Planescape Torment Kickstarter: A spiritual sequel to be set in Monte Cook's Numenera

Dandain

Dandain

Trakanon Raider
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The combat is a little bit like Transistor with a a move/action or move/move (beyond that it is not). Every story fork is a Crisis, this way it just treats a bar brawl or a meeting in a similar way. I have opted to play this cooperatively in a sense with the lady. We aren't that far yet, but I'm trying to keep an open mind about the idea that win or lose a (quest,dialog,interaction,fight) the game's actual time runs. This isn't a game I should really ever reload much if ever, which is at least in theory a lot different than most CRPG's. Reloading for a failed roll that forever keeps a lock jammed, in Torment this shouldn't necessarily be the end. So playing the game in that vein, I could see the game giving a second play as one of the two classes I did not use if the adventure is compelling enough, and the consequence web deep enough. We shall see.

 
Phazael

Phazael

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Finally dug into this game last night. People have criticized the combat, but I kind of like it... if I could find more of it. I have literally been trying to get into fights and there is virtually zero combat in the first few hours. The dice pool system is interesting, but I can see it being annoying that all of your abilities, even basic attacks, are tied into these limited points. The game needs some sort of a map system, though. Yeah I get the old school thing, but when your game is based around reams of technobabble dialog and you need to come back to it after a day or two off, you are going to get lost and not know what the fuck to do anymore. Story is good, but god damn is it wordy.
 
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Kharzette

Kharzette

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I'm only 3 hours in but I think they may have actually created a worthy successor. I may have to move Mark Morgan to my #1 fave musician spot.
 
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Vaclav

Vaclav

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Just beat it - can see tons of branches that could've turned out differently, not sure I'll rush out to replay (Haven't even started Horizon yet) - but I enjoyed the journey.
 
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Rime

Rime

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The game is not bad. They significantly neutered what they promised on, however. They had 5 years and hit so many stretch goals... and the game is missing plenty of what they promised.

The story is compelling and I could see some people playing it again. The combat is lackluster and entirely optional for the most part (though, amusingly, you get better gear/xp/cash if you kill everyone you can when given the chance - heh). I am very salty at how much was cut from the game after being 'promised' for the various stretch goals. Very shady business that has likely soured my dealings with InXile in the future.

I would not recommend getting it at the full price tag. I would say to wait for a sale if you did not get a promotional/KS/etc copy of it. If you have a heavy CRPG itch, go with Pillars of Eternity (Another minor disappointment - Though the White March DLC is 100% amazing and what the base game should have been more like) or wait for Divinity: Original Sin 2. Tyranny was also a disappointment, though more based on how the game seems to just 'end' when hinting at so much more - I wanted it to keep going.
 
Shmoopy

Shmoopy

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I Kickstarted this for the cheapest tier. It's definitely like PS:Torment but with way less combat.

Buy for sure if you like RPGs but wait until sale.
 
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Phazael

Phazael

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Ok, finished this. There are some good ideas here and an interesting story, delivered in walls of text. The combat system is one I actually like, but the balance is all over the place on it plus most of the skills are outright useless.

The ending, good grief.... It was the ME3 three cupcake bullshit all over again, complete with last second McGuffin from out of left field. And mind you one of the endings was literally a one paragraph text box. And as someone who is doing a unity game as a hobby project, the amount of poor optimizations and menu cancer triggered me to no end.

The Good-
Interesting setting and story concept.
Enjoyable turn based combat mechanics.
Unique leveling system.

The Bad-
Three Cupcake ending with massive wtf plot holes.
Terribly balanced combat thats also sparse in the game (I went looking for fights and only managed to get in roughly 12 combats).
Story of the main PC never connects to anything in the world.
Game revolves around the use of only one stat for 95% of the tests and most skills never get used at all.
Ludicrously short for an RPG. Like seriously, it can probably be beat in ten hours if you actively avoid combat. Two towns, one mini dungeon, and a dozen fights are all there is.

The Ugly-
Massive load times on a game that looks like an emulated 80s game.
Menu system that is both buggy and pure cancer to use (no organize option, even).
Gobs and gobs of useless skills and power choices. INT is the only stat you will ever need. AE Nano Blast and Single Target Nano Blast are the only things worth using.
All of the interesting fights had scripted story endings that make doing anything in the actual fight basically irrelevant.
Basic shit like how to talk to companions so you can swap party members is no where in the in game tutorials or help.

So, basically, this game had so much potential but is utter dogshit thanks to the ending. If you like story driven RPGs with zero effort put into their game mechanics, wait til it drops to the 20 buck level and then give Gone Home Numeneria Edition a try. Otherwise, stay the fuck away. InExile fucked up when they let this retard studio hitch on to their wagon. My best takeaway from this is that I learned a lot of shit not to do with my own Unity game, or at least thats who I rationalizing pissing away money for this turd and playing through it.
 
E

Elidroth

Trakanon Raider
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Kharzette said:
I'm only 3 hours in but I think they may have actually created a worthy successor. I may have to move Mark Morgan to my #1 fave musician spot.
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Agreed. I stopped playing to play Horizon, but I'll be getting back to this soon. The writing is fantastic so far and I absolutely love the Torment world.
 
