History VideoGame / Doom64

* ChainsawGood: Taken UpToEleven, as the chainsaw has ''two'' blades to show that the weapon is twice as powerful as in the previous games.

* SuspiciousVideoGameGenerosity: Level 17, "Watch Your Step", starts with you in a large open arena, empty of enemies, with an array of most of the game's weapons and copious amounts of ammo strewn around the perimeter, with a side passage leading into another section with even more weapons, including a BFG 9000. Enemies start spawning in here, in moderately threatening numbers, but it's when you return to the central area again that you get thrown into a [[TheWarSequence massive pitched battle]] against a vast host of enemies, culminating in the game's first encounter with a Cyberdemon (or on "Watch Me Die", ''[[UpToEleven two]]'' Cyberdemons!).

Contrast to the previous mainline installments of ''Doom'', ''Doom 64'' featured a darker atmosphere, forgoes the rockin' metal-inspired tunes in favor of haunting and unsettling ambiance, and adds an increased emphasis on puzzle-solving and exploration. The darker tone and style of music could be seen as a follow-up to the [=PlayStation=] ports of ''Doom'' and ''VideoGame/FinalDoom'' as they share a similarly dark atmosphere and composer, along with reusing many of the sound effects from those ports. On a technical standpoint, ''Doom 64'' was the first 3D-accelerated id Tech 1 engine game that featured effects such as fog rendering, an advanced lighting system, and animated skies among technical innovations for its time.

While ''Doom''[='=]s first two entries saw ports to a plethora of consoles during the '90s and onward, ''Doom 64'' remained exclusive to the Nintendo 64 for many years, and since Midway Games' dissolution in the late 2000s, it made obtaining the rights to the game difficult. There were efforts by Samuel "Kaiser" Villarreal to bring the game to PC with a ''Doom II'' total conversion titled ''Doom 64: Absolution'', followed by an unofficial port using data from the Nintendo 64 cartridge with ''Doom 64 EX''. Around 2020, Creator/NightdiveStudios and Bethesda were able to obtain the rights to ''Doom 64'', and on March 20 of the same year, released an updated port of the game to UsefulNotes/PlayStation4, UsefulNotes/XboxOne, UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch, and PC through Steam and Bethesda.net to coincide with the release of ''VideoGame/DoomEternal''; it was later released on GOG.com in 2022.

** The Unmaker. Yes, it's a powerful GameBreaker when upgraded with demon keys and will trivialize any combat in the game even without having all three of the keys. However, it also uses the same power cell ammo used by the BFG, which is additionally ''very scarce'' in Doom 64 (you'll be lucky to find more than 100 cells in any level, and they're often hidden in secret areas too that you can easily miss). And, the Unmaker burns through ammo quite quickly if you just hold fire to spam it instead of carefully using as much shots as you need to kill each enemy (while being less ammo efficient than the BFG against sufficiently large hordes of enemies). So if you rely on it too much you'll easily run out of ammo and be left unable to use it at all for quite the while. You might find yourself wondering if you should use it or not on large numbers of "pest" enemies (like Demons/Spectres, Imps, Cacodemons, etc.) ''if'' there might be a more urgent use for it later (e.g. a Pain Elemental ambush or a Cyberdemon), and indeed, there ''are'' high-threat encounters that are worth saving the Unmaker for.

Taking place after the events of ''Doom II'', the governments of Earth have decided to quarantine the demonic threat by bombarding all UAC facilities on Mars with a lethal amount of radiation. Years later, a stray satellite detects a powerful entity that has survived the fallout and is resurrecting legions of slaughtered demons to launch another invasion. To stop the invading hordes, the Doom Marine is called out of retirement to put an end to this new entity and rip his way through the forces of Hell one more time.

** Accessing the secret exit in "Holding Area" (Level 4) is also not obvious. There is a balcony where you can exit the level normally, but also a combination lock with four switches, one at each overlook and a teleport pad to take you to the secured door after inputing the correct code. If you are refraining from consulting a walkthrough, then the combination appears to be a guessing game. Brute force isn't practical because the level only allows one combination attempt per session and there's no SaveScumming allowed on the UsefulNotes/Nintendo64.

