Hexen Beyond Heretic - Sega Saturn Review
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- Опубліковано 1 жов 2024
- Has its time long passed or still a worthy addition to the Saturn's library?
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Opening "Sega" jingle is from Astal for the Sega Saturn.
Ending Music during the credits is from Batman for the Sega Genesis.
SLX Logo
By: Jan Neves
UA-cam Page - / jan3d
Intro by Evan S.
portfolio.tses...
Episode Notes:
1. Captured on real hardware.
2. There is a hidden menu that appears to allow link cable play. I have never tried it but it's there for the adventurous.
3. This game is crazy long and hard. I captured gameplay for 5 hours and came nowhere near completing it.
4. Every room in every area serves as a piece of the puzzle. Look around until you have found something before moving on.
5. Travel back and fourth between hubs doesn't happen just once or twice. There are doors that won't be opened until you have seen the same area a dozen times.
6. Save your mana based weapons for the stronger enemies. Use your base attacks to drop the scrubs. The late game sees precious little resources in some areas, and you'll wish you had better ways to defend yourself.
7. There is a full screen option that minimizes the HUD a bit. I meant to show it to you here.
8. I highly recommend playing it on the lowest difficulty until you become familiar with the way it plays. On the default setting, it is a rather brutal lesson in patience.
9. A few folks have mentioned that there was a Heretic II. There was, but it is not part of the Serpent Rider Trilogy. It branched off and followed the hero from Heretic and did not continue the main story of the original 3.
You've brave for playing this on Saturn.
LOL yes.
I swear you and SLX must have a monthly poker game or something where you collab on what to cover.
Dude I played this on PlayStation,I always remember one save took up the whole card🥺
@Gabriele Squaratti yeah nice bro🤟me too on PlayStation and 64 great little game 🤟🤟
why do you hate me and Vanquish?
I played the hell outta Heretic for PC. It wasn’t until many years later I found this amazing game. I always play this game during the holidays.
It will never get old. A classic timeless masterpiece
@@FloridaEbikes same at my school... I remember trying to put the Doom cheats in and being punished in game for it...
This game is hard as hell,due to puzzle elements and backtracking.
@@FloridaEbikes oh I knew there were cheats for that game but I tried ths old IDKFA and IDDQD which killed me instantly LOL...
I tend to lean towards DIABLO 1 and Ocarina of time during holidays....
Even at the time, the FPS are unacceptable. I bought it when it got out, and even my crappy pc could play it at full speed... Today, there are zero reason to play this port of the game.
Fantastic game and a great port.
Played through this version, the one on Nintendo 64 and the original DOS one many, many times. Always notice something new to love.
The exploration is exciting, the different playable characters varied, the puzzles requries paying attention and thinking outside the box, the gameplay is truly unique and the terraforming environments are surely missed in most other games in similar style.
It deserves all the praise it can get, a lost classic and something of an unsung milestone. A must in my Saturn collection.
My first version was on the old Mac. Then on N64 with my best friend. Then I finally got it on Steam like a year ago. Could never get it burned properly to a blank CD for Saturn though. It'd glitch out like crazy.
fun fact: the PS1 version of Hexen takes up an entire memory card
I was just about to mention this lol. I remember looking on the back of the case before buying it. Seeing 15 blocks to save made me not want to buy it.
What? Lol
Wow
Seems wild, the passwords are only like sixteen digits long!
Oh wow that’s crazy. The most blocks I remember a game taking is Diablo…10 I think
The words "a door has opened somewhere" have never caused me so much frustration... I've played Hexen on pc, playstation and saturn when I was a kid. Never managed to finish it on any platform until a few years later with the help of a guide. Hexen 2 is even more notorious for its puzzles.
Have you tried Heretic yet? I find it so much better than Hexen in basically every aspect. Hexen's hubs approach may have been different and appealing for the time, now it's just annoying.
@@roberto1519 My dad liked Heretic so I played it when it was new. It is more like a 'Doom clone' than Hexen because it is less complex. I still replay Heretic, Hexen 1&2 once every couple years.
Very true, it's almost a dark ages DOOM in a sense, and way more fun to play because of that.
Basically a 3D metroidvania way before the "genre" metroidvania was established like that
@@roberto1519 absolutely, Heretic was the real deal, i actually like it even more than Doom due the fantasy/medieval atmosphere, and the music kicks ass.
