![]() ![]() This setting is a technological dark-ages a hybrid high fantasy and outlandishly surreal science fiction that serves to perhaps rival the original Torment for ingenuity and uniqueness – even if the sardonic overtones of Planescape’s world have been replaced with a penchant for allusions to metaphysical quandaries and the incorporeal beings from beyond our own feeble understanding. These items are often so advanced and mysterious they are indistinguishable from magic. The titular Numenera are seemingly magical equipment and items that have become part and parcel of everyday life. If your character, or companion, are fast enough you might just be able to catch a fish.Īnd the setting is incredible set on earth approximately one billion years in the future, you set out to explore the Ninth World, a society built upon the crumbled technological vestiges of several fallen civilisations that came before. From docked sky ships, to flowing fountains in which the water is replaced with a mass of gibbering fish, the environments are teeming with exquisitely unique detail that help to realise an incredibly rich and interesting setting. Although perceived from a fixed isometric perspective, backgrounds vary from the occasional 3D modelled interiors that shift and change with realistic lightning models to your more conventionally high-quality painted backdrops used for large city expanses and underground caverns. Characters models are lacking the details found in the fully 3D western RPGs with more polish, such as The Witcher series, but in many ways this helps to evoke a nostalgia associated with the CRPGs of old. ![]() An isometric layout with your traditional mouse controls, journal, map, character and inventory screen all mapped to the expected buttons. Running on a similar build of Unity to that seen in Obsidian’s Pillars of Eternity, Torment certainly looks the part. This coupled with contentiously cut ‘stretch goal’ content, and the huge footsteps it follows in, has left many wandering if it will deliver on its lofty ambitions. Originally slated for a release in late 2014, the game had found itself pushed back and back until it landed itself the release date of the 28 th of February 2017. ![]() The longer answer is that it does so in a gloriously idiosyncratic way that restores my faith in what an impassioned team of talented developers can realise within a game world.īrandishing the illustrious title of ‘highest-funded video game on kickstater ever’ with over four million dollars pledged, Torment: Tides of Numenera has had its fair share of controversial setbacks. ![]() One of the greatest CRPGs of all time, in all its low resolution glory. So how does Torment: Tides of Numenera, its spiritual successor, hold up in terms of redefining the genre? Does it manage the outlandish circumvention of its predecessor? Focus was moved away from combat, and towards creative thinking, problem solving and dialogue as a gameplay element. In place of elves and dwarves we were served floating sentient skulls and a succubus allergic to metal. Although set within the outer planes of the traditional Dungeons and Dragons universe, the original Torment attempted to push boundaries and turn the genre upon its head. The original Torment went out of its way to separate itself from the conventional norms established by RPGs at the time, all the while making use of the Infinity Engine – a game engine that had become synonymous with computer RPGs with the release of Baldur’s Gate just one year earlier. So how is it that a game world as rich and intriguing as the one found in Planescape: Torment can go untouched for a long 16 years? The easy answer is that although critically acclaimed, and often cited as one of the greatest role playing games of all time, Planescape: Torment was perhaps a little too cerebral, a little too avant-garde a little too clever for its own damned good. Our gaming landscape is littered with sequels, prequels, spin-offs and entire franchises born from the dullest of concepts and most boring of settings. ![]()
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