While ''Doom''[='=]s first two entries saw ports to a plethora of consoles during the '90s and onward, ''Doom 64'' remained exclusive to the Nintendo 64 for many years, and since Midway Games' dissolution in the late 2000s, it made obtaining the rights to the game difficult. There were efforts by Samuel "Kaiser" Villarreal to bring the game to PC with a ''Doom II'' total conversion titled ''Doom 64: Absolution'', followed by an unofficial port using data from the Nintendo 64 cartridge with ''Doom 64 EX''. Around 2020, Creator/NightdiveStudios and Bethesda were able to obtain the rights to ''Doom 64'', and on March 20 of the same year, released an updated port of the game to UsefulNotes/PlayStation4, UsefulNotes/XboxOne, UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch, and PC through Steam and Bethesda.net to coincide with the release of ''VideoGame/DoomEternal''.

* EasyLevelTrick: Map 24, "No Escape", requires defeating every Cyberdemon in the level. There are 1-2 Cyberdemons in a gated area. What makes this exploitable is that there's enough of a crack to shoot bullets, shotgun shells, and Unmaker lasers. If you have enough ammo from the previous level, you can literally dodge every event trigger in this level that would have generated enemies in that level had you progress through the level.

* ZeroEffortBoss: The FinalBoss of the Lost Levels, the Resurrector (which is essentially the Mother of Demons again), is made this by dint of the fact the game gives you a fully upgraded Unmaker before facing her, whereas in the base game you're likely to face the Mother of Demons without it unless you found all the secret levels and found all 3 Demon Keys. The fully powered Unmaker kills her in just a couple of seconds, and even without it the narrower, more corridor-based arena means her deadly homing projectiles are ''much'' easier to avoid.

* ArtShift: ''Doom 64'' uses brand-new textures and different sprites for weapons, enemies, and power-ups. They use more muted colors to enhance the BleakLevel atmosphere of the entire game. The enhanced sound effects from the ''UsefulNotes/PlayStation'' / ''UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn'' ports are imported to further enhance the atmosphere.

* RandomNumberGod: This is prevalent throughout all damage calculations, more or less, but the Unmaker's damage range is especially wide, ranging from 10-150 points of damage per shot. Its inconsistencies can range from a Former Human surviving a single laser blast to Pinky downed in a single laser blast.

* ContemptibleCover: Fortunately [[AvertedTrope averted]], but it was a narrow thing. The actual box cover for the game simply used the logo seen at the top of this article, while the original unused cover art looked like [[https://murphycreates.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Doom64.jpg this]]. [[EpicFail Yeah.]]

* DroneOfDread: The game abandons the guitar-based soundtrack of the original in favor of dark ambience.

* GameplayAndStorySegregation: In the story, the Mother Demon has the power to resurrect fallen demons, making them stronger than before, and is how hell's forces come back in this game after the events of ''Doom 2''. However when You fight it at the end of the game after wiping out a small army of demons, it never tries to revive any of them, as it wasn't programmed to have any sort of reviving ability in-game.

* InfinityMinusOneSword: In the base campaign at least, the Rocket Launcher is very easy to find, ammo pickups surprisingly plentiful and it offers better range and SplashDamage when the Super Shotgun isn't optimal. The Rockets also travel faster than in earlier games, so it's easier to use at longer ranges. Just be careful of the new recoil effect that pushes you back slightly.

* InfinityMinusOneSword: In the base campaign, the Rocket Launcher is very easy to find, ammo pickups surprisingly plentiful and it offers better range and SplashDamage when the Super Shotgun isn't optimal. The Rockets also travel faster than in earlier games, so it's easier to use at longer ranges. Just be careful of the new recoil effect that pushes you back slightly.

* ObviousRulePatch: Monster Infighting between different types of demons when they hit each other is one of classic Doom's most novel features, but it had the tendency to neuter enemy crowds if they consisted of various enemy types. While custom map makers would find ways to work around (or ''with'') this problem to create interesting and difficult combat scenarios involving masses of different enemies, ''Doom 64'' would instead add a new programming flag that when set on certain levels will prevent Monster Infighting altogether, namely in the arena-styled maps where the main obstacle is fighting a large group of enemies in a compact map, which would have been otherwise trivialized if Monster Infighting was present in those maps (as seen in some of the fan ports that did not implement that flag, making the final level a joke before the Mother Demon).

* SetAMookToKillAMook: In some levels, mainly arena-type levels where you have to kill a large crowd of monsters in a smallish contained area to advance, a special flag is set that prevents monsters from retaliating against each other, preventing the player from being able to cheese these levels by having the monsters all kill each other.

