Board 8 > Torment: Tides of Numenara impressions

(+) Yeah! (+)

For the 5 people on the board who like this kind of game! I'm about 2/3 of the way through the game.

-Writing is good! This is by far the most important thing in a game like this. There's lots of words and I like reading them. Sometimes it veers into purple prose territory but overall I like it a lot.

-The beginning is overwhelming because the game's setting is dense and filled with terms and rules you won't understand. There's no codex to help so you're basically thrown into the deep end and expected to sink or swim. However, it doesn't take long for the pieces to start fitting together, and once you get a grasp of the world it becomes very interesting.

-Each major setting/conflict in the game has been better than the last. And I liked the first city a lot too!

-There's these little story side events where you dive into the past via Merecasters and they're my favorite part of the game. Manage to be surprisingly engrossing.

-The party members are overall pretty good. There's one or two that I really don't care about, but there's a few I really like which is that's necessary to have fun. Wish you could have more than 3 of them with you at a time though.

-New combat system is slow and boring. Still probably better than the old Planescape combat. If you're somehow a fan of the combat system in Planescape/Baldur's Gate/whatever, this may matter to you. Regardless, you can skip almost all combat through talking which is nice.

-Game feels very clunky and unpolished. Has some random glitches. It isnt a big deal to me because 90% of the time I'm reading text, but yeah production values aren't super high.

-There's a new system called Effort and it sucks. You have to spend stat points from a pool of Strength/Speed/Intelligence to increase the odds of a skill check succeeding. Early on you have very limited points/bonuses and passing any skill check is a pain in the ass. Later on, thanks to level ups, the checks are a joke and you will never fail them. The game tells you not to worry because failing skill checks can lead to interesting outcomes but it's a total lie outside of 1-2 instances. Get ready to quicksave/reload before any skill check to make sure you don't miss out on a bunch of content! Effort is also used to help in-combat skill checks which makes it even more limited.

-The 'Mage' class is still OP. 3/4 of skill checks that matter use Intelligence. It's also the class that lets you get the Scan Thoughts ability right away, which leads to a lot more cool flavor text. For the best possible playthrough, pick the Nano class, then Scan Thoughts, and then put some points into Perception when possible.

-Music is very...very subdued, almost to the point of being nonexistent. There's one track I remember liking (the theme that plays when you're accessing a merecaster). Think they missed a big opportunity here.

-The little voice acting that's there is questionable.

-The 3D graphics are bad and the 2D prerendered graphics are nice. Zoom the camera way far out for optimal enjoyment.


Overall:
-Not as good as Planescape, but a solid spiritual successor
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I know you're out there !!
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metaIslug posted...

Is there any gruesome stuff? like, eyeballs and tattoos and stuff like planescape

Honestly not sure why you're asking (usually when people say 'gruesome' I imagine beheadings, not tattoos) but people get magic tattoos and nanotech eyeballs and stuff like that fairly often in the game world. Early on you have the opportunity to upgrade your main character with a bunch of crazy stuff, like magic living tattoos, a cyber eyeball, nanites living in your blood, wolverine claws, ect.
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I really want the game, but I can't afford it right now. Planescape: Torment is one of my favorite things.
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scarletspeed7 posted...

I really want the game, but I can't afford it right now. Planescape: Torment is one of my favorite things.

Yeah, I do think it's a bit overpriced at $45. Would definitely recommend snapping it up when it goes on sale though.
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tag for later
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you backed it too?
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Wanglicious posted...

you backed it too?

Yup. Got it for $28 because of that which I consider more than fair. I understand a lot of people are complaining about broken backer promises, but I didn't pay attention to the development process (that never makes people feel better about the end result) so I'm just enjoying the end product.
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i'm in a similar boat. i figured i'd get it one day, eventually, and as it kept getting delayed i was just happy i didn't put too much in. think i early bird'd it too so like, i can't complain as long as the writing is good. i'm sure it'll be polished up as patches come along.
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I've got it, but I haven't played it yet. Honestly, I haven't played much Horizon Zero Dawn or Story of Seasons, which I picked up on the same (launch) day.

Up.
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How's it compare to Pillars of Eternity? I kinda hated that.
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i didn't like Pillars of Eternity much. Tides has a much stronger focus on characters and story while PoE focused more on the gameplay like Baldur's Gate did. And I don't like that style of gameplay at all.
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