I also think that the way the Tides are handled is unsatisfactory. There’s a lot more action, and it feels more like an ARPG than an RPG. Unfortunately, the new Crisis goes too far in the opposite direction. If you’re not a lore freak like me, the original introduction might have felt unbearably slow. I loved learning about the creatures in the tanks, but I’m also the sort of person who reads every single lore book in a game. There was arguably too much style and not enough substance in the early game. I can see why the designers felt that the old Crisis needed improvement. Mooks spawn periodically while you’re destroying the specters, but they simply fly off without attacking. Now, you just whack some memory specters that are being devoured by the Big Bad. The patch notes say whether this Crisis is a placeholder, but it definitely feels like one.The Big Bad looks cool, but the whole thing feels perfunctory. There doesn’t seem to be any challenge to it. Now, the introductory Crisis is much simpler. You still have to fend off an attack by the Sorrow, but the tactical element seems to have vanished. It was a nice way to show players that TTON favors creativity over combat, though it may well have grated after multiple playthroughs. The LC had to focus on the flashbacks, and the Specter (a ghostly companion who served as a guide) could only push the mooks away. This Crisis presented an interesting challenge. Your choices influenced how the flashback would play out, and these decisions had an impact on the LC’s development. Within each tank was a creature, and you were treated to a flashback from its life. There used to be a fairly involved Crisis where you had to run around to different tanks while avoiding mooks sent by the game’s Big Bad. But the beginning plays much differently. The biggest change is probably that the beginning of the game has been completely retooled. The game still begins in media res with the Last Castoff plummeting to earth, and he/she still ends up within their own mind after being knocked unconscious by the fall (trust me, it makes sense in context!). The animations aren't that special, but one thing it does well is allow for smart positioning in combat on both PC and console.As you know, I’ve been participating in the beta for Torment: Tides of Numenera. InXile recently released a huge patch that substantially alters the game, so I decided to jump back into the Ninth World and see the changes for myself. Another strength is that each combat scenario feels carefully crafted rather than a random load of trash mobs thrown into a room, and there's a decent variety of combat skills depending on class – such as "Warp Dash," which lets Jacks teleport to enemies and slash everyone in sight – and one-use ciphers, which unleash devastating attacks (and sometimes explode in your face if you're carrying too many at once). For instance, the influence of the tides carries over into combat, and sometimes on your turn you can use your influence to possibly persuade or intimidate a foe into ending a fight that's already started. More often than not, though, combat comes off as a distraction – so it’s a good thing you never really have to fight.Īt the same time, Tides’ battles include some interesting ideas. Even when I was prepared, my little band of four would themselves surrounded with, say, seven cultists. When I later finally had to jump into a real fight after a poorly chosen response, I realized I barely knew what to do with all the combat skills I'd amassed from leveling. So every time I'd move, I'd have to wait for all of them to move as well, thus forcing the incident to go on far longer than it needed to. I only had one companion at the time, and there were maybe seven of the other guys. The problems revealed themselves in an early "crisis" (Tides' fancy name for a battle), in which I had to sneak past a gaggle of humanoid insects while distracting them with musical objects. Most of the time, though, it's just kind of tedious. Tides of Numenera delights in piling several enemies on the Last Castoff and his or her buds at once, and they hit hard, making it uncommonly tough to survive even with the use of ciphers or taking advantage of an option to kill the leader and cause their followers to go running. The problem lies in the number of enemies it tosses at you. Not because I'm opposed to hacking up a few digital bad dudes with digital swords – far from it – but because I usually found the combat comparatively dull. “I can't say I found the thought of the latter particularly appealing.
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