Phazael

Phazael

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Come back and post when you see the ending. I am curious if you have the same change of opinion I did.
 
Frenzied Wombat

Frenzied Wombat

Potato del Grande
14,730
31,802
Phazael said:
Ok, finished this. There are some good ideas here and an interesting story, delivered in walls of text. The combat system is one I actually like, but the balance is all over the place on it plus most of the skills are outright useless.

The ending, good grief.... It was the ME3 three cupcake bullshit all over again, complete with last second McGuffin from out of left field. And mind you one of the endings was literally a one paragraph text box. And as someone who is doing a unity game as a hobby project, the amount of poor optimizations and menu cancer triggered me to no end.

The Good-
Interesting setting and story concept.
Enjoyable turn based combat mechanics.
Unique leveling system.

The Bad-
Three Cupcake ending with massive wtf plot holes.
Terribly balanced combat thats also sparse in the game (I went looking for fights and only managed to get in roughly 12 combats).
Story of the main PC never connects to anything in the world.
Game revolves around the use of only one stat for 95% of the tests and most skills never get used at all.
Ludicrously short for an RPG. Like seriously, it can probably be beat in ten hours if you actively avoid combat. Two towns, one mini dungeon, and a dozen fights are all there is.

The Ugly-
Massive load times on a game that looks like an emulated 80s game.
Menu system that is both buggy and pure cancer to use (no organize option, even).
Gobs and gobs of useless skills and power choices. INT is the only stat you will ever need. AE Nano Blast and Single Target Nano Blast are the only things worth using.
All of the interesting fights had scripted story endings that make doing anything in the actual fight basically irrelevant.
Basic shit like how to talk to companions so you can swap party members is no where in the in game tutorials or help.

So, basically, this game had so much potential but is utter dogshit thanks to the ending. If you like story driven RPGs with zero effort put into their game mechanics, wait til it drops to the 20 buck level and then give Gone Home Numeneria Edition a try. Otherwise, stay the fuck away. InExile fucked up when they let this retard studio hitch on to their wagon. My best takeaway from this is that I learned a lot of shit not to do with my own Unity game, or at least thats who I rationalizing pissing away money for this turd and playing through it.
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This makes me sad inside.. Considering the kickstarter raised so much coin I would have expected better, but it really seems like they just milked as many kickstarter bucks as they could and did the bare minimum-- 10 hours playtime is disgusting.. It seems to me all these Kickstarter remakes have been mediocre at best except for Wasteland II, which I found to be excellent. I know there are some Pillars of Eternity fanbois out there, but imho it couldn't hold a candle to Baldur's gate and overall felt soulless and the stat system was downright unintuitive.
 
Phazael

Phazael

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POE was at least a solid effort and had content to fill out its cost. It had the same problem with useless stats and god classes, but the combat and story were both there. POE did not have the horrible inventory system and mostly useless/dead weight companions (though the POE companions at release were laughably terrible in game play) that this game is plagued with. The story in POE was also arguably much better. This one seriously feels like two towns of loosely connected bullshit and then oops ran out of money time for three fights to end the game. Five years and all that money to make this shit? Christ, give me three months with the Aurora 2 NWN2 Engine and could have come up with a better game by myself. InExile should have dumped these guys when they saw what a stinker it was, but I am guessing after how UBI treated Obsidian (where most of them moonlight) over the Stick of Truth development, they felt morally obligated to keep this turd afloat.

Thing is, if the ending had been well designed AT ALL and/or there simply had been more story leading up to it, I would give this game a pass. There is some real potential there, mostly in the use of Monte Cook's world. But my best guess after talking to friends at InExile about it is that these guys phoned this one in while using the cash for either hookers and blow or to fund another project IP they otherwise could not get bankrolled. The fact that they milked Planescape Torment nostalgia for this shitpile is criminal. It has the same relationship to PS:T as the World War Z movie had to its book. Complete fucking ripoff.
 
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Frenzied Wombat

Frenzied Wombat

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Phazael said:
POE was at least a solid effort and had content to fill out its cost. It had the same problem with useless stats and god classes, but the combat and story were both there. POE did not have the horrible inventory system and mostly useless/dead weight companions (though the POE companions at release were laughably terrible in game play) that this game is plagued with. The story in POE was also arguably much better. This one seriously feels like two towns of loosely connected bullshit and then oops ran out of money time for three fights to end the game. Five years and all that money to make this shit? Christ, give me three months with the Aurora 2 NWN2 Engine and could have come up with a better game by myself. InExile should have dumped these guys when they saw what a stinker it was, but I am guessing after how UBI treated Obsidian (where most of them moonlight) over the Stick of Truth development, they felt morally obligated to keep this turd afloat.

