Heretic and Hexen

I hated 7 portals first time through in the 90s. Any replay I do know is informed by that hate so I'll probably finish it with much less trouble. Likewise I spent a lot of time aimlessly in the steel world.

Most of Hexen is a big switch hunt. There aren't as many difficult puzzles that make you roam the whole world, like in Hexen 2. You may still waste a lot of time if you don't notice a quest switch, though.

I remember wandering for hours in Seven Portals, but for a very stupid reason. There are doors at the very beginning of the steel level that don't really look like doors. They look like they're just wall corners. After I discovered that they can be opened, it went much smoother.

Should've humped the walls more.

Jon said:

My main problem with Blackmarsh first time around is it's basically a bunch of large featureless grey boxes connected at right-angles (no doubt to keep the vis complexity down for old computers), each with one medieval thing in the middle (such as a single shop). The sky lines are featureless and awful.

Fair enough, you're right that visually it's the blandest of the hubs. On that note Hexen 2's expansion looks pretty good I think, the Tibetan theme is unique and there's a snow falling effect that was pretty cool for its time. Screw that stupid pentacles enemy though :p

Blackmarsh seems to be the most ambitious episode. It's also the most realistic. Apparently, its ambitions didn't match the hardware of the time, so most of the attempts at outside scenery look like they'd benefit from a serious expanding. The windmill is the best example. Who stuffs a windmill into a stone box?

On the other hand, the interiors are good, with lots of destructible details, which is something that the other hubs lack. 2 and 4 in particular are abstract and simplistic, with most of the atmosphere coming from dim lighting.

Echoing what people have already said, I just find Seven Portals (as a set of maps) to be bland. Guardian of Ice is okay, but Guardian of Steel/Fire are boring/symmetrical, Guardian of Steel is absolutely the worst of the bunch for sure. I just feel like as introductory maps they could've been a lot more... grandiose? Instead we get a small tunnel map with lava pits "guardian of fire" a large square with boring-ass mechanics "guardian of steel" and a dark, winding tunnel map with no sense of direction "guardian of ice" that are connected by an extremely bland and boring hub. But I digress.

Da Werecat said:

Blackmarsh seems to be the most ambitious episode. It's also the most realistic. Apparently, its ambitions didn't match the hardware of the time, so most of the attempts at outside scenery look like they'd benefit from a serious expanding. The windmill is the best example. Who stuffs a windmill into a stone box?

so much this. looks like it was going to be better and more detailed, but suffers greatly from the hardware like many other games of the era like Heretic, Quake and Quake 2, where levels can have unneseccery walls right in the middle of nowhere just to block player's view

Maybe someone should come up with a wad to remake and replace Guardian of Ice, fire and Steel, that would be cool.

I like the Guardian of Steel sublevel because it's not a run off the mill fantasy setting. It almost has an industrial touch, but still feels ancient and magical.

Guardian levels suck because you'd think there is a guardian as a mini-boss in each. Steel the most because you do the same thing 4 times! Too much symmetry even in gameplay steps.

Out of curiosity, does anyone know of any good custom wads or episode replacements for Heretic, even though there are less of them than there are for Doom and Doom 2?

Masters of Chaos

https://www.doomworld.com/vb/wads-mods/58874-hexen-heretic-wads/
https://www.doomworld.com/vb/wads-mods/66739-heretic-hexen-other-wads-with-doom-gameplay/
http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=20930

Thief - The Trail of the Arch-Heretic (2006) https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/heretic/Ports/njhthief
Curse of D'Sparil (2010) https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/heretic/Ports/curse
Heretic Treasure Chest (2010) https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/heretic/Ports/htchest
Icebound (2011) https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/heretic/Ports/ice-lutz
Dark Deity's Bastion (2011) https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/heretic/Ports/bastion
Call of the Apostate (2011) https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/heretic/Ports/apostate
Masters of Chaos (2012) https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/heretic/Ports/moc11
HYMN: A Heretic Community Project (2013) https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/heretic/Ports/hymn
The Realm of Parthoris (2015) https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/heretic/Ports/rop_2015
Elf Gets Pissed (2016) https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/heretic/Ports/elfgp

scifista42 said:

https://www.doomworld.com/vb/wads-mods/58874-hexen-heretic-wads/
https://www.doomworld.com/vb/wads-mods/66739-heretic-hexen-other-wads-with-doom-gameplay/
http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=20930

Egregor said:

Thief - The Trail of the Arch-Heretic (2006) https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/heretic/Ports/njhthief
Curse of D'Sparil (2010) https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/heretic/Ports/curse
Heretic Treasure Chest (2010) https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/heretic/Ports/htchest
Icebound (2011) https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/heretic/Ports/ice-lutz
Dark Deity's Bastion (2011) https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/heretic/Ports/bastion
Call of the Apostate (2011) https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/heretic/Ports/apostate
Masters of Chaos (2012) https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/heretic/Ports/moc11
HYMN: A Heretic Community Project (2013) https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/heretic/Ports/hymn
The Realm of Parthoris (2015) https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/heretic/Ports/rop_2015
Elf Gets Pissed (2016) https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/heretic/Ports/elfgp

Thanks for the links.

https://www.doomworld.com/vb/post/1189752 While its not finished, Episode 1 is completely playable. Have fun?

