The fact that some dude just decided to port Doom onto the Super NES just to see if it could be done is totally in the spirit of "let's run Doom on every single thing that has ever existed." The guy was ahead of his time.
Hearing about how the SNES port was made really reframes it. Previously, I just knew it as a somewhat shitty port for an underpowered console, but now I see it for the work of mad genius that it is.
It’s cool but I can’t play the snes port for more than 5mins always give me a headache from the blurry graphics., it’s like wearing glasses that aren’t prescribe to you 😂
The "can it run DOOM?" trope might be a bit repetitive at this point, but it does show how tremendously important it was for the PC gaming innovation. Given I started playing most of my nostalgic games on the PC (DOOM II sort of being one, despite being way too young for it) I never really gotten used to consoles taking over for the most part of the 10s. Now in the 20s they seem rather even and can run as good as everything, which some exceptional exceptions on either side. If anything, mobile systems are becoming more powerful and Android's slowly pitching in as well. Innovation, always interesting stuff!
These days the NDS/3DS and later handhelds are powerful enough to run the PRBoom source port natively (most distros require you to import your own wads for copyright reasons).
I am 53 years old and have been Doomside since 93. I didn't think I could ever learn anything new about the plight of Daisy's dad but wow, I have learned stuff I didn't know before. Mind blown, subscribed, thank you
My first exposure to Doom was on my mate’s PS1 and it was utterly terrifying for an 8 year old child. I had no idea the tone was so much different on PC until MANY years later when I finally picked it up in store. Playing on PC made my childhood experiences of Doom seem like one massive fever dream. Especially with the slightly different secrets and rooms throwing me for a loop ☠️☠️
Same. I remember playing it with my dad back in the day, being a weelad and having to face Plutonia/TNT/Master levels maps with no prior Doom knowledge was a big traumatic experience but it toughed me up. Some years later I played the entirery of Plutonia and TNT and didn't even blink once.
Oh boy! Another DxN port comparison project once again. And just as on brand as the PoP videos. Super stoked about these, fantastic work David... and thankyou for reminding me I'm a tad overdue to do the same for Zool and Bomberman.
I miss when games were cartridge-based and included their own hardware. There’s something very cool about a game shipping with its own dedicated chip just to run the auto map.
The Super FX2 chip wasn't solely for the automap (no publisher would agree to publish it that way given how much the chip cost). Linden just realized that the chip made it possible to rotate the automap, so he went ahead and did it. The port relies on the Super FX2 for rendering pretty much the entire environment and there's no way a version of Doom would be even remotely acceptable on barebones SNES hardware, given the sacrifices that had to be made to get Wolfenstein 3D running on it.
@@TheFancifulNorwegian I’m oversimplifying of course. It’s cool that you could develop a game that could not normally run on the machine you were making it for, so you just included your own hardware to help out! I dunno, it’s just a weird middle ground between arcade cabinets being hardware designed for one specific game and disc-based games needing to stay within the constraints of the home console they were made for.
I've seen a lot of Doom comparison videos but none of them had your dry wit and soothing accent, so this is now the best video on the subject on TH-cam by default. Excellent work, my friend!
17:50 Ironically enough, that tuneless wailing is probably EXACTLY how that track would sound in Hell itself; just wrong enough to be recognisable while still painful to hear...
I'm surprised you didn't touch on the SNES's music. I always thought it was the best out of all the ports of the era. And I might be biased since it was my first version of Doom, but I even (mostly) prefer it to the DOS version's soundtrack. It sounds more atmospheric and actually more orchestral (?) in some ways, probably because it uses a unique soundfont instead of the standard, slightly more digital sounding MIDI one, or indeed the bleeps and bloops of some of the other ports.
Yeah, the awesome music is what stood out to me right away. 32X music was garbage, but I think that was due to it being rushed & the programmer may not have known the Genesis sound processor very well. Games like Streets of Rage 2 & Castlevania Bloodlines show us what can be done. And there were some extra sound capabilities 32X allowed for & those must've been completely ignored.
Great coverage! Looking forward to a part 2. My first Doom was on the PlayStation and it's such an experience. I later grew to love Doom in all its PC glory but man the atmosphere on the PS1 was something else. Keep up the good work!
I've been hearing about how bad the SNES port was my whole life, but now that I've played it for the first time live on stream a couple of years ago, I understand just how wrong these people were. Despite a few shortcomings, it's a very playable and an incredibly impressive port. And let's face it, if I only had a SNES in 1995 & nothing else, I would have *loved* this version no matter what. A very unfair reputation status.
Yes, it’s not great but it’s pretty incredible to consider what it did manage, especially compared to some of the consoles a generation after it. I’ve noticed that it doesn’t run very well in Snes9x, with a much lower frame rate and speckles all over the place as it draws walls - maybe some of the reputation comes from that
Wait a minute....are you telling me Doom on the Jaguar was run using the Motorola 68K? Why didn't Carmack take advantage of Tom & Jerry (Jaguar 32-bit processors) for the game? Addendum- The Jaguar standard controller does not have shoulder buttons but...the Pro controller does. They can be used to play Doom on the Jaguar, opening it up. For reference, Doom released in 1993 for the PC. The console ports did however start releasing in 1994. Fun Fact- The guy that made Doom for the Snes hid a very special easter egg inside the game that took over 20 years to find. This easter egg can only be accessed through an Action Replay code that enables clipping. It was a message to his girl that read: "Randy Linden lives Jody Harvey!"
Great video! If you interested you can take a look at the Doom 32x: Resurrection. This project makes 32x version a lot more playable and it even adds new features like multiplayer for example.
My interest in Doom ports came with the 3DO - Rebecca Heineman has a couple videos about how her team made it against all odds from a unrealistic demanding company run by nonces.
Excellent watch! I'm a big fan of these analytical-style videos of yours and a series on all these weird and fascinating alternate versions of Doom is just a dream come true. Can't wait for more!
Ah, there is no "stumbling through". But I really enjoy these types of videos. It's interesting to see that the PC version was more beefy than the consoles (I'm partial to the PC, what can I say). The person who made the SNES port though was obviously a big Doom fan. Looking forward to part 2!
