Any feedback from anyone who's played it.
I've played it all throughout the beta and now, though I'm still not that far into the release version.
Here's sort of the bullet points:
1. The combat is just okay. It's really easy and while I think it's an improvement on its spiritual predecessor due to being turn based and less frequent it's still not nearly as good as other contemporary turn based RPGs. It does have some neat ideas in that there are multiple ways to end fights and you can even dialog mid fight.
2. The entire underlying Numenera systems suck. Effort is a neat concept but makes the game way too easy. It never feels like you
can't do something which is critically important in an RPG.
3. One of the clear goals of the game was less trash combat and while that was good compared to PS:T, there's actually too little combat now. It's hard to get a feel for the system at first because you can have a couple combats early and then never fight again for 8 hours depending on how your dialog checks go.
4. The sheer volume of dialog checks is great and NPCs notice things you do, much more than all but a handful of other games. However as I said before "effort" makes them too easy which is actually unfortunate because failing dialog checks can be quite interesting in TToN and they are usually not a roadblock as such. In fact often times just passing the dialog check is the least interesting way to complete a task because you might lose out on figuring out the other ways.
5. Again, I've only played up through the original beta area which is about 10 hours, but the great exploration of Sigil is not something that's present in TToN. The characters are there to talk to, there are things to find, but it's much more condensed and there isn't as much going on.
6. A lot of people really complain about NPCs talking to much or lore dumps or whatever, well it's a freaking Torment successor so anyone who says that you can probably ignore to some degree. There is one major problem though in that the game sort of fails on the "show, don't tell" principle but really most dialog heavy RPGs including PS:T do to some degree anyway.
7. The writing is actually nearly great moment to moment. I really like each individual character's story and generally the way they are told. Some of them are very emotional despite being almost all text. They do a lot with a little.
8. Where it fails in writing where PS:T succeeded (though not as great as people think it did IMO) is it lacks cohesiveness and broader themes. In PS:T I WANTED to know about Deionarra. There's no moment anywhere close to "Don't trust the skull". The main plot is simply not compelling and it lacks a clear theme. Maybe this will open up as I play more but I'm 10 hours into a supposedly 20-25 hour game so....
9. The Tides system is not nearly as prevalent as it should be. The game really lacks a character system connection to the game outside of dialog checks. PS:T did this better with the death system and changing classes mid-game. The other spiritual predecessor, Mask of the Betrayer did it best of all. If you haven't played that one you should check it out.
10. The quests are a little too easy and information is spoon fed to the player. There are a few gems though.
For the record I'm not the biggest Planescape Torment fan in the world so you might take my criticisms with that in mind
. PS:T was an okay game with some really horrible combat, above average exploration, and some of the best writing in a game ever.
If you're in the camp who thinks PS:T is the greatest RPG ever, well I'd obviously disagree but you will certainly find a lot to like in TToN. As should any classic RPG fan outside of those who play only for combat.
For what RandV said, I don't think the console stuff hurts much other than the UI. And I'm probably the biggest console hater on the site
. The kickstarter goals and changed content though is very real but the bigger issue there is for me as a backer not that they changed/cut things as that's to be expected in kickstarters. It's that they were
extremely underhanded in how they handled it to the point that I won't give InXile any more crowdfunding. But that has little to do with the game itself and it does a lot to make people go crazy and color their perceptions of what's actually there. So take caution reading reviews. Oh and it's better than Pillars but I could write a whole other book on disappointments in that game
The game itself is solid, a bit lacking in systems, combat could be a lot better. Sounds kinda like PS:T doesn't it