Torment: Tides of Numenera Review

Torment: Tides of Numenera is a game about making choices. This text-based RPG developed by inXile Entertainment is a throwback for anyone who’s even dabbled in ’90s fantasy. It feels like it’s been ripped straight from the unfinished pages of your best friend’s sci-fi themed D&D campaign. You will think. You will read. You will choose your own path and carve your story from a handful of selected scenario options.

Torment: Tides of Numenera is not for everyone, and it does not have a modern sensibility. Its charm is its ability to cobble together something original from the scattered pieces of tabletop dice-spinning role-playing game concepts dating back to the mid-’70s.

Gameplay

You awaken to the howling winds around as you begin your journey piecing together your reality with the help of your narrator. You will be asked a series of questions (that I am certain pertain to your character creation and stat building). Soon after, you will choose your character type and finally see your tiny rendered character model ready to move inelegantly around a top down puzzle room. Once you get control of your character, you can interact with the world around you.

The gameplay loop is as follows: find what in the room you can interact with, interact with it, and move on. There are a few more “mechanics” than this (including battle), but this is basically what you will be doing for the game’s 20–40+ hours.

How does your character handle, you ask? Poorly! I played this on a PS4 and simply moving around these top down environments was laborious. Torment might handle better with a mouse option on a PC, but it reminds me of Blizzard’s Diablo III port to the PS4, which handles perfectly well. In other words, it can be done. Then again, this isn’t a game about movement. Torment wants you to find more text and keep that reading-train chugging.