Very unique game that's more of a text adventure than a typical western RPG.
In the game's sci-fi fantasy world, you are a castoff - a newly-realized consciousness in an immortal body that was previously inhabited by the Changing God. There's hundreds or thousands of castoffs like you, created by the Changing God, who are making their way in life while trying to escape aVery unique game that's more of a text adventure than a typical western RPG.
In the game's sci-fi fantasy world, you are a castoff - a newly-realized consciousness in an immortal body that was previously inhabited by the Changing God. There's hundreds or thousands of castoffs like you, created by the Changing God, who are making their way in life while trying to escape a supernatural-like force that's trying to eliminate you all.
The game takes place in the Planescape D&D universe, which is basically a mixture of worlds, technology, and civilizations that seemingly has no limits in its variety. That's a good recipe for a typical nonsensical children's story, but the developers here actually succeeded in making the writing cohesive and intelligent.
I'll cover the story only slightly, as it's best to experience first-hand. Your primary goal changes throughout the game as you gather more information, but you're primarily looking for the Changing God, to figure out what his plans are. Each of your goals are meaningful, intelligent, and make sense, which is more than I can say for most RPGs these days. The only major downside of the story is its rushed and abrupt ending. It's a bit cliche, with your final opponent basically telling you his master plan, when he could have done so previously, which would have saved all sides a lot of trouble. But besides that, there's nothing else I'd really consider dumb or a big plot hole.
Gameplay primarily consists of talking to people. You can spend hours talking to a single person and trying to complete his or her quest line. That usually involves talking to other people, getting more information or items, and then returning to that person to continue the process. And by no means are these nameless fetch-quest givers. Their stories are intricate and always involve or benefit you in some way.
Various skills help you in your conversations with people. Persuasion, deception, dexterity (grabbing/stealing things), and a load of other skills can move situations in the direction that you want, with your party members able to help with many of these. The only real issue with skill usage is that it gets too easy over time as you gain bonuses in those skills. This can make many actions that were previously costly or difficult free with a 100% success rate. Though if you're playing this like a typical western RPG, you might use skill points for combat skills, which aren't very useful since combat is rare. Either way, every obstacle has multiple solutions, so you won't get stuck, even if you fail at all of your conversation rolls.
Additionally, there's side stories. You'll gain artifacts that allow you to relive a portion of different castoffs' lives (in text format). These are all interesting, but most have no relation to your current goals or setting. So they seem random and disconnected, as if you start reading the middle of a new novel when you haven't finished reading your current one.
The writing style is typical for fantasy novels, based on the few Forgotten Realms novels I read 30 years ago. Even though this is a video game, visual aspects of people, scenes, and actions are described in great textual detail, while the images on screen remain static. So this is definitely a game for readers and not the typical young impatient gamer. And thankfully, the writing respects your intelligence enough to not outright tell you characters' inner thoughts. It leaves that up to you to determine though their words and actions.
The game surprised me. While it doesn't reach the psychological depth of the best Japanese RPGs, it's more practical in nature and far more intelligently-written than every other western RPG I've played. As a teen, I didn't play the original Planesape: Torment due to there not being enough combat. Now, it's on my list of games I must play.… Expand
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