Favorite Heretic/Hexen Game?

Stilgar said:

Short version: Hexen > Heretic > Hexen 2 > Heretic 2.

This, and the rest of the post.

Hexen is the masterwork.

And just to clarify, "Heretic" for me means the final retail package including E4 and E5, both of which have some of the best maps ever made for any Doom-engine game ever.

Heretic: My favorite.

Hexen: Good but suffers from monotonous and rushed level design. Also, the Heresiarch should be Korax :P

Hexen II: Also good, but the difficulty is kinda retarded, even on easy.

Heretic II: I LOVE this game. It doesn't surpass the original, but it IS very much like another one of my all-time favorite games, Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness. FPS fans need not apply; third-person-action fans will eat it up. As with many other PC games, however, the default control setup is garbage. Change over to a WASD + mouse setup and the game will play fluidly.

I expected Korax to look awesomer. When I saw his head in the flaming portals I imagined him looking like some skeletal demon thing, not a six armed oversized black slug with a skull for a face and bad back problems.

My favorite Serpent Riders in terms of appearance:

D'Sparil > Eidolon > Korax

My favorite Serpent Riders in terms of the fight:

Eidolon > D'Sparil > Korax

Also, I've played Heretic on skill level 4. Hexen is just evil. To be honest? I played that on the lowest difficulty the first time through (FYI I was already a Doom veteran and playing that on 4). Less because of the enemies, moreso the puzzles and the GOD DAMNED CENTAURS.

A pet peeve of mine is also the skull on their shields. When they raise them it looks like it's their head, and they're wearing one of those funnel collar things sick dogs have to wear. At least I thought that for a while.

Hexen II is underestimated - primarily because of Quake and Half-Life at the time, plus I think you people should stop comparing it to Hexen and consider it as a game on its own - something it succeeds at.

C'mon guys what's with all this dissing of the Heretic/Hexen franchise? It's like my favorite game series of all time.

Necros20 said:

C'mon guys what's with all this dissing of the Heretic/Hexen franchise? It's like my favorite game series of all time.

Zuh? The thread is mostly full of praise for the Heretic/Hexen franchise.

I think it's a very underestimated series, especially by Doomers outside of the modding scene (do those types of players even exist anymore?).

I love the lore, though it wasn't expanded on heavily until Hexen and Heretic II.

I would have to say that both those games were pretty great. I had some good coop fun in Heretic and I like the range of weapons that you get. I do like how Hexen is a very non-linear game but it was just hard to know where exactly you were supposed to go at some points. The puzzles in Hexen were also a nice change from just trying to reach the exit. Overall I would say that they are both my favorite :)

fraggle said:

I haven't really played either of them much, but I do find Hexen much more interesting and engrossing than Heretic. It's probably because of the interesting ways that they extended the engine for Hexen. By comparison, Heretic just seems like Doom with the monsters and weapons replaced, and in the process seems to lose (in my opinion) some essential aspect of the gameplay that makes Doom fun.

That's pretty much how I used to feel about Heretic. When I first played it I thought it was far too close to Doom. In fact, I wasn't entirely sure that it wasn't just a reskinning of Doom seeing as how so many weapons and enemies had very obvious Doom counterparts. And yes, I thought the essential fun nature of Doom was the one thing that they didn't manage to copy across. However, Heretic has grown on me in the last few years and I now rate it more highly than I used to.

I remember being very impressed with the Hexen engine changes. In fact, I think I either phoned my mate (or he phoned me) to enthuse about how the first door in the game swung open instead of raising - and the breakable windows where something else. The range of enemies, items and special effects and so on were stunning. However, it was let down by meandering level design, poorly thought through puzzles with those meaningless messages and, for me it had a real weakness of lack of weapons. OK, sure, there are a lot of weapons in total, but 4 weapons for a single play through - with so many maps and a bestiary of that size - just wasn't satisfying and a major, major flaw for me.

