Why Planescape Torment is not a great game (In Depth)

[Ismaul]

WLC? Is that a code for something?

Actually didn't see the 2 L so read that as W.C.

p. shit opinion indeed

 

[Hobo Elf]

Posting in retardo.

 

[CryptRat]

Fallout is probably better

Not an argument, everything is shit compared to Fallout, Torment is still a masterpiece.

 

[A_Leftist_Pig?]

I had a friend once who didn't like Fallout.

 

[Seari]

oh i agree its shit

rekt

 

[One-and-a-half-Ivan]

Joined: Apr 1, 2007

Retarded newfags are retarded.

 

[ArchAngel]

I had a friend once who didn't like Fallout.

Did you kill him or did he end his life?

 

[Obama Phone 3]

My appreciation of this game dissolved after I found a walkthrough on Youtube by a user that shares his Real Doll picture album through his account.

See here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs-vnxEWt9YKXyVGoMuJpAw

 

[Sordid MCA/Prosper Hybryd]

Finally made myself play this game!


I can't remember ever having this mixed feelings over a game like I have about Torment.
The fact that I feared death for so long and kept reloading despite the fact that I had neverending lives is testimony to this.
The fact that I was truly perplexed as to if my Succubus partner was honest or not, if she would murder Anna or not.
Or the rumors about Morty, whether or not he really should be allowed to hang along...

The slow exploration of how things work, where you can do what with whom, all of this was amazingly well done.

But the game has some serious flaws and to me it read more like a truly perfected adventure game than a RPG.


Let me first say that I am not someone who really cares about balance.
I don't even like fairness.

But some things in this game were done very poorly, were very rushed or completely nonsensical.

Let's begin with one stat that you will never, ever care about! Weight!

Due to the lack of implemented armor, due to the lack of weapon variety (a good thing) and the endless amounts of tiny, weightless trinkets you will never actually become over-encumbered.

You will, however, run out of SPACE. Because a fly takes up as much space as a battle axe.
Your companions are used to fling about these tiny trinkets back and forth as a cumbersome form of inventory management, the worst I have ever seen. Just like many others I didn't figure out you could use the portraits to transfer items until a long time had passed and kept dropping them and picking them up.

Once I figured it out the transfer of items back and forth became a huge chore and trivialized inventory management and party management completely.
There are several points like this along the game, either useless or hard to figure out things that shouldn't be that hard or that useless.

Other examples include curses and their general lack and the inability of figuring out with what you are cursed, the bugged or somehow messed up overlapping spells that grant you strength (but in actuality take away strength), the lack of any description of the hidden stat known only as "Luck" that for a newbie must have been very confusing.



But these aren't the games major flaws. The absolute largest failure is the resolution which now, a decade later, can be fixed with a mod. The choice to use extremely detailed and blown up landscapes in a worthless resolution made the game unplayable for me for 10 years.

Now that I played it though I felt a sense of drawn out failure as I progressed in the realm of Sigil and entered into the other realms.


The game starts to suck, more and more, the further you go.
The illusion of choice, that never really existed due to the narative of the game (which is fine, even commendable) becomes so watered down by the time that you reach Chrust or what ever that shithole of a town is called that the only thing driving you forward is your will to see the conclusion of the basic storyline.

Chrust is an unfinished mess, admittedly so. Out of nowhere the only notable character you can speak of is a barkeep that apparently knows beforehand that you need some weird key to enter a hidden place. The only way to get it is to go IN TURNS from person to person. No way, no sir can you talk to them in your old pace and for some reason all of them know only a portion of some forgotten password to this same barkeeps mind. Why, how or even when this bloody stupid conflagration to the human mind came about is something nobody talks about.

The fact that it pits you into the dungeon but in a worse position than what a little exploring does is also quite frankly ridicilous.

From there on everything is a mess. Triaste a.k.a. The Fallen One is WAY overpowered unless you complete all good tasks making any evil character unable to progress despite the fact that the "practical one" (aka Sociopath) did it before.

The amount of combat required out of this badly configured engine that oftentimes does not recognise commands is too much although I grew to not hate it as much as I did when I just started the game.

In the end the story itself becomes a mess. You are continuously advised to search out your mortality (for it is apparently something akin to your soul) yet dying by any of the gods that exist is a bad thing. The fact that you are in a world of spirits already judged in a prior life is constantly in conflict with the concept of true death and the fact that you, even with your mortality will be punished for eons to come in a field of endless battle (ending cutscene) also doesn't make sense.




Final Judgment.



Planescape torment starts out promising but ends up being a story for the slightly insecure but intelligent adolescent who never cares to scratch behind its surface complexities. In the end a fable and in practice a novel with many possible choices, some of which lead to oblivion and others to some form of success it is non the less burdened by its weak gameplay, UI and inconsistencies.