I remember getting Hexen for N64 as a birthday gift from a family friend... I didnt own a N64
what? lol 😂
😂😂😂😭😭😭
Lmao. Thanks for the unexpected belly laugh
What a good friend
Maybe he was a fortune teller and knew you would get one later on?
I find it notable that this review was posted on the same day that an employee walkout happened at Raven software, the company that originally developed Heretic & Hexen for the PC. The walkout was due to parent company Activision Blizzard deciding to fire 30% of Raven's QA department even though they're currently in heading into their year end crunch time supporting COD:Warzone. smh
Stinky ol' industry!
Raven is legendary. I hope they eventually make a spiritual successor to Heretic/Hexen.
Raven today is a completely different company from Raven back then. They used to be an independent team with strong ties to Id Software, who specialized in dark fantasy style games. Now they’re just a factory line assembling Call of Duties to fill Activision’s pockets.
The game save size issue is kind of odd. I mean, why couldn't they have simply saved the password to the memory card to allow you to quickly recall it. I'm sure the passwords probably resulted in rounded ammo counts and whatnot, but it would've made for a better experience when it came to loading and saving games.
It was a golden era. Sure, every game wasn't great, especially by today's standards, but this was the best and coolest that we had at the time. Modern FPS games would be nowhere if it wasn't for games like this that came before them.
hexen is a jewel , this game had a especial place on my collection and in my heart
Man I was never too big on FPSes...but I love me the 90s FPSes...Doom, heretic, Hexen, Duke 3d, postal, quake...so much good memories. Preferred the pc versions for obvious reasons.
Blood was another great game from back in the day
@@PsychomachineryEBM and shadow warrior and rise of the triad
@@Rountree1985 indeed, those were great too 👍🏻
The Best of sega. Lord X.
You know I’m not sure Carmack was wrong about slave driver it makes me nauseous the way it warps textures
I really want to play through Powerslave but it makes me motion sick
I don’t get why folks compare it to Doom, to me it’s more of a more action oriented Eye of the Beholder 😅
Gameplay i guess
i remember this game i had hours and hours of fun with it i love medieval games
Excellent review and impressive port - I liked how you stood up for Hexen's design ethos. It's a brilliant game often overlooked by Doom's run & gun nature.
PS: The save situation was the same for the PS - IIRC, it took a whole standard card.
The Saturn memory card was a $50 purchase. And this one game took half of it.
The 64 version takes just shy of a whole memory card too.
Not surprising considering it saves the location of every single corpse.
This might be one of the most easily viewable classic gaming channels on a UA-cam due to the very smooth, conversational sounding tone of each video. There’s a lot of great, fair, and superb information on a wide array of games, many of which I’ve never played on Genesis, or Saturn. It’s also great to see how many people are finally discovering this great channel.
I kinda wish SEGA had stuck to its guns for their vision of the Saturn. So many great arcade games, especially SEGAs super-scaler library would have been all I needed to get a system that could go toe-to-toe with the Neo-Geo. Instead we got a bunch of mediocre "ports" of much better running games on other systems, a few pretty damn awesome 2D fighters, a couple 3D fighters that were OK and other stuff that just didn't interest me as a gamer at the time. Eventually, I'll come across a deal on a Saturn and I'll finally get to play what I've been missing. Until then, it'll remain a system I continue to enjoy through this mighty fine channel right here.
Thank you for covering this. The Saturn version has surprisingly little content available on UA-cam.
Good review, makes me want to actually play this game on SS. From a technical point view this game is rather unique, in fact it's the first (and only) game which uses software VDP2 programming for building walls, a feature i've always wondered why noone had thought about this possibilities at the time (the swedeish guys obiouvsly did that, at least with this game), which once again proves SS can (could) be programmed in many (prolific) ways to produce great games with good 3D performance, something just a few, heroic developer did..
This is a joke right? This game has terrible performance, and it has 2D enemies and elements all over instead of 3D.......Also what is running "VDP2 in software"? Do you know the difference between a game being rendered in software or in hardware? It seems youre very lost, or dumb or both...lost and dumb
Why wouldn’t the save state just remember the password????
I don't like any of these 32 bit era first person games on any system but I'm obsessed with the technical story of it all and how wildly different the Saturn port quality is from game to game. This one seems to get ignored in that discussion.
you arent in a like just because you doesnt lived that time, in late 90's this was mindfucking
@@crakrjakful I am pretty old and was the only "Saturn person" in my group of friends in the mid to late 90s. You're right that pretty much any decent 3D game looked great at that time. Hardly any still look good, but Virtua Fighter 2 might be one of the nicer looking on Saturn or PS1.
