Planescape: Torment
Game » consists of 3 releases. Released Dec 12, 1999
An isometric RPG using Bioware's Infinity Engine, Planescape: Torment is set in the Planescape universe and tells the dark and provocative tale of The Nameless One, an immortal searching for his identity.
I play old games (Planescape Torment)
It's true. In between writing blogs about fighting games that get a bunch of comments I've been playing the lengthy, convoluted CRPGs from more than 10 years ago, as I am accustomed to do. In this case, Planescape Torment is the game of choice. Released in late 1999 and developed by some segment of Black Isle (now available on GOG for $10, a price well worth paying), Planescape is, even moreso than its other Infinity Engine contemporaries, a game that people on the internet really seem to like. However, unlike its other Infinity Engine contemporaries, it didn't sell extremely well. Having now played (or perhaps "experienced") this game, I can understand why both of those things are true.
And the reason why both those things are true is simply this: Planescape is the anti-RPG. I don't mean anti to imply "the polar opposite of", but more like " of the same kind but situated opposite, exerting energy in the opposite direction, or pursuing an opposite policy", as the Merriam Webster dictionary would put it. And indeed, I imagine at any point of the game where the developers could have inserted something that could be related to contemporary fantasy, or inserted something weird, they chose to insert something weird. It's a world where there are only two swords the player can posess, no elves, dwarves or other similar cliche fantasy races, and also a world where the color green is rarely used for just about anything (instead? A lot of brown). The game goes far enough with this to even include an optional dungeon that quite hilariously mocks established fantasy conventions and the purposelessness of most dungeoneering. It's perhaps this alone that gives Planescape such a unique identity, and although there's certainly more to it than just being totally off-kilter, it's this opposite day mentality that permeates a lot of the game's design. It's this that also makes it much harder to relate to the world of Planescape, as everything has to be explained and established through lengthy sections of text (thankfully, I was at least partially aware of some of the weirdness through my exposure to the Dungeon Master's Guide in days of yore).
The most obvious of these is the story. Whereas most RPGs deal with large-scale "Fate of the World" type scenarios, the story of Planescape is focused almost entirely around your character (The Nameless One) trying to understand who he is and why he can't die. Wheras one of Dragon Age II's many flaws was its attempt to deliver something resembling a personal story, it's clearly one of best parts about Planescape because, unlike the tale of Hawke, the Champion of Kirkwall, this game actually goes out of its way for you to care about your character, despite the fact that he's still a RPG blank slate, by establishing who he used to be. The Nameless One's prior history is a large part of the game's story, perhaps to the point where it kind of overshadows the fairly mundane things your character is doing otherwise, for the most part at least. The Nameless One's journey simultaneously gets more exciting and more boring once you actually leave the city of Sigil, but that's the last 1/4th of the game anyways. I won't be as hyperbolic as to call it the best story ever in a video game, but it probably is one of the best stories in a video game.
Of course, the other best part about Planescape is the dialog. It's dense, nay, verbose and there is easily a novel's worth of text in this thing. It's all extremely well written too. Not much of it is voice acted, but what is is delivered well enough. What Planescape did really well for me was make me actually consider dialog options. This is a rare feat. At some point in games like Mass Effect, one tends to autopilot their binary moral choices after a while. While the actual consequences of any one dialog choice is negligible (at least they aren't pretending it is), the inclusion of such things as player intent ("Truth: I agree" or "Lie: I agree") goes a long way in making you at least feel like your character is capable of decent roleplaying and not just a good/evil switch. The bad side of all of this is that the dialog is usually the reward for some sort of fetch quest. Because there's actually not a whole ton of combat in the game, a lot of what you're doing is almost adventure game-like in the way you have to talk to someone, then talk to someone else, or find an item and talk to someone. The parts where you fight are pretty boring actually and it's great that you can talk yourself to victory, much like Fallout.
Of course, the other other best part about Planescape is the characters. Continuing the trend of making everything in this game as non-stereotypical as possible, none of your party members can be considered normal. A floating skull, a chaste succubus, a dude that is constantly on fire and a possessed suit of armor with an extremely strict code of justice are some of the weirder characters that follow The Nameless One around. Thankfully, they're all pretty fleshed out too. Perhaps not to the extent of some modern Bioware characters, but thankfully the quality is actually consistent, unlike the cast of modern Bioware games. Everyone has a story, and with perhaps the exceptions of Ignus (who wants to burn things. Yesssss, Ignusss likess to burnnnn) and Vhailor (who has stayed beyond the grave to enforce justice. What is justice? I dunno. You can actually get him to kill himself if you use logic to tell him that there is no justice. That, or telling him that there are more criminals in the afterlife anyways.) all of them are pretty well rounded.
