So I've done my first Doom Musings on two particular PWADs, two that at this point in the modern Doom community, have pretty much fallen off the wayside in terms of overall popularity. This time, my latest lookback legacy post deals with a single map from a single wad. I'm talking about TNT: Evilution's final map, Last Call, by Jimmy Sieben. Yep, we're analyzing what made this particular map tick, in comparison to other maps in the IWAD, as well as its imitators, what it did wrong, and what it did right.
Let's start with what it did wrong, and if you've seen the post where I outlined the best and worst Icon of Sin fights, it landed at the low end. But why? Well when you fight the Icon of Sin, you basically have to shoot its lava-filled brain. This worked with Doom II and it worked with Plutonia, but it did not in any way work with Evilution. You can fire rockets at that brain but it will not work. The walkthrough for this one shows that in order to actually hit "below the hole", and the way to do it is by stepping onto the step just below the upper platform. That's the spot. It's really counter-intuitive, just going to the second last step, and if you somehow figure it out, you'll be getting that boss brain by then. Perhaps even more surprisingly is that the rocket launcher isn't the only weapon that can damage the boss, because the way Romero's head works is that the base of the sprite is the one to be damaged, which was impossible without cheating in Doom II because of the higher level preventing traditional hitscan or otherwise attacks from ever reaching it, meaning you have to rely on blast damage from rockets*. There have been quite a few Icon of Sin battles where you could damage the Romero Head without the rocket launcher after this one. Requiem MAP30 and Demonfear MAP30 to name just a few. So even though this probably seemed like a mistake (or a really devious trick by TeamTNT) it somehow managed to make other Icon of Sin battles seem a little more different.
Now let's look at what Last Call did amazingly right. You know what it is by now, that torch puzzle. Step on the wrong block and you are instantly dead, by way of telefragging a voodoo doll in a different sector. For its time, this was the most innovative puzzle, a testament to TeamTNT's glorious strength, that they decided to never seem to do ever again. It got a few imitators, off the top of my head I know that Illuminatus, Twilight Zone 2, and Good Morning Phobos have all imitated this puzzle, but it worked out quite well to be the best thing about the level. The usually inattentive player will also generally not pay attention to the fact that the torches in the starting hallway are in the order of the solution to the puzzle. But to actually give the solution by way of this vague hint makes the whole trial and error aspect of the puzzle a little easier, as to take a good screenshot of the torches (or just drawing a map) will help in getting through this amazing maze.
But what about everything else in between? It's fairly average, just some monsters in rooms here and there, a cyberdemon on a platform, hmm, is this a curved staircase that gets built? Interesting. Wait, why am I interested in this you ask? Perhaps because if you were to IDDT or look at this map in an editor, you may be asking what are those square sectors? Well, I believe that this level is the first level in TNT: Evilution, and perhaps the only level in any IWAD, to make utilization of dummy sectors. Nowadays, maps will utilize these things for all sorts of tricks, like lift raising to certain level, making teleport closets without sound tunnels (there might've been a few of these beforehand in MAP29, but still). However, this is the one level that manages to make the spiral staircase part seem quite genuine in an IWAD map, using sectors that are supposed to be unreachable and linking them with the spiral steps accordingly so the thing builds properly.
For a level in an IWAD, that's quite an accomplishment. It has the bad part somehow managing to make unique Icon of Sin battles after it, its good part still stands the test of a death puzzle, and the usage of dummy sectors is definitely one of the reasons why this is a legendary level in its own right.
*But of course, at least in TAS runs that managed to somehow utilize a pacifist way of beating Doom II's Icon of Sin, it is possible to damage and destroy the Icon of Sin there, but it's one of those "one shot" things that requires the boss to spit out enough arch-viles, and given the probability of an arch-vile spawning from the boss, that's something non-TAS runners will never be able to accomplish. Seriously watch Karl Jobst's video about pacifist runs. And then there's the newly-released Pacifist run of Plutonia's MAP30, relying heavily on luck of the pain elemental draw and cyberdemons infighting.
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