“He was a silent fury who no torment could tame.”
I have never felt the need to play one of the Torment games before. In fact I've always found them quite intimidating with their reams of text and I do mean reams. Everything you read means something so you'd better make sure you put a lot of time to one side if you decide to play Torment Tides of Numenera.
Right from the off the bottom quarter of your screen is filled with text explaining your current situation and the choices of dialogue or actions that are available to you as you plummet towards the ground at breakneck speed. My first set of decisions killed me but the second time round I survived and upon waking up I found myself plagued with even more text and decisions to make. I felt totally out of my depth and I had absolutely no idea what the hell was going on. I was either going to skip my way through everything and confuse myself or make the decision to read every line and make my choices based on what I could deduce from them. Thankfully I chose the latter. 
By the time I'd decided to play by the rules I had already lost my partner because of a dubious decision I'd made when skipping through dialogue and decisions. He wasn't killed he just decided to leave me and these consequences are how the game drags you in. No matter where you are there is always something just around the corner to discover or a decision to be made that can completely alter the course of the game. Yet no decision rightly or wrongly can bring the game to an end. You just have to live with the decisions you have made.
The combat is some of the most tactical I have ever experienced and your movement is turn-based which makes every decision you make vital. Pick your enemy and unleash an attack while trying to conserve your all important Effort. If you're attack doesn't have the desired effect you had better act quick and think of another solution. The way you build your character and progress through the game begins when you choose what class you want your character to be. You can choose from. Glaives are pure bred warriors who wear heavy armour and yield heavy or light weaponry. Jacks as the name suggest are masters of nothing but don't dismiss them because what they lack in a particular skill set they more than make up for with their jack of all trades know how and Nanos are wizards of arcane magic who can work miracles. I chose to play as a Nano class because it offers more speech branches which allow you to possibly get out of difficult situations if you used correctly. 
As I've mentioned before Torment Tides of Numenera is a really daunting game. I found myself getting completely lost in the game's lore because of its complexity but I think that's the point. Your character doesn't even know what the hell is going on either so I decided to just relax and enjoy the game for what it is and not beat myself up when things went over my head. The huge amount of choices and their consequences can make you feel like you're drowning. You could never playthrough once and experience everything. You would need to play through it several times to experience everything on offer here. The amount of side quests alone is staggering or just the fact that you could spend your entire time just talking to the people you meet and never have the same conversation twice is amazing. I've never once regretted a decision that I've made regardless of the outcome. Even in death you just reappear within your own mind until you manage to find your way out and carry on.
Torment: Tides of Numenera blew of away and in no RPG fan. I was completely won over by the depth of the story and every character I met. I have never played a game that is so full of choices. I have no doubt in my mind that I will be heading back into a new game when I have the time with a different class just to see how different it will be.
Developer: inXile Entertainment
Publisher: Techland Publishing
Website: Torment: Tides Of Numenera
Twitter: @Inxile_Ent
Review code supplied by Premier Comms