Planescape: Torment: Enhanced Edition

I bought this game back in 2000 or so, played on my Acer Aspire with a 3 gig HD lol, disc swapping madness. Anyway, this is by far the greatest game ever. It's all about story, and it has more story than any 4 or 5 games combined now days do. Skyrim may be pretty, has ZERO story by comparison. This is the way RPGs should be made. The choices made you want to save scum just to see what would've or could've happened. Not to cheat the RNG, but to explore. The voice acting, back when devs actually cared to get people who could voice act instead of using a machine or the janitor. All my waking time before and after work were put into this game for probably 6 months. After I did everything I could do and beat the game, I never touched it again. It was such a good game, once I was finished, I was genuinely satisfied with it, and just never felt the need to play it again. Odd way of thinking I spose. If you want pretty, if you can't read, if you want the game to hold your hand, then you'll hate this game. If you want story, choices that matter, and well thought out plots, then you'll love Planescape.

In spite of everything I am about to say and whatever vitriol you have toward me, let me be clear about my feelings: Planescape Torment is a game everyone should experience, however they wish to choose, at least once in his/her life. However, I do not think the game is a masterpiece nor do I particularly like the game compared to any other CRPGs I've played because playing it gets to be a chore. If you are concerned that the Enhanced Edition is at fault, then rest assured that it improves on everything that was wrong with the technical details of the past. UI changes and other quality-of-life improvements like modern resolutions and an updated OST only make this experience as timeless as eternity. Aside from one or two crashes in the last two chapters of the game, the experience itself was flawless. The issue with PT is that no matter how much you polish it you cannot fix an imperfect game. Not only is the gameplay itself an issue but how the final acts are structured that goes against what the game has taught you in terms of alternative solutions to conflict. To those who defend the combat, if it was meant to dissuade you from fighting and choosing to resolve conflict by other means, then this game is a poor attempt to convey this idea. Everything about this combat is shallow to Infinity Engine games but also to modern RPGs that realize party composition and weapon variety is important. If any one sole thing killed PT for me it was an unreasonable desire to conform the gameplay back to other games that otherwise distinguishes PT as unique. At its very best, PT's setup, storyline, setting and gameplay is more like a D&D-inspired Fallout (1/2) than a D&D Infinity Engine game. Rules and lore aside, these games should feel nothing alike as RPGs. That is why the Enhanced Edition saddens me the most; it plays everything safe, changing nothing for better or for worse. Link to full review from Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/id/Brian_Colfxire/recommended/466300/

Ok, first of all... What's with the collective hate on Beamdog? I know that 90% of fans treat BG, IWD and PTT like the incarnation of Old Gods themselves but c'mon good people is it that bad to have a working title with support? Is it that bad to have 80% chances for this game to work in 8 years? As it goes for this particular title, if you know it you will love it. Gonna get two games (original and enhanced, at least when I was buying it) so even if you are I die-hard fan you should be satisfied. If you don't know the series add it to the wishlist or just buy it for the full price. Be aware that this game is VERY dialogue-heavy and not all the dialogues have voice-overs so if don't plan to read something like a (very interesting) book I DO NOT recommend this title with a clear conscious. On the other side, the story is just too damn good to pass.

Most "basic" of Beamdog enhanced editions, but too many that would be a good thing. Still chock full of bug fixes, visual enhancements, UI enhancements, modern niceties and bug fixes. No surprises here but its still an amazing game polished up and brought to new audience.

It’s more of a short essay rather than a proper review… Planescape Torment (and subsequently Arcanum) just gave me PTSD. I just can’t take any other RPG game as seriously after experiencing these two masterpieces. I admire and value VTMB, Fallout, KOTORs and many other wonderful works of art, but, in my opinion, experiencing Planescape is the ultimate existential challenge on a metaphysical level. The most surprising part about this game: I’ve repeatedly dreamed of some similar characters in my slumber for years, before even discovering this game. That alone speaks volumes, meaning that the game designers and writers touched on some primordial psychological archetypes that exist in man’s unconscious and can be traced to the first primitive written proverbs and teachings. What can change the nature of a man? Each person *knows* the extent of their own wisdom. Hope The only answer I would’ve given a thousand times. As long as hope exists, forever can’t win.