This is you, and yes, you're the good guy. Sort of.
- You are the Necromancer, and something terrible is happening in your world. Creatures, normally afraid of weaponry and sorcery, have left their realm to invade the land of humans, bringing much death and destruction. Somehow, these creatures seem much more organized than usual, and in far greater numbers...
You cross the countryside, finding nothing of particular interest, until you hear screams from the other side of some ruins, so you enter...
Hands of Necromancy is a Dark Fantasy themed First-Person Shooter developed by HON Team, developed using the GZDoom engine.
A retraux paying homage to old-school 90s medieval-themed first-person action games (with Heretic being it's most distinct inspiration), you are a sorcerer called the Necromancer, who masters all forms of dark magic and seeks to challenge stronger opponents out there to hone your skills. When entire armies of monsters serving an unknown demon are unleashed upon the countryside, you set out to destroy every single one of them to prove yourself as the greatest necromancer of all time.
Besides kicking ass with magic, you can also cast a variety of transformation spells by collecting the required magical orb; you can turn into a water serpent, stone monster, and demonic hell burner, each having different abilities and functions in various areas.
Show how powerful you are as a Necromancer!
- Alien Blood: Oddly enough, the Satan-like Hell Burners bleeds "deep turquoise" blood when hit by the sword, despite most enemies having red blood (the ones who can bleed that is, stone monsters and wraiths not withstanding).
- Ancient Tomb: The two levels, "Crypt" and "Catacomb". Appropriately they appear back-to-back.
- Anti-Hero: You're a proud, self-proclaimed master of the dark arts, and one of the good guys.
- Bat People: Demons with leathery, bat-like wings and human bodies are a recurring Airborne Mook you face.
- Big Red Devil: Hell Burners are one of the stronger enemy types, gigantic, red-skinned Satan-esque demons with horns and and goat-like hooves. And wearing speedos (???). They appear in sparse amounts in earlier levels but once you reach hell they begin popping up everywhere, including an upgraded version with longer horns. Also, one power-up you collect in Hell turns you into a Hell Burner.
- Black Knight:
- The first and third Undead King is depicted as a skeleton in knightly armor, and can create a shower of spherical energy projectiles via Sword Plant and Teleport Spam all over the place when fought.
- There's a black-clad armored humanoid enemy showing up in later stages who can take far more damage than regular mooks.
- Bloodstained Glass Windows: Shows up in, surprise surprise, "Church in Hell". Said church is filled with all kinds of monsters and enemies in-between the pews, and you must destroy everything and wipe out everyone to find an exit.
- Blood Knight: You're on a killing spree not to save the world, but to sate your bloodlust.Why do these creatures disturb me? I must seek them... I must destroy them!
- Blow You Away: One of the magic attacks you can use is the tornado spell. Guess what it does.
- Elite Mooks:
- Hell Burners, strong demons who spam fireballs and takes far more damage than lower-level enemies, with an even more elite version of them popping up in hell.
- Among the winged demon creatures, there's a blue version who's a lot stronger and faster, but less common than the grey / white types.
- Evil Gloating: An example where the "hero" does it, but you'll let out a sinister, nerve-chilling chuckle whenever you collect a new spell or a health boost.
- Evil Living Flames: One of the enemies introduced in Hell, human skeletons animated by cursed flames whose uses the bones as a "frame" so they may attack you. Inflict enough damage and the fire wears off, reducing them back to a pile of charred bones.
- Evil Wizard: Several of the humanoid enemies are hooded sorcerers who casts spells to attack, all their magic being a variation of yours. They're always shown In the Hood with their actual facial features completely hidden in shadows.
- Excuse Plot: The plot in this one is somehow even looser than Hexen and Heretic, the two games that serves as it's most distinct inspiration. This time you're a warrior-wizard who kills monsters because you want to, and it just happens there are so many monsters out there that needs killing...
- Fairy Ring: Sometimes you can come across a ring of toadstools in outdoor areas, and often there's an item right in the center for you to pick up. The stools can't be collected though.
- Fire and Brimstone Hell: The "Hell" level is depicted as such, being a land covered by lava lakes and plenty of lava-falls in a distance. You travel by jumping on platforms.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: Unless the game's going for the literal A Wizard Did It solution:
- The Frost Giants whom are made of ice and spit icy projectiles can weirdly enough be killed by the Ring of Ice, shattering from being frozen despite already being an ice-based monster.
- Meanwhile, your fire spell can work underwater. Or hit enemies beneath water's surface. Then again you cast it from your magic staff.
- Related to the above, the fire spell can harm the fire-people monsters in hell, even though they're already made of fire.
- The Goomba: The first stages are populated by low-ranked enemies, with weak, easily-killed zombies who lacks ranged attacks and are stunned every time you land a successful hit at the bottom.
- Grievous Harm with a Body: Some of the later, non-goomba zombie enemies can rip off pieces of their arms and throw it at you as their only ranged attack. Their body parts regrows in seconds.
- Healing Potion: In old-school video game style, you can heal yourself by collecting blue potions.
- Heavily Armored Mook: The black-clad knights who serves the Undead King are covered in thick armor and carries shields, expectedly capable of taking a lot more hits compared to zombies, wizards, or other similar humanoid mooks.
