This review contains spoilers
As a comeback of sorts for John Romero and an unofficial follow-up to the canon of Doom 1, SIGIL is not inherently bad by any stretch of the means. It essentially is a souped-up "Thy Flesh Consumed" with new gimmicks made possible by modern mapping techniques, and a seasoned veteran behind the helm. At the end of the day though, you can tell this is the same guy that made Daikatana. No offense, John.
SIGIL exceeds expectations in a few places - I was playing on the 2nd easiest difficulty for this playthrough (not even sure if I've beaten it on UV in the past) and was pleasantly surprised by the level of challenge on display here, even if not all of it was fair. Level design is more complex and requires basic knowledge of doom's "platforming" mechanic and ammo conservation, puzzle-solving, and a knack for finding secrets. Truth be told, I had to use a guide for some of these maps to get the secrets just to push me through some of the harder maps.
I was enjoying myself well enough until E5M7 came around (E3M7 on older source ports that don't adopt the standard SIGIL came with) and was greeted by a particularly poorly-designed platforming section towards the end of the map with bad monster placement that demands utmost precision on janky geometry and punishable mistakes that lead to death. This map frustrated me greatly and I'd be lying if I said it didn't sour my opinion of this mapset up until this point. It's as if all the flaws that I glossed over with the Romero-tinted lenses suddenly shined brightly in my face and I realized, this is the same guy that made some of the most frustrating maps in Doom II (not the fun kind, either).
SIGIL is worth the play, even if only as a curiosity of what an original level designer of the first 2 games can bring to the table in 2019. I wouldn't recommend playing on anything harder than "Hurt Me Plenty!" for a first-time playthrough, especially if you struggled with E4 of Doom 1. Thankfully, this add-on is easily accessible in the Steam Unity port along with many other great mapsets and the WAD can even be exported for external sourceport usage. Have fun where you can, and if you need to pull up a guide or take rage breaks - don't feel bad, I bet John's playtesters probably needed the same.
Beaten on 6/19/23 with all maps played, MOST secrets discovered and MOST kills obtained on an external source port, DSDA-doom.
BEATEN
SIGIL exceeds expectations in a few places - I was playing on the 2nd easiest difficulty for this playthrough (not even sure if I've beaten it on UV in the past) and was pleasantly surprised by the level of challenge on display here, even if not all of it was fair. Level design is more complex and requires basic knowledge of doom's "platforming" mechanic and ammo conservation, puzzle-solving, and a knack for finding secrets. Truth be told, I had to use a guide for some of these maps to get the secrets just to push me through some of the harder maps.
I was enjoying myself well enough until E5M7 came around (E3M7 on older source ports that don't adopt the standard SIGIL came with) and was greeted by a particularly poorly-designed platforming section towards the end of the map with bad monster placement that demands utmost precision on janky geometry and punishable mistakes that lead to death. This map frustrated me greatly and I'd be lying if I said it didn't sour my opinion of this mapset up until this point. It's as if all the flaws that I glossed over with the Romero-tinted lenses suddenly shined brightly in my face and I realized, this is the same guy that made some of the most frustrating maps in Doom II (not the fun kind, either).
SIGIL is worth the play, even if only as a curiosity of what an original level designer of the first 2 games can bring to the table in 2019. I wouldn't recommend playing on anything harder than "Hurt Me Plenty!" for a first-time playthrough, especially if you struggled with E4 of Doom 1. Thankfully, this add-on is easily accessible in the Steam Unity port along with many other great mapsets and the WAD can even be exported for external sourceport usage. Have fun where you can, and if you need to pull up a guide or take rage breaks - don't feel bad, I bet John's playtesters probably needed the same.
Beaten on 6/19/23 with all maps played, MOST secrets discovered and MOST kills obtained on an external source port, DSDA-doom.
BEATEN