History YMMV / Doom64

** One of the biggest weakness of the former incarnation of the Pain Elemental was that you could get into melee and neutralize them with even a Chainsaw or Berserk Fist without any fear of reprisal. However, Doom 64 invalidated this glaring weakness and made this tactic very risky, as every Lost Soul that fails to spawn will cause damage similar to a barrel explosion.

** The buff to the Chainsaw doubles its power, and prevents the Berserk Fist from being a completely superior. Now it's much safer against enemies it can safely stun-lock and kills them twice as quickly as well. While it's still a gamble to use it against more dangerous foes such as Hell Knights, it's not ''as'' risky thanks to the doubled damage output and is a possibility if you have health and armor to spare.

* AuthorSavingThrow:

* AwesomeMusic: The soundtrack may be very different from those of the first two games, but it does a great job of establishing a dark, tense atmosphere.

** The addition of the Unmaker, will eventually turn the Plasma Gun obsolete, due to the Unmaker using cells. Once you've upgraded the Unmaker only once, there is no reason to even bother using Plasma Gun; the Unmaker will have a greater rate of fire after the first upgrade, and regardless of upgrades, each laser shot deals up to twice the amount of damage a single plasma shot will deal, and despite the lasers looking like projectiles, it's a hitscan weapon, meaning it'll hit its target instantly unobstructed with full accuracy. Get the second and third upgrades, it'll shoot two and then three laser shots at once, giving it an incredible rate of fire that can stunlock even the Cyberdemon and Mother Demon to death, leaving the Plasma Gun hopelessly outclassed. The Plasma Gun also got nerfed, fires 1/3 slower than the original version of the weapon, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking emits an annoying loud buzzing noise at idle]].\\

** '''"Level 22: Burnt Offerings"''', while not the most outright difficult level has a dirty trick that fells poorly thought-out. At one point, you need to progress by picking up a Rocket Launcher, but if you happen to be full on Rockets, then you may become stuck as you can not progress without picking up that Launcher. When you do take the Rocket Launcher, you are lowered into a shallow pit and four dart launchers start firing at you which can lead to your death if you were unprepared and running low on health.

** '''"Level 6: Alpha Quadrant"''' is where levels start causing easy deaths, especially on [[HarderThanHard Watch Me Die]]. What makes it painful is an abyssal room with severe darkness, populated with specters in the pit that can corner you easily, and [[DemonicSpiders Pain Elementals]]. Much time can be spent, trying to clear a safe path through this room to hit the switches you need to access the final key. By the way, you can't save scum on the Nintendo 64, so if you die in Doom 64, [[RageQuit you go back to the beginning of the level.]]

** A simple but effective alteration was made to the Cyberdemon: they now actually [[ArtificialBrilliance aim their rockets at an angle towards you]] like they're actually aiming. This creates the impression that they are leading their shots and you now have to been more cautious facing them head-on. In short, their rockets' SplashDamage can still be a threat even if you're not backed into a wall.

** The Hell Knights. They can be dispatched easily with a super shotgun and some patience. However, their attacks are just as damaging as a Baron of Hell, so they are still a reasonable threat. Also, Hell Knights have a nasty habit of showing up when you least expect (or want) them. The "Watch Me Die!" difficulty setting ''loves'' to use Hell Knights for either a MonsterCloset or a random ambush.

* NightmareRetardant: A subtle example with some of the background music. Depending on your musical tastes, some of the songs can be creepy, yet strangely ''calm and relaxing''. "Level 10: The Bleeding" is [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udjDdj4bcE0 one possible example]].

* ParanoiaFuel: Very much so. In addition to the [[DroneOfDread creepy ambient background music]], monsters have a tendency to teleport and appear from out of nowhere at the worst possible times. It's especially nasty on the (appropriately named) "Watch Me Die!" difficulty. The random ambushes become more paranoia-inducing when they involve powerful enemies like [[DemonicSpiders Arachnotrons, Mancubi, Pain Elementials]], or even [[TheDreaded a Cyberdemon]].