In a way an allegory to God in modern religion, it provides you with the concept of Free Will but nudges you, harder and harder towards a Lawful Good playthrough due to the limitations of its mechanics and the practicability of your choices.

You are faggot and should be killed.

 

[mindx2]

Zero brofists says it all...

 

[MasPingon]

Messages:133
Brofists Received:0

Bbut why?

 

[t]

Really, you're going to bitch about the fact that you didn't know how to use inventory (which is ok), low res graphics (which was ok at the time and now we have mods) and combat (which is known to be shit) in this story-driven game? And yes, there are almost no fucking meaningful choices like in every other game excluding AoD.

Edgy bastard.

 

[Transfiguring Roar]

Zero brofists says it all...

I was going to make a new account with the username 'Nobody'.

Then I was going to brofist the OP.

 

[Sammael]

This is not Volourn's alt, is it?

 

[t]

Zero brofists says it all...

I was going to make a new account by the name 'Nobody'.

Then I was going to brofist the OP.

You'll have to wait a year I'm afraid.

This is not Volourn's alt, is it?

OP can write full sentences, so no, not likely.

 

[DraQ]

Joined: Apr 1

Retarded newfags are retarded.

It's more like the OP is himself a joke.

 

[A_Leftist_Pig?]

Messages:133
Brofists Received:0

Bbut why?

Because my last post before today was made before this achievement whoring gamification shit became the norm in forums so that you sissies can enjoy giving each other blowjobs.

 

[A_Leftist_Pig?]

I had a friend once who didn't like Fallout.

Did you kill him or did he end his life?

Ignorance is bliss. I let him be.

 

[A_Leftist_Pig?]

And again, you have not really addressed my main point which is that the does nudge you, harder and harder into a certain direction that is Lawful Good and that the narrative completely overtakes any sense of real roleplaying while still forcing you through its clunky interface.

I have not addressed that, because I can't recall the choices, because last time i played it was like 3 years. (played it 4 times)
But maybe you're right I remember trying a evil run and being disappointed to being neutral at the end.
And I also think that the game would be a even greater masterpiece if it was a shorter adventure.

I think you do have some points, but with this method you could criticize everything.

But you have to admit it's very polemic to throw Lionheart in there.

Meh, I don't think so. Like even something like Mount and Blade and Oblivion revolves around character creation and character progression. This does not do that so much. Although messing it up too badly could mean you can't finish the game.

Still, it's a good game, just not great IMO. But everyone, even fanboys like SCO are entitled to their opinions.

 

[treborSux]

I've never even played PS:T, but since your biggest complaint (in bad bold) comes from complaining about the resolution, means this is probably a good game. I'm gonna play it now. Did you hate Jagged Alliance 2 too? Just so I know your opinions are legit.

 

[A_Leftist_Pig?]

Never played Jagged but you shouldn't play the game in its normal resolution. Every review back when it was released blasted it cause of that. The resolution creates an effect that your line of sight is actually obstructed by it and not the fog of war. It's a complete failure on the side of the developers and/or the hardware available back then.

 

[ArchAngel]

I don't remember thinking back in the day the resolution sucked or was a problem. The problem is with idiots like you it seems.

 

[A_Leftist_Pig?]

The problem is with fanboys like you mate. Look, the game sold incredibly badly despite the publicity it got. Every professional reviewer complimented the story but criticized the game-play aspects of the actual game.
The game is cherished as one of the best RPGs out there but it is still played by very few, compared to any other good old RPG. There is a reason for that. Few can actually stomache the terrible technical difficulties and many who do actually find that the games quality regresses as it goes on which is admitted even by codexers.

I was hoping to see some actual intelligent rebuttals of at least the part of my criticism that dealt with the story but since even that is lacking and everything else is just "oh it doesn't matter" then I just concede that you probably never even understood the more complex parts of the story and so the discussion is senseless.

 

[A_Leftist_Pig?]

What this basically does, I forgot to add and again I curse the lack of an edit button for even 5 minutes, is that this creates a truly elitist atmosphere of few people who actually ever finished the game and the vast majority who trust their opinions and do not go and try and finish it themselves. I did and t his is my story... *Drumroll*

 

[ArchAngel]

The problem is with fanboys like you mate. Look, the game sold incredibly badly despite the publicity it got. Every professional reviewer complimented the story but criticized the game-play aspects of the actual game.
The game is cherished as one of the best RPGs out there but it is still played by very few, compared to any other good old RPG. There is a reason for that. Few can actually stomache the terrible technical difficulties and many who do actually find that the games quality regresses as it goes on which is admitted even by codexers.

I was hoping to see some actual intelligent rebuttals of at least the part of my criticism that dealt with the story but since even that is lacking and everything else is just "oh it doesn't matter" then I just concede that you probably never even understood the more complex parts of the story and so the discussion is senseless.

It is not our problem that 90% of world population are idiots. And you are putting yourself into that group with this topic. I know truth hurts, but deal with it.