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[Mephisto]

So this is a thing that came out of Early Access yesterday. Read about it and look at some moving pictures here. It's also on GOG but you can probably find it yourself if that's your preferred system. It had a day 1 Linux release which almost made a friend of mine purchase in support.

Look interesting but you're not sure you'd like it? Play one of the early quests and see what you think.

I bought it last night after my Cypher System voip game fell through. Played through most of the first reef scene. It's delightfully weird. There's so much shit to look at, interact with, and take with you.

Tides kind of sidesteps several bits of the tabletop game, though. Resource management isn't as much of a problem. In the tabletop, you've got might, speed, and intellect pools. You spend those to make tasks easier. You also lose points when you get injured. In Tides, however, you get another resource called "health". There's no longer a dilemma about whether or not you should spend from your attribute pools as they no longer double as your "health".

A big part of the tabletop game is your focus. Characters can be described as "I am an adjective (descriptor) noun (class) who verbs (focus)". While your class gives you most of your abilities, it's arguably the focus that makes your character unique. Foci in Cypher System (I don't have my Numenera book on hand so I can't pull any from that at the moment) include things like "Talks to Machines", "Fuses Flesh and Steel", and "Bears a Halo of Fire". There's a big list to choose from and they're not meant to be duplicated within the party. In Tides, however, you've got three foci - "Is Talky", "Is Stealthy", and "Is Tanky" - names of my own creation, not sure if they're named in-game. It's understandable why there's not more, though - your focus gives you a bunch of options. Each additional focus would probably require significant retooling of most/all encounters and possibly the addition of some more.

All in all, it's been fun thus far. I don't think it's as accurate a recreation of the system as all of the Infinity Engine games or Temple of Elemental Evil are to D&D but it's good enough to scratch that particular itch, especially if your actual tabletop games keep falling through.

[wereboar]

How does it compare to, well, the original Torment?

[Mephisto]

I've only played a bit of Planescape but I think I can answer that.

Some people claim that the weird atmosphere is similar. Other than that, it's really just a spiritual relative. One is D&D, the other is Numenera. The base assumptions placed by the game system are way different.

[Retropunch]

My main issue has been how light people have said the combat system is. I know it's not going to be DnD esque (or even pillars esque) but is there at least some fighting/levelling/gearing up or is it basically an adventure game with a few bits in which you could die?

I don't mind the latter, it's just that I'm not particularly feeling that at the moment, so it'd be good to know where it stands really.

[Harry Baldman]

My main issue has been how light people have said the combat system is. I know it's not going to be DnD esque (or even pillars esque) but is there at least some fighting/levelling/gearing up or is it basically an adventure game with a few bits in which you could die?

I'm playing it like Planescape, which is to say by not fighting whenever possible (which is pretty much always minus the tutorial fight, I think), and I have to say I like the combat system better than Pillars of Eternity simply because it's basically the same thing except turn based (so none of the shitty AI problems and so forth are carried over, although positioning is still somewhat ineffectual a lot of the time) and with better feedback.

How does it compare to, well, the original Torment?

It doesn't have the same aesthetic hook to it, but I have to say it's a well-done crossbreed of PoE and Planescape: Torment in its general feel, with a way better combat system than either of them. I also rather like the way they rendered the Cypher System into game form. Overall the first 11 hours have been a joy to play.

Companions are considerably improved from PoE, being considerably less generally irrelevant and mostly rather lovely and interesting. The Last Castoff has less to them than the Nameless One, being a lot more of a blank slate.

One negative is that it's still the overall PoE Unity engine, so the character models don't look good and the first place you wake up in with all its moving parts looks a lot shittier than most of the rest of the game.

[Retropunch]

My main issue has been how light people have said the combat system is. I know it's not going to be DnD esque (or even pillars esque) but is there at least some fighting/levelling/gearing up or is it basically an adventure game with a few bits in which you could die?

I'm playing it like Planescape, which is to say by not fighting whenever possible, and I have to say I like the combat system better than Pillars of Eternity simply because it's basically the same thing except turn based (so none of the shitty AI problems and so forth are carried over) and with better feedback.

So is the fighting/looting etc pretty much on the same level as planescape? That was just about the right amount for me, but I'm not feeling anything less fighty than that atm.

[Harry Baldman]

So is the fighting/looting etc pretty much on the same level as planescape? That was just about the right amount for me, but I'm not feeling anything less fighty than that atm.

Yeah, and the loot generally has that purposeful P:T quality to it although there is a lot more of it as you'd expect from Numenera. Haven't run into anything like that bit in the Hive filled with Xaositects, return to Curst, the Many-As-One or the Modron Cube where the fighting picks up yet (but the return to Curst was a bit irritating, the Xaositects were just unnecessary dungeon fodder and the Modron Cube was a deliberate exercise in frustration), but I just got out of the first big area into a more dungeony kind of place.

[Retropunch]

So is the fighting/looting etc pretty much on the same level as planescape? That was just about the right amount for me, but I'm not feeling anything less fighty than that atm.

