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In Raymond Chandler's essay "The Simple Art of Murder," he wrote, of Dashiell Hammett's Maltese Falconquote:The Maltese Falcon may or may not be a work of genius, but an art which is capable of it is not 'by hypothesis' incapable of anything. Once a detective story can be as good as this, only the pedants will deny that it could be even better. That's how I feel about the relationship between Planescape: Torment and Disco Elysium. DE wouldn't exist without P:T breaking the ground first.
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May 18, 2023 01:28
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| # ? Jun 4, 2024 23:02 |
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Planescape has what is probably the best story in any videogame at all, period. It's unfortunately saddled with some of the worst gameplay of any RPG, but the story is well worth the effort.
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May 18, 2023 02:06
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It's a better story than DE by far. Being in large part "what if a game developer read an introduction to philosophy" sounds trite but is a more interesting Premise than most rpgs and it's got the rare condition of having nearly all it's major characters being interesting. The setting also lends itself to interesting and mind bending vignettes which keeps thi KS interesting. If you're comparing them, one interesting aspect is the unorthodox nature of planescape almost always works in its favor; talking skull companions, chaste succubuses, arbitrary rules holding immense power. All this lends it immense interest and is used to more or less effectively explore the concepts it deals with; contrasting, the more standard elements are boring as poo poo e.g the combat and some of the more hellish areas. DE meanwhile has its strongest aspects in the areas related to ones own lived experience in the world; personally things like the Contact Mike trivia are something unstated before in games, and yet if you know someone like that it's resonance is immediate and powerful. But all the setting poo poo is garbage. The pale is stupid, as is the entire fake technological apparatus erected around it. It's the worst kind of world building, the creation of things for the creation of things instead of to purpose. Absolutely abhorrent.
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May 18, 2023 02:22
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I remember pst combat being, idk, ok? Better than arcanum, about the same as baldurs gate?
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May 18, 2023 02:22
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Planescape Torment does not have half light nor electrochemistry nor One More Door 
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May 18, 2023 02:28
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Gaius Marius posted:It's a better story than DE by far. Being in large part "what if a game developer read an introduction to philosophy" sounds trite but is a more interesting Premise than most rpgs and it's got the rare condition of having nearly all it's major characters being interesting. The setting also lends itself to interesting and mind bending vignettes which keeps thi KS interesting. I have never seen an opinion I disagree with more. I also think they both have extremely similar stories when you get down to it (I the main character wake up and don’t know wtf is going on or who I am and now I have to piece this together) and DE does a way better job of building on that than PST does. I’ve played DE like ten times at this point, and I know absolutely nothing will top that first playthrough. From the realization that Harry is a loving stupid rear end in a top hat who plowed his car into the water to the fact that the pale is going to consume everyone and there’s a loving information hole in a drat church. I remember getting to where Mort tells me my deal in PST and it just flat out didn’t hit the same. It was cool though and that game rules but I think it’s just nowhere close thematically or setting wise or anything
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May 18, 2023 02:30
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I also played PST the first time when I was 13 and being a drug addled drunk with some kinda brain damage and a never ending existential crisis in my 30’s probably made DE’s whole deal just hit way harder
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May 18, 2023 02:33
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SimonChris posted:DE is superior to Planescape by virtue of actually supporting several different playstyles and character types. Planescape pretty much requires you to play a Mage with maxed out Int and Wis or you will be missing out on 2/3 of the story. The options to play as a Thief or Fighter are cruel lies put there to fool you (they don't even give you any Fighter armor. The best armor in the game is protection rings that can only be worn by mages!). You can make the same criticism of DE if you put all your points in FYS and MOT
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May 18, 2023 02:34
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Janissary Hop posted:You can make the same criticism of DE if you put all your points in FYS and MOT Some of the best moments in the game are locked behind those two skills. I really don't think you can.
