Heretic (1994)

This title is a dark fantasy FPS that builds upon the foundation laid by Doom while carving out its own identity through atmosphere, setting, and mechanics. Using a modified version of the Doom engine, the game trades science fiction for grim medieval fantasy, plunging players into a cursed world filled with twisted architecture, sinister catacombs, and demonic sorcerers.

The MC is called Corvus, an elven hero rebelling against the evil Serpent Riders who have corrupted the realm. The game’s arsenal replaces shotguns and rockets with mystical weapons, like the ethereal crossbow, the Hellstaff, and the Phoenix Rod, each with satisfying impact and variety. Power-ups like the Tome of Power amplify your attacks in spectacular ways, and items such as wings of wrath or morph ovum add a touch of playful experimentation to the brutal action.

What really sets Heretic apart is its depth for its time. It introduced an inventory system, allowing you to strategically manage consumable items, and featured vertical aiming, something rare in early shooters. And despite this mechanic being a very common thing today, this was revolutionary at the time. The levels are cleverly designed, filled with secrets, traps, and atmospheric lighting that enhance the sense of dread and discovery. The haunting OST and ambient effects further reinforce the dark, oppressive tone of the game’s world.

While it doesn’t stray far from Doom’s core formula, this game refines and expands it, offering a fresh twist that blends frantic combat with gothic fantasy. Decades later, it remains a cult classic and a milestone in the evolution of FPSs, remembered fondly for its imaginative world, creative weaponry, and early experiments in gameplay complexity. This is a must-play if you are a fan of shooters to any extent, there is no excuse not to play this since there are so many modern re-releases which bundle Heretic and Hexen titles together. Not to mention the amazing modding community which can enhance the experience with a lot of QOL implementations.

There are many parallels between Doom and Heretic, mostly rooted to them being developed in the same engine. While Heretic was published by id software, Raven Software developed it. They had a great track record after the release of this game including Soldiers of Fortune and Jedi Academy. The parallels include flavorful changes to the Doom arsenal, use of keys to lock progression through a level, having dodge-able projectiles from enemies (which adds skill into the gun play) and hordes of enemies to blast into gory pieces.

Instead of a pistol, there's the Elf Wand. Instead of a shotgun, there's the ethereal crossbow, the Dragon Claw replaced the chaingun, the Hell staff replaced the plasma rifle, the Phoenix Rod replaced the rocket launcher and the firemace is kind of unique and standalone (and lackluster IMO). These weapons are given more unique identities from their Doom counterparts through the novel inventory system included in Heretic. With a Tome of Power, these weapons became bottled lightning resulting in even the Elven Wand becoming a Reaper of Death. It's was always fun to pick up a new weapon and listen to your dude laugh manically.

Level design and progression functioned similarly to Doom, where you obliterate anything that moves and navigate through the labyrinthine maps finding keys to progress further. A lot of thought went into enemy placement and density. There aren't formal puzzles, but it can be tricky to navigate to a key. Often times, you will see a key early on and need to figure out how to make it accessible. While the game was tough as nails, it always felt fair and deaths were typically my fault. I did find progression to be unfairly obtuse at times. For example, you may hit a switch that opens a secret door located 3 rooms away or you may hit a switch that opens a door or ramp for limited time (and you don't see where it is). I was still impressed with the layout and design given the limitations of the Doom engine.

Despite being made in 1994 I had a blast blasting through the 5 episodes. It was rough getting acclimated to the dated controls, but after some tinkering I was able to emulate the standard "WASD" control scheme. The only issue I had was the implementation and inability to change moving forward while pushing the mouse forward. It was an odd game design to lock movement with the mouse. I wish I could have only looked and fired with it, but I made it work. If you are into modding, there are options to fully implement modern FPS controls. I would recommend that you shy away from this option because it would make the game too easy. It was designed with it's clunky controls in mind. By the end of the first chapter I was side strafing, dodging and genociding demons like the Doom Guy.

