Line #11 YMMV/Hexen


1	* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: What dealings has the Cleric had with the Serpent Riders to end up with one of their staffs as their second weapon (the Serpent Staff). Did he turn against them at some point, or was the weapon acquired and turned against the Serpent Riders and he never had any allegiance to them?
2	* AntiClimaxBoss:
3	** [[BigBad Korax]]; compared with the [[GodDamnedBoss Heresiarch]] (who has an annoying invulnerability spell), he is not that intimidating of a fight having a loud bark, but not much bite to back it up. [[DamageSpongeBoss Just shoot him until he dies]] after fighting a bunch of easy {{Mooks}} at the end of [[SequentialBoss phase one]]. The only catch is that he likes TeleportSpam, but this just drags out the fight slightly. If you've hoarded at least two [[GameBreaker Icons of the Defender]], then the fight absolutely takes little to no effort as Korax can't kill you, and when you finally catch up to him, you can spam your {{BFG}} on him. He will die in seconds on the second phase if you get lucky.
4	** Menelkir, Traductus and Zedek: You'd expect the leaders of the player characters' classes to be tough, but they basically go down in a few hits. Sure they get their classes' ultimate weapons, but that just means you have to dodge a couple of times, and that you can kill Traductus easily by using Discs of Repulsion to send his own ghosts to eat him. Menelkir doesn't even always get the ultimate weapon every time, leaving him to shoot lightning pillars with the Arc of Death as if that's a threat to you. You can also get a cheap shot on Zedek before he can even attack as he's always facing the same way when his chamber opens, meaning once you know it you can just stand behind him and get at least one or two free hits in. (And yes, they're also listed under ThatOneBoss. That's YMMV for you.)
5	* ContestedSequel: ''Hexen II'' is this to ''Hexen''. On the one hand, many fans feel it is an underwhelming follow up with badly aged graphics, and some even consider it a ReplacementScrappy due to being released instead of the originally scheduled ''Hecatomb'' (which got cancelled after John Romero left id Software). On the other hand, several other fans prefer it for its less confusing map design and more climactic bosses. Its online multiplayer is also a lot easier to perform than ''Hexen's'', which requires quite a bit of fiddling around with to get working.
6	* DemonicSpiders:
7	** For ''Hexen'':
8	*** The Wendigos are broken. They may die easily, but they shoot tons of ice balls that take out half your life if they hit you. And god forbid you play the highest difficulty (they shoot twice as fast). The Fighter likely has the biggest problem handling them, due to lacking any good ranged weapons on the first hub (which is where you encounter 90% of them). While you'd expect the Mage's [[KillItWithIce second weapon]] to be ineffective against them, luckily it still harms them just fine. At least they only appear in a few levels... and then cue the Ice Hold in ''Deathkings of the Dark Citadel'', a stage populated by ''nothing but Wendigos''.
9	*** Slaughtaurs come dangerously close. They look exactly like Centaurs, except they can fire projectiles from their shields. Which means the first frame of their firing animation looks just like their blocking pose. And combined with the fact that they fire almost instantly after assuming the position, this means that it's very difficult to beat even a single slaughtaur - let alone a horde of them - without taking at least one cheap shot.
10	*** Reivers don't appear in very many levels, residing only in the Necropolis and a handful of levels in ''Deathkings'', but they're easily one of the most dangerous non-boss enemies in the game. These floating undead monsters tend to show up in groups, are moderately tough, and their fireballs pack a mighty wallop. To top it off, they also have a melee attack that [[LifeDrain sucks the life out of victims to heal the Reiver]], which can put their health above its initial maximum. As such, those few places populated by Reivers can easily end up being a struggle for survival from start to finish.
11	** ''Hexen II'' gives you:
12	*** Skull wizards and shadow wizards who like to teleport behind your back, blast you and then teleport away when you return fire, only to repeat the whole thing again. Further, while the skull wizards only have 150 hp, the shadow wizards have 650, more than almost any other {{Mook}} in the game. Also, they like to stay "phased out" when teleporting for extended periods of time, and annoyingly they seem to wait till you've given up waiting for them to re-appear and started doing something else before teleporting back in and shooting you in the back.
13	*** The werejaguars and werepanthers from Mazaera, who can close the distance between you and them really quickly by leaping forward, and attack fast enough when within range that they'll shred your HP to ribbons if you're of a squishier class. The Paladin is the only class not to have trouble with them, fitting for a melee specialist: werejaguars will run straight into the range of the sword, which knocks them straight back and doesn't take many hits to kill them. Werepanthers are just as much of a joke, being werejaguars with more health that only take a bit longer to die. Though if you end up fighting three or more at once, they're definitely trouble no matter what class you're playing as.
