Super NES

The Super Nintendo version of Doom was published by Williams Entertainment on September 1, 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; the NTSC edition of Doom was available in a red casing. The game does not use the Doom engine, but features a custom engine, known as the Reality engine, programmed by Randy Linden.

SNES Doom features 22 levels from the PC version, but the player's heads-up display does not take up the whole screen. The floors and ceilings are also not texture mapped. 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. This renders monster infighting impossible, 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 propogation is unused, rendering all enemies deaf. The game runs at the system's native 256 x 224 pixel resolution, though it doesn't fill the entire screen; instead, it runs in a window, with a black frame. Additionally, enemies, scenery, and items are increasingly pixelated the farther away they are, to the point where far-off enemies may be indistinguishable from the scenery.

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, 3DO, 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. Episode 2 cannot be played on "I'm Too Young to Die" or "Hey, Not Too Rough", while Episode 3 can only be accessed on "Ultra-Violence" and "Nightmare". 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 due to hardware limitations (though the graphic death sequences still remain). 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.

Fans of the game frequently criticized the port for its graphics, the difficulty of seeing far-off monsters, clunky controls and low frame rate. However, fans praised the port's music as superior to that of the Sega 32X and Atari Jaguar versions.



Other differences from the original version

 * In the absence of the Command Centre 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 addition, the sound effects for the chainsaw are dramatically different from the original.
 * 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.
 * Only the ST face remains in the status bar.
 * There are no cheat codes. The only way to cheat is to use a cheat device, such as an Action Replay or a Game Genie.
 * Regular marine corpses are replaced gibbed marine corpses.