Awesome comparison bunny dude :3 The snes version is probably my favourite out of these ports shown, while the framerate was decent considering, it was the only one to be the full game mostly.
Hell yeah! Like many people I found this channel from one of the Prince of Persia comparison videos (probably the second one but I don't fully remember), and ever since I found out you also did DOOM content this is exactly the video I was hoping for.
Oh man, I grew up on the SNES port. I had no idea it had such an interesting history behind it. Limited and inferior as it may be to most versions, I have so much nostalgia for it that I could never dislike it. Also, cute bunny.
Few notes on the Jaguar port: your gameplay seems to be running twice as fast as it does on the actual console, making everything look far more jerky than it really is. That would also explain why you thought the game was faster. It's actually slightly slower than the PC version, extremely similar to the PS1 and N64 port. Source: I actually own the game on the real console. Also, there was a pro controller for the Jaguar that DID have shoulder buttons (and 3 more face buttons), but I don't know if they actually work with Doom.
I still own the SNES version of Doom. At the time it was simply marvelous that we could play Doom on our SNES. We were so impressed that we took the graphics and controls for granted and just had a blast, being scared and having fun shooting demons. I have a few things to add on this version (which was the European PAL version) which I discovered whilst playing: 1. When you pause the game, you can still cycle through the weapons. This makes it easier to pick the weapon you need instead of having to cycle through all of them to get the one you want, and then cycle past it because you press the button one too many times. Really helpful. 2. It is possible to start Inferno on Hurt Me Plenty. If you beat Shores of Hell on this difficulty and watched the ending text, you will start Inferno. I tested this a few times and I could tell the difference because enemies did less damage and there were less enemies overall (I believe 1 Cacodemon instead of 2 in Hell Keep, to give example).
You can play all the levels on each difficulty, you're just limited by which episode you can start from. The Japanese version lets you pick any episode on any difficulty.
My first comment ever on one of your vids was about pronunciation so it's only apt I ask why your Babel differs from both American and British ways that Google provides (and my own, non-native speaker version) 😀 Great video, looking forward to the next part!
My understanding is that it's not entirely accurate to say Jag ran on the 68k, which was only there to bootstrap the system -- the 32-bit Tom and Jerry processors were intended to be the heavy lifters.
@@DavidXNewton But of course! Funnily enough, I've also heard the Saturn was initially marketed as 64-bit in Japan using the same logic (twin SH-2 processors). For what it's worth, the Jag does have 64-bit components in the form of its object processor and blitter. But as hindsight has made clear, what it's worth is about zilch. Looking forward to part 2.
Correct; Atari described the 68k as a "bus controller" - presumably it was acting as memory management between the custom CPU and DSP chips. However since those chips were both brand new and not particularly easy to program for, a lot of developers seem to have ignored them in favour of running code directly on the much more widely-known 68000.
@@thisisnotachannel Yeah, the N64 RE2 was more a miracle of ingenious compression and other types of space-saving, since raw horse power wasn't an issue.
@@JediMBfun fact, the studio that did RE2’s N64 port, Angel Studios, later went on to become Rockstar San Diego, the same studio behind the Red Dead series. Also supposedly RE2 was to act as a proof-of-concept to convince Sqauresoft to let them bring Final Fantasy VII to the N64, but Square wasn’t interested.
The Jaguar version is running way faster than it should. The issues with speed could be because the game speed is tied to the framerate. The game seems to be running at 60fps in the video, but the game is designed to run at a maximum of 20fps on a real console.
You know what, I kind of prefer the Jaguar's version of Phobos Lab over the original - the "Hell castle" look does seem to fit the layout more than "UAC techbase". Amazing how some simple texture changes can completely alter the entire feel of a map.
There are also repro gba carts that run the PC version of Doom and Doom 2. Worth it, imo. I've been playing Doom since 1993, and the PS1 version is still my favorite. Just an incredible atmosphere, accomplished with some simple lighting tricks and an ambient ost.
Hearing that SNES Doom was potentially going to be compatible with the Super Scope has just made me think about how good the Doom engine could be for making light gun games. You'd just need to script the player movements to play back as a demo, remove any knock back from enemy projectiles (and probably cut the firing rate of the enemies dramatically), then set up the usual set of flashing white squares for when the trigger is pulled so that the game can have accurate hit detection (or you could use the mouse cursor and a pointer device for modern televisions). Obviously it would be a slower game by quite a margin and would be pretty basic compared to the likes of Time Crisis, but it could be a pretty neat little mod project.
Looking forward to PSX in part 2. If I heard correctly they initially went full 3D but the textures skewed so much due to integer rounding that Carmack told them to revert to the vertically scanned ray-trace method of DOS. The correct choice.
if you have a 32x and an Everdrive, getting the patched Doom Resurrection is a must. it fixes nearly ALL of the rushed 32x version's issues. The snes version is fun here and there, but is really tough due to enemies that you cant even see can hit you. and I cant stand doom without music. so doom jaguar is the bottom of the barrel for me.
Would be cool if they did a Mortal Kombat 2 Resurrection to complete that game too as it was rushed out the door. They forgot the ending screens the SNES version has, left out a bunch of sound effects (including a couple more Kahn taunts) the SNES version has. I also wonder if they could've used the additional sound channels the 32X provided to do something to improve the music a bit even though I liked plenty of it already. I always wanted that arcade bass layer that seemed to be on all the tracks. Play control was great so no complaints there.
When you do Part 2, some things to note: GBA Doom has unique deathmatch maps that have never existed on any other version of the game. Presumably people have recreated them via custom maps, but they were unique at the time. It also has a rather unique take on the OST. On the other hand, GBA Doom II is very faithful, being almost a perfect 1:1 clone of the PC version, except its armor system works weirdly, and Industrial Zone was split into two maps. Both Playstation and Saturn Doom had Doom II enemies and weapons in the Doom maps, and both made the super shotgun fire a lot faster and thus it's even better in those games. Both also featured some enhanced graphics. I didn't mention Doom 64 because that's a wholly original title in its own right.
