TL;DR Druidstone has good production values and offers an interesting combat challenge. It is no RPG and no strategy game, instead Druidstone is at its best if you love a dungeon run that throws challenging surprises at you, and if you manage to proceed without fail like a roguelike. However, if these surprises catch you off guard, replaying a mission feels more like a diminishing grind because the events play out the same on each retry. Playing on hard and trying to complete all objectives on your first attempt is a rewarding experience though. Given its flaws 4 stars would be appropriate, but I am giving it 5 stars because I enjoyed my entire playthrough, which is rare these days. Fully detailed review: Druidstone: The Secret of the Menhir Forest - turn-based isometric RPG from Grimrock devs
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.
