Greetings
Purudaya
Member Posts: 816
So I've played BGI and BGII (and their EE versions) many, many times over the years, but never picked up a copy of PS:T until, well, the day before yesterday. I thought I'd share a few thoughts as an infinity engine veteran and Planescape newcomer:
1. I really, really love the narrative-driven gameplay and also really, really miss the nuanced combat. Playing as a mage, it's sad to see all these fun and varied spells and abilities go to waste because point-click-stab is sufficient to handle almost every encounter (at least at the halfway point). It's great to be able to talk my way out of situations and I love being able to roleplay that way, but I would probably be pretty disappointed if I hadn't known ahead of time that DEX, STR, and CON were the dump stats.
2. The music in the Civic Festhall is the music you hear when you die and go to hell.
3. The sprites. Holy cow - stylistically, these are a huge improvement over the BGI/II art style in my opinion. The color schemes are less extreme, the animations more natural/less exaggerated (Amnish guard comes to mind), and the result is a world that feels much more lived in and believable somehow. If only it were possible to play the BG series with PS:T style sprites/art, I'd make the switch immediately. The Dragonball Z style spellcasting not so much.
4. Companion depth was ahead of its time. They're not the deepest characters ever, but the ability to talk extensively with them and learn about their backstories (and gain XP for doing so!) certainly wasn't an option in any other game from the 90s that I can think of. Also, I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've ever explicitly bitten a party member.
5. Roleplaying. For a game that doesn't put much emphasis on character building and doesn't allow you to set your own backstory, it's incredible how much the Nameless One feels like a character that *I've* created. The alignment that it's giving me does feel a little bit off from how I've been trying to play, but I imagine it gets pretty close by game's end.
FEEDBACK SPECIFIC TO THE ENHANCED EDITION:
1. I know you guys don't support touch input for Windows, but this game is SO CLOSE. Everything works exactly as it would on any other tablet except for the inventory/character screens, and you even have a tablet interface to boot. I'm running this on a surface pro 4 i5 8gb and would be very happy to playtest this or any other IE game if you wanted to do some tweaking/add support...
2. There *must* be a way to convert asterisks into italics, I just *know* it. *Please?*
3. The new high res stuff is beautiful - you've made this game look really good for its age (and I'll continue to stand behind sprite outlines; they're the best thing Beamdog has introduced since quickloot). Unfortunately, that makes the old assets - especially the portraits - stick out like an extremely sore thumb. I know you didn't want to change the game too much because of all the childhoods it would ruin, but it would have been nice to have had an artist draw up some static, 2d alternates that we could toggle on or off. Even the paperdolls: it's not like in BG where they have to accommodate different hairstyles, complexions, armors, helmets, etc.
So I guess that's it. I never thought I'd play a game that made me question existential truths before, and I'm really enjoying it so far (minus the abovementioned quibbles). Thanks for this release
1. I really, really love the narrative-driven gameplay and also really, really miss the nuanced combat. Playing as a mage, it's sad to see all these fun and varied spells and abilities go to waste because point-click-stab is sufficient to handle almost every encounter (at least at the halfway point). It's great to be able to talk my way out of situations and I love being able to roleplay that way, but I would probably be pretty disappointed if I hadn't known ahead of time that DEX, STR, and CON were the dump stats.
2. The music in the Civic Festhall is the music you hear when you die and go to hell.
3. The sprites. Holy cow - stylistically, these are a huge improvement over the BGI/II art style in my opinion. The color schemes are less extreme, the animations more natural/less exaggerated (Amnish guard comes to mind), and the result is a world that feels much more lived in and believable somehow. If only it were possible to play the BG series with PS:T style sprites/art, I'd make the switch immediately. The Dragonball Z style spellcasting not so much.
4. Companion depth was ahead of its time. They're not the deepest characters ever, but the ability to talk extensively with them and learn about their backstories (and gain XP for doing so!) certainly wasn't an option in any other game from the 90s that I can think of. Also, I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've ever explicitly bitten a party member.
5. Roleplaying. For a game that doesn't put much emphasis on character building and doesn't allow you to set your own backstory, it's incredible how much the Nameless One feels like a character that *I've* created. The alignment that it's giving me does feel a little bit off from how I've been trying to play, but I imagine it gets pretty close by game's end.
FEEDBACK SPECIFIC TO THE ENHANCED EDITION:
1. I know you guys don't support touch input for Windows, but this game is SO CLOSE. Everything works exactly as it would on any other tablet except for the inventory/character screens, and you even have a tablet interface to boot. I'm running this on a surface pro 4 i5 8gb and would be very happy to playtest this or any other IE game if you wanted to do some tweaking/add support...
2. There *must* be a way to convert asterisks into italics, I just *know* it. *Please?*
3. The new high res stuff is beautiful - you've made this game look really good for its age (and I'll continue to stand behind sprite outlines; they're the best thing Beamdog has introduced since quickloot). Unfortunately, that makes the old assets - especially the portraits - stick out like an extremely sore thumb. I know you didn't want to change the game too much because of all the childhoods it would ruin, but it would have been nice to have had an artist draw up some static, 2d alternates that we could toggle on or off. Even the paperdolls: it's not like in BG where they have to accommodate different hairstyles, complexions, armors, helmets, etc.
So I guess that's it. I never thought I'd play a game that made me question existential truths before, and I'm really enjoying it so far (minus the abovementioned quibbles). Thanks for this release
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