Torment: Tides of Numenera

 PC
User Score
6.9

Mixed or average reviews- based on 441 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 250 out of 441
  2. Mixed: 88 out of 441
  3. Negative: 103 out of 441

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  1. ShtKck
    Mar 9, 2017
    4
    grew up a high fan of all the infinitiy engine games. I backed Pillars. I backed Torment. I thought the new golden age of cRPGs was upon us. It had to be, these games had record funding.

    And they were incredibly poorly planned and managed. We saw some of these issues with Pillars but it's even worse with Torment. Much of the base game that was planned was cut. Entire stretch goals    grew up a high fan of all the infinitiy engine games. I backed Pillars. I backed Torment. I thought the new golden age of cRPGs was upon us. It had to be, these games had record funding.

    And they were incredibly poorly planned and managed. We saw some of these issues with Pillars but it's even worse with Torment.

    Much of the base game that was planned was cut. Entire stretch goals that we earned were cut. These cuts, while not only making the game significantly more shallow with significantly less replayability, are the antithesis of this RPG system. Go on, count how many companions shipped at launch, the laughable amount of focuses, literally no factions as we were promises, no crafting system.

    Kickstarter is allowing developers to deliver whatever they want. And that is something I'm never going to support again. If there would be a platform that binds the developers with a contract to fulfilll their promises and design targets, I would reconsider it but Tides, along with so many incredibly successful kickstarted games simply aren't delivering what they're promsing. What we paid for.

    InExile has had zero transparency about the entire thing, and will only acknowledge it after the fans make it into a scandal. Zero accountability. I am sorry I backed Bards Tale 2 and now I understand why they kickstarted the next Wasteland before this launched and blew up in their faces. Who knows how many dollars from this sinking ship they put into those more marketable games?    … Expand
  2. moonlight_shado
    Mar 2, 2017
    4
    - This is not Torment by any stretch of the imagination. Just comparing itself to the 1999 masterpiece, is anathema.
    - Extremely poor audio-visual presentation, even by indie game standards. For a 4.5 million dollar Kickstarter, this is a disgrace.
    - In spite of its rich world and lore, it utterly fails to create an emotional connection with the player or make us care about    - This is not Torment by any stretch of the imagination. Just comparing itself to the 1999 masterpiece, is anathema.
    - Extremely poor audio-visual presentation, even by indie game standards. For a 4.5 million dollar Kickstarter, this is a disgrace.
    - In spite of its rich world and lore, it utterly fails to create an emotional connection with the player or make us care about anything going on in the Last Castoff's story.
    - RPG mechanisms, character development, inventory acquisition and management are at amateur levels.
    - Meres and their sad, sad implementation. It would have been preferable to save some face and not include them at all.
    - The bitter aftertaste in players' mouths, that this was merely a tech demo for selling the Numenera world to prospective publishers for future projects. There is no game here.
    - The silently cut stretch goals of the Kickstarter campaign. In light of the project's extremely poor quality, the argument of "We wanted to focus on polish" seems even weaker. High tier backers should be furious.

    http://ragequit.gr    … Expand
  3. mindw0rk
    Mar 2, 2017
    4
    After several hours I gave up. Torment: ToN is nowhere near the quality of Planescape. While it has similar amount of texts, those texts are just boring to read which is a killer for this type of game. I wanted to like it but I felt like Im climbing on a wall of words that barely make any sense.
  4. Romanfiend
    Mar 7, 2017
    0
    "All flavor, no meat" is the best way to describe Torment:ToN.

    I should point out that I am one of the original backers from 4 years ago and loved the Original Planescape Torment - having played it a dozen times at least. The original Torment was reviewed by the New York Time which felt that it should be elevated to the status of literature due to the depth, beauty and originality of    "All flavor, no meat" is the best way to describe Torment:ToN.

    I should point out that I am one of the original backers from 4 years ago and loved the Original Planescape Torment - having played it a dozen times at least. The original Torment was reviewed by the New York Time which felt that it should be elevated to the status of literature due to the depth, beauty and originality of the writing - and I completely agree - the writing was that good.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/27/technology/game-theory-a-universe-where-ideas-can-trump-actions.html

    Not so much the sequel, Planescape Torment: ToN. I am not sure where to begin with all the problems this game has.

