Brand new Doom for... SNES?

[Dark Jaguar]

Limited Run, with iD software, are releasing a much more optimized version of Doom for the Super Nintendo of all things.  I'm not sure how they're managing the Super FX part of such a cart, except emulating it with an FPGA chip or something.

https://certb-site.bethesda.net/en/artic...24-roundup

Other than this, they've made yet another modern port of Doom and Doom 2, called "Doom + Doom 2".  If you own Doom anywhere, on any modern platform, you already own this, so congratulations!

They're releasing a "Doom Anthology", but it's literally just a fancy box containing a download code, so I'll just skip it.

And lastly, they're updating Doom Eternal with the loooong delayed mod support and a development studio.  About time!

[A Black Falcon]

SNES Doom is actually the only version of Doom I've finished, fifteen-something years ago.  I quite liked it, it's an impressive port for the hardware and is much more accurate to the PC game than the other '90s console versions of Doom.  And the original programmer of SNES Doom is, I believe, involved with this project!  So yeah, I'm excited.  Adding not only the five missing levels but Ultimate Doom's fourth episode, passwords, a better framerate, and circle-strafing are pretty awesome additions.  It's also adding FMV, at least for a Bethesda animation logo.  I hope it adds in the rest of the missing music as well, that was cut for cart space reasons.

The big question is the hardware, yeah.  SNES Doom is a SuperFX2 game.  Obviously this won't be using a real Super FX.  They've called it "Super FX 3" and said it'll have more memory than the original Super FX, but I'm not clear if it's an FPGA or something way more powerful than the original.  Games that use modern hardware to do things on old consoles that could never have been done back then, just limited by the video output of the original console, are interesting but aren't as ... what's the right word? legitimate? real? Those don't sound right... but that kind of thing just doesn't interest me as much as a game that uses hardware that could have existed at the time.  It'll be interesting to see which way SNES Doom goes on that.

[Dark Jaguar]

Yeah I'm with you.  That FPGA NES port of Doom was interesting but felt like "cheating", since it wasn't using any of the expansion chips available to the NES at the time.

I never bothered with the console ports of Doom when the game came out, because I was lucky enough to have a good enough PC to play the game.  Heck I eventually even got an AWE32, which was about the best I could hope to afford for sound at the time.  Sure an SC-55 would have been NICE but no chance I'd have been able to get that.

As for which 90's era port was the best, for me?  Easily, EASILY the PS1 port.  That one starts with the Jaguar port, already an impressive feat, and then adds an incredible new set of sound effects and music to the game.  The altered level geometry was meant to allow it all to run on Jaguar but it got straight ported to PS1.  Frankly, I like it for standing out as it's own thing.  Plus, colored lighting sectors make it stand above too.  It's got the fourth episode, Doom II, and some extra levels on top of that.  Final Doom also got a PS1 port, and it's impressive for the same reasons, except that it barely has any of the levels from the PC version for some reason.  It did add mouse support though!

Plus, it paved the way for Doom 64, which isn't really a port but a sequel in it's own right.

I'll say this though.  Outside of using an SC-55, the SNES version has the best MIDI interpretation of the original PC soundtrack.  I just... look I have a copy of the game right?  It's impressive on a technical level but I can't imagine actually playing it through to completion.  No saving, no circle strafing (an odd oversight that has numerous fan mods to fix already), and a frame rate around 10 or so?  Yeah, music aside, I'd rank the 32X version over that one.  In fact, the only port worse than the SNES version is the 3D0 version to me, though the 3D0 version impresses in the sense that it was all done by one woman working under a massive time crunch, and working for a man who believed "porting" a game was easy and that features could just be added by dragging and dropping pictures "into" the game and it would somehow figure out how to do the rest on it's own.  He was a much better musician though, and his garage band went and made one of the most interesting soundtracks for the game.

But, I can respect the nostalgia factor.  If this was the only way you had to play the game, then this was your Doom.

Now then, will they add in XBand, Keyboard, and Mouse support on top of everything else?

[A Black Falcon]

  It's impressive on a technical level but I can't imagine actually playing it through to completion.  No saving, no circle strafing (an odd oversight that has numerous fan mods to fix already), and a frame rate around 10 or so?

I played it to completion on real hardware in the '00s, though.  And I liked it a lot.

No saving - You can start from any episode, though which ones you can start from depend on the difficulty you choose.  On the default medium difficulty you can start from episodes 1 or 2.  THat means you only need to play through episodes 2 and 3 without turning the system off, not the whole game... or if you play on the easy difficulty you can start from episode 3 as well.  Back when I played through SNES Doom I remember leaving my SNES on for probably a few days as I played through episodes 2 and 3. 

