Favorite Heretic/Hexen Game?

I've always felt that Heretic II was too far removed from it's predecessors. The serpent riders hook was gone, the FPS angle got ditched for 3rd person, the entire setting more or less took a revamp with all the anthropomorphic races in the world all of a sudden...

The only thing that felt "Heretic" about it were the weapons.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed the game. Still, it deserved to be a title of it's own, and the Hexetic franchise also deserved a better ending than this, but we can all blame Activision for that.

Hexen II was a good game, but felt too sandbox-ish with how each episodes was strictly Medieval/Aztec/Egyptian/Greko-Roman. There was no sensible flow to it - now I'm here, now I'm there. In the original Hexen you actually felt like you're going through one helluva long journey.

Has anybody ever considered modding a sort of spiritual successor to the series? Sort of like a fan-made Hecatomb?

khartael said:

I've always felt that Heretic II was too far removed from it's predecessors. The serpent riders hook was gone, the FPS angle got ditched for 3rd person, the entire setting more or less took a revamp with all the anthropomorphic races in the world all of a sudden...

You mean the lizard dudes and the insectlike dudes? Heretic 1 has the ophidians and the weredragons, so there was precedent...

But there are several inconsistencies in the backstory; like when the seven kingdoms (plus the elves) got reduced to five (including elves). The number of kingdoms in Parthoris is plot relevant neither in Heretic 1 nor in Heretic 2, so I don't know why they changed it, but I'd guess it was simply because they forgot and didn't read what they had written earlier.

khartael said:

Has anybody ever considered modding a sort of spiritual successor to the series? Sort of like a fan-made Hecatomb?

There's a Doom 3 mod called "Hexen: Edge of Chaos" in the works, if that's the sort of thing you mean.

Well, I finished Heretic 2 last night, so no need to worry about spoilers anymore on my account (although I appreciate the thought).

I really liked the lab section in the Cloud Fortress with all the brains, eyes, creatures, etc. floating in jars--that's the kind of stuff I'd have in my lair if I was a boss in a video game. :)

Anyway, my verdict: A decent 3rd person game, but I rank it last out of all the Heretic/Hexen games in terms of fun/quality. I liked how they incorporated most of the weapons/items from Heretic and the introduction of the new races, but it just feels like something is missing. Maybe it really is nothing more than the game not being in first person. By the way, I was watching the credits after I beat it, and in the 'special thanks' section they put thanks for 'not naming this game Hecatomb'. What's up with that? You think they would have been proud to use that name, or maybe they felt it was too much to live up to?

As of now, Heretic remains over Hexen with single player.

Hexen multiplayer wasn't balanced at all. Hell, the singleplayer wasn't. You could kill Korax with about 3-5 Wraithverge shots.

Haha, yeah - Hexen multiplayer is a crazy experience.

Hexen II multiplayer was a bit more balanced. Never tried Heretic II.

I'd still say Heretic has the best MP experience, though.

khartael said:

Has anybody ever considered modding a sort of spiritual successor to the series? Sort of like a fan-made Hecatomb?

i'm already making a game out of the Hexen II source, with the lessons learned on what made Hexen II suck.

No evil Egyptian puzzles?

Stilgar said:

There's a Doom 3 mod called "Hexen: Edge of Chaos" in the works, if that's the sort of thing you mean.

I know of it, yes - I meant more something along the lines of how Hecatomb was described, though, ignoring Hexen II.

leileilol said:

i'm already making a game out of the Hexen II source, with the lessons learned on what made Hexen II suck.

Sounds interesting! Looking forward to hear more about it.

StoneFrog said:

No evil Egyptian puzzles?

:(

That said, I really enjoyed Hexen II. But it got really bad towards the end, with the puzzles that made no sense in the egyptian hub and the roman hub all around was just pretty freakin' horrible.

I loved Blackmarsh - it felt like some non linear morbid version of RuneScape or something.

Mazaera (Aztec hub) wasn't too bad, but the Werejaguars could get annoying.

Thysis (Egyptian hub) was so-so, too much backtracking and those stupid time travel aspects.

I didn't mind the roman hub too much.

The return to Blackmarsh was EPIC. I love the Blackmarsh area. Raven Software should've made the entire (or most) of the game medieval themed.

I mean, just look at Guild Wars. It was fine with its European settings, and then that Asian BS totally screwed it up.

What do you guys think of Hexen: Death Kings versus the original Hexen?

Reaper978 said:

What do you guys think of Hexen: Death Kings versus the original Hexen?

Boring. Too many monsters, making levels more tedious than fun; and nothing new to keep us entertained. Even the endgame sequence used the same pictures!

Gez said:

Boring. Too many monsters, making levels more tedious than fun; and nothing new to keep us entertained. Even the endgame sequence used the same pictures!

Disagree. I'm finding Deathkings just as entertaining, if not a little more so with interesting level design and more logical switch puzzles. The game doesn't need a bunch of new crap, since most of the stuff like the puzzle items were only used once anyway.

I just played through Death Kings for 15 minutes or so. It is far more difficult!

Fascinating games on the whole, I am nearly through the third episode of Heretic which I decided to play through on the hardest difficulty. I am finding that it is just a tad beyond my abilities, with the minotaurs and numerous Iron-Liches proving to be very difficult to overcome.

Also, has anyone tried this?:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZrBvyyoOS0

It doesn't seem to work with the latest version of Doomsday.

