TNT: Overcharged
By Veemon - 37 Maps
Format: Boom
[Download]
Started: September 16th 2026
Finished: September 20th 2026
Status: Completed
If you've ever talked to me about Doom for any length of time you'll know I adore TNT: Evilution. Despite its status as the generally least liked of the four main Doom IWADs, TNT wins vibes-wise over Doom, Doom 2, and Plutonia for me despite being kinda weak gameplay-wise, and so any amount of TNT-related stuff is always a treat. TNT: Revilution is a slam dunk of a wad that I REALLY enjoyed, TNT 2: Devilution uhhhh exists, and the Drake O'Brien Ovational Megawad captures a lot of TNT's good points despite me not personally enjoying it too much as a whole. So when I was told about TNT: Overcharged I was immediately excited to give it a look. Unlike most of the other TNT projects, Overcharged intentionally bills itself as a remake of the original TNT, with the stated goal being: "Taking the good things from TNT and deleting the bad." The early maps of TNT: Overcharged stick fairly close to TNT's original maps, just with a lot more detailing and MUCH harder/more hectic combat. Overcharged is ABSOLUTELY the right name for this wad, because Veemon loves throwing closets of hitscanners at you and is not subtle about Archvile placements. It never becomes so bad that it reaches unfair levels of nonsense, but it's definitely not a kind first impression. Map 4 "Doppelganger" is a great reinterpretation of TNT's original Map 4, same for Map 7 "FreedomLess". TNTO's secret maps are both very interesting for me to talk about, TNT's original Map 31 is my favorite in the entire wad, so Overcharged's Map 31 "Lost Lullaby" was one of my most anticipated maps in here, but unfortunately I think a lot is lost thanks to TNTO's general goal of massively overtuning the combat flow. It's not bad, and I do really like the music, but it comes nowhere near to hitting the same beats that made me like "Pharaoh" so much. Meanwhile Map 32 "Final Doom", is... GOD DAMN. It's potentially one of the HARDEST Doom maps I've ever managed to beat. The concept is cute, mashing together rooms from TNT and Plutonia (both halves of Final Doom, hence the name) and filling it with tons and tons of enemies, but in execution it's just FAR too brutalizing, even compared to TNTO's already generally harder than average combat. And if that wasn't enough, no matter what difficulty setting you stumble into here on, you're stuck with the exact same experience. Yes it's a reference to Plutonia Map 32, but still. I got one hell of a rush from managing to beat it, and had a lot of fun at points, but I'm also a lunatic. For the average player this map will be completely and totally impossible, and someone generally enjoying the TNT vibe while going through this on one of the easy difficulty settings will get permanently walled forever. Map 18 "Breaking the Rules" introduces TNTO's one and only custom enemy, aaaand it sucks. The Cursed Archvile, is completely visually and mechanically identical to regular Archviles except for two things: 1. They have half the health of a normal Archvile, and 2. Unlike normal Archviles, they CAN be resurrected after death. For a single map gimmick I suppose it wouldn't be too bad, but later maps do use them in alongside regular Archviles, which is incredibly frustrating to deal with considering they look the exact same. Map 21 "TNTPhobia" is in a VERY weird spot because it's also a standalone release single map made by a totally different person, and I think it works significantly better in that context. It's a lengthy horror-ish walking simulator through corrupted slices of every TNT map, full of impressive mapping trickery and some cool sequences. It'll take you at least half an hour just to go through normally, but if you wanna get to TNTO's second set of secret maps legitimately you'll have to perform a brain-meltingly difficult scavenger hunt for a bunch of hidden Doomguys to open the super super super secret true ending, which could easily take several hours. I can see the standalone release of this map being a great time for some people, but when placed into the middle of a regular megawad it sticks out like a sore thumb. Thankfully the second set of secret maps isn't especially worth playing. "Works Steel" is just a significantly worse version of TNT's Map 14 that I can't really see the reasoning behind, and "Bricks Can Scream" just feels like a weird outtake map. Unfortunately everything beyond this point starts to fall apart. As Veemon starts to totally abandon TNT's original blueprint, the maps mostly become indistinct realms of hell, flesh, FIREBLU, some random Plutonia references, and annoying flickering light sectors. Due to tons of behind the scenes scripting and linedef actions seemingly being broken, I couldn't even finish some of these maps properly, which is fine because I was starting to lose interest in TNTO anyways. Knowing there weren't gonna be any interesting remakes of TNT's "Habitat", "Mount Pain", or "Last Call" kinda sapped the remaining energy right out of me. I suppose having a bad hell episode is on brand for a TNT tribute, but it lacks the proper charm to still be a little enjoyable. There's 3 extra bonus maps which are just maps 28-30 but even harder than before, which I didn't care enough to play myself, but they're there if you want. One last I explicitly DON'T appreciate about this wad is Veemon's general approach to humor, especially with the text screens. I get not wanting to write text screens if you're not a great writer/don't have anything interesting you want to do with them, but when you're having text screens filled with stuff like "The flameboys zap u so damn hard, u fly very very far away, further away than shreks swamp from far far away", or "The plot isnt good I know. But come on if youre playing doom looking for a good story youre so fucking lost.", and spending an entire text screen calling TNT's last 10 maps "shitty", you really aren't winning any favors from me. All the enemies in the final cast sequence have also been renamed, with such truly comedic masterpieces as: "When U dont know how to fill the enemy count" (Imp), "Baron of Hell made in China" (Hell Knight), and "Protein of Coronavirus" (Pain Elemental). All the guns and powerups also apparently used to have custom pickup messages which have thankfully been removed since they were even more stupid. (the Chaingun was called the "Hitscan Raper", Berserk used to be "The Jerk Hand", and the Radsuit used to be the "Coronavirus Suit") I also don't really like the changes made to the difficulty names. They've gone from the usual "I'm Too Young To Die -> Hey, Not Too Rough -> Hurt Me Plenty -> Ultra Violence -> Nightmare!" to, uhhh "Skill Issue -> GG IZI Tutorial -> Hitscan Me Plenty -> Ultra-Archviolence -> Zero Master's Breakfast". Are these petty complaints? Yeah kinda, but this is my blog so I can do what I want. Veemon is clearly a talented mapper, everything here is packed with tiny details and impressive Boom trickery (when it works), and their passion for TNT is evident, but Overcharged's very inconsistent combat balancing, random sprinkles of unfitting joke shenanigans, tendancy for magnum opus syndrome at times, and final act flop hold it back pretty significantly.
Rating - ⭐⭐⭐
Favorite Map - Map 4: "Doppelganger"
Least Favorite Map - Map 29: "Evilution"