, just got lazy I guess (and didn't even have any use for the megasphere because of it). All in all, it's ok.

[Raith138]

MAP30: Nostalgia

The final fight of nostalgia is a IOS fight. But I actually found this to be a lot funner then some other IOS fights I have played. It was also not very difficult. It is hard to judge this the same as every other map but I think it deserves sixth place.

 

Conclusions:

This set was definitely not consistent with quality but I cannot say any map looked bad. Neither can I say any map was not fun. All of the "bad" maps were just bad compared to everything else in the set and it is easy to tell every map had lots of care and attention put into it. This mapset actually managed to stay exciting the entire way through which is something that I don't see very much. I definitely think that this mapset is worth playing to anybody who hasn't and I would give it a 16/20

 

Order of Preference:

Spoiler

MAP25

MAP27

MAP26

MAP16

MAP29

MAP30

MAP24

MAP14

MAP13

MAP21

MAP03

MAP07

MAP23

MAP22

MAP31

MAP18

MAP20

MAP15

MAP12

MAP11

MAP09

MAP04

MAP08

MAP06

MAP17

MAP02

MAP10

MAP19

MAP05

MAP01

 

[Magnusblitz]

MAP30: Nostalgia

1/1 secret

 

One of the easier and more perfunctory IOS maps I've played; I was a bit surprised when I opened the red door and it's just a direct shot to the exposed IOS brain, no need to futz around with lifts or timing or anything like that. Actually quite simple to beat without firing a shot (well, except for the rockets at the end), as long as the SMM moves out of your way, as it's fairly easy to avoid the cyber by the switch. I do think I was benefiting from a bug in that I think two cybers are supposed to teleport in and form a wall on the red key, but one of them routinely kept dying on teleport (probably some ZDoom setting I have mistakenly set) making it easy to get the other one to get distracted and you can just run in and out around him to grab the key.

 

Overall Thoughts

Short maps are always a double-edged sword for DWMC... playing one map a day, it can sometimes feel like a disservice to pacing that might not be a problem if you play several of the maps at once. OTOH it also lets me actually play them and participate, just don't have the time to play a huge map every day anymore unfortunately.

 

As for the WAD itself, it was definitely... okay. Everything is well-crafted in the technical sense, there's not really any game-breaking bugs or really poor design choices. At worst, things just get bland and/or predictable. The early maps are definitely the weakest, being somewhat reliant on IWAD homages and being overly blocky, but things ramp up a bit in the second episode.

[LadyMistDragon]

Map 30: Nostalgia 

 

This (slight) trend of giving map 30s the name of the wad needs to end....anyways, starting in a tiny chamber you escape by shooting and slowly raising promises much grimness when we're immediately greeted by the roar of a Cyberdemon and the screech of a Spider Mastermind. It really felt like Myolden did his very best to make an Icon of Sin map that was as painless as possible. Although at least one of the Cybers proves useless in part and at least one gets telefragged. Grab the red key, rocket Romero and the map ends.

 

Conclusion

 

This set almost starts too laid-back and boring but starts getting better by the end of the first episode. Second episode flips the horrible reputation of Doom 2 city maps on its head with the clear sense of place and the basic but entirely serviceable Doomcute that's presented. The third episode does what it needs to but also is where Myolden really starts showing he's Myolden with some of the more sadistic setups. Barring the flatlining displayed in a few maps here, it's a nice conclusion. Even the Icon of Sin isn't too bad, though it's not recommended to quite rush it as we did.

 

I'm glad to have played this in either case though. There are few maps that I'd really say are so-so, which is excusable in the first episode in either case. And what's more, the secret maps managed to feel like secret maps in a way that wasn't just a straighforward Wolfenstein rip-off, featuring at least in Powerslave, the more biting challenge one tends to see in Alex's PUSS maps. Less draggy than Zone 400 or one of the other megawads that are at the lower end of those I enjoy, this gets a strong recommendation.