Thank you! The two next videos are already recorded and available to Patrons - the GBA exclusive multiplayer levels are a very interesting feature :) I didn’t cover the Doom 2 port to the GBA but my thoughts on the N64 “port” are in the third video - I’d never really played it before this and I’m glad I did!
I grew up with doom and have played it and countless other fps games on pc and consoles. Doom on the PS is the only game that has made me violently motion sick, and it happened nearly instantly.
I can not wait to see you talk about 3DO Doom. that is a trip to learn about not because of the game but the story Surrounding the making of it. Hell yea of a video :D
I love the video! Your port comparisons of Prince of Persia games are some of my favorite videos. Your story behind the SNES version is peculiar, as I had never heard that before. However, I had read Masters of Doom, and IIRC it stated that Carmack himself directly worked on the SNES port and didn't mention Randy Lindon at all. I know Masters of Doom has been criticized for not being the most accurate version of id Software's history, but it seems weird that it would have such a drastically different explanation of where the SNES port came from. Of course, I know you do your due diligence with the research on these things, so I don't doubt the Randy Lindon story. It's just weird.
That book seems to be the one conflicting source of information. Everything else on the matter agrees that id was only directly involved in the Jaguar port, and everything else was either derived from that, or was its own engine. But the book also seems to condense a lot of stuff. It mentions that id "open sourced Doom" right around the time Romero left, when it was well over a year later, and even then wasn't formally done until 1999. It's possible the author just got some of the details wrong.
Masters of Doom doesn't mention the SNES port of DOOM at all, as far as I know. It does, however, mention the SNES port of Wolfenstein 3D, which was done by Carmack himself.
The SNES port end up being better than the SEGA 32X port? (which is also inferior to the Atari Jaguar port) That's a score for NintenDO that SEGA don't.
Jaguar: TBH, as petty as this is, I still sort of resent the Jaguar version for how it influenced basically a lot of console versions of Doom to a point. Yeah yeah I know computer demigod in human flesh and formless weaver of the dimensional fabric we call reality John Carmack put it together but still, it being the baseline was kinda sad when it lacked a lot of the original Doom's bits including a final level that wasn't shit along with the Cyberdemon or Spider-mind. It didn't even have working music so it had absolutely nothing to compensate. The Not Tower Of Babel/Hell Gate as it was renamed in PSX Doom was pretty....yeah it was just there. I still hate the GBA version for very shamelessly being just "can i get a fuckin uhhhhhhhhhhhhh jaguar doom mapset lol" when I'm very certain it could do better. 32X: IT SOUNDS LIKE FARTS and every other criticism everyone's said. There's a romhack that makes it not shit at least and adds multiplayer. Might check it out at some point. SNES Doom: My favourite of the ports for how loony and ambitious it was. Sure it only had the first three eps (No Thy Flesh here of course) but it remembered the Cyberemon and Spider-mind existed (UNLIKE YOU JAGUAR DOOM) and its rendition of Doom's music was honestly real good. Wonder if someone'll put Episode 4 in there as some sort of crazier rom hack?
Jaguar version, as much as I didn't care for it, had many good features going for it aside from what you mentioned. It ran the fastest of all of the ports, Had the highest resolution textures, and quite a few levels considering it ran on a cartridge with limited space compared to a CD. It also allowed the monsters to face multiple directions, unlike the SNES/32X. 32X version, although it "sounded like farts", it ran with an FM sound chip and was decent considering the SNES had actual instruments/sound samples to use for it. It also ran pretty damn well. Unfortunately, compared to a SNES, you had to own a 32X and a 6 button controller to be able to really play it (extra money spent). SNES: The reason why it "only had first three episodes" was because it was DOOM, not Ultimate Doom (which had the extra episode added). Although it wouldn't fit on a cartridge if they tried. The frame rate of the SNES isn't that bad, especially compared to the 3DO and Saturn ports.
Awesome video on these 3 ports! (I know quite a bit about the 32x and SNES versions in particular) Say, if you want to, I would love to collab for a future video once you talk about the GBA version of Doom 2, given the fact it was my first experience with Doom and I am quite familiar with it. (Or if you decide to talk about any Console Doom ROM Hacks, I've been involved with quite a few of those!)
Dude.. No matter how many times I hear about the Doom SNES version, it is just amazing despite me not really enjoying playing it at all. LOL What an amazing thing to do though.
10:00 I should note that Jaguar emulation is far, FAR from perfect and the game's speed fluctuates quite a bit, whereas seeing the footage from the actual Jaguar unit the framerate/speed sticks to being somewhat closer to the DOS version and monsters don't obviously appear hyper doped up, as well as damaging liquids sectors don't dish out the pain as fast. Calico Doom is a direct port of the Jaguar version to PC and as such is a MUCH BETTER representation of that port as it has normalized speed matching almost 1:1 to the original console version, now with an added benefit of kbm controls. There are also direct ports of PSX and 3DO versions (not recreations, actual ports to PC) which have taken liberties with performance.
A fun fact about the SNES version's difficulty/episode tie-in that you missed is that if you choose a lower difficulty, you can ONLY play up to one episode *after* the original selectable one So on ITYTD and HNTR, you can get through Knee-Deep in the Dead, continue into the Shores of Hell, and get cut off early as if you were playing the 32X version. It is impossible to play Inferno on Easy difficulty. UNLESS YOU'RE PLAYING THE JAPANESE SUPER FAMICOM RELEASE In which case the entire level-difficulty-locking feature was *removed* and you can select any episode at any difficulty again
Aha, that’s so strange - I first thought that each episode was independent like on DOS, but then noticed that easy episode 1 rolled over to episode 2, I never thought there would be an artificial stop before episode 3! I wonder why he decided to do that…
@@DavidXNewton Only way to know would be to ask the man himself, I suppose. ’=L I will say though it felt really good to complete the game when I did play on HMP- the complete lack of saves or progression checkpoints means playing the entire campaign in one sitting, especially if you start on E1 on normal or hard difficulties. Doubt I'll do it again any time soon though. XD Can't wait to see you cover the GBA ports, they're some of my favs despite their specific faults. (Low resolution be damned like everything else in this series lol)
0:05 SaY ALL tHe NaMeS, YoU COwArD!11!!11!! 9:36 Oooh, I've never seen that kind of Invulnerability effect before! It's not the original inverted monochrome that we're used to! Now it's turned into a Fruit Gushers/[Blue]Berry Medley powerup! (Even moreso than the blue Soulsphere/Supercharge :P)
God, I remember back in like 2008 or 2009 I bought an Atari Jaguar with a bunch of games, controllers, and AvP with all of the controller layout things.. for only $69. Wish I hadn't sold it off to a Pre-Played because I thought the console and games sucked. Just the console alone now is worth a stupid amount considering how 'meh' it is. This was a really good review video Did you play the Snes version of Doom on real hardware or was it emulation? I know that in some emulators the Doom rom will let you get stuck on walls when moving around, and apparently thats not a problem with the game on real hardware (I haven't played Doom on the Snes in decades so I don't remember exactly but I remember reading this recently).
