smolVenom

I really love the look of BTSX and this might just be my favorite view from any game in general.

I think the first one was Japanese Community Project, which isn't the most difficult thing in the world, but it was really fun and was my earliest exposure to this whole Doom thing. After that was Toilet of the Gods. Don't remember where I had heard about it, but I thought I'd take a look and well it didn't really turn out well. I just resorted to every cheat that GZDoom had to offer after failing to get passed the hell knights at the very beginning. Just for reference, I only played Doom 2 before I jumped into all the PWAD shenanigans, so I definitely wasn't ready for the more difficult offerings. I still really enjoyed it regardless, even if I haven't even finished it legit to this day. I'm not the best Doom player, but I'm definitely way better than I was in 2016, so maybe I should go back to it sometime. Third one would probably be Newgothic Movement 1, which I was also woefully unprepared for. I think around that time I had just heard about the Metroid Dreadnaught mod and I wanted some stuff to check that out with, so I downloaded whatever I could find. Somehow it ended up being Newgothic Movement 1 and I was still struggling despite the mod. I didn't like it as much as the previous two and I decided to just not touch it again. I did check it out again when I was messing around with GZDoom after dropping it for PrBoom+, and there are some really cool levels in there. I wish I could've appreciated them more all those years ago, but oh well, can't change all that, but I do realize now that it's actually really cool. If there's one thing I've learned about myself from this it's that I just get too ahead of myself sometimes. Even when I was getting more into classic Doom in 2019, I started with Hell Revealed II, so clearly I just like making things hard on myself. Still though, I think these were really cool WADs to start out with as JPCP showed me how whimsical and special community-made offerings can get, while the other two served to show my long road to being alright at the game. It's not like I can beat either of them yet, but I'm getting there!

What I do is finish a WAD continuously the first time around, and if there are certain maps that really stuck out to me, I try to pistol start and no save those maps as an extra challenge to what I enjoyed. I've never finished a megaWAD pistol starting every map, nor do I think I ever will (mostly because I'm not that good at the game), so really for me it's a map by map basis. Is the map well balanced to make the experience challenging, yet fair? Is it anymore fun to play this map from pistol start than it is with continuous play? How many times do I see myself failing at this map before it just gets repetitive and exhausting? I just ask myself questions like these before I decide to dive into the pistol start gauntlet because sometimes it just doesn't work out for me. Of course, most maps nowadays are tested to make sure they're able to be completed from a pistol start, but that just doesn't stop some of them from feeling unfun to me. After pistol starting several maps myself, I do definitely understand the appeal, I enjoy doing it myself most of the time, but I just feel like I wouldn't be able to complete a full 32 map WAD pistol starting every map because most maps just don't feel refined enough to be enjoyable to beat from a pistol start. Still good maps, of course, just not enough for me to make it worth the stress that comes with pistol starting.

It's Persona 4 Golden for me, at 127 hours right now. I don't play games on Steam much, let alone on my PC besides Minecraft and Doom, so Persona 4 probably won't be topped soon, but I'm not one to say never. Metal Gear Solid V is my second most played game though, around the 50 hour range I think. I bought Resident Evil 4 on Steam recently, and I've been dying to play that one, so maybe it'll be up there too.

I'd say definitely when I was trying to UV-Max The Mucus Flow from pistol start and no saves. Took me a few weeks, and a good amount of my sanity will never recover from it, but at least I can say I beat it! It did feel great to finish, but man was it one of the most difficult and frustrating things I've ever done in my life.

I'd definitely my most favorite of all time has to be mechadon. Every map of his that I've played just feels so grand and adventurous, like the world'll explode and everyone in the universe ever will die if I don't finish this, and I like that feeling a lot. Every fight of his maps feel so refined and perfectly crafted and I always get so excited to face the next monsters that get in my way. My most favorite map ever has to be BTSX E2's map 25 for sure, I feel the weight of the world every time I play it and that sense of grandeur leaves me stunned every time. Other than that, names like skillsaw, esselfortium, ribbiks, xaser, and nanka kurashiki always get me really excited to kill demons

Probably this, just the idea of a demon-infested oceanfront facility is so cool to me

Alright so you're playing doom, right? And like Doomguy is nearsighted. So my idea is that you walk around the level, the graphics are blurry as hell, this is SNES Doom type graphics, and it goes away when you pick up the glasses powerup. Be careful not to move your head too fast or the glasses fly off and you go blind again and have to find another pair of glasses. I think it'd be a fun mod.

Playing a few games right now. First, Cave Story: my friend really wanted me to finish this one ever since I started back in late 2018, but I've only just recently gotten around to it. It's cute and fun. Music is pretty good, too, but it's nothing too special if you ask me. There are points that I think are a little too frustrating for my own liking. The bosses are especially mean to me sometimes. Maybe I'm just bad? No, no, of course not... Blame the game, I'm not lackluster, it's the game! But yeah, I was convinced because my friend was like "play Cave Story and I'll play Super Metroid that you keep telling me to play" so hopefully she gets around to that soon. Persona 5 Strikers: continuation of the Persona 5 story, which I enjoyed. It's alright so far, I feel like I'm totally spaghetti at the gameplay, but I still have fun with it. The characters are fun as always. Music is fantastic, as expected from Persona. Overall, not bad, but I actually haven't even gotten that far into it yet. Oopsies. Minecraft: this game is fun. Of course, I've also been playing a lot a lot a lot of classic Doom lately. I've recently finished Alien Vendetta, map 25 was a personally favorite of mine for how terrible it made me feel, but in a really magical way that I enjoyed. I'm currently playing through Going Down, and geez these maps are brutal actually. I played up to map 11 the other day and I just died so so much, it was actually insane. It's pretty fun though, the really weird ass music gives it a nice touch. I've also been loading up miscellaneous maps to record and upload to my youtube channel, mostly for my own amusement, but I do share them with some people because I think it's cool to share. Most important of all is The Ancient Gods Part 2 tomorrow, super looking forward to that one!