Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders is a fantasy First Person Shooter by Raven Software that came out in 1994 and uses Doom engine. Yes, it's Doom-like shooter set in fantasy. Awesome mix. Plus inventory.
Shadow of the Serpent Riders is a special patched release of a game that brings it to 1.3 version, thus adding two more additional episodes. No new game content like weapon or monsters or textures, just new levels. Think of Ultimate Doom.

Now, let's tip apart the way that game was handled on Steam. Well. At least they brought the most full version of the game here. And it uses DosBox, which is usually a good thing until you find out how badly id Software configures them for Steam.
The game will lag at full screen, so you want to go to game directory and edit heretic's conf file to make it use "opengl" for "output" setting.
Game's option like music device and controls is once again isn't easily accessed. On good side, they didn't remove Setup.exe this time around, unlike Doom games on Steam. So you have to open game directory, drag setup.exe onto dosbox.exe and then configure it as you want.

Storyline of a game is quite simple. Well, it has a lot of written in manual, but main idea and amount of plot in game is minimal.
Your hero is elven hero, who's name is Corvus. Elven race, guardians of the Pathoris world and keepers of Tome of Powers, were proclaimed as heretics, when Dragon Riders came to conquer this world. With two Dragon Riders leaving for the other worlds, the remaining Dragon Rider, D'Sparil, unleashes horde of monsters through portal after Elves manage to wipe out all of the human armies of the world. Most of the elves were killed, monsters took Tome of Powers for themselves and you are one of the lone survivors. Your journey will begin at the City of the Damned.
Somebody will get murdered in the end.
The additional episodes 4 and 5 have excuse plot of "portal didn't lead you to home, so enjoy the world destroyed by Dragon Riders and the home of D'Sparil".

Presentation-wise the game is quite awesome looking and sounding for it's time. Yes, Doom engine. But art-style-wise, Heretic presents the world that is dark fantasy yet very colorful, with great contrast. Setting is awesome, you get to wield a magical crossbow that is equalient to shotgun. While Episode 2 is a least interesting looking one, taking place in brown caves with lava, until it gets less dull with inclusion of ice in later level, Episode 3 brings an original setting of a underwater shrine and buildings. Even water in this game has that artsy look to it.
Music is great too. With medivel feel, it's not afraid to use modern instruments. Well, instruments of MIDI and Soundblaster. Most of them are melodic and catchy. Cathedral track will send chill down your spine for sure.

Gameplay itself is, surprise, Doom-like. You search and explore mazes at the running speed, finding keys and opening lcoked doors, pressing switches and discovering secret areas, shooting down monsters or rather rushing past them.
You will shoot down red flying gargolues, mummies, armor knights that throw axes at you, and dark wizards of D'Sparil, who will turn your blood cold with their backward speach that sounds like silly phrases. You will also deal with respawning "explosive barrel"-like things, will push yourself against streams of water and wind and will encounter bosses. Which are your standard FPS bosses. Being tough enemies that you will start encountering more often in later episodes. So not too amazing.

Though, unlike most FPS, it does do something good: There are no enemies who use hitscan against you. What it means is that any damage in the game can be avoided, giving it more arcade-like quality. If forget that it still makes you run over damaging acid like Doom does.

There are seven weapons of magical nature. Shotgun-like crossbow, Rocket Launcher-like Pheonix Rod, Plasma-gun-like Hellstaff. With most of them shooting projectiles, they feel slightly too similiar to each other in use. But thankfully, game introduces Tome of Power.
Tome of Power is a item power-up that you will find through levels. By using it through inventory you will power-up your weapons for a limited time. It doesn't just make them stronger, it also gives additional properity for them, making them even more amazing. For example, mace, the final weapon, stops sucking hard. Hellstaff will make a hot magic rain appear over where the projectile collided. Gaunlets, the game's chainsaw, will start to heal you as well.