It's interesting how Hexen and Doom played out on the Saturn and PS1.
Saturn got a really bad Doom port, but good Hexen port
PS1 got a great Doom port, but the Hexen port it got was just, there's no other word, awful
Also interesting note, the Saturn and PS1 versions may be based on the Beta of the PC version. It's strongly suspected because there's many level design differences, and in a few places, the Cleric's final weapon Wraithverge uses its beta golden design from right before it was converted into Wraithverge, all the beta designs for the weapon were called Justifier btw.
And just for the record, Hexen takes such a massive space saving because it has to save the exact state of every level in the hub you're in (every object, door, moving platform, etc) as opposed to the console ports of other games which usually just save, your weapons, health, and what level to start you on.
It makes no sense, the save file size. The game could just save the password to the memory card, which would be almost no data. 10:25
Am I the only, who prefers 2d enemies in first person shooters?
There was a Heretic 2. We played it in multiplayer long ago. Great game.
I would like to see a remaster of all 3 games.
Yup. New 3D engine with a few modern design upgrades. Would be awesome.
Nah, the old school pixel art is the visual charm of those games imo
@@PsychomachineryEBM I love the old pixel art as well, yet at the same time, I'd love to see the trilogy (and Heretic 2) get the remaster treatment, similarly to Doom. Make it dark and gritty. At the same time, I don't want any ridiculous cut scenes to try and explain away the madness we all love. Just have a pure game for a change.
I would be happy to be able to play those 4 games on a newer console, even in their glorious original state.
I love Hexen... I've played it so much with my little brother!
Last year I remember listening to your videos about the 32x while doing a cleric play through on Hexxen. I love this game and your channel. Sad that some people can’t have a little puzzle in their classic FPS
I've beaten _Hexen_ on the "classic" Mac OS, and it was *brutal* , most-likely the second[1] most-difficult first-person game I've ever played, taking literally hundreds of savegame reloads; I can't imagine myself ever beating it on a system with passwords/one savegame…
[1] _Hexen_ had an expansion pack, _Deathkings of the Dark Citadel_ ; it's even more difficult o_O ._.
I wonder who came with the idea to port this game when DOOM was struggling with Saturn.
However, I can imagine it was blessing for those who didn´t had PC and were grateful for DOOM and Hexen port.
Hexen is a "life experience" level game. It alone, is reason enough to buy a Saturn. Amazing experience. Metroid Prime 1 level experience. Oh, btw, I'm a Turok enthusiast, huge fan of the games, and Hexen stands toe to toe with the first, and second games. Only a touch behind the third game, and better music than any of them. PLAY HEXEN ASAP!!!. Amazing gaming experience. Great game to get your kids into, if you want them getting into vintage games. Amazing game.
You would probably love powerslave if you like those games. That was my favourite on the Saturn and I was a big Turok fan too.
My friends and I played the hell out of this on N64. I was always the cleric.
Awesome! Love this game!
Yeah. I wish more would give it a real chance.
I had difficulty with this game. I found it confusing and got stuck very quickly. I always called ID Software 'Eye Dee' as the letters are.
Ever watch the sci-fi classic, Forbidden Planet? ID = subconscious mind.
@@TexasHollowEarth No I haven't seen that.
Damn Ed wasn’t messing around about that doom game! Calling for the execution for all parties involved?! A bit harsh.
We expected better from console developers in those days, what can I say
I just bought this on eBay a few minutes ago!!! I sure wasn't expecting this video when I got on UA-cam moments later!
"One sixth of the puzzle has been solved on the Shadow Wood"
Loved Heretic and Hexen on the PC when they first came out. They were my gateway drug into Elder Scrolls. I would love to see Heretic/Hexen get the Doom 2016 treatment...
Save files use half a memory card yet also has a password system... why didn't the save file just save the password then "auto load it" when loading the save file? Seems like just saving the password string would have saved a TON of save space in the save file. Great video as always!
Because the passwords simply don’t save much, you only get a password at the start of each hub. While if you use a memory card you can quick save whenever, and the save is so detailed it stores the location of every corpse.
forgot about hexen god i played this for ages. A great game
Loved this game... Even this version... Total underrated classic!
