by sinisterseed » Thu Nov 26, 2020 10:29 am
Eh, I myself think the expansion was alright, all things considered.
Quite a bit more crowded than the base game, but more straightforward than the base game if memory serves. What I wasn't too fond about it was the excessive Slaughtar use in places, making it even worse for some classes, notably the Cleric, but otherwise okay.
The Portal of Praevus expansion for Hexen II had a similar fate. In some ways it was better than the base game, such as being A LOT less obtuse and full of sadistic puzzles - seriously, the castle maps were a confusing mess, and full of backtracking, one of my most unenjoyable recent experiences -, but considerably shorter and much smaller in scale and scope. It brought a new enemy, and that's all. That is, if you can call it "new", what a surprise, after the archer spam in the base game... we get another archer, of all things, wow. Seems Raven was in bed with those enemies.
I'm one of the few folks who prefer Hexen over Heretic though, in spite of all its flaws and shortcomings, the first game is one of the most boring titles I've ever played - I sincerely do not understand how so many people prefer it over Hexen, sorry. And regarding the recent retro shooter revival, Amid Evil is my favorite by far, especially in terms of atmosphere and aesthetics, this game is just beautiful. And it's probably the closest we're ever getting to a spiritual successor to Hexetic anyway.