Heretic Treasure Chest

well this is a pretty good set. lots of variety as you would expect for a Community Chest-inspired Heretic wad and quite some fun was had in pretty much all of the maps. E2M7 stands out the most, with all the projectiles in the open areas plus the massive gargoyle attack at the end. yeah, there's bugs, like with E3M8 and the D'Sparil battle, but I was completely unable to get a secret in E3M3 for some reason.

Done with these settings:

 

- ZDoom 2.8.1

- Bringest Them Oneth, aka skill 3.

- Continuous combined with a wand start mindset.

- Saves every 10 minutes or so.

 

This is the first Heretic pwad I've ever played and I enjoyed it a lot. It brings some classic scenarios and a lot of stuff you don't get in the iwad. Visually, well it's multicolored, it's Heretic after all, some nice designing and recolored textures, not much to say. I liked the usage of different themes in a same map, like in E1M9. The third episode has the best looking maps in my opinion. 

 

Ok, there are only 3 episodes but plenty of maps of varied length and gameplay. I'd say, in terms of gameplay, it's a mixed bag actually, there's many maps that follow the style of the iwads, meaning packs of the same type of monster in corridors, or a very little traps, specially teleport traps. The ones present are quite good, involving moving a lot to avoid high damage. Infighting is possible in almost every map, and some of the later ones have the best scenarios. There're also maps where enemies will start to infight before you even do something, which is not so fun. You'll also get completely long straightforward maps without a chance to return to previous parts, a pet peeve of mine but whatever... A few of my favourite encounters include a massive infestation of nitrogargoyles in a cave, a tricky trap with lots of disciples and iron liches, and a wave of disciples against a malotaur in a ring (I use a decorate to make any monster able to target the malotaur). And more and more.

 

Secret wise, given that, even the original game is really hard to spot the secrets, I won't complain too much here, but I'll add that in some maps I had no idea how to get their secrets, like not a clue. Wall hunting is needed in several cases. The rewards are good though. Music wise, apart from iwad tracks, there also some nice new midis and Doom tracks too, particularly in E2M5, if it's not remixed though.

 

I found several bugs that I won't specifically mention because I doubt an update would ever be released... HOMs, monsters that fail to pop up, items that cannot be grabbed, doors that open from one side but not the other side, and particularly in E3M8, you can exit the map without releasing D'Sparil, and if you decide to fight him and company, you can't get out of the arena as nothing is triggered after his death, at least it didn't happen to me, and ended up using kitty to exit. 

 

Favourite maps: E1M8, E2M5, E2M8, E3M2, E3M3, E3M7. Least Favourite maps: E1M6, E2M3. The other maps are very good, good, and so so. 

 

Overall, enjoyable mapset, goes quite on par with the iwad and outside of the box too. Give it a chance if you like Heretic. I'll rate this 7/10

I liked a lot of design of some maps, very good anyways! Some maps were shorter but its always good to have an expension for heretic, i liked the last maps a lot, so epic!

Some gems in here, if you're a fan of Heretic it's worth downloading this wad to play these maps; E1M3 E1M4 E1M5 E1M8 E3M1. I still play these every now and then. But sadly this is dragged down by some terrible maps and texture recolors; E1M1 is probably the worst Heretic map I've ever played, a lot of the maps are okay but aren't really for me because they use too much custom resources, there's enough good maps to make a 5 episode, but because of the maps in between it gets 3

5 stars for episode 3 alone; episode 2 is quite good too, esp. the later maps. E1 is mostly average stuff but still acceptable, with E1M4 and E1M8 being best. Best Heretic release this year besides Curse.

This is a 2/5 effort. Except for m5, which is 4 or 5 star quality, so I'll give 3/5.

cool, a Heretic megawad! something you don't see everyday. 5/5

A bunch of mediocre maps in this set, but the second and third episodes are the ones that stood out, indeed. This is an excellent heretic megawad! Good job, community. 4.5 (5)/5 - Moti

Great looks, truly challenging gameplay. It's like the Alien Vendetta of Heretic wads. 5/5 Episode 1 is a bit dull though, the rest is awesome.

cool, I have never seen before a megawad for Heretic! cheers and 5/5 maps are very good, download now! -FistMarine

We need more megawads like this! 5/5 -FistMarine

yep (5/5). now what we need is a HeXen Megawad! the one i'm looking forward is CRUEL by Ettin Grinder and curse of lost Gods by Kristus. also looking forward for Heretic - Sword of Chaos by Caleb23. these are HIGH QUALITY MEGAWADS! long live Doom, Heretic, Hexen!

hope we see more these megawads for Heretic! 5*

Improving quality throughout, most of E1 is quite average but E2 has a fair number of nice maps in it, especially the later levels, and E3 was all out excellent IMO. 5/5 for the later maps and also for being one of only TWO Heretic megawads I know (other is hocx). Three of these maps (E1M4-->kaiser_21.zip; E2M2-->pc_ls.zip; and E1M7-->first map in Necrosis for Hexen) were already released but I didn't mind replaying them, they were good. The later maps make this a must-have for Heretic fans!

This wad is a good one. It has plenty of entertainment and replay value. My only wish was that all the levels were of the same quality. Some are just not that .... Heretic-y. Others, on the other hand, are gorgeous. So, maybe a few levels less would have made a flawless wad. Overall though, a very good job. Thank you for this game. (for it is still that much better than Kristus's wads :P!)

simply awesome megawad. 5/5 the best is e2m6 and e2m7

A very nice heretic megawad. Episode one is okay, but episodes 2 and 3 really stood out. This looks like it is going to be a good year for heretic.

I think it's worth 3 stars. The best map is E1M5 but it's been released before as kaiser_21.wad. Otherwise some maps are decent and some aren't so decent. Nonetheless there's some potential for the finished product.

holy awsomenes 20000000000000000000 00000000000000000000 00000000000000000000 00000000000000000000 00000000000000000000 00000000000000000000 00000000000000000000 00000000000000000000 00/5

Some of the levels are great. Some are really bad. And others are either meh - or has something about it that is equally bad as it is good. Too many of the levels, especially in the second hub/episode are clearly originally made for Doom (as it has Doom-like level progression and little height-variation) and then just visually converted to Heretic. I don't like all the new colours either. These bad maps let down the maps clearly more dedicated to capturing the true feel of Heretic.

Dunno why many people complain about episode 1, I think it's great too, especially M4. The fact that there is hardly any health/ammo supportion in some levels bugs me more. Still, I respect the guys who finally made a full 3-episode replacement for Heretic, we'd need more. 4.5/5

A mixed bag. It has some quality maps (E1M5, E1M8) and has a bunch of crappier maps (E1M1, E1M6). Already posted my nitpicks in the thread, so not much more to say about this. Looking forward to the full version. 4/5 - Moti

too much from cchest, too little from heretic **

E1M5 is the best map by a mile. Then there are a few other that are nice to varying degrees. E1M8 for instance is a nice city map, but with not much Heretic to the game play, and not really a boss map. There are too many meh maps though, and E1M3 and E1M4 is even reused from other projects. 3/5 (that it's an Heretic project, and because of E1M5 bumps up the score) -Kristus