Why is planescape torment so great

Planescape: Torment is a wonderful game, and its Enhanced Edition is a splendid, unobtrusive, beautifying update. Did you play the original Planescape: Torment? Do you want a 5th edition Planescape setting book? Let us know how much you love the Planescape world in the comments, or tweet to GeekandSundry!

You Have to Play Planescape: Torment. Games Video Games. Your Game, Your Playstyle Torment prioritizes storytelling and player choice over thrilling combat encounters. Right from the beginning, the dialogue jumps out at you: Morte asks who your are, but since you don't know, you can argue back and forth with him. While Baldur's Gate was more traditional fantasy, Planescape: Torment is more irreverent in its delivery: the language is looser, and you can tell the writers are having some fun with it.

Morte feels like a sidekick in a movie like Indiana Jones. The Nameless One, the sole moniker given to your character, has a back full of tattoos that point towards a person or thing named Pharod. This is your sole compass in the world, a hint about where you should be going.

Your first task is to free yourself from the Mortuary, either by combat, or by guile. I recommend the latter, as finding a disguise is much easier.

Once you exit the Mortuary, it's clear that you're not in the normal fantasy setting established by the works of J. Even in the Mortuary itself, you're walking across rooms of weird, warped architecture and sigils, having conversations with the Dustmen, a faction that seeks the "True Death". Most of Planescape: Torment takes place in the city of Sigil, a place of monoliths, sweeping curves, and arcane magic.

But what you won't see are elves, orc, and dragons. You won't fight kobolds or giant rats. You won't enter a tavern and sit with a mug of grog while a bard shares the exploits of local adventurers. Sigil is the city at the center of multiverse, with doors to several Planes of existence, andat the heart of the city are various faction vying for control.

Anything could end up in Sigil, giving dungeon masters and Black Isle Studios the freedom to expand wherever they wanted. When Black Isle Studios pitched the game to publisher Interplay Entertainment, the main focus was not do what had been done before.

We wanted to turn the RPG experience on its head and hit the player with a horde of new ideas about what an RPG could be about. So, we decided to have the game begin where most RPGs end: on the death screen. In other RPGs, you die, you see the death screen, you reload.

In Torment, every death screen is an opportunity to advance the story. At this point in time, most of the characters that would join a player's party in other RPGs would simply follow in lockstep. Regardless of how each character would feel about your actions, they'd still follow you into hell. Here are a few reasons:. It's something in between. Although the isometric look feels a bit obsolete today, it's still easy to appreciate Planescape: Torment 's fascinating world, which sometimes looks like it was built in a junkyard and other times looks like it came straight out of Lovecraft.

Not your father's Xbox controller Brush up on your driving skills in Forza Horizon 5 with the controller the pros use. It's unforgettable. Party members in Planescape: Torment fight. They squabble. They get on your nerves. They say things that you might not agree with.

There's the ghostly suit of armor with a twisted sense of justice who only joins your team if you lie to him about who your main character really is. There's the insane wizard who spent his life setting so many things on fire that as punishment, a bunch of other wizards set him on fire.

There's the succubus healer who runs a brothel—but not the kind you're thinking of. Planescape: Torment only gives you a few playable characters, but they're all interesting.