I realise I've not posted anything in a while, but I have good reason for that: I finally got round to playing Planescape: Torment, and it more or less took over my life for quite a while. As a huge fan of the Baldur's Gate series, I've long felt that I needed to play this game, and now that it's available on Good Old Games, I've been able to. And now I'm going to give you my thoughts on what, it has to be said, is one of the greatest RPGs ever made.
It's fair to say that it was a total commercial failure on its release. It's also fair to say that this was probably in large part due to its indescribably hideous box art, which, if it weren't for the North American box art of Ico, would probably qualify for the worst box art in history. And even then, it's a close thing. Doubtless part of its commercial failure is due to its weirdness and relative inaccessibility compared to other games of the time. There's little combat, and what little there is mostly isn't very good, and there's absolutely masses of very dense text, which would put a lot of people off the game. Compared to something like Baldur's Gate II, released a year later, it's quite difficult to get into. But the fact remains that the weirdness of its setting, its subverting of traditional RPG tropes, and its heavy emphasis on dialogue and story are what set it apart from other games of the time, and are what make it so memorable.
The first thing to understand is that the game is very strange. A lot of this is due to its use of the AD&D Planescape setting, which is far from your typical fantasy setting. This is one of the game's great strengths: it's that depressingly rare fantasy RPG that actually feels fantastic. It's not set in some muddy, Medieval, Tolkienesque kingdom, but in Sigil, a city that is essentially a crossroads for the entire multiverse. Walking down the street, you're more likely to meet a demon on leave from the eternal Blood War than an elf or a dwarf. Here, fiends and angels are a common fact of life, and succubi run brothels for the intellect. Pretty much anything can be a portal provided you have the right key, and these keys can be anything from an actual key, to making a certain gesture, to remembering what your first kiss was like. Streets can give birth, and belief is a force powerful enough to reshape the multiverse: if enough people believe in something, it can spontaneously come into being.
The story doesn't disappoint for weirdness either, but fully lives up to the potential provided by the setting. The game does all it can to avoid RPG cliches: instead of swords (of which there are only a couple in the whole game), you have equippable tattoos and earrings; instead of a party of heroic adventurers, you can recruit a floating skull whose main ability is insulting people (the first NPC you meet), a Scottish half-demon, a chaste succubus (who is also an agnostic priest), and a walking suit of armour animated by Justice; instead of saving the world, your goal is to solve the puzzle of the nature of the protagonist. Your journey will take you from the city of Sigil across the multiverse, to prisons which occupy entire Planes of existence, to Hell itself and back again. But now, back to the protagonist, for it is he that is the most remarkable and interesting thing about this game. And that's saying a lot.
The main character is the Nameless One, an amnesiac, horribly scarred immortal who has lived countless lives, and your goal is to learn who he is. It quickly becomes apparent that many of the people you meet know who you are, or rather, have known previous incarnations of you. They are not always pleased to see you. The Nameless One is a man who has lived countless lives and died countless deaths, but who always gets back up afterwards; this can be used to your advantage, and there are a few sections of the game where you need to die to proceed. This immortality doesn't make the game easier, but is basically identical in function to a quickload; it is essentially an investigation into the nature of death in RPGs. In most RPGs, when you die, you simply reload; in Torment, it's built into the game mechanics. The cheapness of death in RPGs is a core mechanic here, as well as a theme that is investigated in detail, and ultimately brutally deconstructed; the nature of the Nameless One's immortality is one of the big questions that drives the story. It's a rare game indeed that allows you to engage in philosophical debate on the nature of death, and it's an even rarer one that spends most of its story examining complex themes about life, death, and immortality. It's fair to say, I think, that the Nameless One is one of the most unique and fascinating characters in all fiction, and that's not something I say lightly.
There are flaws in the game, certainly; the sheer amount of text can be overwhelming, and the lack of combat relative to other games, as well as the fact that much of the combat is pretty dull, could definitely prevent people from getting into the game; and without fan-made patches and fixes, you're likely to run into quite a few bugs. But none of that should prevent you from playing Torment. If nothing else, play if for the uniqueness of the setting and characters; it's fair to say that there's no other RPG, before or since, that's quite like it. Yes, the graphics are dated, but the art design still looks great 12 years on, even if the colour palette is a little on the muddy side. And yes, you have to wade through enormous amounts of dialogue, but the dialogue is one of the game's best aspects. I could go on, but there's so much to talk about that I could be here all day. You can get this absolute gem of a game for less than $10 from Good Old Games, so if you like RPGs there's absolutely no reason not to play it. Read the dialogue, engage with the characters, learn about the Nameless One, and join the debate:
What can change the nature of a man?
No comments:
Post a Comment