RPGamers Network > Reviews > Game Reviews > Planescape: Torment
In Torment, you take on the role of the Nameless One, an immortal who can never stay dead, however he loses a bit of himself(his memories) every time he kicks the bucket. The Nameless One seeks his mortality, and it is up to you to guide him in his way. Along the way, you will come across people who knew you in your previous incarnations: Trusty allies, enemies who remember you for what you were before, even the Nameless Ones girlfriend, who is a spectre. Not bad for an immortal.
Gameplay and Replay Value:
Overall the gameplay is user-friendly and easy; you'll be able to slip in to Torment's style without reading the manual, which I did. There are many hotkeys and shortcuts, some are rarely used I.E "P" for "Priest Scroll", while some are used very frequently, "Q" for "Quicksave". Saving is very important in Planescape. Sometimes you might screw up a quest like I did, and want to go back. So saving is a must before every major event.
A great feature of Torment is the Nameless One's ability to switch character classes from Fighter(you start with this class) to Thief to Mage and back. Each has it's own level of experience, only HP, Character stats and AC bonuses are kept. This makes for major replay ability; if you win with a Fighter you can replay the game as a Thief or Mage (by far the best class, you get all sorts of cool spells).
The game settings are very customizable, ranging from gamma, to volume, to displays (Hit modifiers, To-hit rolls, critical hits/misses, etc. Can't understand me? Heh heh.) My biggest gripe about the gameplay is the annoying menu that pops up when you right click. This is what you use to talk to people and team mates, use items, cast spells, select weapons and special abilities. One dumb thing is that when casting spells and selecting targets/selecting enemies to hit is that if you aren't careful, you may end casting said spell ON YOUR SELF. Or end up hitting your own team mate and killing him/her. This really annoys me, especially when your characters are powerful. Once I had Dak'kon attack a target, but wasn't careful in my selection. I thought I had clicked on the enemy, and I pressed "1" to select the Nameless One. Suddenly, Nameless One was dead. Dak'kon had killed him. Overall, the gameplay is good, this annoyance doesn't drag it down much.
Plot/Story:
The meat of any good RPG is a plot that will keep you playing. And Torment has a storyline to rival any Final Fantasy in existence. As an immortal, you are in search of your mortality. That's the bare-bones of it. I am not saying anything more as this will spoil all your fun.
Originality:
Pure originality, no contest.
Visuals:
Some claim this is the most important aspect of a successful game. Well, one thing Torment doesn't have is eye-popping graphics. The character sprites are average quality. One good thing however, is that Torment has absolutely no areas which make you want to tear out your eyeballs to stop them from hurting, no matter what gamma settings you put. Most areas are well-lit, and unlike other Black Isle games, items on the floor are easy to spot. Your travels through Sigil and the surrounding planes will take you to some exotic locales:bars, canyons, even what passes for hell in the world of AD&D.
Spell effects are by far the most spectacular. Spells from level 3 above have cool cut scenes ala Final Fantasy. Really. One example is Elysium's Tears. Once cast, the game is paused while "tears" rain down upon the target and damaging it and surrounding enemies/targets. One ultra cool and long spell is Celestial Host, a ninth level spell that really whups ass. Other spells have special movies made for them.
Movies seem to be a part of every RPG nowadays, whether anime or lifelike. Torment has quite a few, some are just intros to the new region you are exploring, some are events, some are spells. And you can also view any movies you have seen before, except for the Game Over movie. Overall, the visuals are above average.
Sound:
The voices are great, they are convincing. The Nameless One's voice suits his face well. The other characters voices suit their personalities well, but some people might be offended that the thief of the game has a specific "accent". I'll leave it up to you to find out what accent it is
. You can annoy your team mates by repeatedly clicking on them, and they'll start spouting trash talk. This feature seems to be the new trend in pc gaming ever since Warcraft II(?). Apart from your character's voices, some NPCs also speak, some don't. The voice actors, again were perfect choices, ranging from old-haglike voices to bitter-inhuman voices.
When your characters are hurt, you hear the standard "hurt" sounds. When near death, each character says a different thing, like Annah's "This is what I get for being careless" and Nordom's "System malfunctioning!". This is a big 'thumbs-up' with me. Spell sound effects range from funky to loud to just plain satisfying. Try casting Magic Missile with earphones on and the sound loud. BOOM! There go your eardrums. The only thing that drags the score down is the sad weapon SE. Blunt weapons give you an annoying "squish" SE, while edged weapons give out a metallic sound. Even when you are stabbing a flesh and blood enemy with no visible armor. Add that to the fact the you have to listen to these SE's throughout the entire game and you have a rather large flaw. And some NPC conversations are too soft, you'll have to strain your ears to hear them 'cos there are no words to go with the talking.
