Final Doom order

[Memfis]

Silliest question ever but let's talk about it. Which half of Final Doom is the first? Do you feel like there is an order in which the two iwads are played better?

[Graf Zahl]

I made the mistake and played Plutonia first. That made TNT somewhat of a disappointment.

[Tristan]

TNT, though for me that's because it was before Plutonia on the PSX version

[Gerardo194]

Yeah, I think Plutonia's plot goes first. It takes place after the Hellish invasion of Earth, so the presidents from all over the world take measures and bring the "Old UAC" back under a new government. As you know, they were working on a Quantum Accelerator which actually is a time machine and you know what goes on. After that, that "Old UAC" goes to one of Jupiter's moon to continue with their experiments and keep Earth safe. Then, The UAC already knows about how to keep the demons away, until the demons built the hellish spaceship.

[Spectre01]

I've always assumed TNT is meant to be played first due to the more laid-back difficulty.

[fraggle]

TNT first because it has more traditional levels. Plutonia is clearly a more advanced mapset, so it's a case of "finished TNT and the others and want a challenge? Try this"

[SFoZ911]

I remember playing Plutonia first since the name was more appealing to me.

[Demon of the Well]

I always treated Plutonia as the second/concluding megaWAD, myself. In the rudimentary and highly fragmented Doom canon, the two are separate stories with no chronological or other narrative connection between them (essentially two alternate tales about something happening sometime after the events of Doom II), and so this leaves us with going on what we actually see and experience in the WADs themselves, and in that sense Plutonia definitely comes to more of a pronounced head, with consistently bigger/badder fights and more of a climactic endgame, whereas Evilution is more often understated and conceptual or even experimental in bent, and sort of fizzles out in its later stages (IMO, of course). I guess I've always been prone to looking for a 'grand finale' in these sorts of matters, and Plutonia definitely fits the bill better than Evilution in that regard as far as its actual approach to gameplay goes.

I do wonder if I'd feel the same today if I were somehow to just now experience the two for the first time, though. Plutonia definitely plays more to that giddy sense of combat escalation that was much more of a factor in community consciousness in bygone days (i.e. the visceral impact of something like Cyberden or Go 2 It simply as propositions), true, but Evilution is much more of a journey and a narrative, and offers much greater scope and variety in its settings and such; that sense of escalation fades with time and experience, but the taste for a good adventure never really does, so maybe I'd feel different with fresh eyes.

....or maybe not. Evilution really does drop the ball in its E3, and I'm certainly guilty of the tendency to lend a great deal of weight to the experience of those final 10 maps when making an overall assessment of a 32 map WAD, I suppose.

[chungy]

The TeamTNT web site supports the notion that Evilution is intended to be played first.

[kmxexii]

in my mind, evilution is first.

[VGamingJunkie]

Evilution probably first because, in my opinion, Plutonia has better levels. Or, at the very least, more memorable levels.

[scifista42]

TeamTNT website">

TeamTNT website said:

TNT: Evilution should be played first,

I remembered reading this before from some official source, just forgot it was the TeamTNT website. Thanks, chungy, for the link.

[Memfis]

I wonder what a Casali brothers website would say. :D

[chungy]

They were members of TeamTNT, I imagine it would have mirrored the same opinion.

[dew]

Plutonia is the first one and the last one if you catch my drift. ;)

[Fonze]

dew said:

Plutonia is the first one and the last one if you catch my drift. ;)

Because it's so terrible it pushes you to play pWads?

[Aquanet]

If you play TNT and idclev 31 and 32 it works great because MAP32: carribean is a Dario special, and carry on to Plutonia, baddabing.

[Doomkid]

It would be weird to follow up something as hard as Plutonia with something like TNT which is just a notch above Doom2's difficulty.. To me, Plutonia is clearly meant to be last as it's the most difficult of the big 4.

[dew]

Doomkid said:

TNT which is just a notch above Doom2's difficulty

TNT is kind of a breeze on continuous, however some maps are hellish from pistol start. Interestingly enough, most of the hardest ones are in e1, heh. That episode on UV is far more of a hitscan hell than plutonia on nightmare.

[VGamingJunkie]

I thought TNT was known as the Hitscan Hell and Plutonia was known as the Revenant Homing Missile Hell.

[T-Rex]

There is no exact order to which one to play first, since both TNT and Plutonia have their own stories which take place after Doom 2. However, in terms of difficulty, it's best to start with TNT. It's slighty tougher than Doom 2, but still accessible for amateur players. Plutonia, on the other hand, is made strictly for the veterans who are looking for a more formidable challenge, as throughout the entire mepset, the difficulty of Plutonia goes over the top and never lets up from start to finish.

[Lila Feuer]

For me TNT is first, it's harder than D2 but nothing obscene or specific. Plutonia makes an excellent finale to the classic Doom series as it goes all out.

[sesq]

I'd personally follow TNT's official statement, as they worked on part of it, which states TNT is first. When first trying final doom I started with plutonia for some reason, though I didn't get far at all. When I did get through it, I went TNT->Plutonia, which is what I recommend.

[Gerardo194]

Maybe I should have a try starting TNT first and Plutonia later. I started Plutonia first because the story made more sense to me.