Played Heretic for the first time. Impressions

Background
First time I tried Heretic was somewhere in 2002, on a really old computer of a friend, where it barely ran (imagine that!). I played through 2-3 levels and forgot about it. Fast forward to yesterday, 1st of December 2021, which is almost exactly 27 years from the date it was released (23rd of Dec 1994). I decided to take a look at the so-called Doom clones, and fired up Heretic.

Quick summary of my impressions so far

In general, I was pleasantly surprised. Although you can clearly see the genetic lineage, the game stands on its own. And, most importantly, it looks awesome as well. I also love the design, from textures and enemy sprites to the music and sound effects. And, most importantly, it's genuinely fun to play. Now lets dive into specifics.

Specific things I liked

• I am really enjoying the sound effects. It's a small thing, but they sounds are just so satisfying.
• Love the art on it, from all the sprites and textures to actual animations. They add to the satisfying feeling from killing enemies and handling the weapons.
• The level design surprised me. There are a lot of really tight corridors and miniature rooms and staircases. However, for some strange reason it works. The layouts are pretty clever and frequently it's a lot of fun trying to reach a room you keep seeing through the windows only. In one of the levels you start inside a courtyard surrounded by castle walls. There are two medieval houses in front of you. The staircases and rooms and even doors of the houses are tiny. But getting into all the rooms is just so rewarding.
• I like the mechanics of the levels: that they rely a lot on various moving blocks and switches that lower whole columns. In Doom it is very mechanical, but here they find ways to make it feel medieval and fantasy-like. Things that we would associate with temples and tombs. Like, having to run over a platform to lower a portion of the floor.
• I like the change from mechanical weapons to magic ones. It's a simple change, but it really works.
• Also like the enemy roster so far.

Specific things I disliked

• I am playing through episode 1, which was shareware and did not include all the weapons. So, running around with what's available is sometimes a bit tedious: enemies take loads of hits to kill. This is partially a problem with Doom too: some enemies just take way too long to kill. And I wish that there were more enemies that you could kill with one shot. The red flying demons can be killed with one shot when using a crossbow, but more often than not it doesn't work.
• Heretic seems to be frugal with ammunition. With such a great selection of enemies and satisfying animations I wish I could just go through them without having to constantly worry that I will run out of ammo.
• The game is definitely less accessible than Doom in a sense that having played through 7 levels, I still don't know how to use the inventory and what do some of the items mean. I collected some books and purple potions and torches, and I don't know what they're for, and the game doesn't make it clear either. Obviously, I can google it and read, but the markings of good game design is to at least try to make things accessible without forcing the player to read the manual about basic items.

But all in all, as you can see, the list of things I liked far outweighs the downsides. So, I am definitely a happy camper here and I plan to continue playing.

Tell me what you think!

28 minutes ago, LouigiVerona said:

Heretic seems to be frugal with ammunition. With such a great selection of enemies and satisfying animations I wish I could just go through them without having to constantly worry that I will run out of ammo.

Having played the first episode multiple times on the UV equivalent, I can assure it is definitely not the case. The only times I remember ammo scarcity becoming an issue is at the very beginning of Episodes 3, 4 and 5. Once you get past the initial hurdle of wand start, you will be swimming in ammo and items just like in vanilla Doom. Unlike Doom, however, each weapon has its own ammo type, so once you get your hands on the Dragon Claw (the chaingun replacement), you will often have to force yourself to spend all those wand crystals you have been accumulating since.

Just remember to use the Gauntlets of the Necromancer (the chainsaw replacement) on melee enemies! As for the Tome of Power (the book you mentioned), it essentially acts as a temporary power-up for your arsenal. Useful when you need to kill enemies faster.

Did you use the weapon power up? It is an essential inventory item to take care of the baddies. They go down far quicker with powered up weapons, and that’s why there’s so many of these items throughout the game. 
 

I also think it is pretty simple to understand the power ups. They’re mostly like Doom’s but with fantasy names and with extra steps as in having to use them as inventory rather than them powering up automatically. 

