6.
Planescape: Torment - Black Isle Studios (Windows, 1999)
Obligated reading for this entry: Tales of Torment
part 1 and
part 2, a long interview I did with Chris Avellone and Colin McComb + some must-see stuff like the original vision documents. Quite probably the best interview I ever did, and the reason I got hired to GameBanshee to begin with.
This pick was left strangely unmentioned as a top-5 contender despite the rampant guessing games at what will or will not make it, until SimpleMinded finally mentioned it just now. It seems a rather obvious pick for someone so tied to BIS and RPGs as myself. I assume everyone's played it but just a warning, this is another spoiler-heavy writeup.
However, if anything, Planescape's slipped down over the years. If you'd asked me, say, 4 or 5 years ago to name my favourite game of all time, Planescape might well have been a contender. And for a game with limited replayability I've absolutely played this game to death. But when I wrote this top ten about a year ago, Planescape dropped naturally to #6 (the top 10 remained mostly the same since I drafted it a year ago, though Diablo switched places with Psychonauts since, the other four entries I added shortly before starting this thread). So while I still love Planescape my appreciation for the title has both lessened and changed. Why is that?
Well, if you came to me and told me about the concept people often use to define Planescape: Torment, namely a "dialogue-based RPG", I'd tell you you're stupid. To me, it sounds too much like an interactive novel, which is a fine but limited idea in the same way interactive movies are. Much of the regression of games comes from lack of actual gameplay, and Torment seems to fit into that category more than being outside of it. Even Chris Avellone, mastermind behind the title, notes the dialogue-over-gameplay choice was probably the wrong one. And by default, I'd agree, you're playing games, interactivity is key over both graphic presentation and storytelling.
But such concepts are needless simplifications as they often are, and it is unfair to dismiss Torment based only on tunnel vision judgments. After all, if Troika proved anything it's that excellent writing can always redeem bad gameplay to some extent. And even outside of that, it's not as if writing is all Torment has going for it. But it's definitely the main thing it has going for it.
More on that later, but let's first consider Torment as a game. Torment was running on the Infinity Engine, a decent piece of tech for its time, but it came with one built-in problem for me; the combat. I loathe BioWare's RTwP, and the only good thing about it in Torment is that there isn't quite as much of it. Honestly, that's all I have to say on that...
One noticeable advantage of the Infinity Engine is the painted backgrounds. A somewhat confusing term, it simply means IE allowed for one large bitmap file to be placed as a level background with its layout as an overlay. The backgrounds aren't literally "painted" as much as drawn and graphically edited. You could put painted backgrounds on it, which would have been interesting to see, but no one did.
Regardless, the painted backgrounds allowed them to express Planescape in a way that I don't think any other engine could back then, and I'd have my doubts about 3D tech tackling it now (though the NWN2 mod looks good, obviously). To be honest, I don't think I've ever been impressed by a game's look as I have been by Planescape: Torment: it is graphically the greatest game I have ever seen. Sure, I like the pumped-up 3D graphics of today as much as the next guy, but art style has been trailing for years, and nothing's really challenge Torment for originality and style in look and feel.
And then there's the soundtrack. Heh. Just for Fallout and Torment, I'd probably consider Mark Morgan the greatest videogame composer ever. It's rare for one soundtrack let alone two to so perfectly hit the right note in supporting and enforcing the game's atmosphere, as well as just stand on its own as great music.
So what else non-dialogue and non-story can one discuss about Torment? Not much. Most of the quests are dialogue-centric, obviously, and I'll deal with followers and parties later. Let's just mention two more things here:
When it comes to setting, which I'll just lift out of writing here for convenience, planescape certainly sticks out. It's a pretty damned original setting, but what's more is that Planescape: Torment handles it really well. From the solid introduction to the realm that is Sigil to exploring many of the other planes (except the Higher Planes for being too boring), and from the obvious core focus on belief as a central plot point. Couple this with the great graphic execution mentioned above and you have an interesting setting which is - most importantly - executed really well.
Somewhat tied to the setting is its execution of AD&D, which is...well...AD&D purists are probably not very happy with it, but as I mentioned before I don't really like AD&D so I couldn't care less. The mechanics are mostly simple and unobtrusive, but there's one fairly original concept I'd like to highlight: at character creation, you pick only your stats, with your alignment and class being determined and free to change as you go along. This isn't done that often, though it's not unique, and it's implemented pretty well in this game, which is why I love it.
Anyway, while the above is very memorable, it isn't really what the game is specifically remembered for: the writing.
Ah, the writing...it gets praised into high heavens. Maybe praised a bit too high in heaven. Don't get me wrong, it's good. Hell, take the game script and put it into novel format (as someone
has done) and you get a fantasy novel that is better than 99% of the fantasy offerings out there. But that is more testament to the low standards of fantasy writing than it is to Planescape's quality as a novel. Still, with a starved audience out there it is not surprising its fantasy story gets praised to high heavens.