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May 18, 2023 03:12
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GlyphGryph posted:Some of the best moments in the game are locked behind those two skills. I really don't think you can. Especially with the Electrochemistry and Hand/Eye Coordination team up, followed by the Inland Empire assist
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May 18, 2023 03:38
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Who can really say what skills are the best, at least until Fextralife finally releases a build guide.
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May 18, 2023 03:59
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i am a moron posted:I have never seen an opinion I disagree with more. I also think they both have extremely similar stories when you get down to it (I the main character wake up and don’t know wtf is going on or who I am and now I have to piece this together) and DE does a way better job of building on that than PST does. I’ve played DE like ten times at this point, and I know absolutely nothing will top that first playthrough. From the realization that Harry is a loving stupid rear end in a top hat who plowed his car into the water to the fact that the pale is going to consume everyone and there’s a loving information hole in a drat church. I remember getting to where Mort tells me my deal in PST and it just flat out didn’t hit the same. It was cool though and that game rules but I think it’s just nowhere close thematically or setting wise or anything What differentiates the stories I think, is that PT is more philosophical and contemplative, while DE is more personal and...practical? Grounded? In broad strokes, DE has a setting that's informed by our history and its keen insight into societal class-politics (if that's the word) relatable characters and their interactions. PT is about belief, will and how our perceptions affect the world around us and how we in turn are affected by our perceptions. What they have in common though is that the story is executed perfectly, and DE is the first game I've played that I felt might even be better than PT, and that's honestly the highest praise i can give a game.
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May 18, 2023 04:51
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In Torment you can have five different Kims in your party and be loving horrible to all of them.
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May 18, 2023 05:08
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none of the planescape companions are as endearing and multifaceted as kim is, they’ve all got more going on than first appearances suggest but I find it hard to imagine any of them having rich inner lives. dak’kon is the most kimlike in both depth and demeanour but he’s a stoic warrior-monk archetype, except the player character invented his whole religion several incarnations ago.
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May 18, 2023 05:18
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I do really like all of the companions having been molded into what they are by the nameless one in one way or another, except fall-from-grace who mostly tags along because you’re the great wheel’s version of chris pontius
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May 18, 2023 05:22
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Gaius Marius posted:It's a better story than DE by far. Being in large part "what if a game developer read an introduction to philosophy" sounds trite but is a more interesting Premise than most rpgs and it's got the rare condition of having nearly all it's major characters being interesting. The setting also lends itself to interesting and mind bending vignettes which keeps thi KS interesting. No, wrong. Planescape was very nice, and it deserves lots of praise, but it is so thin in all the ways disco Elysium is relatable and vivid in its vignettes and side characters. So many of the side characters in PST are just 2-dimensional obstacles, with some exceptions obviously like ravel, Morte, uhhh probably a few others. The one thing it still has over Disco is just the d&d fantasy aesthetic, which is fun if you like that kind of thing. Everything in Disco felt more interesting and thematically significant.
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May 18, 2023 05:27
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planescape makes up for being somewhat shallow in comparison to DE in voluminousness. I think almost every NPC encounter is interesting in some way, subverting your initial impressions of a character and their motivations to varying extent. this includes the plot-critical obstacle characters like pharod, lothar, fhjull, ravel et al, but there’s a couple dozen alltimer NPCs in the sidequests, not including various incarnations of the nameless one and the guy the nameless one speaks into existence by lying about his name enough times. DE’s characters are deeper but there’s a lot of characters in PT and they’re all neat
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May 18, 2023 05:39
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it would have been really time-consuming to write and maintaining one would run contrary to how many people play the detective but I would have read the poo poo out of an in-game compendium/journal in DE
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May 18, 2023 05:42
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Part of it is just that they're trying to do two different things, so which one you think is better probably depends on which thing you resonate with. It's obvious where Kurvitz took inspiration from Planescape: Torment, but what he made is very much his own. The most obvious thing is the scale. Planescape wants you to really understand just how old the nameless one really is, how long he's been at this, and how much his own personal issues have really hosed up the planes, and to that end, you see a lot of stuff. You get depth on some of it, but the point is you see a lot of stuff. DE really goes in the other direction. There's a background context, there's a rich, vibrant world history, and you get glimpses of all of it, but the conflict of the world is told through the microcosm of this one conflict in Martinaise. christmas boots fucked around with this message at 06:04 on May 18, 2023 |
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May 18, 2023 05:59
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Conceptualization - Failure (trivial):Gaius Marius posted:It's a better story than DE by far. Being in large part "what if a game developer read an introduction to philosophy" sounds trite but is a more interesting Premise than most rpgs and it's got the rare condition of having nearly all it's major characters being interesting. The setting also lends itself to interesting and mind bending vignettes which keeps thi KS interesting.
