Best way to play Hexen in 2021?

[Arbiter]

Hate to admit, but I never completed Hexen in the DOS era (unlike Heretic). What is the best way to play it nowadays? Which source port, any graphics mods? I want the experience to be close to vanilla on my first play-through, so no Brutal Hexen for now.

[GarrettChan]

DSDA-Doom 0.21.3 supports Hexen. (However, it's not clear that whether it's bug free as it seems Hexen is not popular enough to receive a lot of test...)

 

Crispy Hexen is also a thing, but it's difficult to find as it's not updated for a while. Crispy Hexen should be bug free and it's super faithful to Dos. I guess you could find it by a bit of research...

Edited November 8, 2021 by GarrettChan

[skeptikalklown]

I recently started up Hexen again and DSDA-Doom works but it has issues with save files. As you move back and forth between levels in a hub it will randomly reset levels to their initial state. In the case of seven portals this means you're surrounded by enemies and stuck behind a door that you can't open. Once this gets addressed it should work great

 

I ended up using GZDoom which is pretty easy to set up though to get it as close to vanilla as possible you may need to tweak some settings. I'm not an expert on that part.

[Biz!]

If I remember, Russian Doom has some hexen support.

[Lippeth]

I still like playing Hexen in DOSBox with novert, using my mouse software to rebind the enter key to middle mouse for artifacts, and using DOSBox to rebind pause to the alt key so I can switch items in peace. Chocolate Hexen is the next best thing, and I believe it has better button mapping. That said, a lot of really good Hexen wads are (G)ZDoom exclusive, And GZDoom can be customized to look and behave very close to DOS, despite popular belief.

 

If you just want vanilla Hexen with no DOS commands, Chocolate Hexen is the best a great choice. If you want the frivol of widescreen/uncapped framerate/higher resolution, GZDoom has been well tested with Hexen, especially since the last year or two. Other ports like Russian Hexen, Doomsday, DSDA, etc will run Hexen, but from my own experience as an absolute Hexen fanatic, DOSBox, Chocolate and GZDoom are my favorite.

[Arbiter]

Thanks, which difficulty levels in Hexen are considered equivalents of HMP and UV in Doom?

[Dusty_Rhodes]

Hands down Russian Hexen port. It's a vanilla+ plus port in that you can have nice widescreen support for high resolutions and modern controls. I really recommend it.

 

https://github.com/jnechaevsky/russian-doom/

[Lippeth]

I remember Russian Hexen adding a few graphics here and there which kept me from staying with it, but as far as vanilla accuracy and robust key mapping goes it was top notch. I just downloaded 4.2 and after spending a few moments getting all the settings to match my tastes, yeah this is excellent! One thing that always bugged me about GZDoom is the accuracy of the pitch shifting effect, but it sounds great here. The only thing I really notice off the bat is the extra difficulty setting, and what looks like forced 480p scaling, which is an awkward place between chunky ol' vanilla and the crispness of native resolution. Still, I imagine that it's a great way to experience Hexen, and plan to give it a fair shot.

 

1 hour ago, Arbiter said:

Thanks, which difficulty levels in Hexen are considered equivalents of HMP and UV in Doom?

 

The difficulties can be thought of in the same way as Doom, with the exception of Hexen's equivalent of Nightmare (Titan/Pope/Archmage) which is much more viable to play casually than Doom's Nightmare. It's essentially fast monsters with instant reaction time that don't respawn, and you get 50% more mana with each pickup. Warrior/Priest/Sorcerer is roughly equal to HMP and is more generous with items than Berserker/Cardinal/Warlock, which is basically the UV difficulty. Weapons are spawned earlier and in easier to find locations in the HMP equivalent.

[Baroneu]

3 hours ago, Arbiter said:

Hate to admit, but I never completed Hexen in the DOS era (unlike Heretic). What is the best way to play it nowadays? Which source port, any graphics mods? I want the experience to be close to vanilla on my first play-through, so no Brutal Hexen for now.

I really recommend Russian Hexen, it's a really good source port.

[magicsofa]

4 hours ago, Arbiter said:

What is the best way to play it nowadays? Which source port, any graphics mods?

 

With a walkthrough. Don't ruin your experience trying to figure out the insane puzzles the "honest" way. Others have endured the pain so you could enjoy the rest of it.

[Baroneu]

4 hours ago, GarrettChan said:

DSDA-Doom 0.21.3 supports Hexen. (However, it's not clear that whether it's bug free as it seems Hexen is not popular enough to receive a lot of test...)

 

Crispy Hexen is also a thing, but it's difficult to find as it's not updated for a while. Crispy Hexen should be bug free and it's super faithful to Dos. I guess you could find it by a bit of research...

https://github.com/atsb/source-port-builds/releases/tag/1.0 in this link, there is all the variations of the crispy source port, you just need to download the crispy-doom-5.10.3_all_win64.zip

Edited November 9, 2021 by Baroneu
There was an error in the link.

[Gregor]

LZDoom is a good alternative to GZDoom if you don't like how GZDoom runs and sounds on your system. Bit easier to set up as well and runs Hexen like a charm.

