Unholy Realms
Brian Knox (Snakes)
2013
Link: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/megawads/ur
Two of my favorite things – unholiness and realms, combined! How could I say no to this little piece of history right here? Unholy Realms is a one-man-megawad, (with some guest stars) released in 2013, and was under development for three years. Created by the mysterious Snakes, it was his last contribution before entering a prolonged hiatus. Even then, he made sure to leave with a bang, winning a Cacoward in 2013 and tons of exciting reviews for his efforts in making this WAD a reality. Now, about nine years later, I’m finally taking a shot at it.
With any 32-level megawad, you can always expect some bombastic maps here and there. Unholy Realms exceeds at giving you explosive arenas that are gorgeous to look at and quite challenging to play. A limit-removing megawad, it manages to keep a classic essence thanks to its rather simplistic level of detail, combined with ever-expanding and evolving level design that, overall, looks quite good in almost any setting possible. Here you’ll find a variety of levels, mostly focused around techbases and hell maps. With the limitations still present, it’s always a challenge to work with a vanilla/LR megawad without going too overboard and breaking the consistency. In the visual department, Unholy Realms gets a nicely rounded score in a victory hymn of great scenarios. From the simplistic bases during the first levels, to the intimidating lava-infested hell levels at the end. It is quite well realized and while it may become a little repetitive nearing its end, I think we can give it some slack considering the already repetitive nature of most megawads available.
The gameplay was certainly a surprise – the first ten or so maps are quite well realized and very vanilla in their gunplay. The difficulty evolves naturally, and the levels become more intricate and larger. It is a very stabilized ride that pairs well with the average player. However, once you reach MAP14, things get really, really serious. A forced pistol-start means you already have to re-arm yourself, plus Doom 2 enemies are thrown right in your face – things get heated very fast. It actually came to a point that I was getting frustrated, particularly with the last five maps. Granted, I’m not the greatest player ever and I tend to have very little patience when it comes to deaths and overpopulated maps, and while no map goes above a thousand demons, the density in which they are presented means that this megawad evolves into semi-slaughter status by the end of it. I played on HMP, and I was getting kicked hard. Two main reasons: Revenants and Archviles. I can forgive revs because every single Doom 2 mapper loves them. They are challenging, force you to think fast and keep you moving. I can understand why, when they are thrown at you in very tight spaces and in high numbers, they are seen as the ‘perfect’ challenge. While I disagree with that kind of enemy composition, I guess some people enjoy it more than I do. As for the archie part, oh boy, there’s lots of them. Get ready to kill some five to ten archviles per map, sometimes three at a time – it becomes almost a little too predictable. Every time you clear a room filled with demons, you can expect one or two archies sneakily being teleported into the room so that they may resurrect a new army to kick your ass. It does get tiresome, but it still is manageable, however, if you are not used to high difficulty challenges such as these, you might not enjoy them as much. Personally, I was quite frustrated near the end.
Despite all that, I don’t regret playing this megawad, and I’m pretty sure the gameplay factor is one of those things that are highly subjective to the individual tastes of the user. Me, I don’t like slaughter, but I know there’s a considerable percentage of players out there that love the fuck out of it. In which case, Unholy Realms is going to be the right/unholy choice for you. Give it a try!
Endless Questing 