Sitnalta (2013) [Heretic]
http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=37691&p=717130&hilit=sitnalta#p717130

Tower of Chaos (2013) [Hexen]
http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=36663&hilit=tower+of+chaos

Both by ArgonianLord

Heretic is good fun if you enjoyed DOOM and want that with a new coat of paint. Hexen is good fun if you enjoy switch hunts and puzzles, nothing beats a good dark gothic fantasy game.

Heretic 2 is different, and I remember it being pretty short, but it's a decent game. Hexen 2 is perfect if you also enjoy watching paint dry and grass grow.

CARRiON said:

Hexen 2 is perfect if you also enjoy watching paint dry and grass grow.

I'd say last that I recall it's more or less on par with Quake II, in that it's competent in what it set out to do but it's pretty boring. I liked some of the designs of the monsters and hub themes and the music is great (Kevin Schilder is Raven's Bobby Prince) but I found the combat to be oddly balanced, enemies always seem stronger than the player and your ultimate (player class's 4th) weapon isn't as powerful as it should be. Some of the enemy attacks and damage is also pretty cheap, but I guess that was done to compensate for the smaller monster counts.

Also too many spiders and archers.

Cyanosis said:

I'd say last that I recall it's more or less on par with Quake II, in that it's competent in what it set out to do but it's pretty boring. I liked some of the designs of the monsters and hub themes and the music is great (Kevin Schilder is Raven's Bobby Prince) but I found the combat to be oddly balanced, enemies always seem stronger than the player and your ultimate (player class's 4th) weapon isn't as powerful as it should be. Some of the enemy attacks and damage is also pretty cheap, but I guess that was done to compensate for the smaller monster counts.

Also too many spiders and archers.

Hexen 2's combat has no impact, and the enemies are boring to fight and rather uninspired. The levels usually were not much better. Overall it's a slogfest, as you said much like Quake 2. The kind of game that feels physically draining to play.

Despite having great sound design, like nasty sounding hits when metal collides with flesh, it really does feel like you're chipping away at them and this becomes very apparent in the final areas of the game when the designers decided to spam archer lords and giant brown spiders everywhere, ugh.

It's one of those games where you have to be in the mood for it, but also know what you're in for. It's probably the nicest use of the id Tech 1 engine, as they push out more color and detail than seen in Quake, but the overall potential was lost for a truly great sequel. I still want a Hexen 3.

Cyanosis said:

It's probably the nicest use of the id Tech 1 engine, as they push out more color and detail than seen in Quake, but the overall potential was lost for a truly great sequel. I still want a Hexen 3.

Eh, even though it was heavily modified I think Half-Life gets that honor. They managed to take the pretty static Quake engine and bring it to life with destructible shit all over the place. Explosions and holes in the walls and things falling and smashing into things all around you.

Also I tweeted some people behind Raven about making another Hexen and they said they'd love to. That was back in 2010. lol.

Yeah I would of said HL but I actually consider GoldSrc to be so its own thing that its continued to be even further heavily modified since (what with mods/games like Cry of Fear). In H2 you can still see the Quake-isms.

Since HL had software coloured lighting, and Hexen 2 lacked it in Hardware, I tend to consider it outside of the idTech 1 venn diagram circle.

GoldSrc is basically its own engine really. It uses a few fixes from Quake 2 but I'd be hard-pressed to compare it to either Quake's engine.

I enjoyed Heretic II and would play it again in a split-second... if it worked. Sure, it's different from the prequel, but it's Heretic!

Now Hexen II... I do seem to recall playing the demo, but I'd love to play the full version. I missed out in the past, and I won't make the same mistake again!

It worked fine on my Win7 x64 PC, in 1080p. You just need to patch it.

I couldn't even enjoy Heretic II, I played it for a few minutes before losing interest with it and never touched it again. The only thing I even liked about it was how it reminded me of Morrowind in some ways which is odd I know.

CARRiON said:

Eh, even though it was heavily modified I think Half-Life gets that honor. They managed to take the pretty static Quake engine and bring it to life with destructible shit all over the place. Explosions and holes in the walls and things falling and smashing into things all around you.

Also I tweeted some people behind Raven about making another Hexen and they said they'd love to. That was back in 2010. lol.

They probably WOULD love to, but they have a slave driver named Activision standing over them with a cat-o-nine-tails yelling "MORE COD! MORE COD!!!!". At least, that's the only thing I see on their recent resume.

Quasar said:

They probably WOULD love to, but they have a slave driver named Activision standing over them with a cat-o-nine-tails yelling "MORE COD! MORE COD!!!!". At least, that's the only thing I see on their recent resume.

I have no doubt they would, they were celebrating their classics on Twitter a while back, and they streamed some of them too but I sadly missed that. It was kinda sad seeing them celebrate their older games, they were a really competent dev. I've played everything but their CoD entries, and their Amiga game Black Crypt. From ShadowCaster to Singularity, they made fun games with very few duds.

Maybe one day...