I found myself playing Planescape: Torment – Enhanced Edition almost 20 years after original's release, give or take a few months. This made for quite an experience mirroring that of the nameless protagonist himself as he half-remembers the world while uncovering true meaning of events past and current along the way. It would be a safe bet to say this resulted in a unique experience all-around... but how does the game fair nowadays?

Major problem arises when trying to discuss story or even characters in this case because the entire thing is couched as a mystery you'll get to resolve by the end. In turn this makes it impossible to really talk about any of those elements in significant manner lest you spoil them even more than usual. To stay as brief and vague as possible – we follow an amnesiac who “wakes up” in a mortuary and gets an earful from a floating skull keen on joking around. Who are you? How did you end up here? How do those warning tattoos on your back relate to the fact you're apparently immortal with untold lives behind you? Maybe your journal would explain some of this if you still had it, but one thing is clear. You're not dead. With that in mind you set out to escape the mortuary, piece together your lost memories and survive in this crazy world of Planescape. Even your name is lost... so you become the Nameless One instead.

Setting itself and how the game is set to make use of it are both worth bringing up, though. Aforementioned Planescape is a canonical D&D setting albeit one that hasn't seen attention in present day edition of the game. Having some degree of familiarity is a two-edged sword in this case and not in that “game messed X up so I can outraged about it”, but rather because you get to see just how much it did justice to the source material while telling an original story. I would almost recommend going in completely blind as it gives you another major draw in the form of discovering the world. If you want a simple breakdown it would be that Planescape eschews popular fantasy conventions and marvelously takes advantage of fringe D&D stuff while embracing all of it. I'm talking about running on its own set of bizarre rules heavily based on concepts of belief and alignments. And lots of portals.

Of course, I hold a firm belief none of the above would really matter if not for the glue that holds Planescape: Torment together – terrific writing and freedom of choice.

It cannot be overstated just how much the written word carries the game and if you're not the type content to read through paragraphs and paragraphs of richly written descriptions or dialog, this is not the game for you. No ifs or buts. Provided you are, though, you're in for a work-of-art that has sadly not been matched. Even crazier when you add just how much FREEDOM the game gives you in how your Nameless One handles situations in terms of moral alignment. Why crazy? Because the plot and even the ending itself have to be seen through without relying on that modern “how you respond to key events determines the ending” setup. No, this is more about the Nameless One's personal journey and his deeds on top of interacting with what few companions you get. Who also happen to hide layers within layers of backstory. If there is a constant annoyance that arises from this freedom and verbosity it's a certain level of redundancy game has to adopt purely to ensure all character builds can, in fact, access said information. At times game fails to respond if you already know who Lady of Pain is and will still result in NPCs talking your ear off about her, for example.

As we step into gameplay department I must confess to being somewhat surprised how both aged Planescape: Torment has and how timeless it plays simultaneously. On one hand it's pretty straightforward to look at how other Infinity Engine games tweaked their isometric group combat and basic game logic, primarily helping rogues in the process by rewarding experience points for their actions, but on the other I don't think I've ever played another CRPG before OR since that had integrated narrative and gameplay in such organic fashion where they feed into one another. Even with the most basic fundamentals aka Nameless One is supposed to be immortal so he really is. On death your companions simply drag you to the nearest “checkpoint” and you restore. I've also lost count how many times immortality and regeneration were used in dialog and decision-making. For example, having a boring discussion with a suicidal Dustman about the nature of life and death? Simply snap your own neck and return to make a point about it.

Such mindset permeates the entire game resulting in some of the strangest quests you're liable to play. If your adventure game sense is tingling you're not that far off. More often than not solution to a problem is not to just straight up fight it, but rather procure the needed item which then has to be used in a specific manner. Woe befall anyone who loses plot critical items, especially in a game that doesn't provide you with player storage so you'll have to find that perfect contained to stowaway your unwanted items in. Most of my end game inventory was taken by items I thought were important or were simply leftovers. Read. Item. Descriptions. You'll thank me later after your journal has been cluttered and you need to remember something.

I'm not even talking about stats here and what an impact they make. This is the kind of RPG where you actually want to max out Wisdom, Intelligence and Charisma in order to get the most out of the game. Taking into account you can switch your callings so you're not stuck being a fighter and you're in for quite the dilemma. Mage seemed like the way to go for me and I think it paid off. Wisdom also adds to your experience gains, literal and proverbial, making it a-must. Thankfully there's myriad of odd items used to supplement your stats, neither of which are your classical sets of armor. Magical tattoos, cursed eyes, talkative TEETH, punching daggers, etc. This ain't your daddy's Forgotten Realms.

At this point you may be shocked just how little of the review has been dedicated to technical or gameplay aspect, and yet that's how I always perceived Planescape: Torment. Narrative is its strength, word its weapon of choice. Which makes it worthwhile to talk about the Enhanced Edition as such. I would say UI changes in Beamdog's version alone are worth it. For one, I do not miss the old ring interface and how it dragged down combat ironically making you want to avoid it so you chose to pursue non-combat solutions. Now it actually feels like a choice. There were also some crashes on my end which I'm not sure what to attribute those to. Usually on zone transitions where loading screens got the ax.

Final Thoughts and Rating?

Coming DANGEROUSLY close to a masterpiece, this timeless isometric CRPG about an amnesiac trying to piece together his own past and understand a world where belief defines everything only stands out even more with the passage of time and change genre has seen in two decades. Evocative writing can at times be redundantly verbose, cases of adventure game logic can get in the way of telling an outstanding story, and challenge is overall absent, but the way it uses an alien setting to tackle a mystery where individual parts are lying to you and some even are you hasn't been matched since. It has to be pointed out – this is almost a novel in RPG format with choices aplenty, usually backed extensively by character stats. If you don't enjoy reading my suggestion is to give this one a wide berth.