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May 18, 2023 08:17
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Gaius Marius posted:It's a better story than DE by far. Being in large part "what if a game developer read an introduction to philosophy" sounds trite but is a more interesting Premise than most rpgs and it's got the rare condition of having nearly all it's major characters being interesting. The setting also lends itself to interesting and mind bending vignettes which keeps thi KS interesting. Just because you shaved the goatee doesn't mean your evil dimension opinions are not recognizable
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May 18, 2023 09:41
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Planescape having cutscenes for lvl 9 spells make it a jrpg imo
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May 18, 2023 10:36
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Gaius Marius posted:But all the setting poo poo is garbage. The pale is stupid, as is the entire fake technological apparatus erected around it. It's the worst kind of world building, the creation of things for the creation of things instead of to purpose. Absolutely abhorrent. Seriously, what the gently caress?
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May 18, 2023 10:38
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I replayed PST recently and what stuck out to me was how much of the combat being bad came down to lovely encounter designs (or lack thereof). They truly just gave up like a 1/3rd of the way through the game
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May 18, 2023 13:41
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The cosmology of Planescape is shackled to D&D and the idea that it's better than DE's hauntism and pale is ludicrous, although of course that's going to be a matter of taste, because the D&D cosmology is fundamentally kinda dumb.
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May 18, 2023 14:36
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panko posted:it would have been really time-consuming to write and maintaining one would run contrary to how many people play the detective but I would have read the poo poo out of an in-game compendium/journal in DE He certainly updated it enough. Why not read the novelization that was just a beat by beat retelling of the game, with TNO's name literally stated as "Adahn"
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May 18, 2023 14:41
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panko posted:planescape makes up for being somewhat shallow in comparison to DE in voluminousness. I think almost every NPC encounter is interesting in some way, subverting your initial impressions of a character and their motivations to varying extent. this includes the plot-critical obstacle characters like pharod, lothar, fhjull, ravel et al, but there’s a couple dozen alltimer NPCs in the sidequests, not including various incarnations of the nameless one and the guy the nameless one speaks into existence by lying about his name enough times. DE’s characters are deeper but there’s a lot of characters in PT and they’re all neat Yeah that's the thing that's in Planescape's advantage. I still think DE reveals its magical/scientific/philosophical lore in many many ways, but you're not seeing it up close like you're getting summoned to pocket dimensions, teleporting inside a siege tower, anything with the lady of pain. I need to replay it after having played DE, but I think the unfinished parts like how some companions shake out, and the half implemented faction system, don't help the generally less (relative to DE) universally great writing. There are many great pieces of writing and the overall story is great though.
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May 18, 2023 14:46
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Gaius Marius posted:It's a better story than DE by far The story itself? I can see your argument going for terms of setting, but in terms of story, real hard disagree there. quote:But all the setting poo poo is garbage ooooh ok, lol I'm going for the bait Planescape has waaaaaaay more worldbuilding than DE, especially so because it comes from a setting already established in D&D. It has volumes of the stuff, quite literally. Now, there might be an important tonal difference because we are talking about two different approaches with two entirely different literary genres. If the Pale is garbage, I don't see how the metaphysics of Planescape aren't by the same measure.
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May 18, 2023 15:23
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The pale is loving metal, Sigil is cool and conceptually nifty but the whole planes thing kinda stinks imo
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May 18, 2023 15:30
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The Pale??? You mean, the nothing from the neverending story??? check and mate, atheists  All joking aside this thread might be convincing me to try Planescape again, though I've already bounced off it three times somehow.