- Hedge Maze: There's a maze made of greenery outsize the castle that the necromancer must navigate through, and it's expectedly filled with monsters. Including the winged-demon people who doesn't even need to cross the maze, simply flying and dropping into the area, and unfortunately the necromancer doesn't have a levitation / flying spell.
- Holy Hand Grenade: There's one that doubles as a Smart Bomb allowing you to destroy large group of enemies at once, though the game refers to it as the "Unholy Hand Grenade".
- Immune to Fire: Zig-zagged with the Hell Burners, being demons who breath flames and hailing from hell itself, can't be harmed when walking on lava pools but is vulnerable to your fire spell's projectiles. You obtain a Hell Burner transformation halfway through the game that allows you to wade through the lava pits in hell besides going through corridors with burning floors, but getting hit by fire-based attacks (wizards, fire-people, other Hell Burners) will cause damage to your health.
- Keystone Army: Killing the third and last Undead King causes all the monsters and sorcerers under their command to lose control and revolt, and start attacking each other. Before long, every remaining creature of the underworld are swiftly eliminated as you embark on a return journey.
- Kill It with Ice:
- The Ring of Ice, which turns enemies (even ghosts!) into solid blocks of ice. They'll suffer Ice Breaker when killed in this way.
- On the villains' side, there are frost giants who attacks with similar freezing projectiles. One of their types breathes a freezing mist that slows you down if you're caught.
- The Legionsof Hell: Take your pick; there are hooded sorcerers, zombies, ghouls, bat-winged humanoids, Satanic-looking demons, rock monsters, living piles of flames, small dragons, three demons ruling them all...
- Lethal Lava Land: The underground caverns, stages underneath the catacombs and the aptly named "Church in Hell" sees you crossing lakes and rivers of lava on narrow rock bridges (including lava waterfalls a distance away) while fighting enemies all over the place. Don't fall!
- Magic Knight: Being a magic user doesn't stop you from kicking all sorts of ass. In fact there's a magic sword you can obtain, and you use your spells to empower it's swings before slicing up onscreen enemies.
- Magic Pants: Whenever transforming into a different kind of monster (sea serpent, rock monster, Hell Burner, etc) your clothing transforms with you.
- Mana: Where you cast your magic spells from. You can restore them by collecting the Red Potion.
- Mage Marksman: You obtain a Pistol Cannon (a large-bore flintlock pistol) in the City of Despair, and turns out you're quite skilled and accurate with firearms for a necromancer.
- Magic Staff: Your default weapon is a jewel-tipped staff, the standard-issue tool for Necromancers to cast attacking spells.
- Non-Indicative Name: Despite the game's title and what you're named, you're not a Necromancer. Because instead of reviving the dead, you're putting the undead back to the state of being dead.
- Oxygen Meter: Fall underwater, and the screen turns blue with a 30-second countdown. You'll need to either clear an area within the time limit or quickly resurface, or lose a life. However this situation can be mitigated if you use a spell that turns you into a water serpent.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: Wraiths appears as one of the necromancer's many enemies, depicted as floating specters in robes with skulls in place of their heads. They attack by floating all over the area and trying to claw the necromancer with their bony arms, but are vulnerable to all spells and the magic sword.
- Piranha Problem: Large, green piranhas appears in underwater levels as enemies.
- Playing with Fire:
- Your starting spells casts fireballs at enemies, and there's a recurring rival sorcerer mook who uses fireball magic on you.
- The Undead King can summon fireballs with his sword, or cover the boss arena in fine threads of flames.
- Most enemies in hell, like the Hell Burners and those humanoid fire-people in Hell naturally have fiery projectiles as an attack. You can also collect a spell that turns yourself into a Hell Burner and throw fireballs yourself.
- Recurring Boss: The Undead King has to be fought multiple times. It turns out the ones you killed after are the first Undead King's brothers.
- Rock Monster: Giant rock humanoids are among the most durable enemies in the game, and can Shockwave Stomp you as an attack. Though being made of rocks, they can be quite dumb and ignores you if you're behind them, even as you blast them with your magic. There's also a spell which transforms you into one of those monsters, but you do not have any ranged attacks as a stone creature and the spell's only function is to bring down breakable walls.
- Shoulder-Sized Dragon: The last Undead King's lair has several dragon-like creatures no larger than eagles as enemies.
- Sinister Scythe: You can collect a scythe as tall as yourself, powered by dark magic, as an alternate melee weapon besides the sword. It can release a fiery Scythe Beam from afar.
- Spell Book: After your staff, you can collect grimoires to cast new spells from, where you're shown holding a book from first-person and reading the magic lines and materializing attacks. Interestingly, your spell book can run out of ammo, and you stock up by collecting spell pages.
- Suspiciously Cracked Wall: You can occasionally come across walls with cracks on them, though you'll need to obtain a spell that turns you into one of the rock monsters to break them down.
- Terrible Trio: Turns out there are three Undead Kings ruling the forces of the underworld, and they're brothers. You need to travel to all three of their domains and defeat them in three different boss battles.
- Unstoppable Rage: What "Berserker Mode" amounts to, dealing double damage to enemies as it does.
- Time for a well-deserved rest. You're certain it won't be long before another fight comes along, but you'll be ready... right, Necromancer?
