Flawless vanilla style episode. It looks great and plays great. Maps are small in vein with original maps length, which is rare nowadays. Personally I wish there were more ~10 minutes maps episodes. Because with such length you can play the whole episode in one sit, and that is best for immersion. Anyway it's must-play!
Skill
Hard
Very well done collection of vanilla flavored maps. Nothing too challenging, I would say difficulty is comparable to the original Quake. Maps were fairly short, great for an afternoon relaxing and blasting away monsters. The layouts were intuitive and nicely interconnected, which was great for backtracking and looking for secrets. Secrets were also well telegraphed but some solutions were a bit repetitive. Great job overall!
Great retro-style map set. Played through it on skill 2 using the Ironwail source port.

Maps are about the original shareware episode difficulty, and contain several nudges to the classic maps. The episode however is far more more combat focused and does not contain as much traps as the original design. Secrets are easy to find, and provide decent rewards to keep the impulse going.

There is an overabundance of ammo though, which makes the experience a little easier than it should be. I was full of ammo for most of the maps which kept the action going but reduce the interest in exploration as you are full of resources most of the game.

While not bad by any stretch of the immagination, I think some balance may be required to make it more enjoyable.

Great retro-style map set. Played through it on skill 2 using the Ironwail source port.

Maps are about the original shareware episode difficulty, and contain several nudges to the classic maps. The episode however is far more more combat focused and does not contain as much traps as the original design. Secrets are easy to find, and provide decent rewards to keep the impulse going.

There is an overabundance of ammo though, which makes the experience a little easier than it should be. I was full of ammo for most of the maps which kept the action going but reduce the interest in exploration as you are full of resources most of the game.

4/5 stars
damn good
This is probably my favorite set of maps ever. It feels like playing original Quake in the 90's. The difficulty and gameplay is simple and clean and fast. Everything is easy and smooth, in a good way. You just blast through the maps, as if you were doing yet another run through of Quake. I think it's really hard to replicate the actual id1 Quake feeling, not to mention across several maps!

My only critique is that the last battle's difficulty is disproportionately more difficult than anything in the rest of the map pack. The criticism isn't the difficulty itself - that last map, as a stand-alone map, is super good on its own! It just doesn't fit the old-school pace of the rest of the map pack.

So it's not a complaint, just pointing out how it feels mismatched. It's all good fun, and I hope it inspires more map making that returns to the roots of simple (but thoughtful) texturing, fast-paced gameplay, easy old-school secrets, etc.

I look forward to the next map/s by Tonhao!
Fantastic use of id1 textures - everything is really beautiful. However, I was underwhelmed by the majority of the gameplay - with some more novel and engaging combat encounters, I think this could be really great.
I really enjoy this mapset. Though vanilla, it's well detailed and the lighting/shadows look great. Feels like a shareware episode from another timeline. Totally recommended. :)
Some good stuff. Maps are quite Id1 looking till the last one, and encounter set ups are harsh. On hard difficulties, dealing with several fiends at once is often required. My only complaint is the author's like for spawning enemies right in front of me. This one doesn't require quicksaving, but that does oil things.
All these maps are good solid id1 fun, and at least 3 are *very* good. Some nice tips-of-the-hat to the original campaign while still being inventive. I appreciate the use of mid-sized-maps too; it lets you have more frequent "closure" and change of scenery.

Well worth a play. I know Tonhao did some prerelease playtesting on these, and I think it shows.

One bit of constructive criticism:

The ammo is generous here (I was on skill 2 FWIW). While that's not necessarily an issue for a single map, it means that before the middle of this episode I was maxed out on all ammo to the point where I could almost make my way through an entire map just with grenade trickshot spam on all the baddies. Or by SNG-hosing everyone.

I know that's a tricky thing to solve, and no one gets the episode balance exactly right for all players, but in this case I think it could have been tuned better for episode-style playthrough. The back-half maps would probably play a lot better from shotgun start.
  • Mazu
  • 4.00 star(s)
  • Version: 1.4 and a kex quake exclusive format
Really nice episode with good difficulty curve and interesting layouts with great geo. Cool variety in themes that keeps it feeling fresh. Traps and some encounter arenas were really fun.

Earlier levels felt a bit too much like id1 maps, but once you get midway through it changes enough and mappers own style shines through better. There are some misplaced monsters like 2 fiends behind a bridge that they can't move under on 4th map.

There is my ultimate pet peeve on 2nd map with nailgun pickup targeting monster spawns, while I had 200 nails already. Much more preferable to have trigger volume that covers the pickup at the distance.

Other than that I can't really find anything other to complain. Maybe some lighting was a bit flat on 3-4 rooms overall.
Loved it! This was a really fun playthrough. Not too non-linear making it fairly easy to find your way through the maps. Progression of the whole episode felt great. I like the length of the maps too, 8-12 on average probably. Some really great moments too. Not a fan of the spawns, but who is right? lol. Really great job!
Really good. This is my favourite style for Quake by far and I could play it all day.
Have to play it. Awesome
Perfect classic experience. Recommend to all
A fun little tribute to the classic campaign, with a couple of spicy encounters thrown in. Had a great time with this, and I love seeing more id1 style releases. Would recommend.
Very neat vanilla-style maps with pretty stock-standard combat, but overall is a fun time. I enjoyed the various callbacks to ID1, and the fact that these work in Deathmatch is great for that community.
Short but extremely pleasant episode. Overall it's got a fair difficulty with some challeging bits. Also remarkable rooms with good guidance of the player. Very recommended!