While the apparent claim by John Romero that this is "the best DOOM yet" is of ambiguous veracity, I find it hard to deny that this is indeed the best possible way to experience the original DOOM and/or The Ultimate DOOM. It comes across as a "greatest hits" that compiles all the best parts of each 90s DOOM title: the top-notch level design of the original game and the enemy variety of the sequel, all glued together by the ambiance, atmosphere and mood of DOOM 64 on account of the darker color palette, dynamic lighting and Aubrey Hodges's brilliant sound work.
It's impressive how much a game's feel can change when it's given a different voice and a subtle change of wardrobe; PSX DOOM perfects the balance of horror and carnage in a manner that surpasses even DOOM 3. Even the darker colors and overall more moody take on the levels' aesthetics manages to feel wonderfully dreary without over-relying on shades of brown and gray like DOOM 2, leaving the game feeling reminiscent of System Shock with its flavor of horror imagery against colorful backdrops.
Honestly, the only real gripe I have is that in spite of how much effort was put into breathing new life into the original game they didn't have the decency to stick the Super Shotgun anywhere across all 3 episodes. It's not like I'm complaining about being forced to make use of the entirety of the original game's consistently-reliable arsenal, but there's something about the idea of being able to wield DOOM 2's crowning achievement without having to subject myself to its level design that makes me yearn.
Played on PC using a total conversion mod that makes the PSX version of the game fully playable in GZDoom, which sidesteps what are otherwise issues for this port such as performance issues or the necessity of a controller. As you can probably glean from the rest of this little writeup, I stopped after beating The Ultimate DOOM and didn't bother playing through DOOM 2 in this configuration - I just didn't feel like putting up with 30 levels of harshly varying quality just to reap the benefits that were (mostly) retroactively implemented into the otherwise-superior original game here.
It's impressive how much a game's feel can change when it's given a different voice and a subtle change of wardrobe; PSX DOOM perfects the balance of horror and carnage in a manner that surpasses even DOOM 3. Even the darker colors and overall more moody take on the levels' aesthetics manages to feel wonderfully dreary without over-relying on shades of brown and gray like DOOM 2, leaving the game feeling reminiscent of System Shock with its flavor of horror imagery against colorful backdrops.
Honestly, the only real gripe I have is that in spite of how much effort was put into breathing new life into the original game they didn't have the decency to stick the Super Shotgun anywhere across all 3 episodes. It's not like I'm complaining about being forced to make use of the entirety of the original game's consistently-reliable arsenal, but there's something about the idea of being able to wield DOOM 2's crowning achievement without having to subject myself to its level design that makes me yearn.
Played on PC using a total conversion mod that makes the PSX version of the game fully playable in GZDoom, which sidesteps what are otherwise issues for this port such as performance issues or the necessity of a controller. As you can probably glean from the rest of this little writeup, I stopped after beating The Ultimate DOOM and didn't bother playing through DOOM 2 in this configuration - I just didn't feel like putting up with 30 levels of harshly varying quality just to reap the benefits that were (mostly) retroactively implemented into the otherwise-superior original game here.