    1) Poor NPC introduction and character development. During this game I really reached a point of not really caring at all about my fellow companions. Mainly because there wasn't really anything compelling to care about. If you look at the original game, each companion is introduced to you from a space that matches who they are. Morte you meet in the beginning after you awaken in the Dusties mortuary. Fall-from-Grace in the Brothel Of Slaking Intellectual Lusts, Anna-From the Shadows you meet in the Beggar Kings domain surrounded by shadows and thieves, Nordrom is found in a tainted Modron construct and so on... They are all incredible well-voiced and have distinct opinions and personalities as well as extensive backstories that you have to dig out. They also are linked to you through a unified theme - that of being broken and/or creatures that defy their own nature. In ToN I felt the companions were just kind of there - not much to the backstory nor are they all that important.

    2) Way too much flavor without substance. There was just an exhaustive amount of shallow flavor interactions with this game that didn't have a whole lot to do with the main story. Although this feels like more a result of the universe - the Numenera - which is everywhere. The whole point of the Numenera is you never find out who made any of it or what its original purpose is/was - which can be fun in small doses but this game is lousy with that sort of thing. It just becomes one exhausting and unfulfilling interaction after another - wondering if this strange thing is important (usually not).

    3) Show don't tell - this has been said many times and it is spot on. This just doesn't feel like an RPG - more of a story we are being told and we have to click the screen a bunch to get to the next part. I lost count of the number of times the writing devolved into telling us what we should be experiencing and what we should know instead of showing us what is there to see and letting us figure it out. The original Planecape has been called literature - and I agree - it definitely hits that bar. ToN is barely storytelling - and at the juvenile level at best.

    4) The combat is terrible, boring and confusing. It actually ends up being a blessing that combat is so rare in this game (although it shouldn't be if the game was well made), because it is really unsatisfying. Thankfully mostly you can skip it.

    So basically there is a lot more but it comes down to this -it's pretty clear that the real genius behind the original Planescape Torment was Chris Avellone - who was not present on this project. Thankfully Chris is working on Divinity Original Sin 2 - so I have that to look forward to but I am done with Brian Fargo and InExile Entertainment. Wasteland 2 was just as weak and tedious story-wise as this title and its clear they don't have the writing chops to offer anything worthy of the titles and legacies they are pilfering just to make an extra buck.

    Skip this game and everything else form InExile - they are talentless hacks - all of them.    … Expand
  5. night4
    Mar 1, 2017
    4
    Initial impressions: The game is TELLING me all about all kinds of events, past and present, but it's not SHOWING me much of anything. I wasn't expecting insane graphics, but even Baldur's Gate had a little graphic to go with, say, the dream sequences. There's so much nothingness here.

    I read, and if I wanted to read a book, I'd do just that. I'm playing a game because I want more than    Initial impressions: The game is TELLING me all about all kinds of events, past and present, but it's not SHOWING me much of anything. I wasn't expecting insane graphics, but even Baldur's Gate had a little graphic to go with, say, the dream sequences. There's so much nothingness here.

    I read, and if I wanted to read a book, I'd do just that. I'm playing a game because I want more than just text. So far this feels rather disappointing, but I'll update if I can make myself play again and it improves.

    Edit: Played more, lowered score from 6 to 5.

    I really don't understand the need to create a completely new vocabulary for everything. "Crisis" for "battle," "esotery" for "spell," "glaive" for "warrior," etc. A few here and there would be fine, but it's like I'm being forced to learn a new language, and I've constantly got to translate what they're talking about into terms I know.

    Along those lines, the game absolutely BOMBARDS you with technical mechanical details at character creation without doing much to explain any of it. I just know I'm going to have to restart after playing a few more hours and regretting my initial choices, which is disappointing.

    Edited again: Lowered from 5 to 4.

    The music is terrible, and the characters are ugly.

    I can't help but wonder where all the money went if this game was so well-funded. I didn't back this game, but I still feel betrayed by inXile.    … Expand
  6. przemeks1982
    Jul 19, 2019
    4
    An interactive book which cost 4 million USD. Where did all the money go to? This game is hardly a game - 95% of it is reading, and maybe 5% is actual action. Instead of seeing things actually happen you read descriptions. You don't get to feel, or experience stuff - just read what the authors wanted you to see/know at this point. I dont mind a good read, but when I sit to a computer toAn interactive book which cost 4 million USD. Where did all the money go to? This game is hardly a game - 95% of it is reading, and maybe 5% is actual action. Instead of seeing things actually happen you read descriptions. You don't get to feel, or experience stuff - just read what the authors wanted you to see/know at this point. I dont mind a good read, but when I sit to a computer to play a game I just expect it to be a game not an interactive book. Especially that the quality of the writting is not that good. The authors fail do deliver an interesting story. You get a lot of boring graphography, which in my case resulted in skipping most of the text. The whole experience was boring, tiring and frustrating. This game is nowhere near the original Torment. I really regret to see another kickstarter funded ripoff.… Expand
  7. zzzdnk
    Jul 16, 2019
    4
    It might have been a decent novel but it fails both as a game and as a legacy of Planescape Torment. Halfway through I lost interest in doing any of the side quests and by the end I couldn't care less about the main story either.

