Super NES

The Super Nintendo version of Doom was developed by Sculptured Software, Inc. and was published by Williams Entertainment in September 1995, near the end of the system's life cycle. The cartridge features a Super FX 2 chip, and was one of few SNES games to feature a colored cartridge, with the NTSC version being available in a red casing. The game does not use the Doom engine, but features a custom engine programmed by Randy Linden.

Details
SNES Doom features 22 levels from the PC version. The status bar is redesigned, featuring an image of the weapon current held instead of the original numbers. Unique to this port, the floors and ceilings lack texture mapping. The game lacks a back-up system, meaning that each episode must be finished from the beginning. Multiplayer was available if the player bought an XBAND modem. Due to memory limitations, the enemies are only animated from the front, which meant that they always appear to face the player. Monster infighting was not implemented, although it was made possible for monsters of the same type to damage each other with projectiles in this version of the game. Perhaps as a concession to this limitation, circle-strafing was also removed, though standard strafing is still possible. Also, perhaps as a means to conserve processing power, sound propagation is unused, rendering all enemies deaf. The game runs at the system's native 256 x 224 pixel resolution, though it does not fill the entire screen; instead, it runs in a window, with a black frame.

Interestingly, some of the maps used in the Super Nintendo port are actually more intricate and detailed than their counterparts on the more powerful consoles, though several are still heavily retextured as in other console versions. The cyberdemon and spiderdemon monsters that the Atari Jaguar and Sega 32X versions lack are also present. The musical score, which uses the system's on-board sound processors, plays new arrangements of each song rather than the PC version's own MIDI format. The musical arrangements of the SNES version were generally praised. It has a unique difficulty system where later episodes can only be accessed on harder difficulties. According to concerns from Nintendo, the Super Nintendo version was modified to not include any hell references (this proved to be false, as the "Inferno" chapter still takes place in Hell and contains at least one inverted cross); furthermore, blood drawn from gunfire was removed to make the game seem less violent (though the graphic death sequences still remained). Many believe that this issue led to mixed reviews.

The automap display takes advantage of the rotating and scaling of the Super FX chip, with the entire map spinning around the player's position rather than the player being portrayed with an arrow. Due to system limitations, no particles such as blood impacts, smoke or bullet sparks are present in the game - indeed, the shotgun does not fire seven individual shots as normal, but rather functions something like a slug gun or hunting rifle. This allows a player to shoot (and be shot) from a distance using the shotgun with no decrease in power. Moreover, the player's chaingun is now capable of single fire (although emptying one's bullet stock still produces a doubled sound effect). Finally, Nightmare mode does not feature respawning monsters, but still contains very fast and tough monsters as normal.

Other differences to the original version

 * In the absence of the Command Center level, the secret exit for episode 2 is now located in Refinery, behind the secret supercharge in the nukage near the exit, unlocked with an added switch.
 * Rockets are much stronger, and are able to take out enemies such as the baron of hell with only three shots versus the five to six in the PC version.
 * The plasma gun is significantly stronger and uses fewer sprites in its firing sequence.
 * It is possible for the player to collide with his own fired projectiles (such as rockets and plasma) if the projectiles are fired while the player is running.
 * The BFG does not display an explosion graphic as it does in other versions; it simply fires a round that looks like a baron fireball and causes a ripple effect without the animation.
 * All three of the aforementioned weapons utilize the imp/cacodemon/baron fireball sound effect when fired.
 * In a rather humorous fashion, the cyberdemon's rockets fire out backwards.
 * The demon does not have its own death sound effect; it uses the pain and death sounds from the imp.

Easter eggs
At the bottom of the Knee-Deep in the Dead sky texture is a message reading, "Randy Linden ♥ Jodi Harvey." This Easter egg can only be seen if the player looks inside the ROM's graphical resources, or uses a Pro Action Replay code that allows walking through walls in areas where the sky is visible.

Within the ROM itself, a hidden message can be found which reads, "NRage / Reality Engine written by Randy Linden. Special thanks to my loving wife, Jodi Harvey." It can only be found if the ROM file is opened in a hex editor, and is found at position 10E (270 in decimal).

Trivia
According to John Romero, the Super Nintendo port of Doom was developed secretly by Sculptured Software and then brought to id fully complete in order to request permission for it to be published. Romero states that id's response was "Oh hell yeah!" The involvement of Midway in its publishing would later lead to that company also handling ports to the PlayStation and Nintendo 64.