FPS action and fun with a surprisingly atmospheric twist.
I'd hate to admit my noobitity, but Final Doom is the first Doom game I ever played. To be perfectly honest I was astounded at how cool the game was. It didn't have to do with the fact that I was blasting demons from Hell with a sawed-off double barrel or the fact that I had a gun called the BFG9000 on me, but because of something I wasn't expecting at all from the game... an atmosphere.
Ever since this game, I went out and played all the versions of the original Doom I could find and I have to say this is, and always will be, my favorite one.
The game actually has a total of three story lines involved with the three different episodes in the game, though none of them meet any visible closure. The Master Levels episode is blatantly described as just some devious little scheme the Designers threw together for you to play with... kind of like Image Fight only less tedious. My favorite is the set up for the TNT episode because I've played too many games about saving the world: I wanna be in it for the REVENGE!
The game is very straight forward: You pick up a variety of guns and ammo to use on hordes of undead soldiers and living demons and you have to get from one level to the next by collecting different colored key cards. There are plenty of hidden secrets for you to find, most of which containing power-ups and more ammo. There are some secrets in levels that feel either unfinished or a waste of time though like the secret timed wall puzzle in Baron's Lair.
The game uses a nice auto-targeting system for enemies that are set above and below you and the guns are all set in a reasonable perspective: every time you have a gun armed, it's set directly in the bottom center of the screen leaving enough space for you to see 95% everything ahead of you. There were a few moments where the gun blocked a small crawl-space that revealed an imp below my, but otherwise everything was clear. Plus, it makes sense to have the gun positioned at the lower-center of the screen: could you imagine someone holding a gun at their far right so they can get a good look at the entire gun pointing at a diagonal angle towards their enemy?
While the game is essentially an expansion pack to the first Playstation Doom port, the textures are smoother in this addition and the game even runs smoother: I clearly remember playing Doom on the PS and unloading my BFG9000 when suddenly the game screen went black and a strip of text told me I overloaded something. In Final Doom, I can unload the BFG9000 all I want and I get no graphical repercussion for it.
The sound effects and music are actually all recycled from the previous Playstation Doom port and while this may seem lazy, it's an acceptable laziness: the sound effects are still effective as every monster makes a distinct noise and hearing that noise when you enter a new room or surprise area depending on the monster will manage to make you jump in your seat.
The music however is what really makes this game stand out. The music consists of down-right dark and evil tones, the kind you'd hear if you literally were in Hell. It was the kind of music I expected to hear in a Survival Horror game with a personal atmosphere (like Deep Fear). The music actually makes the different levels feel foreboding; there were times were I literally felt like I was deeply alone in the game.
One of my favorite level songs (and levels) had to be Vesperas where it's nothing but dark and creeping ambient sci-fi tones playing in a dark, castle-like setting. Add that to the fact that that you occasionally run into mutilated corpses that might've been comrades and you've got a great set up for a good scare.
Which is weird, because with a game saying messages like "ooh yes" and "Go find some meat!" I kept expecting the game to be a goofy action epic, but thankfully it wasn't in the slightest.
Now I know I said the music was also recycled from the first Doom port, but here's the catch: in the first Doom port, all the evil songs were completely re-used for practically every level which gave the game a very repetitive feeling. In Final Doom, every song is distinct to every level and the only get re-used during the last two levels of the game where they clearly could've left room for the two songs that were actually omitted from the PS Doom port (see levels Tricks and Traps and Threshold of Pain*), which actually makes the game feel distinct and not just in level design. That's a good thing especially when you've got practically half the levels in this pack than you did in the original Doom.
I guess the only nitpicks I can add include the fact that the enemy line-up is lacking a bit, particularly with the Spider Master Mind who doesn't make a single appearance in this installment and my personal favorite the creepy original Mancubus who only appears twice in one level! Come on, that's a genuinely chilling and repulsive enemy! It's still the best naked obese monster I've ever seen in a game even after playing ObsCure 2 and Silent Hill 3. But like I said, those are nitpicks.
If you have a Playstation, need a good FPS with a little atmosphere mixed in or can't decide which early Doom to stick with, get Final Doom: it's got a surprisingly thick atmosphere mixed with the kind of gritty, unadulterated fun back when enemies literally splattered into chunks rather than just going completely limp and flying around whenever you hit them with a rocket launcher... from five feet away.
*: Yes, I am that alone, but it's a good kind of alone.