[Cutman 999]

MAP27 - “Whatgoul” (Pistol started, 13 attempts saveless, 100% Kills, 50% Items, 66% Secrets)

 

That start can lick my dog and blow my... To be honest, I misplayed it since I wanted to rush to the berserk secret but come on an army of midtiers in a small arena with almost no health nor armor, making so you can get murdered instantly by a rev missile, or a high damage roll from the likes of cacos, hell nobles and mancs.

 

After that uncomfortable skill issue, the map loses a lot of its steam, it becomes mostly berserk punching since myolden is not too generous with ammo here, nor resources in general. I suppose is a nice break from the badass substance of sephulchural slaughter, but it just wastes time in worst case scenario, be careful of the archvile silently waking up though.

 

If you have a bfg from an obvious secret or a minimal amount of rockets, the final ambush consisting of just a room of cacodemons deflates itself immediately. Then the map is over in a very anti-climactic fair.

 

Previously the lowest I could categorize this wad is just as mediocre, but this is outright bad and boring.

 

4/10 

 

MAP28 - “Seasons in the Abyss” (Pistol started, saveless, 100% K/I/S)

 

Can I ask more pwad authors to use DKC music more often? Now that we are in the last stages of the wad, more ambush style encounters are present, the first one with the gushing imps and other stuff^tm could not seem as bad, until you remember ammo here is very limited and you are fighting with (mostly) low tier weaponry, I hope you find the switch to lower certain good weapon.

 

Your travel constantly interrupted by long distance threads once you press certain switch, will probably dry out your ammo unless for some miracle, you make the cyberdemon at the red key door infight the bullet sponges guarding its doors, despite this, that is just a prelude to the final fight of the map, with is as expected, an archvile ambush with a lot of other devilish midtiers and sponges of carnage. This ambush may seem easier than the one of like map11 since you have lots more space, but the limited ammo you have could make the difference if you beat this map or not and is not like you can survive more than 2 archvile zaps anyway.

 

Great map, I didn't mentioned the great cavernous aesthetic, with ist black sky holding it nicely together, but yeah a great way to generate some anticipation before the penultimate map makes it's closing statement.

 

8/10

 

MAP29 - “Chambers of Dis” (Pistol started, saveless, 100% Kills, 66 Items, 25% Secrets)

 

Using one of my absolute favorite doom midis of all time, just a bit behind the mucus flow one, this map truly tries to sember in you the dread of a typical penultimate map. Altough I have to say, this map doesn't truly make justice to its position as a penultimate map in a scale of ambushes or difficulty.

 

At least there are some not so Iwad esque encounters in here like the cyber hell noble combo, or the final fight, but most of the map is just door fighting or rocket spam at mid tiers with not so much fair. Maybe I'm over caffeinated from map26 and the ammo famine of map28 but it just doesn't stack compare to nostalgia's best stuff. But well again, sourrounded in so much quality, maybe some of the things may underline in a bad way.

 

Still, its fights are slaughter 101, a perfect difficulty scalation, and not a bad map29 under any metric, an aorta can make all the difference in the world...

 

8/10

 

MAP30 - “Nostalgia” (Pistol started, saveless, 275% Kills, 33% Items, 0% Secrets)

 

An icon of sin fight I literally finished in less than a damn minute lmao.

 

 

At least I have to say, thanks myolden for not wasting my time with this one.

 

6/10

 

Final Thoughts:

 

I said them in the very beginning of the thread, no? Possibly one of my favorite megawads of all time because how myolden dominated the art of making low run time maps, combined with a sense of scale and difficulty scalation I want from doom. I can even say, this is an essential wad to play if you want to get familiarized with some of the harder stuff thrown at you in classic megawads such as AV or scythe 2, since this introduces slaughter concepts like enemy prioritization and crowd controlling in such a efficient, but also not so overwhelming way.

 

A thing I always appreciate in any sort of media I consume is consistency, and nostalgia despite having a sole bad apple, and bland decent to mediocre at worst, still most of the maps in here are 8 to 9 out of 10 material for me, and goes far beyond what the scope of the project may seem, which was to make maps in the spirit of classic wads, such as memento mori and the iwads. Nostalgia? More like SUSTANCIA! After all, memento mori has no substance nor consistency, and the iwads are hit and miss in overall quality.

