"Inspired by Final Fantasy VII" UH YEAH... IT SHOWS. THIS IS LITERALLY A GAME MADE BY PEOPLE WHO UNDERSTOOD WHAT MADE FF7 SO GOOD AND POPULAR AND TREATED TO RECREATE THAT FORMULA, THE GRITTY FANTASY ATSMOPHERE, AN ALL ENCAPSULATING EPIC ABOUT THE WEIGHT OF LIFE, THEME OF IDENTITY AND FLESHING IT OUT MORE. Pun intended? Maybe.
Once you start thinking of this WRPG as more of a WRPG take on the JRPG formula, you start enjoying it more, the Enhanced Edition sure does help quite a lot, when I had first played this game, I didn't get that far until around you reach the Lower Ward. It is kinda sad the PC version of Planescape: Torment Enhanced Edition doesn't have controller support which is weird because the Switch version of this game I believe has both mouse pointing and analog control of the character. I say this because I truly believe with these new re-workings, Planescape Torment stops being that scary hard to approach WRPG elitists love and starts playing more like a JRPG of this era.
I can’t tell if my memory is fuzzy but I am CERTAIN so much has been improved for me to actually get through all of this. Like yes it is not just game improvements but since the last time I have played this game I have become WAAAAY more familiar with the RPG genre across the years, think 15 year old me to now in my late 20s, I mean I went from Final Fantasy to Shin Megami Tensei, from Skyrim to Morrowind, from Fallout 3 to the obviously better in every single way Fallout: New Vegas, a lot has happened since then, but I do believe that if you go with a good mindset and know how to approach RPG games this game isn’t half bad! Some flaws but not bad!
Speaking of flaws: I mean, what other RPG from this time period doesn’t have such sections that require a lot of backtracking, moments where you have to cheese to get pass certain enemies, some even adore the charm of that “This might be annoying but you will look back and remember fondly about it, maybe like Super Mario Sunshine? Or Dark Souls? Those are all highly flawed games but remembered fondly as some of the most memorable experiences, I think of Bennett Foddy thinkpiece “Eleven Flavors Of Frustration” from January 15, 2017 and how it writes more on this topic, a perfect game has to be flawed.
Life improvements include: Tab Highlighting, some bug fixes, although some bugs are still prevalent, you might have at least 1 quest that through trial and error doesn’t reach it’s flagpole event and is stuck forever in your to-do list until the end of the game, and before you can save and load to where you can fix it, it’s too late, you finished that quest a thousand saves ago. Don’t you love WRPGs?
There might have been some other improvements that I didn’t even notice however what is most important to me, is that the Enhanced version actually fixed one of my major complaints of the game that the game was extremely clustered and felt claustrophobic, well the areas are now bigger and you can actually move in them. I remember barely being able to move in the original and going through these annoying hallways with hostile lim-lims that I could barely click on, I remember constantly getting stuck at places in my original play through, so I am glad they made the game more breathable.
Now even if you want! You can play the whole game as if it’s Skyrim on the easiest mode, it is completely accessible to anyone who is slightly familiar with RPG games nowadays, but yes, having a walkthrough to your side to get through most of the easy to do quests that are just talk this person, say the right things, helps immensely, being a completionist helps you be leveled well enough to go against most of the things in this game, you can’t just blow through it, you should look for where you can do quests so you can level up more… Or just play it Skyrim style with the new difficulty scale.
To SAY THE LEAST however… Like most “Hardcore RPGs”, the start is always rough, until you either choose for your protagonist to be a thief or until your third party member is introduced, then the fun really begins and the pace of the game increases exponentially as you can now pickpocket, which truly feeds into that kleptomania that WRPGs have infected you with. Around where you find Pharod, the game starts getting surprisingly addicting with it's gameplay loop.
It’s fun whenever they try to give you some freedom to do dumb shit because often it feels that Planescape Torment is obviously a point and click adventure game first and RPG second but GOD DAMN... Does it feel good to pitpocket and get look in the game, upgrade your armor, get better stuff, sell stuff, they fixed the money pacing very well in enhanced mode I feel, sooner or later you will find a merchant you can sell most things to (like in the Lower Wards). But yeah, I cannot deny that there are many people who say “Plot is good, gameplay is meh”, which is sad! But you can’t blame many for that way of thinking, after all, that way of thinking is probably what inspired Disco Elysium, which is an RPG much like this but with no combat.
