One of those games that has been gingerly described as "DMC inspired" instead of just calling it a character action. (How many games need to be inspired by DMC and go on to inspire other games themselves before we can acknowledge a legitimate new genre has emerged??) And I think I take some issue with. Merging of character action and metroidvania. Have you noticed what's wrong with this picture? Character action focuses on rich combat, metroidvania focuses on rich movement and exploration. How do you combine those two things? Generally combat means you stop and stay in one place for a while! What even could that combination be like, some sort of Sonic-esque game perhaps? And sure enough, Vernal Edge has some of the most rich and satisfying combat I have played in years. Some excellent and wonderful bosses also. But in order to get to that combat, you have to do a bunch of platforming and exploring! The only way to play this game with a focus on its combat and have that nice flow between combat encounters is to learn to speedrun it. I want to take my time looking around and poking at the little game world. But I also feel like every time I beat an enemy, they didn't live long enough and I just want to bring them back! I feel like some kind of combat focused post game would have really helped scratch my itch. Maybe something like DMC's own Bloody Palace. Vernal Edge remains firmly a metroidvania, and simply an excellent one at that.
I have my issues with this game but absolutely nothing I can say will ever besmirch how utterly unique it is. It is the best Fantasy Sports Action JRPG ever made. It is the worst Fantasy Sports Action JRPG ever made. It is the only Fantasy Sports Action JRPG ever made. And ħabibi, we need more Fantasy Sports Action JRPGs! Unless you count the 3D swimming pool football minigame from Final Fantasy X. Then Pyre is the best and the FFX minigame is the worst. And honestly, that's a pretty good measure of this game. You remember playing FFX, watching that cutscene and think ah this is going to be truly special. Then gameplay begins and it is just sad trash. Pyre is delivering on all those fervent dreams you never realised you had about that minigame. Complex relationships between competitors. Teams falling and rising over internal feuds. Heavy stakes on each match that feel like world ending stakes to the player/characters but the full ramifications of which are never fully seen until much political upheaval long after the match is over and said political upheaval is itself derived from the internal politics of these matches and between these competitors. Honestly, the only real flaw I can point out is that the actual tossing of the ball itself feels too much like a fun intense fast paced video game. Can we accept that as a form of abstraction? Or, in order for it to be a true sports game, does the sport need to have more drama and tension and literal hours of playtime before a single goal is scored? On the other hand, real sports do actually vary from agonisingly drawn out to overwhelmingly rushingly fast paced. So perhaps in this regard, we can forgive Pyre and declare it perfect.