The novel features of Heretic is its use of an inventory system, ability to look up and down and gibs upon a player character brutal death. I mentioned earlier the Tome of Power, but there are plenty of other goodies that you should use to ensure success while playing the game. There are wings that allow you to fly, a ring that makes your invincible, an invisibility item, usable healing flasks, bombs (these I found to be pretty useless, if only they functioned like grenades), a torch to light up dark areas (can be surprisingly useful), armor, an item that turns an enemy into a chicken and a warp to the start of a level. All were useful (excluding the bombs IMO).

There isn't much to say plot wise, what did you expect? There's some evil dudes and you need to kill them because they are evil. The music fit the atmosphere, but not too memorable. They were typically short, ambient and repetitive. I would have liked some heavy metal playing. The graphics I think have a charm to them. If you like and can tolerate the original Doom, you won't have an issue here. If you are into modding, there are some gorgeous HD mods to check out.

I was pleasantly surprised how well this aged. I look forward to checking out Hexen and Hexen 2.

Well, it's Doom, except fantasy themed. It's basically a mod for Doom, actually haha.

For those who have never played Doom, it's one of the grandaddies of FPS games. The original Doom was one of the first games to ever get an M rating from the ESRB, for its graphic violence and satanic imagery. Spicy.

Anywho, this game is very much the same as Doom. You run around a level and shoot people with wands instead of guns. Movement is very very fast, reloading isn't a thing, and you blast demons and monsters a whole lot. There's no reticle, instead you just fire from your center of mass. Unlike Doom, the player can look up and down. However that may be the zDoom engine.

There's a few items that the player can get, and they are probably the most interesting spin on the original Doom formula. The original Doom, had health and armor, of course, as well as an invulnerability, flashlight, invisibility, and environmental protection item. All of these were used on contact, I believe. Heretic allows players to pick up the items for later use. It has all of those, as well as the Power Tome, which empowers the players' weapon and sometimes alters the fire mod , a flying item, an "oh crap" button that sends the player back to the spawn area, a timebomb that the player drops, an item that allows players to fly, and, my personal favorite, an item that turns enemies in chickens. Every weapon in Doom has a version in Heretic, and they're all pretty standard FPS weapons. Weak starter weapon, strong spread shot weapon, fast firing but weak per shot weapon, heavy splash damage weapon, strong fast firing weapon, super weapon, and strong and weak melee weapons.

The level design is rather claustrophobic and labyrinthian. I found myself getting lost in several of the levels I played. Simply put, getting lost in a corridor shooter is not fun. When I was heading the right direction and mowing down demons the game was quite fun, simply being Doom with a different skin. I did not finish the game, but I got far enough to be able to give my honest opinion on it.

Graphically, the game looks much the same as Doom, being on the same engine the following year. 2D sprites in a 3D world. The dark fantasy flavor is done quite nicely for the time, however.

Sound wise, the game's soundtrack doesn't slap as hard as Doom's but it certainly gets the theme across.

All in all, a decent enough game if one is looking to play an old-school Doom clone. It has issues, namely the level design being confusing. Oh and there's next to no story, but that's the name of the game in early 90s FPSdom. That's not really a negative or a positive, it's just how it is.

Heretic, for PC

Rating: 9.2/10; Masterpiece

Played: 2020

Extremely recommended for fans of old school FPS

Heretic is an old school first person shooter that is pretty much an official total conversion of Doom with a dark medieval fantasy theme. The base game mechanics are more or less identical to Doom; shooting, weapons, powerups, movement, enemy behaviour, automap and level design. Despite this, the game introduces new mechanics not found in Doom, evolves the genre, and ends up being just about as much fun as its older brother.

