Eviternity II, like the first, is riding high on its own prestige, but I think it lives up to the hype. The texture pack, of course, is quite beautiful. The megawad paints its landscapes with such rich earthy colours.

This wad isn’t just eye candy, though. While enchanting towers might loom in the distance, the level themselves are designed well with lived-in atmosphere and dynamic combat encounters. There were a couple levels in the polar chapter that were nondescript and a secret level was gimmicky and annoying, but the batting average here is very high. I went back through the campaign, warping from one level to the next, and was surprised how many levels stood out. This is a megawad that knows spectacle and wows the player with setpieces, although it is pretty long. A handful of levels are huge and take at least a half-hour to finish, if not more. They're good, just... long.

There are a number of gimmicks and cool tricks, like on one level there is a switch the player can do to kill all enemies on an electric floor that added a new layer of strategy to a huge slaughter battle. There are outright non-vanilla monsters like the two brands of cacos that make a residence in Eviternity II and a very nasty breed of mancubi. They aren’t simple upgrades to existing monsters– they are tricky foes with new verbsets that the player will have to outmaneuver.

There’s also a new weapon I like. You can only get it through the campaign’s secret levels though and being that this is an episodic wad, you have to obtain it in each episode which wasn’t a hassle in itself, but the game has a number of death exits, including each time you enter a secret level. It’s weird to restart someone’s inventory so many times over the course of the campaign, so while overall I like the structure of Eviternity II, it’s two steps forward, one step back.

That’s about it on my criticisms for this megawad. A quick mention for the great soundtrack and, overall, it’s a definitive megawad with great gameplay, distinct levels, and a lot of its own personality. You can’t mistake Eviternity II for other DOOM wads. It’s a bespoke piece of retro FPS action.

Eviternity II, like the first, is riding high on its own prestige, but I think it lives up to the hype. The texture pack, of course, is quite beautiful. The megawad paints its landscapes with such rich earthy colours.

This wad isn’t just eye candy, though. While enchanting towers might loom in the distance, the level themselves are designed well with lived-in atmosphere and dynamic combat encounters. There were a couple levels in the polar chapter that were nondescript and a secret level was gimmicky and annoying, but the batting average here is very high. I went back through the campaign, warping from one level to the next, and was surprised how many levels stood out. This is a megawad that knows spectacle and wows the player with setpieces, although it is pretty long. A handful of levels are huge and take at least a half-hour to finish, if not more. They're good, just... long.

There are a number of gimmicks and cool tricks, like on one level there is a switch the player can do to kill all enemies on an electric floor that added a new layer of strategy to a huge slaughter battle. There are outright non-vanilla monsters like the two brands of cacos that make a residence in Eviternity II and a very nasty breed of mancubi. They aren’t simple upgrades to existing monsters– they are tricky foes with new verbsets that the player will have to outmaneuver.

There’s also a new weapon I like. You can only get it through the campaign’s secret levels though and being that this is an episodic wad, you have to obtain it in each episode which wasn’t a hassle in itself, but the game has a number of death exits, including each time you enter a secret level. It’s weird to restart someone’s inventory so many times over the course of the campaign, so while overall I like the structure of Eviternity II, it’s two steps forward, one step back.

That’s about it on my criticisms for this megawad. A quick mention for the great soundtrack and, overall, it’s a definitive megawad with great gameplay, distinct levels, and a lot of its own personality. You can’t mistake Eviternity II for other DOOM wads. It’s a bespoke piece of retro FPS action.