Enjoyed it when it came out, enjoying it still again. Felt the itch to poke around the world a bit after playing Avowed, having played POE1 and 2 years prior.. I don't recall if I ever made it to White March, though, and the opinion of it seems glowing, so now's a good a time as any.
People are saying there isn't a manual because there wasn't, despite it being promised, repeatedly, and not delivered. Anyone familiar with this developer, and his history, won't be surprised - the game was "in active development" for 20-some years, with endless promises to deliver that never panned out. Combat "can" be sped up, but remains pointlessly clunky and silly. 99% of the combats, which happen SUPER often even with "Rare" Or "Never?" set to encounter frequency, involve just holding enter. There's no reason to cast spells or waste time with tactics - just hack away mindlessly. But you can't hold numpad enter, you have to hold return enter, despite most controls being mouse-based. Also you don't "press" enter, you hold it, the entire combat, because you have to press it (or click!) for EVERY line of text, of which 4 pop up per attack/spell/etc. (or more, as spells show several lines per enemy affected). Tedious. The story/puzzles are obtuse and amateurish in writing. The game can't decide if it's trying to be silly, self-aware, or sarcastic.. and fails at all three. It isn't "balanced" by any stretch. You go from being one-shot to one-shotting everything, most combats are utter steamrolls in one direction or another. The Manual is inaccurate as of V3. The sound design is awful - sounds repeat constantly and annoyingly. Music changes from screens (inventory, level up, preparing combat actions, combat, etc.) and is jarring. Talking to NPCs is beyond nonsensical most of the time. Most other blobbers of the era this game supposedly "emulates and exceeds" are better, especially given most are a decade+ old. Grimoire attempts to emulate that formula, ignores/removes all QoL, ease of use, etc. (UI, sound design, inventory management, spell management, etc.) and passes it off as "difficult" or "classic." In reality it's a hamfisted attempt at best. And then if you add BACK in the developer's.. uh.. tendencies.. well. It doesn't paint any prettier a picture.
This game is obviously inspired by quite a few titles but, sadly, rather than take and improve on some aspects, they tried to doubledown. The combat is ALL about dodging and learning patterns - fair enough. Problem is, there's an intentional hitch of delay with moving/turning/etc., meaning you are constantly hit early on, and each new enemy just means bunches of hits and dancing back and forth. It's as un-fun as often as it is fun, at least to me. It strikes the awkward 'balance' between real-time and turn-based that just fails at being fun. The devs WAY overused the "this room is obviously trapped and here's 4 enemies in a 3x3 arena suddenly" trope. You see it coming over and over, but bricks and such can't trigger anything early, you have no choice other than to step into the obvious trap and get swarmed. When you can and can't hit enemies is inconsistent with regards to corners, and the inverse is true. Sometimes you can be hit around corners with abilities that affect surrounding tiles, sometimes you can't. Enemies also sense you around corners and will use these abilities before you can even back up, forcing you to take a DoT hit. Status effects like stun seem useful.. until you realize enemies immediately swing the second it wears off and there's no way to tell when it's going to wear off precisely, so trying to take advantage of stuns just means you take hits. I love the look and feel, the setting and story all seem fine, the stats and skills and all are fairly unique and all, but the awkward desire to straddle real time and not-quite-real-time just really mucks up the combat. It feels too twitchy while also not letting you actually twitch, leaving a lot of hits to just feel unfair, or forcing you to do the Dark Souls-esque dodge-tinypoke-dodge-tinypoke-dodge-tinypoke which gets tedius. Speaking of which, way too many enemies just have too much health such that they're downright boring.
I think they did damn good, all in all. I'm surprised to see so much criticism of the turn-based system - I think it's great. It's FAR better than the awkward-as-hell pauseable real-time. I know, I know, how could I dare insult it! It's garbage, guys, sorry. Nothing is more frustrating than either having to 1) depend on AI or 2) turn it off and try to manage every single character, click by click, in half-second increments.. or better yet 3) tell them what to do, them sorta half do it, then do something else stupidly and die. It's not fun. It's bad design. Recent games - PoE, Tyranny, Dragon Age(s), etc., all suffer from it. I should be enjoying the strategy and planning it, not frantically and wildly flailing to get anyone to listen without pausing every second. Now, back on to Torment itself. In my opinion, it's Good. Good good. The world is good. It feels right. The characters and themes are strange and insane and varied, but none of it feels forced. Despite being totally nuts, they fit. It all fits, and that makes it hit home. I found myself about 6 hours in and having only done TWO combats, and only having traversed about five game screens. That's a lot of freakin' time to spend talking, puzzling, learning, and enjoying the world. The writing is good, the world is good. The gameplay, about 14 hours in, works. I haven't even done a ton of combat yet, and I'm pretty fine with that. The companions are interesting. The items are strange and varied. Looking at the game, ignoring delays and such which are neither here nor there for the ultimate state of the game, I think Torment is a solid 4.5 stars.
I'm surprised to see so many scathing reviews because the game has "nothing more" to offer than combat.. Grimrock 2, anyone? You could argue that the numerous battles which, to be fair to the developers, are really fairly varied and challenging, are similar in a sense to puzzling things out. I mean, I might as well say Grimrock is just puzzle after puzzle; "no shops, no real story, no ities, no lore, no interaction with npcs", to quote the current top review.. But somehow doesn't deserve one star because of it. The absurd hyperbole in gaming reviews is what makes them generally worthless in this day and age - being overly critical and cynical about games does not help. Aarklash is what it is a - game focused around unique characters with their own unique sets of skills engaging in numerous fairly varied and challenging battles. Aarklash is a game that thrives on its fairly complex and challenging combat. If you came into it expecting something else then you may well be disappointed - what it does it seems to do pretty well. It honestly wasn't even my super cup of tea, but all in all, it was a pretty solid game! I just had to drop my two cents because of the numerous reviews that give Aarklash so much of a thrashing for the very things touted in other games - reviews need to be relatively objective to be useful folks, try to be reasonable.
I've played many of the previous Darkeye games and, personally, I wasn't that excited. They seem to have a lot of depth and and complexity, but without familiarity to the system, nor time to really sit down and pour over rules, some of that falls a bit flat. I also feel, personally, that the race/class options are perhaps a tad stale in this day and age of RPG systems. With that said, however, THIS game played beautifully. The tactical grid-based systems seems to fit extremely well right into the style of game - I played a few hours of the demo and must say I'm absolutely keen on shelling out for the full game once I've got the funds. The voice acting is decent, the story has a decent start and could be promising as it goes along (the usual you-get-blamed-for-something-you-maybe-didn't-do format). But really, the grid based really is what picks this one up. Real-time games based on obscure systems suffer when players don't really understand the nature of what's going on -with a turn based grid, however, you have time to sit there and really peer over every little detail, to examine your surroundings, to carefully gauge your enemies. The spells and abilities seem relatively limited, but there's a swathe of range for customization it would seem, there doesn't appear to be much restriction on what you can/can't take, merely point cost variation.
I played it a while back - It's a diablo-style game, in terms of control and all, but it's all just randomized content. If you like games that start you in a spot and you play out the same scenario time and time again, only randomized, it may be for you. If you expect growth, story, or any other of the usual things you'd expect from a game, you'd be disappointed. Think of it is a destroy-the-base game, but single player, with randomized opponents who are unpredictably random.