Edited November 9, 2021 by Gregor

[Z0k]

 its there anything like smooth doom for Heretic/Hexen? i know there is the korax mod but something like smooth doom for heretic/hexen would be welcome since gzdoom its the most used por for these games.

[Lippeth]

35 minutes ago, Baroneu said:

Release Builds · atsb/source-port-builds (github.com) in this link, there is all the variations of the crispy source port, you just need to download the crispy-doom-5.10.3_all_win64.zip

The crispy-setup.exe only works for Doom as far as I know, and the Crispy options are only available in Doom and Heretic. So no extra customization unless I'm missing something.

[Baroneu]

32 minutes ago, Lippeth said:

The crispy-setup.exe only works for Doom as far as I know, and the Crispy options are only available in Doom and Heretic. So no extra customization unless I'm missing something.

oh, i did not know that

[CBM]

depends on what experience you want.

you can play something close to vanilla, something ultra modern or something inbetween

 

chocolate doom would likely be good for a vanilla classic experience on modern gear

 

crispy doom would be good for something inbetween

 

gzdoom with 3d addons would be good for an all modern experience

[Dweller Dark]

I've never used Russian Heretic, but is it not supposed to have a setup exe file? 

[Baroneu]

1 hour ago, Lippeth said:

The crispy-setup.exe only works for Doom as far as I know, and the Crispy options are only available in Doom and Heretic. So no extra customization unless I'm missing something.

I mean, i think you can still customize the game the way you want, editing the cfg using notepad, tho.

[Lippeth]

45 minutes ago, Baroneu said:

I mean, i think you can still customize the game the way you want, editing the cfg using notepad, tho.

Ha, good call. I'm actually in the process of setting things based on the doom config and attempting to copy the keybinds from my DOS config. "key_jump 53", etc is considerably less intuitive for me than a setup file though.

 

Edit: There's actually a prompt to load either Doom or Heretic's setup if both the Doom and Heretic iwads are in the folder, so there's that.

Edited November 9, 2021 by Lippeth

[CBM]

I posted a tad too quickly, well.. ignore my ramblings about crispydoom then and replace them with rambings about Crispy Hexen, Russian Hexen or LZDoom

 

I just use GZDoom to play hexen and heretic TBH

Edited November 9, 2021 by CBM

[SilverMiner]

Crispy Hexen or Russian Hexen. Zdoom for high resolutions + iirc explosions there are infinitely tall like in vanilla

[Redneckerz]

9 hours ago, GarrettChan said:

DSDA-Doom 0.21.3 supports Hexen. (However, it's not clear that whether it's bug free as it seems Hexen is not popular enough to receive a lot of test...)

 

Crispy Hexen is also a thing, but it's difficult to find as it's not updated for a while. Crispy Hexen should be bug free and it's super faithful to Dos. I guess you could find it by a bit of research...

Not difficult to find at all. (Part of @Gibbon compile all the ports! endeavor.)

 

Edit jesus that's already posted. Good morning.

Edited November 9, 2021 by Redneckerz

[Nikku4211]

I really wish Chocolate Hexen and Chocolate Heretic would implement mouse look already.

 

If they had mouse look, I'd've recommended it to you, but they only let you use keys to look up and down.

[BoxY]

27 minutes ago, Nikku4211 said:

I really wish Chocolate Hexen and Chocolate Heretic would implement mouse look already.

 

If they had mouse look, I'd've recommended it to you, but they only let you use keys to look up and down.

 

Isn't that completely outside the scope of a chocolate style port? The goal by definition is for the port to try to represent the way the game ran under DOS with no major feature additions.

[Baroneu]

8 hours ago, Eddie 2077 said:

I've never used Russian Heretic, but is it not supposed to have a setup exe file? 

no, it does not have a setup exe file, it's just a .rar file that you have to extract to your hexen/heretic folder 

[xX_Lol6_Xx]

I would use either Russian HeXen or GZDoom, and if it's your first time playing in a long time, I'd play Cleric on medium skill

[xX_Lol6_Xx]

10 hours ago, Lippeth said:

The crispy-setup.exe only works for Doom as far as I know, and the Crispy options are only available in Doom and Heretic. So no extra customization unless I'm missing something.

Sorry for the double post, but, I remember fabian saying that renaming the exe to "crispy-hexen-setup.exe" works for HeXen, although it doesn't have the crispness menu, but with that you can rebind the keys, change the music, etc.

[Baroneu]

10 hours ago, Z0k said:

 its there anything like smooth doom for Heretic/Hexen? i know there is the korax mod but something like smooth doom for heretic/hexen would be welcome since gzdoom its the most used por for these games.

https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=49929 This was the closest thing that I could find to a Smooth HeXen.

Edited November 9, 2021 by Baroneu

[Gibbon]

5 hours ago, Nikku4211 said:

I really wish Chocolate Hexen and Chocolate Heretic would implement mouse look already.

 

If they had mouse look, I'd've recommended it to you, but they only let you use keys to look up and down.

Then it wouldn't be Vanilla anymore would it ;)

[Dusty_Rhodes]

1 minute ago, Gibbon said:

Then it wouldn't be Vanilla anymore would it ;)

That's why Russian Hexen exists! Perfect for wanting it to be vanilla, but having mouslook and a feel qol features. It's more like Crispy Hexen.