Alright, I got around to playing and finishing this.
Very, very good work. Fantastic job. While Tormentor things have always tended to be very good, I think this, out of all the latest ones, is definitely the superior effort. Good architecture and level design, nice flow, and fun to play.
I didn't really play the original Torment and Torture episodes (I think maybe I tried the first one?) so I can't really compare what's different or better. I think some of the great points about this one, aside from the solid standard aspects already mentioned, are the good use of weather effects and the mixed locations. I'll be honest in that the three screenshots in the first post just look like stock Tormentor shots and are uninteresting to me, but the wad itself does a very good job of providing variety and interesting changes of location.
As for criticisms, there's naturally nothing so bad as to make it not excellent, but the things that were foremost in my mind:
- Difficulty - I played it on hard, and the difficulty was lacking early on. This actually started to correct itself in the second half. While ammo was just a little too far on the high side and there weren't many challenging fights early on, the second half or so had the ammo just about right and had a nice comfortable difficulty.
- DECORATE monsters - Like KDiZD, I felt several of the monsters were pointless in that they didn't really do anything. E.g. the satyrs and cybernetic demons are basically just demons, etc. They're basically the same thing as guys that are already there but with highly superficial differences. I think it would have been better either to include less cloned enemies or mix up their DECORATE more.
- There's a lot of kinks. A lot of them. None of them are really big, big problems which completely ruin things, of course. The problem is with so many little kinks it removes the feeling of polish and professionalism. I know there were quite a few, but some of the things I remember off the top of my head:
- There was a secret with a rocket box and some rockets close to the lava but stepping in the sector with the rockets would not only tell me that a secret was revealed, but it would kill me instantly as if I had touched the lava.
- There was a platform revenants would shoot at me from but it was easily reached by jumping. Landing on the platform killed me instantly.
- Looking at some ceilings from certain angles would cause them to vanish or glitch a little.
- The flame thrower occasionally sticks around after being picked up.
- I walked off a cliff (I think before the portal to the edge of chaos), landed at the inescapable bottom and didn't die.
- It would have been nice to have subtitles for the voice acting.
Again, very solid effort, very good map set, and very good job.
Also, I was surprised to find myself listed in the credits.