Not much to add to the other glowing reviews. I played it on the original Winquake executable with a CRT monitor set to 320x200 resolution for that authentic old school look and feel from my childhood.
The episode felt like quintessential Quake, as if this is how Quake should have looked and played back in 1996, but id software didn't know what does and does not work in Quake. Such knowledge could pretty much only be accumulated over the decades of Quake mapping experience, which has been distilled into a near perfect episode in Ritual.
I liked pretty much all the levels. Ammo wasn't really scarce, but more so health, which often kept me on the verge of death making the game feel nice and tense. The tension was ever more heightened by the awesome soundtrack. The atmosphere in the cold, dark and hostile environs was so oppressive and lonely. Great stuff! Even with the low polycounts the levels were quite the marvels to behold. Just shows how a good sense of style triumphs over high-end graphics.
I think I died on the Fiendish Hatred (ze1m3s), the Hypogeum (ze1m6) and Fallen Star (ze1end). The deaths on the two latter maps were more on me getting impatient and not being on the right mindset to play, but I think ze1m3s had a place where I felt I was unfairly mobbed from multiple directions (while picking up the SNG).
A few visual glitches occurred on Winquake, such as platforms that were supposed to cover over sections of water, were transparent. But it hardly matters over the fact that there's an actual modern episode playable over the original executables, which is awesome!
A couple of nitpicks: While the secrets (found all of them eventually) were mostly fun to find and nicely hinted, I wasn't a big fan of the "find the red shootable button or touchplate in an obscure cranny" ones, which have always been a pet-peeve of mine. In addition, there were a few very minor misaligned textures in hardly noticeable places.
All in all, at the time of writing this review, my gut tells me to rate Ritual 97/100, which translates to 4.85/5. Awesome work, guys!
