Played on Ultra-Violence with continous play on GZDoom with freelook enabled.
Eviternity 1 was a landmark in doom mapping, in my eyes it's the closest we've gotten to a true spiritual successor to Scythe 2, a WAD that may be my favorite of all time, so the news of a sequel blew me away and made me giddy to see what Dragonfly and crew have cooked up this time but after finishing my feelings are incredibly conflicted.
Eviternity 2 feels bigger and badder as a sequel should with a new weapon and new enemies but their implementation is messy. The new weapon is incredibly powerful and a worthy reward for completing secret maps but if playing pistol start there aren't many instances where you'll be able to fully utlize it's strengths due to it being a secret map reward. Meanwhile the new enemies are a mixed bag with the new soldier and baron being scary foes while the necromancer and nightmare cacodemons being more annoying than fun to fight, especially in closed enviroments.
Themeing has also taken a small hit, areas still look gorgeous as ever with clever usage of OTEX textures but the concrete sites of episode 3 and partial repeat of Evi1's first episode in episode 4 have blurred together in my mind after completion. That said the revisit of the angelic theme as a opener instead of a closer was lovely to see and there are other highlights in the episode 2, 5 and the secret maps. What also doesn't help the themeing is the sense of progression with some episode finales feeling more like a middle chapter than a true end to it's episode, this is especially felt in episodes with a secret map prior to it's finale (E2/E6) or had a more grander map just before (E3/5).
I may sound incredibly harsh in this brief, messy write up but there is still lots to enjoy. The soundtrack is once again incredible and there are some truly great maps and encounters. I mainly wanted to highlight my issues as previously stated, Eviternity 2 left me conflicted in terms of how I felt in regards to the whole experience. That said I still recommend the WAD, there's a strong likelihood you'll enjoy it's experimental maps more than I did and hell, maybe on a replay I will enjoy it more as well but when compared to the original, Eviternity 2 is just good and not incredible.
Favorite Maps: 05, 08, 32, 14, 24
Least Favorite Maps: 33, 25, 30
Eviternity 1 was a landmark in doom mapping, in my eyes it's the closest we've gotten to a true spiritual successor to Scythe 2, a WAD that may be my favorite of all time, so the news of a sequel blew me away and made me giddy to see what Dragonfly and crew have cooked up this time but after finishing my feelings are incredibly conflicted.
Eviternity 2 feels bigger and badder as a sequel should with a new weapon and new enemies but their implementation is messy. The new weapon is incredibly powerful and a worthy reward for completing secret maps but if playing pistol start there aren't many instances where you'll be able to fully utlize it's strengths due to it being a secret map reward. Meanwhile the new enemies are a mixed bag with the new soldier and baron being scary foes while the necromancer and nightmare cacodemons being more annoying than fun to fight, especially in closed enviroments.
Themeing has also taken a small hit, areas still look gorgeous as ever with clever usage of OTEX textures but the concrete sites of episode 3 and partial repeat of Evi1's first episode in episode 4 have blurred together in my mind after completion. That said the revisit of the angelic theme as a opener instead of a closer was lovely to see and there are other highlights in the episode 2, 5 and the secret maps. What also doesn't help the themeing is the sense of progression with some episode finales feeling more like a middle chapter than a true end to it's episode, this is especially felt in episodes with a secret map prior to it's finale (E2/E6) or had a more grander map just before (E3/5).
I may sound incredibly harsh in this brief, messy write up but there is still lots to enjoy. The soundtrack is once again incredible and there are some truly great maps and encounters. I mainly wanted to highlight my issues as previously stated, Eviternity 2 left me conflicted in terms of how I felt in regards to the whole experience. That said I still recommend the WAD, there's a strong likelihood you'll enjoy it's experimental maps more than I did and hell, maybe on a replay I will enjoy it more as well but when compared to the original, Eviternity 2 is just good and not incredible.
Favorite Maps: 05, 08, 32, 14, 24
Least Favorite Maps: 33, 25, 30