5th May 2010, 4:00 PM
(This post was last modified: 5th May 2010, 4:26 PM by A Black Falcon.)
Greatest. No question. Torment is the best RPG ever.
[QUOTE=Dark Jaguar]Ah now I get ya.
But if you're going to charicature ABF, you forgot to add ", certainly" after every opinion on something.[/QUOTE]
He'd also need a bunch of "..."s, I think. :)
But yes, I am in the group that thinks the RPG peaked in the late '90s and early '00s. Many PC RPGs fans believe that, it's not exactly an uncommon opinion.
[quote=Great Rumbler]Unlike other RPGs, there are no traditional dungeons.[/qiuote]
Well, apart from the Modron Cube... that's pretty conventional. Entirely optional, if I remember, but conventional. :)
But yes, the game is easier than many RPGs, and has a very, very different structure, as you describe well. I know that not everyone likes it -- some people just don't like the heavy focus on reading text and asking and answering questions, and would rather kill things. Fighting is more de-emphasized in this game than almost any RPG ever, so this game is definitely not for those people...
I agree about the comparisons to adventure games as well, it does have some of that feel to it, with all of the long conversations, things you can click on in the environment that have text descriptions, and more. Of course though, it's also an RPG, and your stats affect which answers you can choose, which is a great touch that merges the genres in an interesting way, I think. It's well done too, it's implemented here much better than the stat-based dialog options in KotOR 1, I think.
I played Torment back in the first half of 2002. We'd bought it in early 2000 I believe, not long after its release in 1999, but while I had been interested, my dad had actually asked for it, which is why we got it (he didn't often play games, but has played a few here and there). I didn't play it right then though... I finally got to playing it several years later. Well, of course I thought it was unbelievable, and was hooked.
If I had to say the things I disliked about the game, though, three things come to mind:
-The second half of the game felt much more linear than the first half. While in the earlier parts you can go many places and have a lot of things you can do, and don't need to spend much time fighting (most fights in this part are optional or avoidable), later on avoiding fights often just becomes a game of "run past the demons, or fight them", which isn't nearly as interesting. It felt like the game changed tones midway through as it became more linear, and I liked the earlier style better. It was still great later, but I did think that.
-Difficulty -- Torment has to be one of the easiest D&D RPGs ever made... it's supposed to be, sure, but it is easy. The hardest enemy in the game is an optional boss who really isn't that hard. Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 and Icewind Dale 1 and 2 (particularly the IWD games!) have lots of challenging fights in them, but Torment just doesn't. Of course, that is the point, and I got used to it and didn't really mind this, but there were a few points later in the game that I kind of wished that there'd be some enemies to actually try my powerful new abilities on... like, how late in the game you get those spells that actually have FMVs when you use them (like a console RPG or something... :)), but by that point there are so few fights remaining and they are so easy that you have almost no chance to use them. It all fits storyline-wise, but gameplay-wise it felt a little odd sometimes... but of course, on the other hand that's just the clash between this game's design and the design that you "expect" an RPG to have, so the fact that it's different is a big part of the point of why the game is great. Not everything needs to be hard. I just thought it was worth mentioning, for those moments when it bothered me a little (which, of course, the next story part would usually erase, with how they are always the focus of the game).
Torment's great story completely spoiled me for other games, I got and played Warcraft III just a few months later when it came out and was pretty disappointed by its story, probably in large part by how I'd just played Torment. I haven't actually replayed Torment, though... I let a few other people borrow the game for several years, wanting others to try the game as well, but even after getting it back over a year ago I haven't played it again. I probably will sometime, though... :)
[quote]Will companies like BioWare, Obsidian, and Bethesda bring RPGs back to this level of detail in the near future? Well, perhaps, but until they do, and even if they don’t, you can always keep playing the one that set the standard in the first place.[/quote]
Have you played Neverwinter Nights 2's first expansion pack, Mask of the Betrayer? The game has the best story of any Obsidian RPG, and one of the best stories ever in an RPG this side of Torment. The original NWN2 is a good game that fails either in gameplay or story to match the Infinity Engine classics but still is better than any other RPG released after Icewind Dale 2, but Mask of the Betrayer is, stylistically, a "followup" to PS: Torment in many ways. It has a small cast of characters, all of whom have a lot of depth. It has a complex, multisided plot. It of course has great writing. While NWN2 itself had some decent plot and writing, it really wasn't anything that special. I think it must have been rushed or something, it's below Black Isle or Obsidian's usual standards there I think... and they put in so many automation features and stuff to turn off (if you want to actually control things like you should in D&D), while the base strategic gameplay just doesn't quite play as well as the Infinity Engine. But anyway, while the gameplay engine is the same, plot and characters wise, NWN2 is a huge improvement, and really does push almost to Torment levels of great design and writing.
Basically, playing the base NWN2 made me want to play Baldur's Gate 1 again instead, because that was the better game (which is exactly what I did), but MotB is a fantastic D&D game that should not be missed by anyone who likes story in their RPGs.
Oh, it does not require playing NWN2 first. It does pick up after the original game's ending, but your character is the only one who returns; all of the other party members are new. The story is also entirely original, and not a followup to the ending of the base game. The second expansion is somewhat similar in that way, it's also an entirely new chapter, essentially. That one's quite different in gameplay from MotB though, it's not a Torment-style game like MotB but perhaps could be described as something a little more Icewind Dale... but given that the IWD games are some of the best dungeon crawler games ever, that's not really a bad thing.
