Pyre is a game that I had a lot of scepticism about once it was openly announced, as on one hand I loved both Bastion and Transistor and was more than happy to distil hope that this game would be another favourite to treasure like the other Supergiant games; whilst on the other hand I wasn’t really sure what I was expecting in the finished product.

For those of you who are not sure about what this game exactly is, simply put, it’s a single player indie title, sport-RPG party/adventure game mixed in with a visual novel and rich story telling experience set in a fantasy background with one half of the game to be reading whilst the other half is competing in a celestial basketball competition where there are multiple characters with their own stories and attributes one of them being A F***ING DOG WITH A MOUSTACHE WHO WAS SENTENCED INTO THE HELL’S EQUIVALNT OF SHAWSHANK STATE PRISON DUE TO SMUGGLING CHARGES-

*COUGH*

Now, on a more serious note. This game possess an amazing story with a rich in-depth lore to boot, alongside a diverse and interesting cast which will leave you easily attached to certain characters, especially if you intend to interact within specific ones more frequently than others since you’ll conduct more conversations with them.

There’s more to the story of course, but I’ll vaguely summarise; you’re trapped within the Downside (which simply seems like purgatory) after committing a crime only YOU as the player should uncover throughout your journey. You meet up with three other Exiles who’s gladly take you in, only to discover that you have the ability to uncover the locations of the rites amongst the stars. You conduct them with your team, you go to places, make choices between routes to your location, and continue onward to freeing your team from said Downside, rinse and repeat with some twists and turns here and there for good measure.

Then we have the gameplay. If I were to detail every aspect of how the rites are supposed to be conducted along with how each character works, then I’d turn this review into a guide. So for simplicities sake, you pick up an orb and bring it to your opponent’s “base” (which is simply a Pyre) and deplete their flame whilst protecting yours. This will iterate until one of the pyres reaches zero, causing the flame to extinguish and in turn, prompting the other team to prevail.

This “Combat” is fun if you take your time to discover interesting aspects on how to properly use individual characters and go against challenging opponents. The further you go into the game, the more elements of the rites you’ll be introduced to. However, there are some instances where the difficulty for some opponents can drain out the experience quite a bit, as you will have to go against unfair situations though tons of algorithmic bull**** to avoid being completely wiped from certain matches (though they’re not impossible to beat and honestly you’d only go through this torment if you’re like me and are desperate to get achievements (including facing the opponents on the hardest difficulty setting alongside adding all the titan stars so prove how utterly insane you are)).

The Art design is amazing and gorgeous to look at, I rarely found issues regarding any sort of crashing or bugs emerging out of nowhere to taint my experience. I found the ending to not be as hugely fulfilling, but the build up to how it increases the stakes dramatically as well as presenting the events that happened after the main game seems to have at least granted a pretty solid ending overall.

There’s also one part of Pyre that I didn’t mention and that’s the soundtrack. Pyre has one of the best soundtracks that I have ever listened within indie gaming to date. This is subjective obviously and not everyone will agree. However, I found the inclusion of the music this time around to be nothing short of magnificent. Darren Korb had stunned me with the soundtrack from Transistor and even prompted me to play Bastion on my Xbox since that also had a glorious soundtrack as well. Now, what he does with Pyre’s soundtrack is crank it up to 11 and mix up the genres with specific events to enforce some personality to certain characters. He’s legendary alongside the female vocalist Ashley Barret who is equally as spectacular. I implore you to listen to the Pyre OST on YouTube if you’re not really interested in the game, but you’ve have some positive experience with the musical score from Supergiant Games.