Heretic(Playstation 5) Review

Nightdive recently remastered both this game and Hexen. It was a surprise shadow drop and I'm looking for another excuse to play through Heretic again and this remaster was a great excuse to do it. As a whole it still holds up and in ways differentiates itself from Doom in ways I didn't notice when I played it the first time.

The first big difference of course is that you can look up or down.

Another one is with the weapons. Sure, it's all based on archetypes found in Doom but they have their own little quirks. The Elven Wand is the pistol but it's far more reliable and does more damage than the former. The ammo for it is all over the various maps making a much more reliable fallback weapon. The Etheral Crossbow is the shotgun but it's a projectile weapon with a far wider reach at long range. It can also be almost as deadly as Doom 2's double barrel shotgun at close range. The Hellstafe is like the Plasma Rifle but with a faster fire rate. The Phoenix Rod is a much faster firing rocket launcher. The Gaunlets is the Chainsaw.

There is also quirky weapons unique to Heretic like the Firemace and Dragan Claw. The latter might be the earliest example of having an assault rifle or machine gun in an FPS despite being a magic based weapon.

The death animations are also far superior and satisfying when compared to Doom's. The enemies blow up into chunks upon killing them which makes for far more visercal feedback.

Another way it can feel different in that even on the normal difficulty, it is very easy to be low on ammo especially in the early episodes. Getting overwhelmed here can happen pretty often. With that said because of this I experimented with the various items much more a lot. I used the Tomb of Power on large hordes especially during the boss fight episodes. Morphs Ovums to get some kills when low or too many enemies. Mystic Urns to restore health. Shadow Sphere to occasional sneak by. Ring of Invincibilty can especially be deadly with the Gaunlets. It helped out a lot the River of Fire level when low on ammo.

When high on ammo, I did often run away especially if I knew where the level exit was since it was better to save it all for the next level. Felt oddly surivival horror for an FPS game like this.

Level design is also great especially in Episode 2 onwards. The game always gives you a good sightline on where you are supposed to go or shows you where the different colored key doors are located. You can see them through a window but they are locked off and you need to find them. The levels themselves already have the different colored doors right at the start at the level or somewhere a little latter so there isn't much time spent being lost trying to find them. The levels themselves are pretty large medieval landscapes too fitting the fantasy theme well.

The remastered soundtrack is also well made and fits the game in the moment pretty well.

Some issues are that the game can rely on the fire floors that can damage you way too much. It can be grating when you might try to find the next key or door but you keep taking damage when trying to retrace your steps or trying to find different routes you might've overlooked.

While I did praise the high count of enemies, being low on ammo and picking and choosing fights. At other times it can feel cheap to get randomly attacked from behind or a far away enemy. There are points where you are going through a level can just suddenly get ambushed with no clear or distinct enemy sound cue alerting you to their presence. Sometimes they might even be behind a wall texture.

The Wings of Wrath as far as the first 3 episode are concerned only needed to be used on the final boss of Episode 3. It can feel jarring since they were optional prior to that.

Overall, Heretic still holds up. There's some problems here and there but for a game that could be considered a "Doom clone". There's enough differences here that calling it that can be a disservice.