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Awesome megawad, cool maps and cool music. I like the intermission screen music (Heretic E1M9) Excellent. Good job

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

Done with these settings: - ZDoom 2.8.1. plus a DECORATE that twists some RNG values. - Thou Art a Smite-Meister (skill 4) - Continuous combined with a wand start mindset. - Saves every 10 minutes or so. Super fun episode as expected. This is the second Heretic pwad I've played, and I truly enjoyed it from start to end. The visual side is absolutely great, it's notable that the authors designed their maps to fit the new textures in the best way possible, and make each section distinguishable and memorable. Dynamic use of lights to add difficulty in traps, slippery snow that messes up with your dodging, lite platforming on lava not inescapable, varied geometry that aren't just corridors and rectangles, are among other things what the wad offers in terms of details and layout. Besides, custom music, and very enjoyable ones, particularly E1M5's midi which fits perfectly with the start of the map. While the maps don't have any special sort of connection with each other, thematically speaking, they do offer a cohesive style of combat that isn't seen in the iwad. It's very trap based, but also has a lot of incidental combat that can easily overwhelm a careless player. The enemy placement isn't just there for cleanup, despite the differences of RNG with Doom monsters, on wand starts you have to cross through the crossfire to find your weapons, which can be tricky here since the more you advance, more enemies will teleport in and cannot be simply ignored forever. TROP also comes with its own puzzles courtesy of an author who I read is a fan of them (Obsidian ahem...), his E1M9 is what I would consider the "infamous" map of the set, as it requires an unusual approach to reach the exit, plus some quite interesting hazards like automatic exploding pods. The rest of the maps don't have any cryptic clues for progression, they can be linear or non-linear, but since their general size is big (except E2M1 which is clearly a speedmap), exploration is an important feature. What else?... oh yeah, crushers, good old crushers just when you didn't expect them! Hopefully all of these things will catch your attention in a positive way, as much as they did to me. Secret-wise, I'd actually recommend to find them as some will contain a powerful weapon, so the gameplay won't be crossbows-only. They aren't so hard to find, given the new textures it just takes some careful observation. There is one unreachable secret in E1M5, a hidden switch that doesn't work will prevent you to grab a visible item from another room. I also found some HOMs here and there, but nothing that affects the gameplay. No favourite maps, because I enjoyed them all pretty much the same. Overall, no gripes, no dislikes, the mapset is a must-play even if you're only keen to Doom. My rate is 9/10.

Hooray, all that nagging finally paid off...now others can see what I saw in that ZDS months ago - a brand new Heretic episode! Not only that, a pretty damn good one too with some great set-pieces (notably in E1M9).