Remember, in SNES Doom you have infinite continues and, crucially, when you die you start again with the weapons and ammo you entered the level with, instead of rebooting to only the pistol with 50 shots or whatever, so as long as you don't use up all your ammo it's basically like you have a quicksave at the beginning of each level that you return to if you die.  I don't think other ports do that.

No circle strafing-  Honestly, I don't care.  I'm terrible at FPSes what would be the point of running around in a circle while I try to shoot?  I'd never hit anything that way!  If I'm moving while shooting I'm probably not hitting anything.  Sideways strafing to dodge fire is really useful though, that seems like all you need in this game...

(I loved Splatoon 1 for Wii U, of course.  I always played as roller for obvious reasons... heh.)

The framerate - Yes, the framerate is a bit rough, but it's entirely playable.  They managed to make it run just barely well enough to feel totally playable.  With that said though, the one really annoying thing is how you can get stuck on the walls in this game if you're moving along them.  The sticky walls are definitely annoying, I hope they can improve on that...

Yeah, music aside, I'd rank the 32X version over that one.

The music is only one of the problems with that version!  The 32X version is missing 10 levels instead of 5, is based on the Jag so it's missing a lot of features the SNES has like that dark areas are dark, enemies don't have maximum visibility at all times as they do in the Jag version and all its ports, crushing ceilings exist, etc, etc... and if you die, I'm pretty sure you respawn back at the start of the level with only the pistol and 50 bullets.  Forget that!  No way.  Give me SNES Doom and it saving my weapons any day.  Yeah, 32X Doom has a better framerate than SNES, but I don't like it at all.  Oh, and it's the one other version, along with the SNES, where enemies always face you and you can't sneak up on them.


As for 3DO Doom, I have it.  It's painful to play, yeah.  It's technically playable, but barely...

I don't have Jaguar, PS1, or Saturn Doom though.

[Dark Jaguar]

I'm not really trying to debate, just explain my reasoning.  I already made up my mind that for me personally, I won't ever attempt a full playthrough of the SNES version of the game, and I listed my reasons.  It's not a position I intend to argue, simply explain.

I'm not going to defend the 32X version for the same reason.  I personally place it above the SNES version, but you bring up reasons why SNES might edge it out.  Still, we're arguing which piece of garbage we'd rather eat at that point.  Don't even try playing the Saturn version.  It's the PS1 version, but for some reason Romero directly ordered them NOT to recode the game to take advantage of the Saturn's hardware acceleration features and just run the game in pure software, out of some purist platonic ideal of what good code should be or something.  The result is the game is impossibly choppy, bordering on SNES but not quite reaching the depths of 3DO.  PS1 however runs surprisingly smooth for a console port of the era.  These are not "arguments" so much as a list of details of how these ports run.

I think it's interesting you brought up the lack of backwards facing sprite and how, to make things less confusing as a result, instead of allowing you to sneak up but having no visual indicator that you did, they simply made it so that sneaking up wasn't possible in those two versions.  On a related note, circle-strafing isn't about being able to strictly run in a huge circle around groups of enemies.  Simply being able to change direction WHILE strafing is all I ask for, and lacking that made navigating around obstacles frustrating.  As I said, if this is your nostalgic experience with the game, that's fine!  It's an impressive technical feat after all, and the frame rate did seem to make sure "key frames" like firing and enemy hits were prioritized to partially alleviate how choppy the game ran, but it's still unplayable.  I guess I should have added "to me" to that?  I had hoped it was implied.

Oh the autosave at level start thing is built into just about every modern port now, but it was unique to this back at the time the SNES version came out.  Anyway, I wanted your thoughts on adding SNES mouse, XBand Modem and XBand Keyboard support to this version.

[A Black Falcon]

Still, we're arguing which piece of garbage we'd rather eat at that point. 

... Garbage?  What in the world?  Absolutely not!  SNES Doom is pretty good.  I looked it up on my collection list and yeah, I have it at an A- grade.  It's a great game.  (I have the 32X version at a C grade.  That's maybe a bit harsh but between that it's missing twice as many levels as the SNES and that the music is terrible... eh, deserved.)

  On a related note, circle-strafing isn't about being able to strictly run in a huge circle around groups of enemies.  Simply being able to change direction WHILE strafing is all I ask for, and lacking that made navigating around obstacles frustrating.