[QUOTE=Dark Jaguar]Ah now I get ya.
But if you're going to charicature ABF, you forgot to add ", certainly" after every opinion on something.[/QUOTE]
He'd also need a bunch of "..."s, I think. :)
But yes, I am in the group that thinks the RPG peaked in the late '90s and early '00s. Many PC RPGs fans believe that, it's not exactly an uncommon opinion.
[quote=Great Rumbler]Unlike other RPGs, there are no traditional dungeons.[/qiuote]
Well, apart from the Modron Cube... that's pretty conventional. Entirely optional, if I remember, but conventional. :)
But yes, the game is easier than many RPGs, and has a very, very different structure, as you describe well. I know that not everyone likes it -- some people just don't like the heavy focus on reading text and asking and answering questions, and would rather kill things. Fighting is more de-emphasized in this game than almost any RPG ever, so this game is definitely not for those people...
I agree about the comparisons to adventure games as well, it does have some of that feel to it, with all of the long conversations, things you can click on in the environment that have text descriptions, and more. Of course though, it's also an RPG, and your stats affect which answers you can choose, which is a great touch that merges the genres in an interesting way, I think. It's well done too, it's implemented here much better than the stat-based dialog options in KotOR 1, I think.
I played Torment back in the first half of 2002. We'd bought it in early 2000 I believe, not long after its release in 1999, but while I had been interested, my dad had actually asked for it, which is why we got it (he didn't often play games, but has played a few here and there). I didn't play it right then though... I finally got to playing it several years later. Well, of course I thought it was unbelievable, and was hooked.
If I had to say the things I disliked about the game, though, three things come to mind:
-The second half of the game felt much more linear than the first half. While in the earlier parts you can go many places and have a lot of things you can do, and don't need to spend much time fighting (most fights in this part are optional or avoidable), later on avoiding fights often just becomes a game of "run past the demons, or fight them", which isn't nearly as interesting. It felt like the game changed tones midway through as it became more linear, and I liked the earlier style better. It was still great later, but I did think that.
-Difficulty -- Torment has to be one of the easiest D&D RPGs ever made... it's supposed to be, sure, but it is easy. The hardest enemy in the game is an optional boss who really isn't that hard. Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 and Icewind Dale 1 and 2 (particularly the IWD games!) have lots of challenging fights in them, but Torment just doesn't. Of course, that is the point, and I got used to it and didn't really mind this, but there were a few points later in the game that I kind of wished that there'd be some enemies to actually try my powerful new abilities on... like, how late in the game you get those spells that actually have FMVs when you use them (like a console RPG or something... :)), but by that point there are so few fights remaining and they are so easy that you have almost no chance to use them. It all fits storyline-wise, but gameplay-wise it felt a little odd sometimes... but of course, on the other hand that's just the clash between this game's design and the design that you "expect" an RPG to have, so the fact that it's different is a big part of the point of why the game is great. Not everything needs to be hard. I just thought it was worth mentioning, for those moments when it bothered me a little (which, of course, the next story part would usually erase, with how they are always the focus of the game).
Torment's great story completely spoiled me for other games, I got and played Warcraft III just a few months later when it came out and was pretty disappointed by its story, probably in large part by how I'd just played Torment. I haven't actually replayed Torment, though... I let a few other people borrow the game for several years, wanting others to try the game as well, but even after getting it back over a year ago I haven't played it again. I probably will sometime, though... :)
[quote]Will companies like BioWare, Obsidian, and Bethesda bring RPGs back to this level of detail in the near future? Well, perhaps, but until they do, and even if they don’t, you can always keep playing the one that set the standard in the first place.[/quote]
Have you played Neverwinter Nights 2's first expansion pack, Mask of the Betrayer? The game has the best story of any Obsidian RPG, and one of the best stories ever in an RPG this side of Torment. The original NWN2 is a good game that fails either in gameplay or story to match the Infinity Engine classics but still is better than any other RPG released after Icewind Dale 2, but Mask of the Betrayer is, stylistically, a "followup" to PS: Torment in many ways. It has a small cast of characters, all of whom have a lot of depth. It has a complex, multisided plot. It of course has great writing. While NWN2 itself had some decent plot and writing, it really wasn't anything that special. I think it must have been rushed or something, it's below Black Isle or Obsidian's usual standards there I think... and they put in so many automation features and stuff to turn off (if you want to actually control things like you should in D&D), while the base strategic gameplay just doesn't quite play as well as the Infinity Engine. But anyway, while the gameplay engine is the same, plot and characters wise, NWN2 is a huge improvement, and really does push almost to Torment levels of great design and writing.
Basically, playing the base NWN2 made me want to play Baldur's Gate 1 again instead, because that was the better game (which is exactly what I did), but MotB is a fantastic D&D game that should not be missed by anyone who likes story in their RPGs.
Oh, it does not require playing NWN2 first. It does pick up after the original game's ending, but your character is the only one who returns; all of the other party members are new. The story is also entirely original, and not a followup to the ending of the base game. The second expansion is somewhat similar in that way, it's also an entirely new chapter, essentially. That one's quite different in gameplay from MotB though, it's not a Torment-style game like MotB but perhaps could be described as something a little more Icewind Dale... but given that the IWD games are some of the best dungeon crawler games ever, that's not really a bad thing.