Liminal Doom 2
By dashlet - 7 Maps
Format: MBF21
[Download]
Started: May 8th 2025
Finished: May 10th 2025
Status: Completed
Better than the first one in a few minor ways but worse in all the ones that matter most. Liminal Doom 2 does feel a lot more liminal than the first one (at least at a few points), but everywhere else it suffers from some very annoying fights, jank puzzles i never fully understood, and even more jank platforming and timed lifts. The two maps that have zero enemies and are just vibes and exploration show off the sequels strengths very nicely, and the vibes are overall better even in the other maps, but liminal doom 1 had a much better handle on actually being fun to play when it comes to incorporating enemies and standard doom combat. Map 5 has a really cool concept that also does not work super well. You've got a clock in the center that progresses forward an hour every 2 minutes, with some doors opening after certain times, and reaching midnight summons a horde of enemies to completely destroy you. It's kinda hard to navigate and it's impossible to tell what gates open from a certain time and what gates open from standard level progression. Getting the normal bad ending exit isn't too bad, i couldn't figure out how to access the yellow key switch but the rest of it was ok. Getting the secret good ending exit though. ????????????? There's a ton of hidden stuff all over the map I could barely stomach searching for, and having to do all that on a 24 minute death timer sounds absolutely miserable. I think i found the secret exit via noclip cheese but it took me to the bad ending map anyway so I have no idea. The true ending map (that i warped to via console) is pretty neat, and I'd like to see the original liminal doom get retextured in that style someday. Overall I think liminal doom 2 is almost always a worse experience than the first one, with some very occasional higher highs. There's 2 bonus maps I didn't feel like playing so who knows if those are good or not, but I just wanted to be done with this wad.
Addendum on map 5: Someone made a video compiling what happens at specific times and WOW it's even more complicated than i thought. A bunch of paths are only active for a single hour rather than being permanently opened, meaning if you miss them you either reset the map from scratch or wait around for an eternity for the clock to cycle back around. The death horde at midnight also doesn't spawn on normal mode either, but I mistook a random big swarm of revenants as being that, the actual midnight apocalypse is much worse. Still a cool concept, but not very fun.
Rating - ⭐⭐½
Favorite Map - Map 4: "Fading Memories"
Least Favorite Map - Map 5: "Threshold"