After the major success that was Doom and its sequel, iD software continued to dominate the FPS genre by releasing Heretic. Unrelated to Doom's story, yet using the same engine, it looked and felt like a reskinned version of Doom. All of the weapons were immediately familiar. The Elven Wand was very much this game's pistol, even if it had a higher fire rate. The crossbow was this game's shotgun, even if the spread was predictable. It added things that we didn't know we wanted as well... such as an inventory system (you could now save items for later... pop that invincibility when YOU need it!) and the ability to look up and down. Yes, you read that right, looking up and down was a godsend... especially when you have enemies that fly and come at you en masse...
Behold the humble Gargoyle, who will happily rip you a new one from behind before you can turn around... *Google Images
Heretic introduced an entirely new story. It talked about a fantasy world that was filled with elf kingdoms, the realms of men, dark realms filled with monsters and magic... all threatened by three "Serpent Riders". "Heretic" in its entirety is the story of one extremely motivated elf and his quest to end D'sparil, the first rider.
The game boasts a wide variety of items and weapons, many of which are similar to Doom's weapons, and even keyed to the same number scheme. Press 2 for the pistol/wand, 3 for the shotgun/crossbow, 4 for the chaingun/dragonclaw, etc. The game even features a chainsaw equivalent, the Gauntlets of the Necromancer.
They are every bit as nasty as that emerald lightning looks...
Despite the weapons feeling so familiar, they manage to create a sense of being different enough that they become different in their own right. This feeling is only expounded upon by one of the game's more ambitious items, the Tome of Power.
This item, when used, gives a brief period in which every weapon is powered up and has an "alt-fire" function that it uses. The wand now fires in a spread, the crossbow has more projectiles, the dragon claw fires more slowly, and each shot summons an expanding nova of... spiked metal orbs? (Just go with it...)
But the gauntlets were always my favorite... the once emerald lightning changes to a blood red. You can almost feel the latent anger within the gauntlets begging to be let out. Their range increases dramatically, as the lightning tendrils reach out for their victims hungrily. While so empowered, the gauntlets would syphon health from the victim to the player at an alarming rate. It really felt like you were tearing the victim's very essence away. Not LEECHING it... TEARING it. Huge difference.
The gauntlets had one major caveat that kept me from using them exclusively. Anyone that has played Doom remembers the chainsaw, and how it sucked you into the monster you were cutting, with no hope of escape unless you stopped attacking. It was a powerful gravitational pull that prevented you from taking on more than one enemy at a time. This was still present in Heretic, and as a kid it put me off of the otherwise awesome gauntlets.
Heretic was an overall success, and like its predecessor, it made its mark on the FPS genre for years to come. It also wasn't finished with its story, as there were two other "Riders" to deal with. Naturally, iD Software released a sequel to Heretic titled.... Hexen (Ha! You thought it was going be Heretic 2!).
Hexen was the story of three heroes that, like our lone elf friend Corvus in the previous game, were going to take down one of the Serpent Riders. You could select from a Fighter, Mage, or Cleric... just in case the ties to tabletop Dungeons and Dragons style games weren't apparent from the start... each with their own stats and traits. As a kid, I would usually pick the Fighter. He had permanent armor, and had the fastest "time to kill"... which he did by punching things into oblivion.
"BAGRRR!"
What's not to love?
The tradeoff with the Fighter is that he doesn't get very many decent projectiles. All of the classes in Hexen have a total of four weapons. They have a base weapon that doesn't cost anything to use (Fists, Wand, Mace), a weapon that uses blue mana, a weapon that uses green mana, and lastly a weapon that you must find in pieces throughout the game and assemble which uses healthy amounts of both. The Fighter doesn't get access to projectiles until his third weapon pickup, which is pretty deep into the game. This means he spends a lot of time in harms way, and that has to be accounted for. This made the combat rather interesting due to the heavy emphasis on adventure. While combat was common, it was rarely one-on-one and in the open. You would often be ambushed on narrow ledges, have to navigate lava pits, or worse. Early on, there is a narrow bridge to a point you must reach. Part way up, this narrow bridge is shattered and you have to sprint and hop between very small points... and do so while under attack by flying stone demons that are throwing fireballs at you. Without projectiles, you have no choice but to hurry and hope for the best, with one misstep meaning falling to your death.
Hexen also shifted the focus more toward puzzles over combat. There were many switch-puzzles that served as the primary speed-bump of the game. Inventory this time around was still a thing, but gone is the much beloved Tome of Power. The idea was that it was a one-of-a-kind relic... not a mass-printed library book. Corvus had it, not these guys...
...at least until the Nazi's mass-printed it in World War 2, where BJ Blazkowicz was tasked with collecting them all?
So, everyone nodded and said "ok, so Hexen is the sequel to Heretic, got it". We were two Riders down and ready for a thir-
Wait, what??
Out of nowhere comes Heretic 2. I remember seeing this in a bargain bin in like an Office Depot or something, and thought I had lost my mind. We certainly didn't live in an alternate universe where this was a thing... right?
We didn't get it that day, but my mind raced with "what if?" possibilities. This was before the days of wikipedia, so looking up information about the game proved difficult. Fortunately, it was the day and age of Limewire and torrents and such. After a bit of trial and error, I was able to find a full version of the game and give it a look.
They discarded much of what made Heretic... well... HERETIC... but kept the Corvus character. Somehow, the Phoenix Staff was a bow and arrow? The Tome of Power had begun TALKING to Corvus, and would hover around him when prompted, helping to drive the story. Looking into it now, it was heavily inspired by Tomb Raider. If Lara's "assets" launched her to fame, what were they hoping to achieve with the suddenly shirtless and bronzed Corvus?
Instead of taking down the third Rider, we are treated to a continuation of Corvus' story... what happened AFTER he defeated D'sparil, and entered the portal to what he thought was home. All in all, the story wasn't awful, but there was not a third rider in sight. I played this one for a while, but other games caught my attention, and I never quite finished it. I will say, I was digging the sentient Tome, the different take on weapons and spells, and the new third person and acrobatic feel of the game.
So, if Hexen was supposed to be Heretic 2, but now HERETIC 2 was Heretic 2, we could logically expect a third game with its own standalone titl-
...oh, for goodness sakes, people!...
So, Hexen 2, or Heretic 3, or whatever it was supposed to be came down the pike... abandoning the Doom engine in favor of using the Quake engine. Things moved from sprites to polygons, and we have four heroes this time as well as faux RPG elements. We now have a Crusader, a Paladin, an Assassin, and a Necromancer, each again armed with four weapons. Often, I wondered if the Crusader and Paladin knew each other from church and one talked the other into this whole "quest" thing, if the Necromancer was looking for his lost gauntlets, and why the Assassin was the least subtle thing on the planet.
Because you can't spell "SILENCE" without "GRENADE"?
I once again saw this game in a bargain bin in a random store. Again, I was denied my prize, and I wasn't able to find a working copy of it until many years later. Again, I found it in a bin, whereupon I paid 5$ for it, ran home and installed it. My younger brother was excited to see it, and asked if I would be awesome and bequeath it down to him. I figured "why not?" and gave him the disc.
Which became a 5$ coaster... sigh...