Torment I just finished Planescape: Torment and...

[S.torch]

Guys... you were right. This game is a masterpiece. I even don't know what to say... after completing the game I felt as if I had been hit.

When I was reaching the end of the game, I feel all the greatness of the trip I had done so far, the weight of the actions I had taken and the importance of the characters that accompanied me in it. Yes, I know it sounds corny... but I think it's the best way to describe it that I have now.

It's as if each part of the game, each mission, no matter how small, would have contributed to achieving a world so alive, but at the same time so different. Even in spite of its deep decline, the trip leaves you marked and is ... sincerely moving.

The most curious thing about this, is that I had the game for quite some time. But only recently I have finished it. At first I felt extremely disoriented and I thought that the story was incomprehensible, but when I played it again, this time determined to follow it, I did not expect something of this magnitude. The ending was something both shocking and very emotional. And I know that most of you guys think the ending is perfect as it was, but I have to say that I felt that Nameless One deserved a softer ending, that is, when he finally leaves, and leaves the others behind, I feel he leaves me behind too. As the person who was following him in his adventure all this time. And that makes me feel a little sad, it seemed that something was missing.

After that experience I wanted to share this with someone else and also wanted to ask, do you think it's worthwhile to continue with Torment: Tildes of Numeria?

 

[Hamster]

After that experience I wanted to share this with someone else and also wanted to ask, do you think it's worthwhile to continue with Torment: Tildes of Numeria?

Nope.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Yes, Numenera is a good game, I finished it at 88 hours or so. Different setting obviously but overall a pretty similar game at its core. I recommend it and I'm also a fan of PS:T.

 

[ga♥]

How did you finish it with 88 hours of playtime...? I finished it in 25 including the uninstall.exe part that followed.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

How did you finish it with 88 hours of playtime...? I finished it in 25 including the uninstall.exe part that followed.

Dunno, I took my time but also recorded it i.e. reading everything aloud. Probably added some hours to the playthrough.

 

[Sigourn]

PS:T is vastly overrated. A lot. But there's one thing I really like, and it is that it fleshes out its characters. All of them, from the protagonist, to the companions, to the less important companions, to even street vendors. And despite working with a "set" protagonist, you have a huge amount of leeway in making the Nameless One your own.

If the combat had been of the same quality as the writing, it would have been far better, that's for sure.

 

[ArchAngel]

After that experience I wanted to share this with someone else and also wanted to ask, do you think it's worthwhile to continue with Torment: Tildes of Numeria?

Nope.

I am pretty sure you cannot claim you played and finished Tildes of Numeria so that you can say it is not worth it

Spoiler

 

[The_Mask]

After that experience I wanted to share this with someone else and also wanted to ask, do you think it's worthwhile to continue with Torment: Tildes of Numeria?

Don't worry about Numenera. Don't waste your money. Just keep this memory of finishing Torment the first time frozen in amber, in your mind, your memory.

 

[Prime Junta]

do you think it's worthwhile to continue with Torment: Tildes of Numeria?

no

 

[Neanderthal]

Numenera misses the bar by a country mile, nothing but disappointment for me.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Each time I read a thread like this I get incredibly jealous, because I know I'll never feel this kind of bliss again upon playing one of the great classics that I've already played and finished.

 

[Poseidon00]

PS:T is vastly overrated. A lot. But there's one thing I really like, and it is that it fleshes out its characters. All of them, from the protagonist, to the companions, to the less important companions, to even street vendors. And despite working with a "set" protagonist, you have a huge amount of leeway in making the Nameless One your own.

If the combat had been of the same quality as the writing, it would have been far better, that's for sure.

The combat is actually not bad in my honest opinion, a lot of unique spells of every level to take advantage of for both you and Dak'kon and it's not like it's overly easy. The problem is that there isn't *enough* of it. You'll never see most of the best stuff without mindless and meaningless grinding in the same one area.

 

[luj1]

Guys... you were right. This game is a masterpiece. I even don't know what to say... after completing the game I felt as if I had been hit.

When I was reaching the end of the game, I feel all the greatness of the trip I had done so far, the weight of the actions I had taken and the importance of the characters that accompanied me in it. Yes, I know it sounds corny... but I think it's the best way to describe it that I have now.

It's as if each part of the game, each mission, no matter how small, would have contributed to achieving a world so alive, but at the same time so different. Even in spite of its deep decline, the trip leaves you marked and is ... sincerely moving.

Well done underling. With every such accomplishment, the rotten heart of Inshillicucktron loses some of its power. Well done.

 

[S.torch]

Thank you guys for the answers. Nice to see that others had a similar experience in terms of impact. It's not surprising, but it's good to see it. I also see that there are different opinions regarding Numenera, I know that the original writer of Planescape did not participate in it, so I understand some of the complaints. But I wanted to see if at least it had some of the "magic" that the original has. Of course it's difficult to reach the same level.

. Just keep this memory of finishing Torment the first time frozen in amber, in your mind, your memory.

Oh, I will, it was a unique moment. But thanks for remind me.

 

[Butter]

Numenera is okay, but it's a far cry from PST.

