Just got Planescape Torment

[Standup]

Like pg I enjoyed the first half of the game but parts of it become a dungeon crawl which the interface can make frustrating. I also rarely find much reason to be anything other that a fighter and I always feel I'm missing part of the game.

Still it;s a game that everyone should play at least once.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Planescape has a good number of little quirks and oddities that I find oddly endearing.

1. Weaponry. So far I've found lots of weapons but I'm the only person who can use them. This has eliminated one little niggling metagame I used to do a lot in BG2, which is the min/maxing of equipment between characters. Dak'kon won't use anything apart from his own personal thoughtblade, Grace won't even touch weapons on a moral level, Ignus doesn't like using anything that isn't already on fire, and Morte... has no hands.

2. Text and conversations. The game has very few combats that are mandatory. In fact, the majority of your XP will come from quests and goal completions. Your NPCs will interact with each other, and sometimes you have to remove NPCs from your party just to forestall disastrous conversation effects from taking place.

3. Combat is almost irrelevant. Few goals require you to kill something, and most that do have a secondary workaround to get that goal achieved nonviolently. (I failed to discover you could poison a certain character instead of cut off his head, until it was too late. But I doubt he appreciated the difference anyway.) If you do get into a scrape, your regeneration ensures most of it is temporary and even for the fights that kill you, your Immortality means you come back from the dead to focus on what's really important - the storyline and who you are.

4. The writing is possibly the best reason to play the game. Granted, the engine is probably less well suited to this game than it is to hack and slash. But still, using only the basis of scrolling text, the designers were able to put together a deeply moving game where painful memories surface about a past you never knew. Pretty riveting stuff, and it personally makes me wonder how well this game would do if it had the resources and multimedia presentation of, say, Bioshock in this day and age.

5. There's some limited philosophical interaction regarding the various factions of Sigil, which is a nice touch. But the real gem mechanic is the way that things you do will really affect your own stats and history. Lie enough times, and your alignment will be revealed to have always been chaotic. Uphold the law enough times, and you'll have been a lawful person through and through. Moreover, lie enough times about the non-existent Adahn, and guess what? Next time you visit a bar...

6. The game also features a female character who has a secret crush on the protagonist because he smells of formaldehyde and has lots of scars and stitches, which I think shows admirable taste in men.

[lord of the mark]

dont want to spoil it but I played through a couple of years ago and theres a long thread about my playthrough with help and comments from various folks here, and another where I post my afterthoughts. I can dig them up if you like.

Definitely a must play game IMO, even if I wasnt thrilled with every aspect of it.

[Proteus_MST]

Haven´t played it for a long time. Maybe I should install it again.

Definitely the best humor in any CRPG I have

[Alinestra Covelia]

Just wanted to say there's a guy named "Tainted Barse" in this game.

That name alone makes it worth getting.

[Fake Boris]

Best RPG ever

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
Best RPG ever

QFT. My favorite game of all time. Shame they never made a sequel, or anything else even nearly as smart and witty.

[LotC]

Inspired by this thread, I just reinstalled it, after never having finished it. Great game so far. I'm not usually into storyline when it comes to RPGs, more of a powergamer, but the story has me hooked.

[Fake Boris]

The sad part is that I have two copies of the game.

The first one, the CDs are scratched.

The second one, I simply lost it.

[DaShi]

I'll have to dig this one out the next time I visit my grandparents. Somehow just forgot about it.

[Alinestra Covelia]

I finished the game recently. Well worth playing.

However, the game became quite railroady about two thirds of the way through. If this doesn't bother you, then it's not a big deal. I personally was so engrossed in the storyline that I hardly noticed.

The ending is bittersweet though. This is not a game about redemption or being forgiven for your past. It's much more about accepting it and learning to face the music.

[onodera]

PS:T is the best game I have ever played.

Did you open the bronze sphere, AC?

[Alinestra Covelia]

I very nearly didn't bring it with me, when I went back from the Mortuary to the Fortress of Regrets. Fortunately for me the first trip ended in a permadeath (the other Nameless One killed me) and I reloaded and thought "screw it, I'll take everything with me cause I'm not coming back".

Lucky that I did.

I wonder what his original name was though.

[onodera]

No idea. I've heard many ideas which fit, including Zerthimon, but I'm inclined to say it's Fred.

How did you handle your final enemy, by the way?

Oh, how I wish I could forget about this game so I could play it again for the first time...

[Alinestra Covelia]

I had a high enough Int and Wis so that I could talk to the Master of Shadows (if that's its name - I forget) and merge with it.