Planescape: Torment is one of the best role-playing games in the history of the medium. Its arcane, existentialist storytelling which challenged the player's beliefs, and gameplay which rewarded player choice and expression made it the best for everything cRPGs had to offer. Its legacy cannot be understated. If it wasn’t for Torment the way wouldn’t have been paved for the RPG genre to draw inspiration from to recreate its magic. Especially for some of the more direct inspirations. One of the most obvious examples comes from Knights of the Old Republic 2. Which tracks since the remnants of Black Isle/Interplay developed it, including the lead writer recycling many unused ideas from Planescape: Torment to form the foundation for the game. Recently, this is also clear in ZA/UM’s groundbreaking hit, Disco Elysium. The developers constantly cited Planescape: Torment and its peers as major inspirations regarding the narrative and game design. The presentation and typography alone, being lifted straight from Torment, shows how much they loved wearing their influences by their sleeves. Released between the two games came a third spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment made by, interestingly, InXile.
A quick rundown: when Black Isle/Interplay started going down the shitter, mostly financially, three different developers would eventually spawn from its untimely death. These would be Troika (founded by OG Fallout creators: Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky, and Jason Anderson), Obsidian (founded by two noteworthy Black Isle veterans: Feargus Urquhart and Chris Avellone), and InXile (founded by the original founder of Interplay, mostly acting as a producer except for Wasteland which is his baby, Brian Fargo). Out of the three developers who inherited the legacy of Black Isle/Interplay, InXile might be the worst of the bunch. I mean, I guess that’s hard to say now since Troika only made three games (which is ironic given their name) and has been long fucking dead thanks to Activision, and Obsidian’s old guard of talent has long since jumped ship with only the Chad J.E Sawyer remaining (Pentiment looks like it could be special). Yet, InXile has nothing that seems to hold a candle to either Troika’s premature, unfinished masterpiece in Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, or Obsidian’s genre-defining classics like KOTOR 2 and New Vegas. I like Wasteland 2 just fine, and though I haven’t gotten around to it yet, Wasteland 3 looks pretty neat, but it doesn’t quite own up to the roots these developers owe themselves to, and have continued to strive for in different ways.
Knowing all this context is interesting because here you have a legacy developer, one who originally had a hand in developing the many excellent role-playing games that cultivated in the West, trying to make a deliberate spiritual sequel to one of said games, and somehow — none of this added up for a worthy successor to Planescape: Torment.
Tides of Numenera may not be offensive as far as spiritual successors, or hell, even sequels to towering classics can end up being. I’d even hesitate to say this is devoid of any interesting merit or value to justify its own existence. The premise is a very interesting twist on Torment’s, whereas in that you play as a man reconciling with the traumatic scars of every person he used to be, in this, you play as someone who grew consciousness out of the many lives from a body changing god who discovered the secret to immortality and is forced to deal with the accountability thrown on top of you while figuring out who you are now. It’s very inline with how high concept and surreal Torment famously is, except now in the backdrop of a more futuristic setting, but the execution is so jarringly uncharismatic and dull. The companions are some of the most remarkably forgettable I’ve come across in the Interplay/Black Isle/Troika/InXile/Obsidian lineage of RPGs. I’m actually struggling to remember their names because they’re so devoid of personality and character. Compare this to Planescape: Torment which had such a colorful, complicated gallery of companions that stick right deep into your mind after playing. Each with their own special quirks, needs, wants, beliefs, and personal tragedy which parallels the themes explored through The Nameless One. You remember Morte’s comical wit and how deceptively intriguing he is underneath that persona he puts on. You remember Dak’Kon’s crisis in belief and his depressing servitude towards The Nameless One. You remember Ignus and how much a pyromaniac he was who hated your guts because of your past actions. You even remember Nordom who, on the surface seems like just a gag-like character, is fascinating because of his mere existence grappling with independence and mortality. I can’t say any of this to the companions you can encounter for how much of a nothingburger they blend into together.
This also goes towards the general writing and presentation as well. The flowery yet thorny written prose and dialogue from the original Torment is rendered but a shallow, empty shell that is just “yeah, that is indeed writing and text doing what it's doing alright”. There’s no depth here; none of the genuinely thought-provoking nuance, the humor, the romance, the edge, or much of anything resembling an actual human being wrote this. The game feels like an unfocused mess of minor stories or events that just happen with no strong through-line to make it feel cohesively paced as an experience. The Ninth World should be this high science fantasy world that feels weird yet lived in but the uninteresting bog standard NPCs that populate it kills the idea. Also, I don’t know why this is such a problem with so many modern cRPGs but why is it hard to make a visually distinct and appealing looking world? I want to chalk it up as just being difficult to present good art direction and aesthetics into a usually low-budgeted isometric game but Planescape: Torment and the original Fallouts still have exceedingly powerful visual direction through their creative menu designs, distinct environments, colorful characters, and vivid atmosphere that holds up especially today where that’s becoming difficult to find. Even Disco Elysium has some of the most stylized yet realistically gorgeous art direction to have ever been presented in a video game, and that’s a modern cRPG too, so Tides of Numenera really doesn’t have an excuse.
