A major turn-off for me is the "new gameplay feature" of refilling health bars (of course only for the enemy), so killing things takes extra long, because you first have to injure the creature (white health bar) then kill it (underlying green health bar) within a certain amount of time or it fills right bakc up. Of course the mechanic carries over to the bosses. The first boss gets ANOTHER REFILL once you kill him, so you basically get to do the same fight over again - kinda like in Sekiro. It was bad in that game, it's bad here. I'm just waiting for a "Soulslike" to bring in the 100 health bars for you to whittle down in 2 hours and call it extra challenge. No, just lazy.
If you wanna go around kickin' mobs of enemies - but DARK MESSIAH OF MIGHT AND MAGIC instead. This game looks awful (on purpose) and gets bring real fast. First of all you basically kick down doors, and kick or shoot baddies. It could have been a side-scroller because 95% of the time you're only advancing in one direction (straight ahead). Want a great "Boomer Shooter"? Get DUSK instead!
While still better than any Fallout Bethesda crapped out I found this rather a tedious slog of a game to get through. I also met a game breaking bug regarding the first (time limited) quest that made it impossible to go on. Since I had no prior saves the only solution would have been to restart. Hard pass. It might have been good at the time it came out, but everything about it is unappealing nowadays. I also don't care for the out of place "humor" of the game.
As much as I wish for a Hexen 3 or Heretic 3 - this ain't it. Where the original Heretic & Hexen bleed atmosphere, Hands of Necromancy is lacking. Enemy sprites range from okay'ish to poor. The Necromancer is a poor choice to be the player character - at no time did I feel like one while wielding a sword, firing off fireballs, tornados and ice rings. With Hexen and Heretic readily available here as a collection for $9.99 I'd say buy those instead.
Call me old-fashioned but I don't think that not being able to save during a mission is good game design. $30 for a game from 1995 that only received a HD texture face lift is not justified. Especially since modders already did all the heavy lifting.
Surely a technical marvel when it released, it's best enjoyed with the DXX-Rebirth source port which allows for higher resolutions than the 800x600 the game comes with. My gripes are with the controls - standard controls are unplayable (the source port fixes that somewhat) but the 360 degrees movement comes with issues, like orientation. I am not a fan of the mandatory timed escape sequences after every mission that give you 90 seconds to escape the detonating mine (you better memorized where the exit is...). Gameplay-wise it's repetitive, despite some variations in the textures: you fly through a mine, shooting at several flying robots/drones while hunting for 3 color-coded keys to find the reactor which you need to blow up and then escape. It improves on the original with improved graphics and balancing and more variety when it comes to textures. Enemies are more intelligent than those found in other shooters of that era as they dodge, flee and ambush. It's a decent shooter but I prefer classic DOOM.
pressing... pressing... still pressing... ... ... ... ... still pressing... ... any moment now... ... ... ... geez, this is like Arizona counting ballots! ... ... ... ... still here pressing keys... ... ... hey watch me I can press 10 keys at once! ... ... ... ... ... ... ah, fuck it, uninstalling this shit!
I did not like the art style at all. It just looks ... weird and ugly. The enemies just look goofy like monsters drawn by a six year old. The game also seems to have an identity crisis. Warlock implies fanatasy - as in Heretic & Hexen. But it emphasizes guns. Didn't really care for that mash up. You can't save the game as you please. It wants to be a "retro" game, but all these retro shooters had a save game feature.
