Hocus Pocus is a good Apogee platformer. However, I wouldn't recommend it to someone with little persistence or anything of the like. Most of the cool stuff in the game is shown off in the first episode, which is also the most memorable. The level design is actually quite good, and it's not about just making it to the exit. Instead, you have to collect crystals. Once you collect all of the crystals in the level, it ends. This rewards exploration and is a great, unique idea. My biggest issues are that you only really have one weapon throughout the entire game. And you get some basic power ups for it, but they are temporary and eventually, things get a little repetitive. My other issue that really annoys me is the "puzzles". I put puzzles in quotes because they aren't really puzzles. They all involve setting switches (up or down) in a specific order to open an area. This gets repetitive fast. But the main reason that I don't enjoy them is because there is seemingly no cue on their solutions. There might be, but not that I have found. In other words, instead of having a fun puzzle to solve, you're left brute forcing the combination. Luckily, it's only ever sets of 3 or 4 switches so there's only 16 combos MAX, but it still somewhat messes with the gameplay loop. So, if it's cheap, you might as well pick it up because it is quite fun, but you're probably better off playing something like Commander Keen if you are looking for a retro platformer.
TL;DR: Great for people who are new to the old Doom games, but is missing some control options and such. This is one of the best official doom ports that we have seen. For any newcomer to old Doom, this is definitely worth picking up. I have problems with it, but they are coming from an older Doom player. The main problem is controls. You can only use wasd with mouse to move and look around. This works, but og doom was also often played with arrow keys to look around, alt to strafe, and ctrl to shoot. This feels awkward to people who have never used this control scheme, but I prefer it for doom. There is also "mouse walk" which allows use of the mouse to walk around. This has always felt uncomfortable to me, but it's weird that's it's excluded. While I don't like using it, free look is not included which is strange. For reference, in the og Doom games you can't look up or down. This is fine, but unofficial source ports of Doom support this. It's weird that it's not officially in the game, although hopefully it will be updated. There are a few smaller problems too, like censored wads, but this doesn't matter much to me. For a more customizable control scheme, you can put the Doom and Doom 2 wads (the main code, music and more) of the games into a source port like Chocolate Doom for a more "original" experience or GZDoom, which is a source port that is modern and allows things like freelook and customizable controls. You will not be able to run this version in a DOS emulator like DOSBox due to exclusion of original game files. This port also comes with the original DOS Doom and Doom 2, so play those if you want the "true" original experience. However, this port is great for newcomers to the old games or someone who just wants a smooth experience.
First of all, I'd like to say that the keen games are all awesome. Something I notice in the reviews is that the pack is missing Keen Dreams and Aliens Ate My Babysitter. Now, for anyone about to buy this game, know that you can download Keen Dreams for free. Keen 6, you can only legally get a demo of. Sorry about that. Keen Dreams is shareware. It does also have a commercial counterpart. However, the entire game (as far as I know) is in the shareware version. In other words, you can get the whole game for free, legally. Head to the site 'classicdosgames.com' and search to find a shareware copy. Keen 6 is tougher. There is a shareware copy of it on the site listed above, however its only a few levels of the game. Unfortunately, the game isn't available for purchase anywhere. You may either deal with the shortened version, get a physical copy, or find a copy of it online for free, which is illegal, but not too bad. won't say where you can get a copy, but I'm sure you can find one. As far as I know, the rights of the game are owned by Atari, although they don't even acknowledge the game. So if you want this game, you can make the decision on how you get it. I'm not going to do that for you. But hey, Keen Dreams is legally free!
