Having played PT:Torment, Baldur's gate, icewindale and most of the isometrics D&D style game, I wanted to try tide of numenera, even though I knew it would probably be a very different game than torment. So, here is a summary : Quick comparison with PT:Torment. The game starts good. The ambiance, the plot hightly reminded me of Torment. You get thrown into a clone story about mortality (again), death (again), past deeds and legacy, just like the first planescape. In this regard, the game really took up the legacy. Its a bit superficial though. Death, guilt, regret permeated by every pore of torment. Everything was somehow linked if you know what I mean. Meanwhile, in Numerrarra, you never really get how important the tides are, they don't really play a role in history nor quest. They are almost a pretext. Its nowhere as deep as it's ancestor sadlty, from my point of view. There are many good point. interesting first town, lot of hours (took me 30 hours to finish the game). The companions are neither really good, neither really bad. You can get attached to some of them. The diversity of companion is somewhat lacking, you only have humans, and mostly are really loyal good type, without surprise, really straight forward hero character.They have a lot of interractions in the first part of the game, and are completly forgotten past the first big town... The hero is bland . Sort of pretty teenagers without character, it lacks charisma and doesn't have a story of it own, being just freshborn. What I personnally like in RPG is character that have a very strong back story, and not the empty shell that you can make do anything. The music is cool, the text is rather good, you can read for hours the story. The choices to resolves quest are never always white or black, carrying some degree of maturity and thoughness... at least in the first part of the game. Because yes, the game becomes very subpar once you leave the first big zone (which represent one third of the game, about 10 hours of gameplay). Then its become mindless brawling and dephtless adventure... That wouldn't be so much of an issue if the battle system was good. But the battle system is really bad. Really, really, really bad and boring. turn based. I played divine divinity ego draconis 2 just before this game that was turn based and had INCREDIBLE possibilities ( a really great game). Then I tried Numenera, and you can basically move, attack once, or use an item/skill. a lot of skill are totally useless, so for me it was basically move/attack/item. No depth, boring as hell, slow and sluggish. Worst than that, the battle are depending on skill point (strengh, agility, intelligence) that are also used to resolves quest. If you fight at the start of the game, you ll get drained of 75% of your skill point and will have to go take a nap to refill it at inn. That really slow up the pace of the game and severely discourage any attemps to recklessly fight. Hopefully, if you play smart you can avoid most battle by talking it through. you can really be a pacificist which is probably where the game creators wanted us to go. Thats an interesting developpement, you can decieve people, persuade them, intimidate them... its dependant of dice throw though, which are dependant on.... skill point... past the first part of the game you can actually resolve any quest very easily by just talking, with no challenge at all, once you get an avatar with tons of intellect skill point. So once again the main point becomes reading, reading... I hated the whole end part. So, Numenera is neither good neither bad, if you like reading and Crpg it can be a filler in waiting pillars of eternity 2 . there are some pleasurable and funny part, the writing is good. Its, in my opinion, not standing up to the standard that were PT:T and baldurs gate, or even the recent pillars of eternity and tyranny, that I d recommend instead. if you haven't done these game, you ll probably have way more fun with it than with numenera. I don't recommand this game to anyone who isn't a lover of cRPG. Well, have fun .
