Heretic (1994)

I played the shareware version back in the day and greatly enjoyed it. For some reason though I never got the full game as a kid. That has recently been remedied and I beat all 5 episodes on smite meister difficultly. I decided to play the vanilla Steam dosbox version for the classic experience. After some fiddling around changing the controls in setup I was good to go with WSAD, and QE for turning. It was very annoying how the mouse controlled moving forwards and backwards, and I was not able to rebind use item to something more convenient. I got stuck on one of the levels in the fifth episode (colonnade) and could not figure out how to progress into the room with the first key, so I used noclip. I missed the secret levels in episodes 4 and 5, and use level warp to beat them with no resources. That was hard but is about the challenge level I like. I also got stuck and used noclip on the episode 4 secret level. I did find the majority of the secrets throughout the game and did not find the game all that challenging. I found I had plenty of ammo and health, and barely used powerups. Still died now and then to unexpected circumstances but ended each level with pretty much full ammo.

I tried to ration ammo to make optimal use of what was available and occasionally used melee attacks to finish weak enemies; usually the gauntlets but sometimes I had to fall back on the staff, especially in those 2 secret levels that I did with level warp. The gauntlets with the Tome of power is among the best things in the game and I used it to devastating effect in those secret levels, taking on ophidians and liches. I kept the wand around half ammo capacity so I would not have to come back for ammo pickups. I mostly killed the weaker enemies with it but it was my go to sniper weapon for picking off distant enemies that could not reach me. The crossbow was my most used weapon and I liked to run its ammo dry. As long as I had enough room to dodge around, or especially if the enemies could not get to me, it was my go to weapon. The dragon claw was my overall favorite with its mix of accuracy and rapid fire. I used it to snipe when out of wand ammo and it was my go to mid range combat weapon, especially against the wizards. I even used the Tome of power with it a few times to get that room clearing BFG effect. The hellstaff was the best weapon to have ready when not sure what would be coming up because its fast rate of fire made it very effect at close range and vs multiple targets. It is like a submachine gun compared to the dragon claw's assault rifle. Its Tome of power area attack was a great way to deal with tough enemies. I was not a big fan of the Phoenix rod, just like the original Doom rocket launcher; the projectile is just too slow and it is too easy to hurt yourself. I mostly used it against the bosses and liches, occasionally versus groups of other enemies. In the final battle I had 2 rings of invincibility and used the Tome of power to flamethrower their asses. The mace was a weird weapon that I often forgot about until I seen some ammo for it. Still pretty good at close range with its rapid fire. I never tried the Tome of power in combat but it could be effective.

Will play again at some point using a source port; try the highest difficulty, maybe wand start for each level, and mods. I absolutely love the aesthetic of the game with all the bright colors. There were too many times where I had to stop and scratch my head to figure out how to progress; backtracking to find the next thing that opened or a switch or something that I missed. The later episodes were the worst for this. I just want fast skill-based combat with tactical resource management, not this figuring out what to do part. Overall the game is just slightly below Doom and among the best of first person shooters.

Well I have found my magic satchel (bag of holding). Having not played this style of the original FPS genre, I think I now understand why so many people loved doom. I have been having so much fun with this game, I want to go and play all of the similar styles now.

The combat is so fast, 1 text screen of story and the rest is all just fun gunplay. I am on the second last level, and it seems to be a jump in level where it is no longer just the usual gameplay but a bit of puzzle/strategy mixed in - don't use all ammo bc will need later etc. I recently played Dungeon Keeper 1 all the way through and it had a similar turning point, where there started to more of a puzzle element - was this a common thing in games from the 90's? While I have played some before I never finished them so I am curious if it has just be these 2 game coincidentally, or was a frequent occurrence.

To make a start on the 2020 challenge, I followed the spirit of it and rather than go with a game I have an want to finish, I went with one of the options I thought would be difficult.

Magic Satchel??

I didn't play Doom so the game actually feels quite fresh, yet to find the damn bag of holding though.

Giant Bombs wiki is going to be incredibly helpful for this challenge, containing not only games but also all games that have 'the bag of holding' for example. https://www.giantbomb.com/