JRPGs were one of my key food groups growing up. As a console lad, RPGs (they hadn’t sprouted the J prefix yet) were my favorite play format, chiefly during the sunlit days of my SEGA Genesis-owning period. The first three Phantasy Stars, Sword of Vermilion, Shining Force, and, later, Lunar: The Silver Star, Vay, and others I can’t remember. Menu-driven, predictable, hours of fun. I knew, vaguely, that the SNES – a console I did not own – was really considered the great haven for RPGs, but I was nonconformist and I liked my Genesis. So I did miss out on Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy, The Secret of Mana, and all the others.
You knew what you were going to get, going into a JRPG. You knew the menus were likely to be roundedly rectangular affairs, with white text on blue backgrounds, that the combat would be turn-based, that the characters would have inexplicably large eyes (I didn’t know anything about anime back then. In fact, it only remotely occurred to me that I was playing localized versions of Japanese games. It did strike me as passing odd that so many heroes of these games were big-haired, big-eyed, and underage, but I didn’t let it get to me). You knew that chances were the world or even the universe was in trouble and it was down to you to save it. And you knew that there would be a logical beginning, middle, and end… what we’d now call a linear progression.
This is relevant because Final Fantasy XIII is coming out today. To say Square Enix’s lavish, five-years-in-the-making abundance has been under scrutiny is sort of like saying that Twitter gets a few hits. Some have hailed FFXIII as something of a JRPG savior. Because let’s face it, JRPGs aren’t doing that well in this generation. The traditions of turn-based combat, menu-driven aesthetics, juvenile big haired heroes, and – dare I say it – linear progression are turning people off. Even in Japan, gamers are finding themselves less enamored of titles from Blue Dragon to Enchanted Arms to Infinite Undiscovery to Magnacarta to The Last Remnant. The JRPG has been a core driver of console gaming for over 20 years, and it has hit the dryest of dry spells.
And what are people saying about FFXIII? That it’s linear. That, in fact, the first twenty-five hours of the game are so linear that it doesn’t even bother to create the illusion of nonlinearity. That through chapter eleven of thirteen, you have no choice in where you go or even who’s with you.
Western RPGs and Eastern RPGs are about as different ducks as you can find. In the west, the games are grittier, often darker, rarely “cartoony,” and almost always nonlinear. Morrowind, Oblivion, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, The Witcher, Fallout, Two Worlds, Gothic, and so on. “Welcome to the world,” say western RPGs. “Save it if you can. Also: try not to die.” And then you’re kind of on your own.
Eastern RPGs – be they of the K or the J variety – are different. Though they often tell dark stories, they include lighthearted characters and uniquely Japanese humor… humor that sometimes annoys the god-loving fuck out of westerners. They are focused on narrative structure over player freedom. They eschew true nonlinearity in favor of controlled nonlinearity or none at all. In truth WRPGs and JRPGs are so different that I wonder if they can even be grouped into the same play format.
What is an RPG, after all? It’s a roleplaying game. A game in which you assume a role other than yourself. Since essentially every story-driven game does that, RPGs are further narrowed: they tend to be story- and quest-focused, divergent tales hanging off the master narrative arc like whiskers – tangents to be explored that increase the richness of the game universe. Managing character stats and progression is a key element, as is inventory, equipment, and special powers. Play typically takes place in a world with a fiction and backstory that creators went to some effort to craft. They are usually longer than other play formats – anywhere from ten to well over 500 hours.
But there’s nothing in there about being linear. There’s no rule that says a game can’t be an RPG if it isn’t linear.
And, consider: there have always been JRPGs and WRPGs. While console gamers were enjoying their Dragon Quests, Zeldas and the legends thereof, and Final Fantasies, western (and predominantly PC) gamers were into Ultima, The Bard’s Tale, the Gold Box D&D games from Sierra, Wizardry, and what have you. In fact, I’d argue that western and eastern RPG design was even more different back then than it is now. Old western RPGs were loot and progress-based dungeon hacks; old eastern RPGs were elaborate story-driven monuments. Only with the globalization of gaming have the two begun to come together. And of the two key styles of RPG, JRPGs have changed a lot less than their western counterparts.
Some would argue that the very title of “roleplaying” game is inaccurate. It’s certainly not similar to tabletop roleplaying, where occupying your character is the crux of success. How often have you actually thought like your character in a videogame RPG? Industry vet Ernest Adams once said “you are not a character in an RPG, you’re an itinerant secondhand arms dealer.” And it’s so true, when you think about it.
