The Tome of Power is no longer an item scattered around the levels, but a defensive spell that still works in the same manner as the other games in the series by improving damage and granting weapons and offensive spells new abilities for a limited time. While there are still three weapons the player can collect that each use their own ammo, they also have the ability to use several offensive and defensive spells that draw from pools of green and blue mana, respectively. Players are able to use a combination of both melee and ranged attacks, similar to its predecessor.
Unlike previous games in the Heretic/Hexen series, which were first-person shooters, players control Corvus from a camera fixed behind him in the third-person perspective. During a battle between Corvus and Morcalavin, Corvus switches the false tome for his real one, curing Morcalavin's insanity and ending the plague. This has caused Morcalavin to go insane and create the plague. Morcalavin is trying to reach immortality using the seven Tomes of Power, but he uses a false tome, as Corvus has one of them. His quest leads him through the city and swamps to a jungle palace, then through a desert canyon and insect hive, followed by a dark network of mines and finally to a castle on a high mountain where he finds an ancient Seraph named Morcalavin. The effects of the disease are held at bay in Corvus’ case because he holds one of the Tomes of Power, but he still must find a cure before he succumbs. Corvus, the protagonist of the first game, is forced to flee his hometown of Silverspring after the infected attack him, but not before he is infected himself. Heretic II was later ported to Linux by Loki Software, to the Amiga by Hyperion Entertainment, and Macintosh by MacPlay.Īfter Corvus returns from his banishment, he finds that a mysterious plague has swept the land of Parthoris, taking the sanity of those it does not kill. This is the only Heretic/Hexen video game that is unrelated to id Software, apart from its role as engine licenser. Gerald Brom contributed conceptual work to characters and creatures for the game. The music was composed by Kevin Schilder. While progressive, this was a controversial design decision among fans of the original game, a well-known first-person shooter built on the Doom engine. Using a modified Quake II engine, the game features a mix of a third-person camera with a first-person shooter's action, making for a new gaming experience at the time. It is the fourth game in the Hexen/Heretic series and comes after the "Serpent Rider" trilogy.
Most players will need to play this game on its highest difficulty to truly earn the satisfaction of its completion.Heretic II is a dark fantasy action-adventure game developed by Raven Software and published by Activision in 1998 continuing the story of Corvus, the main character from its predecessor, Heretic. Heretic, by contrast, uses very few keyboard buttons, so player options are far more limited. Players are used to manning controllers with a plethora of different buttons to control actions. It really dulls down the excitement of gameplay! Go Hard or Go Homeīy today’s standards, easier difficulties of this game are trivial. The musical composition of Heretic is far less intense and does not compliment the gameplay like DOOM. The two go together like peanut butter and jelly it adds to the satisfaction of each and every kill. DOOM has been (and always will be) loved for its combination of demonic gore saturated gameplay and intense satanic music. The one major disappointment of Heretic is its musical score. There is a constant ‘dance’ going on in Heretic, balancing movement to avoid incoming damage while shooting your own weapons. The weapons react and function as you would expect, exceptionally responsive and make for fun gameplay. Because both DOOM and Heretic use the same engine, the visual style is nearly identical.
The graphics are a nice time-capsule from the 90’s and hold up well it’s more of an art style at this point.
The story is well created and builds a strong foundation of lore for the various settings, weapons and enemies fought along the way. Heretic follows the story of an elf names Corvus on the adventure to defeat the Serpent Riders. At first glance, the game looks remarkably similar to Doom, but looking closer you will see key differences that play into why this game is such a cult-classic (no pun intended).