First impressions - 2 hours in. I keep waiting for a game to mess me up the way Bioshock did. I long for a Prey like ending. All the ingredients do appear to be in place too. Would you kindly tell developers that? That said, even on hard, the game appears to be ridiculously easy. Based on interwebz information it seems to have been a conscious design choice. There should be an actual hard mode for people and a story mode for those, who just want the story. I am not sure why the two cannot co-exist. Anyway, the game is not bad thus far, but not worth its full price. If the ending messes me up, I will come back here to give it 5 stars.
I am not sure where to begin. Yes. All the things mentioned by other posters are true. Combat is clunky. Game is difficult. The game does not hold your hand. In my mind, only the first thing is an actual issue. The combat can make you hesitate whether the game is worth it. If there was an iron mode, I would not last long.. and I was playing normal difficulty. But the game manages to pull it off regardless of countless deaths and minor annoyances. The levelling system mostly works. It is not ideal, but it does force you to forage and explore; the quests are what you would expect from an MMO ( bring me stuff I am too lazy to get myself ), but they tend to have a little twist to them ( as in, sure I will help you, but how about you give me that neat piece of tech that was saving your ass for the past 3 levels as a payment). Choices have strategic consequences. Oddly, if you treat as an MMO, it becomes a lot easier. You kite and your companion takes hostiles down. You consider your build as a whole and you end up ahead of the game. Still, game is hard. Fallout type hard. You start the game with the understanding that anything can one shot you if you are unlucky. So you do not fight. You bide your time. You sneak past and fight only if you are forced into it. And you slowly get better as you explore the world. I am not sure how to explain this game, because it is a lot at once: Skyrim, Fallout, Prey, The last of us.. Story is serviceable, but initially you are too focused on survival to worry about it. If it changes substantially, I will post an update. Oh yeah, odd issues came up when I first started and was welcomed by black screen ( eventually turned out that I had way too many things open -- still at 16GB ram I figured it would not be an issue ). I am only mentioning it in case it helps someone. I guess what I am saying is that it is worth a try. It is good. It is messing up with my sleep pattern good.
Like many I have played original Torment so the chances that Tides will live up to the hype were relatively small to begin with. That is not to say that the game is bad. It is not bad. It is, however, rather short. I completed game by playing a nano making sure that I go through as much content as I can.. I was not rushing through. I finished it in 11 hours. I can only hope that my 2nd and 3rd playthrough will yield different results. It does make one question what inExile were doing with time and money. That is where I almost took several stars off. I was expecting an 80 hour journey. That said, the ride is still great ( I actually feared the main antagonist ) and I think this is why I am leaving 4 stars and not less. To be perfectly honest, it feels a little like Tyranny ( which was an epic ride for me ), where you can see sequel coming. Tides does not leave you with that impression, but the world is simply asking for it.
I will keep it brief. The game is addictive. The game is hard. The music is atmospheric. The narration is superb. The fighting system is interesting and it takes a lot to do well in a dungeon. Yesterday I started doing really well for a couple of runs and started feeling a little cocky; I got almost wiped out in the next encounter ( it was as if the game purposefully threw you a curve ball to see if you survive ). I had to run. It feels like an exploration. And you always want to do just one more run. I will update the review once I beat the game or it beats me.
Extremely addictive, fairly difficult.. I am currently on +2 new game. And it is still challenging. I removed the star for occasional unexplained quit ( Win 7 64 if it helps anyone ). Anyway, good game.
