It’s a solid 15-minute loop, but with the writing breaking down as you lose more characters and the Rite itself never really evolving beyond what you see in the first two hours, it starts to drag. You talk to your companions, you watch your little wagon-full of companions wend its way across the Downside, you make a few minor decisions (most of which give you +1 bonuses to a certain stat for a short time), and then you participate in the Rite.Īnd you do it maybe two dozen times before the game ends. It still doesn’t approach the complexity of a real human opponent. Like Bastion and Transistor there are optional toggles you can enable to make the game harder, but these amount to little more than letting the AI cheat-giving the opposing team super-speed or handicapping yourself with a 60 point deficit to start. I didn’t lose a single match in Pyre-the enemy AI is predictable to a fault, and a decent Triumvirate composition on your own part (usually two fast characters and one slower one) can destroy any team without breaking a sweat. I think it’d make an interesting multiplayer game, and indeed that option exists on the main menu.īut in singleplayer, it soon becomes rote. Like Rocket League, it’s a brilliant adaptation of a real-world sport to a wilder digital environment. It’s tough to explain in words, but simple to pick up and play. Doing so brings you closer to extinguishing their pyre, at which point you win. You can only control one character at a time, and you want to maneuver your character into the enemy’s titular pyre, a flaming circle on the other end of the field. Your goal? A “fallen star” that crashes into the middle of the field each round-a basketball, basically. Large characters generally have large auras, while the nimblest characters usually have smaller ones. If an enemy enters this Aura, they’re temporarily removed from the field. There are trade-offs though, as you also have to manage your Auras-a circle of blue light that surrounds your players. Pamitha can fly around the field for instance, while Sir Gilman moves lightning quick and can hop over enemies. You choose three of your companions as your Triumvirate, each with their own abilities. IDG / Hayden DingmanĪnd the Rites are great, to start. You spend about ten minutes traveling, talking to companions, reading the fake Bible, and then five on the Rite itself. It’s an 8-10 hour game with a 15-minute loop, give or take. The loop is too short, and Pyre too long. But I don’t really want to-which brings me to my other problem. Sure, I could go back and play it again, try to get the optimal path. It’s a cast of misfits, from your sentient tree mentor Sandalwood to the winged harpy Pamitha to the tiny worm knight Sir Gilman. Slightly more pertinent are the conversations with your companions, who you accrue over the first few hours. It’s set dressing, like reading a textbook about the history of football in between football face-offs. Neither approach is better in theory, but I found my eyes glazing over trying to read through Pyre’s faux-Bible, in part because it’s inconsequential. Where those games implied, Pyre explains. It’s dense-the opposite of the broad brush world-building Supergiant did in Bastion and Transistor. There’s even a 100-page encyclopedia you’ll unlock pages in as you play, and that encyclopedia later earns itself its own glossary of terms. Between Rites you’ll spend most of your time chatting with your companions and learning about the extensive lore of The Downside and the Commonwealth. If that previous paragraph seems packed with odd terms, well, welcome to Pyre. There are nine Triumvirates (teams), and you’ll face off against each as you head towards the Liberation Rite, the ultimate challenge and the one where you can win your freedom. The only way back? The Rites, a mystical series of trials set up by The Eight Scribes that…basically takes the form of a sports league. You play as the Reader, exiled from your home in the Commonwealth to a cursed land known as The Downside.
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