Torment: Tides of Numenera

Good and very unique game. The biggest and most raised "flaw" is that this is nothing like the original Planescape: Torment, which is first of all good because it was a terrible game, and also a valid criticism because the game would have done so much better without the "Torment" association, as they have literally nothing in common. Tides of Numenera is not like most CRPGs and I do find it very understandable for people to not enjoy it because of that, but I think it offers the most unique CRPG experience on the market at writing moment. The game is honestly more akin to a visual novel than anything else. It is extremely text heavy even compared to Pillars of Eternity, Baldur's Gate, or Planescape: Torment, and the combat is sparse at best. As long as you realize this and go in with those expectations, I think it's a very enjoyable game. It also has one of the best approaches to chance based dialogue options I have seen, where you can spend resources to increase your chances, but also where a failure can be just as rewarding and/or more unexpectedly interesting than a success with new events and dialogue branches popping up BECAUSE you failed. It's not a perfect system, but it's a damn good attempt. The combat itself is not bad. While fairly basic it still offers some choice and tactical decisions, which honestly most other CRPGs do not do, especially not real-time with pause ones which are basically glorified Diablo 1 clones. On a personal note I also quite enjoy the Numenera setting, which is quite unique. Although the level design is not always great. At times it mostly just feels like the devs just randomly placed some completely unrelated points of interest everywhere and you're just randomly walking around poking weird objects like some kind of museum. While I can't quite say without replaying it, there does seem to be quite a lot of ways to approach most situations in the game, and how to build your characters personality and to stay in character as well.

Waaaaaayyy too much lore! Makes casual readers dizzy and confused. ...and I love it.

This game is an unexpected gem to me. I started it just after I finished Planescape Torment EE, feeling an itch to fill the void and experience something similar. I didn't have high expectation due to "mostly positive" but the actual experience has been amazing! I think the game deserves more recognition than it has. Not a native speaker in English, I spent 50+ hours to play through the game vs the 30 h average, but 80% of the time the length of reading doesn't feel painful at all, rather it was engaging and enjoyable. I think Numenera's narrative tone is more serious and most of the side quests are better written than PT. I like ToN's more modern dialogue tree design and companion quests, and journal seldom gave me the disoriented feeling like I sometimes was in PT. However, I agree the ending of PT strikes with much more emotional weight because it feels much more personal and self-redemptive. It is no doubt a classic, but ToN tells another quality story that worth investing in - I don't see why so many reviewers dislike this game with a nostalgic kaleidoscope. I would rate ToN's narrative writing lower than Disco Elysium but on par or even higher than most other titles such as PoE and DOS 2.

I'll give them an 'A' for effort but this game is unfortunately a failure. They didn't really, truly understand what made Planescape:Torment an absolute classic. I think they looked at the first Torment game and said to themselves "Ok, it has a unique bizarre atmosphere, lots and lots of dialog and descriptions, and the occasional combat that isn't really handled very well. So, if we just do the same thing our game will be just as good!" But no, it doesn't work that way. The unique, bizarre atmosphere (environments) in this game are definitely unique and bizarre but are not compelling in the slightest. And indeed there is lots and lots of dialog and description text but it's all written by someone with about 1% of the talent as the original Torment designers (mostly Chris Avellone but with contributions by other designers as well.) Again, the intention was pure and clearly a lot of effort went into making this game. But the talent needed to actually pull off a game like Planescape:Torment was missing and so the final product just ends up being an uninteresting slog.

Я не смогла доиграть. В какой-то момент игра окончательно меня задушила. С самого начала на игрока вываливают тонны всяких описаний, изобилующих непонятными терминами выдуманного мира - шины, нуменеры, отверженные, меняющийся бог, цветение, Первые, Вторые, Третьи... к этому еще добавляется общий лор с инопланетянами, магией, сектантами разных мастей, гильдиями, безумными устройствами раскиданными по всей карте - и ты сидишь и ничего не понимаешь что происходит. Очень тяжело вникнуть и влиться в сюжет. Боёв тут практически нет. Боевая система очень непривычная. По началу она вообще вводила меня в ступор. Есть например характеристика интеллект, ты его качаешь, но это не просто показатель, а ты его тратишь на разговоры и заклинания. В начале дня у тебя 10 интеллекта, а после драки 3. Отупел слегка. И так же точно с силой и другими характеристиками. Восстанавливается после отдыха. Не то чтобы это система сложная или плохая, просто она совершенно другая к которой мы привыкли по другим играм, ну и она не предполагает что ты будешь много драться. Диалоги мудреные и странные. Но это беда или особенность наверное всех рпг. У каждого встреченного бомжа есть для тебя квест, а ты с радостью берешься за всё. Все тебе будут пояснять за лор города и рассказывать про всякие штуки как ходячие энциклопедии. Вспоминается один диалог. Стоит чиновник местный перед правительственным зданием, решает дела горожан, очередь столпилась перед ним. Начинаешь с ним разговор, чиновник говорит: - ой, я такой занятой, занятой, что тебе надо, иди отсюда. - а расскажи мне о городе - ну ок, вот город такой и такой. И простыня текста. - а расскажи мне о правительстве - ок, вот такое-то правительство. И опять простыня текста - а можете выслушать, помочь с проблемой - нет, я занят, я занят, ужасно занят, иди что-нибудь сделай, достань для меня, тогда я тебя выслушаю - ну тогда про город еще раз расскажи. - ок, вот город... И так все персонажи. В общем, игра душная, многотекстовая. Несмотря таинственный мир он воспринимается не как что-то увлекательное, что хочется узнавать, а как учебник химии когда надо прилагать усилия чтобы врубиться в происходящее

