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And thus Lunatic was finished, rather quickly too, played through GlBoom+ 2.5.1.5 on UV. So this would basically be the predecessor to Valiant considering that the theme and gameplay style would end up in skillsaw's later work Valiant. It features only 5 levels taking place exclusively on the moon both inside and outside of various bases. The wad features a new background menu, music, new enemies, namely variations of the Shotgun Guy and Chaingunner who use Plasma rifles and Rocket Launchers respectively, new textures, but no new status bar, weapon/enemy sounds, or ENDOOM screen. Compared to skillsaw's other 2 projects that I have played, namely Ancient Aliens and the previously mentioned Valiant, the biggest difference would probably be the difficulty. Lunatic is an easy-to-medium wad with low enemy counts, whereas the other 2 megawads are hard with high enemy counts that are targeted primarily at veterans or very skilled players, AA fitting especially well in this category. The maps are pretty short, compact, and straightforward with a few secrets that are generally easy to find, with the final level being a surprisingly short slaughter map with little over 300 enemies, which also features a MIDI rendition of Europe's "The Final Countdown" and is named after the track. Indeed, a very nice conclusion to the short expedition. Considering that there's so few levels and there's nothing really making any of them stand out of the crowd (don't misunderstand, I don't think this is a problem in this case) with the possible exception of MAP05 which changes the style to slaughter, there's not much else to add, so in short, although skillsaw would later proceed to create 2 masterpieces, Lunatic lays the foundation on which Valiant will rise. It anticipates an epic journey while settings the standards high, delivering 5 action packed, beautiful, atmospheric, short and straight-to-the-point levels that are real fun to play. It only took me one hour to finish it so time really shouldn't be an issue. As it was the case of CS2 it was so fun I kinda wish it was longer, but this makes it perfect for those times when you just want to play some Doom but investing considerable amounts of time isn't exactly possible as it can easily be beaten in one sitting. Would highly recommend this to anyone, one hour of quality.

Done with these settings: - Crispy Doom 5.3. - Ultra-Violence. - Continuous combined with pistol start mindset. - Saves every 10 minutes or so. A nice peculiar set of maps by authors from the Russian community. This is (mostly) an adventure lengthy episode that features an extensive package of custom cool textures, flats, amazing skies and other stuff to give shape to the story, which more or less revolves around the apocalypse. The design favors an hypothetical realism, apparently it begins in your nightmare, and when you wake up, you see humanity had gone forever. Truth of the fact is, after the first couple of maps (the second being a very realistic deserted city), it's hard to tell where the plot is going to, until the intermission screens vaguely tell the rest. Well, I'm not one who plays Doom for the stories. Anyways, in aesthetics, this wad wins the prize, the usage of stock textures in most maps is really beautiful, sometimes inclining to the standard OG Doom style and in other cases in impressive scenery, such as the giant cavern and several boats in map 11. A thing that characterizes Sacrament is the absence of light throughout the maps. The skies also contribute for that, for better or worse. It's not like you can't see nothing, but the moments you need to stop monsters like spectres it can turn harrowing, and I fancy darkness a lot. In fact, my favourites cases were maps 12 and 13, all the spooky ambient was darn intense to explore through. Sacrament also comes with a lot of music in ogg format, I believe part of it are Russian songs or tracks from other games. Either way I found them fitting, and weird sometimes, but that's ok. I'm not sure if the designers took inspiration from anything else, or if its approximation to Eternal Doom is mere coincidence. Probably not, considering the trickery in the second map, but a way to describe Sacrament in a nutshell could be "touristy". The maps range from mid to large sized and focus primarily on the visual-atmosphere department, and there's no complain on that side. They also require your inner explorer to take command of the situation in most maps, which not always is your standard key hunt, and the task becomes a mad search for what to do next in the sprawling non-linear affairs (not in the level of Eternal Doom, but close). In between, you get some smoother classical entries, with an iwad-difficulty tone in progression and encounters, even an obvious imitation of a TNT level. Speaking about monsters, it's light on threat for the most part, sometimes underwhelming in connection to the space, and other times you'll beg for some light to see your opposition better. Again, I'm not against the combat in very dark areas, it adds some tension, and at least while they're not loaded with zombies. On another side, the new weapon sprites were a bit of a letdown, looking dull and almost hard to distinguish, particularly the shotguns, and I don't know what the new BFG sprite is supposed to resemble, not that there was any crucial moment to actually test it. Besides, they fact they're not centered confused my aim in many occasions, but I guess crosshair users will omit that. Secret-wise, the more complex a map is, the more secrets you can find. This may sound redundant but for a secret hunter like me, it's been generally well received, though a shame when it didn't felt like a true reward: I would have liked something more blood-pumping after the skull hunt in "Doxylamine Moon", instead of walking around a second time to find a few shells to confront a weak invasion. Favourite map was 13, and maps 03, 06, 07, 08 and 12 were fun too. The only map I disliked was 04, not a fan of maps that ultra straightforward maps, nor when they deprive you from kills. The rest didn't impress me in gameplay terms, but Azamael's maps did on the artistic side. Overall, Sacrament is worth to check every deep nook as much as the human eye can see. For what typical Doom gameplay concerns -murdering monsters, then hit exit switch-, it might be wise to overlook this or part of it, as there exists an elder counterpart called "Da Will", but for a trip through whatever post-apocalyptic puzzle-ish context the wad takes place in, look no further. Oh and, mind using a Boom compatible source port for map 10 if you plan on maxing it. Anyway, my rate is 6,5/10.