SNES Doom is definitely the most impressive even if it's visuals or gameplay is far below other ports. I didn't like it when I first tried it, but after giving it a proper go, it felt nice to play. I guess my bias toward original Doom and it's three episodes helped as well as I really dislike TFC episode. Other ports are nice as well with varying degree, but if I had to pick a disappointing port, it would be either for Sega x32 or for 3DO.
I lost it at the 32X version even having rockets facing you. There's no Cyberdemon, so there's no need to do that. But they did anyway and now your rocket launcher is firing rockets backwards 🤣
I often see how people says that 32x version plays better than Jaguar one. I have both and I just want to say... Are we sure that we talk about playing it on original hardware? Jaguar one just better in any way. p.s. nice video btw.
I'm surprised you didn't shout out Rebecca H who programed the version with the small screen. She did it in about 3 months I think from scratch with no source code so while being the worst Doom port it's definitely one of the most impressive.
It seems like the emulators you used for both SNES and Jaguar DOOM overclocked the speed of the games, hence why you complained about the Jaguar version being very fast as opposed to at a normal pace, and that the SNES version ran at a half-decent framerate.
The PS1 version is the best 90s console port, if you don't count DOOM 64. Edit: The SNES DOOM footage here isn't accurate. It runs nowhere near that smoothly on my actual SNES. It's honestly like 10fps at best.
On Jaguar Doom running too fast: I think that might be your emulator running the game too good. While I have 0 first-hand experience with any Jaguar software, even emulated, I did watch Framerater's whole library review of the Jaguar where the host played Doom on an actual Atari Jaguar and his footage of Doom seemed to be running at a relatively normal speed I'm of course not asking you to go out and spend 100's-1,000's of dollars on old home consoles and collectible copies of Doom, but for future installments of this series maybe double check to see if your emulators aren't overclocking
“I’m a Wimp” is somehow even funnier than “I’m too young to die!”
The fact that some dude just decided to port Doom onto the Super NES just to see if it could be done is totally in the spirit of "let's run Doom on every single thing that has ever existed." The guy was ahead of his time.
He really was :) What an incredible attempt it was
Lord GabeN did the same with a Windows port of Doom.
The description of his initial dev environment is the most mad scientist nonsense I've ever heard. I'm surprised lightning rods weren't involved.
Played it.
On snes. Was good enough
@@DavidXNewtonThanks for the kind words and kudos -- and for the balanced, fair review -- I appreciate it!
Hearing about how the SNES port was made really reframes it. Previously, I just knew it as a somewhat shitty port for an underpowered console, but now I see it for the work of mad genius that it is.
a doom youtuber having a fursona instantly bolsters my trust in the quality of their material, and you do not disappoint
Thanks, that’s what I love to hear :)
What about Doom mappers with fursonas :3c
erm...
And a rabbit one.. talking about doom, is destiny.
@@richterdelgan123 Why if I had a nickel for every bunny doomtuber, I'd have two nickels
Doom content hosted by Doomguy's fursona? Sign me up.
The fact SNES DOOM was made "just to say he did it" is such a mad flex to me.
It’s cool but I can’t play the snes port for more than 5mins always give me a headache from the blurry graphics., it’s like wearing glasses that aren’t prescribe to you 😂
The "can it run DOOM?" trope might be a bit repetitive at this point, but it does show how tremendously important it was for the PC gaming innovation. Given I started playing most of my nostalgic games on the PC (DOOM II sort of being one, despite being way too young for it) I never really gotten used to consoles taking over for the most part of the 10s. Now in the 20s they seem rather even and can run as good as everything, which some exceptional exceptions on either side. If anything, mobile systems are becoming more powerful and Android's slowly pitching in as well. Innovation, always interesting stuff!
These days the NDS/3DS and later handhelds are powerful enough to run the PRBoom source port natively (most distros require you to import your own wads for copyright reasons).
Play "Brutal Doom V.22" exclusively on my 2012 Samsung Galaxy using "Freedoom".
Android has MORE than pitched in!
I am 53 years old and have been Doomside since 93. I didn't think I could ever learn anything new about the plight of Daisy's dad but wow, I have learned stuff I didn't know before. Mind blown, subscribed, thank you
My first exposure to Doom was on my mate’s PS1 and it was utterly terrifying for an 8 year old child. I had no idea the tone was so much different on PC until MANY years later when I finally picked it up in store.
Playing on PC made my childhood experiences of Doom seem like one massive fever dream. Especially with the slightly different secrets and rooms throwing me for a loop ☠️☠️
Same. I remember playing it with my dad back in the day, being a weelad and having to face Plutonia/TNT/Master levels maps with no prior Doom knowledge was a big traumatic experience but it toughed me up. Some years later I played the entirery of Plutonia and TNT and didn't even blink once.
@@panconqueso9195 they bred gamers tougher back then 🤣
Every port of Doom is personalized.
The PoP videos were my introduction to this channel and in general I love this format of video. Glad to see it back.
Thanks - I love doing these as well, even though it takes a bit longer to make them :)
Same here!
Same here, and easily rewatchable because of how well paced the videos are too.
Oh boy! Another DxN port comparison project once again. And just as on brand as the PoP videos. Super stoked about these, fantastic work David... and thankyou for reminding me I'm a tad overdue to do the same for Zool and Bomberman.