I started playing Hexen again. I'm actually having a lot of fun with it.

I though I'd let you guys know that the HeXen: Edge of Chaos mod is coming pretty far along. We've made alot of progress since our last trailers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D44z3BSOF98

In addition, I'm making a new HeXen WAD entitled HERESEY - it's nearing completion and has alot of new resources, kinda like a partial conversion. Features include no-longer-useless starting weapons, new monsters, not-so-annoying centaurs, weapon power-levels, new textures and skies, new powerups, REAL forests, hilly terrain... the list goes on. Gameplay is fast and furious... NO ETTINS!!!! ;)

CodenniumRed said:

a new HeXen WAD entitled HERESEY

drfrag i don't care!!! I dont want to play
the heretic map in the doom 2 game


oh wait, that's HERESY, not HERESEY.

Hearsay? :p

Damn I realized I had the title misspelled the entire time! Now what am I going to go - apparently 'Heresy' is taken already! I'll use thesaurus.com lol! Good thing I didn't already make my new title pic. ;)

Ok... title ideas... Impiety.wad sacrilege.wad necrosis.wad schism.wad apostate.wad or infidel.wad... what would look best as a sprite? You vote....

I'd say Necrosis.

I just played through the fourth episode of Heretic, and each level is absolutely fantastic I must say (I especially liked the Ramparts of Perdition).

In addition, I'm making a new HeXen WAD entitled HERESEY - it's nearing completion and has alot of new resources, kinda like a partial conversion. Features include no-longer-useless starting weapons, new monsters, not-so-annoying centaurs, weapon power-levels, new textures and skies, new powerups, REAL forests, hilly terrain... the list goes on. Gameplay is fast and furious... NO ETTINS!!!! ;)

That sounds great! I never played through all of Hexen. I am in a few hours now but the worlds seem a bit too complex with too little variation to break up the gloom.

On the other hand, Heretic is a very beautiful game, one of the most rich and majestic virtual worlds I've ever explored.

what would look best as a sprite? You vote....

I like sacrilege from that list, but how about anathema?

leileilol said:

drfrag i don't care!!! I dont want to play
the heretic map in the doom 2 game


oh wait, that's HERESY, not HERESEY.

Hershey. :U

I play Heretic and Hexen on the second highest difficulties (smite-meister and the Hexen equivalents).

I enjoyed Heretic a lot, even though I never finished the whole game. I'm not really sure which one I like more.

I played through the whole Hexen game as a Cleric (Cardinal/UV equivalent) and it was far too easy, in terms of monsters. The only time I cheated was to get the Axe key. The puzzlez were heavily complicated. You have to search every map for a small change, which gives you acess to a key, switch or puzzle item that will start the cycle again... that's somewhat boring. But I'm really sad about the difficulty - I thought it'd be tougher than Heretic. Any of the 'masters' (Zedek, Menelkir and Traductus) were gibbed with a single attack of my Wraithverge. Korax himself didn't resist much more than that.

The enemy I most liked is the Heresiarch. Aside from looking cool, he has the shield which makes him much tougher - but not to the point of killing me. And the ones I most hated - the Ettins. The only thing they do is block my way. I consider them more 'walking health' than monsters, as my Serpent Staff likes to drain their health. And the Slaughtaurs were very annoying as well. I never knew if they're attacking or defending when they raise their shield.

I couldn't agree more with the previous post! That's why in my WAD I'm not using Ettins AT ALL and Centaurs will be present but rare - and I'm looking to modify their behavior and lower their pain chance so they raise less often.

In the meantime, here's a screen of HeXen 3 for u to enjoy! ;) Actually it's for The DooM 3 mod Edge of Chaos, but some of my levels for the HeXen WAD DO take place in an underground 'icy crypt' anywayz:

Each to their own I guess. I really like the Ettins and I like the Centaurs too. However, the Heressiarch was, to me, a really annoying and misplaced enemy. However, I do think he would have made a more impressive final Boss. The Korax fight was, ultimately, just a scripted arena. There is no reason why a bunch of scripts couldn't have been attached to the Heressiarch. He is a much more impressive and complex boss than a giant Geiger-esque alien with a random collection of most of the fireballs in the game.

Also, on believability, the Heressiarch looks more like an intelligent final boss to me. OK, so there is nothing to stop a 12' tall insect being intelligent I guess but the Heressiarch looks the part. He even wears clothes dammit. He also looks like he could actually ride a serpent and his appearance has a similar feel to that of D'Sparil. What's more, he ties in with the final scrolling screen of Heretic and the windows etc. If their positions in the game had been reversed, it would have made more sense to me. Having Korax as some guardian beast half way through the game guarding some portal or other and the Heressiarch being the final bad guy in his own temple would have been a much better setup IMO.

That screenshot looks good. Really oppressive and creepy. Very "dark fantasy".

Yeah, that really bugged me too--where the hell are Korax and Eidelon's reptilian mounts? They're SERPENT RIDERS!!! I call false advertising!

I think Heresiarch on a Chaos Serpent, or something, would have been too similar to D'Sparil, design-wise, as they're both wizardly dudes, although the Heresiarch is decidely inhuman underneath his.

Enjay said:

That screenshot looks good. Really oppressive and creepy. Very "dark fantasy".

To me it looks too much like Doom 3 hell.

Then I suggest you play Doom3's hell maps again. Don't really go for the screenshot though. I think it's usage of Bezier patches are a bit awkward. And the status bar could use an overhaul.