Torment: Tides of Numenera

This is what you get for over-financing a project way before the job is done. Huge PS:T lover here who backed this by 130€. I really did not expect much, but I hoped I would at least like this. I could not finish the game half way through. If you have to try hard to keep your interest in the story, characters and the world then there is something terribly wrong with the writing and atmosphere. And it's not like my tastes have changed. I've played PS:T two years back and I've been blown away even more than ever before - that's how brilliant the writing and atmosphere was. But I've approached TTON as a completely standalone piece of art with no association to PS:T. I was thinking that will prevent my disappointment. Boy I was wrong. Actually any resemblance and respect to PS:T is what helps this game to stay above water surface. Otherwise the writing here is just overly complex, overly flowery, overly mysterious, overly abundant and in the end overly unnatural, overly uninteresting and overly boring. I also blame audio management for the lack of atmosphere. I've written exhaustive letter to devs and they pretty much ignored every single point even clear bug reports. That's what you get for backing. The score is composed.. or better yet the audio mixed and processed in a way that the result sounds very flat and featureless without any noticeable dynamics or remarkable details and memorable moments as it was in PST. Not only it's barely noticeable but during dialogues where you spent over 70% (!) of all time someone decided it would be good idea if the music is all muffled and almost muted. What is the point of musical score when you spent literally hours and days listening to it in this muffled state? The ambience of people in the area is lacking heavily. Something I loved about PST that you could hear and FEEL you are in a city full of people around you. In Tides people are silent. You go in a tavern and the place is more dead & silent than mortuary in PST!

With Torment (the real one, not this garbage) and BG2 being my favorite games, I was expecting much out of this title. But, disappointments abound! Where writing in [real] Torment was smart and interesting, here it is pretentious and self-congratulatory thinking it is good because it is long. However, since writing in this game is atrocious, the length of writing only makes it that much worse.

First of all a disclaimer: I'm a huge fan of tabletop RPG Numenera, so my view might be biased, I think TToN is a decent game that suffered a from both overhype and inXile's inhability to fulfill their promises. The story is really good and in fit in with the crazyness of the 9th World, despite being almost completely separate from the main part of the setting. The Sagus area is a solid example of what you can expect in this world and manage to include a number of interesting situations. Past this first area the game becomes a bit more linear, but it still retains an interesting vibe. The NPCs are a mixed bag. Your companions are all serviceable, but some of them receive so much more depth it's insane. To make matter worse, the "servant of the tides" NPC is really sub-par to the rest of the cast. The rest of the NPCs many interesting interactions but, and this is big but, you really have to talk to every-fricking-body in any location before even thinking of solving a quest. This is particularly noticeable in Sagus, where there is the only "broken" quest of the entire game (i.e. you must do it in a very specific way or the best reward would be lost). Graphics are really the lowers point of the game. They are really average and not particularly cool looking. They work, that's all. So, do I think it's a good game? Yes. Despite all of its shortcomings, TToN is still a nice and fun game, albeit a tad short for my tastes.

The game I had hopes for since I enjoyed Planescape Torment but this game just takes the name Torment and does nothing even halfway as interesting. From my time with the game I could not even get past the first actual fight in the game due to the gaming having a game breaking bug where the text would get stuck and not continue no matter how long I waited or pushed the 'Show More' button. If devs are so incompetent as to fail at making a game that is 90% reading then maybe they should re-think their careers. Also don't hope for an update since they are probably all ready making another kickstarter to make another game. Don't waste your time with this game, just go play Planescape: Torment it is a way better game.

Very good interactive novel set in an interesting and innovative world. Writing is ok. Compared to other games - brilliant. Combat is boring as hell. Maps look good, but character renders don't. No portrait means mose NPCs have no character. All in all - great interactive novel that pretends to be a mediocre old-school rpg. Still very much recommended. 5 stars in my heart because it's been a long time since I actually enjoyed story in a game (I'm 33, and avid reader - hard to please), but crappy combat system and lack of visuals allowing for easier immersion make it a 4.