Hexen 2 - played it through. I quite liked some bits but most of it didn't hold my attention. I did quite like Eidolon though.

Heretic 2 - Not a great game but I am one of those few people who thought it was reasonably enjoyable. I'd probably rather replay it than Hexen2.

Seven Portals is a bad first impression for Hexen. And unless you go to Darkmere first once you reach Shadow Wood, you're going to be looking at brown for a LOOOONG time.

And we can kind of agree Heretic is sort of a TC, but it added some engine additions and, at least to me, it plays differently than DOOM.

Heretic to me, is indeed a medieval-styled Doom, but that doesn't make it any less fun. Deathmatch on Heretic is quite deep when compared to Doom, especially with all the powerups and weapons. The weapon behavior makes the game much more challenging, and the balance is much more different than in Doom. For example, there are only a few hitscan weapons, making the dragon claw and the powered wand very dangerous, and the hell staff and phoenix rod are not quite as powerful as their Doom counterparts. Plus, when you add in the Tome, you have a completely different arsenal with it's own curve of effectiveness.

Heretic Deathmatch simply rules.

Hexen on the other hand was not really intended for Deathmatch, and it suffers horribly. However, Hexen's strong point is that it makes a great sequel to Heretic with fun solo/coop gameplay (disregarding the shit for weapon selection). I admit some of the puzzles are overkill, but battling my first Heresiarch, c'mon that was just awesome. :)

Heretic II and Hexen II... those were just abominations.

One thing that I think makes Heretic less fun than DOOM is the inventory system. It throws DOOM's tight strategy off. Some of the powerups, like the wings and the shadow sphere, are also kind of disruptive.

Also, the sounds and graphics aren't as impressive, even if they are perhaps more consistent in a way. This is improved in Hexen, where the graphics don't look somewhat tacked in, like in Heretic.

I think that, in a fantasy FPS, multiple classes are rather ideal. One thing I'm looking forward to is a Chocolate Hexen engine, to try out cooperative, since I haven't really had the chance.

I agree with you that Heretic is far superior for DM. I want me Tomes of Power back! At least Hexen II returned them.

A friend of mine, I got him DOOM - he played it and liked it. This was before we knew about zDoom. Someday I hope to co-op with him through the Heretic and Hexen games.

Frankly I preferred Heretic's locations though with rare exceptions (DARKMERE!). Hexen kind of went ugly brown wasteland -> dungeon -> wasteland -> dungeon.

StoneFrog said:

Seven Portals is a bad first impression for Hexen.

Oh why? Don't tell me you got stuck right at the start... Please. If you follow the newly opening doors and regularly watch the automap to look for unknown territories, you'll walk through the Seven Portals just fine. I needed no documented hints to pass through that hub, and not to find the secret level either.

The succession of switch-open door-reveal another switch represented most of Hexen. I had more trouble with the waterfall secret but required gateways, for which I did need walkthroughs.

Lut said:

And just to clarify, "Heretic" for me means the final retail package including E4 and E5,

Which of them, exactly? I didn't find any of the expansion levels to stand out over the rest of Heretic, save maybe E4M2 for its symmetry.

I don't know what people found so great about E4 and E5. I believe there were like two maps I found enjoyable. Also, to clarify:

Heretic is the name for the original game in Shareware form.

Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders is the retail version which has E4 and E5 (there is no retail version of plain "Heretic" as far as I know).

Heretic had commercial versions without E4/E5 just as Doom did.

Yeah my Heretic copy only had three episodes.

Whatever. Episodes 4 and 5 didn't mean much to me. Field of Judgement was fun though - especially at the end when I was out of ammo, one Maulotaur standing, I activated a Ring of Invulnerability and raped him with the Gauntlets.

What StoneFrog said is proper.

The unregistered shareware had one episode, the registered shareware three, and the retail version five.

it arrived a little late though, retail version being very close to Strife's release date

How long did it take for the retail version of Heretic to be released I wonder?

