The Plutonia Experiment
By Dario Casali and Milo Casali - 32 Maps
Format: IWAD
[Download N/A because I'd rather not go to prison]
[Download for the Plutonia MIDI Pack]
Started: May 27th 2025
Finished: June 3rd 2025
Status: Completed
(Played using the unofficial Plutonia MIDI Pack)
While it's no absolute masterpiece, Plutonia holds up surprisingly well for being one of the original official doom 2 releases. Its infamously high difficulty is definitely a bit overexaggerated though. The first episode will absolutely bash your head in with some really mean and kinda bullshit traps, but things start calming down a little after that, and everything after map 15 is a lot more reasonable and less unfair than the beginning. Even the infamous "Hunted" and "Go 2 It" aren't as hard as some of the nonsense you'll see at the start. There are quite a few maps with some very obtuse progression, especially in the beginning, and Plutonia uses the key and skull switch indicators in different ways across various levels which sometimes makes it hard to tell what you open directly with a key, what you need to open with a switch that needs that key, or what is just a signpost telling you that the respective key is beyond that door. I also found the inconsistency in damaging floor types very annoying, as you constantly have to relearn what is and isn't hazardous every time you enter a new map. If you're going to play this I highly suggest using the midi pack though. By default Plutonia uses a mixture of Doom 1 and 2 songs, which unfortunately mostly suck, but the unique compositions from the midi pack are much better, and make several of these maps substantially more fun to exist in.
Rating - ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Favorite Map - Map 32: "Go 2 It"
Least Favorite Map - Map 12: "Speed"