Final Doom (PlayStation)

Final Doom for the Sony PlayStation was created by the same team at Williams Entertainment that produced the PlayStation version of Doom, reusing the same engine. It was released on October 1, 1996, including a mixture of 30 levels from the Master Levels for Doom II and the Final Doom missions TNT: Evilution and The Plutonia Experiment. The instruction booklet erroneously states that the game contains 30+ levels rather than 30 exactly. Although the box does not mention the Master Levels, the back cover of the instruction manual acknowledges their inclusion.

General changes
As a game, and like its predecessor, Final Doom for the Sony PlayStation differs markedly from the PC version. The gameplay tends to be somewhat slower, with darker rooms, grittier graphics, disturbing sound effects and music that ranges from melancholy to extremely frightening. This is still an action game, but it often feels more like a survival horror than a run-and-gun.

Maps are called "levels". There are 30 levels, with none of them being secret levels, split into three episodes: The Master Levels, which makes up the majority of the game; TNT (notably not called "TNT Evilution" as is usual); and Plutonia, of which only a handful of levels made the cut. By contrast, the Master Levels are not considered part of the PC version of Final Doom at all.

While many PlayStation Final Doom maps were altered to simplify geometry, amend monster deployment, lower room heights, and use fewer, more consistent flats and textures, the levels are generally far more intact and much more detailed than in Ultimate Doom and Doom II. As a result, lower frame rates are achieved in a number of maps. Escaping these maps is not something you do quickly.

Technical details


Support was added for the, offering a potentially more PC-like control experience than was possible with its predecessor.

Maps are still stored in individual files, albeit with a file extension - these files are WAD files, and use the same LZSS compression algorithm established in the Atari Jaguar version.

The super shotgun, which had suffered severely from the down-scaling needed for the prior game, was redrawn for the American and European versions of this game, giving it a "sleeker" appearance. However, for some reason, the Japanese release continues to use the same graphics as PlayStation Doom.

The Final Doom PLAYPAL is even larger than Doom's, with 26 palettes:
 * Palette 16 is used for the DOOM and STATUS graphics.
 * Palette 17 is used for TITLE and BACK graphics.
 * Palette 18 is used for IDCRED1.
 * Palette 19 is used for WMSCRED1.
 * Palette 20 is used for CONNECT, NETERR, LOADING, BUTTONS, PAUSE, and TILE.
 * Palette 21 is used for the SKY02 texture.
 * Palette 22 is a perfect copy of palette 0.
 * Palette 23 is used for the SKY04 texture.
 * Palette 24 is used for the SKY05 texture.
 * Palette 25 is used for the SKY06 texture.

Though all of the resources for the Spiderdemon are included in the game's data files and it appears in the cast call at the end of the game, it is not found in the Final Doom levels. System memory restrictions completely prevent it from being used in any of the included maps, based on calculation of the amount of memory available for sprites in each level.

Music
Like its predecessor and its successor Doom 64, Final Doom for PlayStation features a soundtrack by Aubrey Hodges. In addition to reusing most of the songs from the first game, ten additional new tracks were composed by Hodges for this edition.

Inaccessible secrets

 * In MAP09: Nessus, there is a wall that can be walked through, and behind this wall is a ledge with a revenant on the other side of a drop. This ledge -- which is above the corridor containing the four teleport pads -- holds a megasphere on Ultra-Violence skill level and a supercharge on lower skill levels, as well as a BFG9000 behind a hidden doorway. The doorway is marked as a secret, but because that sector is too thin for the player to actually enter it, the secret is never registered as being found. (This bug also affects the PC version of the level, and causes the intermission screen to be stuck at 0% secrets.)
 * In MAP29: The Death Domain, a secret in the south-west corner of the map cannot be reached, as the texture which opens the entrance to this secret is missing.

All other secrets are fully accessible.

Level conversion errors

 * The red key in, used to open an optional arsenal room in the PC level, is useless in this version as that room was removed entirely.

Reverse engineering
On June 14, 2020, Erick194 of Team GEC finished reverse engineering the port and released the results on Doomworld, following the previous effort of reverse engineering the original PlayStation port.