REVIEWS

TORMENT: TIDES OF NUMENERA REVIEW (ENGLISH VERSION)

The Gods willing, you are reading this on the 28th of February, immediately after the wisely imposed review embargo was lifted by Techland Publishing. Tides of Numenera is the most well-funded RPG to come out of Kickstarter so far (at least prior to Pillars of Eternity II’s Fig campaign) and the one game, that the majority of old school players and backers, myself included, most counted on to, if not surpass the lyrical beauty of Planescape: Torment, at least stand beside that monumental RPG as is equal.

And the omens seemed favourable. It’s “spiritual cousin”, Pillars of Eternity, funded to a lesser sum and with far fewer expectations riding on it, had won every single award for its category and delivered a beautiful tribute to the Infinity Engine games of yore, that helped introduce hardcore role-playing concepts to a majority of today’s thirty-something players. The repeated release date delays acted as a bitter but sweet balsam to the souls of the game’s good natured champions. “Let them take as much time as they need. We just want this game to be Torment. And it will be. Because inXile are The Good Guys. They feel us. They know.” If we had only known, brothers.

Numenera - Sagus Cliffs
Starting out in Sagus Cliffs. The outlook is still optimistic.

I had intentionally refrained from playing the Early Access build that had become available to all backers (regardless of tier) in 2016. With memories of the Nameless One’s dark Odyssey still defining my gaming id, I wished to experience this new dark chest of wonders in its full glory or not at all. And you know what really sucks, it’s still way too early to sneak some brandy in my coffee without condemning glances from my neighbouring cubicles.

Numenera (because this game should have never been named “Torment” and that sacred prefix will ideally be forever erased from the players’ collective consciousness as having anything to do with the present game) gloriously fails in delivering each and every one of the things inXile promised during its Kickstarter campaign, back in the mists of 2013, when Kickstarter’s magic high was still going strong. Each and every one. But let us, like a proper disaster assessment squad, pack up our equipment, gather our team and bravely go forward to investigate how Kickstarter’s brightest hope, forever condemned the platform’s “sure-fire” credibility for delivering “the great games, like we used to play”.

Numenera - Background Art
The relatively few pre-rendered backgrounds, are indeed, very well made (You are beginning to see where I’m leading with this, right?)

STORY

The crux of the game’s story is interesting indeed. Action takes place a billion years into the future, in the wonderfully complicated multiverse of Numenera, lovingly created by Monte Cook. The all-powerful Changing God, the engimatic figure at the centre of the game’s narrative, in a quest to unlock the secrets of eternal life, manages to develop a technology via which he can transfer his conscience and experience in new bodies/hosts, thus effectively defeating Death and rendering himself immortal. Of course, things get complicated as his “old” bodies/hosts are not destroyed when their master’s soul leaves them, but rather, they develop self-conscience and attempt to determine their place in this strange new world. We begin our journey literally falling from the skies, as the most recent (“Last”) cast-off body of our God Daddy’s experiments. Our explosive landing in a forgotten chamber full of super-technology on the outskirts of Sagus Cliffs, naturally attracts fortune seekers and other, more unsavoury types. The Fallen Star’s journey, has only just begun.

Numenera - Peerless AI
The battle with the Peerless AI is one of the few highlights of the game

It all sounds good on paper, doesn’t it? Almost, Constant Reader, almost. Under “normal” circumstances, I should not be raising any parallels to Planescape: Torment at all, but since the developers themselves elected to usurp that epic’s legacy in order to maximise their profits, they will be judged accordingly. In Torment (from this point forward, we will be using “Torment” to only refer to the 1999 masterpiece, and the under-review usurper shall be labelled as “Numenera”) the Nameless One, was a living, breathing testament of Torment. Every inch of his body was covered in scars and tattoos. He had committed nameless and countless atrocities as well as divine acts of kindness and mercy. The enormous contradiction of his being, combined with the truly masterful way in which details of that extraordinary life across the Planes were revealed to us along with the reasons for his “curse”, immersed and utterly seduced, thus creating an unparalleled sense of immersion and identification with our hero.

