Meanwhile for the Doom II fans they may expect levels that get as crazy in enemy count as those of Hell on Earth, and may be disappointed that 64 even in this incarnation doesn't quite do that either, and is a little more prone to making you backtrack and figure out puzzles. Of course, one of the selling points of 64 was the scarier atmosphere and visuals compared to the previous entries, so I could see the lack of that being a deal-breaker for some. The Absolution got a particularly interesting overhaul, with three side areas you now have to figure out your way through to get skull keys to turn off the spawners in the final arena (a replacement for the demon artifacts of the original). Normally going into the large room at the start triggers a volley of homing fireballs you have to take cover from you don't have that here, and instead there are multiple monster closets full of Revenants that open one by one as you progress through the level and have to cross back through that room again. One example that stood out to me is the opening area of Dark Entries. Of course the lack of 64's scripting capabilities and the such make some parts of various levels different by necessity, but the workarounds to keep a similar experience work pretty well.

We even have some creative QoL improvements that I wish were in the original, such as dioramas near some specific switches showing exactly what hitting it did in another room. And for what it is, big thumbs-up on the execution, as it does all feel like what Doom 64 would have been like if it was made with Doom II's engine, assets and visual/musical presentation.

Played through this a while back via GZDoom, going in with the expectation that this wasn't going to be the spooky ambient experience of Doom 64, but rather a re-interpretation of if this came out years prior as, say, a Doom II expansion of sorts.

Doom mods