Hands of Necromancy

Hands of Necromancy is a loveletter to Hexen and Heretic in specific, and to games of that era in general. It quotes much of design, gameplay, combat, weapons, enemies, but still manages to obtain a style on its own. Combat feels good and the transformation spells ad some variety. Only some later weapons I thought felt a little too weak against hordes. Leveldesign is challenging and good. You will have to use the map a lot and backtrack your way through hubs and big levels for all the keys and spells you need. Just like back in the day. This might be annoying for newcomers, so be aware you need a little patience for those kind of games. But that’s what I like about it. There is a locked door? Find the key. Got stuck? Well look again – its part of the journey. There is an option called “Easy hubs”. I think it´s supposed to play more straight forward, but I didn´t try it. For Difficulty I took the easy skill (maybe I am a wimp). The fourth episode is already included and altogether there are about 30 levels. Much content at a totally fair price. The Necromancer himself is quite a character btw. When he breaks out in hilarious laughter, finding a weapon or stuff (even cooler underwater) - reminds me of Caleb. To the Devs: I would have loved to see this game in the Unreal 1 Engine (from 1998, not the new crap), thinking of Levels like “Nali Catle” or “Bluff eversmoking” where you could explore both interior and exterior of structures and not only the expression or stage (of a castle or village for example). Don’t get me wrong – what they have accomplished with the GZDoom Engine is great and part of the charm – but also has its limits at a certain point. Some of that material, I think, would have been even greater in a next step of virtual environment. But still Retro - I am thinking of Wheel of time, Arx Fatalis, Dark Messiah, Thief or Unreal 1. Maybe for a sequel? Anyways, I hope this game gets a little more attention – it certainly deserves it.

It's Hexen, but not so annoying. You still get lost a bit but it's fun finding your way. There's a simplified exploration mode if you want something less like Hexen, and it also has an expansion which ditches the hub world backing tracking style of Hexen and gives you a Heretic experience. It's made for one kind of person and lucky for me, I am exactly that kind of person. If you don't know what Hexen and Heretic are then too bad, I'm not explaining anymore.

I'm glad I gave into my impulse to buy Hands of Necromancy. As an enthusiast of all things IDTech1, I am always happy to see games like this. I'm only an hour into it, and so far it is a Metroidvania FPS in a fantasy setting. Nothing surprising yet, but it has many of the essentials down competely. This bodes well and I am looking forward to exploring this world. My one complaint is that the player character is in desperate need of a torch or lantern. This might be a pickup later on I haven't encountered yet. So far so good, I recommend picking it up.

This is a basic boomer shooter that could easily be the cousin to Heretic or Hexen. If you liked those games, but this. There's nothing really innovative here, but there doesn't need to be. It's solid and fun. The nice thing is also that it's straight zDoom engine stuff. Actually, I was able to use it with the -iwad parameter pointing to it's main iwad and play it just fine on the Linux version of gzDoom. I could then run other add ons with it. It's been a great time, well worth the price.