 

Maybe one day I will continue playing nostalgia 2, spoiler some of the early maps in there are god tier and even better than the material in here, so for me there's left to see if nostalgia 2 is an absolute masterpiece or not.

Edited March 30 by Cutman 999

[DJVCardMaster]

MAP30 - Nostalgia:
 

As always, I don't like Icon of Sin maps, but this wasn't offensive, it was a fine arena, it had some interesting tasks before the final showdown. Maybe not scripted perfectly, but it was fine. Once you know the layout you can quickly finish this one, by BFG'ing both cyberdemons, the one at the switch, and the one in front of the red skull key, you will easily open the red door that blocks the IOS brain. Luckly, no tricky platforming is involved to our goal. Thanks, Myolden.

Order of Preference:
 

Spoiler

 

MAP26 (Good)

MAP25
MAP16

MAP14
MAP31
MAP18
MAP09

MAP06
MAP07
MAP28 (OK)
MAP24
MAP22
MAP17
MAP29
MAP23
MAP15
MAP21
MAP11
MAP20

MAP05

MAP04
MAP19
MAP08
MAP32 (Average)
MAP12
MAP03
MAP02
MAP01
MAP30 (Meh)
MAP27
MAP13
MAP10 (Bad)

 

 

[Novaseer]

MAP30 "Nostalgia" (525% K, 66% I, 0% S, 1:17)

 

Icon of Sin.

 

Fortunately, myolden forwent the classic staple of forcing the player to time their rockets on a lift. Instead, y'know how I was complaining about big health monsters acting as doors in my MAP29 review? Yeah, there's three of them. The entire map's pretty much a test of how fast you can BFG down two Cybies and an SMM before you get nicked by a spawn cube or boxed in by a particularly fruitful Pain Elemental.

 

Also, there was apparently a secret in this map. I didn't particularly care to stick around and find out where.

 

Total Kills: 2583/2585
Total Items: 351/363
Total Secrets: 74/76
Total Time: 3:45:29, not counting failed attempts

 

Closing Thoughts

 

All things considered, Nostalgia set out to provide an experience alike to the IWADs, and it succeeded handily. It may not be my exact cup of tea with me being the spectacle-freak that I am, but it was nonetheless pretty enjoyable - and for the first DWMC that I've properly participated in, tackling one map a day was comfortably doable with the short run times.

 

Visuals are... well, it's a limit-removing WAD with stock textures, there's only so much you can glamour it up. And for what it's worth, myolden did a pretty good job, even if those visuals end up feeling rather homogenous at the end of each episode.

 

Difficulty-wise, it's not particularly hard - the fact that I, a serial save-scummer, could beat it UV pistol start saveless should be a pretty good indication. The only map that really approached a difficulty level high enough for me to take note of was MAP26.

 

Secrets would probably have been really annoying to find if it weren't for the complete lack of automap cleanup - and with it taken to account, they become trivial. I tend to not be particularly fond of classic-style secrets for pretty much that exact reason - finding something like a BFG by humping a wall just feels lazy to me.

[Dylan Jarvis]

Last part. Played like trash today, I was tired after work but I wanted to get this finished. Great Wad what a gem I'll definitely see this re-enter my Wad rotation.

 

[DJVCardMaster]

Nostalgia - Myolden:

Another one of those mapsets that tries to go back to old times. This is a really solid pack made by only one person. Most of the maps are short, making me think, this resembles a "Demonfear" spirit. A one-man army making small-sized, classic maps, with similar quality altogether. Of course, it being a modern mapset, it holds nice visuals, using the "limitless" nature of the limit-removing Doom mapping style. Not only that, but Myolden also places at times, more modern gameplay, rather than the classic "monster-closet" fights or just labyrinthic exploration from 90's maps. Everything joins together into a really nice blend of oldschool Doom with modern playstyle.