    I didn't get any sense of closure upon finishing it at all. Hardly anything is explained, everything in this game is caused by "forces beyond comprehension".    It might have been a decent novel but it fails both as a game and as a legacy of Planescape Torment. Halfway through I lost interest in doing any of the side quests and by the end I couldn't care less about the main story either.

    I didn't get any sense of closure upon finishing it at all. Hardly anything is explained, everything in this game is caused by "forces beyond comprehension". Blah.

    I sincerely regret wasting my time and money on this game.    … Expand
  8. Kelembribor21
    Sep 13, 2019
    4
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Comparison with legends like Planescape Torment and Baldurs Gate are detrimental to evaluating this very flawed game , which has glimmer of greatness.

    Mostly too much it relies on written text that with deliberate confusing narrative takes away from immersion especially in some important moments.

    Mechanic of combat, meres and use of skill mechanic attempts during dialogue, are not very satisfying, crisis moments are usually very simple or rare compared with huge amounts of descriptive trivial texts without lot of essence.

    Game could have done with some different fleshed out locations , like real Eternal War described in one of the meres, use of more of great trailers like story trailer, when talking with characters their portrait should be visible, some more voice would be needed in important dialogues, gear is really limited ( character can't wear headgear or interesting sets, no customization of voice, appearance or portrait, companions can't change much of the gear) and many quests or characters who start interesting turn really lackluster in the end.    … Expand
  9. yavi
    Jul 5, 2017
    4
    This game fails to deliver on any of its promises and is a mediocre, reading-based experience. Its not strictly bad for an kickstarter non-aaa production, but it fails in every single comparison to the original - yes, even graphics are worse.
    You will read a lot of text, as the most advanced cutscene animation is *character walking*. You will need aother soundtrack, because the game has    This game fails to deliver on any of its promises and is a mediocre, reading-based experience. Its not strictly bad for an kickstarter non-aaa production, but it fails in every single comparison to the original - yes, even graphics are worse.
    You will read a lot of text, as the most advanced cutscene animation is *character walking*. You will need aother soundtrack, because the game has one that is below random flash game quality. You will wonder how a game like that can have loading screens everywhere after Skyrim, Like really, every small room.
    You will be thankful that you can avoid combat, as its so pointlessly boring.
    I can bash and bash it forever - but it has some fair writing, a bunch of nice ideas and a very promising first quest hub with a few story pieces worth reading.

    Get it on some 80+% sales if you want, not worth more.    … Expand
  10. Asderout
    Jul 22, 2018
    4
    Deceived expectations, cut out content and no respect for players, it's all about Fargo's fake.
  11. mal957
    Jul 13, 2022
    2
    The only thing they had to nail is the story. And (surprise) is BORING! endless walls of pretentious text doesn't make a compelling story.
    The rest of game is just bad.
  12. Shamansdrum
    Jul 3, 2020
    4
    What a waste of backer's money this game is. Personally I'm a huge fan of both pen&paper Planescape and Numenera. Therefore I was very enthusiastic throughout the whole development process of this game. After finally playing it I realized that developer's promise about walls of text written for the game rang hollow. Turned out it was not quality writing. It's almost sad how uninterestingWhat a waste of backer's money this game is. Personally I'm a huge fan of both pen&paper Planescape and Numenera. Therefore I was very enthusiastic throughout the whole development process of this game. After finally playing it I realized that developer's promise about walls of text written for the game rang hollow. Turned out it was not quality writing. It's almost sad how uninteresting it is. Plus the game is badly optimized for both pc and ps4 - huge framerate drops . Better go play Disco Elysium.… Expand
  13. iBalkanizze
    Jun 9, 2017
    4
    YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO ADD TEXT TO YOUR GAME NOT GAME TO YOUR TEXT
    A reading simulator with very little combat (4/10)
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Let me say: I'm a big fan of these sort of games but this one just left me unsatisfied and disappointed. 1. This game is mostly about READING walls of text - even if you try to skip    YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO ADD TEXT TO YOUR GAME NOT GAME TO YOUR TEXT
    A reading simulator with very little combat (4/10)
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Let me say: I'm a big fan of these sort of games but this one just left me unsatisfied and disappointed.

