Pyre

The game is hard, and after having had to take a longer time away from gaming I have come back and I think I would play better with my toes than my fingers right now. Playing the game is fairly basic, different characters act diferently, move faster or slower, gets special talents and between "missions" you'll experience the story unfolding in a slideshow, more or less. What makes the game so hard is that out of a team of three you can only control one at once, leaving the other two vulnerable to attacks or to just stand like squishy pillars in the way of the enemy. It would not surprise me if it all comes down to taste and being able to multitask, but I am either enjoying every moment of a match or hating the guts out of the game, even if I am winning, which is why I am having trouble putting a score to this game. There are plenty of playstyles and each character can act differently with different attacks and different ways of defending, but the characters are either too slow to micromanage or so quick you may as well just rush the goal. I feel like the best way to play is just grab two characters who should literally just stand and take up space while having a third one rush, kill everyone and make goals, nothing else works for me personally. So in the end I feel like I want to give this game a decent score for being a new fresh idea that is actually well made, but at the same time I really donot enjoy it, there is so much about it that is just not fun and I feel like if I am not running circles around the opponents, they do it to me.

Pyre has very beautiful graphics It has interesting characters, although it does also have too much meaningless conversations. The gameplay loop is where it has lost potential, in a game that is basically glorified football, passing between charaters is suprisingly a mediocre tactic. After playing for some time I have found the problem with the dely between passing between characters instead of it happening instantly, making it often more wothwhile to solo the enemy team by killing them or rushing the pyre, while sometimes using a 2nd character to defend your own pyre. That took three stars from this game. Very sad.

While I found gameplay itself weaker than in "Bastion" or "Transistor" (the other two big hits from developer Supergiant Games), Pyre is the most unusual, most "experimental", and for me personally the most outstanding of the three. Pyre is an amazing visual novel with fantastic sound, music and visual style. The core gameplay could be described as a "fantasy sports game", in which two teams usually consisting of three characters each try to score points by carrying an orb into the opponent's "end zone". Gameplay itself is serviceable and fun but becomes a bit repetitive towards later stages of the game; the AI is decent but not exceptional. What really made Pyre my favorite Supergiant game is the writing. The story, the characters and the world are fascinating. The game manages to make you feel like you interact with all these elements in a meaningful way, making significant choices that directly effect both the progression of the story as well as gameplay itself. Some of the consequences of your actions (including failures) are so grave I wish the game would allow to save progression at various points so you could reload and try different approaches. Unfortunately replay value is a bit diminished since during the first two hours of the game there are not really any significant decisions to take. Also, unfortunately at the time of this review, the game lacks an online multiplayer mode; player vs player is local coop only.

Concept is a choice-based graphic novel based on liberating exiles from a fantasy purgatory through 3v3 basketball tournaments ("Rites"). Some people enjoy the Rites (personally I think it's too fast-paced for a game based around left-click movement) but the true appeal is in the characters and the branching story and thankfully they nailed this... for most of the game. This is pretty well known but it's still a (SPOILER): at the end of each basketball season, you get a chance to liberate one of your best companions. This is both a poignant part of the narrative and a clever way to make you use all of the game's systems. However, this comes with a major downside: assuming you prioritise your favourite characters, for the final portions of the game you have just your least favourite characters, both in terms of personality and mechanics. This just compounds the issue that the story, which starts out densely packed with new locations and worldbuilding and character moments, becomes less novel, more repetitive and more heavy-handed in its political commentary. This is still a wonderfully told story worth experiencing but, if you're anything like me, you may need to force yourself to finish it.

I am not sure what my expectations were when I bought the game but now that my first playthrough has ended, I am glad that I did. The Rites are fun, and the gameplay seemed alright to me, though my main focus was drawn to the story and the choices you get to make about characters. It was a story that got me involved just when I wasn't really expecting this to happen, and, without even noticing, I was invested in the heart of the game and the outcome of all of my decisions. Story-wise, it is an interesting take on winning and losing and the impact it might have on the characters and on you, the reader - player. I also loved the art and the music was spot-on to deliver the feeling and the atmosphere. A very enjoyable game. I certainly recommend giving it a try! I recommend it