Torment: Tides of Numenera

It was difficult to pull myself away once I started playing this game. The story is interesting and kept me engaged, especially in exploring the surreal world constructed. With each character having their own identities, when it came to making big decisions, it wasn't so cut and dry. With that said, I do wish that I had felt more weight from some of the choices, though I still teared up quite a few times. Did everything I could to understand the world and loved delving into all the very specific interactions with the environment and characters. There were so many stories unraveling throughout with very abstract ideas of how this world worked.

The narrative is the best you can find in an RPG. The battle system is good but nothing fresh. And it has minor bugs that are annoying, but at least they are fixed with a fast load. Buy It on sale.

There's a lot to praise the game for: the graphic, the world, the story premise. The opening arc is very good and sets the tone right, providing you with many options. Unfortunately, this great first impression quickly falls apart: the combat is slow and terribly executed. The story is VERY rushed and almost immediately after finishing the good "prologue-ish" arc it throws you into the "big revelation" sequence and then straight into the lame, final "dungeon". It doesn't help that one of the first quests you might encounter spoils the entire intrigue (it's the perfect example of "foreshadowing done wrong"). I really wanted to love this game. Unfortunately, the entire process of production was a mess and we ended up with a half-baked promise of what could have been a great title. I cannot really recommend it, unless you really want to see how bad planning can ruin a very good project. The first arc is worth playing, but only after a very deep discount.

I was looking forward to playing this Sci-fi/Fantasy RPG immensely. But upon opening it it froze, crashed and generally bombed out more than 50 times. I even searched online for solutions to the game as well as tried every combination of graphic/sound settings in game to try to get it to work. Do your self a favour. Buy something else rather than this if you are on MAC. Divinity Original Sin Enhanced Edition is brilliant and far better than this game. Until they sort out these issues, this game is a bit of a dud. Which is really sad.

I must say first off that I enjoyed playing the game and while I'm a backer of their kickstarter I don't particularly mind that some stuff was left out nor that it took longer than estimated before release. I won't focus on the bugs and such here, they're tolerable. Instead... I think the game is confused about what type of game it is. And I think they lost control over the story while writing the game. The dialogues, quests, and the text in general is very enjoyable (which is good because there is a ton of text). However the game isn't really fuctional as an RPG, which I think shines through in some critiques around expectations on RPGs such as balanced combat system, leveling and economy/equipment. I think the experience of playing Torment: Numenera is closer to playing an adventure game: go around click on things, talk to people, combine some things. The crisis system for conflicts with the option to spend effort to increase success is a very interesting system, but because conflicts are few and generally easy to handle the player isn't challenged with making tough strategical decisions. The numenera, the only interesting loot in the game, aren't really needed for combat success either so inventory management drifts out of focus. With that, the money is only needed to buy resting (to restore stats pools) and spent in dialogues. The cost is low and you will have more than enough shins - again removing the challenge. Further, in the dialogues, there are few moments where decisions have important consequences. This sums up why it fails to be an RPG and more an adventure game. The game also sells itself as you being hunted by The Sorrow, and then there's this war and The First Castoff that should be important. Neither really drive the story and if the game had been longer, I think this misdirection would have caused serious problems. The story instead focuses on finding out who you are in a world where the "grown-ups" have plans for you that you may not like.