38 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

Just remember to use the Gauntlets of the Necromancer (the chainsaw replacement) on melee enemies! As for the Tome of Power (the book you mentioned), it essentially acts as a temporary power-up for your arsenal. Useful when you need to kill enemies faster.

The Tome of Power is particularly useful with the Gauntlets because it can be used to recover some health while causing damage to the monsters(like, it steals health from the enemy and gives it to you :D), so it's good to have one for some situations.

I first played heretic V1.0 in June 1995. It was a very good game. In August I played my very first wad called Gladiatr.wad by Chris Benson, from PC Attack 5 cover disk along with Malice.wad by Ryan Hare and Maze.wad by Kevin Haley. 
 

The one problem I used to have with the game is it used to crash on level E1m6 (The Cathedral) at random, and others too. 
 

My four all time favourite levels on the game are E1m6, e1m7, E3m2, E3m4. 
 

Good times 

Yay more love for Hairy Tick

I haven't played through Heretic in some years now.  It's definitely a bit grindier than Doom; the Tome of Power is maybe the greatest power-up of all time, and I love those charged-up vampire Gauntlets, but I find that I have less patience to play 10 Heretic maps in a sitting than I have for Doom.  Oddly enough, I probably have more patience for Hexen, in spite of it being a far grindier and more arcane game...I find it a lot more immersive than Heretic, which is pretty visually repetitive after a while, and I enjoy puzzly exploration enough that I can enjoy a lot of Hexen for that too (which isn't to say that a lot of the puzzles aren't really boring, of course.)  Heretic is far from perfect but it does have a special atmosphere of its own, and even as it gets repetitive there's something to the bright, ethereal yet gritty medieval world it creates that is really unique, something even the more realistic, earthy and dour Hexen doesn't have.  I should try making a Heretic map sometime.

43 minutes ago, SilentD00mer said:

The Tome of Power is particularly useful with the Gauntlets because it can be used to recover some health while causing damage to the monsters(like, it steals health from the enemy and gives it to you :D), so it's good to have one for some situations.

For real? It never occurred to me that to try that, since the game is so generous in terms of health items.

I think Heretic is in a weird spot where it showers you with a mountain of items to crush everything in the map and then several maps after it. 

Honestly I also recommend doing a run through on HNT/HMP or nightmare and completely skipping UV in heretic. UV is in a weird position where there are so many goddamn enemies in each map that I can see why people start to feel it is grindy. At least with nightmare that should be less of a problem as you need to pay more attention due to the rapid attacks (Nightmare in heretic doesn't respawn enemies).

Don't underestimate the powered up hellstaff and dragonclaw. Very different to use - the claw just blows everything up, while the hellstaff requires a little bit more planning to be effective. But when you get it right, you'll be doing outrageous amounts of damage.

Get ready for a huge difficulty difference between the first 3 episodes and the extra two episodes. It's even a bigger jump than going from Doom 2 to Final Doom.

What I like in Heretic compared to Hexen is that every inventory item feels very useful and I'd say necessary in those aforementioned hard episodes. Even the invisibility has a side effect which makes it a great item against certain enemies. Another thing I feel Heretic has done right is that there are no enemies that feel too spongy except the Minotaur, but even then it's a threatening foe that is fun to fight.

2 hours ago, Rudolph said:

For real? It never occurred to me that to try that, since the game is so generous in terms of health items.

Extra health is always good :D

The game is generous in terms of health, yes, but in my case, I tend to forget where it is sometimes(because of the color of the crystal vials, it's harder to see than the stimpacks) . But you can always use it in situations when you get blocked by monsters with melee attack.

Heretic is a fun game with great atmosphere. 

What sold me years ago was that "wicked laugh" when Corvus finds a weapon. ^^

In retrospect that evil laugh reminds me of Caleb from Blood (which came later). 

@Brxyz Well, I cannot speak for anything past Episode 3, but I have never found myself in a situation where I badly needed the Morph Ovum or the Time Bomb of the Ancients.

