At the same time, there was little pressure or incentive not to go for these options, other than being intentionally incompetent or going out of your way to be a douchebag. In almost every situation encountered, it was easy to talk my way to a solution that seemed to provide the best outcome for everyone involved. There is a distinct lack of difficult or interesting choices to make. It’s easy to build a well-rounded party who can handle every task without breaking a sweat, so finding alternate solutions to quests becomes a matter of choice, rather than necessity. You have a limited pool of points to increase your chances in skill checks, but the abundance of resting opportunities and the ability to pass on most tasks to the most capable member of your party means that there’s little reason not to throw the kitchen sink at every roll to guarantee your success. While the intentions are good, and I can’t overstate how glad I am to see an RPG embracing non-combat solutions so whole-heartedly, the execution of the mechanical side of things is a little lacking. Environmental tricks and traps are scattered in potential fight locations, and you can even talk your way out of battles that have already started. Even when you do land in a brawl, there are always alternatives to just killing everything. This isn’t a game that makes you wade through the local equivalent of goblins, thugs and zombies just for the hell of it. Most, if not all, of the fights in the game are entirely avoidable, and those that do occur always have a reason to do so. Where Torment does differentiate itself from its siblings is combat, or rather the lack of it. It works, but there’s a slight feeling of retreading well-worn pathways. You wander around trying to find answers to questions the game poses you in the first half an hour, assembling a motley crew of hangers-on with their own interesting stories as you go. You’re marked, literally, as being a bit special, but also completely out of your depth. The novel setting is tempered with familiar RPG trappings. It’s an all-you-can-eat weirdness buffet which combines the best aspects of swords ‘n’ sorcery, hard sci-fi and post-apocalyptica, but with none of the grimdark and a nice, bright, colour palette. In practice, this means a broadly familiar medieval fantasy setting, but one in which spells are barely-grasped technological manipulation and a powerful sword could be made of crystal, or pure energy, or even alive. Set a billion years in the future, the Ninth World sits on the detritus of eight fallen civilisations, the secrets of which are far beyond the comprehension of the current inhabitants. Much of its appeal comes from the setting, Monte Cook’s marvellous world of Numenera. I’m happy to say that it’s done Big Daddy Torment proud, and while it doesn’t quite match it’s sire, it’s a treat for fans of wordy, philosophical RPGs. Planescape: Torment is a masterpiece and the thought of Torment: Tides of Numenera being even half as good as its inspiration has had us RPGeeks salivating for four years now. Fans of clicking through dialogue and (quasi-)turn-based combat from an isometric perspective have been spoilt rotten. Since the Kickstarted RPG Renaissance began, we’ve had three (THREE!) Shadowruns, Pillars of Eternity, Divinity: Original Sin a new Wasteland, and Tyranny. Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux, PS4 and Xbox One (Windows version tested)
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