I play old games (Planescape Torment)

By ArbitraryWater June 19, 2011 26 Comments

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.

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