Hexen

"Still fun after all these years"

I picked this game up on Ebay for $2, as I remembered playing it in my younger years and having a blast. Was all of that enjoyment merely the product of a young mind that didn't know any better, or is there some fun to be had with this game?

Gameplay
Hexen is an old-style FPS, except that not all of your weapons shoot ('cept for the mage). You start out with a basic melee weapon (again, 'cept for the mage), depending on which of the 3 playable characters you picked: the fighter has a sword, the cleric has a mace, and the mage has a staff that shoots a very weak blue beam. They have the stereotypical stat differences: the fighter has a lot of strength, high defense, really low magic; the mage has really high magic, but not much strength or defense, and the cleric is in between the two. As you progress, you will find magic weapons that either shoot some kind of magic, be it a fireball or something or have some magic effect; and some have secondary affects, like absorbing enemy health into your own at close range. The magic weapons consume different colors of mana that you find scattered around the levels. So one magic weapon will use blue mana, another will use green, and the final one will use both. The shooting system is pretty basic (no headshots), and sometimes one of your shots will hit the enemy and the next will hit the wall next to him even though neither of you moved at all. Also scattered throughout the levels are various health items and attack items, like green vials, and various magic items and armor. Each character uses the green vials differently. The fighter throws them like a grenade, exploding upon contact with the enemy or after a few seconds, if you miss. The cleric makes a poison gas cloud. The mage makes a bomb-type deal. Your melee weapons can hit enemies who appear to be a good 8-10 feet away, and at that distance many enemies will not be able to hit you back. Whether the designers intended that or it somehow slipped by them, I don't know, but it is quite easy to take advantage of. Also, the game uses an annoying password system, unless you have a RAM cart. Unfortunately, RAM carts are usually hard to come buy (unless you are willing to pay the ridiculous prices on Ebay) so if you don't have one, prepare to write a lot.

Controls
This being an old fps, you have to push a special button to look up or down, pushing just up and down moves you forward or backward. Usually, that setup is a pain, but since a vast majority of the enemies are on your level, you don't have to look up or down in battle often enough for it to be a concern. You hold a button and push left or right on the d-pad to cycle your weapons, something that also usually gets annoying. But since you really don't have many weapons (I think each character has 4, 3 of which you have to find throughout the game) it is actually a quick process. You can set an inventory item to a button for quick use, and this is quite annoying to switch in the middle of a fight. You hold a button, push the L or R buttons, the inventory list pops up, cycle until you find what you need, push a button to select it, then use it. This happens in real time, so if you have your green vial selected and need to use a health vial, good luck going through that and getting it out, and using it before you die. Or try doing all that while running away so you won't die. It can be done, but it will take practice. What I'm saying is this: the controls are a bit tricky to learn, but even once you do they are not as fluid as they could be.

Story
Apparently, Hexen is the sequel to a game that I've never played, but from what I can gather, there are 3 bad guys. In the first game, you killed one of them. This game picks up right after that. During the battle that was waged in the first game, a second bad guy traveled to a twisted, corrupt world called Hexen. Hexen is ruled by 3 factions; the military (fighter) faction, the church (cleric), and the mages. The leaders of the 3 factions are in an uneasy peace, until the bad guy (sorry, don't remember his name!) show up and grants those 3 leaders super god-like power, the gift of Unlife. The leaders were already corrupt, but I guess they get a lot worse after that. But 3 heroes, one from each faction, step forward to challenge those rulers they once followed and restore Hexen (aka: mercilessly kill all the bad guys until the problems go away) So, although nothing really original, it does the job nicely.

Graphics
The levels are big, and load times are very small, but the texture looks terrible. Objects look best at medium distance. Too far away, and they are an indistinct blurb. Too close, and they are a blurry, indistinct blurb. There are details added, and they would be a nice touch maybe, if I could make out what they were supposed to be.. "Is that a broken jar or a severed head? Maybe it's a rock...?" The graphics, while not the Saturn's best, are appropriate for the time the game was released, though. Some of the enemies look really cool, until they get up too close and become a tan and brown blur. When you have to select your character, it shows an image of the character and their stats; the characters look awesome, the fighter and cleric wear horned helmets and the mage has a robe with a hood, that cast a shadow over their faces. Usually only bad guys get that kind of treatment. Too bad you never see the character once the game starts, though.

Sound
I'd say the sounds are on about the same level as the graphics, sometimes better. Most of the enemies make the same grunting noise when you damage them. All the switches sound exactly alike, which sounds like a shortened enemy grunt. Basically, there are a few sounds, and many things that make sound, so those few sounds get recycled over and over. If you're a stickler for things like that, it will get annoying very quickly. The music is a bit better, but not by much. The tracks loop a lot, and it can get annoying, but it didn't bother me as I kind of liked some of the tracks. There are occasional voices, including the opening FMV, which sound quite good, not grainy or distorted.

Replayability
The game is basically the same with the other characters, except for different weapons and the stat changes. However, I found that using codes after I beat this game did vastly increase it's life span. It is just fun to fly around the levels wasting monsters with your super weapon. So to go once through the game took me maybe 6 hours tops, and I did screw around a lot. But I've wasted much more time flying around with the codes. I am a fan of old-style fps, and fantasy, and this is a fantasy themed old-style fps, so I found it to be quite enjoyable.

Buy?
As I said, I found this game for just a few bucks and got lots of enjoyment out of it. If it sounds interesting, you should be able to find this real cheap.

Summary
So, most things about this game are quite average, but somehow adds to a bit more than the sum of it's parts and emerges as a fun Saturn game.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 01/01/08

Game Release: Hexen: Beyond Heretic (US, 04/30/97)