14	*** On the other hand, the Paladin has a specific one just for him: Stone Golems in Blackmarsh. Since he doesn't have a reliable ranged attack until the following hub, he has to go toe-to-toe with this MightyGlacier, who's a nastier close-range tank than him, and it's too fast for melee HitAndRunTactics. Health is at a premium, as you'll already be suffering because you are gonna take several hits to get in close with ranged mooks, and what little you have the Golem can punch out like it's nothing. And there are MANY of them. A competent player will save their Tomes of Power and Glyphs of the Ancients, as the powered sword and the glyphs are the only ways for the Paladin to deal damage at range until he gets the axe.
15	*** Fallen angels, which only appear in the final hub (and first hub of the expansion), mainly because they can fold their wings to shield themselves and not only become invulnerable, but reflect all of the player's ranged attacks back at them. Fortunately, they can't attack while in this pose, but they tend to do it at random, even when they're not being attacked, meaning it's easy to accidentally damage yourself this way. Using rapid fire weapons on them is a bad idea for just this reason. They're a good target for the [[ForcedTransformation Seal of the Ovinomancer]], especially if fought alongside other dangerous enemies like Archer Lords and Bronze Golems.
16	* EvenBetterSequel: While ''Heretic'' was an great game with a memorable batch of weapons that were decidedly different from other FPS games, in the end it still just felt like ''Doom'' with a dark fantasy skin. ''Hexen'' on the other hand found its own identity with choosable classes that each played differently, larger worlds that you could go in-between, and an even more unique and creative arsenal of weapons.
17	* FanficFuel: There's potential for it; Two of the Cleric's weapon set appears to have a backstory. The Serpent [Rider's] Staff they use as their second weapon isn't explained, leaving one wondering how they came to acquire it. The Wraithverge also summons shrieking wraiths to attack the enemies of the Cleric, which can leave one wondering who those angry spirits are that desire to attack your targets.
18	* SugarWiki/FunnyMoments:
19	** In ''Heretic'' there was a rare item known as the Morph Ovum, a cursed egg which you could use to turn your enemies into harmless chickens. Both of the Hexen games continue the proud tradition of having artifacts you can use to turn ferocious monsters into goofy farm animals with the Porkalator that turns enemies into pigs in ''Hexen'' and the Seal of the Ovinomancer in that turns enemies into sheep in ''Hexen II''.
20	** After the deadly serious messages you get upon completing the first three hubs, the last one is pretty funny:
21	--->"...And he shall journey into the realms of the dead, and contest with the forces therein, unto the very gates of despair. But whether he shall return again to the world of light, no man knows."\
22	[[ThisIsGonnaSuck Damn.]]
23	** As noted on the main page, at several points in ''Hexen II'' you encounter messages from a previous adventurer named Tyranith. Early in ''[[ExpansionPack Portal of Praevus]]'', hanging on a wall behind a cauldron boiling over an open fire, you encounter what appears to be another one -- but when you jump up to read it, it turns out to say [[spoiler:"Why are you [[ViolationOfCommonSense standing in the fire]]?"]].[[note]]Oddly enough, the fire itself doesn't actually harm you.[[/note]]
24	* GameBreaker:
25	** The inventory system itself is one. Unlike in ''Heretic'', you can hoard all items throughout the hubs, with a maximum of 25 items; the sole exception is the Wings of Wrath, which is lost when moving to the next hub. If you're stingy about using your "Icons of the Defender", then you'll find them game-breaking against the player-class bosses of the final hub as well as Korax himself. Hoarding "Kraters of Might" will provide a long stretch of constant fire with your {{BFG}} to go with your invulnerability too.
26	** The Cleric's [[{{BFG}} Wraith Verge]] is very easy to use and ammo tends to be plentiful enough to use it quite often, moreso in HarderThanHard where ammo pickups are increased by 50%. It's not hyperbole that all you need to do is aim it in the general direction a horde of foes, pull the trigger 1-2 times, and watch them all melt into LudicrousGibs. The three PlayerCharacter bosses in the Necropolis die like chumps to the angry ghosts. Spamming it on the [[DamageSpongeBoss final boss]] isn't as effective as usual, but still makes Korax a joke, even more so if you've saved an [[TooAwesomeToUse Icon of the Defender or two]] for invulnerability. In multiplayer deathmatch, firing it upon another player forces them to either attempt to reflect the ghosts back with a "Disc of Repulsion" or retreat to avoid fatal damage. The strategy guide even says it is so powerful it is sometimes soft banned (i.e everyone agrees not to use it) in pvp
27	** The Flechettes in the hands of the Cleric create a cloud of DeadlyGas that does decent damage and lasts a long time (about 30 seconds or so). Monsters are [[ArtificialStupidity too stupid to avoid walking right into the cloud]] and end up stunlocked and unable to move until the gas disperses or they die. Using this is an especially good way to kill centaurs/slaughtaurs, as their shields are useless against it. It also provides the only (relatively) easy way to kill a Heresiarch – his damage-proof spell doesn't block the poison.
