Legacy of Heroes (LEGHER.WAD)

1996 and 1997 marked the development period for one of my perennial favorite PWADs, Eternal Doom. There was a nominal time-travel element involved but most of its levels took place in sprawling, quasi-medieval settings. Legacy of Heroes is a spiritual successor of sorts. Released in 2016, gaspe took some of its base particulars insofar as its story and texture set and fabricated an eleven-level mapset for Doom II to be played in Boom-compatible ports. LEGHER includes a small epilogue in the MAP11 slot but it doesn't include any substantial gameplay; certainly not any combat.

The plot is all too familiar, especially for ETERNAL fans. Everyone knows about the gateway experiments that unleashed Hell on Mars and then shortly afterward on Earth but you'd be crazy to believe teleportation to be their only iron in the fire. Enter time travel, shatterer of worlds. The UAC couldn't manage to get this technology right either and was on the verge of mothballing it before something on the other side took control and used it as a gateway to bring Hellspawn into the base. You manage to enter the complex but you'll find out that the gate cannot be shut down from your side, forcing you to seek out the alien power responsible for the breach and annihilate it.

Legacy of Heroes is obviously inspired by Eternal Doom given its texture aesthetic and the liberal use of Rich Nagel's tunes but gaspe has made the theme into his own. You will not see much of the airy, expansive castles-cum-battlefields a la Chris Couleur. The structures still have a medieval bent but there is a distinctly Mediterranean flair and the layouts feel more intimate and less like Mario Kart tracks. Detractors of puzzle play may be encouraged to hear that the pixel-hunting and clue-sniffing of Jim Flynn and Bob Evans is virtually limited to secrets. You might still have to wrack your brain to unravel a few of the levels, notably "The Great Library" (MAP09), but the most complex switch-fu is specific to the areas in which it inhabits.

I'm not bringing up Couleur or the rest of the crew to slam them or anything; I absolutely adored Eternal Doom. It's just that gaspe somehow manages to render some brand new things using its skin which brings a lot more to the table by not stretching out its original premise. You have an underground city ("Buried Village"), something like a palatial terrace ("Desolate Gardens"), an enormous old world city ("Kythraessos"), an ancient archive ("The Great Library"), and other memorable moments like jumping into a whirlpool worthy of Charybdis only to be delivered to the next level via some strange lapis lazuli-colored conveyance.

All of the levels are linked together by their exits and starts so as to create a single, contiguous experience along the lines of Cleimos, Reverie, or one of the many others that I'm forgetting to mention. This will be a plus for people looking to be immersed in the experience, also buoyed along by the ruinous environmental design and often-haunting soundtrack. The player-blocking boundaries at the periphery of the levels will be a bigger sticking point, though, especially when your ability to roam feels at times free-range. Running into an invisible wall is a jarring experience, all the more so because LEGHER includes tangential areas that exist for no other reason than to be explored.

As far as the architecture goes, the main thing that the author takes advantage of is the virtual absence of engine limits. This doesn't matter so much in some of the indoor areas but you get the main benefit while adventuring in the exterior places where much of the world-building occurs. Large structures are often visible from a distance and you will actually, physically visit them as opposed to cheats with scaled-down versions or artistically tactical blocking walls or sacrifices involving a simplification of the detailing in order to keep stuff from crashing. Not that I'm slagging the careful craftsmenship that folks put into works like Back to Saturn X.

gaspe's take on combat emphasizes the tougher monsters of the Doom roster. The size of your opponents gradually ramps up until you encounter numerous Cyberdemons and Spiderdemons used as individual miniboss fights in "Kythraessos". This culminates in several intense showdown in "The Great Library" where you have to battle two Cybs at once and then at the end two more plus a pair of Masterminds. While this seems like a lot of big bads in a single location, the closest that Legacy of Heroes comes to slaughter is the finale of "Desolate Gardens". I say this mostly due to the placement of the arch-viles, which makes for the sort of dynamic encounter that has become emblematic of the scene.