JRPGs have dodged this (usually) by telling the stories of other people. “You” are not in the game, you’re just controlling the actions of fully-developed characters. Some western RPGs do the same thing, but it’s much more common for “you” to be a character that YOU create, a vessel for the world to fill. Even Mass Effect, with the common name for the protagonist, is a you-driven RPG.
This also explains the forced linearity of JRPGs, and brings us back to the key complaint about Final Fantasy XIII: that a huge portion of the game is totally linear. But it’s still scoring really well, so in a way this complaint mirrors what we’re seeing in reviews of Heavy Rain: that the controls aren’t exactly to die for.
“I hate the controls. 98%.”
“Stupid QTEs. 10/10.”
“The controls suck. 5 Stars.”
“Obnoxious control system. Game of the Year.”
Same thing is happening with FFXIII. So there’s a strong indication that the game transcends its linearity. Whether or not this is true, or whether the press is just slavering over the Final Fantasy name, remains to be seen.
Lewis B wrote a great article about freedom in game worlds. While he was focused predominantly on MMOs, a lot of what he felt was missing in terms of player self-direction could easily be ascribed to offline games as well. Of course, no one – including Lewis – would advocate that every game become an open world extravaganza; there’s a place for linearity and freedom. But in RPGs, westerners, at least, tend to like freedom, or at least the implication of it. Dragon Age, after all, isn’t exactly “free” the way Lewis uses the term. You can choose your destinations and you have options as to the manner in which you solve challenges or deal with people. But there is an underlying structure, which allows the creators to tell a coherent story.
Player choice is always a hot-button issue in development. The more license you give a player, the greater the possibility that the player messes up your game: either its story or some other mechanic. The less license you give, the more control you have over the experience, but players might not want that. The concept of “linearity” and player choice are essentially the same thing. In the case of FFXIII, Square decided that it had a specific story to tell, a story it wanted to tell in a specific order, so it made the game linear. But most classic JRPGs of my youth were linear; the only times I wasn’t moving forward in Phantasy Star were those times when I didn’t know what to do next. There was only one way to go, it just looked open.
I’ve tried a few JRPGs recently – Eternal Sonata, Xenosaga, The Last Remnant – none of them held me. I’m not sure if it was the linearity or the repetition – another difference between Western and JRPGs is that combat in the latter tends to be heavily choreographed and requires you to watch the same (often lengthy) animations again and again. Actually, this is something FFXIII is supposed to change, bringing in a new tactical battle system that most reviewers are saying is the high point of the game. And I’ve also tried some western RPGs lately: Dragon Age, Fallout 3, Mass Effect 2. And you know what? I kind of drifted away from those as well. I’m not sure why. The last RPG that really and truly grabbed me by the balls and refused to let go was Morrowind, and that was a long time ago.
Does the fact that I’ve not recently been hooked by any RPG, linear or nonlinear, mean that I’m just losing my taste for the format? Whatever happened to that little boy who played through Phantasy Star 2 without ever referring to the included tip guide? Who tried again and again to reach the town of Hauksness in Dragon Warrior, failing at least 37 times but always trying again because getting to that town would be a great coup for a character of my level and I’d be able to buy kickass weapons and armor? I finally did make it, you know. Does anyone else remember Hauksness? The town’s destroyed. It’s a smoking hole in the ground. All that time I’d been struggling to get there, visions of sugarplums (or vorpal swords) dancing in my head, and once I got in the place was trashed. But I never regretted it because it turned out that those 37 attempts were essentially grinds that got me to the level I ought to have been at to reach Hauksness in the first place. In a way, my Hauksness expedition, mounted long before I was ready to take it on, was a rebellion against the linearity of the JRPG. And the JRPG snapped me right back into place.
Meanwhile there were moments in Fallout 3 where I’d just stare at the wasteland thinking, “Where the heck do I go now? I’ve got, like, fifteen bottle caps and a xylophone. I have no bullets, nothing to shoot them out of even if I did, few hit points, no health packs. They’ve created a world where I can go anywhere, but if I do I’ll die.” Later, when my immediate equipment problems had been solved, I’d sometimes think, “Okay, now what? I have 48 sidequests and six missions associated with the Find Liam Neeson story arc.” It was an embarrassment of riches, and it sort of froze me.