Yeah, and the loot generally has that purposeful P:T quality to it although there is a lot more of it as you'd expect from Numenera. Haven't run into anything like that bit in the Hive filled with Xaositects, return to Curst, the Many-As-One or the Modron Cube where the fighting picks up yet (but the return to Curst was a bit irritating, the Xaositects were just unnecessary dungeon fodder and the Modron Cube was a deliberate exercise in frustration), but I just got out of the first big area into a more dungeony kind of place.

Awesome, that's just what I wanted to know thanks. All the reviews have banged on about not needing to fight anything etc etc. which is great, but I actually DO want to fight stuff!

[Mephisto]

The thing I've heard the most complaints about is the sole unskippable fight (I'm discounting the first Sorrow fight as you've got no chance of losing).

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

There are supposedly waves of enemies (up to 12 enemy combatants at one point, vs the (maximum of) four in your party). You're down one fighting member as someone's got to do Might tests to do shenanigans on the MacGuffin.

[Kanil]

I backed this so long ago that I forgot why I was interested in it in the first place. I've spent about an hour walking around talking to people, and not really up for more yet. Not sure if that's an indictment of the game, or just a cautionary tale against kickstarting.

[Harry Baldman]

Well, finished the game! Probably the best one of the RPG revival games (haven't played Tyranny, mind you), very nicely done. It does feel like it's missing an area between the last place you go to and the area right before that.

As for how it compares to Planescape in the end, I'd say it's less pretty in places (the outside of the Valley of Dead Heroes looks a bit shit in particular and the PoE-esque potato people models are best ignored where possible, but on the other hand Sagus Cliffs looks great for the most part and the Bloom makes its aesthetic do the heavy lifting where the visuals lag) and doesn't benefit from profundity quite like its predecessor did because profound indie games are a lot more of a thing these days. The Numenera bits are used well, but Numenera as a setting isn't nearly as grounded in mythology and readily understandable things as Planescape. It also sometimes blatantly tries to chomp Planescape's flavor in a way that's essentially fanservice. I'm also a little disappointed that the max Tier is only 4 as opposed to 6 as you'd expect.

On the other hand, it's got better mechanics than Planescape, very nice party members (oddly enough, the first two you could get seemed the least interesting to me), it's more even in its quality, remarkably stable on PC, differentiates itself sufficiently to not be merely a retread and is overall a very good time. Probably won't set your world on fire, but a pretty good investment of your time. A thing to watch out for would be the first few hours if you're not familiar with Numenera (which I was and still got a little overloaded with information).

[Biowraith]

I just finished it today, too.  It's been too long since I played Planescape: Torment to make a reliable comparison there, though I don't see this achieving the same 'classic' and favourite status as its predecessor has.  I do think that at the current asking price it could have stood to have been 30-50% longer with a corresponding increase in max level (aka tier) - it took me 26 hours of play, doing every side quest I could find and reading just about all of the text.  Also I'm not sure how much replayability it has - while there was more than one way to complete many of the quests (generally talk, fight, bypass), I didn't see any obvious branching in the actual path through the story, right up until the ME3 style choose-your-ending. 

I only encountered one bug where the game sometimes got 'stuck' during combat.  Didn't occur often, until one particular encounter where I had to reload about 6 times before I got through without the bug triggering (seemed to be an issue with knocked down characters not standing up on their turn, but still having meant-to-be-standing-for-this actions available - the game would get stuck if I tried to use those actions).

Overall I enjoyed it though, interesting setting and characters, decent presentation, serviceable combat, and more or less the game I expected it to be.

[Retropunch]

I just finished it today, too.  It's been too long since I played Planescape: Torment to make a reliable comparison there, though I don't see this achieving the same 'classic' and favourite status as its predecessor has.  I do think that at the current asking price it could have stood to have been 30-50% longer with a corresponding increase in max level (aka tier) - it took me 26 hours of play, doing every side quest I could find and reading just about all of the text.

Not to be 'that guy' but for 26 hours of play that works out at roughly £1.30 per hour of play which really isn't bad. All I mean by that is, does it feel unfinished or is it just that you feel it should have been longer for how good the content is?

[Biowraith]

A little of both I guess.  Probably more of the latter.  From the flow of things I was kinda expecting a little more build up to the finale, but also I'm just used to getting closer to 35 hours from this type of RPG, at least if they're charging £35 for it.  It doesn't stick in my craw or anything (especially as I backed it on kickstarter so didn't actually pay that price for it) and it does better than Tyranny on that front (though I think Tyranny has more replay value), it just ran slightly counter to my expectations as a fan of this type of game.

[Harry Baldman]

I got 26 hours out of it as well, and the problem with it that I have was nicely outlined in the RPS review - it feels like there should be another area between the finale and the thing right before it, flow-wise. Instead it just gets straight into it.

Value for money-wise, I don't feel cheated, and as for replay value, this isn't the kind of game you play through and then restart it to do it completely differently. The Tides aren't really a good-evil kind of morality system to present an obvious asshole route, and there's not much content locked behind choices (which is good because I don't like it when you have a Witcher 2 kind of arrangement where the middle is completely different depending on what you did along the way), and I don't really see myself doing a playthrough particularly different from the Blue-Gold kind of Last Castoff I played.