I had a good time with Hexen: Beyond Heretic. The focus here is on one of three characters with a much more limited set of weapons and enemies with more specific behavior than you see in Heretic. This works much better for me and (along with more emphasis on melee options) gives the combat a more tactical feel that brings it back towards some combination of Doom and, strangely, King's Field.
I like the class dichotomy in Hexen and all of the weapons for each class are unique and interesting in some way. I played as the Cleric and, similar to how Doom's ammo works, found each weapon was useful up until the very end of the game (even the Mace). Weapons cause hit reactions you can exploit and your positioning and movement as you dodge attacks is a major factor in your success. This isn't quite as intentional and exacting as King's Field, but it feels like you can just see the Kingdom of Verdite from here.
This weapon system just hangs together better than anything that exists in Heretic. Ammo matters, weapon idiosyncrasies matter, and enemy type and abilities matter. Gathering the pieces to find my ultimate weapon by the end is super cool and the Cleric's version (Wraithverge) is powerful but not a skeleton key for every enemy in the game.
Carried over from Heretic are the massive amount of items in the game. I didn't find these to be too compelling, but I felt like the game intended me to use them, which absolutely makes things feel more like a fantasy adventure. The interface isn't exactly great... just a giant list of items you tab through to select and use the one you want, but it is good enough and I mainly just found myself flipping between the health potion and poison bombs anyway.
Level design in Hexen is a major swing that is unique and interesting, but stumbles quite a bit. This is set up more like an adventure that, again, echoed a bit of King's Field for me. The simple "find a key and use it in a door" gameplay of Doom is twisted here to present sprawling, interconnected levels where you are solving very complicated puzzles between them to open doors and progress. Unfortunately you are often left wandering around looking for the one switch you overlooked or the newly opened passage in an area you have already cleared out. The level connections are fairly arbitrary and the levels themselves have a large amount of symmetry and repeated geometry that makes it hard to really get a sense of the map as a whole. It does get a bit tedious, with on-screen hints like "Something changed in Seven Portals!" being at best, completely unhelpful.
In the end, there is also just too much game here. Too many levels and each is slightly too large. With a bit more restraint and thoughtful design, this game could be truly amazing.
Hexen looks great. This is fantasy Doom-style pixel art with some iconic monsters and interesting, gothic environments. Things get a bit samey by the end, probably due to just the length again.
I had a much better time with Hexen than I did with Heretic. I think it is just a better game all around and I love that they are taking the base Doom formula, adding some new interesting weapons, and pushing the level design to the extreme. It really feels like the team reassessed what makes Doom good and what they missed with Heretic and built this weird, ambitious game out of it.
I like the class dichotomy in Hexen and all of the weapons for each class are unique and interesting in some way. I played as the Cleric and, similar to how Doom's ammo works, found each weapon was useful up until the very end of the game (even the Mace). Weapons cause hit reactions you can exploit and your positioning and movement as you dodge attacks is a major factor in your success. This isn't quite as intentional and exacting as King's Field, but it feels like you can just see the Kingdom of Verdite from here.
This weapon system just hangs together better than anything that exists in Heretic. Ammo matters, weapon idiosyncrasies matter, and enemy type and abilities matter. Gathering the pieces to find my ultimate weapon by the end is super cool and the Cleric's version (Wraithverge) is powerful but not a skeleton key for every enemy in the game.
Carried over from Heretic are the massive amount of items in the game. I didn't find these to be too compelling, but I felt like the game intended me to use them, which absolutely makes things feel more like a fantasy adventure. The interface isn't exactly great... just a giant list of items you tab through to select and use the one you want, but it is good enough and I mainly just found myself flipping between the health potion and poison bombs anyway.
Level design in Hexen is a major swing that is unique and interesting, but stumbles quite a bit. This is set up more like an adventure that, again, echoed a bit of King's Field for me. The simple "find a key and use it in a door" gameplay of Doom is twisted here to present sprawling, interconnected levels where you are solving very complicated puzzles between them to open doors and progress. Unfortunately you are often left wandering around looking for the one switch you overlooked or the newly opened passage in an area you have already cleared out. The level connections are fairly arbitrary and the levels themselves have a large amount of symmetry and repeated geometry that makes it hard to really get a sense of the map as a whole. It does get a bit tedious, with on-screen hints like "Something changed in Seven Portals!" being at best, completely unhelpful.
In the end, there is also just too much game here. Too many levels and each is slightly too large. With a bit more restraint and thoughtful design, this game could be truly amazing.
Hexen looks great. This is fantasy Doom-style pixel art with some iconic monsters and interesting, gothic environments. Things get a bit samey by the end, probably due to just the length again.
I had a much better time with Hexen than I did with Heretic. I think it is just a better game all around and I love that they are taking the base Doom formula, adding some new interesting weapons, and pushing the level design to the extreme. It really feels like the team reassessed what makes Doom good and what they missed with Heretic and built this weird, ambitious game out of it.