Review of Heretic and Hexen

Alright, so here’s the thing. Nostalgia’s a weird beast. I mean, who would’ve thought Heretic and Hexen would strut onto consoles again after, what, thirty years? Last time Hexen graced homes was on the PlayStation, Saturn, and N64. Now, Nightdive Studios throws them at the Switch. It’s like a blast from the past, with all the bells and whistles—expansions, bonus content, you name it.

Heretic. Good ol’ Heretic. It’s basically Doom in a cloak and wizard hat. Not a bad thing, mind you. It holds up, even if you can’t help but go, “Hmm, that looks familiar.” But Hexen, wow, that’s a different beast. Choose your class, mess with some spells, and get lost solving puzzles. It’s like Doom met Zelda and had a game baby—a weird but cool game baby.

And expansions! So many expansions. Hexen’s got a couple: Deathkings and some new adventures that stretch the game engine to its limits. Honestly, the newer ones kinda outshine the old Deathkings, even if they don’t quite hit the same vibe as Hexen itself. But hey, they’re fun.

Speaking of fun, or maybe not, let’s talk save systems. Imagine juggling five games and they all insist on sharing one save slot. Yeah, it’s as messy as it sounds. You quicksave in Hexen, then oops—overwrite it in Heretic. Chaos. I wish they’d let us organize saves per game. It’s 2023 for crying out loud.

Visually, Nightdive keeps it simple. It looks decent in HD on the Switch. Some quirks though, like the skybox glitch when you crank up that HUD to the max. It’s like the sky has a mind of its own. I remember this being fine on the N64. Not sure if the original PC release had this weirdness or not.

Now, let’s chinwag about the N64 version a bit. It had no fancy cutscenes but man, it was solid. Playing that before this re-release kinda makes me nostalgic for the filter options. Sometimes you just want to smooth things out—or slap on a CRT filter, right?

So, Heretic + Hexen on Switch. What a ride. One decent game, one absolutely stellar one, packaged with fresh content. Despite the save system drama and visual quirks, it’s definitely a win for retro fans. Hey, digging out an N64 isn’t practical, and compared to PlayStation or Saturn versions, this is sweet nostalgia with a cherry on top. Fingers crossed for more of the series to join the party.