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May 18, 2023 15:47
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Sardonik posted:The Pale??? You mean, the nothing from the neverending story??? "Say my name, Lieutenant Kitsuragi! It's the only way to save Revachol!" "R... Ra... Raphael..."
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May 18, 2023 15:57
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GlyphGryph posted:The cosmology of Planescape is shackled to D&D and the idea that it's better than DE's hauntism and pale is ludicrous, although of course that's going to be a matter of taste, because the D&D cosmology is fundamentally kinda dumb. I believe DE's cosmology ultimately also came from a homebrew d&d campaign.
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May 18, 2023 21:41
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dead gay comedy forums posted:Planescape has waaaaaaay more worldbuilding than DE, especially so because it comes from a setting already established in D&D. It has volumes of the stuff, quite literally. Now, there might be an important tonal difference because we are talking about two different approaches with two entirely different literary genres. If the Pale is garbage, I don't see how the metaphysics of Planescape aren't by the same measure. You misunderstand how I use world building. It is used in the complete pejorative sense, not the act of world building, but the collation of irrelevant and nonsensical trivia to give the illusion of depth used in DE. Consider, Sigil being a city of Gates has very direct and physical impacts on the player, the protean nature of the city itself is demonstrated in the twisted road from the lower wards, its dichotomous prison/warden nature demonstrated aptly by miss Lady of Pain. If one was to change The Pale, all the Radio-Technology, and psuedocountries for their inspirations, one could tell the same story. It simply uses the so called world building as fluff, it is nothing, even the cotton in a teddy bear has purpose. DE's so called world building is exactly(pejorative) the same experience as one forced to guide one's drunk friend home; the nonsensical and unending verbal diarrhea erupting from their mouth. Loosely stringed word associations and concepts strung together into malformed constellations of thought, enshrined into one's cosmos of thoughts unwillingly. Neither coherent nor interesting. Somehow it is still brought to the forefront of thought unwillingly with great pangs of regret. For the DND stuff, I don't engage with nerd culture so I'm not aware of what DND elements are transposed onto Planescape, however the story still holds up.
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May 20, 2023 04:21
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May 20, 2023 04:30
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saying that the pale is fluff betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the game’s themes and cosmology. the premise of your paragraphs stinks worse than the bronze sphere
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May 20, 2023 04:34
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Gaius Marius posted:I don't engage with nerd culture who wants to tell him
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May 20, 2023 04:34
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The Pale, radio technology, and pseudo-countries all have direct and essential thematic importance to the broader subjects of Disco Elysium, involving the themes of memory, history, politics, and what it means to be a person on a fundamental level. It is established both within the game and without that the Pale is, simply speaking, memory manifest, and the surreal technology level is a direct result of the Pale's influence upon the world. The existence of the Pale I would say is keystone to the world of Disco Elysium, and removing its influence from the game would tell a radically different story. So yeah,
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May 20, 2023 04:36
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God every new post from Gaius Marius is worse than the last.
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May 20, 2023 04:41
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Youremother posted:The Pale, radio technology, and pseudo-countries all have direct and essential thematic importance to the broader subjects of Disco Elysium, involving the themes of memory, history, politics, and what it means to be a person on a fundamental level. It is established both within the game and without that the Pale is, simply speaking, memory manifest, and the surreal technology level is a direct result of the Pale's influence upon the world. The existence of the Pale I would say is keystone to the world of Disco Elysium, and removing its influence from the game would tell a radically different story. Imagine writing this whole paragraph without considering that the pale is required for absolutely none of those themes to become manifest; all exist in this world without such nonsense. It's nothing. Consider how the Planet Solaris influences humanity and it's thoughts in the eponymous work and contrast that to how the Pale fails in every regard one holds it to.
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May 20, 2023 04:42
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not paying attention during the church quest, huh
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May 20, 2023 04:48
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