It's difficult to pigeon-hole the action but the overall enemy placement consists of two major vectors, both of which are fully demonstrated in "Kythraessos" (MAP08). The first and most prevalent through the set has a tactical bent with area-denial monsters like chaingunners, mancubuses, or even Spiderdemons / Cyberdemons entrenched in relatively fixed positions and sometimes guarding major progression points. You aren't forced to immediately handle them but if you choose not to then you'll have to be situationally aware as you move through the spaces where they provide overwatch like the dozens of imps standing on rooftops or the first two Cybies.

The second takes the open layouts and then uses them to facilitate the free flow of monsters where the player's mobility is relatively limited, the biggest stars in this case being cacodemons. Peak madness happens during MAP08 since almost all of the buildings are three-dimensional facades that they can fly over and gaspe lets a large number of waves loose as you hit important milestones. The gasbags also start out a good distance apart so the way in which they can approach and pursue the player feels especially organic. This also benefits many of the free-roaming ground enemies but aerial monsters end up with the overwhelming advantage. This setup is less pronounced in levels featuring more cramped, complex layouts - like "King of the Lost" and "The Great Library" - but it's a common motif.

Admittedly, I would have been just as happy if not more so trying to sort my way through the needlessly elaborate manipulations required to make my way toward the exit switch a la the original Eternal Doom. MAP09 comes pretty close, though, and I treasure these sorts of experiences when they so seldomly appear. The average player will probably find its layout and machinations more than challenging enough. If you really hated Eternal Doom for its endless wandering but maybe liked its atmosphere or the idea of duking it out in non-stock texture castles then Legacy of Heroes is absolutely worth a shot. It's fairly divorced from its subject material and while that doesn't encapsulate why I enjoyed myself it may be enough to get the naysayers interested.

LEGACY OF HEROES

by "gaspe"

Horror at Dusk

MAP01

Pulling no punches at the beginning. It's a base built into a remote, rocky area. The naturalistic sections are quite convincing and the indoor segments feature a few bits of apparent utility, such as computer consoles and the stasis pods reminiscent of "Genesis". The Hell knight who looks like he's just murdered the sleeping marines is a nice touch. Most of the combat takes place in the central yard and works by keeping you off balance with snipers and makes progression a little difficult by, say, staging a pack of imps on the high ground on the other side of a bridge. The teleport ambush was my favorite combat moment. The revenant trap might ruin your day.

MAP02

At the Pillars of Hercules

Another cool base level that's broken up by a large, outdoor yard. The caverns you begin are a great way to set the tone since they're highlighted by the moody background music and you're shooting spectres in the dark with a shotgun. The rest of the combat ups the level of meat by introducing cacodemons and - more importantly - Barons. The latter figure in a fairly decent midpoint fight where you get the rocket launcher. It's way more straightforward than I was fearing when compared to the sneaky sorcerer that arrives during the battle at the time portal. Which looks really cool, incidentally.

Buried Village

MAP03

The sunken city is a neat and relatively rare aesthetic. I like the hot start and the way you're encouraged to hurtle toward the Berserk pack. The city itself can be a pain in the ass because your initial resources are limited and you've got to be on the watch for chaingunner snipers. One particular guy in a window feels noisome when you're just getting your bearings. The rudest though is the key ambush which has extraordinary potential for ruining your shit if you're either unprepared or didn't first find the rocket launcher secret. Nice ruins.

MAP04

The Perched Monastary

The increased scale is appreciated, both in the depths of the landscapes and the sheer size of the titular structure as it stretches from east to west. The player exposure continues and gaspe is more sneaky about it as you'll see when those pain elementals crest over walls that are just barely taller than your head. One of the more deliciously oldschool encounters is a quasi lock-in trap that puts you at the mercy of some imps while crushers seal off your escape route. Most of the actual rough stuff happens once you enter the main central and western yard since there are a handful of snipers to start while the welcoming crew gives you something to immediately think about. There is a secret plasma gun and it will definitely help, especially with a claustrophobic revenant ambush, but the author also gives you plenty of rockets for the finale.

