MAP13: Last Look at Eden (Hell Revealed)

MAP13: Last Look at Eden, designed by Yonatan Donner, is the thirteenth map of Hell Revealed. It uses the music track "Goin' Down the Fast Way" from Rise of the Triad.

Description
According to the Hell Revealed info pack:


 * This is an outdoor level, one of my favorites. It's the first of the new Hell Reveled maps (the "murder" maps) and has some tricky fights - such as the nearly-impossible cagefight in the blue key area. Attractions also include a fully-shaded area. In short, don't miss this one! And, as the name suggests - it's your last look at Eden...
 * Size: medium
 * Difficulty: hard



Walkthrough
There's no point beating around the bush: if you barely eked by on MAP11, this one will come as a nasty surprise. On the bright side, once you can beat this level you probably have the skill to beat the rest of the WAD... with time and patience.

There are two places you are likely to die horribly. The first is the very beginning: the shotgun shells you're given are laughable compared to the amount of resistance in the first courtyard alone, and when you open the door to the next room... about a dozen Revenants teleport in accompanied by an Archvile.

If you're skilled, you can run by all of the enemies in this first room and the next, and come back when you're better equipped. However doing so requires a lot of luck even for veteran speedrunners, so you may want to take a more systematic approach: 1. Allow most of the monsters inside the courtyard, as well as the imps that appear when you step on one of the staircases, to kill each other through infighting. Mop up the rest, but don't kill anything in the corridor overlooking the courtyard as the Archvile is about to resurrect them all. 2. Herd the majority of the Barons of Hell and Hell Knights to one of the side staircases, run up the door, and open it. Revenants will teleport in; *quickly* dodge them and run back down the stairs into the (now-empty) courtyard. 3. Take pot-shots at the Archvile, using the central building as cover from the various monsters. 4. Once the Archvile is dead, allow the majority of demons to kill each other, then mop up.

The second tough area in the map is the cage trap housing the blue key. Saving the Soul Sphere and Megarmor for this fight makes it tremendously easier. Saving all of your rockets (about two dozen) is also strongly recommended. Above all do not panic - focus on killing the Chaingunners first, then the Revenants, grabbing a health pack as necessary.

The rest of the level is much easier by comparison. As a quick note, in the central courtyard, monsters cannot step between the path (brown floor) and grass (green floor), with several important consequences: 1. The Mancubi (any that remain after fighting the Spider Mastermind) can be easily killed by strafing around the path encircling the fountain. 2. The Lost Souls spawned by the Pain Elementals near the fountain cannot attack you if you shoot at them from behind the abovementioned path. 3. The Revenants that pour out of the blue key room, though formidable in number, cannot leave the path and so are easily herded.

Don't linger too long at the exit to this map... the next one is not any easier.

Secrets

 * 1) In the stair-filled area leading from the first area to the big battle area in the north straferun to the ledge between first and second floor, right over the first western stairs. Follow the ledge to the west and open the wall to find a Blue armor.
 * 2) In the room behind the yellow door there is a panel with a switch at the end of spiral staircase. The back side of this panel is a switch, too, that reveals a secret in the south wall of this area containing a Pain Elemental and a Bulk cell.
 * 3) In the room behind the blue door there is a pillar in the northwest corner. Pressing this lowers a pillar right outside the room in the northwest corner of the large battle-area with a Plasma gun.

Speedrunning
See:
 * Hell Revealed at Compet-N
 * Hell Revealed at the Doom Speed Demos Archive