Three brothers, known as the Serpent Riders, have used their powerful magic to possess seven kings of Parthoris into mindless puppets and corrupt their armies. The Sidhe elves resist the Serpent Riders' magic. The Serpent Riders thus declared the Sidhe as heretics and waged war against them. The Sidhe are forced to take a drastic measure to sever the natural power of the kings destroying them and their armies, but at the cost of weakening the elves' power, giving the Serpent riders an advantage to slay the elders. While the Sidhe retreat, one elf, sets off on a quest of vengeance against the weakest of the three Serpent Riders, D'Sparil. He travels through the "City of the Damned", the ruined capital of the Sidhe, then past Hell's Maw and finally the Dome of D'Sparil.
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The level design here is more straightforward, with almost every mission just being a collect the keys in order as you fight through rooms of enemies sort of affair. There are a couple with some interesting teleportation or exploration challenges, but for the most part these feel like straightforward, fantasy caves and temples. I do like that the levels feel much different than Doom though.
I like the art in Heretic quite a bit. It presents a bright, Saturday morning cartoon version of fantasy with saturated colors and lighting that gives it quite a contrast to the dark hellscapes of Doom. Things like the final boss, D'Sparil being the guy that you have seen over and over in the stained glass windows throughout your ordeal are cute and fun.
The weapons start out promising but the team seems to run out of ideas fairly quickly and most of them fail to really make a case for their inclusion here. Individual weapons don't feel suited to defeating particular enemies or particular challenges and where Doom makes your ammo resource an interesting source of power increase (from the pistol to the chain gun) or decision-making (between the energy rifle and the BFG), ammo here just ammo. Each weapon has a different type and you sort of cycle through your armaments as you run low on a particular type. It isn't really very satisfying or fun.
The Spectral Crossbow is by far the standout to me, with its somewhat interesting shot pattern it functions like a hybrid of a shotgun and a sniper rifle.
Enemy design doesn't do the weapon designs any favors. New enemies are introduced throughout most of this three episode campaign and they have different attacks, but your approach to them never really changes. Fighting a Maulotaur is basically no different than fighting a golem, it just goes on for longer.
Heretic plays well enough, but definitely feels like a by the book proof of concept done by a team that didn't really have a clear idea of what makes Doom's systems or level design work. I do love the swing at making this weird, fantasy fast-follow to Doom even if it ends up being a fairly mundane experience to play through.
I am not gonna lie, Heretic is as simple as it gets, even with the added features such as an inventory for items. It has magical weapons, staffs and artifacts but they are pretty much identical to the weapons in Doom, so anyone can find their favorite in no time. What makes this game unique is the levels themselves, offering great visuals with challenging designs. The enemies are fun and unique, and the whole game does not need to be called a "Doom clone" as the game has a lot to offer on it's own.
If you never played Heretic before, I would recommend it, especially if you are interested in Hexen.