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Torment: Tides of Numenera
PC (Steam)
A Truly Worthy Sequel
4.5/5 stars
Way back in 1999, Black Isle Studios was at the height of its glory. Having met great success with the release of the original “Fallout,” a splinter within the dev team pitched an idea for a new D&D RPG that they would work on side-by-side with “Fallout 2.” Using the Infinity Engine, which sibling team, BioWare, was using for their not-yet-released-but-destined-for-fame “Baldur’s Gate,” the idea behind the pitch was to create a D&D game that turned all of the tropes and expectations of the High Fantasy genre upside-down. Taking place in the incredibly weird D&D campaign setting of PlaneScape, the original “Torment” was critically acclaimed at launch, and remains one of the most-beloved narrative-focused PC RPGs of all time, despite relatively dismal sales.
The unwillingness of the traditional RPG-buying demographic to embrace “Torment’s” weirdness and lopsided balance between narrative and combat (with narrative tipping the scales by a large margin) not only led to relatively stagnant sales, but also caused Interplay to shy away from pouring more money into similar projects from Black Isle in the future.
“Torment” had quite a long tail, however, and after Interplay’s self-destruction and the reformation of inXile Entertainment, with former Interplay head, Brian Fargo, at the helm, the concept of weird, narrative-heavy RPGs got a second chance when inXile acquired the rights to “Torment.” Unfortunately for inXile, they didn’t acquire the rights to the D&D PlaneScape setting, so when the time came to Kickstart a long overdue sequel, they were forced to look elsewhere for a setting. That setting came in the form of Numenera, a campaign setting created by Monty Cook (of Monte Cook games, formerly of both TSR and Wizards of the Coast) for his own tabletop RPG ruleset, the Cypher System. Monte Cook games, the Cypher System, and the Numenera campaign setting all exist solely due to Kickstarter campaigns, and Cook himself has admitted that the Numenera setting is heavily influenced by the weirdness of PlaneScape. Thus with these Kickstarter Kompatriots working hand-in-hand, in 2017, nearly two decades after its predecessor, “Torment: Tides of Numenera” (“TToN”) came into being. And it was definitely worth the wait.
Presentation
The presentation is the only low point of “TToN,” and it’s obviously a budgetary restriction. While “TToN” uses the same basic engine that was built for “Pillars of Eternity,” it lacks the ability to closely zoom in on character models, which is likely because the character models are so bland, ugly, and lacking in detail. Character portraits, which traditionally served to flesh-out characters visually when technology wasn't up to the task, are shockingly rare as well. “TToN” instead opts for the ‘tell, don’t show’ method of letting the player know what characters look like, which is a huge disservice to the medium of videogames. Regardless, the environments, which are all pre-rendered (the character models are all simple polygon affairs), are large and detailed. But because they are pre-rendered the player isn’t allowed to rotate the camera for their bird’s-eye view. These limitations made sense in the ‘90s, when the technology just couldn’t do any better, but 20 years later, they feel cheap, lazy, and like an attempt to tug on cords of misplaced nostalgia.
The audio in “TToN” isn’t particularly stunning, either. The soundtrack is adequate and suited to the variety of environments and situations, but I can’t say that any of the tunes will stick with me. The voiceacting – what little there is of it – is competent as well, but is ultimately far too scarce. While the player can eventually find a diverse array of allies to join in their adventures, these allies are largely the only characters whose copious lines of dialog are voiced, and even then, it’s typically limited to a couple of paragraphs during their personal quests and their random banter between each other (which it both scarce and repeats more often than it should… because each paring only has about two different pieces of banter).
Technically, “TToN” deserves praise. It’s stable, bug-free (from my perspective at least), the load times are sufficiently quick, and it supports native Xinput controls (though this option does need to be enabled from within the game by clicking on it with a mouse). Pretty impressive for a Kickstarter-funded project!
Story
The original “Torment” was widely praised for its bizarre setting, weird characters, and shades-of-gray choices that stretched the philosophical boundaries of videogame narratives of the time. “TToN” exists in a much more complex time alongside much more complex games, but still manages to nail the weirdness of its predecessor, thanks in large part to Monte Cook’s Numenera campaign setting.
Set 2 billion year after the first intelligent life emerged on Earth, the Numenera setting takes place on a version of Earth known as the Ninth World. With 8 incredibly advanced civilizations rising, falling, and reshaping the planet to their whims, the people of the Ninth World live as scavengers, picking through the technological detritus left behind (the titular numenera) in an attempt to scrape by. The Ninth World takes Arthur C. Clark’s quote to heart where “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” and the people of the Ninth World are governed largely by a religion known as the Order of Truth that blends scientific inquiry with rituals and edicts in the study of the relics of the past.
Our hero is the Last Castoff, an empty human body that was cast off by a being known as the Changing God, who is rumored to be an immortal student of the numenera from centuries ago who learned how to transfer his mind from one body to another. What the Changing God didn’t realize, at first, was that these cast off bodies would always spontaneously reanimate, manifesting a unique personality of their own. The Last Castoff was ‘born’ while falling to Earth from a relict space station on the moon, fleeing the relentless onslaught of a terrifying tentacle monster known only as the Sorrow. The Last Castoff’s driving motivation is a single thought made manifest in their mind: The only way to stop the Sorrow is to repair the Resonance Chamber. What are these things? What is a Castoff? Who is the Changing God? The player will discover the answers to all of these questions, and more, as they make their way through the world. This journey takes roughly 40-50 hours (depending on the player's reading speed), which is just right for the genre.
