The Murdens, a disheveled race of bird humanoids stole it from them. A jail bust and deadly gustĪfter our painful goodbyes, I start the search for the standard of a downtrodden platoon I met earlier. Finally, an RPG that doesn't force you to punch or stab to connect. He may be the implication of a living thing, floating around somewhere in that sphere, but shapes need love too. Continued exile isn't the worst that could happen, he reasons, and Koto is far more pleased that I discouraged his people from violence and shed light on their humanity in the presence of the Bloom soldiers than anything. He's curious to know what I saw beyond the maw, and I tell him it wasn't his home planet. It’s there I meet the leader of the local mutants, a prince in exile stuck inside a giant metallic orb. After asking some questions (and bribing the mutants with money), I’m able to talk down both parties and carry on through Little Nihilesh. With every turn, I divide my party and practice diplomacy. But unlike the latest bunch of CRPGS (Tyranny, Pillars of Eternity, Wasteland 2), I have the option to talk instead of stab.
It plays out like a typical RPG battle with each unit, including my own, taking turns to move and act. They’re about to fight, and it wasn’t “Crisis Initiated” in fanciful letters splashing onto the screen that tipped me off. Two groups, one of mutants and the other of Bloom soldiers, stand across from one another and shout accusations. I'm happy to do it though, especially for my new mutant orb friend. You’re meant to make friends and feed them to a moist hole. But they’re all just a means to an end, a quick snack for the maw and your ticket out of there. In order to find the right person to open a maw, you need to practice empathy, examining the habits and personalities of every character you encounter. It might be one of the most intriguing and insidious zones I’ve played in an RPG. The Bloom is jam packed with these micro morality plays, ripping through them before your conscience has time to react. Within five minutes, a quest invoked the ethics of murder and what constitutes life. It sniffs out the data (along with a bit of HP) and teleports me to a space station orbiting a planet somewhere and somewhen far, far away. With the ship AI’s embodiment of guilt embedded in my mind, I offer myself to the maw. Fry some up in coconut oil, a bit of rosemary-delicious. I feel clever and terrible all at once.Įarlier, I rescued a psychic from slavery and she tipped me off that one of the maws was hungry for guilt.
Torment tides of numenera party members download#
I download them, assimilate them into my cyberpunk brain fittings, and the ship AI shuts down for good. I’ll find them a more reliable source of power, sure. After some skill-check persuasions, I convince the ship AI to let me take the AI replications of its doomed crew with me. Advanced enough to feel guilt, the ship AI felt responsible for killing its crew, so it replicated them digitally as a means of tricking them or whatever was left of their collective consciousness, into eternal life.
With a bit of charm, I calm the AI and listen to its story. The ship AI lights up and asks me who I am and why I’m there. I head north and into the remnants of a crashed ship. So in place of breaking down the combat systems of a game you can already play in Early Access, here are a few snippets of story and moral strain from my short session. I have my arms wide open, ready for whatever the hell the Numenera roleplaying universe allows, which is apparently just about anything.īased on two hours from a preview event after being plopped into the middle of the story, I was disoriented and without a stake in the overarching plot and characters, but more absorbed in it than any game narrative in recent memory. In Torment: Tides of Numenera (opens in new tab), the spiritual CRPG successor to Planescape: Torment (opens in new tab), it doesn’t take long for my surprise to morph into hunger. I wonder if this massive interdimensional tentacle monster-city can feel my feet on its, um, parts, and if it tickles or stings or if the trampling of so many human and mutant and whatever other forlorn lifeforms’ feet have made The Bloom bruised and numb by now. Check out that preview (opens in new tab) for lowdown on combat, stat progression, Planescape's influence, and the Numenera roleplaying world. My time with Torment didn't reveal anything new about how Torment plays, but Chris Thursten went into it in-depth a few months back.
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