Get the full story of the knight Grondoval and his mighty journey in the world of evil in Witchaven I & II Bundle
“IT'S A DOOM-STYLE GAME IN A DUNGEON SETTING, LIKE HERETIC OR HEXEN,.. WITH THE EMPHASIS ON HAND TO HAND FIGHTING.”
NEXT Generation, October 1996 #22
The witches have been destroye...
Get the full story of the knight Grondoval and his mighty journey in the world of evil in Witchaven I & II Bundle
“IT'S A DOOM-STYLE GAME IN A DUNGEON SETTING, LIKE HERETIC OR HEXEN,.. WITH THE EMPHASIS ON HAND TO HAND FIGHTING.”
NEXT Generation, October 1996 #22
The witches have been destroyed in their lair on the Island of Char! Returning to your homeland, you are greeted with newborn hope, pride, and great celebration. After the revelry, you awaken to a dawn filled with an eerie silence that looms in the still air. Your countrymen are gone!
The great witch, Circa-Argoth has taken them to avenge the death of her sister. You have only yourself and your foolish meddling to blame. But, you are not meant to die... yet! Alone in the land that you have fought so fiercely to protect, you must gather your strength and use your anger to fight for Blood Vengeance.
GET EVERYTHING YOU MIGHT'VE DREAMT OF BACK IN 1996
Jump, duck and fly in a first-person perspective
Drink powerful potions for strength, invisibility, fire resistance, and more
Use new powerful Medieval weapons: flaming arrows, electric sword, jeweled dagger, and more
Destroy, freeze and stop your enemies in their tracks with your superhuman abilities.
WHAT'S INSIDE THIS RELEASE
You're getting two builds: patched (Enhanced) and retail (Original) for those of you who prefer an unaltered experience as a bonus. Both builds are running on DOSBox with a custom configuration tool. The Enhanced build features fixes introduced in EGwhaven, a must-have community project, which addresses an array of bugs and issues with the game (we'd like to thank ETTiNGRiNDER for the contribution to this release). Additionally, the controls are re-mapped to what you'd expect to see as a default in a first-person game nowadays.
You can access the Original Build through Additional Executables section in GOG GALAXY or find it in the game folder.
* If you like Witcheave, get this one.
* If Witchaven wasn't enough, get this one.
* If you don't know Witchaven, get the first and this one.
* If you like Doom, get this one.
* If you don't like Doom, get this one.
* If you like fantasy, get this one.
* If you didn't like Heretic, get this one.
* If you feel sad. Depressed. Suicidal or homicidial. Or simply if you have Covid symptoms, get this one.
* For everything else, get this one.
The step forward is tying the spell casting under one input, instead of bringing your casting hands out and only then actually casting a spell.
Everything else is a step back. Even though the game is improved technically, and the depth perception issues while fighting melee are not as disorienting as they were in the first game, and even though hit detection seems to work much more reliably, Witchaven 2 is a much worse experience overall than its predecessor.
Fun, sprawling levels, slowly escalating, introducing new stuff and giving you an impression of real places are gone. Instead, the new campaign is a set of rather random places progression within which is even more random. Finding a key and eventually your way out feels more like a punishing excercise of wall running and minimap studying, wondering "what have I missed?" The game is only 15 maps long, but feels twice as time consuming when compared to the first one.
All enemies and arsenal arsenal introduced withing the first few levels. Being on map 3 (I think) is like playing the whole game throughout already. From there on out, it's the same guys, the same weapons, the same spells, the same corridors.
The crazy menagerie is gone. You will fight only hordes of samey knights/warriors, some skeletons and devils, a few flying heads and a ton of wisps.
Weapons are much more durable, and they can be enchanted in magical wells. This takes away from the experience, since I've run most of the game with a two handed sword breaking just twice.
Deaths are a result only from a surprise fireball spams or fake floor traps.
You lose nothing by not playing Witchaven 2, even if you liked the first one. Feels like a chore than anything else.
I found about the first Witchaven back in '96 and it looked original (Heretic had done it better but this was darker), the spells and the weapons all seemed cool, same with the enemies. When I finally played it, I was disappointed (Mind you, we weren't picky back then because of the graphical and processing limitations). It was nothing to lose sleep over.
The sequel, which flew under my radar and I only recently found about, is just as disappointing, and then some. There's very few enemies (by level 3 or 4 you've seen 'em all ) and the level design is atrocious. Most enemies walk around or freeze in the same area, waiting for you to come closer so they can attack you. The spells are cool but the weapon/damage detection feels random. One good thing it has is the autosave, so I don't have to start all over (can't wait to finish it and forget I ever played it).
Like someone else mentioned, the game feels like a chore, a punishment. If I wanted to insult a fellow gamer, I'd gift them a copy of Witchaven II.
I think Witchaven II's problem is that it is trying too many new ideas at once and doesn't really know how to narrow things down enough to make a cohesive experience. I somehow came off feeling worse playing this game than I did the predecessor. At least I can give the predecessor the credit that it is trying to do something a little different.
Witchaven II seems to just try things, just try things with nothing sticking in the end. I understand more now why it is that this series should have been better left in the past. I'll stick to my Hexens and my Heretic games, thank you.
After enjoying Witchaven, I took the plunge and started on the seuqel right away. A lot of improvements over the original but small ones make this a tighter, well paced sequel. Almost a best of Witchaven, if you will.
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