I want to understand the critical praise this got and see if there’s truly a solid game underneath this that can stand comfortably okay next to Planescape: Torment, but no matter how many hours I’ve put to work my way through (which is like a total of 5-6) I just couldn’t give less of a shit. Maybe there is a shiny diamond in the rough to be found later but I doubt it since this seems to only see Torment for the forest rather than the trees. And if you were on hard copium and desperately looking for something to fill in the void like a post-ME3 BioWare fan, even willing to crowdfund a Kickstarter to satisfy that itch, then you’re much better off playing Disco Elysium which is a far more ambitious and respectful spiritual successor.
A quick rundown: when Black Isle/Interplay started going down the shitter, mostly financially, three different developers would eventually spawn from its untimely death. These would be Troika (founded by OG Fallout creators: Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky, and Jason Anderson), Obsidian (founded by two noteworthy Black Isle veterans: Feargus Urquhart and Chris Avellone), and InXile (founded by the original founder of Interplay, mostly acting as a producer except for Wasteland which is his baby, Brian Fargo). Out of the three developers who inherited the legacy of Black Isle/Interplay, InXile might be the worst of the bunch. I mean, I guess that’s hard to say now since Troika only made three games (which is ironic given their name) and has been long fucking dead thanks to Activision, and Obsidian’s old guard of talent has long since jumped ship with only the Chad J.E Sawyer remaining (Pentiment looks like it could be special). Yet, InXile has nothing that seems to hold a candle to either Troika’s premature, unfinished masterpiece in Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, or Obsidian’s genre-defining classics like KOTOR 2 and New Vegas. I like Wasteland 2 just fine, and though I haven’t gotten around to it yet, Wasteland 3 looks pretty neat, but it doesn’t quite own up to the roots these developers owe themselves to, and have continued to strive for in different ways.
Knowing all this context is interesting because here you have a legacy developer, one who originally had a hand in developing the many excellent role-playing games that cultivated in the West, trying to make a deliberate spiritual sequel to one of said games, and somehow — none of this added up for a worthy successor to Planescape: Torment.
Tides of Numenera may not be offensive as far as spiritual successors, or hell, even sequels to towering classics can end up being. I’d even hesitate to say this is devoid of any interesting merit or value to justify its own existence. The premise is a very interesting twist on Torment’s, whereas in that you play as a man reconciling with the traumatic scars of every person he used to be, in this, you play as someone who grew consciousness out of the many lives from a body changing god who discovered the secret to immortality and is forced to deal with the accountability thrown on top of you while figuring out who you are now. It’s very inline with how high concept and surreal Torment famously is, except now in the backdrop of a more futuristic setting, but the execution is so jarringly uncharismatic and dull. The companions are some of the most remarkably forgettable I’ve come across in the Interplay/Black Isle/Troika/InXile/Obsidian lineage of RPGs. I’m actually struggling to remember their names because they’re so devoid of personality and character. Compare this to Planescape: Torment which had such a colorful, complicated gallery of companions that stick right deep into your mind after playing. Each with their own special quirks, needs, wants, beliefs, and personal tragedy which parallels the themes explored through The Nameless One. You remember Morte’s comical wit and how deceptively intriguing he is underneath that persona he puts on. You remember Dak’Kon’s crisis in belief and his depressing servitude towards The Nameless One. You remember Ignus and how much a pyromaniac he was who hated your guts because of your past actions. You even remember Nordom who, on the surface seems like just a gag-like character, is fascinating because of his mere existence grappling with independence and mortality. I can’t say any of this to the companions you can encounter for how much of a nothingburger they blend into together.
This also goes towards the general writing and presentation as well. The flowery yet thorny written prose and dialogue from the original Torment is rendered but a shallow, empty shell that is just “yeah, that is indeed writing and text doing what it's doing alright”. There’s no depth here; none of the genuinely thought-provoking nuance, the humor, the romance, the edge, or much of anything resembling an actual human being wrote this. The game feels like an unfocused mess of minor stories or events that just happen with no strong through-line to make it feel cohesively paced as an experience. The Ninth World should be this high science fantasy world that feels weird yet lived in but the uninteresting bog standard NPCs that populate it kills the idea. Also, I don’t know why this is such a problem with so many modern cRPGs but why is it hard to make a visually distinct and appealing looking world? I want to chalk it up as just being difficult to present good art direction and aesthetics into a usually low-budgeted isometric game but Planescape: Torment and the original Fallouts still have exceedingly powerful visual direction through their creative menu designs, distinct environments, colorful characters, and vivid atmosphere that holds up especially today where that’s becoming difficult to find. Even Disco Elysium has some of the most stylized yet realistically gorgeous art direction to have ever been presented in a video game, and that’s a modern cRPG too, so Tides of Numenera really doesn’t have an excuse.
I want to understand the critical praise this got and see if there’s truly a solid game underneath this that can stand comfortably okay next to Planescape: Torment, but no matter how many hours I’ve put to work my way through (which is like a total of 5-6) I just couldn’t give less of a shit. Maybe there is a shiny diamond in the rough to be found later but I doubt it since this seems to only see Torment for the forest rather than the trees. And if you were on hard copium and desperately looking for something to fill in the void like a post-ME3 BioWare fan, even willing to crowdfund a Kickstarter to satisfy that itch, then you’re much better off playing Disco Elysium which is a far more ambitious and respectful spiritual successor.