On the other hand, our character in Numenera is a newborn. A blank slate, tabula rasa. At the onset of the game, we are informed that a horrific entity, known only as the Sorrow, is chasing not only us but all Castoffs of the Changing God. Our first goal is to obviously prevent the Sorrow from destroying us. Numenera fails, at its onset, middle and conclusion to create even a slight sense of identification with the protagonist and his “torment”, quite simply because the latter, does not exist. It rather leaves us with the sense of having watched a hastily written sci-fi B-movie in which the irrelevant and forgettable protagonist is constantly running from the bad guys, because…well, they are the bad guys. Sad, but true.

Numenera - Meres
A sample of the truly tragic low production values ever-present in the Meres. When a game from 1999 has higher production values than yours, you know that you have a major problem.

In spite of the tremendous volume of descriptive text and the highly detailed descriptions of everything around us, there is a pervading sense that the true star of the show is the world of Numenera and not the Last Castoff or the anaemic, half-baked NPC’s that form our party. As an interactive version of the Numenera sourcebook for a pen-and-paper campaign, the game absolutely succeeds. Of course, this has absolutely nothing to do with what constitutes a successful and enjoyable CRPG. Any comparisons to the gorgeous dialogue exchanges of Torment or its sense of immersion in harsh, alien worlds are painfully in the favour of a game now 18 years old. In my 23 hours with Numenera (and that is including all possible side quests) I had the constant sensation of wandering between a super detailed encyclopaedia’s pages which ultimately, told no story at all.


CHARACTER CREATION-RPG MECHANISMS (OR THE DEAFENING LACK OF THEM, THEREOF)

When a game puts zero effort towards being impressive in its audio-visual department, we naturally expect it to compensate by providing deep and intricate systems. To encourage multiple approaches to the situations it presents, and reward our actions accordingly. Numenera shows its pitiful, grease stained and dog-eared hand, early.

A bare bones character creation process with 90% of all skills presented, being completely and utterly, useless. The UI itself looks like it was designed by a Computer Science student on the eve of his thesis deadline, seeing double and being half-crazy with sleep deprivation. Theoretically, there are three available classes to choose from. Glaive, Jack and Nano. Warrior, thief and mage, respectively. Right. The Glaive cancels itself, as during the game’s 23 hours (and that is if you really stretch it, doing all available side quests and NPC quests) you will be hard pressed to find a total of 15 different combat encounters, the majority of which either ends too soon, or screams for an alternative resolution, one that does not require violence, you cretin. Similarly, skills such as “Light/Medium/Heavy Weapons” are purely decorative. Stealth is also non-existent in the game, outside of battles. Any pickpocketing or scouting mechanisms that you might have been expecting (and were indeed present in Torment) shine by their absence. In fact, all of the game’s locations are so small and cramped that when iI discovered a cypher (more on those, a bit later on) which allowed me to lift the fog of war, I was laughing to myself. Apparently, that was the same fog of war that took about four clicks per screen to completely eradicate.

Numenera - Character Sheet
Don’t get too excited. Most of those skills are here in a purely decorative capacity.

The Jack is essentially a half-cocked Nano and it is not unfair to assume that anyone backing the game’s Kickstarter on their fond memories of Torment, will naturally gravitate towards playing a Nano with full diplomatic perks as well as the interesting, but utterly useless ability to read characters’ surface thoughts. In other words, character creation is a sham, as there is really only one path through the game. You can choose whether you will make your life a bit easier by avoiding its pointless combat encounters, which the spartan and just plainly acceptable turn-based combat system puts no effort towards making interesting or fun, but that’s about it.

The other major “foul” concerns Numenera replacing “traditional” RPG stats with the following three: Might, Speed and Intellect. Those three categories each have a maximum value (which we can raise as we level up our characters) and the majority of our actions in the game (in battle or outside of it) revolves around constant skill checks. Are we, for example, attempting to convince a character of our viewpoint? Based on our Intellect skill we see our chance of success. Now through the Effort mechanism, we can expend additional Intellect points to improve our odds of success. These points are then in turn replenished either by resting or by using consumables.

Torment: Tides of Numenera
Hello Darkness my old friend…

In action, this is an utterly pointless mechanism, as, after a certain point and via the correct skill upgrades, all skill checks become automatic successes and we are only required to invest a bare minimum of skill points. A completely inept and inane system, that potentially works brilliantly for the pen-and-paper version of Numenera but has precisely zero value for a CRPG. Either during a Crisis (the game’s definition of a battle) or outside of it, never came a moment where I thought to myself “Damn, this is a brilliant system, I wish more game developers used this in their games!”