You can’t ENTIRELY blame people for wishing this game was only 1 thing also because of how certain sections are paced. There are entire sections of the game that completely break the pacing and it just becomes A WORD DUMP and then it hits you: This is an interactive book and they every now and then put combat to change it up a bit… Oh man… If there is any flaw it is how they try to structure that between Clerk's Ward and Curst.
Clerk’s Ward is this section that has no combat at all and is mostly just dialog exchange, and it probably has the most written dialog of the entire game, as you play through this section you beg to yourself: Please, some combat, I forgot what I am playing has RPG elements outside of how much I put in my INT stat and my CHA stat due to mostly playing detective around who I was and becoming a sensate. And lo and behold, the monkey’s paw curls a finger, because what you get next is CURST.
Curst is the most linear part of the game, it is pretty straight forward and you really just have to do 1 main quest (which can be completely ignored but you wouldn’t wanna waste that EXP opportunity, there is also 1 optional quest as well that isn’t even considered a quest at all) and they just keep throwing enemies at you non-stop and you have to cheese the enemies so you only aggro one of them so that you don’t get overwhelmed with all of them. But yeah, this is a game that often times does not know how to pace it’s plot and it’s RPG fun.
The plot in itself is fun to PUT IT LIGHTLY and it is no exaggeration that this is one of the best written games in all time, a plot device is cleverly introduced around every arc, it's plot as many have discussed is both Planescape greatest strength but also a detriment as discussed before: it is both a point and click adventure game and a RPG, despite everything I am not one to say "They should of just removed all of the gameplay" because it is fun when it works you know? I appreciate them actually adding some features that make certain things more satisfying and alive. But yes by trying to be both, you need to hoard quest items and treat them the same way as junk items, backtracking isn't TOO Bad (especially when you unlock fast travel) but oh my god.
Sarcastically: You know it was an amazing idea to make it so that quest items are treated the same as regular junk items! Like when you need something you literally need to travel all the way back to where you store items to progress because NOW you need that one quest item you got like 10 hours ago. Sorry for saying this but Bethesda games actually fixed this by making quest items weight zero and non-removable from your inventory.
Expect the first 6 items in your limited inventory space to be quest items, which at a certain point, you can't leave those items somewhere, you gotta mule them throughout the whole game, you never know when you'll need it or when it starts being useful. This is a game that is much more fun once you played it once because now you know what you are supposed to do and when to do it, however, the first rodeo is extremely clumsy.
“Avellone remarked that many of the ideas in the game "could only have been communicated through text, simply because no one would have the budget or resources to fully realise many of these fantasy works through TV or movies".[37] Ultimately, Avellone has expressed some regret about the game's heavy focus on dialogue, as he feels this interfered with the overall game mechanics, particularly the combat system.[28][38] The game's script contains around 800,000 words,[39] after early previews had indicated that the game would be only about 20 hours long.[22]” is on the Wikipedia page so this has been a much said of discussion. Also 20 hours long? It does not feel that short when you actually try to do most of the things like I’ve said, I’ve beaten the game yes but I still feel as if there are some aspects to uncover.
This is an entirely FASCINATING world that really does push the limits of the fantasy genre, it is a fantasy world that actually cares about what it comments on and what it has to set up, it flows amazingly well and it holds surreal depictions of a completely alien world that feels extremely hostile, new and unwelcoming to anything conventional, it is a gritty world that feels better than your usual D&D world that doesn’t do anything special, with that said, the characters are to adore for! Dak'kon is kinda… Just there, I get that his whole thing is to be cool but he doesn’t add that much other than that.
You can talk with your own party members and gain more information from them, even confront them on certain new topics you have discovered, again, it could be seen as a flaw, but every now and then the plot opens and that door that was closed that you passed through, you aren’t sure if it’s open anymore. What isn’t a flaw is the wonderful worldbuilding though! Fantasy worlds should not be afraid of post-modern topics, especially with how they can play with borderline 4th dimensional religious shit.
Makes for wonderful symbolism too, the whole higher planes arming the lower planes and keeping them occoupied with a never ending war is probably some "rich people fund wars" symbolism. The situations of which Planescape built are intricate and in the end work wonderfully well with the main plot. The amount of material to go through can be pretty hefty, and I would not consider it to be beginner level literature, even if yes... It is Dungeons & Dragons, honestly kinda easy to forget it is D&D, it is so unique in it's look that I don't associate it with that one pass time in which nerdy kids make stories for themselves.