Yup, I agree.
@@SegaLordX Thank you for another phenomenal episode. Keep the fantastic content coming. You have a legion of retro-head fans brother!
Hexen is my favorite of the Heretic / Hexen series. I got this for the PC as a birthday present in 1996. It's much better than Heretic was (Heretic really did feel too much like Doom, even though it added an inventory system and looking up and down). Hexen II was fun as well, though it was extremely confusing in some areas. Heretic II was just... ugh. That one is best left avoided, in my opinion.
This one was fun to play in multiplayer. I think it's best suited for co-op play, as deathmatching wasn't as fun as it should have been. The Saturn version did have a multiplayer mode in it from what I understand, but it required a link cable that wasn't officially released in the USA.
I also have this for the N64, and while it's not as good as the PC version, it's still fun. I wouldn't mind trying the Saturn version out... but of course I'd need to get a Saturn first, it's been ages since I've played with one.
I also feel like I'll be in the minority when I say this, but the mage was my favorite class. I did not like the cleric. I thought that was a really dull class. I'll take the Bloodscourge over the Wraithverge anytime.
Heretic 2 is fucking awesome. Its gameplay went to Jedy outcast and Jedi Knight Academy.
I tried Hexen(really beautiful) but too much bactracking. Thankfully there was Heretic that was beautiful and no fucking puzzles.
I felt heretic was far better than Hexen
Never did play Hexen, but I did play Heretic on the PC back in the day. Had some great nostalgic memories of it! Great to see a review for Hexen as told through the eyes of SLX and his Sega spin on it. Back then and still to this day; I wouldn’t dismiss it as a Doom clone, it stood on its own feet as a solid FPS before FPS’ became pretty much the standard for modern gaming consoles.
While this was a sequel to Heretic, a Heretic 2, 3rd person game was eventually released for PC-only, just like the original game. I never got to play that one, but it looks to play alot like LoK Blood Omen 2, which wasn't well-received. I played the shit outta Heretic & Hexen on my Dad's PC, growing up. Great Video SLX & thanks 👍.
Nice! More fuel for my love/hate relationship with Hexen!
I've been waiting for this one for awhile - Glad to see the Saturn Hexen getting some love. As always, a great video SLX!
I'd take Hexen on the Saturn over Hexen II every day of the week.
Hexen has truly become a "hidden gem" due to how misunderstood the game was at release. It has suffered the same fate as many games that were ahead of its time. Generally many reviewers review their expectation of a game, rather than understanding the core pillars of the game and how well it delivers on those premises. I played through the whole game last year with GZDOOM engine and "Chronos Unleashed" mod (adding widescreen support, bug-fixes and such) and honestly guys, this game is incredible. I wish I knew back in 1995. and wasn't deterred by reviewers at the time. Back then it seemed like a cheap Doom knock-off, but in fact is was the opposite, it just used the Doom engine, the game was a completely different game, incredibly advanced and offered something truly unique. It was basically Metroid Prime, long before Metroid Prime even existed.
Yea i also cant count how many times i played it on sourceports.
I use those upscaling filters to preserve the sharp textures and turn of bilinear filtering, looks great.
Hexen and Powerslave both have so much style. I hate to state the obvious but they are just so Iron Maiden like.
Because powerslave is an Iron Maiden album
Completed Hexen on Saturn. I do remember being stuck on second to last hub for a whole night, I completed it the day after. Also completed Exhumed/Power Slave on the Saturn. I loved these games more than Doom. The Saturn had so much potential but it was dragged down by "stupid" people like Carmack and executives.
I would have beaten this on the Saturn if my save file didn't get corrupted. After reaching the third hub the game always locked up when I tried to save again. Anyway, I was really impressed with the port after the buggy and unfinished PSX version. They even managed to improve the performance, which was quite a surprise.
My brother won a PC(Yeah weird story involving it just turning up one day from a competition he'd forgot he entered), So I didn't know anything about any other versions of Doom, Hexen and Heretic I loved on it. You didn't get blood at all, Half life took years to come out and so did this. I didn't realise how lucky I was at the time...
Brings back memories of playing this on the PC (first one I bought). It ran much smoother than this one but the soundtrack here seems CD quality whereas the PC version used a cheesy MIDI soundtrack…
I'm a big fan of Powerslave and its use of the 3D Control Pad on Saturn; in fact, I got a Saturn last year just because of it and is probably my favourite game on this system. I really liked its backtracking and metroid-like style of exploration, so I might give this one a go in spite of its aged visuals if the experience is similar in the end.
