Decided to interrupt my soundtrack rankings as I've decided to play Wolfendoom: Blade of Agony for the first time. Sheesh, this mod sure took the community by storm, and not in the most fresh of ways at all. So Tormentor667, the lead of this project, really enjoyed the Laz Rojas Wolfendoom levels, which I've already covered in a previous musing, and so he and a team of GZDoom modders got together and made Blade of Agony, which takes a huge inspiration from not just those, but also events that have happened over the course of WWII in Europe. The first episode got a Cacoward, and then the second and third episodes were then released...
But what happened that caused Tormentor's cancelling from the community? It was for a number of reasons. A certain NPC character in the game is named after ZDoom's developer who is transgender but apparently Tormentor had not known about it. Then you have a few other things such as the concentration camp mission, undead prisoner zombies, and even graphic imagery that doesn't sit well with people in 2021. In any case, despite all the controversies, I decided to play this version (I realize it got taken down at some point, but I was able to find a version somewhere to download). When I did, I put ALL politics aside, as usual, so here are my main thoughts.
Overall gameplay: It is what I expected more or less given my previous experience with all Wolf3D-style mods. Using WWII weapons, tools, and items against the Nazis who of course have their own gimmicks, you'll be fighting stuff like super soldiers, snipers, chaingun turrets, even tanks at times. Most levels are simple run and gun, just go in and do the Wolfendoom thing. It can be difficult, as the other Wolfendoom games are, but luckily there is less of hitscanner and more "fast bullet" style and I can appreciate that. The rolling enemies try to be fun but aren't that hard to deal with. A few traps in later levels require some thought to get around. I did like the secret lists that you could find, hinting as to where other secrets could be.
Special gameplay mechanics: First of all, the second episode starts with a stealth segment where you escape from prison. Inspiration of course came from the original Wolfenstein itself, plus other stealth games. The second happens when you get a lab coat, and then you get two more, with one being the concentration camp mission and the other being on the blimp. Needless to say, a lot of saving and loading and figuring out where things are. I HATE these kinds of missions, especially in first person, and it never was the cup of tea I would drink in terms of game genres. There's also two missions where you can drive a tank, along with a couple more where you are in a jeep, both of which are unique in a few ways. The latter is more rail shooter and the former has completely different controls which need to get used to. There's a sprinting mechanic, which I'm also not really a fan of since it goes down so fast, not so viable in most cases. The titular Blade of Agony seems like it will truly be an interesting weapon, not just for melee of course, but then those souls you've been collecting are its ammo.
What I really hated: I bet you were waiting for this one...
Framerate drops: This one is fairly obvious, and I do my best to lower EVERY PERFORMANCE SETTING to the lowest levels in order to make some of these levels playable. Needless to say, even with this, several levels still are overdetailed to most computers and are downright impossible without godmoding them. Honestly, I'm real tired of overdetailing and overdoing thing placement in WADs because WADs like this show what happens when you take things not just too far, but so far you basically throw a ball from the Arctic to the Antarctic. I hope newer WAD makers realize that not everyone has a supercomputer or graphics card that has Death Star-like computing capabilities.
How to get to secret maps?: I never got to these and had to warp to them to see them. Self-explanatory really. I assume those safe combinations meant something but I never found anything, and I'm an exceptional secret hunter for crying out loud.
Execution aborted: THIS RIGHT HERE. Several levels have this problem where something explodes, presumably blowing out a wall or something, but then the game straight up crashes. Above all else, fix these things: In Ep1 after the first battle with the SS Mechas, Ep2 in the level with the large fans, there's a part where you blow up a fire extinguisher near a cracked wall, near the end of Ep3's first map where you blow up a facility, on the fifth mission of Ep3 where you try to blow up the zeppelin. Seriously, if your groundbreaking WAD crashes this many times, it's a problematic sign.
C3M2: Words cannot describe this, but I did post a screenshot of what this level is in its entirety, assuming you can get past the awful framerate.
And that's pretty much all I wanna say about Blade of Agony. Incredibly ambitious and an attempt at further immortalizing the WolfenDoom series. It was shot down for several political and sociopolitical reasons, but what I shot it down for would have to be gameplay moments and things that absolutely need fixing above all else.
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