Played this through with Fitzquake. On skill 2 - ammo got short at the end, but it was a great fight. The spiders are right in the sweet spot; better than quoth's vorelings and travail's arachnids.

This is a masterpiece. Gameplay, atmosphere, brushwork, all so well done.

Masterpiece, indeed. Actually I think Bastion is just as good aside from no difficulty settings.

This was the first user made map that I tried. That was about a year ago. After downloading as many good sp maps that I could find since then, marcher is still one of the best. Conserve ammo!!

Truly awesome level! Of all the maps I've played in the archive this has almost definitely got the most epic battle of all Quake history!! 5/5 Insanely difficult when played on Nightmare, but then again there is no other way to play is there? ;)

The most epic battles ever! :D

The hordes just keep coming. Watch that ammo.

Video Playthrough with intro - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-sjs_ePrjY

Error: "Hunk_Alloc: failed on 1650128 bytes"

An Epic battle for an epic game.
Thanks to Kinn for this experience and Spirit for hosting these maps and for all your experience and gifts to the Quake community.

Cheers!

Truly a masterpiece. Congrats, Kinn. Its a great architectural feat. Game play is very good too.

Theres more ammo than needed, even thought sometimes you need to backtrack for some. Health and armor are OK. The secrets are enjoyable, and i liked even more those pieces of ammo and armor that weren't part of the secrets but also hard to find. I loved the spiders, as Steven said,they are the best monsters of that kind.

I would like it to be more difficult in nightmare, but not in the fight with the minotaurs/werewolves like monsters when you are ascending, that one is hard enough even if you go outside the building.

The only drawback is the ambient, i do think that ne_ruins and honey for example are way better at that.

I can assume that the "sinking through the floor" bug on mine is an isolated incident judging by the comments. For what I played of the level it was truly excellent.

Hard to believe this was released all the way back in 2005. As of late 2013, with such strong contenders as something_wicked and honey, this is still the most beautiful Quake map I have played.

The gameplay is likewise superb, with impeccable pacing and just the right degree of mounting difficulty. I am not usually a fan of maps that go overboard with monster count (though I understand their appeal to others), but here it is implemented so smoothly that it just adds to the monumental sense of scale.

As other users have said, this is truly a masterpiece.

Just shockingly brilliant from start to end. Words fail me.

The only sadness is that it seems Kinn only ever made two Quake maps: this, and the also superb kinn_bastion.

One of the best Q1SP levels, I can only agree with what's already been said. Even better than Bastion, which I also liked immensely. Too bad the author disappeared. :(

ossM.

i burnt my own 'Quake 2 Go' disc for when i travel. this, of course, is on it.

Got me very lost a couple of times, but stunningly good.

Totally lives up to its reputation—I only wish it was a little bit more labyrinthine and nonlinear. :)

Aside from the architecture I really like how varied the gameplay is. Also, I'm not usually a fan of horde battles in Quake but the two-stage final fight of this map was excellent. A lot of it had to do with a big, relatively complex spaces the player is allowed to maneuver in. They provide a lot more room for tactical engagement than the boring arena-type spaces a lot of mappers use for such fights.

The monster variety, placement, and use of custom monsters were top-notch.

"A lot of it had to do with a big, relatively complex spaces the player is allowed to maneuver in. They provide a lot more room for tactical engagement than the boring arena-type spaces a lot of mappers use for such fights."

Agreed. Well said, Lane Powell.

The two final battles were REALLY intense. Love the architecture AND the use of custom monsters.

Replayed this. It doesn't disappoint. The truly great maps (and this one is in my all-time top two) don't just give you awesome combats, but also a sense of a real place. My word, but the Marcher Fortress feels real, and solid, and inhabited.

I finished with 371/372 kills (on hard). Rats, I just couldn't find that last monster. Then again, I only found 2/4 secrets, so maybe the missing monster is inside one of the secrets that I missed?

Oh well. Another time!

What's your other top 2, Mike?

It's Telefragged, one of the three maps that make up the Rubicon Rumble Pack. See https://www.quaddicted.com/reviews/rrp.html

I remember this when it came out. Awesome map. Great to see it's still made available. Also, the exe's he included allowed me to play the official mission paks back then. At the time, I was mainly an online Mega Team Fortress player (Shout out to Zap, Biscuit, and Amnesia servers :P) using Zquake 0.13 and the Fuhquake QW clients of the time which wouldn't handle the mission paks with the spprogs.dat file going around.