 

[user]

I also see that there are different opinions regarding Numenera, I know that the original writer of Planescape did not participate in it, so I understand some of the complaints.

Numenera tries too hard to be Torment with the setting, surrealism, memory rping and all, but in the end it's just bland.

 

[ga♥]

Thank you guys for the answers. Nice to see that others had a similar experience in terms of impact. It's not surprising, but it's good to see it. I also see that there are different opinions regarding Numenera, I know that the original writer of Planescape did not participate in it

Sadly wrong. Of the PS:T writers trio (Avellone, McComb and Maldonado - listed from the highest contributer to the lowest) just Maldonado didn't partecipate. Why the game is so bad, we don't know.

 

[anvi]

PST is for the fkiest of story fks.

 

[Trashos]

Sadly wrong. Of the PS:T writers trio (Avellone, McComb and Maldonado - listed from the highest contributer to the lowest) just Maldonado didn't partecipate. Why the game is so bad, we don't know.

Avellone was a one-man army during PST. In Numanuma he was what, a guest star at best?

 

[ga♥]

Sadly wrong. Of the PS:T writers trio (Avellone, McComb and Maldonado - listed from the highest contributer to the lowest) just Maldonado didn't partecipate. Why the game is so bad, we don't know.

Avellone was a one-man army during PST. In Numanuma he was what, a guest star at best?

Pretty much... at least as far as we know.
I still wouldn't say "he didn't partecipate".

 

[Invictus]

Its one of the most bittersweet experiences I have ever had, the journey of discovery you get with the Nameless One and then his final fate... one of the most powerful stories I have ever experienced in any medium and one of my favorite arguments for “games as art” along with Ico/Shadow of the Colossus, Silent Hill 2 and Dark Souls

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Each time I read a thread like this I get incredibly jealous, because I know I'll never feel this kind of bliss again upon playing one of the great classics that I've already played and finished.

You can always play Deus Ex. An immensely better experience. And unlike Torment, an actual video game.

 

[MRY]

In my opinion, for PS:T to exist required a several unlikely things all to come true at once. I might be wrong, but I think it required (1) a young writer; (2) of significant talent; (3) willing to pour his whole life into a game; (4) given complete narrative control; (5) over a game made in a mature engine; (6) with high-budget audiovisuals; (7) with an established but not cliche setting.

The number of people capable of doing what young Avellone did, and willing to do it on a computer RPG, is very small. (Even Avellone would not be able to -- he has made clear that he's not interested in sacrificing so much of himself for another game, and rightly so. It's a young, driven, bachelor's bargain, not a wealthy middle aged husband's.) So you need a studio that can identify such a person, with sufficient confidence that it has identified that person correctly to entrust him with that kind of control, that also has at least Obsidian-level resources. In PS:T's case, that happened by mistake -- from the various retrospectives, it almost sounds like Avellone's control over PS:T happened because of benign neglect/managerial distraction, not brilliant talent-spotting.

Incidentally, those are the necessary conditions, but they aren't sufficient. IMO, there's a real chance that you could have all of that stuff come together, but the ~young Avellone screws it up for some reason -- picks the wrong theme, the wrong politics, whatever.

Finally, it is not clear that post-PS:T, you could have another game achieve the same impact as PS:T -- the longer the medium exists, the higher the floor gets for "so much better than what I've experienced before." If you flipped MOTB and PS:T in release dates, I'm not sure PS:T would win the same lasting acclaim.

None of this excuses TTON, but it may somewhat explain it.

 

[S.torch]

Very interesting analysis, MRY. I really enjoy reading it. But I disagree on something with you, the existence of literature, which until now is probably the one of the most fruitful art medium, shows that despite the time, reinventions of art and masterpieces appear constantly. Since always the special ingredient usually appears, that is the individual that wants to create.

 

[MRY]

Of course. But this simply sets the bar higher. In my mind, PS:T is really more like good low-brow fantasy -- somewhere between, say, Dragons of Autumn Twilight and The Eye of the World. Many young men came into fantasy sideways through those books (DoAT was my entry point in fifth grade), and can go on about how Raistlin is a deep character and so forth. And, of course, today's good low-brow fantasy may well be better, but it will lack the same impact and allure. If Dragons of Autumn Twilight had been released in 2014 rather than 1984, it wouldn't be a seminal work of geekdom; it would be as fringe as any of a billion other shlock fantasy novels today.

Obviously, if cRPGs were to get a Tolkien or Vance or Le Guin or Howard or Lieber or Zelazny, who also had adequate technical know-how and patience to write branching dialogues and item descriptions and so forth, his or her game could vastly surpass PS:T. But now you've made the pool of available talent even smaller, since I think Chris would be the first to admit he isn't a Tolkien/Vance/Le Guin/Howard/Lieber/Zelazny-level writer, even if he is the finest cRPG writer of all time by a significant margin. So the odds of its happening seem even lower -- now we are positing that the stars align and our ~Avellone is actually a ~Avellone +5.

[EDIT: Before anyone takes this as casting shade, for those who don't know, I've worked on not one but two homages to PS:T (TTON as a wage slave and Primordia as a free man). But one can simultaneously recognize it for a masterpiece of a cRPG and not put it in the ranks of "literature."]