A look back at: Wizardry VII: Crusaders of the Dark Savant

Wizardry, in SPACE!

It's funny, much like the Dragon Quest games, the Wizardry series doesn't feel the need to outdo itself that much. But it certainly tries to spice things up so it doesn't feel "same but different but still same". Indeed, you can't say the gameplay isn't that, because it is. Create and customize a character's race, gender, classes (which can be interchanged), and upon level up, change stats and for this game, skills, some of which can be really useful. Quite complex! And it keeps this while making the game balls hard, not even allowing rookie players their time to shine without doing some grinding for skills, job classes, etc.

Honestly the biggest surprise is how well the plot goes. The endings of the previous Wizardry seem to change the beginning of this game, all things assumed that that game was played the way it should have been played. You believed the queens lies? You get a sort of bad beginning by being slaves for the bad guy. Don't believe him and you journey to the new planet yourself. The endings have something similar. Spare the life of the girl to get the endings that go to Wizardry 8, but don't spare her to get caught in endless darkness. It's so nonlinear in how you can boost or ruin your reputation with the multiple races of Guardia that it's a fairly leisurely game through all the grinding too. Sure, help the T'Rangs out, and then backstab them to work with the Umpanis. Help the Danes out with whatever monstrous things they got. There's even a Gorn race, okay maybe that's not all that amazing since it's not really the Star Trek race in truth. Everyone seems to also be searching for the same thing the Dark Savant is searching, the Astral Dominae. I kinda was hoping that that Cosmic Forge would be useful for something, and it turned out to be about a planet and all. Multiple beginnings, side stories, and endings, this one is the most intriguing Wizardry game yet.

Doom Musings: What's been done before and what could we see?

The Doom community has done a lot in terms of modding, and some of the absolute best and most revered works echo those of the other classics and other games of its era and the eras beyond. I've played more than my fair share of classic level packs but every now and then I latch onto a total conversion just to see just HOW much gets changed to something brand-spanking new and fresh, while keeping a good Doom feel and taking from source material that isn't really fresh or so. So here's a list of particular games/franchises that I have seen so far made in the vein of Doom wads.

Mario (The Golden Souls wads, Super Mayhem 17, a few one-offs including a sprite replacement and some others)
Sonic (Sonic Robo Blast 2, Super Sonic Doom)
Contra/Metal Slug (Action Doom)
Legend of Zelda (a few maps I remember take after OOT's lost woods or Deku tree, even having a sword as the main weapon)
Metroid (Metroid Dreadnought, Space Hunter)
Crash Bandicoot (sort of, there's that stupid meme wad but not an actual Crash TC)
Batman (Batman Doom)
Hocus Pocus (HocusDoom)
Castlevania (Simon's Destiny)
Wolfenstein (WolfenDoom, Wolf 3D TC, a few other ones)
Pokemon (Kate had that mod that looked like a Pokemon world, Mayhem 2018, also some other mod had some interesting functionality with Poke Ball usage)
Final Fantasy (Final Fantasy Doom II, although very loosely)
Mother (Earthbound Doom, though I haven't really played it, I think it may still be in development)
Commander Keen (D2TWID MAP31 and MAP32 loosely)
Wario Land 4 (Treasure Tech)
Blood (ZBlood, Mayhem 2019)
Call of Duty (sort of, the jokewad Call of Dooty makes fun of it)
Megaman (Megaman 8-bit deathmatch, and I think there was another one somewhere)
Beat-em-up genre games (Action Doom 2)
Numerous weapons mods that take after certain games like Duke3D, Quake, Halo, SiN, PO'd (technically, although the only mod I know that did this with exceptional intent was CIF3).
A number of anime-based things (The Stranger mod for example is based off of Trigun mostly, while Gloom Busters and La Tailor Girl are magical girl anime-oriented. Also Hokuto No Doom and a Jojo mod)
A number of Star Wars based mods (a couple were in Joel's mapping contests, then there's Rex Claussen's work, plus Doomed Space Wars is heavily inspired by Star Wars).

And there's probably some more that I missed. But I do take note of what's been done and what I definitely would love to see. I don't believe any of these will be made soon, but it's sort of a wishlist for things I have yet to see but really want to see in some ways.