But in Doom for DOS you can't circle-strafe, right?  I mean, you move with the arrow keys and strafe in a line with Alt, with Control for fire and Space for opening things.  That's the only way I've ever played it.  Maybe there's some way to do it I don't know about?  I don't think I've ever even finished the first episode of Doom for PC.  Booting it up now I see a save file in level 1-5, that's probably about as far as I got most likely.  And I've definitely never played any Windows versions of Doom for any amount of time, only the DOS versions with arrow key movement and control/alt/space for the controls.  So yeah, circle-strafing in Doom is barely something I've done... that's something for slightly newer FPSes once separate movement and aiming was a thing... and sure, that kind of control scheme has been hacked into Doom later, but I've never wanted to try playing it that way.

Though I have tried some of the newer console ports, those have dual-analog control schemes so I'm sure I did it a bit there, that's how dual analog controls work after all.  I didn't stick with it though and barely played those.


Oh, I didn't have Doom for PC in the '90s but did have Hexen.  Good game, though it's very hard.  I most certainly didn't finish it.

[Dark Jaguar]

Yes, you can "circle strafe" in Doom for DOS.  In fact, the default controls can be easily changed in the setup program to modern WASD and mouse aiming, with a decently high sensitivity if you edit the cfg file directly.  It's the preferred way to play the game, and in fact Doom and the community that figured out that keyboard movement was terrible in the game are largely responsible for the shift to WASD style movement and mouse aiming in shooters.

[A Black Falcon]

I've never really understood the point of mouse aiming in Doom.  It's not like you look up or down...

[Dark Jaguar]

I've never really understood the point of mouse aiming in Doom.  It's not like you look up or down...

But you can aim left or right, which is what I use it for?  It allows really quick precision aiming and turning.

It's actually rather stunning, I've never met someone who both doesn't see the need for being able to turn and strafe at the same time and doesn't see the point in mouse aiming.  I mean, I get why you might prefer a controller, but to not even see the advantage?  That's new.  Not judging, it's just novel that's all.  For my part I can't imagine playing Doom without precision and fast turning.  Well I CAN, but it's another reason I'm not really a fan of playing a number of early console releases, especially ones with even slower turning like SNES Doom, but now I really can see why you don't see SNES Doom as that big a deal.  The way you're playing it and your understanding, I suppose that until now you didn't see it as all that different from PC in the first place.  Doom can be fast paced though, believe me.

I should mention that Doom 1 for GBA is shockingly impressive and easy to play, though it's yet another port of the Jaguar altered maps of Doom 1, without the final episode like the PS1 version got.  Doom 2 on GBA uses a custom made engine, like the unique engine coded for the SNES version.  However, while it does run faster on GBA hardware than the SNES version does, this engine differs in a lot of key ways from the PC original, ways that hurt gameplay especially in later levels with tricky movement and jumps.  As such, the custom engine in SNES is superior in that regard.

[A Black Falcon]

So I tried the two X1/XS versions of Doom, the X1 Doom release from a few years ago and the new combined Doom + Doom 2 + other campaigns version that just released recently as a free upgrade for anyone who bought the original.  The new version is XSX enhanced, while the older one isn't but was X1X enhanced so there isn't that much of a difference, but the new one does look visually a bit nicer.  It's interesting how different they look, the filtering and such don't look the same.

As for controls though, both require you to use the left stick for aiming and the right stick for moving and strafing, just like a modern FPS.  You can redefine some of the buttons in the new version, but not the sticks in either version.  The older version doesn't let you change the controls at all, which is kind of lame.  Not letting you redefine the analog axes in either one is obnoxious though, most modern console shooters do better.  You can't even invert the sticks here!  Come on... and in a game where there's no reason to not just have turn/move on the same stick it's kind of dumb to not let you redefine the controls that way.  You don't need two sticks for turn/move/strafe!  Just two and shoulder buttons or something.  But anyway.

Then I tried the X1 version of Doom 64.  It's from Night Dive, so it's by an entirely different developer... and they do a better job, though it still doesn't have the options it should.  This one does at least let you fully redefine the buttons, unlike the new XSX version of Doom, but you can't redefine the sticks.  At least this one does have an invert sticks option.  You can try to play with dpad after setting the buttons, but for some reason it turns extremely slowly, making it kind of useless.  Too bad.

So yeah, I'd rather play Doom 64 on N64 and Doom on PC (DOS) or SNES... these versions play fine but I just don't like this kind of control scheme (two stick FPS controls), it's hard to control and vastly inferior to mouse+keyboard or sticks+motion... though I don't know how useful motion would be in Doom.  I think I have the game for Switch too, does that version have motion?  I should check.


