Back To Saturn X: Episode I & II Review
The exceptions? Those are your Action Dooms, Harmonies, Chex quests, Mega Man Deathmatches, and the like. These don't fit the two categories above, for obvious reasons; it's a lot of gameplay, and a lot of new content. Some even have different themes.
Back To Saturn X is... none of these. BTSX was crafted by more than 20 talented people in (mostly) dedicated positions. The music, graphics, and gameplay were designed with cohesion in mind. The team was in constant contact, even through text messages and voice conversations. Think Team TNT, but done right.
The result was something no one had seen before. A few in the community complained that it was "too polished". A few reacted with jealously or outright disgust. The rest of the community was too busy trying to figure out how the hell such a large group kept the project under wraps for so long, and managed to release a product that most would have slapped $50 down on the merchant's table for in the 90s.
That's the problem with BTSX; it's undefinable. It's not truly a partial conversion, in that it has its own colors, graphics, maps, and story. It's not a total conversion, either. What is it? The answer is probably somewhere in the middle. It's hard to compare BTSX to anything else, because it doesn't share much in common with anything else. If anything, it feels like an alternate universe's version of Doom, where Sega still makes consoles, and arcades still exist.
This would explain the negative responses, surely. After all, those people expected the maps to play like Doom's maps. BTSX doesn't play like that. It uses gameplay "themes" that change from level to level. What you did on the first level isn't so easy to do on the second level. Doom2 did this as well, but BTSX really hammers on this. I wouldn't call them "gimmicks", as that word these days has negative connotations, but each map highlights a different aspect of Doom's gameplay that I haven't seen done this well before, at least on this scale.
BTSX feels just as much of an adventure game as it does a first-person shooter. There are the classic Doom moments, sure, but I found myself having to learn layouts, wanting to find hidden areas, uncover dark, tucked away passageways, and plan routes - something I rarely, if ever, do in Doom. I found myself marking areas in the Automap, pausing the game to study the layout, or at least as much as I had discovered from running around aimlessly, while trying to not get blown to pieces.
There needs to be a Prima strategy guide for this game. It really has that much content. It's overwhelming at times, and I wouldn't recommend playing these two episodes back to back in one sitting, or even one episode at all. This is something that requires several playthroughs to get right. Don't feel bad skipping around the levels to learn the layouts, or playing with no monsters to get a good route down. You'll need to do all that if you want to get a fast time in these levels. Secrets are everywhere, and you'll need them if you want to have an upper hand on some of the later levels.
Graphics wise, It's astoundingly good. Themes are very consistent, Every texture seems to work well with the other. It seems to nail the feeling Doom's textures had, which I hadn't seen before in a mod. Most previous attempts were edits of existing stock Doom textures, but BTSX didn't have any of this. There was no visible color banding either; each texture fades well into the darkness. In fact, every color range seems to fade well, including the pink range. This makes the pinkie demons and the barons really look good in darker areas. Dark red areas don't turn into puke browns anymore. That's a huge difference in BTSX's resulting presentation, compared to many other mods. The lighting is top notch, too. Light seems to be angled correct - if some structure should cast a shadow, it does. The levels have lots of contrast, letting the engine do the dirty work, and since the color ranges are so well done, you can *see* in the darker areas, unlike the grey and brown mush that the original Doom would attempt to do. Oh, and there are colors that stay bright, even in total darkness. Creepy.
Level-wise, There are some techbases for Episode one, gradually turning into swamp-like areas. There's a tram system, that works pretty well. In the tram levels there are no monsters whatsoever - which these levels make up for in immersion. These tram levels feel like real places. That's not saying, in the context of Doom, that they feel real. They actually look that good. The scale and dimensions of these maps seem to fit perfectly with a "real life" perspective, including ceilings, doors, and the like. Getting a scale like that is near impossible in Doom, but somehow it works here. Episode two has the same concept, with a portal-based hub area that you visit from time to time, entering in different places and exiting to even weirder places. And the best part is, you can get lost in these hub maps - something I never thought would happen. It seems to be intentional, too. You really have to search for the way out, passing by the sights that, personally, I had no idea were possible in Vanilla Doom.
Episode two's levels start Techbase style, like Quake's episodes did, but immediately shift into ruins and temple layouts. Expect a lot of exploring. This feels more like Tomb Raider than Doom has any business imitating, but it works here. I actually liked getting lost in these things, trying to find doors, throwing switches that move huge stones up from the water to open up new paths, and so on. I had no idea Doom's renderer could pull this stuff off so convincingly, and a lot of that is due to the textures. There are a LOT of textures in episode two - so many that it was split up into two wads so that Doom could even load the damn thing.
Cooperative play is where these maps truly shine. The difficulty is ramped up to compensate, and on the larger levels, expect to clear levels faster, as everyone can split up and tackle individual areas. That's because BTSX's maps aren't linear AT ALL. Take whatever route you like, clear out some bad guys. Some areas don't even need to be visited, but if you're a completionist like I am, you'll want to visit these areas, pick up the powerups, and fight the bad guys that show up to punish your exploration. It's a tough balance, especially if you want to have a fast time. To get 100% on everything and a fast time will probably take up to three hours per episode, and that is only if you're a speedrunning legend. The rest of us? Six to Eight hours. Each.
In conclusion, these are maps I would gladly pay for. It feels almost wrong downloading these for free. But they ARE free, and that alone gives you no excuse. You need to try these out. All you need is a copy of Doom 2, which is only a few dollars on Steam. Trust me, it's worth it.