Today I jumped into the Early Access build for the first time to see how it plays and get some impressions of the early parts.
First off, Torment: Tides of Numenera does not mess around with its richness in text. There's tons and tons of descriptions about the environments, dialogues offer at least 5 or 6 possible branches to go into and there are very few generic NPCs that give you a single line response. Once I'd entered the first real area (the Circus Market) I realized that I shouldn't approach and talk to everybody. It's too much! But in a good way, this led me to be more objective oriented in my play style. I finished one quest, it's about rescuing a guy who's being publicly executed. It was a very interesting premise, there were multiple ways I could've gone about it, and even in the solution I chose, I had different means of progress (do I talk a merchant into selling me an item that's not for me? Do I snatch it when they're not looking? etc).

Torment is a game that delights in the inclusion of skill checks at every opportunity which is fantastic. I do love my skill checks in my RPGs. In conclusion of the quest was satisfying and I grew to like the characters I met. They had personality and there was some notable nuance in the writing.

Overall I had a great first impression. It seems like the full game will be a real monster in terms of replayability if they keep up the standard set by this first quest anyways.

Today I jumped into the Early Access build for the first time to see how it plays and get some impressions of the early parts. First off, Torment: Tides of Numenera does not mess around with its richness in text. There's tons and tons of descriptions about the environments, dialogues offer at least 5 or 6 possible branches to go into and there are very few generic NPCs that give you a single line response. Once I'd entered the first real area (the Circus Market) I realized that I shouldn't approach and talk to everybody. It's too much! But in a good way, this led me to be more objective oriented in my play style. I finished one quest, it's about rescuing a guy who's being publicly executed. It was a very interesting premise, there were multiple ways I could've gone about it, and even in the solution I chose, I had different means of progress (do I talk a merchant into selling me an item that's not for me? Do I snatch it when they're not looking? etc). Torment is a game that delights in the inclusion of skill checks at every opportunity which is fantastic. I do love my skill checks in my RPGs. In conclusion of the quest was satisfying and I grew to like the characters I met. They had personality and there was some notable nuance in the writing. Overall I had a great first impression. It seems like the full game will be a real monster in terms of replayability if they keep up the standard set by this first quest anyways.