Pyre

[got_quiet]

Name: Pyre
Status: Complete
Site: https://supergiant-games.itch.io/pyre
Pairing: Gen-ish, possible M/F
Description: Cry over fantasy basketball.
 

Of all the games in the BLM Visual Novel category, Pyre is hands down the most prestigious. It's a game that the general gaming public is aware of, thanks to the strong track record of its developer, Supergiant Games, and it's one of the few, maybe only games in this group that that not only has coverage but mainstream coverage. It's also somewhat tangentially a VN, but its choice mechanics actually do feel more VN-like than many of the other games in the batch, so I think it's worthy of inclusion.

 

For those who are not familiar, Pyre is a fantasy sports ball game, interspersed with a dash of Oregon Trail routing and choice and a bunch of text with the occasional narrative option. In the story you are a Reader, exiled from the Commonwealth into an neon underworld of fascinating locales and monuments to fallen titans. You're picked up by a small group of fellow exiles, who sense that you can read, and ask you to inspect a book. Reading is illegal in this world, so very few possess the capacity. And the book you are given is sort of magical. It opens up the ability to participate in rites, which is where the aforementioned sports ball comes in and where most of the traditional "gaming" in this game is played. You travel from place to place, facing off against different teams, and trying to get to the grand finals so to speak, where the winning team can choose one of their players to ascend, back to the Commonwealth, and back to freedom.

It's a bit of a wacky premise, and the devs have done some fascinating things mechanics wise in this game that make it stand out both from the rest of their creations and from the market as a whole. The long stretches of text narrative and clicking options layered on what can become very difficult twitch based gameplay is something of a choice. As someone who enjoys both this is kind of a unicorn for me, but I wonder how other players enjoyed it. It does appear that for many this is their least favorite of the Supergiant games. There's actually a challenge option to just play the sports ball, even as pvp, so clearly people enjoy that side of it. I never really got the hang of the game play. Sports games were never my genre and maintaining control of multiple units is extremely difficult. I find myself fucking up the inputs even deep into the endgame, though it did get more and more fun as the game goes on and as I got a slightly better handle on tactics.

The thing I think is most interesting about Pyre, and which creates a sort of emergent gameplay that is rarely seen in this style of game, is that the most significant choices are also closely tied to the sportsball gameplay rather than the VN elements. Who you choose to compete against matters somewhat in what squads will find the opportunity to ascend, and who wins the match will determine which character, your ally or your rival, will go free. It might seem like an easy choice, just try to win so your friend can make it out, but the writing of the VN part is strong, and many rival characters are sympathetic enough that it's actually painful to shut them down and end their chances at freedom. Every time I go up against the Curs I have to fight the urge to just let them win, which a thing you can do as losing a match does not end the game, and simply changes the story a little. There are even moments where a member of your team will desire for the rival team to win, and you need to decide if you want to honor that desire or give your friend their rightful chance. On top of that things are not entirely in your hands because you do have to win the game, and if you are not great at it, or if you invoke some of the hardmode modifiers, this is not guaranteed at all. There are also four different difficulty levels. I play on the "normal mode" and I suck at it, but I am going to try to do the super hard mode, not to beat it, but to see what an ending full of abject failure looks like.

But that's not all. Each of your teammates represent one of the 8 races in the game. They are all colorful individuals with their own stories, motivations, and endearing traits. They also all play very differently on the field, and the more you use them the stronger they get. Only an adequately "enlightened" character can ascend at the end of a cycle, but in doing so they are gone from the game entirely. You get a small update on how they are faring back home, but you can never play them again. Refusing to ascend a strong character will give you a better chance in future games. But... there is also the desire to give your friend the freedom they are yearning for.

And on top of that, there is an overplot. A revolution is brewing on the surface. One of the characters believes its success will get everyone their freedom, but certain events trigger an imminent close to the rites that will get people out, and instead of "everyone will make it eventually" it becomes "some of us may end up here forever, and some of us, if freed, will contribute to the cause better." The game actually gives you a percentage stat to track showing you how likely it is that the revolution will succeed in the end and whether it will be done violently or peacefully, which depends largely on who gets out.
 

Ironically enough, the choices you make within the VN side of the game have much less narrative impact. The map is beautiful, but traveling on it is strictly curtailed, and the options result largely in small buffs, not narrative advancement. The conversations you have with your companions are likewise railroaded. You are given a few choices to respond to things, typically how you feel about someone, or what you're going to do with the news that as a reader and not a player in the game you will never qualify to ascend, but the bulk of the significant choosing is whether to win, and who will be rewarded when you do.

And it can be a really tough choice for me, because I want my faves to hang out with me, but I also want them to go free. I am such a sentimental little shit that I tear up a little whenever I think of Hedwyn because had this been a dating game I would have hard committed to him, but he's pining for someone on the upside and I just have to let him go. I am not even kidding when I tell you the first time I played this game, back when it came out, I was sobbing a little when he ascended.

In the end of the game you get an update on the outcome of all of the characters in the game, and it wouldn't be a Supergiant property without a nice vocal track at the end too, this time singing about each of your companions and their fates. The devs have said that there are there are around 200 million (?!) endings. This is because every outcome can effect the text of every other character in the final accounting of things. The differences are sometimes very small, a sentence or two maybe, but in true Super Giant fashion they make your choices feel significant in such a satisfying way.

While the ultimate outcome of your choices are moderately binary, either someone is free or not, the text modifies itself to describe their lives after with others depending on who else escaped with them, and while there isn't much time in the game to delve into the lore or the personal stories of the characters more than is necessary to provide a hook for the game play, this is still well done enough that as a player I felt the stakes and had an emotional investment in the outcome. So while there are mechanics in Pyre similar to that of VNs, and while those particular mechanics are not notably complex, this still manages to be a game that has choice systems more interesting than many of the other games in the bundle, and is a game that manages to marry two genres successfully in a way I've never seen done before.

Comments

[alias_sqbr]

I really should get around to playing this it sounds so interesting!