PSX Doom Nightmare mode

[MajorRawne]

Hi, I''ve been reading a thread where forum member Omnipotus managed to activate Nightmare mode in PlayStation Doom. He wasn't able to actually play it but he said the game played a demo which looked like it was "high on caffeine". Would anyone be able to verify this, or make a video of it for YouTube?

Why would Nightmare mode be included but disabled?

Having just started playing PSX Doom again for the first time in years, with each map from a pistol start, I reckon some of these maps would be impossible in Nightmare mode. Hell Keep, for example... it's a fething nightmare with not enough ammo even on HMP.

[Da Werecat]

MajorRawne said:

Why would Nightmare mode be included but disabled?

It could be included because it's just a bunch of code independent of the map format.

It could be disabled because someone thought it was too hard for console crowd at the last moment. Although I think that the developers could go the SNES way and just make monsters faster without making them respawn.

[Blastfrog]

Could it perhaps have been for performance reasons? I don't remember whether or not respawning monsters wake up when they respawn, but if they do, they probably didn't want every monster on the map running around taking CPU time. You could still do that regardless, but the assumption is that the player is probably killing the monsters and not deliberately leaving them alive in an attempt to kill performance.

If they remain asleep when respawning, I'd imagine the reason for cutting Nightmare is probably because it's literally an unplayable joke.

[ReFracture]

PSX Doom on Ultra-Violence tends to get slow at some points. Final Doom even more so.

..and further still if you play in co-op.

It would have been an unplayable mess I bet.

[Jaxxoon R]

I always imagined that if PSX Doom had a NIGHTMARE! difficulty level, it would just give everything the nightmare spectre flag. Which means double health and lower visibility for all monsters.

[mrthejoshmon]

Mike.Reiner said:

PSX Doom on Ultra-Violence tends to get slow at some points. Final Doom even more so.

Level 1 of Final Doom has significant slowdown as soon as you pick up the SSG, the Lost Souls, Pinkies, Shotgunners and possibly imps as well as the complex structures ahead absolutely decimate the PS1 down to a noticeable 5 or so FPS, NIGHTMARE! on this map would be terrible, not to mention Level 7.

[Devalaous]

Jaxxoon R said:

I always imagined that if PSX Doom had a NIGHTMARE! difficulty level, it would just give everything the nightmare spectre flag. Which means double health and lower visibility for all monsters.

I want this to be a thing

[ReFracture]

Ragnor said:

I want this to be a thing

As long as there was extra ammo to deal with it, maybe.. though then again I didn't find myself starving for ammo all that much to begin with in these PSX Doom games.

[D_GARG]

good part of the PC versions of PSX doom is that on a PC you can edit everything just as you want it to be, I just wait until I release my own PSX PWAD (uuuhrg the code issues)

[Quasar]

I can confirm that the code for Nightmare skill is still in the PSX exe, and even still in Doom 64 AFAIK. It's just disabled for user selection because of gameplay balance and system limitation issues.

[MajorRawne]

Ragnor said:

I want this to be a thing

This must be a spin-off of the PSX TC. It MUST be. The internet demands it. "Broken Doom: The PSX Nightmare Edition." I would quite literally scream like a little girl at a One Direction concert if this came out.

PSX Doom's framerate issues never bothered me. I never felt it was unplayable and nobody I played co-op with ever had any complaints - about anything. It's like this was the perfect game. Even the messing about required for a co-op game was taken lightly, since it meant the other player couldn't watch your screen (ugh, screenwatching).

[Jaxxoon R]

Mike.Reiner said:

As long as there was extra ammo to deal with it, maybe.. though then again I didn't find myself starving for ammo all that much to begin with in these PSX Doom games.

Nightmare items.