Do you know if you can use analog controls for this one as in Powerslave, Duke and Quake? Thanks in advance, I love your videos, your passion for videogames and the way you express yourself. English is not my mother tongue, but I manage to understand almost everything you say because of how clearly you speak.
No analog controls
Well, I did not expect to hear the word DOOM as many times as I did in this video. Don't get me wrong, I love this game
What a beautiful game. Im glad you showed it to me, specially running on saturn. Im weird, and i like these pixelated old 3D FPS.
Yes cuz old fps games were pure gameplay bliss.
They should make another Hexen and make it play like current day doom but with magic. So fast paced, combo kills, classes.
I got this game about 7 years ago from a used book store. It was in a tote with a bunch of Wcw n64 carts and a Sega Saturn. The guy who runs the game area said "No one will ever buy that here" to me. I said I'll buy the whole tote. He sold me all of the stuff for $8. One av cord and I got a complete copy and a working saturn for a steal.
Loading the PC version on GZDoom with grandgreed's neural texture pack and a good soundfont is a treat for the eyes and ears. 🤘🏻
Played this first on the N64 back in 1997. To this day it is still one of my favorite games of all times. The N64 version has an absolutely amazing soundtrack, and nowadays you can play the PC version (better FPS controls) with that soundtrack, if you wish.
I’ve beat this game on Saturn, was slightly disappointed with the final level, as it lacked the rocking bridge affect as well as the original song for this stage (reusing the theme from the first stage instead)
I bought a demo disc for $7 in ~1995 with Quake 3, Heretic, and Hexen from 7-11. There was a keygen readily available that unlocked all 3 games. Good times!
Quake 3 was released in 99,not 95
this is back when pc was still the dominate platform for fps. these kinds of ports where passable until u played the pc version and began to understand what you were missing.
Passwords would have been nice when my N64 memory card battery failed :(
Wow i didn't know of this game when i owned my Dreamcast but i would've definitely brought this title for myself and game collection & the Wizard would've been my favorite character ✌.
Hexxen is one of my favorite games of all time. I actually just recently got the n64 version, i cant stand the pc controls. Got no complaints with the n64 version. Gotta say, n64 controller is perfect for this kind of game. However, it appears to me the saturn version runs at a much lower frame rate. Would think this game would be perfect for the saturn. This game never gets old.
It's the other way, 64 controller sucks not only there but overall. The game was designed and thought for pc, keyboard + mouse are the right way to play it.
What I wanna know is, how can we import the doom wads into Hexen on Saturn.
i enjoyed my time with Hexen thought he version i have is a preproduction disk with only the warrior i got from a rep.
Oh boy I remember my dad brought this home for pc shortly after release. I never beat it back then because my child brain could not compute. I actually beat this for the first time with the Steam version and had to tip my hat off to the devs that made a cult classic. All that said I never played the Saturn port, and honestly probably never will.
It still feels pretty badass that I got to play the entire Id game collection, including Hexan, using the Quake Shareware disc for only $10 back then.
qcrack ftw
@@AFFL1CTED1 Yeah, piracy is totally awesome! 🙄
@@BlownMacTruck ya, it was pretty awesome for a broke 13 year old, actually.
@@AFFL1CTED1 I see you don’t get it. Have some dignity.
I bought a copy of the Quake Shareware at a garage sale for this reason.
I was proud of myself when I bought this decades ago...😂
I have it for N64. It was one of my favs as a wee lad when playing with my brother together.
ok I have to admit, love the music, especially goes wit whats happening on screen
I couldn't stand this game. It felt like I was running in circles the whole time.
I’ve always appreciated the ‘ol HEXEN game! And I’ve played it on just about every port available back in the day in terms of home consoles. It’s dark and evil fantasy themes really appealed to me.
I actually kind of liked Hexen, but on the 64 a lot more.
Thanks for the upload. 👍🏻😊😊😊
The Heretic and Hexen series deserves a remastered collection! Heretic and Heretic 2 were my favourites in this series
Not sure how much remastering there is to be done. Hexen, Heretic got full support on modern doom sourceports with all the opengl features, and using Doomsday you can play with 3D models.
And Doomseeker works great as usual to start online games.