Thus, as previously said, the bad parts about Planescape are the parts that would otherwise be good in any other RPG. Since a lot of the core gameplay revolves around fetch quests, the actual combat parts are somewhat undercooked. There's not a ton of strategy to be had, nor is there an especially large variety of combat roles to fill. This is partially because The Nameless One can only be a Fighter, a Thief, or a Mage. Having played through as a mage, I will tell you right now that the correct answer is probably fighter. Unless you're really into the way you have to backstab in 2nd ed AD&D, there's no reason to be a thief (see Imoen's Law: In any game where you would need someone to unlock doors and disarm traps, one is already provided for you. SO DON'T MAKE YOUR MAIN GUY A THIEF), and the combat is shallow enough that Dak'kon or Ignus can probably cover your magic need. Since most of your party members already have their own signature weapons, most of the stuff you find is intended for you and only fighters can use the really good stuff (i.e. Hammers and Axes). The corollary of this is of course that since the dump stats are so useful to put points into (wisdom in particular, as it gives you a million billion dialog options as well as a substantial boost to your XP gain), you may find yourself gimped in the strength department, at least in the beginning. It's good that the less desirable parts of planescape are less frequent, but at some point the D&D license and ruleset feels ancillary to the entire experience.
Planescape is a very weird game. By being basically the polar opposite of something like Icewind Dale, the fact that there are regular RPG parts to it seems almost pointless, as if the game would be better without the combat or statistics (answer: Maybe not entirely). It's also a game based around fetch quests and reading a lot of well written, if verbose, dialog. At the end of the day, it's an unique game in the RPG pantheon and one very much worth playing. Assuming you like reading and/or occasionally using a guide. Which I like both. So I'm good. Hey, this game is pretty awesome, isn't it? Almost forgot that part. Don't think that I'm down on this.
It's true. In between writing blogs about fighting games that get a bunch of comments I've been playing the lengthy, convoluted CRPGs from more than 10 years ago, as I am accustomed to do. In this case, Planescape Torment is the game of choice. Released in late 1999 and developed by some segment of Black Isle (now available on GOG for $10, a price well worth paying), Planescape is, even moreso than its other Infinity Engine contemporaries, a game that people on the internet really seem to like. However, unlike its other Infinity Engine contemporaries, it didn't sell extremely well. Having now played (or perhaps "experienced") this game, I can understand why both of those things are true.
And the reason why both those things are true is simply this: Planescape is the anti-RPG. I don't mean anti to imply "the polar opposite of", but more like " of the same kind but situated opposite, exerting energy in the opposite direction, or pursuing an opposite policy", as the Merriam Webster dictionary would put it. And indeed, I imagine at any point of the game where the developers could have inserted something that could be related to contemporary fantasy, or inserted something weird, they chose to insert something weird. It's a world where there are only two swords the player can posess, no elves, dwarves or other similar cliche fantasy races, and also a world where the color green is rarely used for just about anything (instead? A lot of brown). The game goes far enough with this to even include an optional dungeon that quite hilariously mocks established fantasy conventions and the purposelessness of most dungeoneering. It's perhaps this alone that gives Planescape such a unique identity, and although there's certainly more to it than just being totally off-kilter, it's this opposite day mentality that permeates a lot of the game's design. It's this that also makes it much harder to relate to the world of Planescape, as everything has to be explained and established through lengthy sections of text (thankfully, I was at least partially aware of some of the weirdness through my exposure to the Dungeon Master's Guide in days of yore).
The most obvious of these is the story. Whereas most RPGs deal with large-scale "Fate of the World" type scenarios, the story of Planescape is focused almost entirely around your character (The Nameless One) trying to understand who he is and why he can't die. Wheras one of Dragon Age II's many flaws was its attempt to deliver something resembling a personal story, it's clearly one of best parts about Planescape because, unlike the tale of Hawke, the Champion of Kirkwall, this game actually goes out of its way for you to care about your character, despite the fact that he's still a RPG blank slate, by establishing who he used to be. The Nameless One's prior history is a large part of the game's story, perhaps to the point where it kind of overshadows the fairly mundane things your character is doing otherwise, for the most part at least. The Nameless One's journey simultaneously gets more exciting and more boring once you actually leave the city of Sigil, but that's the last 1/4th of the game anyways. I won't be as hyperbolic as to call it the best story ever in a video game, but it probably is one of the best stories in a video game.
