Hexen episode/hub 1.

I recently played through this episode of Hexen and I ended up running Skulltag in a window with a walkthrough open in a Firefox window to work out how to complete the Seven Portals. Why is it so hard? Is episode 2 easier?

Hub one either captivates you or turns you away.

The hub is relatively easy if you are sharp enough to catch the clue before it disperses.

Can't answer that since I didn't find Seven Portals even remotely hard. even the 'puzzles' makes sense when you think about it. Getting to the Bright Crucible was the trickiest part in the whole hub.

You might as well stop now cause it doesn't get easier.

Is there an actual puzzle, though? I've never "got" what any of it is trying to do. I just remember that x switch unlocks y map thanks to previous trial and error. :P

Hub 2 makes a bit more sense. It's still conceptually abstract but the idea is that each map grants you a key which you have to use to re-enter the map from a different one. Or something like that.

The goal of the seven portals is to press the three switches at the top of the trident in the middle of the map. Once you have pressed all three, the big doors open revealing the way to the end of the hub.

To reach the three switches you have to raise steps to them; this is done by pressing puzzle switches in each of the 'guardian' maps. Obviously you have to gain access to each 'guardian' map first and then get to the puzzle switches in each 'guardian' map by doing more things.

However, unlike later hubs, the switches on the trident have no 'symbols' to make them appear ‘special’ (i.e. like the chapel symbols on hub 3), though I suppose the trident it'self could count as a symbol.

Also, IIRC, I don't think there’s any non-linearity in the order you can do things, like there is on later hubs.

You don't need to raise all steps btw. You can jump from the middle steps to the switch on the left.

Memfis said:

You don't need to raise all steps btw. You can jump from the middle steps to the switch on the left.

I never thought of that. And neither did then developers, apparently.

I think I'll go play Seven Portals now.

oh man I love hexen so much.

IMO, all of the hubs are hard. You really have to think: am I positive I didn't miss anything in this area? Thirty times before you go into the next one. When you're stuck, go back to an old area and repeat that question thirty times again.

I'm playing through it again right now, and now that I've played it 2-3 times before I'm getting much more used to their tricks. When you hit a switch that turns back off after 2 seconds, that should really signal you to try to figure out what it did. In DooM, when you see a switch like that, it never really matters that much, and half the time it doesn't mean anything. In Hexen, that's smoething you should pay attention to. For Seven Portals, IMO the part that's tricky is in the steel area, the fact that there are switches in the corners of the map that "move" giant steel walls in the basement of the level. If you don't figure that out, that'll stop you for an hour.

Epyo said:

For Seven Portals, IMO the part that's tricky is in the steel area, the fact that there are switches in the corners of the map that "move" giant steel walls in the basement of the level. If you don't figure that out, that'll stop you for an hour.

Likewise this is the only thing that has ever tripped me up in that hub when I was little. Now I realize I can use the automap to see the polyobjs move, but those switches can be confusing if you don't know what they do. Ice and Fire are really straightforward maps.

The second hub is probably the most difficult in my opinion. It's a switch hunt but getting the keys and remembering where to go can be a pain. When I was young and my brother and I would play Hexen co-op we would always stop at this hub since we couldn't figure out how to progress in it. Definitely my least favorite hub if only because I have bad memories of playing it for hours only to get nowhere.

The rest of the hubs after it are fairly easy to solve, but that said I don't think I ever played 3 and 4 back in the day. Though one thing that can make those confusing is they both are basically 2 hubs in one. I know in 3 you never have to go back to the first two levels after getting to the chapels (which is basically a better version of hub 2), but I can't exactly recall on the Gibbet part of 4.

I do know that hub 5 is the most straightforward.

The Guardian of Steel switches actually threw me off for a long time because of my familiarity with Doom. Because I instinctively knew that walls were a certain color, the fact that the big shifting barrier was marked that color made me think it was a secret (since using it directly did nothing), thus I thought it was optional. So I ran around the other maps for ages, taking friggin' forever before I figured it out. :(

Heh, I actually think I may have had to open hexen.wad in an editor to figure it out. I know for sure I had to do it in Gibbet because of the goddamn book 'puzzle'. That never dawned on me in the slightest and you get absolutely no clue aside from "you have books".