One doesn’t ever need the Morph Ovum, but who can resist the power to turn all those golems and undead knights into tasty chickens 

Well, if ammo was really this scarce all the time, I reckon the Morph Ovum would prove most useful to get rid of tougher enemies.

5 hours ago, Stupid Bunny said:

I haven't played through Heretic in some years now.  It's definitely a bit grindier than Doom; the Tome of Power is maybe the greatest power-up of all time, and I love those charged-up vampire Gauntlets, but I find that I have less patience to play 10 Heretic maps in a sitting than I have for Doom.  Oddly enough, I probably have more patience for Hexen, in spite of it being a far grindier and more arcane game...I find it a lot more immersive than Heretic, which is pretty visually repetitive after a while, and I enjoy puzzly exploration enough that I can enjoy a lot of Hexen for that too (which isn't to say that a lot of the puzzles aren't really boring, of course.)  Heretic is far from perfect but it does have a special atmosphere of its own, and even as it gets repetitive there's something to the bright, ethereal yet gritty medieval world it creates that is really unique, something even the more realistic, earthy and dour Hexen doesn't have.  I should try making a Heretic map sometime.

The enemies in Hexen are much less spongey and also their attacks are less dangerous in general. Easier to coast through if you know where to go.

What I really like in Heretic over Doom is the fact that enemies get pushed back a lot easier and that they don't have infinite height.

In general I prefer Heretic over Doom and Hexen over both but I'm biased.

Also, I could be wrong, but I do not think Heretic features a single hitscan enemy.

10 hours ago, Rudolph said:

Also, I could be wrong, but I do not think Heretic features a single hitscan enemy.

Man, this is such a good point! Indeed, I don't remember any so far. I will also post about Strife at some point, and Strife has lots. In fact, so far it's been all hitscan. Kinda annoying.

Heretic's pretty great, though the levels don't always vibe with me anymore, and I don't always have the patience for managing the power-ups. I have a few gripes about the hitpoint values of some mid-tier enemies too.

Side note- I love the song for E1L1, in a lot of ways I think it does a better job of delivering the dramatic impact of the story's premise than E1M1's At Doom's Gate.

@LouigiVerona Speaking of soundtrack, make sure you play with the phenomenal complementary MIDI sountrack.

It replaces the duplicate tracks with excellent original compositions!

6 hours ago, LouigiVerona said:

I will also post about Strife at some point, and Strife has lots. In fact, so far it's been all hitscan. Kinda annoying.

Strife is a really cool game in so many ways, but I ragequit years ago during a run where I got stuck in the sewers and had no more of whatever Strife's version of the radsuit is.  It wouldn't have been so bad if the game wasn't forcing me to use one savegame for the whole run, meaning I couldn't easily keep a backup before entering each stage.

I want to pick it up and try again.  It's got some neat ideas and the voice acting is quite good for a game of any kind.

17 hours ago, Rudolph said:

Also, I could be wrong, but I do not think Heretic features a single hitscan enemy.

You are correct. I love Heretic but I always felt that this aspect of it left a bit of a skill gap for the modern player. It's still challenging in places, but often just because of lack of ammo. Skill 5 is not that interesting for anyone looking to replay the game in expert mode. I started a mod where I put in "evil" elves that have wand and crossbow attacks, and I thought it was pretty fun and turned up the heat in a much needed way. Planning to pick that up again eventually and you bet your ass there will be dragonclaw elves as well, so nobody has to miss chaingunners ever agian :P

I do not think the absence of hitscan enemies makes the game easier so much as less unfair.

Maybe a better way to make the game harder would be to replace enemies with stronger variants, e.g. Fire Gargoyles, Nitro Golems, etc.

Either that or make use of Realm667's Bestiary, I suppose.

34 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

I do not think the absence of hitscan enemies makes the game easier so much as less unfair.

 

Maybe a better way to make the game harder would be to replace enemies with stronger variants, e.g. Fire Gargoyles, Nitro Golems, etc.

I take it you don't like Doom very much then?