Most of the maps are simple, and pretty similar in quality overall, in fact, it was really difficult for me to rate and rank each map, as I think it depends more of which map triggers my taste depending on my mood, rather than X being better than Y. This, is both good and bad, as the blend becomes quite uniform at the middle of the mapset, and you can get a bit bored of "more of the same". None of the maps try something different or groundbreaking. The entire mapset plays it safe with its tools and gimmicks. While none of the maps feel offensive, the overall experience may lack something else, that other mapsets have. 

Nevertheless, the mapset is a solid creation by one man, that tries to keep the flame of original Doom mapping style alive, with solid aesthetics, solid gameplay, and a nice soundtrack in the background. A 32-map wad created only by one man is a task pretty big by itself, and it adds a lot of value to it. 

As always with this type of one-man megawads, the later maps may feel a bit rushed to have a final product ready, but still, nothing that you could call "offensive". The entire mapset had some minor nitpicks that I did not like, like only a few maps having a berserk pack, or some of them being just playgrounds with incidental combat, or some other maps having really small arenas for bulky fights, also, there aren't many memorable moments that will strike you and leave a mark into your mind. Other than that, it is a really recommendable mapset that you will enjoy if you like classic mapsets, or you are new to the world of Doom wads, as difficulty never gets annoying or extremely challenging.

Best maps:

MAP26 - The only "standout" map from Nostalgia, with a striking arena and challenging gameplay. By far the most modern map in the wad, and the only one that tries something different.
MAP25 - It could have been the best map because of the layout, but some of the parts were misused and fights weren't staged greatly, a shame, because it played really good.
MAP16 - I really like the looks of the map and the setting overall. Nice setpiece, in terms of looks, the most memorable of the all.

Worst maps:

MAP27 - A lot of corridors, a dumb fight at the start with an uninteresting pain elemental that you have to boomstick to death, and overall unappealing gameplay.
MAP13 - Unappealing, again, with the ugliest looks of the mapset, thanks to the overusage of that red brick texture. Also, It's gameplay wasn't that good.
MAP10 - Boring map with incidental combat, linear, with no tricks but with a really difficult fight at the end that was unproperly staged.

Score: 70/100 (Good)

[myolden]

Hey DWMC, just wanted to let you guys know that it was fun reading all of your guys writeups. I appreciate hearing what people liked and didn't like in each map, really cool that there's enough interest in this set to fuel a whole month's worth of reviews. Thanks for playing!

[cannonball]

Forgot to take my laptop down for the weekend, so a little late with these.

 

MAP29 - “Chambers of Dis”

This does enough to not feel like a flop in the Map29 slot. There is an element of swagger about these fight and the heavier monsters involved. That said the blue key fight kind of sorts itself out by default and the final fight again can be dealt with by making the cybers fight with the nobles. Only the pain elementals offer much of a threat in this final arena. Ironically the smaller fights are more likely to catch you out, the archvile can be easily missed early on as you deal with the seemingly weak drop ambush and the chaingunners behind the blue door really did a number on me.

This was fine, a middle of the road map by Nostalgia's standards.

 

MAP30 - “Nostalgia”

Well that first cyber was a real pain to get rid off, but in fairness the map is slot has a small stress inducing element becuase the monsters flood in quickly, but once you have the red key you can simply stand and kill the ICON of sin and leave. A perfectly serviceable map that does the job it needs to do and the execution here is pretty decent.

 

Overall;

 

Nostalgia is a very consistent and competently put together megawad, however at times this almost felt like more of a flaw than a positive. Maybe it is just me but I do yearn for something that has a little more character, I will add a caveat that I have never really been one for lots of Doomcute and as such meant that the second episode lost the pull that many others would have got from this. It is no surprise that my favourite maps ended up being the ones where Myolden pushed a little bit more on either the difficulty level or indeed making something a little more quirky.

In the end Nostalgia is a very solid map set and definitely good for those who are new to playing PWads due to being approachable and having short maps and indeed for speedrunning. In the end I think this wad wasn't quite my cup of tea.

Overall score - 3.5/5

Favourite Map - Map26

Honorable mentions - Maps 11, 31, 32 and 24

Edited April 1 by cannonball