Torment: Tides of Numenera

PST is up there in the hall of fame. This one won't get there. But it still is a very good game, the world is beautiful and exploring it enables you to discover new recesses and depth in its history, as well as yours. Leveling and combat system is nice, main story is nice, but even though I did play a few times a complete PST, I couldn't go through a second game with this one.

I really liked this game. The biggest plus is the setting, worldbuilding and story. Charaters are the weakest part of the storytelling, but it is not so bad. Tweaks here and there will do some good, to add them few additional lines and comments. There is no one like Morte, it means the character that is putting the group together with constant interaction with the others. Crisis system is annoying from time to time, but most of the combat situations have a different solution than violence. It is very good that you could practically talk through the game from start to end. But it is quite obvious thing. What if I want to play a stupid character that would like to smash everything? Is it possible? It is more an adventure than RPG.

After the fiasco with Beamdog and their enhancements to the Baldur's Gate series, I stopped paying anything up front for a game (i.e. kickstarter, crowdfund, pre-orders etc...). Too many companies have blatantly lied and failed to deliver anything that even resembled what was promised. While I was initially excited by this project, it proved to be another steaming pile. Anyone who feels scammed should remember the companies that have not delivered on their promises and refuse to purchase from the again...ever. Money is the only thing that corporations concern themselves with and the only way to get their attention is to stop spending and demand more.

(minor spoilers ahead, if you consider the amount of quests etc. as spoilers) Overall, I liked Torment: Tides of Numenera, but it is far from perfect. It feels like some of the elements are there just because they "have to" be there. Much like in the original PS:T, there are some features you will never use, some that are horribly underutilized (for example the Labyrinth and its sidequests), and some that seem out of place (I still have no idea what use the Meres actually are, apart from a choose-your-own-adventure type of minigame). Unlike some, I found the battle system to be adequate, and it did not spoil my enjoyment of the game and its story - then again, I had only a half a dozen Crises in my playthrough. Some have complained about the length of the game, and I have to add this to my list of negatives as well: having completed all the (side) quests I could find and reading all the text that popped up on my screen (I am a relatively fast reader), I took me around 25 hours to complete the game. Maybe the problem is with pacing: with just two major hub areas and a few smaller maps to explore the third act of the game arrives way too fast. There is also both the sense of catering to every type of player (much like in Wasteland 2, you can solve everything in a plethora of ways) and at the same time requiring you to just pump every point to intelligence in order to easily "win" every conversation. You really cannot fail in this game which is both a good and a bad thing. After finishing T:TON I was left with mixed feelings. The game *is* good, but it just does not quite connect and gel together the way it should: some elements of it should probably have been removed, and some elements of it expanded exponentially. It falls somewhere between okay and good, never reaching its full potential apart from the sold first third of the game in Sagus Cliffs. Worth buying? Yes, but not at the full price.

The game is full with bugs. It's been 20 days since it's release and still no patch. The game doesn't live up to it's predecessor storywise and gameplaywise. Brian Fargo and inXile decieved backers with false promises. I will never buy a game again from inXile. Also the game is very very short for 40 euros.