Inventory is another addition to gameplay. You will get to collect various helpful items that you can use it anytime. It could be Hourglass who work as timed bomb and aren't much of use, or healing potion, or invincibility ring, or, as said, Tome of Power. Not related to inventory, you also will sometime find armor, but it's quite a rare thing.
There is one important thing to be said about inventory: When you move to the next level, you will retain only one quanity of each item. You will also lose item that allows you to fly around. I am pretty sure that it may sound like a bad thing for some players. But I think it was a good idea. Most of us are used to stockpile tons of items so we could rush bosses down. With system like that, you should feel free to actually have fun using additional items during normal gameplay, you will lose them for no good otherwise.

Last thing I should note is difficulty of additional episodes. Yes, episode 4 and 5 are harder. They are also more of same. And yes, the final level has eight Maloutaurs. But first levels of each of those two episodes deserve a special mention, as they will require you to think fast, use items effectively, avoid enemies you don't want to fight with in order to survive. It was really fresh challenge, at least on Normal difficulty. Got simpler after that though, as you gain more items in process.

But with all the positive things I said, I have to be honest, it didn't become favourite FPS. It's hard to explain why. But you see, the game just doesn't "click" like Doom does. It just doesn't. I am not sure what it lacks. There is something in game feel that it doesn't have. Perhaps there should have been more common enemies that die bloodily. Or maybe it's the projectiles nature of weapons not being comparable to shotgun and rocket launcher. But yes, it lacks something, hard to say.

Heretic is an awesome FPS and yes, it's a Doom clone. But it's an awesome Doom-clone, perhaps bettering Doom itself for some people.

Pretty unfair that doom get's a remake,but not this gem...

Still the original FPS formula is better than any orher later game
Have fun with this ,as you will have
Excellent classic

This game is not for people who have only played DOOM-cubed. This game is for people who played ClassicDOOM on DOS. Released during the same era of gaming, rather than being stranded on Mars with only a space-pistol, you're a Heretic, cast out by your fellow man for daring to see the enemy for what they truly are. After D'Sparil's armies wipe out your town, you creep back in with only a Wand, helltbent on revenge. Like ClassicDOOM, this game originally came packed with three episodes, complete with frightening enemies, awesome weaponry, and amazing powerups. Unlike ClassicDOOM, you also had the ability to look up and down and even fly. Shadow of the Serpent Riders added two additional episodes, but as far as I can recall, no new enemies, weapons, or powerups; just new levels.

The game itself is froxen in time; the graphics have not been updated and I doubt anyone will attempt to do so. As such, it is somewhat difficult to see in the distance on the better-developed machines of today. However, this is my only gripe, and there's nothing that can really be done about it. I bought this pack for one reason and one reason only: to return to my childhood. Nostalgia. To remind myself why I got into gaming in the first place. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

People looking for "new and exiciting machanics" will be sorely disappointed. But if you remember the 90s, and ClassicDOOM, and Wolfenstein 3D, you need this in your collection.

Heretic is like Doom but with magic.

Best classic game

I first encountered Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders as a shareware game, when we bought a new computer featuring Windows 3.11. Although Shareware (the first level, The Docks, was all that you could play) it was one of the games I enjoyed playing, although it regularly gave me frights, with monsters popping out from behind pillars, and only the unidirectional roars to tell me that they "might" be lurking around a corner.

I played it enough to warrant a full purchase via an unlock code, and the game proved to have a great deal of longevity. The stats at the end of each level, gave you feedback on no. of monsters killed, secrets discovered and items found. This lead to a great deal of replaying and backtracking to try and find each little hiding place.

I never really read the manual, and the plot is really inconsequential anyway, this is by no means a narrative driven game, suffice to say your elven race was slaughtered as they refused to believe in the deity of the "Serpent Riders" and were slaughtered as Heretics. You, the sole elven survivor are out to seek revenge.

