Doom 2 In City Only
By myolden et al. - 36 Maps
Format: MBF21
[Download]
Started: September 18th 2025
Finished: September 27th 2025
Status: Completed
Fucking wow. Originally I meant to do something special for the 50th wad I reviewed but what I had in mind wasn't really coming together so I just picked a random one from my list, and it ended up being special after all, just not really in the best way. Doom 2 In City Only is, a lot. There's some fantastic stuff in here despite a rough start, but by the end it turns into an exhausting and excruciatingly difficult slog. The variety in theming keeps things fresh throughout, with the Eviternity 2 thing of 6 episodes of 5 maps, each with a secret map. It seems like a pretty standard affair for the first 4 episodes, a few difficulty spikes but nothing ridiculous, though the secret maps aren't very good, but the end of episode 4 being a Sunlust-tier slaughtermap isn't an anomaly, it's a warning sign. Episode 5 kneecaps the pacing with an insanely long opening map that's decently fun, then a weird experimental atmospheric map with no music, and the absolute showstopper that is Map 23, a 2 and a half hour long slaughter gauntlet that lags the hell out of the game if you're on GZDoom like I was. You get a break from the nightmare if you somehow beat the diabolical secret fight and go to the secret map, but the next map will put you right back into hell. Map 24 is a godawful mostly flat giant square box with basically random enemies spammed all over the place, 6 keys also slapped down in seemingly random locations, and a horrendous gimmick where you need to keep picking up blur spheres or you instantly die. Even without the gimmick this map would still be bad due to the slapdash design but the gimmick makes an already bad map even worse. After that, map 25 just being a breezy and straightforward slaughtermap feels like a break despite the difficulty. If episode 5 was the worst it got I could still brush it off by at least being somewhat thematically fitting (it is the hell episode after all), but episode 6 will break your soul if you were somehow hanging on after episode 5. The opener gives you a chill-ish time with some cool visuals but everything after that is hour long slaughtermaps that kinda blend together due to some kinda samey visual design, with the secret map being your only respite once again. Map 29 damn near broke me, it feels unreasonably insane to do, almost like its lacking difficulty settings entirely, which guess what IT FUCKING IS. In concept it's a fantastic way to end the mapset, with 6 themed arenas (one for each episode of the wad), but 4 rocket launcher only slaughter fights with very little room to move and almost no healing or armor, followed by a small break arena where you finally get the bfg, and ending with one absolute gauntlet that summons tons of waves of powerful enemies, ending with an archvile tsunami spilling out of the exit door is a LOT to deal with, and the lack of difficulty balancing makes this an excruciating nightmare that will completely destroy you if you're not a doom expert. After the hell gauntlet you've been through, the final Icon of Sin fight is a formality at best, and feels like a massive anticlimax, though I guess I prefer this over another hour long hell gauntlet. I wish the final 1/3rd of this wad wasn't such a nightmare because there's a lot of really good maps in here (Map 8, Map 13, Map 20, Map 23, Map 35, Map 36), but fuck the low points of this wad make it unreasonable for most people to beat, and even if you're a doom god the number of marathon maps that take at least an hour to beat will make this a slog for basically everyone. Despite this I can't deny how memorable the experience of those last 2 episodes was, and that at least somewhat makes up for the misery.
Addendum: Apparently ALL of myolden's maps (excluding Map 1) don't have difficulty settings implemented which is kinda weird considering he was the project lead. Only map 29 really suffers because of it (though this explains why map 11 felt a little wack as well) but it's still a little frustrating. I know implementing difficulty settings isn't easy but considering all the other hard slaughtermaps did it feels a little bullshit to not at least try.
Rating - ⭐⭐⭐½
Favorite Map - Map 23: "Idumea"
Least Favorite Map - Map 24: "Blur Affinity"