    1. This game is mostly about READING walls of text - even if you try to skip reading, you can't - and there's just too much TEXT - it slows the game down to a halt and most of is not even interesting or crucial even though the writing is good

    2. COMBAT is really shallow or should I say inconsequential - and there's very little of it

    3. GRAPHICS are outdated, art style is good though. Character models look like crap

    4. You call this a climatic ending?

    5. There is enough content here to warrant a WAIT FOR DEEP SALE approach but you really, really need to LOVE reading
    .    … Expand
  14. korek_47
    Apr 15, 2017
    3
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Many people here criticize terrible combat (that's true), amazingly bland companions (true), bugs and awful optimisation (true), broken promises, cut things and ugly behaviour of InXile (true) but you should avoid one terrible mistake - disregarding this all for the sake of "hey, at least story is good".
    No, it's absolutely not. Even disregarding all concerns above, this game is my horrible RPG disappointment just because of the botched story and writing. Before I tear those aspects to shreds, just let me tell you I am a great fan of Planescape: Torment and text-heavy RPGs.

    1) If T:ToM is what devs nowadays understand as "deep, high quality writing" then I'd prefer to play hack n slash, because surviving the writing style of this game was... torment.
    Planescape: Torment had a lot of wonderfully written, moving, wise, meaningful text. Torment: Tides of Numenera looked at this and the only thing it understood is "a lot of ANY text is good". The final result: the game is filled to the brim with verbose, overdescriptive, exhausting, pretentious, redundant, meaningless, writing. TTOM is proud of describing the most trivial **** in the most bloated, pseudo-intellectual way possible, and breaking rules of "show, don't tell" in every way. And trust me - I read a lot of books, so I'm not averse to a lot of reading - I simply hate meaningless writing which confuses quantity with quality.
    Maybe I would be less angry on writing in TTOM if next to this nonsense it actually bothered to be emotional in some aspects. But it has completely failed to move my heart and soul. In this game you will get 100 000 words describing how characters look, yet very very few words which even attempt to make you feel what those characters feel. You actually get more lines of text describing environment and looks of some side characters than dialogue interactions with any of your companions. Creators of this mess were so obsessed with impressing you with Numenera setting that they forgot to forge any kind of emotional connection between virtual characters and a player.
    2) Story.
    Another catastrophic failure, on a level completely separate from the horrible writing style.
    Planescape: Torment had story which was simultaneously personal, moving, emotional, philosophical and coherent.
    In this game, you spend 90% of it to "find x to get information on artifact y", waiting for hours for your questions to be answered - for some kind of reveal - only for this reveal to be super disappointing. Within first 15 minutes of the game, you ask yourselves a lot of plot questions ("What is Sorrow" etc) - none of them are really answered in a ridiculously rushed, chaotic mess of an ending. Main story of TTOM is hilariously desperate to be "philosophical" but it doesn't have anything genuine to say, so it indulges into pseudo-intellectual babble about Tides; it uses a lot of angsty metaphors, but when you look at them really closely you see there is nothing meaningful behind them.
    This is a game with no real main character, no real villain, no real intrigue, no closure, nothing except purple prose and pretentious ambitions.
    3) Nonlinearity, morality and endings
    My character was follower of compassionate, Golden Tide, so he got two extra lines of description on one of the static, ugly ending slides. That's it, folks; that's the impact your character has on the world of Numenera.
    4) Characters
    It's hard to say anything about characters of this game, because creators were far more interested in indulging in pseudo-profound metaphysical ******* rather than actually forging relationships between characters, or creating any relatable characters at all. The only exception from this rule is Rhin - the only being in this game who I cared about. The fun fact is, it was not written by devs but by the guest writer. What is even more hilarious, is that this character uses perhaps the simplest dictionary of all beings encountered across the game world, without thousands of half-baked pseudo-philosophical garbage, yet it works better than all of remaining ones combined - because you care about this little girl.

