This is, quite simply, one of the greatest games ever created. Any RPG fan owes it to themselves to try this game out.
The Good: One of the best storylines ever devised for a video game. Highly memorable characters. Lots of excellent side quests. Innovative protagonist who can switch character cla$$ at will. Fascinating setting and environment. For the time period, excellent graphics. Thrilling sound track. Lots of user created mods and patches. Quest resolution almost always provides far more experience than combat. Multiple endings.
The Bad: Buggy unless patched. Little voice acting. To some, endings are unsatisfactory.
If Planescape: Torment is not the greatest game of all time, then it certainly is a contender for the title. Released to rave reviews and lackluster sales, the game never spawned a sequel that it should have had and fans everywhere have clamored for. So we are left with something highly unusual in modern times: a game that received almost unanimous positive reviews that didn't spawn at least two additional follow-up titles.
But what is it that makes this game so great that it can match up successfully with most modern titles even today, nearly a decade after it was first released?
Any answer to that question must first begin with the storyline, which puts nearly all storylines in modern day games to shame. In total, the game's script contains roughly 800,000 words. This is the equivalent of a 2667 page book if we assume three hundred words per printed page. To say that the storyline is fleshed out is a bit of an understatement. But anyone can just throw a lot of words at a storyline. The true mark of a great story isn't the amount of words that it contains, but the depth of the themes included. This is where Torment shines the brightest. Torment's storyline touches deeply upon some of the most important themes that mankind has struggled with throughout the course of human history. When is it too late for a bad person to be redeemed if they've led an evil life? Is it possible to cheat fate? Do gods create men or do men create gods through the power of their belief? What can change the nature of a man? These are just a few of the questions that the game, and the game's main protagonist, grapples with through the course of his journey of self-discovery.
To talk too much about the storyline would be to ruin it, so let's move onto the thrilling characters the game features. Any discussion of the characters must, of course, begin with the one you play, who is appropriately titled "The Nameless One". Not your typical hero.The Nameless One wakes up in the mortuary (morgue) with no memory of how he got there or why he isn't dead, a bunch of instructions from someone literally tattooed onto his back, and an animated, floating skull babbling at him. He is, apparently, immortal. This then, is the ultimate freedom that many rpg titles strive for and never quite achieve. You are offered the ultimate choice that an RPG can present: define who you are completely from scratch. Granted, you've had past lives and clues of who you have been are scattered everywhere, but who you are now is left up for you to determine based on your choices throughout this long game, of which there will be many.
The Nameless One is hardly the only interesting character you will meet in the game. Developed by Interplay, the predecessor to renowned RPG developers Bioware and Obsidian, the cast of supporting characters is top notch. The floating skull I mentioned earlier who is present when you wake up in the Mortuary is one of them.
Others include a beautiful succubus demon, who has turned her back on seducing mortals into giving up their souls and fled from hell. She now runs a place called "The Brothel for Slating Intellectual Lusts" where all the prostitutes do is slate lusts of the mind alone. Another is a floating suit of animated armor, with a distinct hard-on for smiting evil doers and anyone who shows any hints of mercy. Still another is an insane mage whose had a portal to the elemental plane of fire opened within him and is therefore constantly on fire…and loves it. I could go on. Suffice it to say that the cast of characters is expansive, original and fun to interact with.
You and the supporting characters start in a place called "Sigil", which is also known as the City of Doors because it serves as a interdimensional hub of sorts between the various heavens and hells of existence. Sigil alone would qualify as one of the more unique settings in recent rpg memory, but it is not the only plane of existence you'll visit in your quest to answer the ultimate questions that the game poses. Seldom have rpg settings been so vibrantly unique and alive as the ones you'll travel through during the course of the game, and finding the multitude of various side quests that the game offers is an experience in and of itself.
Those side quests range far beyond the typical "go kill person XYZ" or "fetch/deliver the widget". For example, early on in the game you can encounter a man called "Reekwind" who insulted the wrong wizard and has been cursed with, you guessed it, incredible stench. A quest you can undertake is to remove the stench from the man…or you can just decide to make fun of him instead if you so choose. Another example is the quest to convince a mage to provide final death to a zombie he created. A zombie named "Dimtree" was created because a mage was hired by the coffin maker's neighbors to provide the coffin maker a friend, because the coffin maker talks so much that nobody can stand to be around him. Unfortunately, the zombie actually turned out to be much more intelligent and aware of its surroundings than zombies are supposed to being is now suffering horribly and wants to go back to being fully dead and needs you to convince the mage in question to let him. The variety of different quests that you can undertake is truly staggering.
