Torment: Tides of Numenera
You are born falling from orbit, a new mind in a body once occupied by the Changing God, a being who has cheated death for millennia. If you survive, your journey through the Ninth World will only get stranger… and deadlier. With a host of strange companions – whose motives and goals may help or harm you – you must escape an ancient, unstoppable creature called the Sorrow and answer the question that defines your existence: What does one life matter? Torment: Tides of Numenera is the thematic successor to Planescape: Torment, one of the most critically acclaimed and beloved role-playing games of all time. Torment: Tides of Numenera is a single-player, isometric, narrative-driven role-playing game set in Monte Cook’s Numenera universe, and brought to you by the creative team behind Planescape: Torment and the award-winning Wasteland 2.
Game Discussion
Steam User 28
This is a good game. Don't let the reviews throw you.
But there are a few things you should know before getting started
Don't come at this game with the intention of it being planescape, it's not. This is also okay. Numenera is a good setting it's apples and oranges comparing the two.
Don't come at this game with the intention of creating a character to beat or smash everything that's not what it's about there are many solutions to problems and many problems with no right answers.
Don't come at this game with the need to win all the time. You can't don't even try.
What you should come at this game with. Is a open mind, and a willingness to read everything to take it slow and easy. Over the years the balance has been fixed nano is still the best way to avoid combat but Jack and Glaive have been made better. Mechanically Yeah it's not the most engaging combat but it's combat, if you want a combat game go play Diablo that's not where the heart of this game is.
Don't take this game or the reviews at face value, play the game on it's level and you will not be disappointed.
Steam User 11
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.
Steam User 9
Just an absolutely fantastic game, story, and world to experience even in 2024.
That said, I don't think this game is for everyone. As others have mentioned, it is a LOT of reading, but I absolutely loved it. I purchased this because I was interested in the world of Numenera and I ended up falling in love with it!
If you're even slightly interested in Numenera I would recommend the novellas in the upgraded game package to start with and then go on to experience the game. I found the novellas to be pretty good overall and a great primer to the game and the world. I would recommend taking your time with the game too and reading as much as you can manage. I found it extremely worthwhile!
Steam User 6
Spiritiual successor to Planescape Torment. Lot of fun to explore and interact, heavy focus on dialogue. The setting is really interesting. Personally it doesn't quite live up to its spiritual inspiration, but that's about as high a bar as one could set, and so falls well into the realm of a great game.
Steam User 8
Excellent Game. A thoroughly enjoyable spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment, though I admit that the ending felt painfully devoid of choice, leaving me to simply see the results of my choices play out when the consequences of those choices were not necessarily clear at the time. Still, the game was an amazing role-playing experience, and one of the closest things to a table-top experience I've been able to play digitally. The way the same resources are used both in and out of battle is a mechanic that needs to be explored much further in the future. And the writing was just top-notch. Every conversation was a joy to play through, and good lord was there plenty of it.
tl;dr: Ending is a tad weak, but you'll love the journey getting there. 10/10
Steam User 8
Loved the game. Loved the setting, the atmosphere, loved reading dialogues and making choices, loved how combat is easy yet still engaging (difficult combat is the reason why I haven't finished Planescape Torment)
If you enjoy text-heavy CRPGs with weird game worlds and great art, you'll probably like this one
Steam User 5
What a fantastic game! I binge played this on a blind run looking up some puzzles to speed up my playtime. The story was fun, the Tides is a super cool concept, and the party had a lot of good options. I though this would be a fantasy game but it is certainly sci fi with weirdness involved. Love it.