Doom 2 Reloaded - Map 25: Hell's Gate (UVMax 8:38)

Channel:

Devour Inc 2

Subscribers:

197

Published on November 19, 2023 10:00:14 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6bAm96E9Is

Game:

Doom II: Hell on Earth (1994)

Duration: 8:56

161 views

8

Source Port: GzDoom
UVMax, Pistol Start, No Saves
SoundFont Combo by @GoranObal
Executable file of the SoundFont Cover: (Midis used by DSDA Archive)
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1awxF174MSRHW5u07VshT2VILFXYS3FVj?usp=drive_link
ZDoom Hud addon: https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=60356
Doom II Minor Sprite Fixing Project: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/graphics/sprfix20
Doom 2 Reloaded on idgames: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/megawads/d2reload
Map Author: Andy Stewart (eschdoom)
Song Name: Leif Rular (Scavenger)
Difficulty: 6.5
Design: 6.5

Text File Description:
"You have left the labyrinth and are now high above it at the heart of the ancient temple. You are at the door to Hades, the realm of the dead. The only way is through..."

Wow, what a difficulty spike. Where the hell did that come from.
Qaatar has the world record on this one and he did it in 6:28 which is completely ridiculous to me. I spent like 4 hours of attempts on this and this one was my best. Strangely, this was my SECOND attempt. Over that 4 hour period I only had 2 more exits that were both significantly longer times. Even though I felt like I was refining the route more and getting faster, I was still not as fast as my unpolished run. That seems to happen often. There has to be something to learn from the mindset of not having everything completely planned out.
I will admit I pretty much ripped Qaatar's route for this one. I tried to route it first myself and it was not going well. It is a unique layout where you could start with either side of it and still find all the weapons at around the same time, almost like it was designed for 2 players. The high-ish monster count would support that too. No matter where you are, there is plenty to kill, and you get bounties of ammo to do it with. You can use the rocket launcher freely, but encounters are designed to make the combat with it more strategic. With putting monsters at different elevations and angles, and all the random lost souls floating around, you have to be tactical with your rocket launcher usage. The first minute or so of the map I really enjoy. I did it so many times I could pretty much do it with my eyes closed at this point, but it never stopped being fun. That has to be my favorite invuln usage I can remember. Seeing how fast you can fly through those hallways exploding everything in your path so you have more time with it outside is awesome. Every encounter where the BFG is efficient to use is awesome too, its like they have a big sign that says "BFG Please!" whenever a horde of monsters forms at the right time.
I only have a few complains about this map. First is the lift with the blue key on it. The pit surrounding it is not escapable, and I lost all of my most promising attempts to falling in there. Platform should be just a little bigger, feels out of place to have that there. My other 2 complaints are with both cyberdemons. The first one sucks to get through that doorway. I don't think that's the intended method of killing it, and I didn't even do it in this run because I was sick of waiting for it, but during those 4 hours of attempts that was one of the biggest causes of reset. The other cyber is responsible for adding on like 30 sec to 1 minute of time on to my score. In Qaatar's run, it moves to the left immediately on spawning and stays in that area with all the monsters. I couldn't get that to happen a single time. With me it would teleport on sight every single time. Not really the maps fault since it is obviously supposed to teleport, but fighting it from that space and then having the secret teleport you into that spot are both pretty evil. No room to line up a good BFG shot. I got lucky with him being distracted.
If I didn't already waste hours on this I would probably keep attempting it honestly because it is incredibly fun to speedrun. I heavily recommend trying to beat my time as a challenge.

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