The same curse of “total redundancy” affects every piece of equipment available in the game as well. This is a game where any and all engagement in it’s -too few anyway- combat situations is strongly discouraged. It is therefore utterly useless to add even the 20-25 different weapons and armour items that are included. They do contribute an infinitesimal amount towards the confidence of players who, ignoring each and every one of the developers’ enormous signposts for non-combat resolutions, will choose to play as uber-aggressive, autistic little orcs (and my hat is off to you gentlemen, for thy fortitude far surpasses mine) but apart from that, feel more like another half-hearted slap to the players’ face. There was also heavy speculation regarding the inclusion of “cyphers” in Numenera, exotic and volatile artefacts that the player can only use so many times before they implode. They are in fact so unstable, that your character cannot even carry too many of them as he will be poisoned with “cypher sickness” and eventually die.

Numenera - Bloom
The Bloom reminds us of the game that maybe was once envisioned and then, hastily, abandoned.

The bitter truth regarding cyphers is that whatever micro-buffs they may confer or whatever sad combat edge they bring, are utterly redundant as well. I caught myself equipping cyphers on my characters mainly because they “looked cool” and I had a sick sense of guilt and obligation towards whatever poor developers were forced to sign off on this game in its release state. The litany of terrors does not end here, as “Oddities” have been included as well. These are some “super weird” items that come into our possession in the course of our adventure and have the power to do, brace yourselves, absolutely nothing. You read that right. inXile’s official excuse on this is that they “add colour and character to the game’s world”. My soul is broken inXile, I’m off to add cognac to my coffee and I’ll be right back to continue writing this obituary.

I must have collected about forty Oddities in my journey through Numenera. I can’t quite remember if one or two of them gave me an extra line in some secondary and meaningless character dialogue (remnants of another hastily abandoned design dream, no doubt). I was mostly selling those to purchase consumables that would replenish my characters’ Might, Speed and Intellect pools. As a concept, as part of a complete game, they would have been interesting. In Numenera’s case, they only serve to add insult to the injury.

Having already exceeded the textual constraints of a traditional review, I would like to sum up by saying that character progression, equipment upgrades and cypher and inventory management, the “heart” in other words of any game intended for the players’ entertainment, are barely present, barely held together, just enough for the game to qualify as an “RPG-lite”. When Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate contains more meaningful character development than a game called Torment: Tides of Numenera, you know that you are in serious, very serious trouble. If you were considering purchasing Numenera in order to have a traditional “RPG” experience, this is not the game for you.


VISUAL-AUDIO (THE DISCREET CHARM OF “EVERYTHING IS IN YOUR HEAD”)

Numenera - Meres
Aren’t soundless interactive novels awesome? And aren’t they even better when they don’t really have any connection or bearing to your overall gameplay experience? YOLO BROZ.

In my five years of writing game reviews professionally, this is the hardest one I have had to write, by a large margin. The bitter disappointment and disillusionement of Numenera are such that I am scrambling to be as objective as possible in its presentation. None of us were expecting any miracles in the audio-visual department. “Pretty pre-rendered backgrounds, tolerable sprites and quality speech and soundtrack” is the unspoken promise of all “retro-revival” RPG’s of recent years that have come to us via crowdfunding platforms. Even here, Numenera manages to utterly disappoint. The pre-rendered backgrounds are indeed well-designed (even though, in retrospect, terribly few). The game only includes two major – and the term is used liberally – hubs, Sagus Cliffs and the Bloom. Character sprites are the very definition of utterly generic Unity placeholder art. They manage to give such a faceless, tasteless, colorless definition of all characters that in combination with the complete lack of NPC portraits (only our party’s NPC’s are afforded the luxury of portraits, completely mismatched to their respective personalities) we are left to imagine the game’s NPC interactions all on our own. Their approximate shape, their faces, their garb, their characteristics, everything has to be in our heads. In 2017. This is exacerbated by the almost total absence of recorded speech. Random phrases for random characters are voiced so infrequently that it is actually surprising when a spoken word is heard after hours of silence or ambient drones. There is a palpable sense of things being tragically underpolished or just plain abandoned in the audio department. When you consider that Pillars of Eternity, with significantly fewer funds at its budget delivered a gorgeous “audio-visual” combo, Numenera is naked and plain inexcusable. It manages to miss the mark -by a wide margin- in a field that in 2017 is considered all but a given. If you fired up Planescape: Torment right now, a game from 1999 with no mods, it looks and sounds infinitely prettier and more complete compared to Numenera. It has identity and character, both visual and aural something that in Numenera, is only hinted at in the Sorrow’s appearance, as her sprite takes up half the screen. It’s a damn shame than even all of her dialogue is constrained to a Mass Effect-esque info/exposition dump near the end of the game.