Final Fantasy XIII sits in the passenger seat of my car, waiting for work to end. Doesn’t that mean that life is kind of linear? Wake up, shower, shave, dress, work, leave, home, dinner, sleep, wake up, shower, shave… It’s almost like every day is the same dream. At least in videogames, be they linear or nonlinear, I have the opportunity to live a slightly more interesting life than the one we’ve got here.
Great article Matt. Where do you find the time to play all these epics? Show me! I demand to know!
I haven’t played many of the old RPGs never mind the recent slew of new ones, in fact, the last RPG I played was… Final Fantasy VI on my DS and I found it a real chore. I was led to believe its storyline was up there with Planescape: Torment. HA! Haha. Ha.
I’m so out of touch with the modern RPG that I’m not sure what my taste would be like now.
How often have you actually thought like your character in a videogame RPG?
This is an interesting point to me. As someone who has played table top RPGs for 30 years now, one of the things I like about RPGs is occupying new characters and trying to think like them during the game based on their concept, background, what’s happened, etc.
I try to do the same things in computer RPGs. It’s harder to do for a variety of reasons. First, you don’t create your background. To some extent, in most of these games, a background is created for you. You are also limited by the choices presented to you.
As is well know (at least ’round these here parts) that in most RPGs your choices boil down to: (A) Yes, I’ll rescue your kitten from the tree; (B) You want that kitten out of the tree? How much money you got?, or (C) I will kill your kitten, eat its head and then rip your still beating heart from your chest. So, it’s good, mercenary, and evil. Often times, I’d like to play a character a little more complex whose response to a situation wouldn’t fall in any of those three buckets.
That said, I’ve been playing a lot of RPGs of late – Fallout 3, Dragon Age and Mass Effect – and have noted a few instances where I was able to “think like my character” in making the decisions I made. It felt great and was very rewarding. These situations are definitely the exception, rather than the rule, but I have noticed a trend and I like it.
*DRAGON AGE SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT*
The best example I can think of, off the top of my head, was in “Dragon Age”, where you get to choose between killing a demon possesed child or sacrificing the child’s mother in order to save him. The mother is the one who brings up the idea and is willing to go through with it to save her child. During the origin story of my character involved having his mother stay behind and sacrifice herself to ensure that my character made it out alive. Based on that experience, I decided to go through with it and allow the mother to sacrifice herself. The thought process was the character’s (as opposed to stricly my own) since he well understood what a mother’s love for a child meant and how far a mother would go to protect her child.
*END OF SPOILER ALERT*
It will never be quite the experience table top gaming will be, because of the whole linear/lack of freedom issues that we’ve discussed (and, more importantly, but related, the lack of role-playing with other real people), but I do feel like the characters I played these games have evolved well past just being a “itinerant secondhand arms dealer.”
Nice article, I dropped ME and DA after 15h each because of time consumption problems and annoying bugs (DA only), but they have been gifted me by my girlfriend on christmas so they have a special place in my heart <3
Really liked the molleindustria stuff 😀
BTW Molle Industria means Soft Industry.
I did a feature on Every Day the Same Dream a couple of months ago Hanamigi. Check it out here. Powerful stuff.
Great article Matt. I notice you slipped a mention of Heavy Rain in there, but intentionally or not I think Heavy Rain is a brilliant example of a game that probably does more to place you into an actual role playing scenario more than most RPG’s. With Heavy Rain, you are acting out a role – often in the very most basic sense – right down to such subtle touches as deciding whether to lean on a wall, a chest of draws or pace up and down during a dialogue sequence. There aren’t many games that put you into the role of a character or group of characters more than Heavy Rain, yet in no way is it considered an RPG.
I think the title has, over the years, become misleading. RPG’s by name place you into the roll of others, but by nature make you grind for EXP and HP, level up, hoover up collectables etc etc etc. I think that somewhere along the line, the term RPG has become somewhat blurred as to what it actually should mean.
Regarding Final Fantasy XIII, I’ve not picked up my copy yet, but the more I think about the new layer of linearity the more that appeals to me. I just don’t have the spare 100+ hours I invested into FFX to put into FFXIII anymore. If Square have a story to tell and can keep me in line with that story, condensing it to 50 hours whilst removing the unnecessary distractions that would double the play time, and yet still retain a strong level of character development.. I’m all up for that.