Crash Bandicoot - Yeah, I'll post it again, but Crash is a guilty pleasure franchise that has generally fun gameplay.
Spyro - It's only fitting, since I see barely anything in regards to Spyro at all. Would be very interesting to see a Spyro mod though.
Ristar - You remember Ristar right? I do. Would be VERY interesting to see a Doom mod that takes after Ristar.
Kirby - I don't think there's actually been a Kirby-themed Doom mod yet. But I bet there's some possibility on it.
Ninja Gaiden - Yet another guilty pleasure of mine, would be very interesting to see a Ninja Gaiden mod in some form
Klonoa - Hmm, could this be possible?
Mana - I feel the strange potential of a Secret of Mana-type TC with cooperating friends helping out. I dunno why.

I could think of more, but these are the main ones I can think of that have a lot of potential to be very interesting Doom mods in the far future. Yes, the far future. Who knows? I'm just a dreamer when it comes to this stuff. I'd make one myself but then I'd lose pace and leave it for years. 

Doom Musings: Russian Overkill's 10 Greatest Weapons

Quick! Think of a badass weapons mod that works great when you go up against slaughterfest levels! Did you say Russian Overkill first? Well guess what, that's what this musing is about. The gameplay mod that does not take itself seriously at all but makes weapons more than just ludicrously overpowered, but makes pretty much all of them interesting to some degree. This is something you can play on a casual megawad, or a super slaughter map (though good luck with some frame-dropping levels. With six weapons per slot plus three characters, and melee combo moves, can this get any better? It seems like the more you play it the better it really gets.

This post outlines my top ten favorite weapons in Russian Overkill, based on their overall fun to use as well as how well they work in the majority of situations. I'll also go ahead and say that I won't include the melee combo moves, since even though they're cool and all they won't be all that useful except in very specific situations. Furthermore, don't expect any inventory items to end up on the list either. This is solely based on the weapons.

10. Power Overwhelming

Pillowblaster changed the Power Overwhelming quite a lot for each release, ensuring that it won't be made redundant when compared to the other rapid-fire weapons that occupy slot 4. Initially, it was a ludicrous projectile chaingun. It had a healing thing to it for an alt-fire. But then you add "homing boolets" which are self-explanatory, and add this to their generally piercing projectile nature. And then there's this weird vending machine hook too! The Power Overwhelming would fall by the wayside for the Obliterator in earlier releases, but the newest one makes the Power Overwhelming seem much more unique, and that's why it becomes a solid choice in many scenarios.

9. Gopnik

The slot 6 weapon that looks like Shadow Warrior's missile launcher is a minelayer, so it's situational right? Well look at what mines you can use, let's see, a regular explosive mine, a fart mine, an electroshocking mine, hey that's pretty darn neat, and what the hell, a nuclear mine? With the right preknowledge, a large monster closet would be obliterated without having come out, though of course a nuclear mine is not something you want to even get near medium range with. With that said, there is also a Launch mode, where you shoot it like a rocket launcher instead of a mine layer. Ploom those nuclear mines.

8. Rasputin

The interesting thing about the Rasputin and Gopnik has to be how you switch their modes, having to press a directional/strafe key with the alt-fire simultaneously. Makes them a bit harder to use but it's so worth it. With the Rasputin this thing seems like an ordinary mortar shooter until you check out the modes. The poison rains down disgusting goo on a certain area, great as a nasty trap, while the freezer shoots horizontal streams and is one of the only means of freezing enemies (the other is using one of Yuri's combo uppercuts). But the fire is the best, as these things home in on the best opponent they can find. Perfect for pain elementals since the lost souls won't survive the fire either.

7. Schwarzer Zwerg

This was often my old standby weapon whenever I find it in Russian Overkill as it just works great in almost every situation. A super shotgun that shoots at a chaingun's pace, with excellent horizontal spread, it's great for those non-slaughter portions. Of course so is everything else. Allocating extra shells to make a large blast can fell a cyberdemon with ease. Interestingly enough, I would put the Pantokrator in this thing's place, as it's much more powerful as a shell weapon, but the Pantokrator eats up ammo much quicker, and Schwarzer is great for conservation.