MASS EFFECT? HAVE YOU LOST IT COMPLETELY, LAD? (“DOES THIS DAMN GAME GET ANYTHING RIGHT?)

The more I twist and turn this in my mind, the more I become certain. It does not matter one iota what you will do or choose in Numenera. The game’s endings are strictly pre-defined and the choice is given to you via a horribly Mass Effect-esque finale sequence that will have purists frothing at the mouth at the sacrilege. We have an extremely linear, short game that may offer the illusion of three or four different choices when it comes to quest resolution but is actually taking us from point A to point B to point C with surgical precision. Compared to Torment, this is infantile.

Numenera - Bloom
I want to close this off with some of the gorgeous rot of the Bloom, that so seductively sold me on this doomed Kickstarter, so long ago.

The only good things I remember from this game are two very well-written side quests as well as the refreshingly well-conceived NPC character of Rhin, who is truly wasted in this irredeemable fiasco. If Numenera had released as a humble, indie RPG set in alternative, post-apocalyptic game world and cost about 10 euros on GoG.com, it would have been an honest proposal. We would still positively comment on its rich and detailed world and its deep lore. We would not project any kind of expectations on it, and we could even have honestly recommended it to hardcore RPG junkies who’ve exhausted all quality titles in the genre and were looking for smaller, more “left field” games to tide them over until the next serious release.

Numenera - Pillar
It looks more interesting than it is. And it breaks my heart to write this.

In its present state, Numenera shamelessly usurps Torment’s name and legacy and does not even scratch the surface of the majesty, glory, importance and damn it, plain old good fun that it’s “spiritual father” provided. The feeling of a hastily released and under-developed game pervades every second of Numenera and will be the subject of a myriad RPG post-mortems in 2017. Something obviously tragically derailed between the Kickstarter campaign and its actual release and the game was released “as it was” in order to recoup development costs. inXile’s Wasteland 2, whilst not creation’s greatest RPG, stands as a towering and eternal masterpiece compared to Numenera.

Shame on you inXile, you have failed us. Shame.

(Many thanks to Enarxis Dynamic Media for providing us with a review copy of the game)

Pros

  • Very rich world and setting, ripe for use in other games, preferrably not with “Torment” in their title or similar pretenders’ claims.
  • A few, tragically too few moments in the Bloom, speak of the game that may have been, back in 2013.

Cons

  • This is not Torment by any stretch of the imagination. Just comparing itself to the 1999 masterpiece, is anathema.
  • Extremely poor audio-visual presentation, even by indie game standards. For a 4.5 million dollar Kickstarter, this is a disgrace.
  • In spite of its rich world and lore, it utterly fails to create an emotional connection with the player or make us care about anything going on in the Last Castoff’s story.
  • RPG mechanisms, character development, inventory acquisition and management are at amateur levels.
  • Meres and their sad, sad implementation. It would have been preferable to save some face and not include them at all.
  • The bitter aftertaste in players’ mouths, that this was merely a tech demo for selling the Numenera world to pective publishers for future projects. There is no game here.
  • The silently cut stretch goals of the Kickstarter campaign. In light of the project’s extremely poor quality, the argument of “We wanted to focus on polish” seems even weaker. High tier backers should be furious.
ΒΑΘΜΟΛΟΓΙΑ - 60%

60%

Στέφανος Κουτσούκος

Ο Στέφανος Κουτσούκος ή αλλιώς "The Artist Formerly Known As Borracho", διέπραξε ποικίλα εγκλήματα τα οποία τον οδήγησαν σε μια ριζική επανεκτίμηση των προτεραιοτήτων και αξιών του. Υπηρέτησε περήφανα στην πειρατική αρμάδα του Ragequit.gr από την ίδρυση του ιστοτόπου το 2012 ως το Μάη του '19.

