I did episodes 1 and 3 on PS Vita via Chocolate Doom, which I understand is one of the more vanilla-accurate source-ports, whereas episode 2 at first I did half in the recent DOOM I+II "remaster", but then downloaded GZDoom and did the whole episode there from start to finish.

Doom is obviously a phenomenal game for 1993, from both the technical standpoint and the mechanical one. Much has been said about this. But I was surprised at how well episode 1 holds up. I would say, even by modern standards, it's a near-perfect experience. If the entirety of Doom was just that episode, I'd give it the highest rating.

But it's unfortunately in the second and third episodes where some flaws come up that mostly have to do with poor level design. I'm not saying that Sandy Petersen and Tom Hall are bad level designers, I do think they did much better job in their later games, but there is a noticeable difference between Romero's levels and theirs. You start seeing some bullshit enemy placements, some poorly-balanced difficulty, some mazey corridors, and those delightful tricks a-la "hey, here's some ammo and medkits that you might wanna pick up-- Syke! That's actually an inescapable trap that's gonna kill ya."

And there's really nothing particularly wrong with the overall experience of these episodes as a whole, but the moments of confusion and frustration stick in your mind so vividly that it's hard to retain that amazing impression the first episode made. The game's reputation though is perfectly understandable, as these rather unpleasant moments were probably completely overshadowed by the absolute excellence of the rest of the game upon release. However, since 1993 there have been many games that arguably provide a better "Doom experience" than the original Doom. Therefore my rating here reflects how the game feels to play today.

In fact, this is gonna be a controversial take, but I think Doom is best played with GZDoom. Sure, the ability to use the Y-axis and jump do make some of the maps easier, but the amount of immersion they add is invaluable, not to mention they make some of the more egregious design choices in episodes 2 and 3 much easier to swallow. Plus there's a plethora of other quality-of-life improvements.