Of course, the other best part about Planescape is the dialog. It's dense, nay, verbose and there is easily a novel's worth of text in this thing. It's all extremely well written too. Not much of it is voice acted, but what is is delivered well enough. What Planescape did really well for me was make me actually consider dialog options. This is a rare feat. At some point in games like Mass Effect, one tends to autopilot their binary moral choices after a while. While the actual consequences of any one dialog choice is negligible (at least they aren't pretending it is), the inclusion of such things as player intent ("Truth: I agree" or "Lie: I agree") goes a long way in making you at least feel like your character is capable of decent roleplaying and not just a good/evil switch. The bad side of all of this is that the dialog is usually the reward for some sort of fetch quest. Because there's actually not a whole ton of combat in the game, a lot of what you're doing is almost adventure game-like in the way you have to talk to someone, then talk to someone else, or find an item and talk to someone. The parts where you fight are pretty boring actually and it's great that you can talk yourself to victory, much like Fallout.
Of course, the other other best part about Planescape is the characters. Continuing the trend of making everything in this game as non-stereotypical as possible, none of your party members can be considered normal. A floating skull, a chaste succubus, a dude that is constantly on fire and a possessed suit of armor with an extremely strict code of justice are some of the weirder characters that follow The Nameless One around. Thankfully, they're all pretty fleshed out too. Perhaps not to the extent of some modern Bioware characters, but thankfully the quality is actually consistent, unlike the cast of modern Bioware games. Everyone has a story, and with perhaps the exceptions of Ignus (who wants to burn things. Yesssss, Ignusss likess to burnnnn) and Vhailor (who has stayed beyond the grave to enforce justice. What is justice? I dunno. You can actually get him to kill himself if you use logic to tell him that there is no justice. That, or telling him that there are more criminals in the afterlife anyways.) all of them are pretty well rounded.
Thus, as previously said, the bad parts about Planescape are the parts that would otherwise be good in any other RPG. Since a lot of the core gameplay revolves around fetch quests, the actual combat parts are somewhat undercooked. There's not a ton of strategy to be had, nor is there an especially large variety of combat roles to fill. This is partially because The Nameless One can only be a Fighter, a Thief, or a Mage. Having played through as a mage, I will tell you right now that the correct answer is probably fighter. Unless you're really into the way you have to backstab in 2nd ed AD&D, there's no reason to be a thief (see Imoen's Law: In any game where you would need someone to unlock doors and disarm traps, one is already provided for you. SO DON'T MAKE YOUR MAIN GUY A THIEF), and the combat is shallow enough that Dak'kon or Ignus can probably cover your magic need. Since most of your party members already have their own signature weapons, most of the stuff you find is intended for you and only fighters can use the really good stuff (i.e. Hammers and Axes). The corollary of this is of course that since the dump stats are so useful to put points into (wisdom in particular, as it gives you a million billion dialog options as well as a substantial boost to your XP gain), you may find yourself gimped in the strength department, at least in the beginning. It's good that the less desirable parts of planescape are less frequent, but at some point the D&D license and ruleset feels ancillary to the entire experience.
Planescape is a very weird game. By being basically the polar opposite of something like Icewind Dale, the fact that there are regular RPG parts to it seems almost pointless, as if the game would be better without the combat or statistics (answer: Maybe not entirely). It's also a game based around fetch quests and reading a lot of well written, if verbose, dialog. At the end of the day, it's an unique game in the RPG pantheon and one very much worth playing. Assuming you like reading and/or occasionally using a guide. Which I like both. So I'm good. Hey, this game is pretty awesome, isn't it? Almost forgot that part. Don't think that I'm down on this.
Wait, you can talk yourself to victory in Fallout? I thought that was only in the realm of Persona. Anyway, all I wish to know is "does this game have a windowed mode?" I'm generally not a fan of games that default to fullscreen without the option to turn it off (don't expect an FF7 blog any time soon (although part of that is because I don't know how to manage all the patches and stuff)).
