Working on the same levels is already more than most even attempt, and falling a bit short is nothing to be ashamed of - even if it's impossible to overlook that 'Tides of Numenera' is the real title here, and 'Torment' less a summary of the plot than a general statement of design intent. The Last Castoff isn't completely disconnected from past actions, obviously, but is a big step away from being personally responsible for anything, in a story that often feels afraid to get truly dark, and whose philosophy leans more towards long speeches and debates than the perfect simplicity of Planescape's central question "What can change the nature of a man?" or Mebbeth's exquisite deconstruction of classic RPG fetch quests.Īgain though, we're talking about a stone-cold RPG classic here. Where it stumbles, it's typically because very few of these details feel as personal as The Nameless One's slow realisation that he's basically behind every scrap of pain he encounters. Sections of Sagus Cliffs are supposed to be dangerous, but it's hard to feel that when walking with impunity. You do notice the lack of combat after a while. However, the interesting parts are invariably the moments it finds more philosophical takes on quests, to wrap the familiar in strange and twisted new imagery, and build a bigger picture of the world through smaller, seemingly isolated nuggets of plot and character. There's more overt things, like shout-outs to a past castoff called 'Adahn', villains called the Sorrow that look exactly like the Shadows, and the unnamed main character not usually being able to die, albeit mostly for plot convenience rather than anything really justified in story. This approach as much as anything is what Numenera takes from Planescape Torment. Your task is to persuade his creator to gift him a better one. However, his Levy remains a product of that year that never happened, complete with all the terrible memories and guilt. Instead, after becoming a citizen, he shaped up. It turns out that its donor was a petty criminal who was planning a big heist that would have ended in tragedy. One however has gone horribly wrong and is perpetually in tears. The basic concept is that the first area, Sagus Cliffs, is protected by golem style creatures called Levies, powered by a year of life donated by new citizens. Like all the best RPG quests, this one is both an assignment and a way of learning about the world in a more active way than just being told the lore. One of my favourites from early on involves the 'Levies'. It's not just enjoyable for letting the artists play with the full colour palette, though - it's a great setting for quests and stories. It's a multicolour world of strange floating doohickies and spinning triangles and particle fountains and ancient clocks the size of buildings, and honestly a real breath of fresh air after the far more traditional settings of recent RPGs like Pillars of Eternity and Tyranny and even The Witcher 3. ![]() Numenera is SF rather than fantasy, set on top of eight civilisations' worth of toys and wreckage that range from familiar robots to full-on demonstrations of Clarke's Third Law that any sufficiently advanced technology can be combined with a silly hat to make its user look like a wizard. That's you this time, though like your brothers and sisters, you retain your consciousness, and are a relatively common sight in the world.Įnough options for you? There's no Journal to remember what everyone's said, unfortunately, though key characters will repeat themselves as often as you like. You're not an immortal amnesiac this time, but rather the 'Last Castoff' - in brief, there's an entity called the Changing God who likes building himself new bodies every decade or so, then just dumping the old one. To be clear, Planescape remains by far the superior Torment, but Numenera is as close as anyone's gotten to not just recreating what it did, but the experience of discovering it.īoth games have their roots in pen-and-paper universes, though as with Planescape, it actually helps not to know much about the world so that you can learn along with the main character. And yet somehow, against the odds, inXile does it proud. That's not a percussion heavy soundtrack you're hearing in Not Planescape Torment: Numenera, just the clanking of its giant brass balls. Kickstarter-fuelled nostalgia or not, it takes more than a little self-confidence to name your game after one of the smartest, most beloved, most respected RPGs ever made. ![]() Smart and commendably weird, InXile's homage to Planescape Torment doesn't exceed its inspiration but certainly does it proud.īy Richard Cobbett Published Version tested PC
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