6. Shurricane

It will probably take a while to realize the potential of this explosive shuriken launcher, but for those that still can't figure it out, this thing's gimmick is that whatever direction you're facing, the shurikens go. A player-guided multi-missile launcher if you will. Of course, that imp stripper to turn monsters against themselves cannot be ignored either, and ever since the Pickle grenade was taken off of the inventory roster (and I loved that thing, so funny and brutal to use in any room) they gave the reload button for this thing the ability to shoot one.

5. Instafuneral

A bastardized version of Shadow Warrior's railgun, but with three barrels, yeah, this thing shoots nice but probably isn't that good. That is, until you realize these piercing shots can kill anything super quickly and in only a second you'll clear an ENTIRE monster closet with this thing. Cyberdemons go down in seconds on most difficulties, everything else that's usually horded together also won't survive. The alt-fire is a little disappointing but it's pretty situational for gauntlet-like areas. The alt-fire used to be firing all barrels at once though, so it is a slight improvement.

4. Deathhead

The Deathhead is a classic Russian Overkill slot 8 weapon. Primary fire shoots a cluster of missiles, and believe it or not, these are homing. They're not nuclear missiles, but they're much more deadlier than the slot 6 rocket launchers. But most people remember this thing for the remote guided nuclear alt-fire. The power of the nuke will naturally stretch for miles, but when it comes to those large hordes that you know are just gonna be around the corner, or if you wanna play sneaky with them, dispatch the nuke and they won't know what hit them. I also don't know if people know this, but it is possible to remote-detonate the nuke too by pressing alt-fire. In any case, this classic slot 8 weapon remains a badass explosive puncher.

3. Antonov

This multipurpose slot 4 weapon takes cues from the weapon it replaced, the Libra. It's a projectile weapon, although much slower, but it also can smelt casings into a healing module for emergencies, and also the shield wall is still in effect. Such cool effects! Though I gotta say, the Antonov's primary fire is actually where this weapon really is at. Sure, it's slower than what it replaced, and the initial shot is surprisingly short ranged, but the burst projectiles start homing in on things and explode on contact too. This gun basically became my standby whenever I needed it as a result, perfect for almost every occasion I can think of.

2. Borsch

I'd just like to point out, the Ramjet is an honorable mention. Yes, for those that don't already know, the remote-controlled sniper rifle is a sneaky camper's wet dream of a weapon, but it's practically useless in the heat of a fierce battle, which is why it doesn't make the list. That being said, the other dark matter weapon, the Borsch, is yet another gun that's completely worth the price of admission. Primary fire is once again where it's at, a snaking projectile that homes in and sucks monsters to be devoured. Poor cyberdemons won't be able to evade it. Alt-fire of course creates a black hole bomb of sorts that does more or less the same thing as it sucks enemies in but has a dangerous blast radius. Have fun!

1. Yamato

It's true that a lot of the weapons here can trivialize the majority of maps. You can nuke things with the nuke weapons and prevent much of the combat. The aforementioned Ramjet can kill everything before you set foot in a map. The Instafuneral pierces through basically everything while the Antonov's bursts home in on any enemy they can find. So why the Yamato at the top? It's not because of it's nuclear alt-fire (heck the alt-fire used to be the primary fire, making it a rather useless gun in most non-slaughter situations until the new updates), but rather the primary fire yet again. The shots from this things aren't piercing, but you fire so many that it won't matter since everything gets blown away anyways. That combined with the projectiles being homing! Anything forward or behind you is toast, basically. And if you're fully stuck on a level or don't like it anymore or don't want to get into a death exit to lose your weapons, that "quantum jump" thing will spoil it for you. It's that great of a weapon, which is why it's at the #1 spot.

A look back at: Pokemon Grass Jewel 2

 Once again I did that thing of mine where I would play a rom hack while simultaneously creating a walkthrough for it, and I think I got everything here. Been a while since I created one of those, since Pokemon Gaia's walkthrough was already done for their wiki. Anyways, another of LatiosAzurill's hacks, the sequel to the previous Grass Jewel, and it looks like I'm going to be playing a fire variant in Scorching Scarlet and a water variant in Polka Aqua when I get to them, so that's stuff to look forward to.