23 Comments

  1. this is legitimately one of the absolute worst, most ridiculous reviews that I have ever read in my life, and I implore everybody to take it with a huge grain of salt (if not outright ignore it). It’s like you somehow managed to completely miss the point of the game. There is nothing objective about this review. You obviously had a very specific, concrete idea of what you personally thought the game should be, and are lashing out because it didn’t fit your own personal vision. The game is fantastic. The writing and the characters are fantastic, and the dialogue and lore have a huge amount of depth. If you actually take the time to experience it, which you obviously didn’t do. You say thing that are so ridiculous that it’s almost like you didn’t even bother trying to experience the game once you realized it wasn’t what you personally expected. The comments about there not being multiple ways to solve problems or progress are just completely absurd. You either didn’t even try to replay things multiple ways, or you’re lying. There is no other way to explain such an inaccurate comment. I replayed my first visit to Sagus Cliffs numerous times, and each time was completely different from the others. You either didn’t actually try different methods, or you’re being disingenuous. And saying that Planescape is better looking is just blatantly idiotic and dishonest, and completely discredits everything else you say. I love planescape, but it’s graphics are downright awful compared to numenera. It’s sincerely idiotic to even compare the two. Planescape isn’t even in the same league. Not even remitely approaching the same league. Take off your rose-colored glasses and join the real world. and while you’re at it, stop acting like a petulant child and try to gain some modicum of objectivity. Because this review is an absolute embarrassment. I hope you look back on it some day and realize how awful and embarrassing it truly is.

  2. You’re cancelling based in one review? When pretty much every single other review is overwhelmingly positive? That seems…. stupid. It’s a really, really good game. Look at all of the other reviews, and ignore this one. I seriously can’t help but think that he rushed through it and didn’t even make an attempt to play it correctly, because he says numerous things that are completely inaccurate.
    Although I’m not sure why I’m trying to reason with somebody who is silly enough to take one single contrarian review, in a sea of positive reviews, as gospel….

  3. Hi, Cranky_messiah. Welcome to the site, we value all input however it is phrased. 🙂 I am not the reviewer, but I am honestly curious as to whether you’ve progressed and/or even finished the game, as you seem to cite “numerous visits to Sagus Cliffs” which is essentially the Early Access content. I am not implying anything, I genuinely would love to know.

    Cheers.

  4. Don’t be so cranky :p!
    I cancelled the Collector’s, i never said i will not buy & play the game in order to form my own opinion.
    Furthermore, you all tend to miss what he is pointing through out ALL of his review:
    They asked and got money (5milllion) to create a Planescape:Torment spiritual successor.
    Ask yourself (i will sure ask mine after i finish it): Did you/I got the tiniest feeling of ToN being one?
    The reviewer did not.

  5. I will echo Northlander’s comment. Please come back and post after you have finished the game. Then, ask yourself the following :

    1) Did I, at any point feel invested in the “torment” of the Last Castoff?
    2) Was I satisfied by my character’s development and did my actions and decisions have an impact on how the story played out?
    3)Did I enjoy myself, playing this CRPG? Not reading a book, or imagining things I want, but actually playing the game before me.
    4)What, according to my completed journey was the emotional lynchpin that would urge me to recommend Numenera to a player who enjoyed Planescape: Torment and identified with it’s themes and their exploration?

  6. Just finished the game. Completely disagree with the review, I loved it, and Planescape: Torment is my favourite game. I can’t help but feel like you want to dislike it and are hoping to get views for one of the only negative reviews of it. Some of your complaints are completely valid; the character models are really ugly, true. The companions weren’t as memorable apart from Rhin, true. But mostly grossly exaggerated, as you say things like it has terrible audio-visual components, and then the only thing you mention in regards to audio is the lack of voice acting (when it has a similar amount to PST). You don’t go into what else was wrong with the audio or various other things that were supposedly so terrible, because we both know it was fine for the most part.

    Most of your complaints are equally valid for PST.

