Pyre
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Pyre is a party-based RPG from the creators of Bastion and Transistor. Lead your band of exiles to freedom through a series of mystical competitions in the Campaign, or challenge a friend to a fast-paced ritual showdown in the head-to-head Versus Mode. As you traverse the desolate and beautiful Downside, you'll battle against a colorful cast of adversaries in pitched, high-stakes confrontations. Each victory (or defeat!) brings your exiles closer to enlightenment: Whether you prevail or you fail, your journey continues in a branching story with no ‘Game Over’. From the vibrant hand-painted artwork to the evocative musical score, every aspect of Pyre's presentation draws you into its fantasy world.
Steam User 46
Its not a perfect game, but Pyre walked so that Hades could run. If you liked the music and the characters in Hades you might just find yourself liking this.
Steam User 37
Darren Korb could punch me and I'd thank him
Steam User 33
I feel like Pyre will either be one of your absolute favorites, or one you hate, no in-between. The entire game is essentially 50% visual novel and 50% unique sports game, but there's plenty else to love about it.
The Positives:
- Beautiful Artwork throughout the entire game
- Great Cast of Characters, each with their own personalities and backstories (playable and non-playable)
- Every rite (match) feels different due to 1. The vast customization, consisting of character selection, talismans, and masteries, and 2. the different map layouts and strategies used by opponents
- Easy to learn, takes a bit more practice (which will happen through the game) to make better strategies
- Very easy achievements for the completionists. With the plenty of guides out there, even the 'hardest' achievement (Beat a Master CPU with 6+ Titan Stars) can be made trivial.
- You physically cannot lose the game. Of course, you can lose a match, but when you do, the story just continues, and your opponent beating you is now written into the course of the story, in fact, you can lose every single Liberation Rite (the 'boss fights') and still successfully beat the game and see the ending.
The Negatives
- Unless the gameplay of the rites is appealing to you, you likely won't have much fun in the game, as the story consists of switching back and forth between fight and VN
- No Online PvP: The Versus mode is exclusively CPU or Local (KBM/Controller)
Overall for me was 10/10, but in general i'd say its a 8.5-9.5/10
Steam User 23
Underrated as fuck
Steam User 32
"I would tell you to turn back.
Cast down your hope.
But all those such as you?
You never listen."
Pyre is an action role-playing video game developed and published by Supergiant Games.
Story
Build on fallen Empire, Commonwealth is where all living races reside.
Law is tough here, with multiple restrictions and bans. Those who commit a crime end up being sentenced into an exile in Downside.
But there are rumours, whispers of a way to redeem yourself and gain back your freedom, to return to your loved ones.
In Pyre you play as a character called "Reader". Ending up in Downside on a verge of death, Scribes look upon you as a group of mysterious strangers in a wagon brings you forth and saves from terrible fate. Utilizing your reading skills you discover tis true what legends say! Ancient rituals can free you, if you participate and prevail in them. Said confirmation starts a quest to gain back your freedom.
Gameplay
Pyre stands out from previous Supergiant work as this is a title with big focus on dialogue, combining RPG aspects and elements implemented from sports games.
Your goal is to travel throughout Downside with fellow exiles and participate in rituals known as Rites to open up the possibility of earning back freedom. Travel, rite, repeat!
Look upon the stars to pick a destination and make your way through to reach celestial landmarks where rites will take place.
Before reaching said locations you participate in events on your way. These involve choosing a path that lies ahead of you as each might give you different items, buffs, or leave you with time to spend on activities called vocations.
Additionally you can visit your wagon for a quick conversation with characters, interact with collected trinkets, check out your roster and seek out a beyonders crystal for practice or special challenges with unique rewards!
Before each rite you will be able to take a quick peek at what your friendly local merchant has to offer. On your journey you collect sols, currency used to buy and/or upgrade talismans that improve certain aspects of your exiles, potions for both temporary and permanent boosts, or simply sell items.
Once stars align and groups are prepared, Rites begin.
These are 3 on 3 competitions played from top-down perspective on small sized areans where both groups have own pyre, flaming bright in the night. Using celestial orb you have to extinguish adversaries flame. Grab an orb, place it in a flame, repeat! Easy, right?