The Stacy of CRPGs. Looks great, but shallow. Gets a bit purple prose-y at times like Pillars. Lots of new mechanics which must've been risky for the devs to implement, so hats off for experimentation. It's a great game that holds up on its own, but using the tagline "What does one life matter?" ala Planescape feels like comparing a paper written by a philosophy 101 student to a treatise by Immanuel Kant. There's a few bugs but nothing too gamebreaking. Lots of surprises and choice in dealing with quests, and it's entirely possible to go through the game with only about a dozen unavoidable combat encounters. Buy it on sale if you can, or if you're bored and looking for an innovative twist on Planescape. Just, I wish devs would stop labelling their games as the "Spiritual Successor to Baldur's Gate/Icewind Dale/Planescape Torment", and have confidence in themselves to create something fresh. Final Score: 7/10

Short version: If you're a hardcore CRPG fan and have played all of the most well known games in the genre then yeah, give this a go. Otherwise, don't bother. Long Version: Where to even start. Firstly, it's only Torment in title. Compared to PST, it's less polished, worse combat, worse dialogue, worse lore, worse story, worse companions, more bugs and has zero connection to PST. In fact, I'd say the same things when compared to any modern CRPG such as DOS, POE, Tyranny, BG3 etc etc. That's not to say this is a bad game, but it's not great either. While I can't prove it, there's this overwhelming feeling I get that this has a lot of cut content from it. Some characters just have too much dialogue for no reason. This would be ok if the world was interesting but it just isn't. From my understanding, the devs based this version of Torment on an upcoming TRPG called Numenera that was being Kickstarted at the same time, most likely for budget reasons. For lack of a better term, Numenera just feels like it's 'trying too hard' and doesn't even come close to the genuine bizarre yet interesting feel that is found in Sigil. There is way too much descriptive text that eventually I just started to skip it. The Merecaster system initially comes across as interesting and different but ends up just being annoying as it's just a mini choose your own adventure novel often having to get 'good endings' down to luck or repeated save scumming. You can basically just talk your way through the entire game or resort to combat. The combat is passable but very easy and minimal. If you're not interested in combat then you can just persuade speech check (or some other skill check option) your way through basically everything. However, it never feels interesting when you do this. When you have the option to use persuasion on almost every NPC you talk to it starts to not feel like an accomplishment. As mentioned above the game lacks polish. A lot of quests are buggy and often people would be unresponsive when you try to talk to them, resulting in multiple attempts to start dialogue. If loot drops but someone is standing in front of you, you can forget about that loot. There's even a bug where if you talk too much in a single dialogue box, the game slows to a halt. Often I'd have to choose half of the dialogue options, exit conversation, then start talking to them again to avoid this. This is very frustrating in such a dialogue heavy game. I can only assume that due to low sales, the devs stopped providing patches. Honestly, the ending just felt like a padded out slog and I was glad to be done with it. However, I love this genre and I still somewhat enjoyed this game. It's still an ok CRPG and in such a niche genre I welcome it. I really wonder if the devs were happy with the final product of this game. I'd give it a 6/10 if you're a fan of the genre. Otherwise you'll probably hate it.

欲戴其冠，必承其重。作为《planescape: torment》的精神续作，本作可谓是极其失败。 它在表面上学到了《planescape: torment》的形，但是没有学到后者的神。 具体表现为，世界观塑造毫无统一性，人物对话、事件文本胡里花哨又言之无物，支线任务展现的世界观和主线严重割裂。 在《planescape: torment》，所有的游戏文本我都看得津津有味。但是本作，我就是看不下去。真的是越玩，就越为我浪费的时间感到愤怒。这里建议《planescape: torment》的老粉引以为戒，不要白白浪费时间和金钱。