@Video_Game_King: Yeah, you can totally talk or stealth yourself out of the final boss fight in Fallout, not to mention pretty much every other fight in the game. You can either convince the boss to kill himself, or you can sneak down to the lower levels and arm the self-destruct sequence yourself. And no, I don't think there's a windowed mode in this game (actually, there's probably a mod that does that. Probably, knowing the modding community for those kinds of games). I have no idea why one would really want to have one in the first place, unless their computer was busted in some weird way that made it broken when games would enter fullscreen. You should probably play this game regardless. I'm not going to push you on it, but that's because you have plenty of other great games that I've recommended to ignore. (You played Carmageddon 64. By any comparison, Heroes III or Might and Magic VII are better games)
I knew about the final boss, but I didn't think that anybody else could be talked to. It didn't work in Phantasy Star, so why would it work in Fallout? Oh...the customization...yea...
I just like having games in windowed mode. At least that way, I can switch to other programs, like Firefox or Microsoft Excel (I take notes on every single game I play ( this is not a secret)). Besides, my computer usually freaks out when a game goes into fullscreen; for some reason, it always thinks that the resolution the game defaults to should be the resolution for the computer in general, at least while the game's running. Needless to say, this can get fucked up.
I still have X-COM to play, but I haven't touched that in a long time, and there's a good chance that I won't touch it for an equally long time (Steam has me by the balls, and I don't even have the time to play through Tear Ring Saga).
@Video_Game_King: When I needed to consult the FAQ for this game (which was often enough), I would just press esc to get to the menu, then alt+tab to the webpage. That probably wouldn't blow up your computer, right? You could also take notes on an actual notepad with actual paper, assuming they have such things on the moon. The game defaults to 640x420 and the resolution can't be changed without a fan mod. I, of course, used that sucker to crank the game all the way up to 1920x1080, which even my ancient computer can handle. I hope that helps...? In any case, have fun with your Steam-based indie bundle nightmares.
I'd prefer just one or two clicks to get to the FAQ.
I've actually done that before, and it was (unsurprisingly) with Fallout. Needless to say, not a fan of writing down the notes on paper, deciphering my own horrendous handwriting, and then transferring it all to Excel. Oh, and speaking of Fallout, I tried a few tricks to get the game running in a window, and none of them worked (fan patches and mods are crap, and adding "-w" to the end is fairly useless).
It's more than the Humble Indie Bundle. I also have to deal with two Half-Life games, a Trackmania game, and Super Meat Boy. I'd also have to deal with I Wanna Be the Guy, but I'm not sure if people can even see non-Steam shortcuts in other people's game libraries.
@Hailinel: Knowing what I know about your tastes in games, you'd probably like this more than Icewind Dale or Baldur's Gate and not just because there isn't a whole ton of combat. I'm not sure if I do, but regardless it's going to be pretty high up on my "Best games of 2011 that didn't come out in 2011" list come December.
Just to give you a little more insight into why the game didn't sell very well, since I know you didn't play it back in the day, Planescape shipped with some pretty severe technical problems that other Infinity Engine games simply didn't have, the most notorious of which caused horrible slow down and nearly interminable load times. I remember copying the entire contents of the CDs to hard drive just to get it to load faster, and I'm sure less forgiving gamers just stopped playing it. If I had to guess, these issues more so than its lack of traditional fantasy RPG trappings hindered its success. It's a testament to the game's strengths that it still reviewed well despite major bugs.
@DOOM2exe: Ah, that could also explain some of it. As an old game crusader, it's hard for me to find "Totally buggy at launch" as a flaw when every old game I play has been patched to death, either officially or unofficially. f course, that's kind of Black Isle's entire thing, isn't it? Even when they were just Black Isle they had some bug problems. Fallout 2 was supposed to be pretty busted when that came out too. Now that they've become Obsidian (yes, it's obvious hyperbole that Black Isle = Obsidian, because it really doesn't as far as I'm concerned, but bear with me), this problem has become even apparent because they're no longer the top dogs of the RPG world and don't have the funding to do decent QA anymore. Of course, Troika probably had it just as bad, but their games were never as high profile as all these sequels are and they bit the bullet a long time ago.
@ArbitraryWater: To be sure, RPG fans are accustomed to putting up with flawed products, but I meant that apropos of why Planescape underperformed compared to other Infinity Engine games. I've played almost every IE game close to when it was released, and Planescape was the only one where I had to do something above and beyond just patching the game to get it to function acceptably. The particular issues it had were also exacerbated by its slow pacing. An unusually dialogue-heavy RPG with load times of several minutes and combat which bogs down whenever there's a lot happening on screen has a lot against it from the outset, weird or not. Who really knows, though? Maybe it was just the terrible box art.