I've heard that Heretic wasn't released to retail until after HeXen because of the laters popularity at the time.

I loved heretic, it was so fun.

Never beat hexen, but I may start playing it again.

Hexen II - meh.

Heretic II - Played a couple times, seemed neat, but never really cared to ever try again.

myk said:

What StoneFrog said is proper.

The unregistered shareware had one episode, the registered shareware three, and the retail version five.

If it's registered, it's not shareware.

I love heretic and hexen pretty evenly. Heretic was ridiculous with the artifacts though. This is why skill 5 is fun - sometimes it really forces you to use those powerups. However I think it still gives you double ammo which takes away from that...

Hexen was just amazing. I spent lots of frustrating times trying to figure out the levels when I was like twelve years old, but it didn't matter. Mind you, I have a somewhat short video-game attention span - I don't like to spend hours on one task, such as in MMO's. Somehow hexen kept me going. I was flipping out when I first fought the Heresiarch...good times.

As far as centaurs, I don't know what y'all are doin' out there, but I find them really easy to kill. Especially when fighting a horde, you can work out a rhythm so that you're injuring one with every shot. In combination with smart usage of flechettes and other fun things, they are taken down quickly. My biggest fear was those serpent dudes who hung out underwater...

I don't know how anyone could despise the ogre in Quake (won't mention any names). After fighting things like shamblers and spider bitches, who have two of the most RETARDED weapons EVER found in ANY game, you really can't complain about ogres. I just think dancing around grenades is a lot more fun than a fight that is one hundred percent predictable. Dodge behind wall until enemy fires, come out and shoot, rinse, repeat. Not that DooM doesn't involve this kind of nonsense, but those quake guys were slower to dispatch.

I played a little bit of hexen 2 and heretic 2 and both were fun without being special, so I never got that far. I tried deathkings too which basically turned me off in the first room when all I could do was fight ettins mindlessly.

Anyway, all of you who knocked heretic, just wait 'till the treasure chest comes out! Good times!

fraggle said:

If it's registered, it's not shareware.

Actually it is, it's registered shareware. If it was a different version, then the "shareware" version would actually be freeware. People like id or Apogee just didn't want people to think they could share the registered version, so they said things like "this version is NOT shareware, do not distribute!"

It's especially murky because a simple, freely-available patch can transform your registered version in the retail version. So now you have the retail Doom (Ultimate Doom) or retail Heretic (Shadow of the Serpent Riders) without having actually bought it in retail. So at this point the labels become rather meaningless.

Gez said:

Actually it is, it's registered shareware. If it was a different version, then the "shareware" version would actually be freeware. People like id or Apogee just didn't want people to think they could share the registered version, so they said things like "this version is NOT shareware, do not distribute!"

You can't share it, it's not shareware. It's really not a difficult concept. "This version is NOT shareware, do not distribute!" isn't a lie, it's the truth. SOME shareware never actually gave you a different version if you registered, but not all. In the case of Doom/Heretic/Hexen games, once you "registered" (paid for), they sent you some new floppy disks (or a CD, later on) with the full version of the game that was NOT shareware.

It's especially murky because a simple, freely-available patch can transform your registered version in the retail version. So now you have the retail Doom (Ultimate Doom) or retail Heretic (Shadow of the Serpent Riders) without having actually bought it in retail. So at this point the labels become rather meaningless.

It's not murky. You paid for the game, you're entitled to upgrade to a newer version of the game. No sense in forcing people to buy the exact same game twice.

Note that id made a transition on how they offered the game. When The Ultimate DOOM came out they pretty much stopped selling it as shareware. The explanation of buying DOOM and upgrading to The Ultimate DOOM is that you paid for the shareware and then were given a means to upgrade it to the equivalent (software) of the retail release. There's nothing confusing there.

MikeRS said:
You can't share it, it's not shareware.