How often have you actually thought like your character in a videogame RPG?
Indeed not often. What’s more I’m often embarrassed by the over the top reactions of the other characters to the player’s character. For example by the way how easily romances develop.
It would be great to play a more down-to-earth RPG for once, where you are not supposed to be a hero or a super-villain, but just get along with people good enough, so that you are able to complete your quests.
While not that revolutionary, Planescape: Torment was a rare case where I really identified with my character’s actions. In part due to the amount of actions I was presented with and in part, I guess, I was manipulated by the excellent writing.
Mat, that’s a sentiment you (and I) share with millions of others who grew up with gaming. Once childhood went away, and university got through, suddenly time became more precious and responsibilities more burdensome. I can’t remember the last time I spent, say, six hours straight playing a game. When I was in college I did it all the time. Life intervenes.
That may be the important transition we’re seeing here: videogames have only existed for 30-odd years. We who were kids during the infancy are adults now. We’re not going to stop playing, so we need games to change to accommodate us. We just don’t have 100+ hours to spend on a single game, no matter how good. We’re excited about all the new releases and we want to enjoy and finish what we’ve got in time to grab the new title.
Great article Matt – I plan on saving all of my spare hours for retirement, when I shall again stay in my bedroom all week playing computer games and doing little else. That’s the light at the end of the tunnel for me. Only 30-odd years to go.
Nice mention of the ol’ D&D Gold boxes – I remember subsisting on them alone at one stage in my life when even photosynthesis was scarce. They were great, I’d love to get back to them again (I have an emulator for them, but the afore-mentioned lack of time hinders again!).
Champions of Krynn, Deathknights of Krynn, Dark Queen of Krynn, Pools of Radiance, Pools of Darkness, and Secret of the Silver Blades are just a few that immediately spring to mind. And there was an awesome Dragonlance war strategy game – War of the Lance – which was pretty epic in its own day (its epic-ness only heightened by the fact that you could play against a friend).
@ajax19: There was a third way to go with the mother and the child. That scene was one of the best moments of Dragon Age.
@Igor Hardy: Planescape: Torment is a rare case. Nothing else I have played has even come close to it in terms of sheer overall quality. I don’t know how I feel about that. Glad that someone actually made it. Or sad that no one has ever done it again. Revolutionary doesn’t necessarily equate with greatness, I guess.
Great article Matt!
I’m not really sure where on this matter I sit. I don’t mind linear games, as long as they disguise the linearity (by some genre’s very nature they are fundamentally linear) but in terms of RPGs, I’ve grown to really hate linearity. So much so, I cannot understand how reviewers can justify such high scores, despite acknowledging such.
It’s exactly like Demon Souls, or Heavy Rain- littered with problems yet rewarded in stark contrast for attempting to achieve something different. It doesn’t sit particularly well with me (but that’s not to say I can’t acknowledge what they’ve achieved).
I would agree that western and eastern RPGs are so vastly different, and that from a personal level I really cannot see myself playing another JRPG. They are so completely dull and lacking in any level of ingenuity or creativity. A sort of “I’ve played one, I’ve played them all” level of feeling.
I attempted to play Morrowind, on the day of its release. The opening scenes really gripped me, but by the time I had left the sewers and arrived at the nearest town I was just slightly disheartened in the game. I think mainly down to the awful character graphics, dialogue and I always felt it was like in my freedom article, portraying freedom, as opposed to genuinely offering it.
Do you think I should pick up Dragon Age? It looks rather good.
My comment earlier was pathetic: I was tired.
@Mat & Matt: I was talking to Lew recently about play by email multiplayer, in relation to Solium Infernum, and I was saying how it fits into your life rather than requiring your life to fit around it. As life encroaches on our recreational time we want to make sure we’re not biting off more than we can chew – we’ve already got a pile of games gathering dust. I’m not saying we want purely bite sized games, but games like ME and DA are a luxury most of us can’t afford.
Games like Braid, Portal, and World of Goo rank up there as some of the finest games I’ve ever played and they didn’t require I spend an eternity playing them. RPGs are synonymous with investing time but is there a guaranteed return on that investment? There’s only one way to find out and that’s to put your money and time on the line. This is my problem. When time and money is precious I need that return. Short games aren’t as much of a gamble. Free indie games are even less of a gamble and more often than not return more than my time investment. Just look at Every Day the Same Dream.
I sound so fucking clinical.