Unlike a lot of games, the side quests in Torment truly are quite optional. You can beat the game without doing a bunch of side questing to power up, which is ironic because unlike other games that almost require you to do side quests in order to become powerful enough to beat the game, the side quests in Planescape: Torment are so much fun that even though you really don't need to do them, most players will probably do a lot of them anyway just to see how they get resolved. And the resolution of quests definitely compensates players appropriately. br>Torment differs from games which focus on killing things as the main vehicle to gaining experience and additional powers. Planescape has few absolutely mandatory battles. True, a player can choose to battle often if they like, but nearly every battle in the game can be avoided with minimal loss of power and experience if your conversation stats like charisma, wisdom and intelligence are high enough. In addition, you aren't penalized for avoiding combat because you gain far more experience as rewards for finishing quests or having good conversations with folks than you do from mindless slaughter. Torment is a game that truly rewards players for, surprise! Playing a role.
Another interesting thing to note is that you can switch cla$$es at will throughout the game. Unlike most other RPG games where you chose what cla$$ of character you will play when you create the character and then it is set for the duration, The Nameless One can switch between being Fighter, a Wizard or a Thief almost at will once he has access to the proper trainers. The in-game explanation for how this is possible is that the protagonist isn't so much learning new skills as he is remembering old ones. Since he's an immortal, he's held a wide variety of different professions during his many lives. So if you get tired of solving quests by bashing someone over the head and would prefer to zap them with a few well-placed spells, then there is no need to start over. Just switch up your cla$$!
Of course doing this does have some drawbacks. You get some extra rewards for specializing such as rising in levels quicker and, based on how you allocate your stats, you may be better suited to play one cla.ss over another, but the freedom you're allowed to make those choices is truly remarkable.
By modern standards, the graphics in Torment are, of course, subpar. The game is a decade old after all! However, by the standards of the time period it was released in, the graphics are top notch and they hold up well enough today to not be a distraction from the overall fun of the game. The graphics are also supported by a very solid soundtrack. The main theme is the best music overall but many of the themes for the individual characters that you meet in the game are equally well done and memorable. And while voice acting is rather minimal, what is there features nearly a wide selection of some of the more memorable voice actors both in and out of the video game industry. (For example: Jennifer Hale, who voiced Bastila Shan from Knights of the Old Republic and Lady Aribeth from Neverwinter Nights.) While some of these choices are surprising, such as the voice actor who did Homer Simpson doing one of the characters you can recruit, they all work well.
For all that Torment does correct, it isn't without a couple of flaws here and there. Of course one is the sparse voice acting, but that is minor. Much more serious is the buggy state of the game until it is patched. Interplay released an official patch before it went out of business that advances the game to version 1.1, but the cult following that the game has developed has done a great deal more work since.
This reviewer recommends the following patches/mods in the following order.
1. The Official Patch
2. Comprehensive WeiDU Fixpack by Qwinn, which includes a number of previously released fixpacks all incorporated together.
3. Unfinished Business which restores a bunch of cut content back into the game.
4. Qwinn's Torment Tweaks which makes a number of minor but very helpful tweaks to the game, such as allowing you to stack items (thus saving valuable space) and rest anywhere.
Author's Note: For some reason links don't work here. I have a version of this review in my blog that has the links, along with better formatting. Feel free to PM me to provide if you need help finding these patches/mods.
But since Torment has been out for quite some time, nearly all of the original bugginess of the released version of the game has since been fixed. It may take a little bit of time and effort to get the right patches and mods installed, but they are all available.
Summary:
Planescape: Torment is easily one of the best rpg titles ever released. It is a must-own for any true fan of the RPG genre, and cannot be recommended enough by this reviewer. Do yourself a favor and find a way to pick this title up used somewhere. You won't be disappointed.
True Final Score: 10.0