Planescape: TormentThis is another game that begins well, and then just kind of drops the ball near the end. For the first two thirds or so of this game, I was hooked. It feels in many ways like a deliberate aversion of most of the common tropes of fantasy and CRPGs of the time. Instead of a sprawling world map you're meant to traverse, the action is mostly kept confined to a single city. Instead of elves and hobbits and other generic fantasy nonsense, almost everyone you meet is human, undead, or some variation of demon. Instead of drowning you in random enemy encounters and intricate party management, the game emphasizes exploration and dialogue. The story is intriguing and compelling, the characters are memorable, the dialogue is smart and even funny at times, and what I especially love is the setting. The city of Sigil is this weird, beautiful, disturbing metropolis that's part industrial, part Gothic, and all insanity. It's brimming with color and personality, and everywhere you turn there are unique characters with dialogue trees to be exhausted and quests to be completed.
And then you get to the final act, where you have to leave Sigil, and all of a sudden the game becomes linear and focuses mostly on combat. I don't want to exaggerate the drop in quality too much, as it's certainly nowhere near as drastic as it was for, say, RDR 2 or FF XV, but some of the magic is definitely gone. The combat is very simplistic, and not a lot of fun when it's all you're doing. With precious few weapons and no real armor, there's very little you can do to properly outfit yourself and your party, and more importantly, the mechanics are all off. Every action is mapped to the left mouse button, leaving the game constantly confused about whether you're moving to a spot or attacking an enemy there. Characters will spend several seconds scrambling to get into position to attack, only to find that the enemy has moved. Characters will stand around doing nothing while their party members come under attack. It's a mess, but it wouldn't really be a problem if not for the fact that, like I said, the final act is mostly about combat and getting past enemies. It's annoying, but it's not enough to stop this game from being well worth it for CRPG fans.
Disco ElysiumWithout wasting words, this game is terrific, and easily one of the best RPGs I've ever played. Its influences include the aforementioned
Planescape: Torment,
The Wire, and the art of Francis Bacon and Hieronymous Bosch, and yet the finished product feels entirely original. You play as a washed-up detective who awakens after a lengthy bender with no memory of who he is or what he's doing, only to discover that there's a murder he needs to solve and a struggle between local factions that's threatening to turn violent at any moment. What sets this game apart from most amnesiac-hero setups is that the emphasis is less on remembering the biographical details of your life, and more on shaping your personality and general approach to police work. And what a personality you'll end up with! The option to play things entirely straight and try to be as boring as possible is there for you, but you're cheating yourself if you don't take advantage of the wacky dialogue choices. This game wants you to be eccentric, and it's a far more effective playstyle. It's also funnier. This game has some very dark, tragic moments, but for the most part it's hilarious.
With no real combat system, gameplay is mainly you running around the neighborhood talking to people and examining objects. Even more so than
Planescape, the setting is densely packed with possible interactions at every corner, all of them with numerous passive and active skill checks. Speaking of which, the skill system is great. Some of the skills are pretty standard for an RPG, like perception or endurance, but others are a little more unusual. For example, Visual Calculus lets you mentally reconstruct crime scenes like you're Batman, helpful for tracking bullet trajectories or finding missing evidence. Inland Empire, on the other hand, is a borderline supernatural ability to sense danger and talk to dead bodies and inanimate objects. Amusingly, the observations you make with these skills are communicated to you in the form of dialogue, so the skills are all basically characters in their own right - ones that will chime in during interactions to offer their opinions and advice, and even argue with each other if they disagree on anything.
There's also a perk system in the form of "thoughts," where you either try to remember details of your life (how old you are, where you live, etc.) or think about a political or social belief that you hold, such as communism, fascism, racism, or feminism. After a few in-game hours, the thought will be "internalized," and you'll receive the effects of the thought. As much as I love the writing for these thoughts, I have to admit that it doesn't quite work as well as the skill system. There's no way to predict what effects any given thought will have, many of the thoughts are either useless or overall detrimental to you, while a select few are incredibly beneficial to the point of being overpowered, and it costs skill points to add and remove thoughts, so you can't be doing it all the time. I'd honestly advise new players to consult
this handy guide, and personally recommend Jamais Vu (Derealization) and The Fifteenth Indotribe to maximize your experience and money, respectively.
That's really the closest thing this game has to a flaw. I can't recommend it enough.
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