After silence for a good while, I thought they were done with this project, but apparently not. Additional effects, a lot of optimizations, and the bosses were added back in.
There is so much grunt behind it now, that in the right configuration it uses the combined might of the Genesis, 32X, and Sega CD processing power all together.
Catching anyone up who orignally didn’t know about this: Doom 32X Resurrection is an attempt to bring the Sega 32X version of Doom to its full potential. The game now supports a laundry list of features it didn’t before: local coop / deathmatch, link cable multiplayer, all the maps, sprites from all angles (they all used to face forward, even rockets), positional sound effects, CD music support, new FM ost by SpoonyBard, improved resolution, improved framerate, additional 6-button configs, and more.
The romhack itself can be found at romhacking.net
Originally was this doom version any different than the PC version or was it the same with stuff removed to make it work?
32X Doom tried to be like the original PC game, but it was rushed through development as a launch title with a small team. The result is…tragic. Specifically: half the maps were missing, both the game window and resolution are reduced to get playable framerates, the original soundtrack famously sounds a bit like a farts at times, several visual effects like parallax texture scrolling, transparency, and lighting effects are gone. (there’s a room in E1M5 near the end that the lights alternate between on/off, but the monsters on 32x are always visible.) This also means no invisibility power-up, or Spectre monsters.
My favorite jank is after the credits when you finish the game, it dumps you into a fake DOS prompt. It just shows C:\DOOM> and you are unable to interact with it in any way.
It notoriously has the best worst audio from any doom game. Look up at dooms gate 32x to see what I mean.
Fair to say only the Gameboy port was worse. Famously awful port