Looks like now, Quakespasm and Darkplaces handle pretty much all single player needs these days and easily make this map look even better than when I first played it! I stick with qspaz since it runs no higher than 50 C on my machine whereas dp is running up to 80 C.

Use cl_maxfps 72 in Darkplaces to prevent it from killing your hardware. By default it tries to render as many frames as possible which is stupid.

There is nothing more satisfying than gibing a stairway of knights regurgitated from a tight choke point.

I've just re-played this map. I think it's been about 10 years since I've played it the last time. And still looks and plays great. It's a perfect example where horde combat is made in a very good way. Real classic.

This is an amazing map. Ammo becomes scarce near the end, so be careful.

A requisite play for anyone who believes their self to be a Quake fan. While no doubt the architecture in this level is exquisitely grand with a meticulously crafted layout, it goes above and beyond that by offering some of the most memorable set piece clashes that can be witnessed in a Quake level. It doesn't get much better than this.

Health packs become VERY thin through the middle. The small room with a shambler, a vore, some melee guys, and a fiend is just too much. Cmon with that.

This map is a classic. I played through it on Hard (skill 2), killed about 95% of the enemies and found 3 out of 4 secrets.

If you're looking for a romp through a medieval castle filled with traps and hundreds of enemies to kill, then the Marcher Fortress is for you. My tips for this map is to look for secrets and be smart with how you use your ammo. For example, if I remember correctly the Super Nailgun is hidden in a secret. Once I found it I began saving up nails for the big battles near the end, when there are lots of tough enemies that could really stand to use a Super Nailgun volley. The new enemies like the spiders, Nail Ogres, Imps, and Gaurochs (which I recognize from Arcane Dimensions) fit in really well with Quake's aesthetic. If you like Quake, you have no reason not to play this map.

This map is pretty fun. There is some custom explosions and gore sounds in this which make it a bit punchier than vanilla Quake and that did make it more satisfying. As Quake enemies are spongy, and this map has a high enemy count, ammo maximum was raised accordingly although I would've preferred higher weapon damage. It would make dealing with hordes breezier for sure.

The Quake 3 textures make this very good looking, and thankfully the 4 guardians are very close and fast to kill after the bell is activated so the ding dong is not much of an issue. Environment are too big though. They do make the map sparse and therefore have a lot of trekking without much to do besides. If you happen to be living in 2005 or wish you were living in it, give me a call. Also definitely play this map. It is the best fragging you'll be doing in current year.

This really merits 5 stars, even fifteen years after its release. It may not be as pretty as some recent maps, but the gameplay is intense and the sense of place is outstanding. I never realized how much of Arcane Dimensions comes from (or was heavily inspired by) this level. Definitely a must-play.

One of the best maps ever created for Quake. Simple as that. Perhpaps its visuals didn't hold too well. But damn layout, gameplay ideas, environmental storytelling - everything is top tier. Author is really talented - THANKS

I replayed this recently I find I now disagree with my earlier comment praising the horde combat. I suspect it's because back then I was just worse at the game, so beating a huge map with a huge monster count felt like a monumental accomplishment. Now I tend to find such levels to be a grind. I usually play Quake levels on skill 2, but for stuff like this (and e.g. the typical Tronyn or necros joint) I prefer skill 1--not because Hard is too hard but just because it takes too long.

At worst you have moments where it spawns a horde directly ahead of you, trivialized by backpedaling and spamming grenades. When that "horde" consists of death knights it can get a bit tedious. The final fight, which spills out over the terrain surround the fortress, is more interesting by design, but I can't help but feel that this kind of scenario works better in Doom. It's not just that Doom is faster; the game has other subtleties that I think are lost in Quake, like the somewhat arcane BFG mechanics which make it tricky to use optimally against crowds, making it more interesting than just another "big fucking gun." I often think Doom may just be a more balanced game in general, but in any case Quake lends itself very well to "intimate" combat scenarios (for lack of a better term) and less so to more crowded ones. That's a not a hard rule and there's a lot of grey area that's worth exploring, but at the end of the day I find the encounter design here and in many places elsewhere to be quite dated.

Still a classic of Quake, ymmv etc.