Hexen/Gameplay

Differences between Heretic and Hexen

This game is originally called Hexen: Beyond Heretic not for nothing, so if you’ve played Heretic you might find it having something in common with Hexen (at least, plot similarities). So here are a few differences between Hexen and Heretic you will encounter:

• The first thing you’ll notice is three different characters to choose between. Each of them has unique stats, weapons and even the way of using some artifacts.
• None of original weapons from Heretic can be found in Hexen. All arms but starting ones consume universal mana instead of specific orbs/bolts/runes etc. Also no weapons except for melee have hitscans now.
• All enemies in Hexen are either new ones, or differ from the ones in Heretic really much. Chaos Serpents may remind of D’Sparil’s mount, but they are much weaker. Arfits look like they have a lot in common with Gargoyles, and Acolytes with Dark Bishops, but they have more differences than commons.
• There are many smashable decorations in Hexen: windows often contain something valuable behind them, and you can find goodies in pots or skeletons (still not all skeletons are smashable).
• Some artifacts were removed from the game (like Tomes of Power), some were changed (like Wings of Wrath), some were added. See complete list of artifacts.
• You will have to return to previous maps through portals to complete the episode. Very often you will encounter levers and buttons, using which will affect something on other maps. After completing the episode (and the first map of the very first episode as well) you won’t be able to return to previous maps.
• You can jump now. And you will have to jump to beat the game.
• You can receive damage by falling down. Careful when jumping from high ledges!
• There are a lot of ways to die instantly: you can fall down from the high ledge, be smashed between two walls or between the ceiling and the floor, you can be pierced through with a huge spike from the ground. There were no ways to die instantly in Heretic; you could be smashed with lowering ceiling, receiving constant damage, but in the end the ceiling would raise, giving you chance to get out of the harm’s way. Hexen doesn’t forgive these mistakes and kills you instantly no matter what amount of health and armor you have. You can even die being invulnerable!
• The doors you were opening were moving only up or sideways in Heretic, now some of them are opened by rotating on their door butts. This change is not only cosmetic, because an opening door can sometimes deal damage (if it’s pulled) to you and even kill you if you’re very low on health. This is a very rare case, though.
• In Heretic there were physical and magical damages, some monsters having immunity to physical one. In Hexen there are 5 types of damage: physical, poison, fire, ice and electrical. Monsters don’t have ethereal forms now, so if at some point the enemy is invulnerable, it’s invulnerable to all kinds of damage. Even burning Afrits and frost Wendigos receive the same amound of damage from fire and ice.
• Armor works this way now: each AC point decreases the incoming damage to you by 5% (so having AC 20 will decrease all damage to you by 100%). Each character has different starting AC value, and picking up any armor item affects each character in a different way (like, Mesh Armor is best to be used by Fighter but nearly useless to Mage). Different AC items stack, so the more different armor items you collect, the better.

Differences between characters

Here are three classes to play for: Fighter, Cleric and Mage. Each of them gives unique gaming experience, so choose wisely. You cannot switch class once you’ve started the game (if you’re not cheating, of course).

Differences between characters: What you see

On the character selection screen you will see the portrait of a selected hero and a few stats. Here they are:

• Speed is speed. Higher the value, faster the character is.
• Armor represents starting AC (armor class) and the maximum AC you can get from the items. Despite each character can obtain the item which increases AC by 1 and the one which increases AC by 5, Fighter can benefit from all armor item in total more than Mage, and thus can receive more hits before dying, despite they both have a maximum HP of 100.
• Magic doesn’t affect anything because it’s not represented in the game anyhow. Each class has three weapons which need mana and one weapon which doesn’t, so there’s no way to measure magic in this game.
• Strength has no sense just like magic. Fighter is the strongest one, he can deal more damage with his bare fist than Cleric with his mace, and his powerful punch is about 3 times stronger than the mace, but there’s no way to compare one strength to another like Fighter’s damage cannot be compared to Mage’s wand since Mage uses his weapon to shoot magic sparkles, not to strike.

Differences between characters: What you don't

Of course, not all changes are listed on the character selection screen. You can find specific description of each class in corresponding section. Here is the brief list of what you can expect from different classes:

• Ability to use different armor with different efficiency.
• Effects from using such artifacts as Mystic Ambit Incant, Flechette, and additional effect from Icon of the Defender.
• All weapons.
• Minor changes in the level design. For example, different characters can find parts of their most powerful weapons in different places; also some artifact for one class in a specific spot can be replaced with another artifact for another class.

Difficulty settings

• Squire/Altar boy/Apprentice: Damage to the player is halved; there are less monsters (depending on the map).
• Knight/Acolyte/Enchanter: Less monsters (depending on the map).
• Warrior/Priest/Sorceror: Medium difficulty setting.
• Berserker/Cardinal/Warlock: More monsters (depending on the map).
• Titan/Pope/Archmage: More monsters (depending on the map); enemies move and shoot 4 times faster; no cheat-codes allowed.