Well, not quite. To start, groups can control only one exile at the same time. Additionally, each character has a circle surrounding it called aura. Getting touched by it sends someone into banishment, losing an exile for certain amount of time. When someone grabs an orb they lose their aura. So it's quite easy to banish a character while it bears the orb and turn the tides of a round in seconds. How aura is used depends on characters, as each exile comes with three different moves bound to movement, aura as a long distance projectile, and orb flinging.
Each exile has different statistics: amount of damage dealt to a pyre, duration of banishment, movement speed and size of aura. Choosing your team composure is very important.
Some are really agile, allowing you to swiftly move around an area, but deal little damage and have small aura while others are opposite- bulky and slow, their big aura makes them great at defense like no other and if somehow they make through the field with an orb, opponents flame will really tickle down.
In short, rites are a test of skill, adaptation and solid dunking. Experiment and find your playstyle with exiles, utilize unique layouts to your advantage, master timings and let Scribes bless you for that little bit of luck!
It's worth mentioning that in first few minutes of a campaign, game features a good tutorial teaching you the basics of rites, so if my description might cause unnecessary confusion, you shouldn't worry.
After rituals your exiles gain experience points called "Enlightment", needed to be considered freedom worthy. Those who didn't participate in a rite gain "Inspiration", granting bonus points for next one. Gain enough to rankup, allowing you to pick new masteries from two mastery trees. These improve already owned skills and statistics or add new abilities! Just like your exiles, other groups get better as time goes on, getting new masteries and talismans to keep up with you.
In Pyre, there is no game over. If you fail in a Rite, you simply gain less experience or not liberate an exile, but a journey always continues.
Like every Supergiant title there is a "Increase difficulty in different ways for more xp" trade offer for interested in form of Titan stars.
Playtime, replayability and other modes
Making my way through the campaign took 12 hours.
Definitely worth playing it again to see how different freedom choices made for exiles, both yours and opponents, shape up for different endings.
Unlocked right after beating the game for the first time, True Nightwing difficulty will test your skills as here not only you face hardest foes, you cannot restart a rite or reload a checkpoint.
Additionally there is Versus Mode, where you can take on AI or a human opponent in a quick rite. With wide selection of characters and customization options, it's a fun way to squeeze out additional time with a game. (And to beat a friend or two!)
Pros and cons
Rites not only are a rather unique approach to action, but once you figure out playstyles and mechanics within them it becomes quite fun to dunk on opponents while narrators frustration with your success grows. Controls are easy to learn but take a moment to fully master them. Thanks to small sized arenas and simple nature of rites, these are quite fast paced and that is good as you can never be bored.
Weak point is option of only controlling one character at the same time. Makes rounds feel weird because you fight for points while two characters from the group stand around and watch. This also ruins the depth of rites as you cannot plan big. Plus I believe game could handle expansion of your roster better. These happen way too soon, way too fast. Makes you feel a bit overwhelmed right from the start. You add to this experience gimmick where game wants you to constantly juggle between characters and whole deal with liberating exiles, meaning you might have to let some of your favourite go sooner or later, to create certain experience not everyone might be a fan of. But that's also charm Pyre has. You can keep losing to have your favourites for longer, but for a price of freedom.
Nonetheless from overall gameplay perspective rites are fun, even if it takes quite a moment to make them "click" and having few flaws here and there.
Outside of rites I can only praise Pyre. Wonderful artstyle in form of hand drawn dialogue portraits and animations with amazing soundtrack that sets you in an adventure mood. Fantastic cast of well written characters and bigger focus on dialogue in this game make for great conversations. Little dialogue choices game offers mixed with branching storylines of your exiles are a solid way to spice things up. One cannot forget about emotional part that is surrounding your exiles when time to say goodbye after hard fought rite arrives, as you have to keep your eyes on the prize and push for others. RPG elements while being nothing special, round up the game outside of rites by adding extra depth to preparation and content.
Final words and conclusion
I highly recommend getting soundtrack with a game to further support wonderful work folks at Supergiant Games did!
Fight for freedom with great cast of characters in unique, even if flawed rites and enjoy wonderful audiovisual side of Pyre while doing so. Another highly recommended title coming from Supergiant.
Feel free to check out my curator page for more reviews!
Steam User 14
I feel like calling this an RPG doesn't properly portray what the gameplay is going for; this is a Sports Game.
A very stylish, unique, 3on3 battle-basketball sports game with an intense story mode
Steam User 15
The best yet underestimated game of Super Giant Games. Pure art.