    Other than things above, the game has terribly designed gameplay (combat, technical aspects, balance, pacing), has basically no soundtrack (absolutely nothing memorable - just bland ambient) and numerous other failures, I just wanted to focus on the story aspects.
    I give it 3 because of Rhin, few good ideas and visuals and few cool side quests.    … Expand
  15. GrenadierPartha
    Mar 17, 2017
    3
    I am huge fan of Planescape Torment, and so I jumped at the opportunity to Kickstart this game. I was initially drawn in to the setting, however my patience with the game's writing has worn perilously thin and the gameplay has me on the verge of giving up (I am determined to finish it however, to see just how bad it is going to get by the end).

    I do not feel that this game presents    I am huge fan of Planescape Torment, and so I jumped at the opportunity to Kickstart this game. I was initially drawn in to the setting, however my patience with the game's writing has worn perilously thin and the gameplay has me on the verge of giving up (I am determined to finish it however, to see just how bad it is going to get by the end).

    I do not feel that this game presents particularly good writing. It does however provide a great example of a situation where an editor was desperately needed. A lot of the text that is presented is redundant, either with other text in the same presentation (suggesting a lack of proofreading) or with other graphical content (why describe features of the environment that are being shown on the screen?). So much emphasis is given to the setting and environmental characters that the companions are left poorly developed, and the motivation for why the main character is on their quest in the first place is lost. I guess there is a big bad that we are supposed to be afraid of? That others have successfully eluded for centuries? Where is the urgency?

    The crisis encounters are baffling. There are not many of them, but even those that were included are poorly thought-out. Turn-based combat does not mix well with throwing large numbers of enemies at the player. Even worse when there are NPC turns that they spend running around (this problem goes back to the original Fallout, at least). If there are six consecutive enemy turns coming up, can you not find a way to have them all act at the same time? Or perhaps do not create encounters with large numbers of characters?

    I am currently "stuck" on a crisis encounter (feels like I am 2/3rds through the game) where one character makes a heroic sacrifice to allow you to save others. The way they do so however consistently draws the enemy's large area of effect attacks to precisely the area where the characters I am trying to save are hiding. So far I have restarted the encounter three times. Figuring out how to game a poorly-designed system in order to succeed is not how great Friday nights are made.

    Finally the skill system (you will spend far more time dealing with this than with combat). The skill checks are frustrating. You spend effort points in order to increase your % chance. Initially these are quite limited (and resting can cause you to suddenly fail at quest objectives) so you will enjoy the frustration of putting a lot of intellect points into getting a high chance of succeeding on a skill check and then failing anyway (with that path now usually locked off). Do not worry however, by the time you have a full party of companions and a few level-ups under your belt you will never see another skill check in the game that you are not able to get a 100% success on.

    I feel like all of these problems would have been immediately obvious if the game had been play-tested. I do not understand how they are still in the game at release.    … Expand
  16. petmonster
    Mar 31, 2017
    2
    Worldbuilding: 3/10 has tons of mismashed ideas serve no purpose, isnt explained and makes no sense when you put everything together.

    Writing: 2/10: Purple Prose! Very amateurish, and not easy to read. A good editor would cut the dialogue in half, and game would make more sense even. Graphics are good but inconsistent. Gameplay: 2/10 There are super hightech beamguns but also    Worldbuilding: 3/10 has tons of mismashed ideas serve no purpose, isnt explained and makes no sense when you put everything together.

    Writing: 2/10: Purple Prose! Very amateurish, and not easy to read. A good editor would cut the dialogue in half, and game would make more sense even.

    Graphics are good but inconsistent.

    Gameplay: 2/10 There are super hightech beamguns but also wooden round shields that gives you 15% evasion... there are ultra high tech wrist thingies. 3 pool system doesnt work. resting costs money. pfff. when you die your hit points got refills but not stat pools. notjhing happens to your not immortal companions.

    Story 2/10. the writers tried too hard. but in the end its simple as f.

    Sounds and music 4/10 gots repetetive soon.

