Torment: Tides of Numenera Reviews

no

The setting is perfect. Played it till the end a couple of times. Story written really one of the best games I've ever played. the rest is okay. Pure for the superb story and the world around it they must make a sequal

As obviously hinted by the name of this game, it is a spiritual successor to Planescape Torment, the 1999 classic developped by Black Isle. Basically, a CRPG where combat takes a seat back and where most situations can be solved through dialogue. Disclaimer: I have played Planescape Torment only once, around 2007, and I don't have vivid memories of it (unlike some other CRPGs like Baldur's Gate 1 and 2). I thus won't comment on whether or not Tides of Numenera is a good spiritual successor. I'll just say that the basic premise of the game seems maybe a bit too inspired by Planescape Torment: you start out as a close to divine-being who has no memory of what he's doing here. That being said, is Torment: Tides of Numenera a good game in itself? Yes, I thought so too. The world is pretty cool (our Earth a few billions years in the future, after countless civilizations, human or not, have appeared and disappeared). The story is pretty good IMO, the companions are well-written... Basically, everything we can ask from a dialogue-based CRPG is here. My only beef is that, after BG3, CRPGs without voice acting and the same amount of veneer kinda feel... cheap. But I know the two games are on two different levels, cost-wise. The french translation was also full of typos and weird formatting. There again, I know the devs probably didn't have the budget to get a top quality french version, so heh, it will do. So, if you liked Planescape Torment or Disco Elyseum, I guess trying this one out won't hurt.

Sad it took me so long to get to this one, If you make a game that has so many characters with extra layers of descriptions and dialog (whether they are alien, not from this dimension or simply undead) the game slowly stops to feel like a game and starts being a visual novel. There is nothing "ordinary" about this narrative. I dont think boring humans exist anymore, or if they do their numbers are really low, everything you see is either an alien entity, a cosmic entity or some sort of a robot with its own special back story. (I did enjoy the Bloom quite a bit) and everything has to be special or twisted in some way. Now lets talk about Tides - or special "castoff powers."If you play as a magic user you will use nanites and cyphers (magical devices) to cast powerful wizard like spells, but Tides (the force that only castoff's can use) is a force that ONLY gives you special dialog options, which yes they are relevant to the story, but otherwise do NOTHING ELSE in the game. Oh you get a small symbol painted in the corner of your avatar to match your dominant Tide and you can fiddle with Oom for some bonuses, but thats it.... Tides are completely irrelevant, it doesn't matter which Tide you use, or how you use them. Game is fun, insane, imaginative and nothing like Ive played before, and at times it feels a bit short - like they could have added more chapters or explored more cities, but trust me its not short. It feels like you are reading two very long books about your characters adventures, and just when you got the hang of it they start throwing you into the past with long chapters and decisions and subtext of subtext etc etc. Story could have been told much more straightforward without diluting it so much, and the different POV'es certainly dont help.