My first exposure was the GODAWFUL Saturn port, the framerate was abysmal but I still loved it. I have fond memories of Club Doom running at 2FPS lmao
I remember playing doom when it first came out...I never knew that you could tell which way the damage was coming from.
Oh cool, a time traveler.
I miss when games were cartridge-based and included their own hardware. There’s something very cool about a game shipping with its own dedicated chip just to run the auto map.
The Super FX2 chip wasn't solely for the automap (no publisher would agree to publish it that way given how much the chip cost). Linden just realized that the chip made it possible to rotate the automap, so he went ahead and did it. The port relies on the Super FX2 for rendering pretty much the entire environment and there's no way a version of Doom would be even remotely acceptable on barebones SNES hardware, given the sacrifices that had to be made to get Wolfenstein 3D running on it.
@@TheFancifulNorwegian I’m oversimplifying of course. It’s cool that you could develop a game that could not normally run on the machine you were making it for, so you just included your own hardware to help out! I dunno, it’s just a weird middle ground between arcade cabinets being hardware designed for one specific game and disc-based games needing to stay within the constraints of the home console they were made for.
@@ShallowVA Yes, it’s really something that can’t happen now - cartridges were a strange mix of software and hardware!
@@DavidXNewtonyeah, don’t need to stick a SIM in a modern Smartphone anymore. PCMIA anyone? What about Amazon FireStick?
I've seen a lot of Doom comparison videos but none of them had your dry wit and soothing accent, so this is now the best video on the subject on TH-cam by default. Excellent work, my friend!
Haha, thank you! I’d love to do something together again some time as well :)
@@DavidXNewton Oh, I would love to! Your company is always a pleasure.
17:50 Ironically enough, that tuneless wailing is probably EXACTLY how that track would sound in Hell itself; just wrong enough to be recognisable while still painful to hear...
I'm surprised you didn't touch on the SNES's music. I always thought it was the best out of all the ports of the era. And I might be biased since it was my first version of Doom, but I even (mostly) prefer it to the DOS version's soundtrack. It sounds more atmospheric and actually more orchestral (?) in some ways, probably because it uses a unique soundfont instead of the standard, slightly more digital sounding MIDI one, or indeed the bleeps and bloops of some of the other ports.
Yeah, the awesome music is what stood out to me right away. 32X music was garbage, but I think that was due to it being rushed & the programmer may not have known the Genesis sound processor very well. Games like Streets of Rage 2 & Castlevania Bloodlines show us what can be done. And there were some extra sound capabilities 32X allowed for & those must've been completely ignored.
Great coverage! Looking forward to a part 2. My first Doom was on the PlayStation and it's such an experience. I later grew to love Doom in all its PC glory but man the atmosphere on the PS1 was something else. Keep up the good work!
I've been hearing about how bad the SNES port was my whole life, but now that I've played it for the first time live on stream a couple of years ago, I understand just how wrong these people were. Despite a few shortcomings, it's a very playable and an incredibly impressive port. And let's face it, if I only had a SNES in 1995 & nothing else, I would have *loved* this version no matter what. A very unfair reputation status.
Yes, it’s not great but it’s pretty incredible to consider what it did manage, especially compared to some of the consoles a generation after it. I’ve noticed that it doesn’t run very well in Snes9x, with a much lower frame rate and speckles all over the place as it draws walls - maybe some of the reputation comes from that
TH-cams mythical algorithm strikes again and gives me an entertaining doom video to watch
Although the Snes version didn't look good, its soundtrack was the dopest of them all.
Oh man after hearing the story behind that 3DO port, I'm excited.
Very well done. Looking forward to the next installment. Cheers!
Wait a minute....are you telling me Doom on the Jaguar was run using the Motorola 68K? Why didn't Carmack take advantage of Tom & Jerry (Jaguar 32-bit processors) for the game?
Addendum- The Jaguar standard controller does not have shoulder buttons but...the Pro controller does. They can be used to play Doom on the Jaguar, opening it up. For reference, Doom released in 1993 for the PC. The console ports did however start releasing in 1994.
Fun Fact- The guy that made Doom for the Snes hid a very special easter egg inside the game that took over 20 years to find. This easter egg can only be accessed through an Action Replay code that enables clipping.
It was a message to his girl that read: "Randy Linden lives Jody Harvey!"
You just scratched an itch for a Doom video I’ve had for a long time. I was about to make it myself! Great video! You’ve earned yourself a sub
Great video! If you interested you can take a look at the Doom 32x: Resurrection. This project makes 32x version a lot more playable and it even adds new features like multiplayer for example.
I love the image of this Frankenstein starfox cartridge hooked up to an Amiga to port down. What a mad lad
My interest in Doom ports came with the 3DO - Rebecca Heineman has a couple videos about how her team made it against all odds from a unrealistic demanding company run by nonces.
THIS! This is the best and most objective review of the console versions of Doom that I have seen.
No, it isn't. He played an overclocked version of the jaguar. The game hasn't got ultra faster enemies as he mentioned.
Your bunny character is so so cute!
Ahh yes. SNES Doom AKA the Doom Miracle Port.
It is so good to see you doing another work like this. I enjoyed your POP analysis very much!
Thanks - they take a bit of time to put together but I really love doing stuff like this as well :)
Excellent watch! I'm a big fan of these analytical-style videos of yours and a series on all these weird and fascinating alternate versions of Doom is just a dream come true. Can't wait for more!
Awesome video. Thanks! I really appreciate you taking the time to play every doom port known to man.
Also, I enjoyed the shoutout ;-)
i think the prince of persia ports was the video that introduce me this channel
Ah, there is no "stumbling through". But I really enjoy these types of videos. It's interesting to see that the PC version was more beefy than the consoles (I'm partial to the PC, what can I say).
The person who made the SNES port though was obviously a big Doom fan.
Looking forward to part 2!
Awesome comparison bunny dude :3
The snes version is probably my favourite out of these ports shown, while the framerate was decent considering, it was the only one to be the full game mostly.
Hell yeah!
Like many people I found this channel from one of the Prince of Persia comparison videos (probably the second one but I don't fully remember), and ever since I found out you also did DOOM content this is exactly the video I was hoping for.