* TooAwesomeToUse: 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 (i.e. a Pain Elemental ambush or a Cyberdemon), and indeed, there ''are'' high-threat encounters that are worth saving the Unmaker for.
** Unsurprisingly, this also makes the BFG land in this. You find it on Level 10 though you can obtain the Unmaker from a secret level via Level 4 and also gain your first Demon Key to upgrade it. Being the BFG, it's so strong that it would invalidate all your other guns if it weren't for finding enough cells to fire a mere three shots on a good level. Plus there's fretting about whether you really need this much firepower against a horde or if it's better to save cells and use your Rocket Launcher to get the job done.

** A simple but effective alteration was made to the Cyberdemon: they now actually [[ArtificialBrilliance aim their rockets at an angle towards you]] like they're actually aiming. This creates the impression that they are leading their shots and you now have to been more cautious facing them head-on. In short, their rocket's SplashDamage can still be a threat even if you're not backed into a wall.

** A simple but effective alteration was made to the Cyberdemon: they now actually [[ArtificialBrilliance aim their rockets at an angle towards you]] like they're actually aiming. This creates the impression that they are leading their shots and you now have to been more cautious facing them head-on
In short, their rocket's SplashDamage can still be a threat even if you're not backed into a wall.

** A simple but effective alteration was made to the Cyberdemon: their now actually aim their rockets at an angle towards you like they're actually aiming. This creates the impression that they are leading their shots and you now have to been more cautious facing them head-on, since their rocket's splash can still be a threat even if you're not backed into a wall.

** '''"Level 9: Even Simpler"''' can be very fun, but get ready to be barbecued after raising the elevator in the center of the arena, your first time through. "Watch Me Die" has you completely surrounded by Mancubi, who carpet the air with their painful fireball attacks. The mercy here is that if you die a lot here, you haven't lost much progress. The rest of the level is certainly "not simple" due to the nasty assortment of monsters, including Pain Elementals, and you don't have the BFG nor the Unmaker powered up beyond level one yet. Still, beating this level is a thrill.

** "Level 30: The Lair" is an anomaly among the secret levels, as while the other secret levels provided a big amp up in difficulty (Outpost Omega throws far more dangerous encounters at the player than they'll experience in the rest of the first 8 starbase maps, In The Void is chock full of tough enemies and features plentiful Pain Elementals in vast openness, and Hectic and the "fun" levels are just unfair), The Lair instead gives the player a big breather. Despite you having done several maps in Hell at that point, you mainly just fight small swarms of small enemies like Nightmare Imps, Spectres, and Lost Souls, while the only bigger threats are a couple Hell Knights and a couple Arachnotrons, the latter of which you can easily fight isolated to minimize your danger. The Lair is additionally really short, doesn't have much in ambushes, and has two Soulspheres in the map, which with the easy combat should easily allow you to leave the level with 200% health if you save one for the end. Plus you can get the second Demon Key near the beginning of the map to power the Unmaker to GameBreaker levels, and the puzzle to get it is a lot simpler than the puzzles locking the Keys in Outpost Omega and In The Void.

** "Level 30: The Lair" is an anomaly among the secret levels, as while the other secret levels provided a big amp up in difficulty (Outpost Omega throws far more dangerous encounters at the player than they'll experience in the rest of the first 8 starbase maps, In The Void is chock full of tough enemies and features plentiful Pain Elementals in vast openness, and Hectic and the "fun" levels are just unfair), The Lair instead gives the player a big breather. Despite you having done several maps in Hell at that point, you mainly just fight small swarms of small enemies like Nightmare Imps, Spectres, and Lost Souls, while the only bigger threats are a couple Hell Knights and a couple Arachnotrons, the latter of which you can easily fight isolated to minimize your danger. The Lair is additionally really short, doesn't have much in ambushes, and has two Soulspheres in the map, which with the easy combat should easily allow you to leave the level with 200% health if you save one for the end. Plus you can get the second Demon Key near the beginning of the map to power the Unmakeer to GameBreaker levels, and the puzzle to get it is a lot simpler than the puzzles locking the Keys in Outpost Omega and In The Void.

