Torment: Tides of Numenera

This game is worth it if on sale for $10 or less, but you should prepare to be disappointed on many levels. I was not a backer and I never played Planescape. My biggest tip for playing: open your inventory and check EVERY ITEM you get, regardless of its class, to see if it has a 'Use Item' button. (I played through 80% of the game believing Oddities to just be loot, but some are useful) Initially, I found TTON to be tedious. I struggled to get through the first hours as I was buried in exposition that was somehow both important and meaningless. Every NPC seemed to have 8000 stories to tell and they wanted to tell them all to me. Learning was a challenge: there were a million new concepts, the codex wasn't great, and there really wasn't any direction about how combat works. I knew there were three classes of items, that there were different energy types, and that was basically it. I still managed to annihilate every crisis I got into. For most of the game I didn't know you could change party members. I thought that you pick your team in the first area and then you move on without the others. I forgot to use ONE ITEM and the result was a lot of people who had really sad endings. I did like my team though, and while half of the team wasn't really good at combat, I never met a fight I didn't win the first time. There are other, non-combat crises, which was an interesting use of turn based combat. All in all the conflicts, such as they are, were simply OK and were so far between that I wondered if this would be the one where I found out that I was building my character incorrectly. There really didn't seem to BE a wrong way: despite accidentally going over the useful limit on a few skills due to not having any idea how progression works, I was still able to tell the story almost exactly as I wanted. The middle of the game was extremely immersive. There were many NPCs that I loved and side quests which were intriguing. Once I got into the lore and started parsing out the central mystery of the game it all felt really good and I looked forward to the next step in the journey. Then the game ended, and it was one of the most disappointing video game endings I've experienced in my 30+ years of gaming. All of the endings seemed hell bent on serving you up a plate of cynicism where nothing is good, and no good thing lasts forever. How edgy. Beyond that, many of the endings have lore in the conclusions that directly contradicts lore presented throughout the game and characters reacting in ways that make no sense based on their established motivations. Instead of a high concept narrative rife with symbolism or meaning you get a few options that are only a shade different from one another with some of the most dull, matter-of-fact explanations imaginable. One ending simply IS another ending but with two more sentences after. It made me so mad to read them all that it literally motivated me to write this review. I'm STILL mad about it because it had so much potential... and for a game which is essentially an interactive novel which has some very powerfully written parts to fall so amazingly flat in the end... UGH. So yeah... maybe get it on sale... don't expect any kind of challenge... don't expect to have a bunch of play throughs with different routes or companions or factions... don't bother reloaoding your save to see the other endings... or just don't bother ending the game. In fact, get to a point where you THINK you're in the last room, uninstall the game, and imagine your own ending. THAT'S probably the best advice I can give.

Would be a good game if "all" the 6 year old bugs that have been around were finally fixed. Unless you feel comfortable re-writing files yourself, don't waste your money on this!

I pledged quite a lot of money to this game years back on Kickstarter and now finally managed to get time to play it. I loved Planescape Torment back in the day so I really wanted to this like, but I didn't. The dialogue was in general just to weird and boring and the combat shallow. In the end I felt I was skipping more and more dialogue just to get it done. I completed in the game in 22 hours - I am now happy I can move on to something else.

TL;DR: Play this if you enjoy both Disco Elysium, and RPGs like Divinity, but keep in mind that it's not a comedy, and not heavily combat focused. This game is amazing and I really don't understand what the negative reviews are complaining about. Maybe this is just people who played Planescape: Torment with rose-tinted glasses about a game from their younger years. Maybe expectations were set incorrectly, and people expected another Divinity, or a point and click story game. This is a fully-fledged RPG that's very heavy on the story elements, and the writing is way better than most other RPGs I've played. The combat system was way more than good enough for the relatively low number of combat encounters in this game. There was interesting class variety, interesting ability choices, interesting equipment choices, etc. I see others complaining about it being inscrutable or not knowing why their characters are ineffective, etc. but I found this game to be very easy outside of one fight that was moderately challenging and could have been skipped if I wanted to skip it. Unlike most games my companions actually had interesting back stories and I found myself making choices that the characters themselves would approve of, rather than optimizing for power. And as for the story - you really feel like an important character in the world with the ability to change things. Characters actually remember what was said to them previously and remind you of your past words and actions. Your decisions can unlock or close off quest lines or other content, and often the reward is just more great writing in the form of 'merecasters' which are like short story choose your own adventures that sometimes have real-world repercussions. And the end of the game actually provided a ton of viable options for you to decide the fate of the world with no obviously correct answer. The best part is that the game doesn't mislead you about what your choices will entail. When you click a line of dialog intending sarcasm, it's treated as sarcasm. When you're asked to do something shady, you're given both the option to lyingly accept, or genuinely accept - unlike other games that make you guess if you're going to be able to double cross later, etc. I never felt like I was intending to do one thing, and had something completely different happen, which is a common problem in story-driven RPGs. Highly recommended.

