Torment: Tides of Numenera

A solid RPG with a good story and interesting world. Ther story is (obviously) not as good as that of Planescape: Torment, but is still rather well made and is certainly better than overwhelming majority of those that we see on the market.

The game is engaging and quite fun (combat is fun too, I don't get why people s**t on it so much). Yes, there is a lot of reading, but that was advertised from the get-go. It made me care about a lot of the things going on, and that's saying a lot, considering this is a brand new setting for me. The plot is quite original and interesting, and you do want to uncover more as you go on. The game's biggest flaw is its lack of content - there's simply not enough quests, places to explore, character reactivity. There's no world map, and I take it a lot of content was cut. But the game is quite polished (I encountered VERY little bugs) and solid, and I hope they will make an expansion or a sequel which will be like Baldur's Gate 2 was to Baldur's Gate 1.

I really enjoyed the story, the characters and the setting. The RPG elements were a bit superfluous though - there didn't seem to be much use for a lot of the skills or items, and once you had a certain number of points most of the skill checks were certainties. Maybe I just chose the skills that would give me the most dialogue options - so perhaps if you played as more of a combat-oriented character you'd have more use for the skills and items than I did. That being said, this is a fun, engrossing game with a great story.

You find the full review here: https://forums.inxile-entertainment.com/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=17434&p=186504&sid=dbc192de3c8bfc31196f601f41f94534#p186385 tl;dr Tides of Numenera is a success, not a spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment, but something that can stand perfectly on its own. If you enjoy reading good science-fiction novels, you will most likely enjoy Tides of Numenera a lot. Tides of Numenera is set in the Ninth World of Monte Cook, Earth in the distant future that has seen a number of civilizations rise and fall. Much of this history is lost, but the world is full of the remnants that these highly advanced civilizations left behind. You begin your journey in Sagus Cliffs, a coastal hub that lives from exploring these remnants, called Numenera. The circumstances of your arrival are impactful and your initial choices define the character you incorporate. The world is brought to life primarily by visuals that give you a vibrant impression of the science-fiction setting, and copious writing to provide depth and breadth. The story of Tides of Numenera is bold and is the first serious and successful attempt of writing an interactive novel that is on par with accomplished works of science-fiction. It tackles the great questions that slowly dawn on the horizon of humankind. What is consciousness? What is reality? How closely linked are the realm of physics, down to the quantum scale, and the realm of the biological? What is the role of intelligence? Instead of bogging you down in science, ToN gives you a vehicle to explore the questions on a human level. The quests in ToN are easily amongst the best we have seen in video games and appear organically arrived from the setting and the needs of its inhabitants. ToN plays around with the concepts of reality, timelines and consciousness in encounters and interactions, and ultimately allows you to find meaning in your actions. It has a time loop for a new game+ too and plenty of replay value.

Most reviewers who rate this game below 4 stars, in my opinion, are simply angry because of broken promises the game developers have made. But take this game, put it on tabula rasa and you will see it is a pure gem. It has a very interesting story, great atmosphere and world design. The only flaw is the combat system, but you can avoid combat entirely anyway if you wish, so it's not like you are losing on much. So yeah, this game is really brilliant and everyone should try it. The only thing besides combat I didn't like is that the game developers are very sloppy at supporting the game. They released the game, a couple short updates and that's it. I don't know if they will release more but I think it's very bad they've not released another patch for over a year now... The game is still young and it could see much improvement. For this, I considered rating it 4 stars, but I stopped myself and again, looked at the game for what it is and it is definitely worth 5. I'm not rating the promises, the development abandonment or how this game looks besides Planescape Torment. I'm rating the game for what it is on by itself and it is a masterpiece.