* RandomNumberGod: This is prevalent throughout all damage calculations, more or less, but the Unmaker's damage range is especially wide, ranging from 10-150 points of damage per shot. Its inconsistencies can lead to a Former Human surviving a single laser blast to Pinky downed in a single laser blast.

* EasyLevelTrick: Map 24 No Escape requires defeating every Cyberdemon in the leve. There are 1-2 Cyberdemons in a gated area. What makes this exploitable is that there's enough of a crack to shoot bullets, shotgun shells, and Unmaker lasers. If you have enough ammo from the previous level, you can literally dodge every event trigger in this level that would have generated enemies in that level had you progress through the level.

* EvenTheSubtitlerIsStumped: When you pick up the Unmaker, the message just says "What the !@#%* is this!"

* MissingSecret: The 24th level "No Escape" is the penultimate level in the game, and the final level, "The Absolution", is the 25th. However, if the player looks at the automap on The Absolution, they'll noticed The Absolution is listed as "Map 28", seemingly implying the player missed out on a series of three secret levels between No Escape and The Absolution. However, there is no secret exit on No Escape, and the player will always advance to The Absolution upon clearing No Escape. Now Maps 25-27 do exist, but they're very small "fun levels" that just put the player up against a Cyberdemon and some Mancubi/Arachnotrons, that can only be accessed by codes or by finding the impossible-to-find-without-a-guide secret level Hectic and then clearing all its extremely difficult challenges to get access to the "cheats menu", then using the cheats menu to warp to the "fun levels" inexplicably slotted in maps 25-27.

* UnwinnableByMistake: "Even Simpler" is a remake of "Dead Simple" from ''Doom II'', only with Pain Elementals thrown in. You have to kill every enemy, including the Lost Souls they shoot out, to advance. If they're killed next to some walls, however, the Souls they are supposed to shoot out get sucked into the walls, making it impossible to kill them.

* ContemptibleCover: Fortunately [[AvertedTrope averted]], but it was a narrow thing. The actual box cover for the game simply used the logo seen at the top of this article, while the original unused cover art looked like [[https://doom.fandom.com/wiki/File:Doom64.jpg this]]. [[EpicFail Yeah.]]

* CurbStompBattle: The game's opening cinematic, rendered using the in-game engine, sees a small force of marines taking on a host of high-level demons, including Cyberdemons, Mancubi and Arachnatrons. None of the marines are armed with anything heavier than a chaingun. The result is gruesomely predictable, perhaps best summarised when a marine charges recklessly down a corridor towards a Cyberdemon, who reduces him to LudicrousGibs with one well-aimed rocket. We don't even get to see [[CurbStompCushion a single demon go down]], and the camera rises into the air to reveal the structure the battle takes place around is none other than the DooM logo while the music becomes more somber and potentially disturbing.

* GameplayAndStorySegregation: The Mother Demon has the power to resurrect fallen demons, making them stronger than before. You fight it at the end of the game after wiping out a small army of demons, and it never tries to revive any of them.

** ''Be Gentle!'': Equivalent to the original's "I'm Too Young To Die", which has the least amount of enemies, and doubles the ammo you get from pickups as well as reduce the damage you sustain to half.

* ContemptibleCover: Fortunately [[AvertedTrope averted]], but it was a narrow thing. The actual box cover for the game simply used the logo seen at the top of this article, while the original unused cover art looked like [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/doom/images/1/1f/Doom64.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20200512211710 this]]. [[EpicFail Yeah.]]

* AntiFrustrationFeatures: The game does not port the Arch-Vile, Revenant, or Chaingunner enemies to this game, which lessens the frustration due to how devastating their attacks are. At the time when the game was released on the UsefulNotes/Nintendo64, this was a potential point of frustration due to the use of a gamepad instead of keyboard & mouse. Instead, the game's difficulty was increased in other ways, such as buffing the threat-level of some other enemies and the addition of environmental traps to the game world.

* ContemptibleCover: Fortunately [[AvertedTrope averted]], but it was a narrow thing. The actual box cover for the game simply used the logo seen at the top of this article, while the original unused cover art looked like [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/doom/images/1/1f/Doom64.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20200512211710&format=original this]]. [[EpicFail Yeah.]]