I am still in the beginning stages of the game and yet to get the feeling of its greatness, but I am expecting to see it when I go further.

At this point I am still mostly wondering "Wow there are long discussions..." and "Does it really matter what I do in the game, ie. should I retry conversations as many times until I get a "good conversation", or is any outcome of any confrontation just as good, just different?".

For instance, I talk to some NPC. He asks what I want. If I say I am lost, he says he will call a guard to guide me, and that inevitably leads to a fight where everyone in close vicinity becomes hostile and I have to kill them all.

So, is that totally ok, or should I retry the conversation until I don't get that fight? My gut feeling (from playing other RPGs) is that the conversation was a failure and I should consider doing it again, to get some extra information or whatnot, and the ensuing fight was a bad outcome that I should avoid.

But then I have no idea if that really is the case, and am I actually missing out if I keep retrying conversations and encounters until I find an outcome that somehow feels more positive to me, like using my wits or whatever?

The same when I encounter some of those zombies or whatever, there are options which are bad to the subject but good to me, like taking some bolt or other part from their body, which will harm them but I get something from them. So I am wondering what are the consequences of harming them for obtaining something from them, or letting them be? Will the former make you an evil person and block you from part of the story, and vice versa will leaving the "zombies" alone impede you from doing something, maybe helping someone else?

I guess at some point I will kinda "get it" how am I supposed to play the game, how its internal mechanism works and what is the actual point of the game. Yeah I know many people have said they've played through e.g. Fallout 1-2 either by killing everyone they meet, or in a peaceful way not touching anyone, and both are just as good ways to play the games... Not sure if the same applies to Planescape: Torment ie. I should just do whatever I want without retrying anything and everything is swell no matter what is the outcome, or is there some target to which I should strive with my actions?

For me PT was a slow starter, but later on I grew to appreciate just how creative / different everything was vs the usual "RPG = European Medieval setting" at the time. There is a lot of talking but the game has pretty extensive role playing mechanics up to being able to talk yourself out of the final boss fight. Unlike a lot of other RPG's, it's one where a high WIS score matters a lot more in terms of opening up options. It's up to you how you want to play it though. Absolutely nothing wrong in reloading at all if you want to play it like that.

Listing only games that I completed, and enjoyed enough to replay:


Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders (1988) - First played in 2021

The Secret of Monkey Island (1990) - First played in 2015

Amerzone: The Explorer's Legacy (1999) - First played in 2015

American McGee's Alice (2000) - First played in 2018

Deus Ex (2000) - First played in 2017

The Black Mirror (2003) - First played in 2020

I can only think of 1 game that qualifies, as I don't play that many really old games. Not being a gamer in the previous century, having started only late (you needn't be young to not having played many old games, just starting later in life with gaming suffices) means that a lot of old games feel less appealing for games from that age often being very much unstreamlined with clumsy interfaces and high difficulty and learning curve.

I started gaming in 2005 I guess (when I was 34) and the pre-1990 games feel much too ancient for me. 2005 and onward, games were much more accessible and user friendly in my opinion (in-game tutorials became a thing at that time).

I can only think of 1 game that qualifies, as Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance got released in 2001 and it wasn't until 2014 I started trying out console gaming by buying a second hand PS2, to find out what it's about, as I read so much on fora about console gaming. I don't know when I got BG:DA, but it must have been about 15 years old when I bought a second hand copied and played it. I tried out console gaming for some 5 years, even getting a second hand PS3, but than I called it quits for very much disliking sitting in front of the TV with a controller instead of gaming with mouse and keyboard at my desk. I like the later much more.

Some that stood out to me when I played them for the first time:

Wheel of Time
Blade of Darkness
Terra Nova
Rayman 2 and 3
The Dig
Crusader: No Remorse
The Tex Murphy series

I played Baldur's gate in 2018 for the first time and in enjoyed it, and i probably play it again soon

Tails Adventure. I only played it on an emulator well after its release, even though my family did own the battery-guzzling handheld it was originally released on.

It's a rather nice old-school metroidvania (back way before the genre was named).

I didn't play Nox until I bought it on sale on GOG. The game isn't pretty, but it's fun. However the game is old where you may need to do a few extra things to get it to run and most posts on GOG's Nox forum are about just that.

Divine Divinity is another that I had not played until I bought it on GOG.

Lennus 2, which I believe I was playing in 2016. (I think that was the year because of a major political event that happened that year.)

Glad that others are mentioning Divine Divinity, since I couldn't, having started to play it at least in 2007, if not 2006, and finished probably in 2008, if not even end of 2007.
Damn, looked it up, Game Gear battery life, up to 4h on 6 AAs. That's quite insane, and it's not like there were rechargeable AAs back in the day... Oh, wondering if a better way to put it would be "20+ y/o games you played within the past few years and enjoyed"?

Yes there was. Rechargeable batteries have been around for a long time.

"The first generation rechargeable alkaline batteries were introduced by Union Carbide and Mallory in the early 1970s."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rechargeable_alkaline_battery

Imperialism. I played Imperialism 2 soon after it came out, but never got around to the first one until just a few years ago. And it's a really good strategy game, but... I do suck at it. lol I have never beaten it even once yet. I get going pretty good, but then it seems a certain point in time occurs where the AI gets more aggressive and I come up short every time to fend them off.

SMAC. I had played Civ II, Civ III, and Civ IV before I ever played my first game of SMAC. Which is a shame, because even now, this is still a very, very good game. (SMAC - Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri)

Those two come to mind, and both are, IMO, still really good games in 2024.

Can't help you, most games I play and enjoy are only 10 years older.

Yeah, I remember I also tried to fix the GOG version, patched the missing soundtrack back in, then tried to install a few sourceports and set up everything in a way that made it playable for me, but it was such a hassle that once I got to that point, I had kind of lost interest in playing, because it just didn't seem that much fun to be worth it. It was probably a mix of this bad installation and tinkering experience and the wrong timing, maybe I just wasn't in the right mood back then. I played the Enhanced version after playing through HROT which is heavily inspired by Quake, and that release of Quake was plug and play, ran smoothly right from the beginning, felt more modern and was more of what I liked about HROT, so perfect timing.

That's too bad; it was pretty much just plug the files in and go for me, using vkQuake. The only slightly annoying thing was converting the CD tracks to ogg, but even that was straightforward, just a bit tedious ripping 3 CDs. It's easy to use mods, and there are a number of impressive ones like Arcane Dimensions, plus Enyo from earlier this year (which is what got me back into Quake).