Really sad to have shelved this one but circumstance has forced me to. Was about halfway through this game and enjoying it a lot when I got the worst flu I’ve ever had and would have ended up in the hospital for dehydration were it not for my partner’s physician dad giving me prescription anti emetics he had lying around the house. Tried playing more of this game when I was laid up in bed which was a huge mistake. Literally can’t even think about this game without feeling nauseous now. Huge shame because I was enjoying it quite a bit.

Premise:

You wake up as a man who is known as "The Nameless One"(TNO) or "The Restless One" in a mortuary. This man is an immortal who has just woken up from "death" again but he has no recollection of his previous lives or his previous memories, Only things he has is a talking head named "Morte" who acts as his companion and some writing on his back that has two messages for him: one is that he has to find his journal which has some useful information, two is that he has to find a man named "Pharod" to know more about his situation.

Review:

Writing a review for this tour de force of an interactive video game is not an easy job but I will try my best to explain why it's such a phenomenal experience without spoiling anything major or even minor to some extent about the main story because I truly believe this should be experienced completely blind and the experience is really different for different individuals because of it's interactive nature.

Before I start though let me give a brief overview of the setting and world of the story but I can't possibly cover all of planescape lore here, it's huge. Most of the events in the game take place in the floating city known as Sigil. Sigil is in the Outlands, hanging over the very tall structure known as the Spire, which sits in the middle of the plane. It is in the center of the multiverse of the Great Wheel Cosmology. It is also known as the city of doors as it has a lot of portals which is normally invisible to the eye unless the observer has the key for it, which can be anything, a thought, a physical material etc. Almost every species that exists in the multiverse is represented in the population of Sigil. Many different factions of people live within this place, all of these factions of people have their own philosophies regarding life. For example, the first faction that you meet in the game are called "The Dustmen". Let me add a quote from the game to better explain their views on life and death.

"Passions carry weight. As long as one clings to emotion they will be continually reborn into this life, forever suffering, never knowing the purity of True Death. To achieve True Death you must kill your passions and strip yourself of the need for sensation. When you achieve this you achieve peace, past the Eternal Boundary lies the peace all souls seek."

The "True Death" is what The Dustmen believe in. Life itself is a hurdle to removing passion, and passion itself is an obstacle to true enlightenment. Life's trappings are worthless, thus everyone should purge oneself of them in order to reach the emptiness of True Death. They hold the view that passion is what binds souls to what they term a "false life" and forces those who are overly passionate to experience rebirth repeatedly; in order to break the cycle, one must let go of desire.

Not all of the people that are part of a faction completely believes in their factions philosophies however, there will be some who will be struggling to believe it, some who doesn't truly believe the teachings but only acts outwardly as such, it's really complex much like real life, different kinds people believe in different things about life but they are not always black and white about it. What I love most about this is that you, the player will learn about these different philosophies as you play the game and you will have to make decisions, choices and actions to understand whether you align with any one of these philosophies and what you find right or wrong about them. Your actions also determine your alignment in terms of law and chaos as well as good and evil.

Planescape's combat is arguably it's worst part, although it's not bad by any stretch of imagination, it can be very tiring and also feels very outdated. There is also a section of the game that takes tedious to a new level if you are not prepared for it. At the beginning of the game you will be given some attributes points to add to your attributes(which are Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Charisma, Constitution), I suggest spending all of your attribute points to Wisdom, Intelligence and Charisma because these three stats are arguably the most important stats in the game specifically Wisdom and they will affect conversations and choices too, you could spend a few points on Dexterity but I recommend spending all of the points you get when you start the game on those three. There are three classes that TNO can switch between in the whole game, they are Fighter, Mage, Thief. I recommend sticking to Mage most of the game but also leveling up the others to some extent. Being a mage will make the game much more bearable than the other classes.

There is little amount of music in the game but the music that is there is simply brilliant, seriously I listen to a few of these osts repeatedly sometimes.

The Nameless One's journey is unforgettable. Throughout this journey he will meet a lot of companions, friends, adversaries, who are all very complex individuals with different motivations, ideologies and background(well most of them are). TNO is probably the most interesting protagonist I've ever seen and also one of my most favourite characters ever. The main conundrum of the game is a single question for which the player/TNO must find an answer of his own. I will not spoil what this question is but it is beautiful, it connects everything that planescape is about so perfectly that I can only describe it with the word "beautiful" or anything synonymous to it.

I think if there are five stories that I will fondly remember even 20-30 years later, this is one of them. It seriously is a story of that calibre, I know all of these seem really hyperbolic but I urge you to play and finish this game at least once.