@Lewis: Read the posts above and listen to me – get Planescape: Torment. Stop this nonsense now! Torment is the light. The light you’ve been hiding from for too long.
@Igor: Torment should have been revolutionary for its transcending quality but other games graphics were being pushed and eyes were being pulled. It didn’t stand a chance with its exceptional writing. I mean writing wasn’t going to pull in people on its own was it?
Gregg’s right. Torment was an unforgettable masterpiece. Sure, you had to do a lot of reading, but the world, the characters, the dialogue options, the whole thing was just so vivid. I bought it when it came out, back when I was working in advertising. That industry gets 1-2 weeks off at Christmas, so there I was, in my pajamas, playing Torment. I’d been enjoying it immensely, then, like, the bulb burst and I thought, “this is an incredible game.”
I actually never finished it, though. It’s available on GameTap, I think, if you’ve got the service. GOG probably has it too.
@Jarrod: I like your retirement plan. Unfortunately it requires that I take care of myself now, and I’m more of an instant gratification sort of fellow. If I jogged and ate tofu and stuff now, hoping to be in good shape when I’m 65, I’d probably be hit by a bus the day before I retire.
As a credit to Dragon Age, I set out to *think differently* than myself and the game’s dialogue options and plot elements allowed me to do so. I wanted to play a dutiful, wrathful noble willing to commit smaller sins to achieve a greater good, and I did. I often declined more nefarious choices like dabbling in blood magic, but I regularly killed dangerous characters even after their surrender. DA was amazing for that, and I agonized over many of the choices, especially in the conflict between the Daelish elves and the werewolves.
I have never and will never enjoy JRPGS. The “J” stands for “juvenile” to me for reasons you already mentioned, Matt. Give me my grim atmosphere and dangerous environment and leave the panty-showing, shrill characterizations in the box. Ugh.
Great article, and so many great posts already, I have nothing of substance to add. I’ll simply say this:
I fall into the group of people who weren’t introduced to RPGs in the 1990s, probably because I was too young and not paying attention, and therefore I missed all the games that probably sat on store shelves for a month or two. While I’ve been able to collect a great deal of them through various means, such as Icewind Dale, Baldur’s Gate, etc etc. I have never been able to get Planescape: Torment. I don’t care how bad it looks, I don’t care that I probably can’t devote more than 1 hour a night to it at this point in my life, I just need to play the damn game, and I can’t. It’s impossible. I’ve grown up and I refuse to pay some asshole on eBay upwards of a hundred dollars for his smelly, used copy of the game. It’s not on Steam, nor Impulse, nor GOG.com, and despite what you say, Steerpike, I sadly cannot find it on GameTap either.
And besides the fact that I only ever resort to illegally downloading games in extreme situations (like this one where the game is long out of print, the developer moved to Mars and died, and so on) I also don’t trust game torrents, especially older ones. A day of downloading, the joy when it’s finished, only to be smashed when you click the file and *WHIZZBANGWHIR###$&&*@AHSNAPCRACKLEPOP* corrupted file.
🙁
Xtal, it is now my mission in life to find you a legitimate copy of Torment. Passion like that should be rewarded.
Dobry, it’s funny you should mention panty-showing, shrill characterizations. Lightning, Final Fantasy XIII’s leading lady, is suitably tortured and grim (not as tortured and grim as I’d have written her; I’d have taken Lightning in a very different direction, but they never give me the peach jobs). Even the dude who’s there for comic relief turned out to be not as bad as I’d feared, though I could do without the baby bird living in his afro.
But there’s this… one. A chirpy, peppy, unplaceably-accented redhead named Vanille. I HATE HER. In the blood-drenched misery that is the setting of this game, her very existence is an offense. Her voice is like nails on a chalkboard, and the way she runs… and stands… no panties, but I’d almost be okay with panties if it would rid me of this obnoxiously chipper affront to character design.
It is interesting the way these characters dress, though. I think there’s an article in this somewhere.
@xtal, I’ll willingly loan you my copy of Torment. What I’ve played is great, but I know I’ll never get back to finishing as I’d have to start over – again – in order to do so. And mine isn’t smelly. 😀
*edit: xtal, are you in the UK ’cause it’s available at Amazon UK
If not UK, but in US, GoGamer has 3 copies left at $15.18.
http://gogamer1.amazonwebstore.com/Planescape-Torment/M/B00002EPZ2.htm?traffic_src=froogle&utm_medium=organic&utm_source=froogle
(how do we make a neat tiny link in comments?)