Today it's legacy is questionable. The genre of Fantasy FPS, is non-existent, instead we have a modern warfare or sci-fi bias that the greater legacy games, Doom, and Quake popularized. Heretic is of course from the same period. (It uses the Doom Engine). Yet has had far less overall impact on the trend of FPS fantasy, which is rather something of a pity, as in an oversaturated market, this genre has potential. The only games that might have built from this core concept is of course Dark Messiah of Might and Magic (includes more brawling combat) and the recent Lichdom.

It has not aged well, the lack of resolution (it runs out of DosBox), poor textures and flickering lights may lead to eye strain, but the overall feel of the game is still enjoyable. It has none of the complexity and strategic gaming that later titles show, but it does sport excellent level design and exploration/puzzle mechanics, that aren't so common in modern FPS, as well as gothic interiors, and smooth gameplay.
(Definitely a game to settle down to with some Death Metal on the side!)

I like old shooters a lot. Enjoyed hours of Doom and Shadow Warrior, and found this game some days ago.
Well, needless to say, I bought the whole collection haha

So, at first, I thought I made a mistake, Heretic seemed to have only 5 stages. No no, those were 5 chapters, each of them with lots of stages. The game is indeed good, lots of secrets and has this dark ambient, creepy monsters, and awesome weapons.

My only complaint is that it wasn't configured to run on newer systems, so you should probably end up downloading ZDOOM to better customize the controls.

Anyways, incredible game, totally worth playing if you enjoy old games

!!Important note!! To have the best experience with heretic, I would highly recommend you download a launcher called zdoom, which is free. By playing the game through gzdoom, you are able to customize the controls. I played this game on a windows 10 laptop and the game worked perfectly fine for me. There is a link below to zdoom.


What I liked about the game
• I thought the monsters in the game were pretty cool, especially the Golem.
• Throughout the game there are many secrets to be found.
• There were some very good levels, especially in the first chapter.
• Some cool weapons.
• I like the idea of having an inventory, so you can use stuff that you collect later on
• In the first three chapters, at the end of each level, I like how it showed you a map telling you where you have been and where you are going to next.
• Cool death animations.
What I disliked or was disappointed with
• I thought the music was quite repetitive, I know they reused some of the songs in doom, but they got reused a lot more in Heretic.
• Killing enemies in heretic wasn’t very satisfying. I didn’t feel like a badass like I did in Doom.
• The last two chapters aren’t really anything special, I like to think the story ended on the third chapter. The final bosses in chapter 4 and 5 aren’t very interesting.
• Chapters 4 and 5 were quite hard, it was a shock because the first three chapters were very easy.
• Secrets were too easy to find.

My conclusion

If you liked Doom, Quake or Hexen. I would recommend this game to you. It is a good game with some good levels and weapons. Plenty of secrets to be found as well. You get a lot for £2.99, well worth the money.

70/100

Zdoom
http://zdoom.org/Download

While at first you might write it off as another crappy Doom-clone, it takes the initial formula for Doom, and then expands on it.
The chainsaw might be replaced by a pair of lightning gauntlets, but those gauntlets can be augmented by an item for a short bit to sap health from enemies.
Although not appealing to casual audiences in the slightest, fans of old school shoot em ups can get past the "press a button, something happens somewhere" flawed level design and enjoy the high-challenge arenas and the subtle nuances of this fantasy-themed Doom-engine fps.

One of the finer “Doom Clones”. A medieval-fantasy based FPS from the early 90’s, consisting of 5 episodes with 8 levels each so you are looking at a 15 hour + gameplay value. It has a great atmosphere with almost non stop action all the way until the end. The levels can be maze like at times but this was purely due to technological limitations of the time. I recommend running this game with a source port (GZDOOM/Zandronum) through steam. There are several steam guides which explain how to do this. In addition I recommend using the Ketchup mod to add more more blood and gore. Heretic holds its place in time as one of the great FPS’s from the late 90s.

Final Score 85/100