I've played a decent number of Doom WADs in my time, and they almost all run into the same problem for me: excess. 32 levels, slaughter maps, maps with 500+ enemies. I personally find this style of WAD to be completely exhausting, and even though I've overall enjoyed some of them (others not so much) I still tend to walk away feeling like I would've preferred things scaled back a notch or two.

So then comes Sigil, designed by John Romero himself and only 8 levels long, which I can honestly say is the most refreshing bit of Doom I've played in quite some time. Instead of massive hordes Sigil relies on clever enemy placement, deliberate resource allocation, and unique level design to challenge the player in ways I personally find to be 10 times more engaging than most of what else I've played. Sigil is hard, don't get me wrong, but I never felt like it was being cheap or repetitive. I was actually a bit hesitant going into this since it's only Doom 1 monsters but Romero really knows how to do a lot with so little, I'd forgotten there was a time when Cacodemons could feel like a legitimate threat.

Of course I couldn't sing the praises of Sigil without mentioning the stunning visuals or rocking midis. I've heard great things about the Buckethead soundtrack and I'll definitely check it out sometime, but it's got some stiff competition. I guess if I had anything to complain about I'd say a couple of the levels were a bit too dark, but given the insane amount of visual options most source ports have today it's almost not worth mentioning.

Sigil was a blast from start to finish, and I think it's awesome to see Romero return to the game he helped create and show everyone he's still got it. Can't recommend it enough.

I don't understand the Doom community. Like, seriously, I'm not trying to be a hater or judge anyone for their taste, I just genuinely do not understand what people think is fun about WADs like this. Half of it is locking you in tiny rooms with a million enemies you can't dodge, and the other half is giant arenas with a million enemies where you can kinda dodge. It's either frustratingly difficult or tedious and boring. If you aren't save scumming the same battle 100 times over until you get lucky, you're hiding in a doorway pumping an endless amount of rockets.

Tetanus in particular loves to give you rockets and then immediately throw you in rooms where you blow yourself up trying to use them. It almost never gave me plasma so the BFG and Plasma Gun were rarely viable options. I made it to the onslaught at the end of level 9 and gave up, it's just not worth it to me. The visuals are pretty and it's got some nice original music, but the gameplay just melts my brain. Give me vanilla Doom 2 any day over this, 100% unironically.