I finished the two Supergiant Games games that I had bought on sale or in bundles but not played yet so that I can justify playing Hades.
Transistor is probably my least favorite game of theirs. It's beautiful, the music is amazing, and the world building is interesting. But the way it feels to move the character in space never clicked with me. I like the concept of having the special ability to switch between real-time and turn based combat, but in practice I think the player character never quite feels as good to move in real time as you do in Bastion or (later) Pyre, in order to make the ability to shift to being turn based feel more powerful/essential. I think this is a tough balance to strike, and I don't think they quite nailed it. There are ton of different abilities to experiment with, but none of them felt as good to me in real time as anything you could do in Bastion or that they would later create for Pyre. Also, I just didn't care for the role of the trademark Supergiant Games narrator in this one. I don't know, it just struck me as annoying and I didn't buy into the game's core relationship, for whatever reason.
Pyre, on the other hand, ended up being the first Supergiant Games game that feels like a truly great game to me. I loved Bastion but was pretty happy to move on from it when it was over. It didn't stick with me. With Pyre I find myself really lingering on the experience, both narratively and in terms of gameplay. I don't typically like sports games, so I honestly expected the actual rites (a kind of magic sport) to be a chore. But I ended up loving it, and I think it's a return to form to the fluid character control and modular ability systems of Bastion after the slight misstep of Transistor. Combining that with a strong narrative where you are potentially permanently losing one of your top 3 most used characters does a lot to make your gameplay moments with your favorite team members feel precious while also adding weight to the narrative, enhancing both. I think this is also their best implementation of the Supergiant Games trademark reactive narrator so far. I love when he makes a snide "Pathetic" when you fumble a play, and I love when he yells out "Seize the orb!" when no one has the ball. The art and music, as usual, are wonderful.
I want to play Pyre again because I love the world and story and the gameplay, but also I'm so happy with the narrative I created in my first playthrough that I think it's probably best not to touch it and to end on a high note. Too bad that this never took off enough to justify them implementing online multiplayer at some point. What a great game. Can't believe I only owned this because it was in the huge itch.io BLM bundle and that I only played it because I felt guilty buying Hades while I two unplayed Supergiant Games sitting around already. I think this Pyre is very likely to remain my favorite game by this studio.