Thing is, if the ending had been well designed AT ALL and/or there simply had been more story leading up to it, I would give this game a pass. There is some real potential there, mostly in the use of Monte Cook's world. But my best guess after talking to friends at InExile about it is that these guys phoned this one in while using the cash for either hookers and blow or to fund another project IP they otherwise could not get bankrolled. The fact that they milked Planescape Torment nostalgia for this shitpile is criminal. It has the same relationship to PS:T as the World War Z movie had to its book. Complete fucking ripoff.
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I think I dumped POE shortly after I got the keep, which felt like it was rushed and tacked on at the last minute. It had so much potential yet seemed to have little impact on the game itself. In any case, if the game is as bad as you say, I seriously hope the devs get fucked for exploiting one of the best games of all time to sell an unpolished turd. No idea how it's pulling 83 on metacritic based on your feedback.. BTW, I've read that the PS4 version is practically unplayable in its current state-- riddled with freezes and frame rate issues.

I was sooo looking forward to playing this too..
 
Phazael

Phazael

Confirmed Beta Shitlord, Fat Bastard
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Well, aside from inventory bugs and two places where the geometry gets you stuck, the game ran to completion for me with no crashes. The frame rates were really bad, though (on a PS4 Pro with an SSD installed no less) especially for a game that looks like its a decade old. I would not call it unplayable, though. The best way I can describe this game is the same feeling I had when buying Master of Orion 3 after enjoying MOO2 so much. Complete disappointment.
 
Kirun

Kirun

Buzzfeed Editor
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Frenzied Wombat said:
It seems to me all these Kickstarter remakes have been mediocre at best except for Wasteland II, which I found to be excellent. I know there are some Pillars of Eternity fanbois out there, but imho it couldn't hold a candle to Baldur's gate and overall felt soulless and the stat system was downright unintuitive.
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Seriously this. Wasteland 2 is really the only Kickstarter of the infinity-engine era RPG "remakes" that I've thoroughly enjoyed. PoE felt so flat and boring that I didn't play much past the keep part of the game. And from what I'm hearing, this game is really just an interactive story.
 
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TJT

TJT

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God damn tragedy. Let us hope Pillars of Eternity II is an improvement. I actually liked PoE a bit and I will eventually play the White March.
 
Rime

Rime

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White March is what PoE should have been. It was engaging. The 'soul bound'/leveling weapons are awesome. The fights are difficult. And the story is great.
 
Aaron

Aaron

Goonsquad Officer
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I hope this will be one of those cases where a couple of official patches (and maybe an un-official one for good measure) will turn it around. Til then I think I'll wait.
 
Phazael

Phazael

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Patches might balance the combat, but its such a small part of the game (and its issues) that its probably not worth bothering. No patch will solve the story or wall of text issues.
 
Vaclav

Vaclav

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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Phazael said:
Patches might balance the combat, but its such a small part of the game (and its issues) that its probably not worth bothering. No patch will solve the story or wall of text issues.
Click to expand...

The story was solid if you actually followed it - it sounds like you ADDed and couldn't follow it. And the endings being "just colors" a la ME3 is quite laughable - ending my wife got was NOTHING like the one I got.

I'll personally admit I had a hard time getting into the Pre-release version because of my own ADD and "reteaching" myself to read and not just speedread text to accelerate through conversations ASAP. But after a week or so of "tempering" myself to it and reading in depth the game took on a much greater flesh.
 
Phazael

Phazael

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There were three choices at the end and a fourth if you had enough tide and dug for it. You wife might have gotten a different ending, but she sure as hell got to the same final branch tree as you. Plus..
The whole daughter of the Changing God shit was tacked on as a final McGuffin at the end with zero foreshadowing beyond one shitty quest in town one (of 2) that gave zero reason to connect the two. It was dumb as shit and not built up to in the slightest. Even the idea of the Changing God being dead (which made the whole Endless War thing irrelevant) had zero tells prior to the post Bloom shit.

Your choices are three stupid contrived options and a game over. That is exactly the three cupcake ME3 horse shit. There are some minor variations on it, but its basically exactly three options and a troll ending (and most routes end with the character croaking ignominiously) exactly like ME3.

More than that, the entire ending was clearly clipped and anticlimactic. At least ME3 had epic send offs and a massive suicide run to get to the Lets Make a Deal or Punch Monty Haul in the nuts endings. This game was "you did some crap in the bloom, here are some fights you dont have to win and a three choice ending". No part of the game set the path. You can quite literally see every possible ending just by reloading and choosing different Oregon Trail numbers in the last conversation. That's a dogshit story at the end, and they could have made it decent with fairly little effort. And the orphan girl is the only companion with even a remotely complete quest line in the game. There is zero use for companions (outside of stat batteries for tests), unless you want to do a variation on the Daughter ending with one of them. The game is PAINFULLY obviously incomplete.

And if I want to play Gone Home: Numenera Edition, I would rather do it on an Ebook and without the 1990s graphics and two minute load times. Christ, I am tempted to buy this for Ut just to hear him bitch about it. If I put this up as a free NWN2 module, I would be fucking embarrassed by it. The potential they squandered (and the good will from PS : T) make this rage worthy bad, rather than "I blew 50 bucks out of boredom that I should have spent on weed" bad.
 
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