"The version I’ve been exploring is the Kickstarter backers build, which is also what you lovely lot will be able to get your hands on when it launches on Steam Early Access. Avoiding fights or trying to cut them short can be a lot more interesting – allowing you to be shrewd or clever rather than just violent." Interactable objects dotted around the place might confer surprising bonuses on you or your party, requiring skill checks and a spot of luck, and conversations and story seep into battles with interesting results, but the actual act of fighting is slow and weightless and ultimately just a wee bit dull. Take combat, for instance: plodding, turn-based fights absent excitement. Sometimes, it delves into the more conventional aspects of RPGs though – and right now it’s worse off for it. In videogame terms, it’s more like an adventure game than a traditional RPG, with its long, meandering – but intriguing – conversations and esoteric puzzles.
That’s not surprising, since Numenera is actually the setting of a tabletop RPG, created by D&D game designer Monte Cook, which “focuses on story and ideas over mechanics.” The sometimes obtuse rules of D&D have been replaced with philosophical concepts and surrealism, making it a less fussy, though undeniably stranger, system. "Playing Tides of Numenera feels like playing a great tabletop RPG, where the Game Master favours narrative over action-packed lootfests and dragon-slaying. "The more time I spent wandering the streets of Sagus Cliffs, the more baffled I became. "There are bugs and missing features and an ugly UI to contend with, but restarting didn’t faze me in fact, I probably needed that second run-through of the introduction so I could soak it all in. These are personality quirks, opinions and events that have already taken place rather than simple numbers on a sheet." "Some of your decisions will impact your ability pool, broken up into might, speed and intellect, but it feels more like you are rapidly constructing a person rather than a traditional RPG avatar.
"As introductions go, Tides of Numenera’s is dense. Again, the article is spoiler heavy.Īnd again, I will copy parts that are NOT spoilers: Pcgamesn has given an Early Access review. That’s what I wanted to see from the beta, and as long as inXile is serious about taking feedback on board for its bugs and distinctly wobblier bits, I’m pretty confident the final product won’t disappoint."
Tides of numenera circles in red full#
"Time alone will tell whether or not it boasts the philosophical edge or deep characterisation that helped Planescape cut deep and sink in its talons, but this opening section at least promises an adventure full of personality and fun ideas. Instead of just rolling on a stat, as in the D&D model, you spend points from these pools to make challenges easier – to intimidate, to repair an item, to recall someone or something from the past, or whatever else awaits." The twist is that each character has three skill pools, Might, Speed and Intellect. There’s no character customisation beyond gender, combat seems pretty rare so far (focusing on the heavily scripted Crisis system rather than random skirmishes), and most encounters are handled through dialogue and skill-checks. Like Torment, Numenera leans further towards adventure than RPG in many ways. "The mechanics it sets up are at least interesting. "Easily my favourite thing about Numenera is its sense of personality – something I personally found very lacking in its closest Kickstarter competitor, Pillars of Eternity."
"It is possible to entirely skip the hugely scripted, complex encounter just by bluffing your way past." This slice of the game is buggy as heck, suffering from dialogue tree glitches where you know of characters before meeting them and similar scripting errors, and with its first real combat sequence – using the Crisis system – so broken that I’ve still not managed to play it properly." "When inXile calls this a beta, they definitely mean beta. "This is the perfect setting for a Planescape style game." Rock, Paper, Shotgun has taken a look at the beta.
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