So what's it about? Well, simply put, the core message is that belief can shape the planes. So much of the game, from quests to dialogue options to followers to the main storyline, relies on this core concept and fleshes it out as you continue. Even the game's oddly-picked iconic phrase "What can change the nature of a man?" ends up as simply a part of this message, both in that whatever answer you give is right as long as you believe in it (i.e. don't lie), but also in what MCA deems the "correct" answer to the question as given by the Nameless One with high wisdom in his conversation with the Transcendent One:
NAMELESS ONE: “If there is anything I have learned in my travels across the Planes, it is that many things may change the nature of a man. Whether regret, or love, or revenge or fear – whatever you *believe* can change the nature of a man, can.”
THE TRANSCENDENT ONE: "THEN YOU LEARNED A FALSE LESSON, BROKEN ONE."
NAMELESS ONE: “Have I? I’ve seen belief move cities, make men stave off death, and turn an evil’s hag heart half-circle. This entire Fortress has been constructed from belief. Belief damned a woman, whose heart clung to the hope that another loved her when he did not. Once, it made a man seek immortality and achieve it. And it has made a posturing spirit think it is something more than a part of me.”
Another good example is Dak'kon, my second-favourite NPC in the game. Not only does he offer some of the best-written dialogue of all time on the nature of the planes and belief, but the quest tied to him, the Unbroken Circle of Zerthimon, is probably one of the best in the game. In it, you puzzle out the meaning of the stories on the Unbroken Circle and discuss it with Dak'kon, learning along the way with him as your teacher, until you come to the very end where your high wisdom allows you to open Dak'kon's eyes. The intrigue here lies in the nature of the Unbroken Circle of Zerthimon, which might have just been forged by the Practical Incarnation to fool Dak'kon, but is at the very least a tool for the PI to control Dak'kon. Yet his belief in it is unwavering, and it is not relevant if its lessons are true or not, only Dak'kon's belief in it, and at the end of the quest, the way you reform his belief.
By videogame standards, that is pretty damned profound, especially because it fits into the setting so well. What's more, the fact is that Torment does not present it in a linear fashions. Your answers to TNO's search are your own, as is your choice in what to tell Dak'kon, and it is exactly there that Torment becomes more than just a story-driven linear sloshfest that BioWare oft tries to be and truly uses game's interactive nature as a part of its storytelling.
But what a lot of people miss is that profundity is only a part of Planescape's writing. The whole circling around belief is well-written and presents a more philosophy-driven story than many videogames (even if it does not mete up with the profound meaning of many books or even films), but my personal favourite factor in its writing is "that other one". As MCA put it, one of the "directions for the theme of the game was to turn a lot of RPG cliches on their head".
Torment does this in absolutely delightful manners, and as I mentioned before I love it when games play around with expectations, whether by breaking through cliches or by more subtly creating situations that are not what they seem, and Torment does this well in many ways. There are lot of small examples here, such as the attempt to mostly stay away from standard spells, the lack of swords in the game, the fact that rats are very dangerous opponents rather than the first things you meet.
But one of my personal favourites is the way the game plays around with death. Not only is it a non-factor in combat, both for you and your followers (who you can just resurrect), it's also a gameplay elements, one you need to use to progress certain quests. And what I love about it even more is that right when you feel safe in your immortality is when the game shows you that immortality doesn't exactly mean people can't find ways to entrap you, as you can "die" both by the hands of Lothar and the Brothel's Medusa.
My other favourite is probably the relation and nature of Fhjull Forked-Tongue and Trias the Betrayer. It's not exactly much of a twist to have a good demon and evil angel, but Torment does it well in two ways: first, it does not really explicitly shows the nature of the two the first time you meet them, and figuring them and their relation to each other out is hard going. Second, neither are "good" or "evil" that clearly. Trias is less interesting, as he is good twisted to insanity by the planes.
But I love Fhjull, who is evil but also twisted by the planes, cursed to speak nothing that is not true but desperately trying to find ways around that. He
hates the Nameless One in a way that's easy to miss (and it's hard to read people's attitude towards NTO anyway, Trias sees him more as a tool/obstacle, and the Transcendent One sees him more as an inconvenience, perhaps the Shades hate him as much as Fhjull) and it is hinted that he has done terrible things to TNO in the past. But even though he tries to manipulate things to his own desires, he is impotent to stop TNO's progress, and if anything is a helpful figure.
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So there you have it. My appreciation of Torment has changed and somewhat lessened over the years, but I've come to see it in different ways over the years, and though I love it less for it, I feel I understand it better.
Sorry for the 2000-word writeup, but at least you have plenty of time to read it, it might be weeks before my next update.
At least, the game never tells you what it is.