It's somewhat more useful in ''The Lost levels'' and prior to finding the BFG, as the player doesn't get the Unmaker or any keys until the final level. That said, most players will save their cells for the {{BFG}} once they get one (a secret one can be obtained as early as the second level). And for those Pistol starting every level or otherwise accepting the penalty of losing everything for dying instead of reloading a save upon death, the Plasma Gun will find good usage as a stronger, higher-tempo weapon than the Chaingun (plus, each plasma ball deals 5-40 damage vs 5-15 for bullets). Also, the Unmaker only appears in four levels (five with The Lost Levels counted), while the BFG is also uncommon and difficult to find in most maps.

** {{Downplayed}} with the {{BFG}}. It's still very efficient with cells against a large hoard of monsters and against individual Cyberdemons at point-blank range. However, the Unmaker shares its ammo and it isn't always obvious if using the {{BFG}} over is more efficient and worth the risk of waiting out its charge-up time. The Unmaker also has the advantage of locking monsters in a CycleOfHurting, reducing the chance of being hurt from retaliation against your target.

* TierInducedScrappy: The addition of the Unmaker, will eventually turn the Plasma Gun obsolete, due to the Unmaker using cells. Once you've upgraded the Unmaker only once, there is no reason to even bother using Plasma Gun; the Unmaker will have a greater rate of fire after the first upgrade, and regardless of upgrades, each laser shot deals up to twice the amount of damage a single plasma shot will deal, and despite the lasers looking like projectiles, it's a hitscan weapon, meaning it'll hit its target instantly unobstructed with full accuracy. Get the second and third upgrades, it'll shoot two and then three laser shots at once, giving it an incredible rate of fire that can stunlock even the Cyberdemon and Mother Demon to death, leaving the Plasma Gun hopelessly outclassed. The Plasma Gun also got nerfed, fires 1/3 slower than the original version of the weapon, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking emits an annoying loud buzzing noise at idle]]. The {{BFG}} still remains powerful and can clear out large hordes faster and more efficiently, while having a greater DPS at optimal point blank usage, but can't match the Unmaker's ease of use and ability to stunlock anything to near-instant death.\\

* ParanoiaFuel: Very much so. In addition to the [[HellIsThatNoise creepy ambient background music]], Monsters have a tendency to teleport and appear from out of nowhere at the worst possible times. It's especially nasty on the (appropriately named) "Watch Me Die!" difficulty. The random ambushes become more paranoia-inducing when they involve powerful enemies like [[DemonicSpiders Arachnotrons, Mancubi, Pain Elementials]], or even [[TheDreaded a Cyberdemon]].

* SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome: The Doom engine was really stretched to the limit for its time, even exceeding the capabilities of ''VideoGame/{{Hexen}}'' in some respects. Textures and sprites are smoothed out to eliminate pixelation, level geometry can now be scripted into intricate special effects, the skies are able to be smoothly animated and even display thunder and lightning, and levels can be made to fool the player into thinking they are more 3D than they really are. The levels in the second act of the game and latter really stand out with their castle-like designs and well animated skies.

* SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome: The Doom engine really stretched to the limit for its time, even exceeding the capabilities of ''VideoGame/{{Hexen}}'' in some respects. Textures and sprites are smoothed out to eliminate pixelation, level geometry can now be scripted into intricate special effects, the skies are able to be smoothly animated and even display thunder and lightning, and levels can be made to fool the player into thinking they are more 3D than they really are. The levels in the second act of the game and latter really stand out with their castle-like designs and well animated skies.