Pyre was made by Supergiant (the studio behind Hades), so I was really looking forward to it, but it hasn’t gripped me as much as I hoped it would. As with Hades, the presentation is top-notch, and the music, art direction, and writing are all incredible. I especially love how colorful all of the landscapes are. There’s a huge amount of attention to detail, and it seems like the decisions you make really matter to your relationships with the other characters. But, I don’t find the actual gameplay very fun. I mean, I find the RPG-decisions you get to make in the story portions fun, but the Rites (the “combat” segments where you play fantasy basketball) are pretty meh. Maybe I just haven’t figured out the strategy of it yet. I will say the gameplay during the Rites is really unique - I’ve never seen anything like it before in an RPG. It seems to me that Supergiant was trying some funky fresh new stuff out here and it didn’t fully stick the landing, whereas with Hades they took a pre-existing game archetype and did it the best anyone’s ever done it. If you want to check this game out, I highly recommend playing with a mouse! Trying to do the Rites with a trackpad was a hand-cramping experience. That’s how I started out and maybe that left a bad first impression where the Rites are concerned. Anyway, Pyre is being placed lovingly into my “maybe I’ll revisit this at some point” pile.
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