“TToN” is, like the original “Torment,” an extremely wordy game, packed with descriptive text, dialog, and enough purple prose and lily-gilding to choke a horse. Back in the ‘90s, I used to think of RPGs as interactive novels, and both of the ‘Torment’ games truly live up to this description.
The Numenera setting is a relatively unique take on sci-fantasy, where the current society is similar to the medieval or renaissance periods, yet living atop the ruins of so many advanced civilizations that even the soil (called ‘drit’ – not a typo) is made of nanomachines. ‘Magic’ in the Numenera setting largely revolves around people with bonded implants or mutations that allow them to access the huge number of latent nanomachines that saturate the world, or access the semi-dormant Datasphere, which is basically an ancient, self-sufficient Internet that only a few people can access, and even then only imperfectly. The setting blends science-fiction, fantasy, and post-apocalyptic themes in a way that is somewhat reminiscent of the ‘80s ‘Shannara’ novel series by Terry Brooks, only with decades’ more scientific discoveries and speculative fiction to help turn the weirdness up to 11.
The original “Torment” spurred me into buying the PlaneScape Boxed Set for AD&D, and likewise, “TToN” has made my fingers feel very itchy when looking at the campaign setting sourcebook on Amazon. It’s the type of world that taunts the player/reader/experiencer with its mysteries and secrets, providing an enjoyable, intriguing background for a cRPG, and promising unplumbed depths for future outings, be they computerized or tabletop.
Gameplay
While the original “Torment” was an Action RPG due to its basis on the real-time-with-pause Infinity Engine, “TToN” is a Turn-Based RPG, despite its basis on a similar real-time-with-pause engine developed for use in “Pillars of Eternity.” While a tiny minority of “Torment” fans seem to be extremely upset about the transition from one system to the other, they’re ultimately missing the big picture: At least “TToN” is STILL AN RPG! If only ‘Fallout’ could have been so lucky…
Anyway, “TToN” is, as previously mentioned, a very narrative heavy game. Likewise, it is fairly light on combat. In fact, it’s entirely possible to complete the entire game without engaging in combat even once. Instead, players can rely on non-combat skills, like Persuasion, Deception, and Intelligence in order to talk or think their way out of violence.
When the player chooses combat (or when a skill check to avoid combat fails), the system is fairly cut-and-dry. Each character/enemy involved in the current ‘Crisis’ rolls initiative and acts in the order rolled. During their turn, each character/enemy can make one move and one action. Some items/skills use the character’s action for the turn, while others use the character’s movement. Additionally, characters can forfeit their action in order to make 2 movements. It’s, in general, very similar to the D20 system employed by D&D 3.x and Pathfinder, only instead of determining chance based on rolling a 20-sided die, “TToN” employs the percentile dice of Monte Cook’s Cypher System. Having no tangible experience with the Cypher System prior to playing “TToN,” I can’t really say whether or not it’s a faithful adaption of the tabletop rules, but it works well enough.
In lieu of the large number of stats presented in most RPG systems, the Cypher System provides characters with only 3: Might, Speed, and Intelligence. These govern the things one would expect them to, and playable characters (allies included) begin with a relatively small pool of these, but can increase them as they gain levels. The thing that differentiates Cypher System stats from other RPG stats is that characters can consume points from their stat pools to improve the percentile chance of success when they try to perform an action – both non-combat actions and attacks. Each weapon in the Cypher System relies on one of the three stats, with Heavy weapons typically relying on Might, Medium weapons coming in both Might and Speed varieties, and Light weapons coming in both Speed and Intelligence varieties, allowing every character a chance to wreck things in battle… if they so choose. In addition to their basic stat pools, characters also gain something called ‘Edge’ on their stat pool(s) of choice, which essentially gives them a free effort point(s) on checks involving said stat without draining points from the pool (these points refill upon resting or using consumables). With enough Edge on their main combat stat, a character can swing their weapon all day long without depleting their pool.
The only real downsides to “TToN’s” gameplay are very minor nitpicks. It’s not particularly pleasant that only NPC allies who are currently in the party gain experience. Changing allies becomes a non-starter quite quickly. Likewise, the fact that NPC allies refuse to change their armor or cloaks, despite their willingness to use new weapons, accessories, and artifacts, is just silly. Finally, progress through the game is punctuated by a few points of no return, which are of great dramatic effect, but can screw up a playthrough if a player isn’t ready for them and hasn’t been managing their save files properly.
Overall
“Torment: Tides of Numenera” is the weirdest, most heavily narrative RPG I’ve played since 1999… and I LOVED it! This sequel is incredibly faithful to its original in tone and quality, almost to its own detriment at times, as the cheap presentation will likely scare away a good portion of the potential audience. For those who can look past the visible warts, though, “TToN” is both a fantastic cRPG on its own, and a brilliant introduction to Monte Cook Games’ Numenera campaign setting and Cypher System ruleset. I really hop inXile keeps bringing sequels and new tabletop RPG adaptations to the computerized world, as I’ll be eagerly waiting to play them.
Presentation: 3.5/5
Story: 5/5
Gameplay: 4.5/5
Overall (not an average): 4.5/5
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