A remaster is better used on something thats actually aged and got abandoned. Take No Prisoners, Heretic 2. Soldier of Fortune!
The Doom era games are so heavily modified and supported across platforms that theyre basically remastered already.
Once you play Hexen 64, you forget Saturn port.
It's funny how i will watch a review on a game i don't care about just because you review it.
I hope you understand what i mean?
And I really appreciate that. :)
I'm surprised they bothered porting Hexen as it is a very frustrating game. Second entry was much better, as well as Heretic.
Recenly got 2 sealed copies of this game. One of the boxes was damaged a bit so decided to open it. Have to say, i didnt played this back then, but in 2021 this game is quite fun. Bit sloppy framerates tough
Most everything had sloppy framerates back then on console.
@@SegaLordX oh boy it turns out i actually had hexen on the PS1 from a lot and i think...the Saturn version actually runs better!
thank's! a quality review, like usual.
Much better than the Playstation version.
Kids are at school, I have a day off and now this? That's what I call timing, sir.
Glad you approve.
I have this game on the Nintendo 64, and bought the original DOS version when it came out. I tried to like this game so many times, but I just can't. The structure and "level" design is just too boring for me. The original game, Heretic is a lot more fun. Sad it wasn't ported for consoles =/
That save file size is absolutely ridiculous!! Something went horribly wrong in development or was a massive oversight. If you entire save can be recreated from a short string of characters like that, then that's all the data it needed to save! When Theme Park took up nearly all the save space on my 3DO, at least I knew there was no way in hell that could have been reasonably done with a password.
Hexen is good, but the Saturn version got the shaft. The frame rate drops pretty badly at times. As for the monsters always facing the player, I guess that's due to RAM limitations. If only Sega had brought the 1M RAM cart to the West. Some further engine optimization and extra RAM could've helped.
The graphics of Hexen have not aged well, in my opinion. I prefer polygon enemies in my retro FPS games.
But the vast majority of retro FPS's don't have polygon enemies.
@@SegaLordX On N64, I think there was only this, Duke Nukem and Doom without polygons.
Hexen and Heretic were two of my favourite games back then on the PC. I think I never finished them, or I actually don't have any memory of finishing any of them.
Probably should play thru them someday! :D
I could never get into these games, I prefer more straightforward FPS from that era. Like Blood, which I always felt was a crying shame had never got any ports. And it would have been nice if Dark Forces had got more (and better) ports.
i have this one on my n64..i think that one is overall better than the ss and ps1 ports
Wish lightgun games still worked
I played both Heretic and Hexen in a source port by copying over the WAD files. That's also the way I played Doom and Doom II. I honestly can't remember using a walkthrough for any part of Hexen, I think I just blundered my way through it. Most of the puzzles became fairly obvious eventually.
BTW, the "trilogy" ended with Hexen II? What about Heretic II?
I’m still traumatised from finishing Hexen on PS1 many years ago but the level designs are masterpieces
This game definitely has its merits. It may run on the Doom Engine but the gameplay is a different beast entirely. I must admit that I was expecting a fantasy Doom clone back in the day and while that wasn't what I got it was a unique experience. Eventually I got lost trying to find out what to do and never finished it. The fact that the game was a memory card hog didn't help but there was enjoyment to be found in spite of those things.
And my last comment on this...lol, I think there's a point in this era of 3d gaming where we just aren't ready for 3d and we should just stick with 2d for now. Final Fantasy 7's 3d looks awful. Non battle models look like they have similar polys as starfox for the snes. Quake looks amazing. Quake is still visually appealing. The blocky appearance of Quake somehow has lots of character and adds to the otherworldly atmosphere. Hexen being a 2.5D game has nothing to do with how big the levels can be. If anything, you can go larger scale on 2.5D at the time. Doom, Hexen, and Duke3d throw way more enemies at you at a time than Quake does. Eternal Doom(not to be confused with Doom Eternal), which was a mod for the original dos doom had massive levels...absolutely massive. Half Life 1 probably couldn't have a whole Eternal Doom level in its memory without breaking it up in loading screens.
I had the one that used 3d cards and played it on AMD k6-2@300mhz with Nvidia Riva 128. I don't remember if it was 1 or 2, think it was in 96 when I played it.
People talk about how hard these games are and have scared me from trying them again.
Back then I definitely only wanted something closer to doom and gave up quickly on the game. I bet most people did the same.