That’s fantastic, I’ve wanted to do this for ages as well :) I just needed to summon up the mental energy to do it!
Oh man, I grew up on the SNES port. I had no idea it had such an interesting history behind it. Limited and inferior as it may be to most versions, I have so much nostalgia for it that I could never dislike it. Also, cute bunny.
Very much enjoyed this, thank you. Looking forward to part 2. :)
Few notes on the Jaguar port: your gameplay seems to be running twice as fast as it does on the actual console, making everything look far more jerky than it really is. That would also explain why you thought the game was faster. It's actually slightly slower than the PC version, extremely similar to the PS1 and N64 port. Source: I actually own the game on the real console.
Also, there was a pro controller for the Jaguar that DID have shoulder buttons (and 3 more face buttons), but I don't know if they actually work with Doom.
I still own the SNES version of Doom. At the time it was simply marvelous that we could play Doom on our SNES. We were so impressed that we took the graphics and controls for granted and just had a blast, being scared and having fun shooting demons. I have a few things to add on this version (which was the European PAL version) which I discovered whilst playing:
1. When you pause the game, you can still cycle through the weapons. This makes it easier to pick the weapon you need instead of having to cycle through all of them to get the one you want, and then cycle past it because you press the button one too many times. Really helpful.
2. It is possible to start Inferno on Hurt Me Plenty. If you beat Shores of Hell on this difficulty and watched the ending text, you will start Inferno. I tested this a few times and I could tell the difference because enemies did less damage and there were less enemies overall (I believe 1 Cacodemon instead of 2 in Hell Keep, to give example).
You can play all the levels on each difficulty, you're just limited by which episode you can start from. The Japanese version lets you pick any episode on any difficulty.
As a kid I beat first beat DOOM on the SNES and looking back I don't know how I did it.
We had a lot of patience back then :)
My first comment ever on one of your vids was about pronunciation so it's only apt I ask why your Babel differs from both American and British ways that Google provides (and my own, non-native speaker version) 😀
Great video, looking forward to the next part!
It’s very possible I just saw it written down first, and I’ve been mispronouncing it my entire life!
My understanding is that it's not entirely accurate to say Jag ran on the 68k, which was only there to bootstrap the system -- the 32-bit Tom and Jerry processors were intended to be the heavy lifters.
Aha, and 32 + 32 = 64 bits so that’s how we’ll market it :)
@@DavidXNewton But of course! Funnily enough, I've also heard the Saturn was initially marketed as 64-bit in Japan using the same logic (twin SH-2 processors). For what it's worth, the Jag does have 64-bit components in the form of its object processor and blitter. But as hindsight has made clear, what it's worth is about zilch. Looking forward to part 2.
Correct; Atari described the 68k as a "bus controller" - presumably it was acting as memory management between the custom CPU and DSP chips. However since those chips were both brand new and not particularly easy to program for, a lot of developers seem to have ignored them in favour of running code directly on the much more widely-known 68000.
The SNES version of Doom almost feels like as much of a miracle as the N64 version of Resident Evil 2.
Wait till you hear about what the GBA port of quake could've been
Aside from the fact that RE2 on N64 actually looks, plays, and runs as well as the disc versions... it even has all the CGI cutscenes!
@@thisisnotachannel Yeah, the N64 RE2 was more a miracle of ingenious compression and other types of space-saving, since raw horse power wasn't an issue.
@@JediMBfun fact, the studio that did RE2’s N64 port, Angel Studios, later went on to become Rockstar San Diego, the same studio behind the Red Dead series. Also supposedly RE2 was to act as a proof-of-concept to convince Sqauresoft to let them bring Final Fantasy VII to the N64, but Square wasn’t interested.
randy linden is a total madman
Love your video essays :3
The Jaguar version's soundtrack was otherwordly.
The Jaguar version is running way faster than it should. The issues with speed could be because the game speed is tied to the framerate.
The game seems to be running at 60fps in the video, but the game is designed to run at a maximum of 20fps on a real console.
Ah, thank you! I was wondering if there might be emulation issues clouding my view of some of the games
This is a fantastic upload 👍
OHHHH this is gona be good. I was waiting for another deep dive like your myhouse.wad video!
Thanks :) I hope to do many more in the future!
I love these types of videos.
You know what, I kind of prefer the Jaguar's version of Phobos Lab over the original - the "Hell castle" look does seem to fit the layout more than "UAC techbase". Amazing how some simple texture changes can completely alter the entire feel of a map.
There are also repro gba carts that run the PC version of Doom and Doom 2. Worth it, imo.
I've been playing Doom since 1993, and the PS1 version is still my favorite. Just an incredible atmosphere, accomplished with some simple lighting tricks and an ambient ost.
Hearing that SNES Doom was potentially going to be compatible with the Super Scope has just made me think about how good the Doom engine could be for making light gun games.
You'd just need to script the player movements to play back as a demo, remove any knock back from enemy projectiles (and probably cut the firing rate of the enemies dramatically), then set up the usual set of flashing white squares for when the trigger is pulled so that the game can have accurate hit detection (or you could use the mouse cursor and a pointer device for modern televisions).
Obviously it would be a slower game by quite a margin and would be pretty basic compared to the likes of Time Crisis, but it could be a pretty neat little mod project.
Looking forward to PSX in part 2. If I heard correctly they initially went full 3D but the textures skewed so much due to integer rounding that Carmack told them to revert to the vertically scanned ray-trace method of DOS. The correct choice.
if you have a 32x and an Everdrive, getting the patched Doom Resurrection is a must. it fixes nearly ALL of the rushed 32x version's issues. The snes version is fun here and there, but is really tough due to enemies that you cant even see can hit you. and I cant stand doom without music. so doom jaguar is the bottom of the barrel for me.
Would be cool if they did a Mortal Kombat 2 Resurrection to complete that game too as it was rushed out the door. They forgot the ending screens the SNES version has, left out a bunch of sound effects (including a couple more Kahn taunts) the SNES version has. I also wonder if they could've used the additional sound channels the 32X provided to do something to improve the music a bit even though I liked plenty of it already. I always wanted that arcade bass layer that seemed to be on all the tracks. Play control was great so no complaints there.
