One of the two bars’ most curious patrons is O. They make themselves vulnerable, open to expression, to sharing their wisdom with the player and other NPCs alike. It’s in these taverns that both fantastic beings and mere mortals alike are given momentary respite from the turbulent, mysterious worlds outside. A trait shared by both the Smoldering Corpse and Fifth Eye is how they’re a microcosmic representation of these games’ diverse, multidimensional cultures. Sigil and Sagus Cliff are home to some truly memorable bars. It’s the diversity of the patrons themselves, the mundanity of the bar, and the juxtaposition against an utterly fantastical setting that communicates the powerful normalcy of conversation and repose as an act of healing. And what these games ultimately say is that certain places, notably bars, are venues for patrons to decompress amidst the tangible anxiety of malleable realities, war, class disparity, and city clamor. Among the moments she discusses is the game’s fantastic narrative climax when the player discovers their avatar’s name, an action which is assigned the largest experience dump in the entire game.The words themselves hold enormous weight, yet locations that contextualize dialogue throughout the game bring attention to the exigent value which the game communicates about both the purpose of the space itself and the reasons characters find it valuable. In a recent critical video over at Kotaku, staff writer Heather Alexandra analyzes how Planescape: Torment uses systems to communicate its values to the player.

Both Planescape’s Sigil and Numenera’s Sagus Cliff house junctions of culture, libraries, and havens for hardened travelers across dimensional rifts - all spaces that inform whatever’s being discussed. It’s easy to lose myself in these conversations, to focus on the text and forget about the environments in which these exchanges take place, yet locations contextualize both the characters themselves and the topics about which they speak to the player. There is a spectrum of failure and success in Torment dialogue, and the former requires careful attention to the subject of conversation its environmental context. The analogy isn’t perfect, where combat takes a back seat, these textual interactions exist as the primary outlet for player expression. Make no mistake, players explore these conversations similar even to the dungeons in more traditional roleplaying games.

These games bristle with expansive fiction, apparent in both the sheer volume of text that NPC’s throw the player’s way and the branching dialogue trees that are as satisfying to explore as they are momentarily imposing to behold. Yet part of what sets the Torment duo apart from their peers is a bold commitment to detailed, comprehensive dialogue. Rather than relegating tertiary setting and cultural details to abstracted codexes like in Mass Effect, attention is brought solely to the experiences of individuals coupled with the context of the game’s narrative and digital space.

Similar to other Black Isle and early Bioware titles, the Torment games attempt to portray multifaceted, speculative cultures through the perspectives of characters. Both are set in worlds where emotion and belief are given the power to transcend the fabric of reality, reshaping space in strange and fascinating ways. Planescape: Torment and its spiritual follow-up Torment: Tides of Numenara are two fantastic computer role playing games. Hold my Beer - Why the Torment Games Have the Best Video Game Bars

Tides of numenera eyes of the adversary