Something I've learned from the various FPS mapping communities I've participated in is that everyone has a different idea of what difficulty levels should mean. There's no point having some petty pride in always playing on Ultra-Violence, because nobody can agree on what Ultra-Violence should even represent.
There's one pretty consistent rule that I've learned to follow, though: when a slaughtermap designer says "play on a lower difficulty than what you usually play", you take them seriously.
Starslave is the second of ComfyByTheFire's maps that I've played, and continues the themes I've come to expect—quad runs, lots of optional areas, grand architecture, experimental features, a bit of light trickjumping, and a shitload of monsters. This outing also features a coherent narrative, told through journal entries from... other versions of yourself? It's very 'cosmic horror', with a dash of ancient aliens for good measure. I quite liked how much of it felt miss-able, and yet the core was clear enough to shine through. There was one line that I even found genuinely chilling, though it may have had something to do with my rapidly dwindling air supply at the time.
The big gimmick in the final section of the map is the sort that I imagine will be quite divisive (more so than the rest of the map, I mean). Without meaning to give too much away, it enforces a lot of stop-go-stop movement on a fixed timer, which does mean sometimes you're waiting around (and sometimes you're rushing forward with zero regard for your own safety). For what it's worth, I enjoyed its grand ambitiousness, and the way it forced me to deal with monsters alongside the constant threat of an environmental hazard. I dread to think of how much work it was to set up all those trigger volumes, though.
It also feels like the map ends rather abruptly, which is perhaps preferable to a ten-minute-long slaughterfest in a featureless arena, but did leave me a little surprised. I even loaded an autosave (noting that I'd only managed to kill just over half the monsters in the level) and backtracked from the end, trying to see if perhaps there was some "good ending" (heavy air quotes there—it is cosmic horror, after all), or some vast area I hadn't stumbled across. I don't think there is—but it's worth backtracking to the entrance all the same, just to see the fun friend that's waiting for you there.
Overall, a very intense map with a lot of fun twists to keep you on your toes. Just don't let your pride keep you from dropping to easy difficulty.
