The game’s title art
I feel like I hold an unpopular opinion in thinking SIGIL wasn’t that great. I’ve definitely heard people have similar thoughts about it, but the mainstream consensus feels mostly positive about John Romero’s return to Doom.
Now that I’ve played SIGIL II, I regrettably have the same opinion about it as I did SIGIL. It’s not that great.
People hold John Romero in high regard, especially in the context of Doom, which makes sense as without Romero, there is no Doom. Everyone famously knows him as one of the main designers and mappers of Doom. That legacy hasn’t changed, I don’t think.
The episode’s intro level
Where SIGIL and now SIGIL II fall short, however, is that modern Romero’s mapping style is very gimmicky. SIGIL II features small-ish, short-ish maps but they all feature some sort of gimmick or other. One repeated gimmick from SIGIL that returns in every single map in SIGIL II is the insistance that most ways forward will be opened by shooting an eye found in small crack in the wall. This was a silly gimmick in the original but it becomes flat out annoying in the sequel.
As with SIGIL, SIGIL II also feels out of time in a way. It looks good enough (and sounds good) but is mapped in a way that seems to ignore everything that has transpired in the Doom mapping community in the past 30 years. That is understandable in a way; Romero did it first and does what he wants. But the effect it has is that SIGIL II features some rooms and traps that would generally get branded as sloppy design or mapping.
The final level; shorter than most but ends on a terribly designed boss encounter
The maps are fairly brutal with quick bursts of difficulty and all insist in having a Cyberdemon around to pressure you in inconvenient ways. In most maps this is more annoying than a fun challenge. Each map is also fairly claustrophobic, with small rooms and hallways. To be clear, these are mostly all complaints I had about the original SIGIL as well.
The secret level; notice a zombieman eating shit right from the start
The secret map was the better one overall, with a style slightly unlike the other maps in SIGIL II and some fun progression.
In the end, I would probably rather play most any other official Doom episode or game as well as mostly any other unofficial map pack than SIGIL or SIGIL II. I don’t want to badmouth John Romero about Doom, but these really ain’t it for me.