Pyre is a unique game, but one that really didn’t manage to hold my interest due to the repetition and the feeling that the game is pretty much on autopilot outside of the repetitive Rites and making the choice of should we go this way or that way? The Rites you perform in Pyre are not unlike basketball with the addition of the character you’re controlling dying temporarily if you get too close to your opponent. You perform these Rites in order to gain freedom for yourself and your teammates; three of whom saved you from death at the opening of the game. And that’s pretty much it. The game is great if the genre is your style; the mechanics are nice and smooth, the artwork is amazing, and the writing and characters are great. If you’re not content to get the story by doing the same thing over and over again, then, as it did for me, it can get pretty boring pretty quickly.
As for accessibility, for the type of game it is, they did a pretty good job. There is no spoken dialogue in a language anyone can understand (I’m told the dialogue sounds like mumbling) so it’s presented in text, in a dialogue box that makes it super easy to read, while fitting very well with the art style of the game. The speakers are always clearly indicated and even though it’s just text based dialogue, each character has their own distinct tone.
Dialogue from your companions is presented on a lighter background than dialogue from the narrator, which makes it very easy to differentiate between the two, and as in the above image, if there’s something further to learn in any dialogue, you can hover over the differently colored word and read more.
The only issue I ran into, and very infrequently, was the cutscene narration sometimes being difficult to read if the beige text is on a light background.
The visual cues during the Rites are very clear and make it easy to tell what’s what and the tool tips during the tutorial Rite are easy enough to read given that the background for the rites is dark and the text is white. The opponent you’re targeting is very clear, marked by a blue path, and the area around your opponent that you need to steer clear of is equally obvious.
The action buttons are always on-screen during the Rites, which is helpful if you’re as bad at remembering what button does what as I am, but it never gets in the way of seeing anything important, as the subtitles for any dialogue during the Rites is always at the top of the screen and all other important info at the bottom.
Outside of that, there’s not a whole lot to it, which can be good or bad depending on your preferred genre. Not much in the way of deaf accessibility is required of Pyre, due to its nonsensical spoken language and the very visual nature of the game, so for $20 it’s definitely worth checking out of you’re a fan of past Supergiant games, or just want to try your hand at magic basketball.
Bottom Line
Not much in the way of deaf accessibility is required of Pyre, due to its nonsensical spoken language and the very visual nature of the game, so for $20 it’s definitely worth checking out of you’re a fan of past Supergiant games, or just want to try your hand at magic basketball.