If you're even considering buying this 10-year-old CRPG, it's probably because you already know what's special about it. But just in case you're on the fence, let me count off a few of its qualities – both pros and cons. There's so much to the game that there's no danger of giving it away in a list this short:
PROS.
- Exotic settings – the D&D Outer Planes, featuring visits to Sigil (“city of doors”) and its Outlands, and a couple of the Lower Planes (hell, basically) … and one other plane too
- battles fought out on the playing fields of your own mind, hell, city slums, an art gallery, a sub-dimension filled with robots, a mortuary filled with people who long for death, a tomb constructed by one of your past selves, and mazes filled with eerie shadows
- Exotic characters – in your party you'll find a floating skull, a renegade succubus turned Good, a wizard who is constantly on fire, an eccentric cubic automaton voiced by Dan Castellaneta (Homer Simpson), and more
- Probably the most enormous amount of dialogue (text, not voiced) in any game ever
- packed with more exotic ideas and gameplay concepts than most games, while still sticking to core D&D combat mechanics
- a main character who cannot die
- … or remember anything from before the last time he was “killed”
- … but sometimes regains memories by “dying”
- … and who has a secret past life that you will uncover in the course of the game
- … well, actually, SEVERAL secret past lives
- conversations with madmen, tramps, demons and angels, souls of the damned and the blessed, ruthless machines, people struggling to live normal lives in the weirdest of environments, poor saps who have wandered in from the “real world”, and, occasionally, with yourself
CONS.
- 10-year-old graphics
- although there are mods to change screen resolution, really this game only works at 640×480 … as you'll find out when you cast some high-level spells
- the soundtrack is a bit hit-and-miss
- there are no other flaws
In summary: a classic. Absolutely unforgettable. If you haven't already played it and yet you've still managed to find your way to this page, quick! Grab it!