Torment: Tides of Numenera

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.

This game can be summed up easily, it’s READING: The Videogame. That’s not meant as a criticism either. The game is proof that something can have major flaws and still be a masterpiece and extremely enjoyable.
From what I understand, the game was very divisive at release, presented as a spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment, and not what people were expecting. I am perhaps fortunate that I came into this with no baggage. I’ve not played Planescape, though it sits on my very large backlog. At the time it was released I was a child more interested in Age of Empires, and since the game has slipped by. I do look forward to playing it but it hasn’t coloured my perceptions here. In general I really enjoy CRPGs, but I wouldn’t say it’s my favourite genre or that I’m fanatical about them. What I care about in games, more than anything, is a good story.
With all that in mind then, this game has quite a few issues. Combat is mediocre at best, I encountered a few bugs, the game gives you several party members, each with their won side stories, lets you swap them out, but does so in a hugely annoying and clunky manner, and lock you out of seeing the end of their stories for some of them if you don’t bring them with you at the end, although it doesn’t really make it clear. Graphically, it’s not unpleasant to look at, but it’s not great either. It runs on the Pillars of Eternity Engine, and I think that game looks a lot better, despite being a few years older. The detail actually seemed to improve as you move into the later game organic fleshy environment of the Bloom, but initially you are navigating around a quasi medieval city some some scifi additions, which frankly wasn’t that interesting. Also the game’s limited budget shows, there’s only some dialogue that’s voiced (though I prefer it in this style of game, as I read much faster than the spoken dialogue and end up wanting to skip along dialogue boxes) and there aren’t character portraits even for most of the characters you speak to.
The game is also completely confusing at the start. Most RPGs ease you in a few quests in a self contained area, some characters, a bit of conflict but again nothing to complex to allow you to gain a grip on what’s happening. Torment, after a fairly short introduction, has you arrive at the main market place of the city and presents you with a million characters and points of interest. The world is very strange, and your character has no memory. It’s overwhelming and I nearly dropped the game early on. Fortunately I persevered, and after a bit, the world started to “fit” for me.
Ultimately the game is really more of a text adventure, with some CRPG bits added on (there are even side stories which are point blank text adventures through and through). For many people that won’t be that interesting, but if reading huge amounts of text doesn’t faze you, and you want a great story, then this is a fantastic game.
I fall into that category. The world, which is based off the tabletop game, Numenera. The setting takes the idea that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” and runs with it. What appears to be a weird fantasy world is in fact Earth, over a billion years in the future and almost completely unrecognisable, with humans at a medieval level barely comprehending what’s around them. It’s not magic that people are using, it’s nanites that are ever present in the atmosphere. It’s not a fantasy create, it’s a strange creation, or an alien or from a parallel reality. The setting exhibits a fantastic level of depth and opportunity for storytelling. There’s a billion plus years of history and ruins and mystery piling up on top of each other. I wish that the setting got the Pillars of Eternity/Avowed treatment, where the setting receives a proper 3D game as well, as it would benefit from that greatly. There’s so much weird and wonderful stuff described, but the games graphics aren’t great at selling a lot of it.
Despite that, the writing really worked for me. I never found myself bored or tired from reading piles of text. It’s punch, flows well and descriptive, really adding in the detail where the graphics fail. The world is fascinating, as are the characters, who are also complex, and I found myself invested in them, even if I didn’t particularity like them, I wanted to see how their stories played out, and I found the dialogue options gave me the opportunity to reflect my disapproval.
Choices are varied and interesting, rarely falling into the cliché of saint versus kick the puppy, though you can play a total asshole if you want. They appear to have a major affect on the story and offer you in most cases, the ability to skip most combat. There is very little in the way of dungeon crawling.
The story is very interesting, on a number of levels. There’s just exploring the world itself, meeting and interacting with the strange inhabitants, while this is driven by the central mystery of who you really are, why are you being hunted by a horrific creature, who your creator is, and what were his plans for you and everybody else. I found these mysterious satisfyingly explained as the game progressed.
Initially I did find myself playing a generic nice guy, were things sort of just happened as I inserted myself into them, but over time I found myself playing a character who became much more defined, with a determination to survive and stop his creator. It got to the point where I went back at the end of the game and chose a different ending, the first one being too “nice” for the character, and having a level of self sacrifice that I felt at that point he wouldn’t reach. The game starts to ask complex questions within it’s story about how you would respond if, despite even your best intentions, the very nature of yourself and fellow siblings was destructive to the world around you.
Overall I thoroughly enjoyed my time with this game. It has many flaws, but if you can engage with the story, it is a fantastic experience. I really hope there are future games in the Numenera setting.

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.

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

There are exquisite moments in this game, fantastic writing and character design. A few moments capture the namesake, but this feels very different from planescape. I would recommend this to anyone who is interested in the setting, enjoys reading lots of text and can tolerate a sprinkle of boring combat.

However, the game is confused, there are many items, skills and abilities that are meant for the least significant part of the game, the combat. This is almost a point and click adventure, but it does not have the narrative polish and pacing of one.

There is a version of this game that is cohesive, continues the polish of the opening scene throughout and made up its mind on whether to have good combat or none at all. But not this version. This version clearly had lots of love, but doesnt fully payoff the promises it sets up.

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

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.