Pyre (PS4, 2017)
I'm not sure if I've ever played a game purely because of the developer behind it. I'm inclined to hover over Annapurna games a bit longer than others, although they're a publisher first rather than a dev. Video games are a strange medium with regards to the notoriety of the people making them, certainly compared to other media. Films and TV are made by and star noticeable, recognisable people. Music might be made by a select group with recognisable inputs and influences. A book is written by one person, a singular voice talking about an inescapable human truth. By comparison, a video game (especially a modern AAA) game is usually made by at least a dozen people, and all you see of them is their names when the credits roll, by which point you've skipped past them to the main menu, quit and uninstalled the game, got up to go for a piss, returned to your friends or loved ones, or some such.
I'm simplifying of course. Video games have their auteurs, some more distinctive and some more successful than others. Nobody makes a game like David Cage. The best twitter account is still that Peter Molyneux parody. I understand the world of JRPGs has some notable figures. And what am I saying, I've played Gran Turismo every day for the past seven years - I am acutely aware of one man and one studio's intransigence at the expense of their playerbase.
While I've probably undermined whatever point I was intending to make, the point is I played Pyre because it was made by Supergiant Games. I think I played Transistor because it was made by Supergiant Games, after playing Hades and Bastion. Those three are all quite similar in terms of their gameplay, with Hades being both a refinement and culmination of their work in a package which, arguably, perfected the entire concept of the roguelike.
Pyre isn't anything like those three games. You are someone who can read. You are picked up by some weird people in a wagon in a place called the Downside. A lot of text introduces them and you go off on adventures, following the stars to participate in rites in order to be returned to a place called the Commonwealth.
These 'rites' are the core gameplay. You pick three characters. You go up against another team of three. Rites take place in an enclosed arena. There is an orb, and the object of the game is to either carry or throw the orb into your opponent's Pyre, which are at either end of the arena. Do this enough times and you win. There are a range of different characters you can use or face, each with their own characteristics and abilities.
This sounds quite interesting, but it doesn't really work very well. You know if you play FIFA or some other sports game, you'll control one player who has the ball while the rest of your teammates move around? Pyre doesn't do this. In Pyre you control one character. The others don't move while you do. If you're playing against the AI, and not playing on the easiest difficulty, they'll know what to do and change characters and use abilities seamlessly. Fortunately the tactic of "use your fastest player or one that flies" works perfectly in almost all circumstances, so you probably won't have to worry about your co-ordination too much. There is a limit to how many rites you carry out in the campaign, so there isn't really much room for trial and error or learning. There is a practice mode, but it feels quite pointless when the campaign itself is so short. Considering several characters have abilities which aid the entire team, it's difficult to set many of these up properly and they go to waste.
One thing which makes this unmistakably a Supergiant game is the art style and characterisation, which is as distinctive and well-realised as ever. I think there are eight or nine regular characters on your own team who you'll interact with regularly and they're all unique and memorable in their own way. There are even more opponents who you'll face often, and while you don't hear from them as much they still have depth to them and keep you interested in what happens. The sort of hand-painted style just works when it's done this well, and the world that's been created here is as rich and detailed as all the characters.
While what I've said so far may feel like praise for Pyre, I really can't recommend this or say I enjoyed it. That gameplay takes up about 5% of the game, at most. The rest is reading. There's no speech (there are noises suggestive of conversation while a character appears on screen with text, and I got a laugh from the credits when there was a full cast list for each character) but every character makes up for this with a seemingly endless stream of words at every opportunity. Some of them have hyperlinks in them you can hover over for an explanation of what they mean. As you play you unlock pages in the Book of Rites. You can read these for background information about the world and story but honestly there are well over a hundred and I really don't have the time.
Part of the reason I don't have the time is that, while well-written enough to be diverse, distinctive and for each character to feel like an individual, not all of the game's writing is very good. Some of it has that air of teenager on the internet writing fantasy, where they aren't actually saying anything but are writing in a way where they clearly feel that every single word is profound and brilliant. Maybe it's just because I got bored halfway through and stopped reading altogether, but just about all the writing and characterisation seems this way. They're distinctive, but they're insufferable. The campaign's story technically hinges on your choices and successes/failures, but the outcomes are so inconsequential they don't really feel significant at all.
With this in mind, the biggest criticism I have of this game by far is that the framerate is uncapped so during all these bits where all that's on screen is text and one or two still images, my PS4 turned into a jet engine. During rites it was fine, during everything else it was absolutely intolerable.
Speaking of intolerable, this is clearly not a game for console. You have a cursor. Moving it around is a pain in the arse. It's slow, it's unintuitive, it's a nightmare. Before each rite you can buy items to give your characters a boost. It uses a grid inventory system where you have to pick things up from one grid and move them into yours if you want to buy them. I can confirm that it's perfectly possible to finish the game by ignoring this completely.
Looking back at Supergiant's history it feels like Pyre was something different. Bastion and Transistor were isometric roguelikes and that's great but can we do anything else? Considering Hades was the follow-up, it feels like they realised what they should focus on. Even though I've criticised a lot of it I can't say Pyre was especially bad, it just wasn't very good or what I really want from the people who made it. I've made it this far and realised it's quite reductive to talk as if an entire development studio is one singular voice, but I've picked my angle and I'm finishing with it, thanks.