A hitscan enemy with an instant attack (meaning, no "windup") might be unfair. Or they could be placed in absurdly hard traps by the mapper. But that's a problem with overall design, and not inherent to the presence of hitscan attacks. Facing a couple of wand enemies that have 20 hp can hardly be called unfair when the player could have 100+ health, armor, items at their disposal, their own hitscan weapons, much faster movement, and keen tactics. And like I said, they have a slight delay before shooting, meaning even a player with 1hp could take them out and live if they are fast.

I would prefer to face some weaker "fodder" enemies with hitscan attacks to balance out the tanky projectile monsters that constitute most of the heretic bestiary, rather than just adding even more damage sponges. Fair or not, that just sounds boring to me.

On jeudi 2 décembre 2021 at 3:23 PM, LouigiVerona said:

The game is definitely less accessible than Doom in a sense that having played through 7 levels, I still don't know how to use the inventory and what do some of the items mean. I collected some books and purple potions and torches, and I don't know what they're for, and the game doesn't make it clear either. Obviously, I can google it and read, but the markings of good game design is to at least try to make things accessible without forcing the player to read the manual about basic items.

Enter key to use the currently selected item, [ and ] keys (on a US keyboard) to change selection left and right.

The items are mostly self-evident. The torch? It lights things up when used, so use it when you find the area too dark. The book? It's called the "tome of power" when you pick it up, so use it to get powered-up. The purple potions? Try drinking them when you're low on health. The hourglasses are time bombs, they're pretty nice to drop while backpedaling in front of a compact crowd of monsters... Need some experience to get the timing right, but they're pretty fun to use! The egg turns up to five enemies into chickens. Doesn't work on boss enemies, but it can be very useful especially against some of the worst hit sponges (ophidians, weredragons). The green mask makes you partially invisible and also partially intangible, so it's a very good defense, especially against undead knights -- their thrown axes will fly right through you without inflicting damage. The wings makes you fly. On some levels there are secrets that can only be reached this way, and it doesn't last for long, so choose wisely when to use it! There's a white urn that fully restores your health, and the ring of invulnerability makes you invulnerable.

2 minutes ago, Gez said:

Enter key to use the currently selected item, [ and ] keys (on a US keyboard) to change selection left and right.

I never liked the default setup because it requires moving my hand away from either WASD or the mouse, which is fine when nothing is happening but terrible in an intense battle. At first I changed it to mousewheel for select, middle-mouse to use, and that was fast but I found myself accidentally using items a lot. Finally I settled on Q and E to select, and F to use. Still potential for accidentally using items, but overall I felt that this allowed me to quickly select and use the right item in a pinch.

Even better, some source ports will allow you to bind specific keys to specific items so that you can use them without scrolling around your inventory (did vanilla heretic have this though? I might be remembering wrong. Or was that hexen?) I never really practiced this so I never got comfortable with it, but I've seen pro players really crush it with these shortcuts. At the very least you could consider binding the quartz flask to X or something for easy healing.

7 minutes ago, magicsofa said:

Even better, some source ports will allow you to bind specific keys to specific items so that you can use them without scrolling around your inventory (did vanilla heretic have this though? I might be remembering wrong. Or was that hexen?)

Backspace is by default bound to the tome of power. This is important in deathmatch because if you use a TOP while chickenized, it transform you back into your former (s)elf. And in deathmatch there's not as much time for fiddling with selection keys as in single-player, especially when an opponent just morphed you.

I think the fly up key may also automatically use the wings of wrath if you have it? And there's probably a key for the quartz flask. The rest I'm not sure.

1 hour ago, magicsofa said:

I take it you don't like Doom very much then?

What? No, quite the contrary! It is just that Doom 2016 made me realize how cheap hitscan enemies can be.

I much prefer Classic Doom over Heretic, but that is due with my personal preference for Doom's setting, arsenal and bestiary. I would love to see Heretic's levels remade in Doom and I would like Doom better had its hitscan enemies been given projectile attacks instead.

heretic is very fun. the usage of the inventory system and certain items can lead to very creative and fun interactions.

i do agree some enemies are tankier than they feel like they should be lol

now hexen on the other hand... bleh...