Radiant Historia is the Planescape: Torment of JRPGs.

[Mischief Maker]

You know that fortune cookie game where you read your cookie aloud and add "...in bed" to the end? Like, "Unexpected opportunities lie just around the corner ...in bed!" Well every sentence here that I gush over the plot to Radiant Historia, add to the end "...for a JRPG."

Finally got to the True Ending for this game. Wow, I've never played a japanese videogame with such narrative restraint! Final Fantasy games are usually a series of increasingly preposterous setpieces set one on top of another often with the flimsiest of plot excuses linking them. This is a game with a fantasy setting, but it lays out its scope from the beginning and sticks to it the whole way through.

It's the characters who drive the story. Characters! Not 1-dimensional stereotypes fulfilling plot obligations (I'm going to engage in this difficult and convoluted plot to destroy the world because I believe in nothing!) but characters with clear motivations and drives reacting to unexpected events logically and with more than a little moral ambiguity. I love that the protagonist is a levelheaded secret agent who takes his new time traveling powers and responsibility to save the world in stride instead of an insufferable adolescent who spends 90% of the game going, "Who? Me? A Destiny?"

The battle system is pretty nifty too, turning otherwise brainless timewasting battles into a fun spatial puzzle game that scratches the puzzle RPG itch I'd say equally as well as Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes.

The main downsides to this game are the blah browny brown graphics with awkward 3D effects and the small menagerie of enemy sprites subjected to more palette swaps than Mortal Kombat's Scorpion.

Now for those of you who DID finish the game and DID see the true ending, here are my Spoiler-riffic thoughts:

Is it just me, or are the twins diabolical puppetmasters in this game? The game opens with them deciding to try a new method of saving the world from desertification after their most recent attempt failed.

I mean, maybe this is a question of translation issues, but there are several times in the story where the twins ignore or break their stated rules. When Stocke's dealing with the conut guy, they REALLY get on his tits to convince this guy to change his research focus, then afterward go, "oh, we got a little overenthusiastic because he reminds us of our father, we TOTALLY weren't influencing you." even though later on you learn that they never were children. Late in the Alternate History, Stocke breaks their code of silence and first tells Eruca, then his whole party about the White Chronicle. No consequences from the twins, they don't even mention it.

In the true ending they call Heiss the "true" sacrifice. He's way more powerful than Stocke because he's been going on a soul-devouring killing spree throughout time and the super energy he gives Eruca allows her to perform the ritual again and again, giving people like Aht and the Conut guy time to start reversing the desertification. When Stocke was getting nervous, they showed him inspiring images of past sacrifices. Did they intentionally show Heiss depressing images to drive him insane and set off his power-gathering rampage?

[Ed Oscuro]

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[Blackbird]

Laughing at that title. I've played a few JRPGs with decent plots, but honestly, I cannot remember a single game that had a setting as immersive or well-realized as Planescape Torment. I would actually argue that, from the standpoint of literary/narrative quality and relevance, Torment is actually without equal in the world of gaming. Comparing Torment to any recent mainstream RPG is laughable; the writing quality in Torment is so much better, it makes games like D3 or ME3 look pathetic and amateur in comparison.

[Ruldra]

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Treasure of the Rudras

Planescape Torment

Planescape Torment completely flew off my radar back in the day thanks to its godawful trailer. I remember watching that, wondering wtf is that crap and dismissing it entirely.

Still need to try it out.

[Mischief Maker]

Laughing at that title. I've played a few JRPGs with decent plots, but honestly, I cannot remember a single game that had a setting as immersive or well-realized as Planescape Torment. I would actually argue that, from the standpoint of literary/narrative quality and relevance, Torment is actually without equal in the world of gaming. Comparing Torment to any recent mainstream RPG is laughable; the writing quality in Torment is so much better, it makes games like D3 or ME3 look pathetic and amateur in comparison.

Hence the qualifier "of JRPGs" in the title.

Though smaller in scope, I would argue that the plot of the indie game Immortal Defense gives Planescape: Torment a run for its money, especially in terms of things a story can accomplish in an interactive medium that would not have the same effect on a passive reader/listener/viewer.

[Blackbird]

Yeah. I seem to recall the game sold really poorly at the time because of it's terrible marketing - the game's cover was pretty awful, too. Looking at the withered, voodoo-looking zombie protagonist did not instill one with the sense that this would be an awesome, exciting game. The setting was initially really alien and offputting, it was inaccessible coming from a more vanilla fantasy setting like Baldur's Gate. I think I only bought it at the time because I was a fan of Black Isle's games, and figured they had never disappointed me before.

When you actually play the game, you discover that the offputting setting is actually extremely engaging. The game begins in an extremely dense urban area. Not only is seeing a true urban metropolis novel in a fantasy setting, but it's quite hectic, because on top of being urban, it's also an interdimensional nexus. In short, it is a giant, decaying slum where you can theoretically bump into any number of dimensional travelers. NPCs are just as likely to sell you drugs as they are to try to gut you in the middle of the street. Like the Los Angeles of D&D. It's supposed to be ugly, dirty, and uninviting, because it is a ghetto. That's what a ghetto is. It's not a nice place. I thought they did a superb job with the setting.

Edit: An amazing narrative in a tower defense game? Are you for real, Mischief ?

[CMoon]

Shit, I wish I'd played this Planetscape game. Sounds awesome. I have Radiant Historia but got bored of it at one point and set it aside.