Defining terms in an absolute way is just stupid. In this case it's what romantics in love with the bygone BBS era might do. Later shareware was used differently, and these people will say "oh no, that's crippleware" or the like. And it can be called that but by certain people with a certain intent.

The "it's shareware only if it can be gotten for free" is the early BBS definition of shareware, which the the id guys used in their notices to ensure people wouldn't get the wrong ideas about the full version, but by the early 90s that was pretty much dead and replaced by various forms of shareware that gave clearer benefits once you registered. This assured that the companies would make money, and that they could put more work into the registered materials.

Saying "that's not shareware" means little more than "it doesn't fit with the early model that was close to freeware".

DOOM is a shareware game and by contrast Hexen is a retail game because they have different means of distribution. One through "demo" copies in stores or free-to-download (from where you registered the product to get additional content), the other through stores at full price. I mean, it's the product that is shareware, and the unregistered and registered versions are parts of the same product.

A validation of what I'm saying is that the Hexen demo is not called shareware, and Romero specifically says on the text file that Hexen is not shareware. The demo is just as free as Knee Deep in the Dead though, but since it isn't part of a set that you can register, it is not shareware. The use of "shareware" in that text file is by the newer acceptation, since various products (including id's) had set a new paradigm on what "shareware" meant compared to the early BBS definition that was more like "pay if you feel like it", getting little more than a manual or secondary content for a registration.

Hexen's demo is NOT shareware. I believe it was the first Raven game to not have any shareware version.

Anyway, can we get back on topic about the series?

The best and worst thing about Heretic is that it's Doom with magic weapons & mythical beasts replacing the guns & demons. It may not be as "good" as Doom, objectively speaking, but it's got the same core gameplay with enough of a different flavor to stay interesting. And Tome of Power = win. ^_^

Hexen felt like a first-person Gauntlet, which could get tedious. I lost track of how many completely un-threatening Ettins I skullbashed with the mace while they flailed around. But the graphical style of the game is awesome. Looking up at the bell tower from the courtyard, seeing floors crumble into glowing lava, launching howling ghosts from a glowing crucifix - it all looked amazing. The game just needed some more varried weapons and enemies.

I haven't played much Heretic II because the most recent patch makes the game act up on my machine, but what I have, I liked. Warping around with the level select cheat, I though things looked uneven; some cool, some blah.

Hexen's areas were less interesting to me. It kind of went...

Barren Wasteland -> Ugly Brown Temple -> Barren Wastlenad -> Boring Unmemorable Steel/Fire/Ice Dungoens -> Shadow Wood

And from there you could go to the Barren Wasteland Wastelands, the Barren Wasteland Caves, or the epic Darkmere. I was awestruck in seeing such a change of scenery.

Then it's back to the brown and black temples with the Heresiarch's Seminary.

And so on.

Heretic has so much depth in terms of tactics compared to Doom - weapons that don't become obsolete, a different ammo type for each one, twice as many firing modes, monsters that drop random ammo (making sure that each game is different) and have some special stuff, and lots of items that you can use when you want. Play the original Heretic maps from a pistol start and you're in for a treat that you'll want to repeat. Add to that some limited but atmospheric textures, great tunes and cool maps and you have something that really should be up there with Doom. It doesn't quite have the mechanics for insane speed and killfests like Doom has (hocx is a great attempt though) and suffers through relative lack of custom wads (I can only name about 15 episodes in the archive) but makes up for it with different and interesting gameplay.

Hexen suffers badly from lack of weapons per class and general character progression and a lot of the puzzles were just find switches or items (things which my wad addresses), but it looked and felt good and has some tough mobs and bosses. And Korax mod = win. Sadly even fewer wads here (similarly only about 15 or so hubs in the archive).

Hexen 2 sounds good on paper, but in practice it didn't work as well. Nice atmosphere from the cultural themes and graphics/music (particularly in the misson pack) but the gameplay seemed a bit flawed at times, with ammo being way too rare. Still it brought out a different side to FPS'es - learning how to hack everything to death instead of shoot.