The cost of victory
Now this is why we play video-games. Beautiful art, excellent music, lovely storytelling, and gameplay that's unique but still tight and well executed.
You'd expect as much from Supergiant, but Pyre exists as the kind of middle-child of their output - not talked about as much, or recommended, so here i am to say it should be put on equal footing with Bastion and Transistor, at least (i haven't played Hades (yet))
Art and music, and general presentation is gorgeous, as i've said, and frankly there's not much more to say. Character and narrative writing are similarly great, but the particular twist that the winning team of each league will set a chosen member free, messes up your brain's game plan in such a delicious way - or at least it did mine
Because you want to win, right? And the characters in the game do too. So awesome, there you go, your prize is to have to say goodbye to someone for the rest of the game. And you know that keeping anyone back because they're your best player, or because you like having them around would be unfair
The fact that it's written like a sports anime, where you get to know all your rivals, and they each have a distinct characterisation, adds to that whole mess. You start considering mercy, because some of them feel about as deserving of freedom as any one of your team - some others definitely shouldn't go free, and circling back to these characters again and again is great fun
And i think that's the message in the end maybe; no matter your decisions, win or lose, you'll make stories with the people left behind. And maybe we'll hear some news from the ones who went ahead. Lovely, lovely, gorgeous game
Congratz for your play, i was like “heey what a spoiler !!” but actually that’s a really good review and the game looks amazing !
Ahh, sorry if there were spoilers, i don’t usually think about that when i’m writing.
If you’re referring to the bit about characters being set free, i can say that it’s revealed pretty early in a playthrough - although maybe that’s even more of a spoiler now..
Thanks for the kind words though, it’s much appreciated
Oh gosh, a few days ago I was torn whether to start playing Pyre or Night in the Woods, and ended up choosing the latter. But I can’t wait to play Pyre! Like you I’ve recently played Bastion and Transistor and have full confidence Supergiant will deliver in this entry as well :)
Well, i played Bastion and Transistor more than 5 years ago, so i wouldn’t call it recent.. but yes, they also live happily in my memories.
Pyre plays a little different to the others - Hades included, from what i’ve seen - but i think it does a lot that’s interesting and worth experiencing. Hope you enjoy it once you get to it!
Night in the Woods is still languishing on my wishlist, not even in the library yet, but is another one i really want to get to..
Oh, I was under the impression you were on a Supergiant binge like me! Not really hahaha
Well going from Bastion to Transistor, I was shocked how differently they played, even though they had the same action focus and the same camera angle with a similar artstyle. I saw the NoClip documentaries for both games and it’s clear the team struggled a lot with Transistor, because they didn’t want to become too associated with their first hit game like what happens with so many other studios. I assume they went through a similar process with Pyre
I had Night In The Woods in my itch library from that absurd bundle in 2020, but finally decided to pick it up after seeing it featured in a video from Leonardo da Sidici about depression. I’ve been taking my sweet time with it, playing 30-60 min every day, which translates to one or two in-game days. It’s definitely a game to be played slowly. I’m enjoying it so far, although less as a game and more as a story. Could have been a book or a TV series for all I know hahaha
Interesting to hear about their thoughts while making Transistor, and i can understand that urge to break away from your initial hit. To me though, Transistor felt more like an evolution of Bastion - kind of taking the same foundation, but adding a new spin, or layering another mechanic into it (a well designed mechanical spin, just to be clear). Whereas Pyre feels like it’s made with a slightly different foundation. Although some core elements carry across.
I don’t know, give it a play some time, and then let me know what you think
I king of agree that Transistor can feel like Bastion with a mechanical layer on top - but the beauty of it is that it can also feel like a completely different game. I personally played Transistor mostly using the pause mode as my main mode of combat, but after I beat it I’ve seen people playing the game without ever going into the pause mode and playing it like a pure action game, and it was insanely different. The way I played it, it was almost a tactics game instead of an action game
But yeah, it’s cool to see that they took a big departure this time. With the new PoP cycle starting I don’t think I’ll play it in April or May, but hopefully I manage to fit it in June. I’ll for sure post a review here then we can exchange stickers ahahaha