[Blackbird]

Planescape is on GoG.com for dirt cheap. I think I've seen it for 5 bucks on their 50% off sales =P. I couldn't say how well it will run on a modern OS though. I've gotten burned with stuff off GoG not running at all on Windows 7 before.

[drauch]

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_ ... planescape

You can get it via amazon and ebay and the like in physical form for around 10 or so usually. They've re-released a lot of stuff like that lately: Jagged Alliance, Commandos, Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, etc.

[Ghegs]

Just get it on GOG for $9.99 and you'll get the soundtrack and other stuff along with it. They also have the Jagged Alliances, the Commando's, the Baldur's Gates, the Icewind Dale's, etc. there.

I've gotten burned with stuff off GoG not running at all on Windows 7 before.

Really? None of my purchases from GOG have had any troubles running on my Win7 64-bit. Do you remember specific titles? I can doublecheck on Planescape: Torment a bit later.

[guyot]

Also if they bill it as Win7 compatible and it's not - email them. They're normally happy to refund in such situations.

I rather like Radiant Historia. It takes to heart a lot of JRPG lessons that most JRPG devs failed to learn from chrono trigger (now over 17 years old and developers are still making the same old mistakes CT gracefully avoided), and sports its own unique and fairly fun battle system.

[moonblood]

I need to start RH again.. it's good for sure (the battles are a bit slow though),
but it's one of those if you put it down for a while it's hard to get back into

[Blackbird]

I've gotten burned with stuff off GoG not running at all on Windows 7 before.

Really? None of my purchases from GOG have had any troubles running on my Win7 64-bit. Do you remember specific titles? I can doublecheck on Planescape: Torment a bit later.

The game I couldn't run was Heroes of Might and Magic II. As far as I can tell, they include DosBox with the game and it's required in order to run the game, but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to use it properly. They could have at least included step-by-step instructions on setup.

[Ed Oscuro]

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Treasure of the Rudras

Fair enough, I've been hyped to find the translation patch for a long time now

I've gotten burned with stuff off GoG not running at all on Windows 7 before.

Really? None of my purchases from GOG have had any troubles running on my Win7 64-bit. Do you remember specific titles? I can doublecheck on Planescape: Torment a bit later.

The game I couldn't run was Heroes of Might and Magic II. As far as I can tell, they include DosBox with the game and it's required in order to run the game, but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to use it properly. They could have at least included step-by-step instructions on setup.

I might be able to help you out there.

For DOSBox, you will need to set up a virtual drive.

Make a folder somewhere (i.e. C:\dosprogs\, D:\dosprogs in my case) and then, in DOSBox, type this:

mount C: D:\dosprogs\

Then switch to the mounted drive by typing C: and use the cd (change dir) command to get around (i.e. cd mightmagic2 or whatever the folder is called).

If you need a CD-ROM drive, type "intro mount" in DOSBox.

If the program is laggin' (and it might be), hold Ctrl and press F11 (or F12, I forget) a few times to up the number of CPU cycles in DOSBox. After you figure out a good amount, it's a good idea to do this before you launch the program next time, but many titles seem to do OK if you increase the CPU cycle count during gameplay.

In setup programs, select the top Sound Blaster 16 Pro card or whatever. If funny stuff happens you can also choose MPU-401 or Sound Blaster 100% Compatible. Other sound cards might work with bare DOSBox too, not sure. Someday I oughta get a real sound card and hook up my MT-32 but for now I'm pretty happy.

Planescape Torment completely flew off my radar back in the day thanks to its godawful trailer. I remember watching that, wondering wtf is that crap and dismissing it entirely.

Still need to try it out.

Haha, likewise - except I thought the trailer was sweet, for whatever reason. Totally forgot about the silly looking robot square with brass arms though. Big dumb looking clay golem, too.

[Ghegs]

The game I couldn't run was Heroes of Might and Magic II. As far as I can tell, they include DosBox with the game and it's required in order to run the game, but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to use it properly. They could have at least included step-by-step instructions on setup.

I might be able to help you out there. <snip>

I don't have HOMM2 but it's weird if you need to do all that to play it, all the DosBox games I have off GOG are pre-configured, just need to start up the shortcut.

Instead of doing all of Ed's instructions for DosBox games every time you need to play them, I like to create a .conf file. It's just all the DosBox settings and options in an easy-to-read text file. Then just create a shortcut that starts DosBox.exe with the game's .conf file as parameter and no need to worry about it ever again. This is how GOG does it, too.

Also, I just installed Planescape: Torment on my Win7 64-bit machine and it works like a charm. Well, on exit I get a Windows error saying "Planescape: Torment has stopped working" which I guess is the OS' way of saying that it's an error to quit the game in the first place.

[Ed Oscuro]

Those instructions are for running any program off a self-downloaded copy of DOSBox, without starting from a shortcut.

A CONF. file sounds good but I'm too stupid to set one up - it also keeps me in DOS practice, and I switch DOSBox programs often so they would probably be more trouble to manage than they're worth.

Windows 7 (possibly starting with Vista) expects programs to confirm they've quit in a certain kind of way, and some programs quit in a way that triggers the error reporting in Windows.

[Ghegs]

Those instructions are for running any program off a self-downloaded copy of DOSBox, without starting from a shortcut.

I know, just sayin' that if you use DosBox often to start up a specific program it saves a lot of time in the long run to create a .conf file. I actually just took one of GOG's and proceeded to edit it to fit my programs, just to need to change some lines here and there. They're very well documented.

[Blackbird]

Cool, thanks guys. I'll give this a shot. I'll try re-downloading the program first, just to see if they haven't smoothed out the autolauncher.