Pyre

When this game was announced in 2016 I was stoked. A new project from the people that made Bastion and Transistor seemed like a slam dunk, but after playing it for an hour or so when it launched in 2017 I quickly gave up on it. Bastion is a pretty straightforward twin-stick action game and Transistor complicates that by adding in some light tactical elements, but Pyre is sort of a sports game and I don't tend to play or enjoy a lot of sports games.

Pyre's Reveal Trailer from 2016

It's not technically sports, but the brunt of the gameplay revolves around your team of three people competing against a different team of three people as you try to get a magical orb (i.e. ball) into a pyre (i.e. goal). There's a narrative reason for this (you're participating in an ancient ritual that just-so-happens to evoke 3-on-3 basketball) but the game is largely a fantastical take on a team based sports game. What makes it unique, beyond the mystical flavoring and video-gamey abilities, is the fact that each team can only move one player at any given time. 

Because of that the game is a balancing act of making sure your two inactive members are not in danger or, ideally, are in a position to obstruct the other team while you, the third member, get the ball (or eliminate an enemy, or set up a trap, or whatever). You can swap between players at will but that previously controlled character will now be stationary wherever you left them, If that sounds a little complicated and hard to wrap your head around well, you'd have the right idea. As characters level up and you earn new items to equip them with it opens up and I found my sea-legs, at least a little, but I feel like this game just never entirely gelled for me. I never truly got the hang of this and was constantly frustrated because I always felt that I was fighting against the controls.  

I think I'd have liked it if it was a bit more like Transistor and let you take your time. Something like a pause button so I can make sure I'm switching to the character I want to switch to or can get a clear view of the map would have been welcome. 

I understand I've been almost entirely negative so far but I want to reassure you that I do like this game. A great deal. When I said this was a sports game that was only half-true, You see, it also takes pretty heavy inspiration from visual novels. The story is almost entirely delivered via written exposition and conversations, and within these sections there are frequently dialogue choices and forks-in-the-road that can dictate, to some extent, how your story unfolds. These choices will typically feed back into the gameplay (I'll go into this more a bit later) but when you're not participating in a "Rite" you're bonding with your teammates or choosing which path to take to get to your destination.

It's like a dating-sim without-the-dating (or a Persona or BioWare RPG or whatever) where it has periods of downtime that allow you to have one-on-one conversations with your troupe and, depending on which dialogue choices you make, can influence how they may perform in an upcoming Rite in the form of some buff or penalty. While I have issues with the execution of its gameplay arenas the foundation behind this back-and-forth between rest and action in this game is incredibly solid.

 

 

This next bit covers some (minor?) story spoilers and goes into the structure of the game a bit but it would be difficult to discuss why I loved Pyre without bringing it up. The general premise of the plot is that you, a nobody, are effectively playing the manager for a group of exiles as they compete to regain the right to reenter society. You'll participate in a number of low-stakes games until, eventually, you'll square off against the team that has the best record. Before that match you need to select one of your highest-ranked characters and, if you succeed in the Rite, that character will get to go home and, as a result, will permanently leave your team. It's a bittersweet scenario as you'll be losing a character you've devoted a lot of time to, and have maybe even spent significant resources on, but they're being written off because they succeeded. The game moves on without them and this is a good thing.

Games like XCOM may force you to rethink team composition after one of your key players is killed, sure, but in this game that reshuffling is the goal. When a "Liberation Rite" comes around, the choice of who to free is a complicated one because you may want a certain character to leave for narrative reasons but, if you do that, you may end up losing your most competent character in the trials. Should you keep your best person around because they're, well, the best, or should you let them move on because, well, they're the best.

In a lot of ways I'm sad I didn't force myself to push on and finish this back in 2017 but, even after finishing the game, I don't blame past-me for giving up. While I think the visual novel elements are the main draw of this (in addition to the music and art which are, like all Supergiant games, stellar) it would be worse if it didn't have the active half to balance it. The trouble is that I'm not a huge fan of what they ended up building to flesh that portion out. That being said, I still highly recommend Pyre.

Totally not a sports game

 

Now that I've finished this I suppose I should probably give Hades a shot. I've been telling myself "I should finish Pyre before I get to that" for years and, well, now I've done that first bit.