A solid, but not a great edition to Playstation Doom.
Good: More levels, higher difficulty.
Bad: Controlls are worse then on the PC, framerate and draw distance is not always good and even worse then in the original PSX Doom, uses a password system with no ability to save the game like on the PC, no local multiplayer without a link cable, only actually includes a small portion of Final Doom with half the game being stages from the Master Levels.
While the original PSX Doom was an awesome game, the PSX version of Final Doom is much less awesome for a number of reasons. And yet it still remains better then the PC version.
The original Final Doom was released in 1996 on the PC and some time later on the Playstation about a year after the release of the PSX version of the original Dooms. Final Doom on the PC isn't the worst of the Doom games (that reward goes to "The Master Levels"), but it was still very mediocre, being basically a large level pack with no new monsters of weapons. It had over 64 new levels compared with the roughly 32 in the original Doom and Doom 2 in 2 seperate episodes called TNT and Plutonia.
However, even in spite of this the playstation version ironically doesn't even feature that many levels from the PC version of Final Doom. Instead it only contains a total of 17 levels from TNT and Plutonia, and 13 levels from "The Master Levels" which isn't even a part of Final Doom in the first place. So not only aren't you getting even a half of the levels from the PC version, but the other half of the game exists of levels taken from what is easily the worst Doom game of all time.
The Master levels were basically this really mediocre expansion pack for Doom 2, where Id hired community level makers to make a bunch of levels for them, and then picked the best ones to sell as an offical add-on. Yes, I said community levels. Community levels as in, **** that would probably be free had the level designers been making them in their spare time instead of being under contract by Id Software.
It shows, as those levels are just so blatantly worse then anything in the original Dooms. Its really not very difficult to notice that these levels were not designed by pro-level designers, and while some of them are actually kind of decent others just look horrible.
On the bright side, the levels from TNT and Plutonia that DID make it are kind of ok. While Final Doom on the PC was very mediocre, the fact that only some of the levels made it to the Playstation version means that you are at least getting the most decent ones. Another factor that plays in the game's favor is the fact that the levels are more difficult then the first game. In fact, Final Doom on the PC was so tough compared to the first game that the devs actually had to tone down some of the levels from the playstaiton version by removing or changing some monster locations to make things more beatable for the player. So if you are looking for a challenge the game does at least deliver on that. Gameplay wise however, almost everything else is the same as before.
Score: 65%.
Recommendation: If you really loved the original PSX Doom and you just want more of the same, then this will do the job nicely, but if you were expecting new features or even just levels that were at least as good as the ones in the original PSX Doom then you are not going to find that here. While technically a stand-alone game for the Playstaiton, this should be considered a so so add-on pack for the original thing.