Tormentum II Review
OhNoo Studio’s adventure Tormentum II traps a programmer inside a grotesque dark fantasy simulation inspired by H.R. Giger and Zdzisław Beksiński.
Tormentum II. Credit: OhNoo Studio
OhNoo Studio’s Tormentum II is a dark fantasy point-and-click adventure set amid bleak, decaying landscapes inspired by H.R. Giger and Zdzisław Beksiński. Its world is grotesque and absorbing, although the characters inhabiting it are rarely as interesting as they look.
You play as David, a programmer building a simulation who becomes trapped inside it after installing mysterious new hardware. He doesn’t remember how he got there, but he knows that what he sees goes beyond anything he built. Now he must find his way home. Your morally ambiguous choices affect the fates of other characters as well as the ending.
The story was a little too self-serious for me, although I’m not sure how I would have handled the material better. The problem may be that the characters are written more like narrative devices than people. It’s as if David forgot to give any of them a personality.
Tormentum II. Credit: OhNoo Studio
Tormentum II. Credit: OhNoo Studio
While I didn’t love the writing, I enjoyed the puzzles. I felt challenged but was never stuck long enough to become frustrated, and I never broke down and looked up a solution. The story is also a puzzle in its own way. It’s difficult to predict how your choices might affect the outcome. Games like this often send me obsessively searching for how to get the “best” story results, but here I felt at ease letting my gut choices run their course. I highly recommend experiencing the game that way.
Like it says on the tin, Tormentum II leans hard on the work of Giger and Beksiński. Grotesque biomechanical machines and creatures, along with ruined landscapes, create a deep, pervasive sense of dread. The imagery is wonderful. Its execution feels stiff, though. Characters look lifeless, while the world has the overworked flatness I find endemic to this digital paint style that persists no matter how carefully rendered the individual scenes appear.
Fans of grimdark fantasy and the artists who inspired Tormentum II will find plenty here to love. Its strong point-and-click puzzles support that nightmarish vision, although flat characters and stiff presentation keep it from being a more memorable adventure.
Tormentum II
Tormentum II pairs strong point-and-click puzzles with a nightmarish vision, although flat characters and stiff presentation keep it from being more memorable.
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