When you compare this story to most generic fantasy that has almost nothing new or anything important to say, you realize that most fantasy writers lack life experiences with what they apply to their story, this is something that doesn't shy away from actually going deeper into it's complicated topics, there is good oversight, direction. Sure being a Dungeons and Dragons story might be cheating because it is open-source fantasy writing tools, anyone can write a d&d story, that is the idea, the world sets some concepts that kids can use to their liking, some kid in the 80s probably made a very good fantasy story about mortality and traumatized his friends who just thought it’d be a normal D&D session.
I am just glad to finally see a fantasy story that doesn't make me think "This paints an uneducated look on the writer who cares nothing about what they write about and is to shy to write around hard to concept fantasy paradoxes" you know, media criticism isn't just about feeling better for being at a point of privilege towards creation but being well-experienced and knowing when something is well reflecting the HUMAN IMAGE. Some people just don't put their heart or stakes into things and their work just ends up having NOTHING, it has this big "Zombie" energy to it, the fantasy genre is filled with it, HELL, a lot of D&D players are like that, this should be standard D&D reading because it raises your storytelling standards to new heights.
In fact this is the type of fantasy story that puts you in the spirit to want to write a D&D scenario yourself, so as a D&D product it works WONDERFULLY if that is what it was designed for, I feel extremely inspired after absorbing all of this world building magic, it is a good introduction as to the heights of which the fantasy genre is capable of, it gives you a good standard of how creative you can be yourself.
Theme discussion (may have spoilers):
Now, this is usually the aspect that is stuck the most with people, after all, this is a juicy text heavy interactive novel for most, and for many what is the value of text is not just it’s "surface level themes" but deeper ideas like the "remorse of conscience" that make this a post-modernist classic, depends on how literate you are to see the finer details.
Possibly a game that was built around the concept of catholic guilt, the idea that no matter what you do, you will always be doomed to a life of sin due to the circumstances you were born in. It deals heavily with suicide, valuing your time on the planet, what it means to live a full life, what it means to live a life if all of it is predetermined by forces that in this case were literally just set out for yourself, self-love, self-doubt, lots of things in relation towards the self, and of course: “What can change the nature of a man?” which might seem like an ok question at first but only runs deeper as the story develops.
Now of course, we are always trying our best to do what we find is best, and more importantly what we can do to survive, in doing so we inevitably create circumstances where we have no option but to be nasty or do things out of our own selfish needs. A lot of this story deals with trying to “Change your nature” but what is the point in changing your nature if in one way all actions could be considered bad in one way, there is a common theme of good intentions going extremely awry and doing more harm than good. It puts the idea of “practicality” into more inspective lenses, and goes to question: Can you really blame some for doing the things they did?
In creating a fantasy world where an idea of an after-life is easily traversable and can be tampered with, ie: it is of material relevance and existence, it doesn’t only give symbolic weight but also questions such ideas of moralism, an experience like this might raise such questions on whenever or not it is right or even possible to judge a man to condemn them to eternal damnation. I mean, listen, everyone has thought it: Why should my incarnation be judged for what my past re-incarnations done? And guess what, YOU ARE SUPPOSED to think that way, the entire structure of how moralism is built is deeply flawed, it is a paradoxical question of which you need to question the merit of.
As Trias gets themselves into a situation, they argue that the world has been way too corrupt for the sake of keeping the blood war going and opts to clean the whole world, ironically, this only makes Trias themselves a bad person, many scenarios paint a defacto idea that there isn't a straight-forward villain in this story and puts really into question the idea "of good" when there is no way to be good in such a world, in fact no one is a villain, it is just people who born under bad circumstances in a corrupt world are destined to the blood war.
Going back to that one quote, “What can change the nature of a man?” what is important however is what you are capable of, if you are capable of good then that is all that matters, you should take for granted the life you live and try to make the most out of it. If you are capable of change than that is great! That is the underlying message of this whole story. Despite what approach you get towards the ending, some more satisfying than others, it shows that The Nameless One did in fact learn and change and is at peace with what he has to suffer through.
It is a story that relies heavily on the idea of constitution and acceptance of what you have, there are circumstances that you may not change but at least you are yourself and you can set yourself to achieve things! Constitution is literally a stat also helps out this aspect, it is about being true to yourself, having well established principles, it is only when you know yourself that you can work on yourself and relieve the torment of existence. I know I dissed Dak'kon back in this review as their whole thing is just being cool, their few lines of dialog are literally the whole theme condensed, the phrase “Endure. In Enduring grow strong.” might as well be the slogan of this game the amount of times I’ve heard it, it would also work as a slogan because you know, another theme of this game is EXISTENCE IS PAIN, SUFFERING, TORMENT.