Gameplay takes place entirely in first person view as your goal is to reach the end switch or teleporter of each level. The same Doom formula of independent episodes (the first being the shareware demo) that are meant to be played in order but are all unlocked. Each episode has 8 levels with the last being a boss fight, and a secret level somewhere along the way. You start off with only the basic wand, which is equivalent to the Doom pistol and the other weapons mostly mirror the ones in Doom. A notable exception is the chain gun and pistol equivalents do not use the same ammo, giving far more use for the basic wand. There is also no standard weapon equivalent to the BFG, and more weapons that shoot slower dodgeable projectiles instead of instant hit scan bullets. The seventh weapon is like a fully automatic short range grenade launcher and really does not do enough to differentiate itself from the other 2 automatics. Weapons and ammo transfer between levels within the same episode, however only 1 of each powerup carries over (except the flight one that never transfers). Perhaps the greatest innovation of Heretic is the item inventory where most of Doom's powerups can be stored and used on command. Ammo, armor and the most basic healing item are used upon pickup just like in Doom, even if you don't need the full amount. Stored items include stronger healing items, light amplification, partial invisibility, invulnerability and a number of entirely new effects not found in Doom. By far the most interesting is the Tome of Power, which kind of works like berserk but for every weapon. Some weapons just become more powerful while others offer new tactical abilities, with standouts being the life restoring gauntlets (very similar in concept to Doom's berserk), a room clearing BFG-like effect, area denial damage over time and massive damage flamethrower.

So there is a good sense of tactics and resource management. Especially when first starting off on the higher difficulties, you will have to scout for supplies and try to use the environment and monster infighting (which is just as much fun as in Doom!) just to survive. With skill, judicious use of power ups and quick saving, I found there was enough supplies in each level to kill most enemies and finish with full health, ammo and complement of power ups (on the 2nd hardest difficulty). It did feel like every level was designed to be theoretically possible to beat without supplies carried over from previous levels. The levels feature plenty of secrets, hazards, teleporters and simple puzzles. Usually, you have to explore the available area to find a colored key that unlocks the corresponding colored door to find the 2nd key that unlocks the area for the 3rd key which unlocks the exit. It is a simple formula taken from Doom and it works very well for guiding the player through the levels. Except when it is not as simple as that. Far too often there are hidden switches or even invisible triggers that open something somewhere previous in the level. There were many times when the action ground to a halt as I scratched my head wondering what to do next and ended up having to tediously comb the entire level for what I missed. There were even 2 levels that I failed to figure out how to progress and had to cheat to noclip to the key. Unless it was a bug. Now the later episodes of Doom had some of this environmental puzzling but Heretic makes it even worse, and this is by far the worst aspect of the game. When playing a shooter I don't want to think about much other than what weapon to use, what to kill first and what flanking and movements to perform. Outside of this though the levels are well designed with beautiful colorful aesthetic and the slightly annoying new feature of the level pushing you in a certain direction, which is represented as strong wind or flowing water.

The enemies roughly correspond with the ones in Doom, but there are no gun using hit scanners; all ranged attacks are projectiles that you can see and try to dodge, coming in a few different patterns. This makes the game feel a bit more like a bullet hell style shoot em up. The 2 most basic enemies, the melee-only gargoyle and the fireball gargoyle, fly like cacodemons and can truly mess you up by attacking from unexpected angles. It was a great design choice to make the basic enemies flyers. The golems come in basic melee variety and a stronger that has semi homing projectiles, almost like lost souls changed into a projectile instead of an enemy. And these enemies with stronger types look the same so it can mess up your tactics, creating uncertainty about how to deal with them. Should I melee this gargoyle and risk getting a fireball in the face if it is the stronger variety? Which damn golem is the one shooting at me so I can kill it first? Though sadly the other enemies don't have stronger forms and so this feature is not taken as far as it could have been. Sometimes enemies can be translucent, like the spectres in Doom. This makes them harder to see and also makes them immune to non magic attacks, though only 3 weapons are non magical making this barely a tactical consideration. There is only 1 true boss fight in the game because that is the only time you encounter that enemy. The other bosses are against tough enemies that later appear as regular enemies.

The game ran fine for me on Windows 10 using the default dosbox. The controls are somewhat customizable in the separate setup program but the key binding options are limited. I had a great time using the mouse to turn and WASD to move in the cardinal directions, but the mouse for some ungodly reason also controls moving forward and backwards. This was easy to compensate for while moving around, but the second you stop and try to shoot off a ledge, navigate a narrow walkway or platform, is the second the mouse throws you over the edge. It was also not possible to change the binding of use item, which is forever stuck at the awkward "enter" key, making it somewhat difficult to use power ups in the thick of combat.

