Review Detail

Planescape: Torment was one of the first fantasy RPGs I played that really felt fantastic, rather than a generic copy of Tolkien. The game constantly keeps you on your toes, never truly letting you adjust to your surroundings. The atmosphere is greatly helped by the stupendous writing and the top-notch story.

Unfortunately, the game does suffer from a few problems that really keep it from being the top dog. It inherits all of the combat problems from previous infinity engine games, making the combat tedious and annoying, rather than an interesting aspect of the game. While the opening part of the game is fairly light on combat, it's a much larger focus later on, with several unskippable fights. The game also misses many opportunities for real choices and consequences. While the player is given many choices, few of them have an impact on what's going on. It often feels more like reading a novel than actually playing a game.

Despite the problems with the game mechanics, it's still well-worth playing for the amazing story alone.