    Also the game isnt stable enough to ship.
    low framerates. Freesing ai.
    equipment related bugs. etc.
    very low quality product.    … Expand
  17. KeyboardPlayer
    Mar 10, 2017
    1
    no. no. no. no. NO!
    i'm a fan of the original torment. i was excited for this. THANK GOD i didn't back it up.
    too much dialogues. every character you meet as TONS of lines of dialogues. if someone told me this, i would have thought of it as a good thing... EXCEPT IT'S NOT. it's too much. you talk to a guy, you need to read a novel. You make 2 steps, talk to another guy: another nove. too    no. no. no. no. NO!
    i'm a fan of the original torment. i was excited for this. THANK GOD i didn't back it up.
    too much dialogues. every character you meet as TONS of lines of dialogues. if someone told me this, i would have thought of it as a good thing... EXCEPT IT'S NOT. it's too much. you talk to a guy, you need to read a novel. You make 2 steps, talk to another guy: another nove. too much. too boring. And they're all SUPER SPECIAL!
    and there are almost no animations for things that happen in the game. say, for example, the game writes "the characters makes a polite bow when you approach him"... BUT IT'S ONLY WRITTEN, NOT SHOWN. that character doesn't actually bow, it's only in the description. all the game is like that. it's a damn text adventure with backgrounds.
    "tell don't show"
    or when the game tells you that a character is "incredibly fat" but its sprite is just slightly larger than the others.
    there also are NO portraits of the characters that you're talking to. not even the most important ones.
    the game want to feel special at all times. the skill system is weird and overly complicated. cyphers are a stupid idea. all the vocabulary of the game just DOESN'T WANT SO BADLY to be like the rest, and you have different terms for things you already know. also the way you solve stuff by investing point... yeah, go on, keep trying to be original AT ALL COST: you're also being NOT FUN.
    combat is super boring and buggy.
    you can lose a VERY important skill and a companion in the city if you actually HELP HER by giving her money. and there is no warning for this, and no second tries. It's infuriating.
    this is a complete slander of the name "torment"    … Expand
  18. lastcorn
    Mar 7, 2017
    3
    Tides of Numenera copies Planescape: Torment, yet fails to realize what really made that game great.
    Lot of words doesn't equal good writing or storytelling.
  19. Merostin
    Mar 14, 2017
    4
    Let's start with the PROs as there are only two:

    + The story is decent, although not mind-blowing. + Two locations are incredibly well-designed: Sagus and Bloom + Two interesting companions The CON list is endless, but I'll try to sum it up: - Character development is bad, really, really, really bad: no matter what skills you choose, you can click easily through all dialogues.    Let's start with the PROs as there are only two:

    + The story is decent, although not mind-blowing.
    + Two locations are incredibly well-designed: Sagus and Bloom
    + Two interesting companions

    The CON list is endless, but I'll try to sum it up:

    - Character development is bad, really, really, really bad: no matter what skills you choose, you can click easily through all dialogues.
    - Dialogues are often (but not always) boring: every character wants to tell you his own life story and I'm sorry, but it's often not exciting.
    - Combat is so tedious that you don't want to engage in any fights.
    - Decisions don't matter. No matter how you play, then ending is the same.
    - The areas between the main locations are terribly designed
    - Most companions are boring

    I could continue with this list: The game is filled with game mechanics that don't make any sense (e.g. the option to choose more cipher spots that you will never use).

    The developers made the highest promises and delivered a really bad game. If you add the fact that the game was well funded and took four years to develop and if you think about how quickly RPGs used to be made in the 90s, one can only scratch one's head.

    InXile has failed on all levels.

    I played through Numenera quickly and then started another Planescape Torment play-through - and it is so much, much, much better.    … Expand
  20. ZapRowzdower
    Mar 27, 2017
    0
    It feels bloated, while managing to be a horribly under-developed.

    It feels cheap, despite being a $5 million property that was entirely under the dev team's control. Combat feels awful, and every attempt was made to ignore and bypass it as a game feature. As an actual approach to game design, this **** sucks. If you decide a particular aspect is a drag, remove it, don't embrace its    It feels bloated, while managing to be a horribly under-developed.

    It feels cheap, despite being a $5 million property that was entirely under the dev team's control.

    Combat feels awful, and every attempt was made to ignore and bypass it as a game feature. As an actual approach to game design, this **** sucks. If you decide a particular aspect is a drag, remove it, don't embrace its drag-potential by just refusing to address it as anything any player would actually want to do. The team seemingly had the same idea about character graphics.

    The backgrounds are pretty. Gotta give them that.

    The game doesn't succeed or build upon PS:T. It mimics it. Badly. It sticks like glue to the idea of wordiness, as though that was genuinely one of the strongest features of the original. This is why the word "pretentious" exists. Everything feels like the Architect scene in the second Matrix.
    I get it, vocabulary. Cool.