Personal Rating - 10/10

The writing and atmosphere are peak, and that's what you're playing the game for - think of it as an interactive novel. Sadly it continues the trend of the best RPGs being deeply flawed masterpieces. The combat and RPG elements are sort of vestigial - you basically have to play as a high Wis/Int/Cha Mage to get the most out of the game, and the combat is completely uninteresting. Sadly, since the game is blatantly unfinished, the combat becomes a bigger and bigger part of the game the longer it goes on - turning down the difficulty all the way is recommended.

The writing is good enough that if it were in book form, it would be a great novel, but I think a lot of people overrate how well-written and how deep it is because of the low bar set by other video games.

i can see why it is so well-loved, and i did enjoy my time with it, particularly since you cannot die and a speech-based build is encouraged (until it's suddenly not by the end of the game but well!), but i think i am just sick of this brand of writing lmao. the misogyny and just... i'm not sure how to phrase it, but the dramatic writing makes it harder to see the characters as people...? rather than concepts. it's harder to connect with them and thus harder to care. deionarra's plight at the hands of the [redacted]s was terrible, and seeing that memory was hard, but it was hard to actually like... give a shit as a person... i guess it might be appealing to other people but not me. i equally hated the companions avellone wrote for pillars of eternity, particularly the grieving mother, for the same penchant. idk how much of the writing he did here but if this is his style then it makes sense why it doesn't click with me. oh well.

at the same time it Is sort of a silly complaint when the game Is conceptual and all about deconstructing typical DND tropes but i still just felt more like an observer than part of the world, and i find it unfortunate as i like CRPGs with loads of writing for that particular sense of getting lost in a different world and having my own adventure

it is still an interesting story that takes on deep and existential themes that are rarely well-explored in gaming, and it must have been groundbreaking when it first released, but even back then among CRPGs and especially now there are works that resonate with me way better so there's that

also the puzzle you find nordom in is kind of horrible, but i also had fun drawing it out while exploring and it reminded me of the charm of old videogames and only having printed guides or having to figure things out yourself lmao. so that was oddly nice

Looks and sound
There's no way to mince words with this. Planescape Torment doesn't look good at all. The backgrounds themselves are fine and even good for the time but the sprites are pretty low detail. It's hard to tell what anyone really looks like from the sprites. The cutscenes don't look good though they do the job for the most part.

The soundtrack is good. It's not amazing but there are some tracks that stand out and I like the way the motif of The Nameless One's theme was used throughout the game. Some of the dialogue is voiced and what is voiced is pretty good.


Combat
I can't stand the gameplay. It's a real-time-with-pause system but it's a fairly boring one at that. It's easy to skip most of the fights or turn on the debug console to avoid gameplay. Now one would wonder why I would talk about avoiding gameplay in a game. The answer is pretty simple. People recommend Planescape for the writing, characters and worldbuilding not for the gameplay. Even the game itself knows this. For example I got 90,000 xp from a conversation with a character while the enemies near that area gave 750xp and there were like 5-7 of them in that area. This is essentially an interactive novel with some banal gameplay attached to it that one can and should skip.



Story and Worldbuilding

"Endure, and in Enduring Grow Strong"

I am not sure how to go about this section even though or maybe because it is the meat of the game. The story shown here is something unique and bizarre. To this day there is nothing else quite like it out there despite attempts to capture it's spirit. The companions and the protagonist are very well written and have interesting interactions and relationships. I could maybe spend hours analyzing the characters themselves.

The protagonist himself, the nameless one is a very well done version of an amnesiac protagonist since the amnesia isn't a plot device to give a blank slate or for cheap drama. It's an integral and interesting part of the story. Piecing together who he was keeps the player hooked.

The quests aren't the general RPG quests people are used to nowadays and have a fair amount of depth and effort in them. There are a lot of dialogue options with actual choices and consequences. These choices have an influence over the nameless one's alignment which changes how his companions and other characters behave.

The game is set in D&D but I don't know much about it so I don't think it's required knowledge. Specifically it's in the 'planescape' setting, in the city of sigil which sits in the middle of a multiverse.

I can't say much about what makes this setting, characters or story without delving into spoilers but I'll leave it with the statement that this game has the best writing I have ever seen. Despite the looks and the boring gameplay it still stands up because of the writing. There's a reason that this game comes up on any discussion on the merits of games as works of art. It's an experience that will stay with the reader/player long after they've finished it.