    Linearity – just as linear as Planescape: Torment
    Few big hubs – Just like Planescape: Torment, then, with Sigil and Curst. Actually it’s better, because Curst was much less developed than The Bloom.
    Lack of character creation – Just like PST except better because you can choose gender.
    Few combat encounters – Just like PST, especially if you remove the utterly dull filler combat like the rats in the sewer.
    Bad/simplistic combat – PST is universally agreed to have awful combat. This game’s wasn’t great but it was easily better than PST’s mess.
    Bad/useless classes – If you didn’t play a wizard in PST, then I don’t know what you were doing. If you played another class and didn’t put a bunch of points into wisdom then you really missed out.
    Combat ‘discouraged’ – No more than PST where dialogue can get you through most/all situations.
    Lack of choices/consequences “Compared to Torment, this is infantile.” – Utter nonsense. There is just as much and more than PST’s, with there being MORE choice in the ending, how is that infantile in comparison?
    I could go on, but you get the idea.

    In short, assuming you have even played Planescape: Torment, please replay it soon and judge it the same way you did this game. You will find that your disappointment is completely unwarranted. They lived up to their promises. It is a worthy successor.

  7. Hello sazooki and welcome to Ragequit.gr! We appreciate you stopping by to share your opinions on our Numenera review. Allow me to point out a few basic things :

    We have never courted “contrarian” publicity by giving low scores to highly anticipated games. In fact, our Metacritic page (http://www.metacritic.com/publication/ragequitgr?filter=games) proves the exact opposite, with our page scoring all games 4.9 grades higher than other publications on average.

    As to your criticisms of my published review :

    -As stated, the audio in the game is positively non-existent. The music is confined to drones and the few and scattered voice-overs, make no sense. I played Planescape: Torment to the death when it originally released and my memories of it’s audio-visual presentation hold up. Regardless, when comparing a 1999 game to a 2017 one, the odds should be crushingly in the favor of the 2017 title. After 5 million dollars on Kickstarter as well, the audiovisual presentation is unforgivable. And I say this as a “sight unseen” Kickstarter backer of the game.

    -Linearity : You may have skimmed over certain parts of the review. I have no issue with linear games but Numenera, advertised and heavily sold itself on it’s multitude of choices and their effects on gameplay and the world around the player. That is simply, a lie. Planescape: Torment never advertised itself as anything (if nothing else, it was considered a commercial failure at launch and as “too weird” for players to get. The world and characters it presented however, were so engrossing, that no one minded the linearity of the action.

    Hubs- This has to do with broken Kickstarter promises. The developers promised three major hubs and a few other sizable locations. The Oasis of M’ra Jolios was summarily cut from the game (a fathom does not count) as were the Ruins of Ossiphagan and a couple of other locations. Torment’s Sigil had more for the player to do than anything in Numenera. Hell, Torment, an 18 year old game at this point, was longer and more substantial than it’s “spiritual successor”. The developer’s words and advertising, not mine.

    No Character Creation- This is extensively covered in the review, please read back more carefully.

    Few Combat Encounters/Bad Combat/Combat Discouraged- I did not criticize the quantity but the quality and the lack of it thereof. Again, please read the review more carefully. I actually played a Warrior with high Charisma/Intellect in the original Torment and have nothing but the fondest memories of it’s combat encounters. Maybe you never quite grasped the fundamentals of AD & D combat and it’s implementation in the Infinity engine games?

    Lack of Choices- I will assume that you have finished the game and you are not rushing to defend it after your initial 6 hours in Sagus Cliffs. Literally, anything you select in any dialogue has zero impact on the Mass Effect endings presented at the end of the too short journey.

    In regards to my never playing Torment previously, I will urge you to Google “Stefanos and Raven’s Planescape Torment Walkthrough”, a relic from a bygone era, where very few walkthroughs existed on the internet. Not only had I obsessively played the original, but with the help of a friend, we had put the most comprehensive walkthrough of it on the-then nascent RPG web. I backed Numenera sight unseen with the highest hopes but my eyes are open, my sight is clear and I refuse to be a fanboy or bow down to pseudo-intellectual pressure and a need to “appear sophisticated” by pretending to enjoy pretentious scams on the scale of Numenera.

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