Lapis Exillis

MAP05

Exploding the scope here for a good ol' battle into the heart of the castle hub after which you can tackle the three keys in the order of your choosing. A handy secret shows you the intended sequence, though, which follows an expected super shotgun to rocket launcher to plasma rifle progression. The yellow and blue wings have some great firefights; I really like the cell-fueled brawl on the eye platform and the far northwest shrine is a great hornet's nest. Both use cacodemons quite well and practically make them the star monsters. There are a lot of great visuals, too, like a spooky dead tree; a chute of molten rock; and a freakin' maelstrom to take you to the otherworldly finish. A great adventure; the only thing that disappointed was the room right before the leap into the whirlpool since it smacked heavily of the exit chamber from MAP02.

MAP06

Desolate Gardens

The coolest thing about this level is the eponymous courtyard to the north. It really looks like a ruined structure from a palace and comes with some nice tactical combat that still lets you run around like an astronaut. The atmosphere is amplified by the spartan but haunting soundtrack. The monster placement is treacherous throughout the entire run but nothing is as dangerous as the ambush at the end, a mini-slaughter brawl in the dark with a Cyberdemon, a bunch of Hell nobles, and arch-viles that are difficult to fleece out until they attack. The lapis lazuli cavern serves as a cool opening scene and it's nice to return to it before crossing the elevated garden path where you can survey your carnage.

King of the Lost

MAP07

This one has the look of a heavily ruined palace with a potentially Mediterranean flavor. The layout is the toughest to navigate thus far. This is largely because of the copious one-way dropoffs, several of which may have you rerunning small portions enough to feel as though you're on a treadmill. The time-worn detailing is very cool. My favorite segment is the mancubus four-way flame fight, which unlocks the western intersection and comes with a great follow-up phase. The outdoor areas look fantastic and add a lot of depth to the imagined universe.

MAP08

Kythraessos

A sprawling old world city. Most of the rooftops are actually real so there's less painstakingly clearing buildings and more running away from monsters everywhere and the very open layout allows all of them, especially the periodically released cacodemons, to organically make their way to you. It's an exercise in player exposure where you can sort of play the wildman at the beginning but favors tactical movement toward the end thanks to devious enemy placement and the occasional big bad. There are three Cyberdemons and Spiderdemons, most of them holding very important points in checking the player's progress. There are so many things like the ship, the docks, and the northeastern beach that appear to exist for the sole purpose of being visited. The secrets are a bear to sniff out at times but one of them leads to an author shrine featuring a puzzle and is definitely worth it!

The Great Library

MAP09

This is a freakin' awesome archive with a complex layout for you to slowly unravel as you pick your way through. It really feels like a library and while it's not necessarily as cavernous as Hellbound's MAP26 it has a bunch of other cool details that further link it to the setting beyond ostensibly being set inside the final structure from "Kythraessos". There are Greek letters found embedded in the ground among the various library stacks, for one, as well as a floor map of the Mediterranean Sea. The chamber of the Heavens may be my favorite, though, boasting four constellations and a planetary model. It feels even more expansive when you factor in the relatively large sewer section and the subterranean tunnels deeper below that add some mystery and hammer home the Cthonic / Gorgon theme. There are a few cheap shots in the monster placement but the big hangup might be the big brawl at the end which will be tough to handle without (1) saving the invul, (2) finding the BFG secret, and (3) solving its little puzzle. The real challenge, I think, comes when navigating the floor plan since the BFG secret starts with the only library bookcase that has a gaping hole visible on the opposite side of the wall behind it.

MAP10

Hero of Gone Times

A nice, short buildup where you get your weapons and take out a fairly entrenched welcoming brigade. There are two semi-secret areas accessed by a relatively routine trick which would be cooler were it not so easy to take for granted the existence of blocking lines on the sides of the staircase. There are two quasi-maulotaurs and while their attacks - spliced together from Barons and mancubuses - wouldn't normally be all that threatening, you're fighting on acid with only scattered islands giving your feet safe purchase so you can't just circle-strafe them into oblivion. Thankfully the author has deigned to teleport in supplies during the course of the battle. All you need to do is survive until they arrive.

21XX	MAP11
You appear to have made it home or at least to a UAC outpost. Is this some kind of a twist? Were you in the future the whole time? The presentation feels ambivalent considering that a sinister-looking obelisk sits perched behind the welcoming sign but it's hard to tell whether it's just a cheeky epilogue or a portent of horrors to come.

LIVE A LEGACY