I love the 32x version! There is a modern day update called Resurrection which fixes many of the issues you mentioned for the original hardware.
Bunnies are the best, and Doom is rad!
Handy timestamps!
2:24 Jaguar
13:33 32X
18:45 SNES
Jag DOOM was amazing back in its day PS1 DOOM with the new music and sfx was god like.
When you do Part 2, some things to note: GBA Doom has unique deathmatch maps that have never existed on any other version of the game. Presumably people have recreated them via custom maps, but they were unique at the time. It also has a rather unique take on the OST. On the other hand, GBA Doom II is very faithful, being almost a perfect 1:1 clone of the PC version, except its armor system works weirdly, and Industrial Zone was split into two maps. Both Playstation and Saturn Doom had Doom II enemies and weapons in the Doom maps, and both made the super shotgun fire a lot faster and thus it's even better in those games. Both also featured some enhanced graphics.
I didn't mention Doom 64 because that's a wholly original title in its own right.
Thank you! The two next videos are already recorded and available to Patrons - the GBA exclusive multiplayer levels are a very interesting feature :) I didn’t cover the Doom 2 port to the GBA but my thoughts on the N64 “port” are in the third video - I’d never really played it before this and I’m glad I did!
I grew up with doom and have played it and countless other fps games on pc and consoles. Doom on the PS is the only game that has made me violently motion sick, and it happened nearly instantly.
I can not wait to see you talk about 3DO Doom. that is a trip to learn about not because of the game but the story Surrounding the making of it. Hell yea of a video :D
Thank you! The next part, including the 3DO port, is up for everyone now :)
@@DavidXNewtonYEA just saw that immediately uploaded :D Beautiful !
I love the video! Your port comparisons of Prince of Persia games are some of my favorite videos.
Your story behind the SNES version is peculiar, as I had never heard that before. However, I had read Masters of Doom, and IIRC it stated that Carmack himself directly worked on the SNES port and didn't mention Randy Lindon at all. I know Masters of Doom has been criticized for not being the most accurate version of id Software's history, but it seems weird that it would have such a drastically different explanation of where the SNES port came from. Of course, I know you do your due diligence with the research on these things, so I don't doubt the Randy Lindon story. It's just weird.
That book seems to be the one conflicting source of information. Everything else on the matter agrees that id was only directly involved in the Jaguar port, and everything else was either derived from that, or was its own engine. But the book also seems to condense a lot of stuff. It mentions that id "open sourced Doom" right around the time Romero left, when it was well over a year later, and even then wasn't formally done until 1999. It's possible the author just got some of the details wrong.
Masters of Doom doesn't mention the SNES port of DOOM at all, as far as I know. It does, however, mention the SNES port of Wolfenstein 3D, which was done by Carmack himself.
@@dosnostalgic Oh, maybe THAT'S what I was thinking of! Good call! That does sound right now that you say that. Thank you.
We finally got the spinoff to the Prince of Persia ports videos!
Yes :) I’d wanted to do this for ages and I wrote most of this part in 2020, I just never got around to recording it!
The SNES port end up being better than the SEGA 32X port? (which is also inferior to the Atari Jaguar port) That's a score for NintenDO that SEGA don't.
Jaguar: TBH, as petty as this is, I still sort of resent the Jaguar version for how it influenced basically a lot of console versions of Doom to a point. Yeah yeah I know computer demigod in human flesh and formless weaver of the dimensional fabric we call reality John Carmack put it together but still, it being the baseline was kinda sad when it lacked a lot of the original Doom's bits including a final level that wasn't shit along with the Cyberdemon or Spider-mind. It didn't even have working music so it had absolutely nothing to compensate. The Not Tower Of Babel/Hell Gate as it was renamed in PSX Doom was pretty....yeah it was just there. I still hate the GBA version for very shamelessly being just "can i get a fuckin uhhhhhhhhhhhhh jaguar doom mapset lol" when I'm very certain it could do better.
32X: IT SOUNDS LIKE FARTS and every other criticism everyone's said. There's a romhack that makes it not shit at least and adds multiplayer. Might check it out at some point.
SNES Doom: My favourite of the ports for how loony and ambitious it was. Sure it only had the first three eps (No Thy Flesh here of course) but it remembered the Cyberemon and Spider-mind existed (UNLIKE YOU JAGUAR DOOM) and its rendition of Doom's music was honestly real good. Wonder if someone'll put Episode 4 in there as some sort of crazier rom hack?
Civvie viewer detected with that carmack description
Jaguar version, as much as I didn't care for it, had many good features going for it aside from what you mentioned. It ran the fastest of all of the ports, Had the highest resolution textures, and quite a few levels considering it ran on a cartridge with limited space compared to a CD. It also allowed the monsters to face multiple directions, unlike the SNES/32X.
32X version, although it "sounded like farts", it ran with an FM sound chip and was decent considering the SNES had actual instruments/sound samples to use for it. It also ran pretty damn well. Unfortunately, compared to a SNES, you had to own a 32X and a 6 button controller to be able to really play it (extra money spent).
SNES: The reason why it "only had first three episodes" was because it was DOOM, not Ultimate Doom (which had the extra episode added). Although it wouldn't fit on a cartridge if they tried. The frame rate of the SNES isn't that bad, especially compared to the 3DO and Saturn ports.
Awesome video on these 3 ports! (I know quite a bit about the 32x and SNES versions in particular)
Say, if you want to, I would love to collab for a future video once you talk about the GBA version of Doom 2, given the fact it was my first experience with Doom and I am quite familiar with it. (Or if you decide to talk about any Console Doom ROM Hacks, I've been involved with quite a few of those!)
Litegoggles described as "Make My Map Look Terrible" so true.
Really fascinating seeing where it was ported first before it got ported to everything, hah
Dude.. No matter how many times I hear about the Doom SNES version, it is just amazing despite me not really enjoying playing it at all. LOL What an amazing thing to do though.
Sick vid man
A fellow FPS-loving rabbitty! ^w^
23:29 Shotguns don't use bullets. Slugs don't count. They're sort of their own thing.
Maybe he meant pellets.