What to expect in Grass Jewel 2? The same, but different, but STILL same. Same setting, similar locales, but different Pokemon to find and different movesets to make certain Pokemon dominate others. It's crazy. Nearly every TM can be learned by most Pokemon, even those that would normally not use certain ones (Wailord learning Fly, for example). Once again, the PokeMarts give almost every necessary item to make things easier, and prices are lower, and the top floor of PokeCenters will have the Move Relearner, Move Deleter, and Name Rater. In between the battling are a bunch of movie/sitcom characters for reasons I dunno about. But despite all the conveniences the game's trainers spike in difficulty very quickly, and yes, lots of Lv100 trainers with held items and custom movesets dominate the pregame. To make the plot much more interesting, you go in a non-standard path as roadblocks block way to certain locations throughout the game. Chasing down the evil professor even goes past the Pokemon League, in numerous locations some players probably went to or not.

While this game like any other Pokemon rom hack allows for a nice customizable team, it seems like the creator really wants you to get a Riolu on Route 103. Lucario's typing isn't my favorite, sure, but it gets both Meteor Mash and Cross Chop (two powerful moves that are upgraded to 100% accuracy and it gets STAB from), plus it's great for sandstorms and can't be poisoned more or less. Many of the elite trainers that I come to that have the Quick Claw tend to have it on certain mons filled with flinching moves, and Lucario has the Inner Focus ability. That and its typing means it takes normal damage from the otherwise super effective Flying type Air Slash and Fairy type Pixie Kick moves, very common for the Quick Claw-Togekiss setup a large number of elite trainers have, as well as far less damage from everything else. All without danger of flinching. Just keep it away from those Sacred Fire and Earthquake users though. It's definitely a rom hack for elite trainers who live for battling, but will likely not be the cup of tea for weaker players.

Doom Musings: The Best of the Top 100 WADs of All Time

 One of my first memories of Doomworld was visiting not the Cacowards, but rather the Top 100 WADs of all time. That covers basically the entirety of the decade from when Doom started to the point in 2003 where the Cacowards would later celebrate ten great WADs and many more. The Top 100 WADs of course is outdated by today's standards, but these are the wads that are often considered the classics of their time. This post will outline my personal picks for the ten best WADs in each year of the Top 100 WADs and what I think overall of every one of them.

1994: The Evil Unleashed

This was actually quite hard despite the fact that 1994 was a year most people don't wanna look back on. For one Doomsday of UAC remains a memorable map with the invisible bridge, overturned sector truck, and decent gameplay. Then again, it is one level. When I played TEU I was finding myself creating carnage at every turn for all the levels. It's not quite slaugtherfest levels, but it almost hits those strides. In any case, the rampant gameplay of TEU gives it quite a considerable edge over the other WADs of the year in my book.

1995: H2H-XMAS

I generally love to look at cohesive WADs that not only have interesting flow from one level or area to the next, but also give me that drive to replay them over and over again. Half of the 1995 wads don't have good flow but are memorable maps, while the other half are fairly standard Doom wads that just feel okay to play in the modern day. For me, I enjoy H2H-XMAS, no matter what time of the year it is. Even though I've already outlined all the things about it in the very first Doom musing, I still find myself going back to it. A little joy in playing, if you will.

1996: Memento Mori II

This was a year of both megawads (both Memento Moris and Icarus) and small episodes (Trooper's Playground, Dystopia 3, AHIBL, AOD-DOOM). So a lot of great contenders to pick for my favorite for 1996. So why Memento Mori II? Seems rather strange, since the big megawads don't have any custom dehacked work unlike the crazy awesome AHIBL or the TC-like AOD-DOOM. Well, I'm a big fan of cohesion with megawads. I like how every level in this set feels seamless as you progress from one to the other (even though they don't segue in design or anything for the most part). Bottom line, the levels just seem to have the same sort of gravity in gameplay and design and MM2 is the best example of that.

1997: Eternal Doom

Described as the last great year of Doom, 1997 had titans in the megawads GothicDM, Requiem, Hell Revealed, STRAIN, and this pick, Eternal Doom. Personally, I think I've burned a lot of Eternal Doom in my head, thanks to the huge levels and the demos that I've watched. I felt like the biggest of the bunch deserve the recognition; there were amazing ideas and the design gets to be great without overdoing it. Of course, you can say this kinda thing for the other megawads I listed, but Eternal Doom has the most charm overall.