Still, it's a great game once the frustrating "WTF now?" issues are solved. :P

Xaser said:

Heh, I actually think I may have had to open hexen.wad in an editor to figure it out. I know for sure I had to do it in Gibbet because of the goddamn book 'puzzle'. That never dawned on me in the slightest and you get absolutely no clue aside from "you have books".

There are the letters on the spines. You find a comparatively unique looking book case with the books; 'K' gap 'R' gap 'X'.

The books you pick up have 'O' and 'A' on the spines.

HeXen is a great game, but I wonder what it would have been like had more puzzles than Hub5 and spelling Korax with books, had direct links to your actual quest.

I mean, something like a puzzle that had you collecting the pieces of your ultimate weapon because it was the only thing that could hurt Korax or something.

I never got in to Hexen. And it's just sounding worse and worse the more I read through this thread.

I tried to play Hexen for a decade and hated it every time, never got past the first hub. Until about three years ago I gave it another try, and fell crazy in love with it.

Its bullshit puzzles are a huge downside, but it's still in my top 10 games.

EDIT: Man Lut told me Hexen 2 was terrible on the first page and I didn't believe him ;-(

I absolutely love Hexen, it has an atmosphere few games can match and the puzzles/switch hunts aren't THAT difficult once you figured them out.
At least it tried things a little different unlike Heretic which just felt like a Doom TC, such a shame Hexen 2 ended up being a load of boring tripe as well.

Vermil said:

There are the letters on the spines. You find a comparatively unique looking book case with the books; 'K' gap 'R' gap 'X'.

The books you pick up have 'O' and 'A' on the spines.

I've beaten the game since then -- I know how the puzzle works now, silly. :P

The trouble I had was I never knew to look at that one particular bookcase in that one particular room. Knowing what the letters are doesn't help at all if you never see the bookcase that has them.

Now, if Hexen was a full-on adventure game, things would have been different. The entire point of said genre is to make the player use logic and intuit things, and difficult puzzles are to them as boss fights are to action games. Such a setup would've been perfectly justified there, since the player is likely to ask "Hmm, I have books. They probably belong in a bookcase somewhere." But arriving at that conclusion at that point in the Hexen we know requires a level of reasoning that, until that point, was never required or expected of the player in the entire game at all.

tl;dr: If you're not lucky enough to make the bookcase connection naturally (or manage to spy the bookcase through chance), you're pretty much fucked. :P

Epyo said:

For Seven Portals, IMO the part that's tricky is in the steel area, the fact that there are switches in the corners of the map that "move" giant steel walls in the basement of the level. If you don't figure that out, that'll stop you for an hour.

Some people don't realize it since it's the same sounds as the metal ambiance, but you can hear these walls move when you pull the switch.

I remember that metal ambiance would confuse me quite a bit.

Xaser said:

The trouble I had was I never knew to look at that one particular bookcase in that one particular room. Knowing what the letters are doesn't help at all if you never see the bookcase that has them.

The first time I solved that puzzle, it was thanks to Wolfenstein. Sing it with me: "When you're confused, when you're lost, hump every wall to the utmost."

it's easy if you know the anatomy of the hub...and it is more challenging than doom in terms of puzzles and riddles...i loved since i was 12 years old....good times.

See, I've beaten HeXen precisely once (the one time I played it) and I had absolutely no idea what I was doing the entire time. Just kind of muddled and fell my way through the hubs with my usual intense searching and ruthless killing. Not hard to see why the game never really stuck with me.

Gez said:

The first time I solved that puzzle, it was thanks to Wolfenstein. Sing it with me: "When you're confused, when you're lost, hump every wall to the utmost."

I admit I looked at a strategy guide that time. Shame on me, but that whole hub is nasty on the puzzle department. Neither the entrance to the effluvium is obvious.

vinnie245 said:

the puzzles/switch hunts aren't THAT difficult once you figured them out.

well DUH!