Done with these settings: - GLBoom+ 2.5.1.4. complevel 9. - Hurt Me Plenty. - Continuous combined with a pistol start mindset. - Saves every 10 minutes or so. Important thing: if you want to fully attempt each map of the megawad, load jenefix.wad which can be found here. I say this because I found myself with a few bugs I'll mention below. Onto the review... This wad is pretty impressive, a truly fun set that manages to be a tough and nice experience. The author did a solid job on polishing the maps to look really good, using the Plutonia resources as well as many textures from some well-known megawads like Memento Mori and Requiem. It's a set that the more you advance, the greater it is visually. I was very sold on the theme-progression, the tech/brown structures predominates in the first two episodes, but it is also mixed with sewers (lots of slime), crates rooms, caves, open highways, tombs, golden lakes omg, and much more, and it culminates inside hell, and I'm not just talking about red bricks. About details, well I couldn't be more impressed with the lightning usage in certain maps, it's mostly all bright enough for you to see where you are, but for example in map 29 there's little to no light variation, which boosts its already creepy and fleshy theme. Oh, can we talk about the skies? Every map has a different sky, my favourites are the blue one in map 12 and the red one with two moons(?) in map 22. I also loved the soundtrack, many recognizable midis from other wads as well as new ones, the one in map 26 was my favourite, and the one in map 29 that sounds like anything from Going Down. If you have played any of the wads Jimmy payed tribute, you can have a general overview of what Jenesis is about. Yes, this isn't a walk in the park, neither a disagreeable torture. Maps are medium-sized, typically with key hunts along with switches, linear and non-linear progression, varied in scenarios: lock-in traps or incidental ambushes right after a door or a switch pressed, or nothing at all, just a lonely key on a pedestal. I liked this as it added variety and mystery, not 100% sure if something will happen or not. For monster placement, overall it's meant to be challenging, if a bit too hitscany in some maps. There're a bunch of particular enemies that stood out in a good or bad way: chaingunners out of your aim, there are many instances of these; revenants are particularly nasty in this wad, having a lot of advantage over my movement skill, in some ways the area denies you to fully dodge homing missiles, in others it denies your accuracy, because they can be behind fake walls; archviles seemed inconsistent to me, they are either neutered by block lines or suddenly thrown with 0 cover, the "good" thing is that (on HMP) health resources are instantly given to recover, which still doesn't convince me. Regardless, there are some good archvile placement, as well as the rest of the monsters. There's a new enemy, a possessed marine, a bit stronger than a shotgunner, it's best usage is in map 29 imo. There's also a new boss, nothing you haven't seen before, well, it freaked me out a little bit. Secret-wise, the majority of the maps contain 4-5 in total, some easy to find and some not, a couple of secret fights too, the key is to know what the author used mostly to hide a secret (not just a misaligned texture), and then you'll easily find the rest. Nothing outstanding as they are usually a little cubicle containing a powerful item. For favourite maps I'll pick 06, 12, 17, 22, 24, 29. The third episode was my favourite imo as action was getting quite sharp The other maps were ok too, save 09 and the secret maps which I didn't like too much. A few bugs prevented me to max certain maps (didn't know jenefix.wad existed), in map 20 at the helipad part it is possible to block monsters to teleport in IF you press the lift's switch. In map 24 a cyberdemon may or may not teleport in at the exit section. Overall, it's recommendable, only for people who can bare tons of hitscanners. I think it would be better to play on continuous for a first time, as some maps have ammo for weapons that are nonexistent. My rate is 7,5/10