Now I am sure that the whole torment angle of this game (It is literally the title) could make a paragraph of it’s own and maybe I’d mention philosophers like Friedrich Nietzsche etc. But you can play the game itself and see what you’d get out of it, it isn’t particularly hard because the themes are heavy-handed and hard to miss, like the themes are just TEXT, but some of the inner content that is a bit easier to miss has a lot for interpretation, or might depend on how you play the game, as in whenever or not you can get more information on it?
Some things are still kept mysteries and honestly open up for a lot of replayability as you might be curious as to who Morte is if the information you gained wasn’t satisfying enough, you might have missed an entire section (I know I have by completely ignoring bringing a Modron Cube to the Modrons in that intellectual brothel, learned more about the world or characters all that fun stuff. The themes in this game are the easiest thing to get, the finer details aren’t.
Final thoughts:
Now, of course, this game is flawed, it is a WRPG from 1999, surprisingly like I’ve mentioned before, it’s Enhanced Edition makes it more tolerable to go through, however, even being a sometimes janky and clunky game, it is a game that as soon as I finished it THE FIRST TIME (that’s right, I had to go back in so that I could get different paths and different endings, or anything else I might of missed, (which I'd recommend new players to get a Modron Cube and to show it to Modrons for extra stuff), it is a story that literally made me wanna get a tattoo to remember it immediately, which you know, kinda of a given with the whole tattoo theme in this story…
But I want to make it clear I wish to have other video game tattoos like the trashy and weirdly very common FF7 meteor, or the Star Fox Star Wing, or a giant “LEGA” across my leg. It’s not just because the story involves tattoos, it’s just that I immediately knew that as soon as I finished this I was way in too deep and I knew I was gonna obsess over it for a long time. I should of known as I am obsessed with Fallout New Vegas, and this is considered Avellone’s magmum opus.
But, much like other Avellone projects, they are always cut a bit short to what could of been greater? Like I said you can get a lot from this game but is hard to deny that a lot of ideas felt cut, for example, the nameless one only has 1 piece of clothing and it becomes useless after the first section, and they literally cut out Lady of Pain from this game, and I feel as if that is something that'd be extremely important considering she is on the title screen, there could've been a whole different path where you are PRO-DESTRUCTION OF THE WORLD, and you go up against Sigil's goddess. And I guess, if anything, although it is extremely possible to miss a lot of the content of this game and your experience might be different every time because you realize way too late into the game that you're like "Oh... I could of done that thing", a game designed for trial and error.
But yes about the Modron Cube, easy to miss, this game is filled with things that are completely missable and you'd only get them if you actually talk to almost every NPC with a name tag, that is, if you actually pay attention to what they say, much like Final Fantasy VII, this game has 2 optional companions that are honestly kinda hard to know how you'd get them without a walkthrough, one requires you to buy a random item that allows you to quick travel out of luck, think of bringing it to other mordons, and another companion can be gained only if you are very lawful.
And I only knew of them after beating the game once and reading up and honestly, getting them around the end of the game is a bit useless, there isn't much post-game content to use late-game extra stuff, especially considering the last boss can just be fought with knowing what to do with your quest items. This game has AMAZING gameplay concepts and again I appreciate the effort, but a lot of them are cut short around the end and there's not much to explore after most of the main places are discovered. Filling your world map up out of curiosity feels anti-climatic, but definitely goes to show that curiosity can change the nature of a man, it isn't the biggest RPG out there.
This game is also something that helped introduce me to the D&D universe more, even if it is a 90s edgy take on it that hasn't gotten too much traction, it was a original unique take on it that made me think: maybe the other games have just as interesting concepts in an otherwise generic setting. There are apparently many games like this one, and as FF7 introduced me to the Final Fantasy series, this game too might have opened the door for Bulder's Gate which I have yet to have played (I know that's going backwards but maybe I will be more tolerant of such).
It is one of those games that I played when I was younger but could not force myself to get through the now aged clunky mechanics (I might be exaggerating, it’s playable), it is very similar to how I went and played Morrowind which took me around 4 attempts until when on the 4th attempt I found enough good mods to make the experience enjoyable, although Planescape was a lot easier to get back to with it’s Enhanced Edition, and I am glad I gave this game a second chance as of now because it really is something I feel as if “the life I have lived was worth it”.