    If you're willing to simultaneously forgive all of the errors in oversight, which arguably should've been fixed by giving the team 5 years to make this game, all the errors in lack of game immersion, which should've been fixed because the team consists primarily of veterans who ostensibly knew they were designing a GAME, if you're willing to be cool with a team that raked in kickstarter funds by promising strech goals that were removed without initially even letting backers know (and surprisingly didn't offer any refunds for), if you're willing to forgive empty attempts at "depth" through short-bus existentialist exposition, then...

    I don't know, read more? Still skip this game.

    *    … Expand
  21. PresCthulhu
    Mar 5, 2017
    0
    This is such a major letdown. The world is completely plastic, every single quest has a forced deep philosophic element. I get that was partially in PS:T as well, but they really went overboard with it. The full game is 30 hours and I read everything and did almost all side-quest. The replay-ability is virtually non-existent as your choices are not really interesting. Picking your genderThis is such a major letdown. The world is completely plastic, every single quest has a forced deep philosophic element. I get that was partially in PS:T as well, but they really went overboard with it. The full game is 30 hours and I read everything and did almost all side-quest. The replay-ability is virtually non-existent as your choices are not really interesting. Picking your gender does literally nothing significant. There is literally no point to fight in the game almost everything can be solved without it. Yes I like when there is an option to skip fights especially when it is RP wise makes more sense, but here there is literally no point to do so. The characters are completely bland are overall a let down. The game went for an isometric view and despite that the graphics are still sub-par. It is painful to say, but Pillars of Eternity that came out way before this is a superior game to this (and I didn't like that much either, but at least it had an atmosphere). Normally I would give this like 3 points, but knowing the background of everything I consider this an atrocity against gamers and fans to the original so it well deserves a 0. Shame on the developer.… Expand
  22. jarlaxle_95
    Mar 13, 2017
    0
    This review is coming from someone who has played RPGs, old and new, for countless hours. Planescape, Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, KotOR to name a few.

    I loved Planescape. I even liked the combat. Nice hack and slash, spells and effects. Not the best by any means but, hey, the game was very enjoyable. The writing was astonishing, still not surpassed by anyone. And there was so, so much    This review is coming from someone who has played RPGs, old and new, for countless hours. Planescape, Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, KotOR to name a few.

    I loved Planescape. I even liked the combat. Nice hack and slash, spells and effects. Not the best by any means but, hey, the game was very enjoyable. The writing was astonishing, still not surpassed by anyone. And there was so, so much of it. It never felt heavy though because every sentence had context and a reason to be there.

    This game is an abomination. I lasted 3 hours, desperate not to fail in giving this game a chance. I am their target audience, this game was supposedly made with me and other like minded people in mind.

    I hope this travesty was made with honest intentions cause the execution is so poor it actually made me sad. The premise is interesting but that's the only positive I can find.
    -Story/writing: Oh boy, this game challenges you not to break your screen. Text upon text upon text. Boring infodumps everywhere that just can't stop. The player needs to be given a reason to care, to get emotionally invested in the story. This is neither a game, nor a book. It's the worst of both worlds.
    -Audio/visual: Great graphics are not needed for a game. Nor sound. Artistic direction is what's needed. There is none here. The game looks horrible. PoE didn't look that great either but the colors they used weren't such an eyesore.
    -Gameplay: Nonexistent. This isn't a game by any means. Maybe after 5 hours there is some gameplay where I can actually do stuff that's cool, who knows.

    Save yourself your hard earned money. Old school RPGs are never coming back and maybe that's a good thing. Cause when they do try to come back, they remind you how great the sex was, but now you are just a dude in your 60s who can't get a hard on. Let's just keep those memories and move on with the times. Find yourself a blowup doll and play the witcher or something. Shoot me now.    … Expand
  23. CrameBender
    Mar 6, 2017
    0
    1. Constant crashes, bugs and glitches.

    2. Writing is very weak, the superficial complexity and excessive focus on minor details in dialogues hide generic and bland personalities of various NPCs, lack of interesting and immersive options for the PC. Usually you have only one proper course of action with no flexibility whatsoever. 3. Roleplaying system is also bland and pathetic, you    1. Constant crashes, bugs and glitches.

    2. Writing is very weak, the superficial complexity and excessive focus on minor details in dialogues hide generic and bland personalities of various NPCs, lack of interesting and immersive options for the PC. Usually you have only one proper course of action with no flexibility whatsoever.

