Heretic vs Rise of the Triad (ROTT)

I have come across many Doom vs heretic and Doom vs ROTT polls in which doom always won but I failed to find a single Heretic vs ROTT poll which is kinda surprising because both of these were released within a month of each other. Each of them does something better than the other, but which is overall superior/ aged better.

Also give reason why u like one over the other.

3 votes but no comments. okay 😑. I guess i have to give my own opinion first.

I like Heretic because of the following reasons:

1) Uses Doom engine which translates to much better level design than the maze-like levels of ROTT

2) Inventory system to store powerups

3) Tomb of power weapons like Hell Staff's rain and Dragon Claw's spread

4) Turn enemies/players into Chicken

Anyone who knows me much at all can probably already guess what I picked.

As for reasons why I prefer Heretic:

- Map format's more flexible.  Wolf3D style stuff can have a charm of its own but RotT doesn't really fit too comfortably in that genre given how far they tried to push everything else, it's some sort of weird transitional thing.

- Generally prefer fantasy themed stuff, and games where you kill monsters/aliens over ones where you kill humans (though I suppose I find doomsday cultists one of the more acceptable targets as it goes).

- Weapon/item system is a little more conventional and balanced.  RotT's isn't entirely bad but it does inherit the Wolf3D issue of the main line of weapons being "shoot bullets, shoot bullets faster, shoot bullets even faster" and with infinite bullets there's even less reason to switch to a pistol/dual pistol once you have the machine gun.  Although the special weapon slot changes things up a bit.

- There's some degree more of tactical options given some of the items and their uses, including a little bit of nuance that's not immediately obvious in some of them (like how the Shadowsphere makes you immune to certain projectiles).

- Generally more options and better tools when it comes to modding, as far as I know.  Last I recall trying to make a map for RotT (which was a long time ago, admittedly) I found the editors all pretty clunky, and I'm not sure even today how much option there is for edited graphics since while they did use a WAD format, some of the graphic formats were different from what Doom used.

Though I did love RotT back in the day and will say these things for it:

- The levels were sometimes pretty devious and clever given the limits they were working with, doubly so with the Extreme RotT expansion if you ever tried that (it was pretty much where they pulled out all the stops on using weird glitches in the game as features; I think the digital re-releases might include it?)

- Some of those special weapons and powerups were pretty nifty.

- It was just all-around enjoyably bizarre in a lot of ways, with a lot of platform game tropes translated over into it like the ability to kill guys by landing on top of them (and vice versa).  I'd also call it the point where the Apogee/3D Realms sense of humor was at its best.  Kind of dark, pretty weird, but not as focused on the nudity-potty-humor-and-memelordery stuff that their BUILD-era games leaned to.

I have to agree with ETTiNGRiNDER. ROTT was fun when I was a child, but I have zero desire to revisit those memories, unlike the whole Doom lineage.

I like both of them but my vote goes to ROTT. Heretic is ok but it's just a fantasy DOOM reskin. Not a whole lot of innovation happened there and the game overally is pretty dull. ROTT on the other hand is a lovable disaster. It's not a very good game overally but it has a lot more personality and charm. The devs were fully aware that the engine was outdated and couldn't compete with the rest of the gang. So they just decided to have fun and create the most ridiculous thing they could come up with.

Cooking food with explosions to get more health, jumping onto enemies and crushing them to death, drunk missiles, Elasto Mode, Shrooms Mode, turning into a dog and chewing on enemies, elevator music, Excalibat, Engine Killing Gibs and one of the best soundtracks ever made.

They are two very different games.

(But I like Heretic more because it's Gothic an I am edgy like that)

4 words : Dragon claw and disciples.

Weird comparison. I think it would make more sense to compare ROTT to Wolfenstein 3D. Both games are amazing. I prefer Heretic. 

Time has been a hell of a lot more kind to Heretic than Rise of the Triad, so it wins for me on that alone.

ROTT has a lot of charm with its humor and quirky features, but Heretic is better as a game IMO.

I'd have to disagree with the claim that it was "just a reskinned Doom": the inventory system (particularly the Tomes of Power) mixed up combat quite a bit, the flying feature was new, ambient sounds were introduced and added to the atmosphere, and the theme itself is pretty unique among FPS games (seriously, how many first-person fantasy shooters are out there besides the Raven games... Witchaven? TES doesn't count). The only similar things besides the engine itself for me are the weapons, but even those have the Tomes going for them.

5 hours ago, Ajora said:

Weird comparison. I think it would make more sense to compare ROTT to Wolfenstein 3D. Both games are amazing. I prefer Heretic. 

Its a Weird comparison but not wierder than ROTT vs Wolf3d. There is 2.5 year gap between ROTT and Wolf3d and besides ROTT has everything that Wolf3d offers plus more. 

On the other hand, there is less than a month gap between ROTT and Heretic. I am pretty sure this must have been a hotly debated topic back in 1994

To me, Heretic is the much more enjoyable game, though ROTT leverages it's unique features a lot more.

For instance, Heretic had an inventory system, but then removed all your items between maps. It had a flight power up but was there anything in the single player game that needed it to access?

mostly secrets and shortening backtracking, it is also extremely powerful during fights -this use tends to get overlooked-.

6 hours ago, TheMightyHeracross said:

(seriously, how many first-person fantasy shooters are out there besides the Raven games... Witchaven? TES doesn't count)

Bit of a topic split but I've been informally compiling in my head a "search for Heretic & Hexen alternatives" list inspired by the one on the website "Search for Turrican Alternatives".  So 3D fantasy games that are more action than RPG oriented and give at least a vaguely similar "mood" (yes, it's pretty loose and subjective, so was the Turrican site's list).

