Hexen: Beyond Heretic - RPS Retrospective

Aubrielle

Aubrielle

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Rock, Paper, Shotgun takes a look back at Hexen: Beyond Heretic.

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Hexen was released at a time when I bought just about any first-person game that I could get my hands on. In the mid-nineties that meant I had a shelf full of games running on id engines, many of which were made by Raven Software. I still have a soft spot for Raven and always forget that they’re still around, in name at least, working on bits and pieces of Call of Duty. It’s probably a step up from Soldier of Fortune. It’s not a step up from Hexen though. I love Hexen.



Is it a good game? Probably not. Not now. I’m not even sure that it was a good game back when it came out in ’95 but I completed it at least three times and not only bought the sequel but bought Heretic II when that came along as well. If somebody wants to make Hexen III using id Tech 6, I’ll buy that because, good lord, glory kills really do suit fantasy hack and slash adventuring.

The Heretic/Hexen series never quite outclassed id’s only releases but they always built on the engines in interesting ways, introducing destructible environments in Hexen II and movable level architecture in the first Hexen. Of the four games in the series, Hexen: Beyond Heretic is my favourite, but that’s as much a symptom of familiarity as it is of quality, I expect. I never did finish the game as a mage (you can choose from warrior, mage and cleric) because I enjoyed punching and clubbing monsters far too much to rely on fizzly little spells. Perhaps I should go back and play as a mage this weekend.
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I remember playing this in my early youth. I think I liked it even better than Doom.
 
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These are my favourite shooters. And If there's one game I'd like to see remade/ported to Win10, it's Heretic 2, the only one I didn't finish.

Pibbur 61
 
damn when i saw the name thought someone was doing a remaster or something; shit, this game scared me alot, i remember having some tough puzzles too with levers opening doors in other areas, took me a while to finish it.
 
I thought is was ok. I liked Heretic more. It was neat that you could choose your class, but each class only had 4 weapons iirc.
 
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I was just playing Hexen recently using a modengine that lets you play it on modern computers and gives you lots of additional options with the game. I got stuck pretty early lol :D
On the level with lots of gold doors, I opened a few but could no longer find any way to progress :( I went through all the levels I cleared and didn't find anything new or any new buttons :(
 
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I liked Hexen but also remember the annoying switch flipping and trying to figure out where a door opened. I preferred Heretic like JDR. On the hardest difficulty, the end boss of Heretic was nearly impossible - it took me over 10 years of occasional playing to beat (wasn't until I thought to look on youtube and see how it could possibly even be done).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIBi14yfPA0
 
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This was a great game if you had a good walkthrough, but very frustrating if you did not. The switchs that opened doors so far away were a real pain to deal with and fiqure out.

Heretic was a lot more straightforward like Doom. Although both still had their annoying find the key and door moments, they were not nearly as bad as Hexen.
 
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I'm not sure I could keep Hexen and Heretic straight after 20 years!
 
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Hexen was fun! Or was it Heretic? Hmm...pretty sure I played at least Hexen, possibly Heretic later.

Hexen was a game that my dad and I thought was going to be either a Doom style game or an actual RPG. So, we tried it, and although it was very light on the RPG elements, it was still quite fun to play through for awhile!

Had some interesting levels and stuff to find. We enjoyed it. :)
 
Never enjoyed much both, I don't remember which one I played the most.

BUT modern fps are really tedious in their lack of diversity, so a Fantasy fps looks like a good idea in the context.

Ziggurat is a Fantasy fps but it isn't a true fps, it's more a fps roguelite lite mainly based on random generation and unlocks, too difficult for me and a blueprint I don't like but on pure fps design I found it very interesting.
 
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Heretic was awesome. Hard to remember the details anymore but my friend and I played a lot via LAN (good ol' IPX protocol). There was a mage spell I remember, we called it 'the screaming bitches' because once you cast it, these skull/ghost like thingies would search out the enemy until they found it. Was a blast.
 
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I remember I had Hexen but never finished it. I think I preferred Doom.
 
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My dad and I preferred Doom as well, but had some fun with Hexen at the time.

All I remember is that it had some unique elements. It wasn't a full-blown RPG, but it had some RPG elements, as well as an interesting melee system in first-person, as well as magic and some magical items. Pretty cool.

But yeah, my dad and I are HUGE Doom fans. We just popped in Hexen expecting either an RPG or a Doom-style FPS and really got something totally unique instead. :)
 
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