Sigil 2

 Rounding out the Doom 1 level packs is John Romero's Sigil 2. I want to lead off with a note that also applies to the first Sigil: while Episode 4 sometimes felt like Doom 2 levels badly smashed into Doom 1, the Sigils manage to feel like they take elements from Quake (iD's next FPS) and get it into Doom. The best example is probably the use of narrow crushers as "spikes." Overall, I think Romero does an impressive job of backporting these elements, since they (mostly) feel like they fit, compared to the very cludgy Episode 4.

I might have to fire up Sigil 2 again on the PC so I can try it in another port. There were a lot of places with minor clipping issues, etc. My understanding is that the port used for the Switch version is pretty faithful, and I wonder if a more flexible one like GZDoom might have fewer issues.

Like I said in my Sigil review, a lot of the gimmicks are pushing to the point of tedium here (although it doesn't help that I played both packs back to back). The shooty switches hidden in alcoves got kind of old, and every level really doesn't need a Cyberdemon (or 3, which is more than the combined total of the original 3 Doom episodes, and more than half the total of the 32 level Doom 2), etc.

I did like the middle part of the episode, when Romero goes back to his techbase levels. He'll always be best remembered for Knee Deep In The Dead and it was cool to see him go back to this style (but harder, longer, more advanced, etc.) He's much better at doing secrets in other secrets than he was in 1993.

All in all, I think Sigil 2 was slightly less creative than Sigil 1, but I enjoyed it more. If you took the best 9 levels across the two packs, I think it'd come in ahead of any of the original 3 episodes. As its own thing, it's probably above 1 and 4, but below 2 and 3.

After sort of beating around the bush, I can finally move onto Doom 2 now. Officially, it's one 32 episode sprint, as opposed to the 9 episode chunks of Doom 1. Unofficially, it's broken into ~10 level chunks, with text screens similar to the end of episodes. I could go either way, we'll see.