Keeping it to the first-person ones (I've been considering third person ones for the list as well because Heretic II):

Catacomb 3-D series (more primitive even than Wolf3D but the theme is there)

Shadowcaster (Another Raven game, control scheme feels more like something meant for an RPG than an action game so you can debate how much it fits)

Witchaven

Witchaven II

Dark Messiah of Might & Magic

Enclave (defaults to third person view but has a first person toggle that unlike a lot of similar games, is viable for playing the entire game in)

Ziggurat (goes the roguelite route for level design which can be a minus, but otherwise fits)

If you delve into total conversions for other games:

REKKR (recently released Doom mod)

Dawn of Darkness (Quake 2, kind of buggy due to development being cut short, but looks like it had a lot of promise if it were ever fixed up a bit better)

- some others I'm sure that I haven't investigated enough yet.

Other games I haven't played enough to speak definitively, but look like they could also fit:

Wheel of Time (have it, but as yet only went as far as the tutorial to check that the disc worked)

Lichdom: Battlemage (recently recommended to me by an e-mail correspondent, I've only looked at a video thus far)

5 hours ago, Vermil said:

For instance, Heretic had an inventory system, but then removed all your items between maps.

It took off multiples, but left you one instance of any item you had, except the wings which it did outright take away for reasons that should be obvious.  Consider it an incentive not to try to hoard the stuff.

I don't recall if any of the official levels had secrets that required using the wings, so they probably didn't, though I've made PWADs (and seen others) that did.

I said both... But for giving a final vote I say Heretic is better.

21 hours ago, TheMightyHeracross said:

ROTT has a lot of charm with its humor and quirky features, but Heretic is better as a game IMO.

 

I'd have to disagree with the claim that it was "just a reskinned Doom": the inventory system (particularly the Tomes of Power) mixed up combat quite a bit, the flying feature was new, ambient sounds were introduced and added to the atmosphere, and the theme itself is pretty unique among FPS games (seriously, how many first-person fantasy shooters are out there besides the Raven games... Witchaven? TES doesn't count). The only similar things besides the engine itself for me are the weapons, but even those have the Tomes going for them.

Agreed. Another thing that makes it feel more like its own thing compared to DOOM is it revolving nearly entirely around projectile-based enemies. I'm trying to think of a single hitscanner (not counting close-quartered melee characters, like the early mummies), but my mind is drawing a blank.

ROTT was made on an aging engine and (controversial opinion inbound) its not really that great of a game. So my money goes on Heretic for this one

9 hours ago, amackert said:

I'm trying to think of a single hitscanner (not counting close-quartered melee characters, like the early mummies), but my mind is drawing a blank.

There are none, unless you fight other players in deathmatch in which case the elven wand and dragon claw qualify.  Same goes for Hexen.  Personally I like it but I've seen some people consider it a deficit.

I voted for Heretic solely on the fact that ROTT shamefully does not age too well.

Now don't get me wrong, ROTT had some amazing effects for it's time like Gas chambers (albeit was used like twice); Moving objects; fake room-over-room (with the grav disks); Projectile traps; Elevators (that go sideways); Fog; Bouncy Pads; etc. So ROTT did have some AMAZING detail back in the day and I did play it far more than DooM or Heretic.

However Heretic has Inventory; Weapon enchantments; Enemies that you can run under (somewhat though it was buggy); Egg Ovum's ability to morph the player and/or enemies; Ambient sounds; etc...

Really Heretic to me seems to have aged a bit better.

The technological limitations of ROTT's levels are a deal breaker for me. The variety offered by the Doom engine makes things much more interesting.

Verticality in the Wolf3d engine does not work at all for me. And I don't like the ROTT's graphic style.

On the other hand I like Heretic. Easy choice.

I just realised that the first shareware releases of both Heretic and Rise of the Triad (v1.0 in both cases) occurred on the same day, 21 December 1994. I never thought about it before.

I was completely unaware of ROTT's existence until I started using Wikipedia sometime in the early 2000s, and played the shareware episode around 2005-2006. I loved it in spite of all obvious shortcomings, for the following reasons:

- atmosphere; the game has a lot of personality to it

- music, Lee Jackson did a great job here (curiously I was introduced to the shareware's first level tune, Going Down the Fast Way, before without knowing it because it plays in LameDuke)

- gameplay is actually pretty fluid, with all the jump pads, infinite ammo bullet weapons and lots of explosives. ROTT feels a lot faster than Doom, or at least this is how I remember it

At the same time I quite appreciate Heretic although probably I'd prefer Hexen a bit more. Heretic is also an atmospheric game with good mechanics, interesting weapons, items and enemies, and excellent level design and visuals. The two games are simply way too different to pick one from, but somehow I have stronger nostalgic feelings towards ROTT even though I played some Heretic back in the 90s when I didn't know about ROTT at all.

1 hour ago, MrFlibble said:

I just realised that the first shareware releases of both Heretic and Rise of the Triad (v1.0 in both cases) occurred on the same day, 21 December 1994.

Shit. I didn't know they were released on the same day.

And hi MrFlibble (I know u from Duke4.net forums)

Apologies for the bump, but I agree fully with Touchdown. For anyone looking back on the era and even for most at the time, Heretic is obviously a more ‘clean and competent’ game and I can see why most prefer it, but there’s just something so endearing about ROTT. Heretic is just a super impressive TC for Doom, ROTT truly is it’s own beast, nothing else is quite like it. They both have killer soundtracks, but come on, nothing in Heretic tops the balls-out energy of the ROTT midis, which are total earworms.

44 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

Apologies for the bump

I am fine with it. Also while I like Heretic more, I do agree that ROTT was definitely the more "bold" whereas Heretic plays safe. And ROTT's music is awesome