I keep screaming, but the Casalis won't answer...
On a more serious note, this still holds up splendidly and is one of my go-to mapsets for a quick run. The Casali brothers have left an indelible mark on Doom modding history in multiple ways. The most important is the sharp increase in difficulty compared to most other mapsets of the time, and the creation of a community focused on challenge and smart enemy usage. Plutonia’s approach to combat is relatively unique amongst its contemporaries. It primarily uses short maps and sharp combat encounters, with an emphasis on “gotcha” traps. The focus on traps does falter somewhat. There’s the arbitrary first-time punishment and how the traps become trivial with the mere knowledge of their existence. This format still inspired more puzzle-like combat encounters in future mapsets where the goal is to figure out the ideal strategy. Further, one can’t deny the Casalis’ remarkable intuition for enemy usage. Chaingunners with their constant firing, creating massive areas of denial; Revenants with their speed and homing missiles, forcing players out a lot more; Archviles with their enemy resurrection, resurrecting enemies. A lot of these now basic enemy use cases first had to be demonstrated in Plutonia, and the community took note.
Another mark is how the Casalis abandoned the experimental realism that characterized most 90s mapsets, and instead opted for a singular jungle prison aesthetic throughout. Funnily enough, despite Plutonia ripping off a lot of Doom 1/2 maps for level layouts and being draped in enough BROWN to make Quake proud, the “Plutonia” aesthetic still looks much better than most of its contemporaries and is actively emulated to this day.
It still has flaws for sure. Later maps lose a lot of their bite and become tedious to UV-Max. The starts to certain maps are questionably bullshit (even if I find them somewhat cute.) And it arguably needs some curation and reordering, since the difficulty curve oscillates like Quake’s quality (before crashing, like Quake’s quality.) However, what Plutonia manages to accomplish with its gameplay design and its legacy in Doom mapping cannot be overstated.
Also being like the one 90s mapset that’s still fun to play has gotta count for something…
On a more serious note, this still holds up splendidly and is one of my go-to mapsets for a quick run. The Casali brothers have left an indelible mark on Doom modding history in multiple ways. The most important is the sharp increase in difficulty compared to most other mapsets of the time, and the creation of a community focused on challenge and smart enemy usage. Plutonia’s approach to combat is relatively unique amongst its contemporaries. It primarily uses short maps and sharp combat encounters, with an emphasis on “gotcha” traps. The focus on traps does falter somewhat. There’s the arbitrary first-time punishment and how the traps become trivial with the mere knowledge of their existence. This format still inspired more puzzle-like combat encounters in future mapsets where the goal is to figure out the ideal strategy. Further, one can’t deny the Casalis’ remarkable intuition for enemy usage. Chaingunners with their constant firing, creating massive areas of denial; Revenants with their speed and homing missiles, forcing players out a lot more; Archviles with their enemy resurrection, resurrecting enemies. A lot of these now basic enemy use cases first had to be demonstrated in Plutonia, and the community took note.
Another mark is how the Casalis abandoned the experimental realism that characterized most 90s mapsets, and instead opted for a singular jungle prison aesthetic throughout. Funnily enough, despite Plutonia ripping off a lot of Doom 1/2 maps for level layouts and being draped in enough BROWN to make Quake proud, the “Plutonia” aesthetic still looks much better than most of its contemporaries and is actively emulated to this day.
It still has flaws for sure. Later maps lose a lot of their bite and become tedious to UV-Max. The starts to certain maps are questionably bullshit (even if I find them somewhat cute.) And it arguably needs some curation and reordering, since the difficulty curve oscillates like Quake’s quality (before crashing, like Quake’s quality.) However, what Plutonia manages to accomplish with its gameplay design and its legacy in Doom mapping cannot be overstated.
Also being like the one 90s mapset that’s still fun to play has gotta count for something…