Thinking about it, it's really kind of impressive that a rabbit can play doom on any system.
10:00 I should note that Jaguar emulation is far, FAR from perfect and the game's speed fluctuates quite a bit, whereas seeing the footage from the actual Jaguar unit the framerate/speed sticks to being somewhat closer to the DOS version and monsters don't obviously appear hyper doped up, as well as damaging liquids sectors don't dish out the pain as fast.
Calico Doom is a direct port of the Jaguar version to PC and as such is a MUCH BETTER representation of that port as it has normalized speed matching almost 1:1 to the original console version, now with an added benefit of kbm controls. There are also direct ports of PSX and 3DO versions (not recreations, actual ports to PC) which have taken liberties with performance.
A fun fact about the SNES version's difficulty/episode tie-in that you missed is that if you choose a lower difficulty, you can ONLY play up to one episode *after* the original selectable one
So on ITYTD and HNTR, you can get through Knee-Deep in the Dead, continue into the Shores of Hell, and get cut off early as if you were playing the 32X version. It is impossible to play Inferno on Easy difficulty.
UNLESS YOU'RE PLAYING THE JAPANESE SUPER FAMICOM RELEASE
In which case the entire level-difficulty-locking feature was *removed* and you can select any episode at any difficulty again
Aha, that’s so strange - I first thought that each episode was independent like on DOS, but then noticed that easy episode 1 rolled over to episode 2, I never thought there would be an artificial stop before episode 3! I wonder why he decided to do that…
@@DavidXNewton Only way to know would be to ask the man himself, I suppose. ’=L
I will say though it felt really good to complete the game when I did play on HMP- the complete lack of saves or progression checkpoints means playing the entire campaign in one sitting, especially if you start on E1 on normal or hard difficulties.
Doubt I'll do it again any time soon though. XD Can't wait to see you cover the GBA ports, they're some of my favs despite their specific faults. (Low resolution be damned like everything else in this series lol)
@@Raddaman8000 Which is probably why they started you with your inventory when you died and restarted it. Since there are no saves or passwords.
0:05 SaY ALL tHe NaMeS, YoU COwArD!11!!11!!
9:36 Oooh, I've never seen that kind of Invulnerability effect before! It's not the original inverted monochrome that we're used to! Now it's turned into a Fruit Gushers/[Blue]Berry Medley powerup! (Even moreso than the blue Soulsphere/Supercharge :P)
Yes, it’s nice that the inverted palette was dropped for some of the console versions - the old one really hurts my eyes as an adult!
God, I remember back in like 2008 or 2009 I bought an Atari Jaguar with a bunch of games, controllers, and AvP with all of the controller layout things.. for only $69.
Wish I hadn't sold it off to a Pre-Played because I thought the console and games sucked. Just the console alone now is worth a stupid amount considering how 'meh' it is.
This was a really good review video
Did you play the Snes version of Doom on real hardware or was it emulation? I know that in some emulators the Doom rom will let you get stuck on walls when moving around, and apparently thats not a problem with the game on real hardware (I haven't played Doom on the Snes in decades so I don't remember exactly but I remember reading this recently).
I wonder if difficulty was ramped up for the same reason many other 90s console era games were - to encourage repeat rentals.
To paraphrase an old meme, every port of Doom is personalized.
SNES Doom is definitely the most impressive even if it's visuals or gameplay is far below other ports. I didn't like it when I first tried it, but after giving it a proper go, it felt nice to play. I guess my bias toward original Doom and it's three episodes helped as well as I really dislike TFC episode. Other ports are nice as well with varying degree, but if I had to pick a disappointing port, it would be either for Sega x32 or for 3DO.
9:04 Neil Cicirega reference?
I lost it at the 32X version even having rockets facing you. There's no Cyberdemon, so there's no need to do that. But they did anyway and now your rocket launcher is firing rockets backwards 🤣
Don't forget playable on lawn mowers as well.
The trick they did to make the SNES port was that they used a compressed physics lookup table instead of realtime calculations.
That makes sense - there was a lot of that on the PC as well, precomputing a lot of the stuff that would have been impractical on the 386s of the time
@@DavidXNewtonI believe a large number of the later SNES games did this because they had more involved physics.
So, the auto map pickup is just a crt to go along with your atari then?
Rabbet
Hey, I recognize that art. When did you commission TigerKnight?
A couple of times over the last few years :) I love his artwork so much, the way he draws characters is so fun and expressive
But what about Wolfenstein 3D console ports?
I often see how people says that 32x version plays better than Jaguar one. I have both and I just want to say... Are we sure that we talk about playing it on original hardware? Jaguar one just better in any way.
p.s. nice video btw.
I'm surprised you didn't shout out Rebecca H who programed the version with the small screen. She did it in about 3 months I think from scratch with no source code so while being the worst Doom port it's definitely one of the most impressive.
She did the 3DO version, and I’ll be covering that in the next video :)
It seems like the emulators you used for both SNES and Jaguar DOOM overclocked the speed of the games, hence why you complained about the Jaguar version being very fast as opposed to at a normal pace, and that the SNES version ran at a half-decent framerate.
The PS1 version is the best 90s console port, if you don't count DOOM 64.
Edit: The SNES DOOM footage here isn't accurate. It runs nowhere near that smoothly on my actual SNES. It's honestly like 10fps at best.
Isn't the Jaguar version too fast because of bad PC emulation? I honestly doubt it runs like this on OG hardware
When you said "spectre demon" I thought you said "sphincter demon" 😅
On Jaguar Doom running too fast: I think that might be your emulator running the game too good. While I have 0 first-hand experience with any Jaguar software, even emulated, I did watch Framerater's whole library review of the Jaguar where the host played Doom on an actual Atari Jaguar and his footage of Doom seemed to be running at a relatively normal speed
I'm of course not asking you to go out and spend 100's-1,000's of dollars on old home consoles and collectible copies of Doom, but for future installments of this series maybe double check to see if your emulators aren't overclocking
What is your outro music?
It’s called Kill or Be Killed, a song I wrote for an Undertale album a few years ago! ambersun.bandcamp.com/track/kill-or-be-killed
are these emulated or were you able to play them all on real hardware?