PYRENE
- Hubert Spala
- Oct 25, 2024
- 6 min read
PYRENE is much better than I anticipated. Yeah, I'm coming in hot with this review, no fluff, no preamble. Because this game deserves a long spread of words to try to capture how complete and rich the content is. My first encounter with PYRENE was through a demo, kindly provided by the studio some time ago. It was most enjoyable, displaying the game's strengths well enough to interest me. But even in my wilder hype-driven fantasies, I was not prepared for how much bigger the full release will be! So let me now gush a bit about one of the best roguelites I played this year and a strong personal GOTY contender for that category.
PYRENE is, at its core, a very rudimentary example of the genre. Rudimentary, by the way, is not a pejorative term. It displays all the trappings of roguelites - but done to a high polish and with insights and cleverness that puts many of its peers to shame. So! We collect cards, craft our tiny deck, and use a hefty selection of relics to scrounge up a decent build. Build that will carry us through many combat encounters through select biomes until we reach a boss - which is a final check if our build, indeed, can smash through. We meet various merchants, collect power-ups, and between runs have a robust progression system. With that system we unlock new characters, cards, relics, zones, you name it.
See? Rudimentary. There are three things, however, that set PYRENE well above its contemporaries, to various degrees. Woven narrative. Tactical combat. And an extraordinary level of customizability.
The narrative is first on the chopping block, and it reminded me in quite a few ways of an unstoppable juggernaut of story-driven gameplay within the roguelite space - HADES. We all know (or so I hope!) how mind-bogglingly innovative that title was when it comes to rich storytelling in a genre that, at the time, was not known for it. Countless dialogues, full voice acting. Fun, interesting characters and a narrative with turns and twists to keep you on your toes through and through. So well married with the gameplay if never felt stamped on.
PYRENE does not reach its impeccable height but still manages to have a continuous story that rewards clearing run after run, revealing more and more of itself to the player after each victory. Titular Pyrene, a demonic priest, summoned a titanic hydra to take over the world of living! Monsters spill from the bowels of the underworld, threatening the mortal realm. And it is up to us and our unlikely heroes to take her down and save the day. Or so we believe. It's a neat, clean narrative, progressing well, egging us on until completion. It isn't long, but ain't a runt either, so a solid few hours need to be invested before we reach the more open endgame to play with. Neat!
The second big upside for me was the combat system. I am not going to call it revolutionary, I've seen variants of the same here and there, but it's again designed very tightly. Each arena is a small selection of cards, drawn from our deck as well as the combat encounter deck. It contains helpful items and monsters we need to bash through. Clearing up enough monsters finally reveals a votive altar we need to reach to clear the encounter... And claim our rewards for it. Movement is limited and we must make clever pathing to not get stuck and clear up monsters with due diligence, as each night spent in the same encounter grows their power and diminishes our provisions. Resting without them causes damage to our hero.
Again, it's a straightforward system on its own, but what makes it work so well is the introduced variability. Each hero works differently within that system - some have different moves. Others introduce a key card they want to not step on. Another might have a companion to switch movement with. It's always mixed up, in some way. Then each biome has its rules, adding some extra danger or tactical requirement to keep in mind. And then, still, there are weather conditions that can randomly pop up to shift what's going on in the encounter. There's a lot to take into consideration, but it never feels bloated or overwhelming. And of course, when our build finally clicks and we become a combo engine of destruction, it's quite a pleasure wiping the whole board clear every single time.
The last thing that makes PYRENE stand out for me, and the biggest one. Key one. It's vast customizability. I am astounded by, how rich it is, how much leeway it grants us, the players. There are multiple heroes and biomes... And you can edit them. You can change primary stats on any hero you like. You can make the biomes in each run random, or you can arrange them in any order you wish, avoiding the ones you don't like - or pick the most dangerous ones to challenge yourself.
The difficulty, especially, needs a round of applause because it's very organic. At the beginning of each run, you can select from a plethora of boons and curses that either make the runs easier or harder. And none of them are exclusive to each other, so you can mix and match whatever you like. Want more options to craft your killer deck? Get yourself a fresh chest at the start of every biome. Empower the altars for better loot. Make the stat-boosting cards stronger. Or even give yourself an extra life. But at the same time, you can pick hard-mode cursed relics - each danger zone has more monsters. Healing only a modicum of HP after each combat, instead to full. Make monsters tougher, and your resource gain diminished. It's entirely up to you how you'll craft your difficulty and this also introduces a pretty wild discrepancy in game completion time. If you set your runs to be softer, you can clear up the main story in 6-8 hours, if even that. But if you keep them default, or ramp up your challenge, the game will last longer until you get through it, that's for sure.
I'm a huge fan of this system and would love to see it in more roguelites because it is not locked nor barred from the players by any conditional unlock. You have it ready from the very start, not as a reward for completion of the game. And once you complete the main story the fun doesn't end there. You get a selection of challenges, 2 for each character - one easier, one more demanding, opening up full starting deck customization as well for your runs. I was happy to keep going and now am on my journey to clear these up to finally 100% the game. That's how much I'm enjoying it.
If there's a negative, a single sour grape to consume, it would be that the game is relatively easy to break. And by that, I don't mean any technical issue, the game is completely bugless as far as I can say. No, what I mean is even at ramped-up difficulty creating a world-busting build is not exactly that demanding. All it takes is a single right relic, a single piece that gels with your cards and abilities to become unstoppable, bashing the easy-to-crush bosses to the ground. Disabling luck and affinity is the only thing that helps out here, so that's a nice option I strongly recommend to players who find the game too easy.
It should be obvious by now that I'm quite enchanted by PYRENE. It consumed a few evenings of my life completely and I am playing it even now in a self-imposed challenge to squeeze every single bit of gameplay I can have out of this title. It helps that the game has a lovely art style, good music, and soundscapes, too. Every action feels crunch, every status inflicted having its sound cue and monsters their unique little sound when fighting them. Make for a most pleasant experience, bashing through the hordes of the underworld. And so, if you're a deck-builder aficionado and want a nice, robust game that's a little lighter on difficulty, you will not go wrong with PYRENE.
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