Battle System:
What can I say? It's AD&D without all the die-rolling. Just click on the enemy you want to hit. One gripe is that your characters will sometimes just run about doing nothing. And that's where the "Pause" button comes in, the trusty Space Bar. Pausing the game can be a big help in battle, especially when using a mage to fire off spells. Fire, pause, select next spell, target, un-pause, rinse wash and repeat. And! You can set it to auto-pause when you are faced with some instances: Weapon Unusable against that particular enemy, Character Injured and Character's Target gone just to name a few. Also, unlike Baldur's Gate, accessing the inventory screen while paused doesn't un-pause the game.
Each character has a special ability, some like Morte's "Litany of Curses" and "Skull Mob" are really kick ass, while others such as Nameless One's "Resurrect" are useful, while others like "Sensory Touch" suck bigtime.
While in battle, you and your team mates will sometimes score critical hits accompanied by amusing captions, example Nameless Ones expressive "DIE!" and Dak'kon's "Karach sings true". Same goes for critical misses, Nameless Ones "Damn!" and Fall-From-Grace's "I'm out of practice it seems". Overall, the battle system is easy to get into and pretty uncomplicated.
Music:
Ah, music. Torment's music is not too bad, nothing compared to Nobuo's masterpieces or Mitsuda's greats. The streets of Sigil have unmemorable music, something with an Arabian theme. Torment's main theme is the only nice track in the game. There are many variations to the theme, such as the first battle music and Deionarra's music. Speaking of battle music, there are I think 3 battle musics in the game. My biggest gripe about the music is that there is an overall flavour of Indian(not Cherokee or that sort, Indian as in from India, Tamil, got it yet?)in it. The biggest insult is the ending music. What saves the music score from a 5 or less is my love for the main theme of Torment and the weird, indescribable music that plays in the Smoldering Corpse Bar.
Replay Value:
Torment is guaranteed to make you come back for another go after you win, because there are so many paths to the end, so many quests to complete that you won't see everything until you have played through it at least 3 times. I challenge you to find all the spells, I haven't found them all, let alone seen them.
Overall:
Torment is a good choice if you are looking for a great time by yourself for around 25 hours. The price is quite reasonable for 4 cds, so if you love RPGs and want a new challenge, take on Planescape: Torment.
| Game Stats | |
|---|---|
| Genre | RPG |
| Platform | PC |
| Format | CD-ROM |
| # of Players | 1 |
| Released Jap | 03.31.2000 |
| Released US | 11.30.1999 |
| Released EU | N/A |
| Aprox. Length | 20-25 hrs. |
| Reviewer Rankings | |
| Battle System | 10.0 |
| Gameplay | 9.0 |
| Music | 10.0 |
| Originality | 11.0 |
| Plot | 11.0 |
| Replay Value | 11.0 |
| Sound | 9.0 |
| Visuals | 8.0 |
| Difficulty | Hard |
| Overall | |
| 9.9 | |
Planescape: Torment
By: Black IsleReviewed By: DarkFant
Welcome to Sigil, the city of Doors traveler! Bull. I've seen this phrase used in almost every review of this fine specimen of a pc RPG, whether in Inquest Gamer, IGN PC, PC Game World, or in my local game mags. But this is supposed to be a review, not a rant, so I'll get on with it.In Torment, you take on the role of the Nameless One, an immortal who can never stay dead, however he loses a bit of himself(his memories) every time he kicks the bucket. The Nameless One seeks his mortality, and it is up to you to guide him in his way. Along the way, you will come across people who knew you in your previous incarnations: Trusty allies, enemies who remember you for what you were before, even the Nameless Ones girlfriend, who is a spectre. Not bad for an immortal.
Gameplay and Replay Value:
Overall the gameplay is user-friendly and easy; you'll be able to slip in to Torment's style without reading the manual, which I did. There are many hotkeys and shortcuts, some are rarely used I.E "P" for "Priest Scroll", while some are used very frequently, "Q" for "Quicksave". Saving is very important in Planescape. Sometimes you might screw up a quest like I did, and want to go back. So saving is a must before every major event.
A great feature of Torment is the Nameless One's ability to switch character classes from Fighter(you start with this class) to Thief to Mage and back. Each has it's own level of experience, only HP, Character stats and AC bonuses are kept. This makes for major replay ability; if you win with a Fighter you can replay the game as a Thief or Mage (by far the best class, you get all sorts of cool spells).
The game settings are very customizable, ranging from gamma, to volume, to displays (Hit modifiers, To-hit rolls, critical hits/misses, etc. Can't understand me? Heh heh.) My biggest gripe about the gameplay is the annoying menu that pops up when you right click. This is what you use to talk to people and team mates, use items, cast spells, select weapons and special abilities. One dumb thing is that when casting spells and selecting targets/selecting enemies to hit is that if you aren't careful, you may end casting said spell ON YOUR SELF. Or end up hitting your own team mate and killing him/her. This really annoys me, especially when your characters are powerful. Once I had Dak'kon attack a target, but wasn't careful in my selection. I thought I had clicked on the enemy, and I pressed "1" to select the Nameless One. Suddenly, Nameless One was dead. Dak'kon had killed him. Overall, the gameplay is good, this annoyance doesn't drag it down much.
