Torment: Tides of Numenera Reviews
As with Planescape, Numenera is not a perfect game. It is, however, a unique game, brimming with weird tales that will take some 30-40 hours to explore on the first playthrough. The game's appeal is largely predicated on how much you enjoy falling into the rabbit hole, but fans of a more traditional RPG experience, or indeed, fans expecting a yarn to surpass the original Planescape might find Numenera wanting. Stick with it, though, and you will be rewarded with an highly unusual experience.
With its story, setting and the choice and consequence, "Torment" could've been one of the best games of 2017 but its weak combat system diminishes it to just good. Though if you're a fan of RPGs and you don't have a problem reading long texts, it's an experience you can't miss
Review in Persian | Read full review
This will take some time to play through and the options to replay it with different character types as well as gender will have you coming back to it. Try playing through it with a different character class, influence different people and see what happens the next time. This is NOT easy and you will find it's a long journey but with patience and perseverance you will get through it and on the way will be surprised, maybe even shocked a little.
Torment: Tides of Numenera is an excellent spiritual successor to one of the most influential RPGs ever released. inXile Entertainment has created a game that dares to be different, letting players approach the task at hand in a staggering amount of different ways. It may be a bit short when compared to similar titles, but what it lacks in length, it more than makes up for in replayability.
This is not even a breath of fresh air! It is a bottomless oxygen tank. In the universe of Numenera almost every meter of space, character or scenario penetrated by some phenomenal madness. Torment: Tides of Numenera is a masterfully written interactive book with a gripping storyline that makes you want to reread again and again. If developers will correct numerous technical problems, feel free to add another score to the final grade - both on PC and consoles.
Review in Russian | Read full review
Torment is a sedate but deep narrative experience that speaks to the patient, studious gamer. Despite feeling at times like a game out of time, its charm manages to shine through and the strong writing and weird narrative more than make up for the lack of AAA elements.
Torment's uneven gameplay is pulled to the finish line by its engrossing world and story. Assuming you can get over the introductory hump (and all that text), it's absolutely a story worth reading, if not always playing. Buy it.
If you can live with the technical hiccups, Torment: Tides of Numenera is one of the more fascinating RPGs for any platform.
There’s some major inconsistencies in terms of quality in certain companions, certain portions of the writing, and definitely in the overall pace of the game. This is completely outweighed by the ludicrously interesting world in which it’s set. If you can forgive the above flaws, and are prepared to read a novel’s worth of text in its 30-35 hour run-time, you’ll end up like me – playing until 3am, doing just one more quest and revelling in navigating the ridiculously wonderful Ninth World.
Torment Tides of Numenera is an ambitious RPG with superb dialogs, but it has the bitter aftertaste of a incomplete game. It's an intersting experience, but not enought to be a must-have RPG.
Review in French | Read full review
The weird cousin to other RPGs that feels more like an interactive novel than a board game at times. Great writing and amazing world design held back by clunky, unenjoyable combat and a mountain of minor bugs.
Torment is a niche title for those who want to left click between pages of a book.
I started Torment: Tides of Numenera blind to the existing fiction and games on which it was based, with a vague understanding that it would be somewhat “unusual.” This would turn out to be an understatement in the extreme, easily being one of the strangest experiences I’ve had in gaming. There are some minor design issues, though they aren’t game breaking and could be seen as non-issues depending on how familiar you are with the tabletop version of Numenera. What matters most, however, is the narrative, which starts out confusing for newcomers and slowly morphs into a mystery that wholly engulfed my attention. I daresay another playthrough would bear a different experience entirely, something I’d happily sink another forty-plus hours into.
Planescape: Torment still is the better game. But Tides of Numenera is an RPG that respects it's heritage and follows in its ancestors footsteps with pride. If you are not alergic to long and philosophical conversations, you can feel at home in the Ninth World.
Review in Turkish | Read full review
Tides of Numenera is well-made throwback to old RPG virtues where words cut deeper than weapons.
Review in German | Read full review
If you've built up Planescape: Torment to legendary status in your mind, or if you're looking for detailed mechanical systems, you may find Torment: Tides of Numenera a bit lacking. It's strengths are in the writing, art, and atmosphere. It's also a bit expensive right now.
The most-funded RPG on Kickstarter history debuts with some broken promises, such as the lack of an Italian localization, which was among the goals achieved by the software house. While offering a great adventure set in a huge fantasy world, the Xbox One version of Torment: Tides of Numenera lacks of stability and has several technical issues that can ruin the game experience.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Be prepared to take a voyage in time and space, not only to the Ninth World countless years into the future, but also 20 years into the past, into your bedroom as a young gamer just finding your way. If you still know how to read the Numenera known as a "book", Torment: Tides of Numenera will take you places no other game has in a decade. Although the game is not overly long (about 30 hours), it is easily justified for the modest price of 44.99$.
Thanks to a deep narrative, exquisite morality mechanics that make every decision equally weighty and meaningful, and sublime characters, inXile has given the game a genuine shot of living up to the legacy of one of the greatest games of all time.
Let’s get this out of the way early—Torment: Tides of Numenera doesn’t live up to or supplant Planescape: Torment in any way, shape, or form. That doesn’t mean that it’s not a worthwhile game on its own, however, and even a simulacrum of something as justifiably venerated as PS:T feels like a welcome bulwark against the waves of mindless games that ask nothing of the player and offer nothing in return. This is a game for those who love lore and large chunks of flavor text so overwhelming that one could conceivably drown in them, and while that makes the game impenetrable to those mass-market gamers who require an easily digestible story and lots of visual pizzazz to enjoy a game, it also allows it to be incredibly rewarding and memorable for those willing to put in the time to read through it all.