The music in Pyre is great, and the visuals and artwork is really pretty, but that's pretty much it. In the beginning of the game I found the characters and story interested, and the rites gameplay felt fresh. I still think the rites is a cool concept gameplaywise, but it falls short. For one I don't think the gameplay matched the theme of the game. The theme is that 3 characters have to work together and act as 1, but in reality I'd always end up only controlling one character per round. Morover there's this kind of inputlag or delay which is very frustrating. But most of all it got old really fast. Which could be said about the game in it's entirety in my opinion. When I'd been playing for a while it felt like a chore to read the book of rites or talking to your, rather predictable, companions. The worst thing is the cycles. I understand that it make sense storywise, and that it's supposed to help you feel for the characters but it didn't do it for me at all. I didn't find traversing the downside fun. There was no reason to go out of your way to explore, which felt like a waste of the beautiful scenery. I kept playing, partly 'cause I'd put a good ammount of time into the game and partly because I wanted the game to be "saved" by the story. For me it wasn't. Everytime I'd finnish a liberation rite I'd hope it'd be the last. I really wanted to write this since none of the other reviews are close to reflecting my experience. Sadly the game left me with feelings of disappointed. This type of game should be right up my alley, but were it not for the music and the art I wouldn't have finnished it.