As for the GBA, I've never played GBA Doom but have heard good things about it before.  I hope that it has music at least?  A lot of GBA FPSes don't have any.  I presume it's because the GBA doesn't have a dedicated audio chip so music needs to be done by the CPU, if I recall correctly, but still... yeah, the GBA was not meant to do 3d, it rarely turned out well.  I didn't buy any 3d GBA games during the system's life and that was definitely a good decision.  There are a few decent to good GBA racing games that use scaling sprites or even in a few cases polygons, but generally GBA 3d was usually a mistake...

[Dark Jaguar]

The new Doom + Doom 2 is also by Nightdive.  Same studio.  The previous release was done by Nerve.

I can't say much about motion controls.  I didn't really test that in the Switch version that got grandfathered to me.  I prefer mouse controls for sure.

The GBA version does have music, but the Jaguar version doesn't due to exactly the same issue.  They had to use every ounce of power in the Jaguar and that meant cutting music aside from intermission screens.  I can't speak to differences between XBox One or Series.  It's the same game either way, so I think if you go back on your One you'll find Doom + Doom 2 there too, not just the Nerve release.  I suppose the Series one will support higher resolutions but... well it's Doom.  It's going to look pretty much identical aside from resolution no matter what system it's running on.  It's true that Doom 64 on N64 allows far more detailed button assignments, included a sorely missed modern feature, allowing you to assign multiple functions to one button (such as "run" sharing the same button as "use"), but that said, the PC version is the ideal way to play Doom 64.  Fully customized sensitivity so you don't have that issue.  If you don't want to spend the money, well since you already own the game on other systems, just download this:
https://github.com/atsb/Doom64EX-Plus

This takes the basic enhancements of Doom 64 EX, which Nightdive's release is directly based on, and grants the Nightdive features plus even more new features, like mouselook up and down if you want.  You do need to provide a Doom 64 WAD and um... I'll leave how to get ahold of that as an exercise to the reader.  Again, you already own the WAD anyway so it doesn't really bother me however you manage to get it.  Keep in mind Doom64EX, from the start, was a full reverse engineered source code accurate version of Doom 64, but it was missing a few things that Nightdive's fixed, and even that is missing a few things which Plus fixes.

As for Doom + Doom 2, it's a great feature rich release, but well, the best way to play it just as it played back in the day (with a few nice modern perks) is:
https://github.com/fabiangreffrath/crispy-doom
And the best way to play it with full support for all the raw insanity of the modern Doom modding community is GZDoom:
https://zdoom.org/downloads

Also, if you like, there's:
https://github.com/BodbDearg/PSyDoom
Which is a full source breakdown of Playstation Doom, the best version of the Jaguar altered Doom experience.  Enjoy all the new music, sounds, and altered visuals.  You'll need to rip an image off your copy like I did... or acquire the .bin and .cue files another way.

There's also a 3DO source port:
https://github.com/BodbDearg/phoenix_doom
I haven't bothered, but really the only reason to play this one, which also uses the Jaguar levels as a base (without the PS1 enhancements to those levels) is for the incredible garage band renditions of the Doom music.  That guy had NO clue how to code or manage, but he could play at least.  Again, a disc image would be needed.  Good luck with that one, if you dare.  This is generally considered the worst port of Doom at least in terms of performance.

[Dark Jaguar]

ABF I think you might appreciate a far kinder review of this game from someone who, like you, played this as their first Doom experience.

[A Black Falcon]

Technically the shareware version of Doom for the PC is the first version of Doom I played, though probably not in the '90s, it was probably later on.  I just never played much of it.  As I said I'm pretty sure I did not ever play Doom in the '90s, though I did get Hexen in ~'96 or so. 

Looking it up on my list SNES Doom almost certainly is the first version of Doom I actually owned the full version of, though; I got it in '08 and played through the game that year, while I don't think I got any of the full versions of the PC Doom 1 or 2 games until between '09 and '11. 

The new Doom + Doom 2 is also by Nightdive.  Same studio.  The previous release was done by Nerve.

Really?  Then I'm pretty disappointed that it has greatly reduced control options than Doom 64's re-release does.  Unfortunate.

[Dark Jaguar]

"Greatly reduced"?  Thing is, the Doom 64 port by them also doesn't allow double-assignment of functions to one button like the N64 original did.  I don't see the reduction you're talking about.  I was able to reassign just fine.  Oh I double checked for you.  Doom + Doom 2 DOES have gyroscope controls on the Switch version.  So, you have that if you want it.