Muy interesante y una buen traslado de lo que es el uso de las mecánicas de D&D en un videojuego. A pesar de ser antiguo para los estándares digitales se siente fresco gracias a una narrativa intrigante y variedad a la hora de elegir el equipamiento. El combate está bien, con sus cosas buenas y malas. Pero lo que más destaca de este juego es que las misiones secundarias están muy bien dispuestas, y que se necesita que el jugador esté atento para seguir avanzando en algunas. Es muy interesante como algunas nimiedades recobran sentido más adelante. Considero que es una buena entrada a los CRPG, y un videojuego que por lo menos, es interesante.

"What can change the nature of a man?"

What can I say about Planescape Torment that hasn't been said before? This game is like playing a Christopher Nolan/Jonathan Nolan movie (or book to be more precise) before they started making success with their movies.

See, this game released in 1999, Memento (movie), which is the closest thing I can compare to this game, was released in 2001. The Nameless One's story would be a hit as a novel, as a tv show, as a movie, as a comic book, anything. I think it's fair to say PS:T is one of the best "mystery" stories told in the gaming media. One that you should experience for yourself.

The gameplay is alright at best. I think it was serviceable for the genre and the time it came out. That said if you aren't able to play older games while "going back in time" with your expectations, it will be very hard to enjoy it's gameplay.

My first real experience with anything Dungeons and Dragons related! I found a lot of the ideas super fascinating and I was also able to see how these concepts have influenced other fantasies which was cool. There are some silly concepts to me, like the whole alignment thing is a bit cartoony in how strictly outlined it is. Still, there is a charm in it, and the game does also manage to create some really interesting story beats and locales with it. I do think this being my first introduction to the Planscape campaign—and DnD as a whole —definitely benefitted my experience. Learning about the world with fresh eyes was the thing that kept me the most hooked in playing the game. Was I well versed in the setting already, I do not know if I would have found the experience as satisfying. The main story is intriguing and the characters are solid, but I felt like a majority of the writing I was reading mainly centred around world building. To balance out all the lore, I wish there were way more dialogue interactions with your companions. The stuff that is there is great—well written and full of personality—there just isn’t as much as I thought there would be for a game like this. I would constantly check in on my party members to see if they had any new input after story beats and a lot of the time they didn’t, even in cases where I feel like the character would most definitely have something to say. Obviously, this game has a wealth of content and writing and not everything will be covered. It’s just the classic catch-22 that when a game is really fleshed out in some regards, the parts that aren’t stand out to the player a lot more.

Moving past writing and narrative and focusing more on gameplay, I do unfortunately have to agree with the consensus that the gameplay is pretty meh. There are certain mechanics that are designed in a way where it feels like the priority was to make it feel more ‘realistic.’ For example, certain vendors won’t buy certain items, character’s can’t rest in an inn unless they’re all right next to TNO when speaking to the inn keeper, etc. I understand these flourishes are to make the world feel more grounded and authentic, but man is it just irritating and pulls me out of the experience more than anything. You could argue that these are rather minor nitpicks of UI and control, and for any other game where the gameplay was more substantive, I think that would be fair. But Planescape: Torment’s gameplay is pretty much all dialogue and menus all the way down, so these minor complaints do become pretty large sticking points for me. I also found the logging of information to be a bit confusing. The game does keep a record of events, which is great, but how it goes about choosing what is logged and what isn’t is weird to me. There are some pretty major revelations that aren’t logged at all while minor events and redundant info fill up the journal, making it harder to navigate. The quests section doesn’t always list all tasks, nor does it always include the relevant information. As a result, some quests can be really esoteric. One could argue that such little handholding is refreshing, but it makes little sense to me that the character you play, or the companions you travel with, or even the npc who gave you the mission in the first place, would not have any kind of advice or info to give.

Simply put: this game is clunky, and there is no point where it feels more clunky than during combat. It’s super messy to try and enact any kind of strategy beyond the complexity of luring a target and jumping them. Not that that matters because it kind of feels like wailing on enemies is the most optimal way to play anyways. There are some really cool spells, but finding the handful of ones that are actually useful is a drag. There aren’t many encounters in the game and rest stops are spread out just far enough where you don’t really get much opportunity to experiment with magic unless you’re straight up grinding. Even when I got a good magic setup going, it was difficult for me to find reason to use them. Most enemy encounters are fairly easy; the ones that aren’t are usually battles where the game just throws ridiculous amounts of enemies at you. Those fights end up burning through a lot of your most useful spells before you’re back to just wailing on enemies again. I do concede that perhaps my gripes with the combat could simply be because of my unfamiliarity with DnD, but the game does not do a very good job at explaining the ruleset of 2nd edition at all. Thankfully, combat is fairly light in this game though it does ramp up in the later half, and the game does kinda take a nosedive in quality because of it. Granted, you can probably still choose to avoid most of it by running away, but then you’re not left with much in the second half. The later parts of this game feel a lot smaller and more shallow than the earlier sections. Less to explore, simpler quest lines, regurgitation of information you already know, etc. The first half of the game is definitely the stronger part in my reckoning.