1998: Cyberdreams

To be frank, this wasn't much of a contest. While playing many, many Doom wads, the core gameplay always remained the same so at one point I end up getting bored with the game overall and hiatusing it. With that said I at least come back and finish the job. The majority of releases in 1998 that made the cut were quite small, leaving GothicDM2, the Ritenour levels, and finally this. Cyberdreams really spices things up, putting puzzles with deadly force to the player unlike many other things. Thanks to this WAD many other authors went for a puzzle route with some of their maps, with a few WADs even paying homage to Cyberdreams (10 Sectors MAP08 for example).

1999: Batman Doom

Again, not much contest. TCs tend to really catch the eye as they completely overhaul Doom's gameplay with new weapons, enemies, and levels. Batman Doom has it all and does it without ZDoom (this was of course the year ZDoom would start to grow, with KZDoom and Herian 2 being the only ZDoom wads listed here). Believe it or not, the best thing about Batman Doom isn't all the things I mentioned, but rather the storytelling aspect, going back to the Batcave as a slight rest while going through many different concepts like roof jumping, stopping infighting, explosive areas, fun houses. How can this not be the best pick of 1999?

2000: The Darkening Episode 2

I'm actually not that much of a fan of the 2000 WAD picks, but they are still fun to revisit. Chord3 is easily the nastiest Chord, while the Rajala maps are decent to plinker around with. The reason Darkening Episode 2 is on here though? It felt fresh. You're playing traditional Doom, but with a completely new look that makes it feel fresh. The looks and feels of the level layouts and design make it seem like something new even though the traditional Doom gameplay is there, and like Memento Mori II, the feel is just cohesive and united. This type of thing would later be echoed in Back to Saturn X, which does the "bring a new and original texture set and combine it with Doom's gameplay" ordeal yet again. It's why I joke that BTSX is Darkening E3.

2001: SlayeR

Gameplay is the one thing I value the most. While The Darkest Hour is a fairly neat TC and Equinox has some bodacious maps, there's quite a few empty spots in them. Likewise, the realism of Revolution! and the surrealism of Null Space makes them standouts. But for that traditional run-and-gun action, SlayeR wins. The levels are just a step above Plutonia, especially the rather grueling first challenge, and the compact design makes things even better. To me, it's a very overlooked episode, despite landing in the Top 100 WADs. Gotta give SlayeR its credit.

2002: Alien Vendetta

Did you really expect anything else? See, Hell Revealed was all about super hard gameplay that eclipsed Plutonia. Eternal Doom was about creating luscious layouts whilst keeping most of the things at a brisk and even pace. Alien Vendetta is the true child of both, while adding in excellent layout work and a wonderful amount of levels. Not everything is a slaughter, and not everything is an odyssey, but so many maps remain memorable that it's just difficult not to pass up.

2003: Void

This was arguably the hardest one for me to decide. It was between this or Scythe, and while others are fairly strong contenders (PAR for instance), I just felt like it was between these two for the best of 2003. The gameplay of Scythe is the kind that should be for most casual players, although with the size of many early levels, they are over too quickly. Of course, the slaughter levels in MAP26 and MAP30 stole shows, and MAP28 remained a crazy gimmick map. But Void? Despite being one level, it was one zany level that made perfect use of ZDoom's terrible jumping mechanics, the surrealism of rotating tunnels, trap-filled corridors, interesting ZDoom scripting, to the point where "it has to be seen to be believed" will be the only real argument. This being said, when there are baddies to battle, they are in places where they find good use, and the cyberdemon fight and heresiarch fight remain memorable to this day.

Honorable mention for Top 10 Infamous WADs: Nuts

Well, didn't wanna leave out the Infamous WADs section, didn't I? In any case, said infamous WADs clearly are infamous for any particular reason but above all else, Nuts has GOT to be the most replayable. Just wanna feel the pull of thousands of projectiles flying, all the enemies dropping like flies because they infight, all the spiderdemons and cyberdemons duking it out in the final room. As simple as Nuts is, it's a hallmark that paved way for the slaughterfest of the future. Of course it's my favorite of the Infamous WADs.