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And there goes Sunlust, and what a ride it was. So first things first, Sunlust is a 32-level megawad consisting of challenging levels. It does not feature new enemies, but comes with a new background screen, an atmospheric, sometimes epic soundtrack, and new textures for most if not all levels making them look absolutely beautiful which adds to the overall experience. it also comes with new (non serious) intermission screens but they're just there without adding anything. The gameplay is similar to that of other megawads such as AV or HR in general, with a number of maps having only little over a hundred or a few hundred enemies and the maps rely on smart placement to offer a challenge, which applies even to some of the slaughter inspired levels, although they mostly rely on the sheer numbers of enemies in various kinds of encounters. Many levels also feature suicide exits but unlike megawads such as Ancient Aliens, Valiant, Scythe and so on which have them every 8 maps or so which usually signalize an upcoming increase in difficulty and sometimes split the megawad in episodes a la Doom 1, they're placed randomly here as a surprise element. You might run into a suicide exit and the upcoming level might feature hundreds of enemies, while others might feature little over a hundred, you never know. And yet the difficulty doesn't change, it's almost like the authors put them there just so that you have to pistol start a map every now and then but not to scare you with a spike in difficulty. It's an interesting experience nonetheless. Many of the later levels have the enemies in plain sight but in a sleeping state, with their backs facing you. This was probably done to offer the players who haven't played the megawad before (those who do a blind playthrough like I did) time to observe the surroundings and come up with a plan of sorts before jumping into the action or getting assaulted by enemies, which is something welcome for me. I've always had the impression that megawads such as Valiant and AA don't really want you to jump into the action without any knowledge of the levels, and in consequence involve quite a bit of trial and error before figuring out an optimal route. This might be a plus for some players, but not for those who just want to enjoy a new megawad from the very first playthrough, and in the case of Sunlust, I'd say it doesn't fall under the trial and error category, so if it's your first time playing it and are at least a decent player you're fine, no serious reason to worry about dying due to not knowing what lies ahead, and traps are easily recognizable most of the time as well. On the subject of difficulty, what I have accidentally discovered while watching a video of MAP30 is that the levels themselves seem to be different on other settings than UV. Considering that UV is targeted at the most skilled players from the description I had chosen to play Sunlust on HMP this time around (I might be insane but not to that degree), and one thing I've noticed is that MAP30 was different on UV. The yellow key is somewhere else, there's more teleporters in a place, and some secret areas seem to work differently, particularly the Cyberdemon room. It would seem that the deadly platform in the middle didn't instantly kill them once activated for some reason. Or maybe I ran into a bug? I don't know, but what's certain is that it did not work for me. Something else that I have noticed is that a number of maps also feature optional areas. I realized this after I finished these maps with only 50-60% kills, so if your target is maxing out everything keep in mind that you'll have to take a detour. The levels are also fair, with the exception of an Arch-Vile room in MAP29. "Go Fuck Yourself" they said. Indeed, good luck avoiding waves of Imps and a few Hell Knights while hiding behind a moving wall with a bunch of Arch-Viles behind it in a small, circular room. Ingenious, I must admit this. As about my favorite maps, well, that's a difficult question considering that the vast majority of levels are gorgeous and provide solid gameplay, but the ones I liked the most are MAP09, MAP10, MAP16, MAP18, MAP19, MAP27, and MAP28. The levels in general explore a variety of themes and locations: Some are "natural", while others are mysterious with a magic atmosphere, cavernous, hellish, surreal, futuristic, and so on. The first few levels also remind me of Requiem. As for the ones I disliked, that's going to be MAP30. The starting area looked pretty interesting, but everything else was just "alright", with a few ugly rooms before the location of the yellow key. This level doesn't feature a typical Icon of Sin boss, it's a slaughter level with almost 2000 enemies. Most certainly not bad, but not fantastic either, yet a fitting conclusion to the journey. And with this I think I've covered pretty much everything. Another solid megawad, well worth the time.