What makes it unique is that wisdom and intelligence, often neglected stats, have a substantial impact on those dialogue options and how they play out (too many rpgs neglect this with boilerplate dialogue "choices"). It really is, as AW says, a very heavily dialogue-focused game with some significant choice and consequence aspects. The setting and the characters are extremely well-done. And my god, the final dialogue sequence is the best thing in CRPGs and maybe video game writing ever. I won't spoil it for anyone reading, but it is well worth playing to the end.
@ArbitraryWater: Have you played Mask of the Betrayer? It's in a way a spiritual sequel to Planescape in feel and theme as well as perhaps being second only to Planescape in its writing. The moral choice mechanic is extremely cool too, and the high-level encounters are interesting as well as challenging.
. Everyone has a story, and with perhaps the exceptions of Ignus (who wants to burn things. Yesssss, Ignusss likess to burnnnn) and Vhailor (who has stayed beyond the grave to enforce justiceJust a heads up, those two fellas actually have some involved history with the Nameless One.
i bought it of GOG a few weeks back and after spending a few hours looking for and installing MODS making the game run at a decent resolution and in widescreen i spend soooo much time reading that i felt like i was reading a book. and i would rather just read a book.
so i uninstalled it and never intend to play it again. waste of £5
@Tennmuerti: Maybe I wasn't super clear in my writing thanks to the overuse of parentheses The part of the quote that matters is
I was making a statement on the depth of the characters. I know about Ignus' and Vhailor's prior history with the Nameless One. They're just flat characters. Interesting flat characters, but single-note nonetheless. (of course, you could argue that the whole point is that they're entirely one minded in their devotion to justice/burning things.)and with perhaps the exceptions of Ignus (who wants to burn things. Yesssss, Ignusss likess to burnnnn) and Vhailor (who has stayed beyond the grave to enforce justice. What is justice? I dunno. You can actually get him to kill himself if you use logic to tell him that there is no justice. That, or telling him that there are more criminals in the afterlife anyways.) all of them are pretty well rounded.
@jetsetwillie: Didn't they tell you in school that reading led you to a world of adventure? However, if the initial onslaught of text was enough to scare you off, I can tell you that the rest of the game is a lot like that. Your loss I'm afraid.
@owl_of_minerva: I never got past the original campaign in NWN2. I figure that I'll try in earnest once I have a computer that doesn't take 5 minutes to load most areas. I've heard that Mask of the Betrayer is the best thing about NWN2, so whenever I get back to that you can expect I'll write my thoughts.yeah they did and i read loads of books. but when i play a game i want to play something not read.
@Tennmuerti: Maybe I wasn't super clear in my writing thanks to the overuse of parentheses The part of the quote that matters isI was making a statement on the depth of the characters. I know about Ignus' and Vhailor's prior history with the Nameless One. They're just flat characters. Interesting flat characters, but single-note nonetheless. (of course, you could argue that the whole point is that they're entirely one minded in their devotion to justice/burning things.)and with perhaps the exceptions of Ignus (who wants to burn things. Yesssss, Ignusss likess to burnnnn) and Vhailor (who has stayed beyond the grave to enforce justice. What is justice? I dunno. You can actually get him to kill himself if you use logic to tell him that there is no justice. That, or telling him that there are more criminals in the afterlife anyways.) all of them are pretty well rounded.
@jetsetwillie: Didn't they tell you in school that reading led you to a world of adventure? However, if the initial onslaught of text was enough to scare you off, I can tell you that the rest of the game is a lot like that. Your loss I'm afraid.
its not much of a lose... it was only £5
@endaround: You can't pick your class in the mortuary though, or do you mean in stat allotment?
Also, I have listened to people criticize that box art for years and years and I understand how it may well have hurt sales (Although they did seem to have the Portal orange and blue thing figured out years before) but I personally love the box art and its uniqueness. It perfectly relates the flavor of the game. Except that he's blue.
Please Log In to post.
This edit will also create new pages on Giant Bomb for:
Beware, you are proposing to add brand new pages to the wiki along with your edits. Make sure this is what you intended. This will likely increase the time it takes for your changes to go live.Comment and Save
Until you earn 1000 points all your submissions need to be vetted by other Giant Bomb users. This process takes no more than a few hours and we'll send you an email once approved.
Log in to comment