Hexen II is pretty wild and unlike many other games in some fundamental ways, but it doesn't quite come together into something I particularly enjoyed.
There are hub worlds here with a heavy emphasis on puzzles consisting of finding keys or switches hidden in disparate areas and slowly unlocking more and more of the levels. This gives the game a pretty unique feel even though the weapons, enemies, and story don't really have much to say.
Hexen II diverges from Hexen in that it is actually a Quake-like, rather than a Doom-like. As you might expect this makes things more 3D, more hectic, and quite a bit more ropey. I have never really liked the feel of Quake and Hexen II doesn't do much to fix that, unfortunately. Enemies are incredibly lethal and by the end they are repeating the same few with more hit points. I didn't find much of interest by this point, and it just felt like a slog (I turned on godmode for the final level and I don't regret it).
World design here is strong at times, but inconsistent and the level design can be tedious. I enjoyed the first levels, Blackmarsh, quite a bit and they somehow manage to deliver on the feel of a medieval fantasy quest more completely than Hexen does. There are dungeons, granaries, and shops filled with enemies you can believe have just invaded and driven out the villagers.
Upon leaving this area, you go into a series of differently themed levels (Aztec, Egyptian, and Roman) that took me out of things pretty heavily. Only the Roman one really worked for me, but in general the "collect the random things in this area" nature of the game was just more apparent in these more abstracted areas that lacked the specific world-building of Blackmarsh.
Things do look pretty good, with each area having a distinct, identifiable motif and well done environment art. I do still like the look of pseudo 2D sprite based first person games better by this point in shooter history, but Hexen II looks fine for what it is.
There are four classes here that all seemed pretty interesting, though I only played as the Cleric. Weapons are more like Heretic than Hexen, with nothing to really push me to utilize their specific properties and no enemy behaviors to really mix things up.
We have a hammer, an ice wand that is basically like the mage weapon from Hexen, a staff that is a rocket launcher (phoenix staff from Heretic), and a sun staff that shoots a beam that passes through enemies and bounces off walls. The sun staff was definitely the most interesting, but usage in this game felt mostly like Heretic does -- I just used whichever I had ammo for without much consideration.
Items come back with the same problems. There are a ton of them. Keeping track of what they do is difficult. Scrolling through your massive list to use them is a futile endeavor.
Enemies don't have many unique behaviors, and all have so much health that I couldn't see any discernable weaknesses on display. This is the weakest part of Hexen II for me and the enemy design and interactions in general just feel too much like Quake for me to really enjoy it.
Interesting game that tries to do a bit more with the Hexen formula but largely didn't come through for me. If the whole game was at the quality level of Blackmarsh and the weapons and enemies were a bit more interesting I would have liked it much more I think.
There are hub worlds here with a heavy emphasis on puzzles consisting of finding keys or switches hidden in disparate areas and slowly unlocking more and more of the levels. This gives the game a pretty unique feel even though the weapons, enemies, and story don't really have much to say.
Hexen II diverges from Hexen in that it is actually a Quake-like, rather than a Doom-like. As you might expect this makes things more 3D, more hectic, and quite a bit more ropey. I have never really liked the feel of Quake and Hexen II doesn't do much to fix that, unfortunately. Enemies are incredibly lethal and by the end they are repeating the same few with more hit points. I didn't find much of interest by this point, and it just felt like a slog (I turned on godmode for the final level and I don't regret it).
World design here is strong at times, but inconsistent and the level design can be tedious. I enjoyed the first levels, Blackmarsh, quite a bit and they somehow manage to deliver on the feel of a medieval fantasy quest more completely than Hexen does. There are dungeons, granaries, and shops filled with enemies you can believe have just invaded and driven out the villagers.
Upon leaving this area, you go into a series of differently themed levels (Aztec, Egyptian, and Roman) that took me out of things pretty heavily. Only the Roman one really worked for me, but in general the "collect the random things in this area" nature of the game was just more apparent in these more abstracted areas that lacked the specific world-building of Blackmarsh.
Things do look pretty good, with each area having a distinct, identifiable motif and well done environment art. I do still like the look of pseudo 2D sprite based first person games better by this point in shooter history, but Hexen II looks fine for what it is.
There are four classes here that all seemed pretty interesting, though I only played as the Cleric. Weapons are more like Heretic than Hexen, with nothing to really push me to utilize their specific properties and no enemy behaviors to really mix things up.
We have a hammer, an ice wand that is basically like the mage weapon from Hexen, a staff that is a rocket launcher (phoenix staff from Heretic), and a sun staff that shoots a beam that passes through enemies and bounces off walls. The sun staff was definitely the most interesting, but usage in this game felt mostly like Heretic does -- I just used whichever I had ammo for without much consideration.
Items come back with the same problems. There are a ton of them. Keeping track of what they do is difficult. Scrolling through your massive list to use them is a futile endeavor.
Enemies don't have many unique behaviors, and all have so much health that I couldn't see any discernable weaknesses on display. This is the weakest part of Hexen II for me and the enemy design and interactions in general just feel too much like Quake for me to really enjoy it.
Interesting game that tries to do a bit more with the Hexen formula but largely didn't come through for me. If the whole game was at the quality level of Blackmarsh and the weapons and enemies were a bit more interesting I would have liked it much more I think.