With the release of the remastered ports of Hexen and Heretic, Nightdive has now re release most of the games based on the Doom Engine and it's great. I've just finished the new episode for Heretic and am near the end of the one for Hexen and I love both of them for the most part. Hexen and Heretic are games I replay a lot, not at much as Doom or at the same level, but often. So I know most of the game without playing on black plague or Pope so in the same vein as every other Nightdive game I've got or bought I was expecting them taking some liberties, being their own engine and all but I wasn't expecting them to change it this much.

For me, Nightdive has never been a company that is going to port the game "as it was" but more so "as you remember it" tweaking little things here and there to make the game look better, load faster, play faster, less buggy, etc. And that's ok, the people that already play the game are not the real reason the game is being re release (I honestly think thats nightdive reason but I don't think is the publisher one), the game needs to be changed for modern gameplay standards.

Most of this games were developed in the wild west of development where we didn't have a consensus of how gameplay should be designed (ie Why I don't play AAA games anymore). Sometimes it can also be done to test the water of how much people want an old franchise back or just as advertising for something else (My head cannon is that all those almost free id software re releases are like the queer characters in OW).

Thing is that, usually, these changes were either cosmetic, like graphics in System Shock 2, or mandatory, like blood's fire damage or quake 2's railgun damage before the patch. The changes in Heretic not only rebalance the weapons and enemies but also the geometry while Hexen gives one extra weapon that breaks the game and class changes a la carte. These are enabled by default and it took me finding a youtube video to know where I could toggle them off. I don't mind these changes being here, I don't like them, but it's nice to have, just tell me upfront. I had to find out from videos these changes where even there where in most would say that this is the definitive way to play the games cuz they didn't like them.

Talk about "fixing" Hexen and Heretic has always been there in different forums or blogs talking about how is not as slick as Doom is and how the puzzles in Hexen are "not real puzzles", spongy enemies, confusing maps, and the list goes on, but the map community in Heretic is not that big compared to Doom, and Hexen one is even smaller so when maps would pop up on DoomWorld I would try them immediately just to try some new Heretic, just as this remaster. The thing is this is, as I said above, "how people remember them" meaning Heretic is Medieval Doom. With the new changes it plays like a lesser version of Doom. I almost didn't need to bother with items beside health (on normal difficulty) and the enemy count was higher to have less downtime and I hate it.

I play Doom for the action more than the Dungeon Crawling. I play Heretic for the Dungeon Crawling more than the action.

I think Hexen class change in the hub ruins the commitment to one character during the game and giving one of them a parry that can insta kill centaurs kinda breaks it. Everything else seems mostly unchanged, maybe cuz theres less to work with online. I did notice that they give you all the weapons at the start of the 1st hub in the new episode so they no longer feel like an accomplishment once you get them.

Funnily enough, Graven, a game people have all the right to hate due to Slipgate Iron being Slipgate Iron, hitted all the right notes for me by being a Hexen like game with no map, making mapping a personal experience, lots of switches and new weapons only on mayor progression. All the things most people didn't like and this version is trying to change are the things I love. As if it was a mistake from the beginning.

I know this is just nagging because I can toggle all of this off or just play in chocolate source ports like I've always done but I wonder nonetheless if this is the way most remasters are going to go. Sure is easy with classic games, but what about less popular games? Hexen and Heretic might be known but they're definitely not popular. People did complained when the Crash Bandicoot collection had different hitboxes and others heard as Carmack said on Quakecon that he did knew that taking away the flashlight would hinder the experience in Doom 3 BFG and if they wanted a non mounted flashlight they could just not use it.

Maybe I should think of all remasters going forward as revision and not to expect just a cosmetic changes like I had with the Soul Reaver Remastered.