28	** In ''Hexen II'', the Raven Staff (the Necromancer's superweapon) functions just like the Wraithverge when powered up, only with killer ravens instead of ghosts. Though this may be to make up for its normal fire mode being rather lackluster – it shoots three dumb-fired projectiles, which might kill an imp or knight archer if you're lucky and they all hit.
29	* GoddamnedBats:
30	** Centaurs/Slaughtaurs. They're everywhere and they have shields which make them invincible for a short time after ''every hit that makes them flinch''. They really aren't that dangerous, but certain classes' weapons (read: the Cleric's) make them take forever to kill (though he has other unblockable methods, like the poison of his Flechettes and the Wraithverge later on); the Mage has the same problem, but fortunately his green mana weapon, Arc of Death, also bypasses their shields. They also reflect non-{{hitscan}} projectiles when they block, so when you're fighting a horde of them, be careful with your [[InfinityPlusOneSword Infinity Plus One Weapon]] that you don't accidentally take the projectile back in the face afterwards. Slaughtaurs are also indistinguishable from Centaurs until they start shooting projectiles out of their shields at you.
31	** Remember those annoying gargoyles from ''VideoGame/{{Heretic}}''? Well now they're called Afrits, their fireballs do more damage, they shoot rapid-fire bursts of them, and they can dodge. Fortunately they don't show up in large flocks too often.
32	** Now take those Afrits, give them one explosive fireball that does even ''more'' damage instead of a series of them, exchange the dodging ability with added toughness ''and'' a [[LifeDrain health-draining melee attack]] that can put them above their maximum of 150 hp, and have them intermittently respawn wherever they appear. Now you have Reivers. They only show up in Necropolis, at least, but in that hub they spawn constantly.
33	** ''Hexen II'' has the flying imps. They're frail, but nearly impossible to hit from afar.
34	** Also in ''Hexen II'' are the Medusa enemies in [[AncientGrome Septimus]], who can freeze you in place with their gaze, get close and [[LiterallyShatteredLives shatter your form]] for an instant death.
35	* GoddamnedBoss: Famine in ''Hexen II''. While [[EarlyBirdBoss you only have your first 2 weapons when fighting him]], he is still by far the easiest boss in the game, and his main attack (a lock-on tractor beam which damages you and pulls you towards him) is more annoying than dangerous. He also uses a lot of TeleportSpam when low on HP, which just makes him more annoying.
36	* GoodBadBugs:
37	** Constantly strafing left and right in tiny increments while running lets you move a lot faster in ''Hexen II''. That's right, ''Hexen'' managed to unintentionally incorporate snaking into an FPS.
38	** For some reason the chaos device and the disc of repulsion items originally had their names switched by mistake. While this didn't really change anything, it was still kinda funny.
39	* LowTierLetdown: Outside of the Wraithverge and the Firestorm, the Cleric's weapon set is considered to be lackluster compared to those of the other characters. The Mace of Contrition is a stand-out ScrappyWeapon, taking several seconds just to kill a basic Ettin. You'd expect a [[SlapOnTheWristNuke bludgeon-mace]] to be much more efficient than that, yet it's worse than the Fighter's Gauntlets, and only slightly longer in range.
40	%%(ZCE)* NightmareFuel: The mutilated, hanging corpses in the Griffin Chapel.
41	* OlderThanTheyThink: ''Hexen II'' wasn't the first time varying FantasyCounterpartCulture levels are used in a first person shooter. ''Dissolution of Eternity'', the second expansion to ''VideoGame/QuakeI'' which runs on the same game engine, also has AncientEgypt, AncientGrome, and {{Mayincatec}} levels, while the base game already includes generic Medieval castle levels.
42	* PortingDisaster: The Platform/PlayStation version. Naturally, you get the port of the same quality as ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' for the Platform/SuperNintendo, but with floor/ceiling textures present and made for a console where such quality won't work anymore. Obvious screws include: one-sided enemy/character sprites, choppy framerate along with low resolution, several interior replacements and programming oversights, and, for a dessert, the soundtrack has been butchered in order to fit all those CD-DA tracks into the remaining part of the disc when they could've easily used XA tracks. To make the port even more frustrating, one save eats the ''entire'' memory card, compared to ''[[VideoGame/DukeNukem Total Meltdown]]'' which used, in the worst cases, seven blocks of it! Although, in its defense, it has pretty good [=FMVs=] for a game like this and more comfortable controls than the [[InterfaceScrew N64 version]] did. The loading times (from the CD, that means) are not large either.