Plot/Story:
The meat of any good RPG is a plot that will keep you playing. And Torment has a storyline to rival any Final Fantasy in existence. As an immortal, you are in search of your mortality. That's the bare-bones of it. I am not saying anything more as this will spoil all your fun.
Originality:
Pure originality, no contest.
Visuals:
Some claim this is the most important aspect of a successful game. Well, one thing Torment doesn't have is eye-popping graphics. The character sprites are average quality. One good thing however, is that Torment has absolutely no areas which make you want to tear out your eyeballs to stop them from hurting, no matter what gamma settings you put. Most areas are well-lit, and unlike other Black Isle games, items on the floor are easy to spot. Your travels through Sigil and the surrounding planes will take you to some exotic locales:bars, canyons, even what passes for hell in the world of AD&D.
Spell effects are by far the most spectacular. Spells from level 3 above have cool cut scenes ala Final Fantasy. Really. One example is Elysium's Tears. Once cast, the game is paused while "tears" rain down upon the target and damaging it and surrounding enemies/targets. One ultra cool and long spell is Celestial Host, a ninth level spell that really whups ass. Other spells have special movies made for them.
Movies seem to be a part of every RPG nowadays, whether anime or lifelike. Torment has quite a few, some are just intros to the new region you are exploring, some are events, some are spells. And you can also view any movies you have seen before, except for the Game Over movie. Overall, the visuals are above average.
Sound:
The voices are great, they are convincing. The Nameless One's voice suits his face well. The other characters voices suit their personalities well, but some people might be offended that the thief of the game has a specific "accent". I'll leave it up to you to find out what accent it is
. You can annoy your team mates by repeatedly clicking on them, and they'll start spouting trash talk. This feature seems to be the new trend in pc gaming ever since Warcraft II(?). Apart from your character's voices, some NPCs also speak, some don't. The voice actors, again were perfect choices, ranging from old-haglike voices to bitter-inhuman voices. When your characters are hurt, you hear the standard "hurt" sounds. When near death, each character says a different thing, like Annah's "This is what I get for being careless" and Nordom's "System malfunctioning!". This is a big 'thumbs-up' with me. Spell sound effects range from funky to loud to just plain satisfying. Try casting Magic Missile with earphones on and the sound loud. BOOM! There go your eardrums. The only thing that drags the score down is the sad weapon SE. Blunt weapons give you an annoying "squish" SE, while edged weapons give out a metallic sound. Even when you are stabbing a flesh and blood enemy with no visible armor. Add that to the fact the you have to listen to these SE's throughout the entire game and you have a rather large flaw. And some NPC conversations are too soft, you'll have to strain your ears to hear them 'cos there are no words to go with the talking.
Battle System:
What can I say? It's AD&D without all the die-rolling. Just click on the enemy you want to hit. One gripe is that your characters will sometimes just run about doing nothing. And that's where the "Pause" button comes in, the trusty Space Bar. Pausing the game can be a big help in battle, especially when using a mage to fire off spells. Fire, pause, select next spell, target, un-pause, rinse wash and repeat. And! You can set it to auto-pause when you are faced with some instances: Weapon Unusable against that particular enemy, Character Injured and Character's Target gone just to name a few. Also, unlike Baldur's Gate, accessing the inventory screen while paused doesn't un-pause the game.
Each character has a special ability, some like Morte's "Litany of Curses" and "Skull Mob" are really kick ass, while others such as Nameless One's "Resurrect" are useful, while others like "Sensory Touch" suck bigtime.
While in battle, you and your team mates will sometimes score critical hits accompanied by amusing captions, example Nameless Ones expressive "DIE!" and Dak'kon's "Karach sings true". Same goes for critical misses, Nameless Ones "Damn!" and Fall-From-Grace's "I'm out of practice it seems". Overall, the battle system is easy to get into and pretty uncomplicated.
Music:
Ah, music. Torment's music is not too bad, nothing compared to Nobuo's masterpieces or Mitsuda's greats. The streets of Sigil have unmemorable music, something with an Arabian theme. Torment's main theme is the only nice track in the game. There are many variations to the theme, such as the first battle music and Deionarra's music. Speaking of battle music, there are I think 3 battle musics in the game. My biggest gripe about the music is that there is an overall flavour of Indian(not Cherokee or that sort, Indian as in from India, Tamil, got it yet?)in it. The biggest insult is the ending music. What saves the music score from a 5 or less is my love for the main theme of Torment and the weird, indescribable music that plays in the Smoldering Corpse Bar.
Replay Value:
Torment is guaranteed to make you come back for another go after you win, because there are so many paths to the end, so many quests to complete that you won't see everything until you have played through it at least 3 times. I challenge you to find all the spells, I haven't found them all, let alone seen them.
Overall:
Torment is a good choice if you are looking for a great time by yourself for around 25 hours. The price is quite reasonable for 4 cds, so if you love RPGs and want a new challenge, take on Planescape: Torment.
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