Heretic is Doom. Doom is a legendary masterpiece. In my book that makes Heretic also a masterpiece. Does it do enough to innovate or distinguish itself from Doom? Does it matter? Bottom line is if you like Doom you will like this.

I only played part of the shareware a while back and wanted to work on my backlog. This game is pretty good and i have good memories of it (but at the time i think i was too scared to finish it when i was maybe 10) in any case, this is a really nice game that i can appreciate having played doom, quake and later iterations by Id...

One nice thing is the really well woven together elements. The visuals and audio really are quite nice, between your player character laughing, or sounds of monsters you can't see, the music, etc. the haunting textures and even the pallette all combine PERFECTLY... And this might be a milestone for being one of the best looking games to enter the market before hardware accelerated games took over. Despite that, the game looks beautiful. It's a work of art to say the least to see how well some of these things were made. Really, when i play an Id game i often just want to see the art and conceptualization in it as much as i want to play the game. (I play as a sight seeing tourist)

The above mosaic tile is actually a cycling texture (similiar to the walls of flesh/faces that move in the later stages of Final Doom)

the stained glass windows/textures are really cool. A color map was used to give slight variations of hues giving an effect that light is passign through.

What can i say, i like my zDoom. I tried doomsday for first time and loaded a high res textures pack. didn't like it. sure some things look nicer in hardware acceleration but it just doesnt feel right to me.... (i played Shadow Warrior: Wanton Destruction in something very similiar, out of necessity rather than choice) for me, this game looks really good in software rendering and is meant to be played that way. in fact most id games look pretty impressive. The dark gritty aesthetic of a game like heretic or quake is well complemented by the grainy lower res look of it's own engine (especially true for quake but i digress...)

a rundown of each in game 'episode' of heretic for records: (minor spoilers)

Episode 1/shareware/ City of the damned is the best! Solid theme lots of weird gothic art stylized here to look at. The atmosphere is strong, the music is decent. The maps aren't terribly confusing or puzzling or have you backtracking much.

Episde 2/hell's maw is okay. There are some new enemy types to mix it up and some weapons, but the theme is a bit less distinct than in the first, (though consistent a bit meh imo) and the maps are a bit less straightforward and more puzzle/switchy.

episode 3 dome of the d'sparil (the bad dude who was the serpent rider to conquer earth) is okay. enemies getting harder here due to the ophidian/snake man being very common. really nice textures with the blue, and a great boss fight with d'sparil, but this still isnt as nice as the first.

episde 4/ossuary i kind of like this. really elaborate and clever but well designed maps have you going back and forth. not outright puzzles just evolving as some of the maps unfold. (such as ambulatory, and blockhouse is a great map to just rage through) kind of a dark gothy theme but still not as good as the first, still the maps themselves are fun. The bonus (secret) level in this was crazy complicated and maze like and took a long time, but was a good time.

episode 5 (final) stagnant demesne... very hard. ugh. hard in every way. lava. fighting from various levels. tons of iron golems. ammo problems. the maps themselves are pretty good and reminded me of the last episode, but a bit more puzzly. this episode reminded me of a bulk of doom 2. there is a lot of nice things to look at/sight seeing in this time to time.

ultimately, i still like the first episode the most. if the base game was episode 1, episode 4, and episode 5 you would have one hell of a game. 4 and 5 are worth playing and i'm glad i did. (especially 4)

i'm not sure i like the weapons in heretic however. For the most part there isn't too much the player can do rather than switch from one to another when running out of ammo. Tomes of Power let you mix it up a bit and use things in more unconventional ways. The Firemace seems more like a novelty item, i'm sure it had some use in multiplayer... maybe,

note the blood splatters on both edges of the right corner, as well as within the recessed switch alcove on the right.

i'm often wishing the hell staff didnt make so much visual obstruction. hard enough when things are coming at ya. a beam secondary would have been great on this thing

not sure the point of etheral enemies, seems like the health is halved anyway.

xbow still my fav. then again i liked the shotgun in doom...

Ultimately i was really impressed by heretic, found it fun, but took note of how nice the game looked for being so dated. It really would seem to be the spit and polish of doom engine done official. (later things were improved further by third parties)