That being said, this makes Heretic is harder, so perhaps it’s a purposeful design choice.Įither way, I sadly must put this in Tier 3. Because of this, the avatar strength feels lower, and you never quite feel ultra-powered.
I believe there’s more to it than that though enemies in general (even the bread-and-butter enemies like the Gargoyles or the Golems) take multiple hits to take down from almost every weapon (sans the rocket laun–er–Phoenix Rod). Most enemies in Heretic blow up into some sort of unidentifiable kibble, but in DOOM blood flowed and organs spilled out in grotesque fashion. Perhaps the gore is less gratuitous, so taking down these demons from another plane feels less triumphant. I spent some time thinking about it to figure out why, but I had trouble pinning it down. That being said, killing enemies is less satisfying in Heretic. This is easily the most uniquely designed enemy in the game and I’ve faced nothing quite like it in the other games mentioned above. This creature is a massive floating helmeted skull made of metal that shoots out ice bolts that shatter, tornadoes that knock you around and pillars of flame that deal massive damage. I have quibbles about some of the enemy types that are probably more biased than actual, so instead I will give praise to the coolest enemy in the game, the Iron Lich. It would allow the user to solve problems much more intelligently at their own pace instead of, “RAR POWER TOME ACTIVATED KILL ALL THE THINGS IN 40 SECONDS!”Īnd yet again in this game’s favor, there are completely unique enemies. I think it would have been far better design-wise to allow the alt-fire of each weapon to be triggered with the right-mouse button, but cause the weapon to consume double-ammo or something. The problem is that even though you find ~2 to 3 Tomes of Power on each level, it never felt like I got to use the alt-modes for the weapons enough. The Phoenix Rod throws flame, the Dragon Claw fires a spread shot, the Hellstaff causes a rain of fire–it’s pretty awesome.
I must of course mention the most unique thing about the weapons themselves though–they can all be powered up for 40 seconds by using a “Tome of Power” that for most weapons, completely change the way the fire. Instead of shooting out a massive blast of energy, you drop tons of explosive metal balls in front of you that bounce around and explode. In fairness, the Fire Mace is nothing like DOOM’s BFG. The Ethereal Crossbow is technicaly different mechanically than the shotgun in DOOM (the bow shoots one main shot in the middle with two darts on each side) but functionally, it serves the exact same purpose your average reliable weapon for every situation.
Unfortunately, most of the weapons in the two games are nearly identical: the Staff (fists), Gauntlets of the Necromancer (chainsaw), Elven Wand (handgun), Dragon Claw (chain gun), Hellstaff (Plasma Gun) and Phoenix Rod (rocket) have no real difference. Instead of being sci-fi/Hell themed, it’s high-fantasy/planar demon themed. Heretic plays out less like a new game and more like yet another expansion for DOOM that’s just been completely re-skinned. Yeah, this should look pretty familiar to you. With a pretty strong foundation of experience in this kind of game, I can say that this is certainly not a bad game at all but… in light that this came after DOOM, I sadly have to put it in Tier 3. In fact, looking back, I’m starting to realize I’m coming dangerously close to a complete finished canon of the “bigs.” DOOM (Final, II, Plutonia, TNT, Ultimate), Shadow Warrior (1997), Duke Nukem (Megaton), Hexen (I, II), Wolfenstein (3D, Return to Castle) and now Heretic. I’ve played a lot of 1990’s sprite-based FPS’s. We’re gonna break this one down into two parts: the original Heretic and the expansion, “Shadow of the Serpent Riders. Just realized I played these games backwards–first Hexen II.