It had been a long time since I've played a FPS and I wanted to play a pretty retro one, that's why I decided to play this one that I had already seen some time ago and had saved for the occasion, so I set out to play it and I found a pretty entertaining game, violent and with a fairly high difficulty curve. Using the graphic engine of the classic Doom, but modified, it was created an excellent game at graphic and playable level, which is part of another game called "Heretic" (which I have not played yet, but possibly will in the future), this game is a spin-off of Heretic, so there are certain elements in common, but despite that, you don't need to play the "main game" to understand this one.
Today's Retro Review is about: Hexen: Beyond Heretic.
I had to do some research on the previous game (Heretic) to understand the story of this game, because even though I didn't really need to have played the previous game, I was curious to know a little more about the story of this spin-off. Hexen: Beyond Heretic has a simple and straightforward story, which is focused on the salvation of our kingdom, the kingdom of Cronos, which is under attack by one of the "Serpent Riders", Korax. However, 3 heroes appear who are willing to stop them and fight to the death against the evil that is terrorizing their kingdom and the people. And just like that is the story of this game that unites medieval, sorcery and magic in an FPS with a lot of action and violence.
Graphically it is a game that looks pretty good, even today, it has a quite remarkable retro look that makes me like it a lot. As I said, this game was made under the classic Doom graphics engine, but improved, so in terms of textures and coloring is clearly quite superior to Doom, but maintains many obvious features of its "predecessor", to look very similar visually.
Hexen: Beyond Heretic was able to recreate in a very decent way (taking into account its graphical limitations) all those elements so characteristic of medieval times, in addition to the elements of magic and sorcery that are always present in the scenarios. The monsters and creatures with whom we will fight and destroy, are very well designed, some of them with quite large sizes and quite grotesque and threatening sprites. In their scenarios are very present the dark colors and with many shadows. The game is quite graphic and with a level of violence worthy of being a game that uses the Doom graphics engine. In short, Hexen: Beyond Heretic greatly improves the elements of the classic Doom, but still maintains the essence of the videogame that "gave it life".
The music in this game is simply great, with melodies that fit perfectly with this universe of magic and sorcery, composed especially to accompany the player in his adventure to save his kingdom and also decoration along with the scenarios to create an ideal setting for each place we go. I have always said that music is a very important part of a video game as it serves for many things, to convey feelings or ideas, create ambience or simply to prepare us for the great moments of action that this game has. In addition, the sound effects also play a very important role in Hexen: Beyond Heretic and in its gameplay, as they help a better immersion in this kingdom which is covered by chaos and destruction.
Hexen: Beyond Heretic is a full-fledged Doom, but set in a universe of magic and sorcery, in which, as in Doom, the gameplay will be focused on a First Person Shooter where the action will be from the first second of gameplay. The action and unbridled violence will be the central axis of this game, as soon as we enter, we are given a choice between 3 characters: Fighter, Cleric and Mage, each with their own skills and characteristic status, so we can choose a character according to our preference or our ability to play.
As you may have guessed, the Fighter bases his gameplay on melee attacks, is the beast of the group, the one that causes the most damage, and has a higher speed than the other two characters. The mage, logically, is an expert in spells and spells, so he attacks at a distance, besides being quite powerful by having a good set of magical attacks and the Cleric, uses both short and long distance attacks besides being able to heal (like a good video game Cleric). Choosing the character of our preference is of great importance to overcome the challenges that this game has to offer, since the action and violence in Hexen: Beyond Heretic is very frenetic and there will be very few moments of rest, between searching for objects, secrets and destroying our enemies, of course. The other aspects are the classic ones seen in the Doom saga, go through scenarios, looking for some object or objects that will be useful to overcome a certain obstacle or open a door, solve puzzles, but above all, kill enemies in the most violent and graphic ways possible.
Hexen: Beyond Heretic is an excellent game, which due to its Doom aesthetics, but with a medieval theme, makes it a worthy representative of the "Doom" saga, although they are not from the same universe, but in a certain way it can be considered as such.