Played on UV, with saves and continuous. Valiant is one of these mapsets where people will always refer as a major influence, such as the ones like Hell Revealed, Alien Vendetta and Scythe and many others. Is it as good as them? Honestly, I didn't like Hell Revealed and Alien Vendetta at all, and Valiant thankfully has nothing compared with them: The levels are more robust, featuring much more refined visuals and gameplay. As for modern standards, I thought that Valiant would be hard as fuck, but instead I got something that was really carefully balanced, being a really tough but also very fair experience. Also, I was surprised of seeing no slaughtermaps at all. Instead, there's some slaughter-lite sections, which are much more accessible, IMO. Anyway, I think these are the two biggest quality of that wad which surprised me a lot: The very-well crafted architecture and how well the balancing was done. The architecture focus on creating a really detailed environment, but at the same time there's a lot of care to keep things very clean and easily readable. It features a lot of modern trends, where the textures are not only well aligned, but with the limits being also respected vertically, so you don't get that "cut-off" texture that we usually see when there're different ceilings and a wall texture that doesn't really match the difference. As for the themes itself, the tech-bases are creative and easy to identify as something from Valiant. The same goes for the last moon-based episode. As for the gameplay, the mapset reminded me a lot the process of mastering a song. For example, you want to keep the volume of the song loud, but at the same time you take care to avoid going too much (and then the clipping happens). Same could've been said about Valiant, where the player goes through really tough setpieces, but they're still always fair. Most of them I've died once or twice (if it happened), but after the "surprise" effect, things went a lot smoother. I believe that a more skilled player than me (especially because I suck badly in doom lol), wouldn't have much problem in these setpieces and at same time would enjoy a lot the experience. The monster placement is also really well done, and never did go into full slaughter territory, also keeping the grind level very low while forcing the player to use more interesting strategies instead of just circle-strafing or cover-fighting. The new bestiary and the new Chaingunner definitely gives more intensity and increases the pace of the gameplay. Thankfully none of the new beasts are bullet-sponge, although I don't think all of them were really necessary, but a fun addiction anyways. For the negative aspects, there's some stuff that annoyed me, which I think wouldn't mind other people, though. My main complaint would be that a good number of levels are similar to each other, which few exceptions (and some exceptions gets its concept repeated, such as MAP22 x MAP23). The mapset follows a very popular modern trend that is that mix of outdoor areas with some indoor sections, which creates some really beautiful landscapes, but at the same time some levels ends up being unremarkable because you've already had a similar experience, which gives the player a feeling of "padding". This is also increased by the fact that most levels from the same episode shares a similar textures set, so they end up having a similar look. Furthermore, episodes 1 and 3, and episodes 2 and 4 shares similar visual elements, which also enhances that feeling. There's also "two major" set of levels, which is the more linear approach and there's the hub focused maps where you have to find all the 3 keys to reach the exit. Some levels go away from that trend, though, featuring cool gameplay gimmicks (the 14 arch-ville ones and the first of the 4th episode, for example), which is a really good way to refresh things out. In the end, there's lots of really cool and unique setpieces, but I don't really remember from what levels are they from. As for the gameplay standards, the use of sniping monsters got me annoyed on some levels. Some of them are placed in odd angles and/or far away which makes them hard targets to kill, so I ended up ignoring them and kept running around. In one hand, this is good because the player has to keep moving and avoid using simple and boring tactics (cover shooting, circle-strafing), but at the same time this reduces the room to breath, the player ends taking hits from random places and sometimes the sniper is placed between cross-fires, which makes taking them down an even more annoying task. The first levels from the last episode were also a bit disappointing since I didn't find any SSG in the way and that slowed down a lot the gameplay in a not good way. At least, not but less important, the soundtrack is really well done, with some tracks making me think if they were actually MIDI's or not. They are really energetic, featuring lots of layers, complex sections and effects. My only complaint would be that they have similar style to each other (very energetic rock songs, usually featuring the "power drum kit" with multi-layered synths and guitars everywhere), so you don't end up remembering its melodies or sections because the song of the next level has also a similar feel. I believe that some less percussive tracks between the energetic ones would help pace things better and it would make the more energetic ones shine more. Still, apart for these annoyances, I don't think you can go wrong with Valiant, and the quality material surpass by far the few annoyances. Definitely a wad worth checking out, if you haven't done yet for whatever reason lol. 9/10

QUOTE: The "beta" patches that come with MBF are astronomically better than this. But that is no reason to give this 0 stars. 3/5 No they arent, the only thing that i like in MBF are Lost Soul, Barons powerball sprites and SKYBOX with 4 moons. Rest is just too close to the original. Also lack of ALPHA weapons in MBF was a big mistake.

cracking map set based on the moon, good mix of outdoor and indoor "tech-style levels" The music ranges from good to cheesy (haha yep map05) The difficulty is hard but pretty standard for modern wads. The last map is exceptionally good with a great concept. Probably a 4.5 star wad but hey I'll round it up to five. - cannonball

You don't needed a yellow keys. Need only blue key... Anyway, try the Doxylamine Moon: Overdose, I think, you will like this. ;)

what the shit? the sounds were really annoying and the new graphics replacements were useless. This wad would have been a 0/5 but instead gets 1/5 only because "Fly me to the moon" was the music for MAP01.

No doubt, the outdoor area has a great environment. That's what sold me on this wad. But, unfortunately, the maps quickly devolve from a fun, "watch your step" type setup and into relentless, brutal, and tedious traps. And, to boot, there are Nazis (looks like it to me) on the Moon (wtf? this is Doom, not Wolfenstein 3D). 1/5 for a good outdoor environment. And this promising wad is going in my Recycle Bin—what a shame.

Nice piece of crap *Sneeze* work... (Heh) Titan is a moon of SATURN! 4 stars for that!

This is Awesome. This will help make my moon base level. Also, This was the perfect pack for Sappire