"What does one life matter?" You can Role-play in a "RPG?" Yes you can my friends. Yes you can. By coming to this game's store page... you are one step closer to doing so. The world and lore in this game are superb. However, be aware, a lot of it is delivered in text form so you will be doing a lot of reading. If you can accept this and step forward, you WILL be rewarded. The artwork is gorgeous for an isometric RPG. Characters were very interesting. I found my companions lacking by comparison to a lot of the other NPC's found in the world but that may have been a fault of my own. Apparently I didn't take the more interesting ones with me in my journey (an excuse to replay I believe). I don't regret my choice however. Silver and gold. They were still precious and I enjoyed my time with them. Music... I still find myself throwing the OST on in my car on long drives. Combat. Done well enough for what it is. Don't expect anything groundbreaking there. However... you can sidestep it entirely if you don't enjoy it or more importantly... if your character wouldn't have engaged in it. The alternate routes to achieving your goals is what makes a ROLE PLAYING Game to me. Most modern RPGs lack in this regard and TToN did it right. Take notes developers. Is it Planescape Torment? No. It also doesn't need to be. It's based off a completely different TTRPG system and setting. Come here for something fresh. Not with the expectation of a "Spiritual Successor" (despite what it is called repeatedly) and you will find a game with its own set of merits. I myself, have completed TToN and never finished PT because this setting appeals to me more. Let your personal preferences and a little research guide you. I hope my rant has helped you, Friend. I also hope you will give this often overlooked gem a try. Set forth and answer the question... "What does one life matter?"

Edge is an important thing to upgrade early since it essentially makes any task 1 effort cheaper across the board for that stat. Cyphers can be very powerful but don’t be afraid to use them if it’s a nuke/bomb type of thing. You may want to save ones that scale with level if you’re planning on using Rhin. The economy and combat is balanced for you to use cyphers and it’s not hard to get more if you need them. Talk to everybody and learn everything you can. Curiosity is commonly rewarded mechanically. Oddities are generally meant to be sold. There are usable ones though so check their description before you sell them. If you want to do a run with very little emphasis on combat, go for Intellect since that influences most checks in conversation. Don’t save scum. Even losing a combat encounter isn’t the end of the world and can lead to interesting results. Try to focus on controlling decisions as opposed to controlling outcomes and the experience will be much richer for it. No party member is useless (even the one who REALLY seems useless). Pick someone for your party because you think they’re interesting, not for optimization. Any party configuration can make it through. Do the Mapper’s quest in the early game. It gives you the ability to swap out party members on the fly. Tides are largely a flavor thing and represent your alignment DnD style. There is one party member whose abilities can change based on your alignment but otherwise they just represent the things your character views as important based on their choices. If the game says you should wrap up any side quests before you do something, listen. You can’t really go back to old areas once you leave. Quests can advance in the time while you’re resting. If there’s a quest that seems like it might have a time-sensitive element to it, consider using items to recover your stat pools or HP instead of sleeping. THANKS

Having prior role-played within the rules and boundaries of Planescape: Torment and having written most positively about that construct I can enthusiastically categorize Torment: Tides of Numenera (ToN) as emblematic of Planescape's intentions and direction. In other words ToN is a worthy sequel and a worthy spiritual successor to a beloved masterpiece. A successor yes and not a template constructed by carbon, an entirely new work whose prose is masterly penned independent of it's fore-bearer's own genius. The two works share the options to avoid potential combat though the elder is imbued by real time as opposed to the turn based nature of ToN. The elder's foundation is in an older Dungeon and Dragon rule set where the new sibling is founded in the tabletop rule set of Monte Cook's Numenera. The D&D - Numenera rule set differential is refreshing and pc and npc alignments not only have new meanings but are important triggers intricate to the presented story lines. Comparing combat between the two and I may or may not be in the minority, I found ToN's combat to be more robust, strategical and imbued with more options acquired through inventory mechanics. Mechanics are sufficiently communicated to the user through a well designed gui. P:T's combat, though real time, felt entirely cheesy and I welcomed the new turn based direction. The caveat is how you play. What combat do you avoid. In ToN you may find yourself playing 10, 15 or more hours without any combat or just a few battles. One can categorize ToN as having a slow start but this is entirely subjective. Concerning potential npcs who you can lobby to join your party; I know I missed opportunities to recruit due to choices made but I never felt that either game denied me a decent pool from which to recruit. Of those I recruited in ToN, each was supplied with an extensive background, many by questing, and the game presented good dialog choices when I choose to interact with each party member. Switching out party members surprisingly was simple and was within the rules of the lore and world the authors and designers created. Inventory mechanics which I've previously mentioned in the context of combat additionally played a pivotal role and adds to lore and your role playing possibilities. Obtained world items may or may not have various uses, uses which are up to the player to trigger and initiate. New paths may be discovered or you may drastically change events. Finally I would like to briefly mention character classes, character attributes, character leveling and party rejuvenation. Briefly because these mechanics are best discovered and have cautioned myself not to completely divulge to the detriment of my readers. Based on the Numenera rule set leveling mechanics I found to be thoroughly unique. Your PC's class can be determined in the beginning. Character attributes are determined by various attribute pools affected when your character levels. Character levels are denoted by tiers. Within each tier you have five choices and each choice may only be utilized once per tier. Upon utilizing all five gets you to the next tier. Tiers are not just representations of leveling abstracts but play an existential function inherent in the game's systems. Finally the world continues and quests may be lost even as you sleep though rejuvenation is possible during various situations and conditions. Able to distinguish itself while introducing new *tides*, Planescape: Tides of Numenera represents distinctive and enveloping story filled narratives immersed in a science fiction fantasy charmed filled construct ready to be traversed by the next beckoning adventurer. Like P:T, ToN deserves a second play through.

This is one of those infuriating mediocre-to-bad games that doesn't reveal how bad it is until you're already halfway through it. It's a narrative-driven game with a narrative that gradually starts showing cracks before totally crumbling in the last hour or so of the campaign. Without going into details, the final stretch of story feels very rushed and disjointed and ultimately left me feeling like I was duped by the much more compelling early stages. On top of that, this game has been out for, what, 3 years now? And there are still bugged and broken quests throughout.