Pyre

Didn't enjoy. Slow, convoluted

The gameplay is simple in its design but thoroughly detailed and can be challenging at times since the CPU moves and acts way too fast. In fact, I believe that the CPU has different cooldowns on certain actions nevertheless some characters if played well can prevail even in mere seconds. Nonetheless, there are few "gamey" mechanics, that is stuff which breaks the immersion. The music is well integrated into the game and is part of the experience. That is the music flows with the gameplay and with how the player interacts with the menus and such. The graphical assets are "few" compared to other games but again are well integrated and show much detail and love. The story is the strong part of this game: this is one of the few fantasy-stories in which the nihilist and resentful perish and who thrives are people that can find meaning. The story itself is ripe with hints of meta-narratives which are rooted in old myths of our civilization(look at the Sumerian one for example) and also at some more recent events(the collapse of dictatorships). Overall if you are into simplistic gameplay and you are willing to experience great art(music, graphics and story) by all means buy this game since few other games can compete with this one. A playthrough takes about 20hrs and another difficulty level gets unlocked, so it is replayable if you wish. The story hits at somewhat different finales.

It is a splendid game, it suprises me most how well crafted this piece of art is since this is the third time this company makes such a gorgious game. I even like it better than transistor but the gameplay!. The gameplay is bad!. And it is not even bad for the right reasons. Everything is there! And wouldn't this be a game with great visuals and a nice story it would be the death of it. And it is only because of the delay, everythign seems to happen deleaded or it doesn't react in certain moments. I am not talking about charge up times more like when you make the enemy drop the ball you cannot act until the slow motion is done. That is all, it is just slightly delayed controlls which makes me wonder why they even include a 4th difficulty. I think if there was simple easy, normal and hard I wouldn't even bo so bothered but the inclusion of a super hard mode makes me wonder if they thought that was good gameplay. Now, now bastion had its problems too in that department but transistor was an exelent game in that regard. So now you know if a slight delay us all that is wrong with this game. Than you know how recommendable the rest is, farewell may dear reader!.

I'm in tears, for anyone thinking of getting the game I wholeheartedly recommend it. It is to be touched in these ways, to experience such intense emotion we live for. The game takes story telling to another level. Bringing together amazing characters, beautiful art and music that just absolutely pulls you into the story and makes you invested with everyone and everything that happens in the story as you progress. The game mechanics themselves are also top notch, though they are not the main focus of what makes this game the incredible experience that it is to play. Though if you have worries about the enjoyment of the gameplay itself, there is nothing to worry about in my opinion in that regard. The controls are intuitive, and from my own personal experience I throughly enjoyed this aspect of the game as well. It could honestly be a full fletched game of its own. There is some sense of repition in this game, which might stop you from completing it all in one sitting. But to me this does not take away any of the aspects about the story told, the game mechanics and the whole experience as a whole.

I could probably write essays about this game, limited only by gog's inability to support line breaks in user reviews. In many ways, it's again Supergiant at its best: Amazing artwork, gripping story with lovable characters underscored by quality music (not as bombastic as the last 2 games, but still at least very good) and tight gameplay. It saddens me to say however, these elements aren't all that well intertwined as with top of the line games and the 'game' part is lacking too. The visual novel style of storytelling is almost completely disconnected from the sports/battle/game portion of the game: you're either reading a comic book, or playing the game. While the stories of Bastion and Transistor could be regarded as somewhat shallow by some, they were fully integrated with the game systems and worked as coherent wholes. With Pyre, the writers told an interesting and very elaborate story. The fact that it's still gripping even when presented as text and (mostly) static images is telling how good the writing is. Still, from a video game one expects some gameplay support. The battle/sports portion is pretty cool and a lot of thought went into it, it still has major issues however. There's basically no strategy since you only control one character at a time and the game extremely prefers super-fast, aggressive play. If you can deliver the ball before the enemy can even figure out what's going on, you win. The worst part, I believe, is, you can lose ALL your characters, leaving your base utterly defenseless as the enemy player sprints into it while you just watch the revival timers... Also I'm not entirely buying the whole 'escape from hellhole exile' plot since it's somewhat undermined by the gorgeous graphics, friendly characters and humour. This place doesn't look all that bad to me is what I'm saying. At the end though, last night I couldn't put the game down for 12 hours until I finished it, despite my reservations, and that hasn't happened in years.