    3. Roleplaying system is also bland and pathetic, you can easliy stack all of the social skills and get access to every option possiblwe, leeting you companions win every battle for you.    … Expand
  24. ebo974
    Mar 6, 2017
    3
    Big deception. This is not fun at all to play. Absolutly no action, not enough fights or exploration. BG or the first Planescape were far better...
    Technically very old and ugly.

    A big fail.
  25. Samum
    Mar 5, 2017
    4
    Ugly russian localization, no DLC Outfits for Steam, very bad graphics, not Planescape legacy, not interesting companions. Very ugly user interface...
  26. brindle88
    Mar 9, 2017
    0
    I purchased this game on steam and I stopped playing it fairly early on because it was just to boring.

    The main concern I have with torment is that I think the game has absolutely no direction and it becomes lost in its own weird little universe. I must criticize the following: - the combat is terrible. No effort has been put into this to make it enjoyable. - there is WAAAYYY to    I purchased this game on steam and I stopped playing it fairly early on because it was just to boring.

    The main concern I have with torment is that I think the game has absolutely no direction and it becomes lost in its own weird little universe. I must criticize the following:

    - the combat is terrible. No effort has been put into this to make it enjoyable.
    - there is WAAAYYY to much scripting and it is BOORINGG!!!
    - Character progression is redundant, pointless and non-fulfilling
    - World is not immersive
    - Gameplay is not fun

    I am stunned that the developers released this game and I don't think it will sell well. If anything it will be another game riding of the back of the success of Pillars Of Eternity (which it is nothing like)    … Expand
  27. firkraag79
    Mar 16, 2017
    0
    No game. Ugly bad combat/game mechanics. Fair writing. Okay main story. Too much athmo/background bla-bla. Not in any way as funny/good/philosophic/thoughful/reflective writing as we had in Torment:Planescape. Don't buy this unless you want to read 30 hours of background/athmo dialogs. No replay value. Very little game for the money. Rather play the original planescape:torment a dozenNo game. Ugly bad combat/game mechanics. Fair writing. Okay main story. Too much athmo/background bla-bla. Not in any way as funny/good/philosophic/thoughful/reflective writing as we had in Torment:Planescape. Don't buy this unless you want to read 30 hours of background/athmo dialogs. No replay value. Very little game for the money. Rather play the original planescape:torment a dozen times and have fun with Morte, Anna, Nordom and *Dakkon* ! This game is an abomination. **** animations. Bad sounds, but okayish writing. But in no way a sequel not even by a far cry to P:ST. They did not even implement all the stretch goals they announced. What a scam and money grab.… Expand
  28. batmaster
    Mar 2, 2017
    3
    I am very disappointed. Game is boring, Too much text, too much persons, no emotions. Confusing user interface (journal, inventory, skills ...). Poor graphic and music. Sometimes less is better. I give up. :(
  29. Solaris123
    Dec 26, 2019
    0
    This is a joke, the rating is too high for this thing, the new "torment" is the most boring rpg that was created in this decade, the story is about anything already overrated and boring pillars were better
  30. jseph1234
    Apr 10, 2023
    1
    Endless reading game with a little bit of Gameplay. I have NEVER Seen such a dry and boring RPG that InXile Tricked up and got people to Kickstart. A Scam and Trick game!
  31. Barrage
    Apr 24, 2023
    4
    I was a huge fan of Planescape: Torment, but I was very disappointed by this spiritual successor. That may partially be because I've never played the Numenera tabletop system.

Awards & Rankings

55
#55 Best PC Game of 2016
44
#44 Most Discussed PC Game of 2016
17
#17 Most Shared PC Game of 2016

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
81

Generally favorable reviews - based on 72 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 57 out of 72
  2. Mixed: 14 out of 72
  3. Negative: 1 out of 72
  1. RPGamer
    May 29, 2017
    50
    What Tides of Numenera offers is a rich experience in learning lore and then making a final multiple guess at the ending, all the while never being fully satisfying in terms of presentation. There's more playability to this take on this game, but it might be better off being used for a title that has far less baggage.
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  2. Games Master UK
    May 19, 2017
    92
    Wonderful writing, deep quests, and the ability to truly shape your character make for a quality RPG. [Apr 2017, p.78]
  3. LEVEL (Czech Republic)
    Apr 18, 2017
    100
    Great RPG depends mainly on the conversations and colorful bizarre world into which it takes you …while it is not focused on combat and other traditional elements. [Issue#273]
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