If not US, but in UK, I will gladly buy & ship to you. Just say the word (quickly), and I’ll buy now, mail to you when I get back April 1.
Having played my share of Eastern and Westerbn RPGs (and yes, I played Torment. Nice atmosphere, too bad about the tedious combat slog at the end) I don’t see really this “linear” vs. “non-linear” dichotomy.The J games might be a little bit more explicit about it, but I don’t perceive the actual experience in (say) Final Fantasy 12 as all that different than Oblivion, Fallout 3 or the current Bioware games. The actions of the character don’t really change the overall narrative arc. The Western games just disguise their hallways a bit by adding side passages where you can pass the time while you dither over whether you want to save the world yet.
The Bethesda games are the most like this, allowing you to run around and do all kinds of things while ignoring “the main plot.” But, for all the richness of the world and the apparent freedom of action, all those quests are just little linear jaunts. They just don’t necessarily move the plot.
Dragon Age is a bit less open, you can do anything you want as long as you visit four (I think?) particular areas, and the game would really prefer that you do it in a particular order… although it doesn’t tell you that. Ultimately I couldn’t keep going with the game because the pacing was just too uneven and I got tired of the combat and the endless dialog.
I think the only real difference with the J games is that if they want to put you in a hallway and push you forward, they just do it rather than putting up any pretense of freedom. Ultimately, I don’t really mind. At least I don’t have to put up with tedious combat systems based on D&D.
Yapette, thanks for the link! Unfortunately:
*** We’re sorry. This item can’t be shipped to your selected destination. You may either change the shipping address or delete the item from your order by changing its quantity to 0 and clicking the update button below. ***
🙁 It is my destiny to suffer!! 😛
Really though, if you are actually in a position to buy it at a decent price ($15 definitely is) and snail mail it, I would be forever grateful! I have Paypal! Send me a PM!! (Er, do PMs exist here?) (Oh, and I’m in Canada, is that ok?)
PM send, awaiting your input – two gogamer options for buying.
Is Canada OK? We live on the same land mass, the package doesn’t even have to swim! No problem at all.
Mailing packages from a rinky-dink town in Ireland where we lived for 9 months to my Peace Corps daughter in Uzbekistan when we both knew customs inspectors could, and would, take whatever looked appealing….*that* was difficult. To you, in Canada? Pffft, piece of cake. 🙂
Side note: Why does Amazon UK always have everything???
@Pete: Welcome to Tap Pete. I understand your sentiments but as I said earlier, I don’t think freedom is binary. You have more freedom in a lot of western RPGs, that is, the ability to deviate from the main plot and explore the world and indulge in its mythology. JRPGs allow this to some extent but never to such a degree. There were instances in Planescape: Torment where I got so caught up in a ‘diversion’ that I forgot I still had the main plot to come back to. That was exhilarating.
@xtal: Hahaha, it does have everything. I looked there straight away when I read your comment, started typing how I was willing to buy it for you and send it, then realised that Canada would probably cost you a bazillion to ship to. The package would definitely have to swim as well.
Oddly enough, it’s quite cheap (and fast) to send/receive overseas. I’m a global consumer of the highest order. 😀 I’ve gotten things from Europe or Hong Kong faster than it takes packages to travel the-less-than 1,000 miles from Seattle to San Francisco.
When I was selling my game collection over eBay one of the biggest buyers was in Canada. She would wait until she had won a dozen games and then have me mail them all at once in these big boxes you could ship a small child in. Once a box sat at the border for an extra week but otherwise it went smoothly. I mailed hundreds of games all around the world and never lost a single one. It’s not that hard really. I don’t understand why Amazon has such a stick up their butt about international mailing.
In the interests of (partial) closure, xtal’s Planescape: Torment is now with me in Texas. Closer to him than when he couldn’t find the game at all, but not yet close enough to play.
Luckily I remembered where to find this conversation. 😉
You’ve hijacked the search function all to yourself, admit it!
😀 😀 😀
xtal let me know how you get on with Planescape: Torment. I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on it, especially as you play. I’m excited for you, I’d love to ‘unknow’ my play through so I could do it again.
[…] out Steerpike’s sentiments of freedom within a videogame, it took me back to when I first started playing online video games. Ultima […]