43	** Zig-zagged with the [=N64=] port. On one hand the sound is much more muffled, the graphics aren't as good, and the controls are incredibly awkward. On the other hand the games runs surprisingly well, it doesn't take up an entire memory card like the [=PS1=] version, and this is arguably the easiest way to play the game with three players.
44	* ScrappyMechanic: [[RespawningEnemies Monsters respawn]] in ''Hexen'' every four minutes regardless of difficulty, and it's usually an ettin, making backtracking a chore.
45	* ThatOneAttack: The Heresiarch's invulnerability spell is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin and reflects ALL attacks. You better hope you weren't spamming your ultimate weapon after he casts it! Made even worse is the fact that he can spam it, grinding the fight to a halt until he decides to use a different spell.
46	* ThatOneBoss:
47	** None of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in ''Hexen II'' are pushovers, but the last one (War) is downright broken. The only thing he does is ride around spamming homing axes. The level you fight him in doesn't really have any places to take shelter and the axes (which do a crapload of damage) seem smart enough to fly around the few corners you can hide behind. Best thing to do is swallow your pride, use an invincibility item and unload all your firepower into the guy at point blank range.
48	** Eidolon is a mostly solid final boss to ''Hexen II'', However: the random lightning bolts during the final battle are not just to set the mood, if you get hit by one it is almost guaranteed death! Thankfully they are random and infrequent enough to a point where you may not even get hit once, but it would be wise to save every once in a while during the fight in case of a cheap death.
49	** In the first game, [[MirrorMatch Zedek, Traductus, and Menelkir]]. While the three may not have as much health as the Heresiarch, they are much more dangerous. They possess the 4th weapon of their respective classes, and will spam it without mercy, killing you very quickly if you're too close. Zedek is difficult enough, but Menelkir's Bloodscourge and Traductus' Wraithverge home in on you. (The one time where discs of repulsion are actually useful, however.) On top of all that, fitting their AI as multiplayer bots, they have erratic strafe-like patterns, making them a right pain in the ass to hit.
50	** The Heresiarch from ''Hexen'' is quite a step up from the Death Wyvern. He has an invulnerability shield spell that he can cast whenever he feels like it, which he frequently does. (The spell lasts a while, too. God help you if you use homing projectiles (Parias or Daedolon's 4th weapon) when he sneaks in the shield.) He has 5000 hitpoints (a thousand more than [[VideoGame/{{Doom}} the Cyberdemon]].), and two other attacks. One of which is a stream of explosive bolts that, while not too hard to dodge, can kill you quickly. His other attack consists of two homing, bouncing skulls that also last a while. When he [[TurnsRed gets closer to dying]], he starts summoning dark bishops as well. One saving grace to the fight is that he takes a little while for him to get his spells off, giving you plenty of time to attack him before he retaliates. When you finally defeat him, don't touch his [[MadeOfExplodium orbiting magic cubes]] that fall to the ground.
51	* ThatOneLevel:
52	** One particularly nasty section is a hidden room in the Guardian of Steel level that must be crossed in order to open the way to the secret level. You get teleported into a small room surrounded by several Wendigos (see DemonicSpiders) who must be killed before the walls of the room open to let you out. (or let more Wendigos in) At this point you don't have a great deal of firepower yet, so expect to take a beating.
53	** The Caves Of Circe is probably the most loathed stage in ''Hexen''. It is an utterly labyrinthine series of tunnels and caves that are extremely easy to get lost in and are filled with hidden passages, [[GuideDangit some of which you have to find to complete the stage.]] In particular, there is a room with a key that can only be entered by falling down a tiny hole in the corner of another room which is almost impossible to spot unless you're right next to it, meaning most players will only find it by mistake.
54	* ThatOnePuzzle: The Griffin Chapel has a puzzle switch that you have to go through one hell of a nasty room in order to activate four other switches (if you don't do this first, the [[DescendingCeiling ceiling falls down and kills you)]]. The room has four [[AdvancingWallOfDoom moving walls that deal massive damage if you touch them.]] Even worse, the walls sometimes [[UnintentionallyUnwinnable get stuck, forcing you to use no clip]] or glitch through into the "safe" areas and kill you unless you cheat or use a [[WarpWhistle chaos device]].
55	* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: The first hub of Hexen II (Blackmarsh), has references to a "Brotherhood of Hunger", implied to be some cult that worships Famine. While you need to get an amulet of the Brotherhood at one point to proceed, you ever encounter any members of this cult as enemies (unless you're meant to assume the monsters are all part of the cult).
56	* UnderusedGameMechanic: In the first Hexen, every so often you'll encounter floating platforms, generally represented as glowing sparkle effects and coded as floating "actors" you can stand on. In-game these are used as run-of-the-mill FloatingPlatforms. Modern source ports for the Doom engine have used these to create bridges and ceilings for proper room-over-room effects, the one major limitation of the 2.5D Doom engine.

Context YMMV / Hexen