Indie Torment: Tides of Numenera

[radiofloyd]

Way back in April 2013 Tides of Numenera was pitched as a sequel to Planescape Torment and managed to raise over $4 million on Kickstarter.. It was released this year to excellent reviews but in the bastion of good taste that is Steam its user rating is "mixed".

 

 

 

I've played three hours and it's a very interesting game. Personally, I liked Planescape Torment but I can't say that it changed my life when I played it five or so years ago. I'm not really carrying any expectations into Numenera other than hoping it lives up to the reviews.

 

First things first: it is way more of a text adventure (or straight up fantasy/science fiction novel) than a combat heavy traditional rpg in the vein of the old Infinity Engine games. In the opening three hours the game has consisted almost entirely of reading dialogue and making dialogue choices. I was ready for that from reading the reviews though.

 

This has a big influence on the gameplay mechanics. InXile have replaced the tradiditonal D&D stats with Might, Intellect and Willpower. These stats are used in conversation to "win" challenges. In addition to your base levels of might, intellect and willpower (which you can raise), there's also "effort" and "edge". Effort involves you spending one or more points (e.g. might in a might challenge) to increase your chance of success, up to whatever your effort limit is (the effort limit can also be raised). These points you spend are lost until you rest. Edge means that you can use effort without losing points, so if you have one point of edge in might you can use one point of effort without losing a point in might (edge can also be raised).

 

That's just your stats. You also have skills. There are certain skill specific challenges in the game that you can improve your changes of success by training that skill. I guess obviously the trick is to spread these skills out among your party. So far I have picked up three companions, I'm guessing that the limit is five.

 

I haven't talked about combat because I've barely experience it in the game. But you can even talk your way out of combat.

 

All in all, this is a very different game to some of the other recent kickstarter rpgs that have been released - Divinity Original Sin, Pillars of Eternity, Wasteland 2 etc. But, so far, it's been very interesting. And it looks beautiful. The environments are really nice. I'll post more opinions as I get deeper into it.

[DANGERMAN]

I wrote a lot about this when it came out but not here apparently. 

 

It is good, and you're right there's very little combat, as such it does feel like you've made very little progress in a play session but I think that says more about how we've been conditioned as gamers than anything else 

 

There's a side mission many hours in that has a load of fighting in it. I had to give up on it and go back to an earlier save. There's no easy way to recover if you have fight after fight. Both money and heal items are fairly scarce, certainly finite, and you're never so overpowered that you're walking though fights unscathed. 

 

The combat is easily the worst thing about Torment, but there's not a lot of it and apparently you can beat the game without doing any. 

 

It's the stories that make it though, the side quests and even npc back stories are brilliant. Can't see there being a better narrative in a game this year 

 

Also I did a video, don't feel like you have to watch it or anything

 

 

[Craymen Edge]

I've been enjoying it a lot so far, each area feels full of details when you stop and explore all the conversations you can have with the various NPCs. I've always loved the style these games used, with isometric-ish viewpoint, on highly detailed 2D maps. 

 

I can see where it might bore some people though, as it does involve a lot of reading. The writing has been good so far, but if that's not your thing, you're gonna hate it. 

 

Combat is a little weak. It's definitely  not as good as other modern throwbacks to 90s PC RPGs like Pillars of Eternity, but combat is not what I want out of this. I've had maybe 3 fights in 25 hours. 

[radiofloyd]

This game is crazy and great. I just spent over an hour in the Fifth Eye tavern, talking to these warriors learning all about their history which eventually culminated in (I think) my second battle of the game thus far. One of my companions died during the fight but afterwards he was resurrected thankfully, I hated that in the older games (having to restart if a party member died). Great stuff.

 

 

[radiofloyd]

Over 9 hours now and I'm thoroughly enjoying this game. Finished exploring the remaining areas in the city today and I'm wrapping up my quests now.

 

I assume it's safe to sell oddities right?  I have a mountain of them from all this exploring and they seem to be worth a lot of money/shins (I just googled it and the online verdict seems to be that it's safe to sell them, just check if you can use them first).

 

You have to credit InXile for sticking to their vision of making an rpg that can be resolved entirely through dialogue, the end result is a very original game.

[DANGERMAN]

There's a few that make it sound like there might be a use for them later but most can be sold, probably all can 

[radiofloyd]

Decided to go back to this rather than let it become another casualty of my Steam library. Up to 12.5 hours now. Completed another mountain of side quests and the main quest in the starting area. I have two sidequests remaining, The Anechoic Lazaret and Infestation. Really enjoyable game. My party members are Rhin, Erritis and Aligern.

[radiofloyd]

17 hours now, thoroughly enjoying this game. Played through the Necropolis area and did a bunch of quests there and am now in Miel Avest.

 

One obvious area where I would say the budget clearly affected this game is the soundtrack. There's barely any music in the game.

[DANGERMAN]

I think you're where I stopped. I'll go back at some point, soon ideally, as I don't think there's a huge amount left after that 

[radiofloyd]

On 4/21/2017 at 0:05 AM, DANGERMAN said:

I think you're where I stopped. I'll go back at some point, soon ideally, as I don't think there's a huge amount left after that 

 

Not sure about "huge amount" but there's definitely a good chunk. Up to 22 hours now, which gives Torment the honour of being the 7th game on Steam I've played for more than 20 hours... In an area called "The Ascension" now.

[radiofloyd]

Ok, so I finished it after 27 hours. 24/52 achievements.

 

I wrote a brief Steam review, but yeah I mostly enjoyed this game. Like I said in my steam review, the ending kinds of bubbles up and bursts at the end (without leaving much of an impression), but the overall game and setting is enjoyable and interesting. It's a game I would be glad to play additional content for or a sequel to, which will hopefully improve the formula further.

 

If there is a sequel or successor, hopefully inXile will have a larger budget to invest in it which will probably alleviate a lot of the problems with this game (namely, that they could show more of the world...and they can hire some composers and musicians to record some good music!).