I know that most of my review has been criticism, but most my critiques revolve around elements the game doesn't prioritize. The focus really is the story/characters and creating an atmosphere that immerses the player, all of which this game does superbly. I now have a lot more motivation in trying other cRPGs, a genre which I had always found intimidating beforehand. But Planescape: Torment, along with Disco Elysium and Citizen Sleeper, has definitely piqued my interest.

P.S. the reason why I got interested in this game in the first place was because of this drawing of Annah by Dungeon Meshi mangaka Ryoko Kui: https://www.reddit.com/r/DungeonMeshi/s/SQHT62QsLd

So once again I must thank Ryoko Kui for an amazing experience o7
Also read and or watch Dungeon Meshi

Eu nem sei o que dizer, que roteiro, que história, é uma experiência sem igual, um RPG muito mais focado em diálogos, mistérios e questões filosóficas do que em combate (tanto que o combate é a única coisa questionável do jogo). Dificil falar da história sem spoilers, é uma narrativa muito pautada por foreshadowing, nada é forçado, tudo faz sentido e tem um porque, vai desde twists que envolvem o começo da história, coisas que conectam o fim com o início, twist de personagem random que consegue mudar toda a tua perspectiva sobre aquele mundo e sua jornada, cada detalhe e diálogo dá pra notar que foi feito e escrito com carinho. Os personagens são um primor, os party members de início parecem extremamente genéricos, mas no decorrer como uma cebola (como dizia Shrek) você vai descobrindo todas as camadas deles, todo o envolvimento deles com esse multiverso e principalmente com o Nameless One, tem um personagem em específico que possui uma situação de vida tão complexa que deixa o protagonista se questionando se deve continuar a jornada e esse mesmo sentimento consegue ser transmitido pro jogador a ponto que fiquei com vontade de parar de jogar, tem o Morte também que é um personagem que vai ficar no meu coração pra sempre. Eu amo como no início principalmente, tem uma vibe de história de detetive, tu sai por aí que nem maluco questionando as pessoas, a grande questão é descobrir o que está acontecendo e quando tu enfim descobre tudo............PUTAQUEOPARIU.

JOGUEM, simplesmente joguem e talvez, talvez vocês descubram o que pode mudar a natureza de um homem.

Well, the story was good. I liked the overall plot, and the prose was enjoyable to read. I also found the setting of Planescape to be one of the most interesting and compelling video game settings I've seen, and the characters felt like characters, as opposed to tools for the player to progress the story through. This did, however, have its downsides -- there were a few times where progressing required following a random dialogue tree with a random named character. It wasn't particularly troublesome due to my tendency to fully embody the very inquisitive archetype of The Nameless One, asking everyone every available question, but it did feel a bit off.

The main issue with the game is the combat -- there are notable stretches of gameplay which pretty much devolve into dungeon crawls. The tactics I utilised seemed quite simple and boring, but also most effective -- drawing aggro with Morte and then wailing on the enemies one-by-one as they did not fight back. You would quickly figure this tactic out if you played the game. What this ultimately means is that a lot of the game is spent on rather tedious gameplay which does nothing to aid the story or worldbuilding -- the good parts of the game.

There is not much more to say here: the story was quite moving, the gameplay was bad, but tolerable. It's pretty short for an RPG, at around 23 hours, so I'd recommend it to any prospective player.

Most tactically interesting Planescape: Torment encounter (mild spoilers for a late-game boss fight): https://youtu.be/nAKLjyG7OHw

"Time is not your enemy. Forever is."

Sure it may feel janky when it comes to several mechanics (especially the combat and the quest design), but borderline unparalleled when it comes to the depths of its worldbuilding and writing. Nuanced, intelligent, darkly comic, a complex yet emotional exploration of life and immortality, regret, determinism and what can form a man's nature if you allow him to exist/reborn into centuries. Any time an RPG allows you to skip the final boss with a right speech check, its peak shit.