Pyre does a masterful job of intertwining gameplay and story. Structuring the game so that you'll progress regardless of your win/loss record raised the narrative stakes for me by making the story more immersive - sure, as the player I would reach the end of the game whether I won the Rites or not, but as the Reader my goals could be completely derailed if the Rites didn't go my way. Knowing I could fail and the game would play out the consequences of that loss made victory feel much more important.

There's also a really great balance here between the amount of control I had over the story vs the choices I was forced to make - I had to make some really difficult choices about which characters to anoint and which to keep. It's the difference between a different game saying "you can't do X because we didn't script that" and Pyre saying "you can't do X because that would be too easy." The agony of loving a character who can hoop...you want to grant their freedom but you need them for the rites. I missed my friends when they were gone, but I knew it had been my decision to let them leave.

Put it all together and I don't remember the last time I was so invested in a game's story. There were rites that felt like Finals games to me because so much was on the line, and then there were routine rites that might as well have been for liberation because I just hated the other team so much I didn't want to give them the satisfaction. There were rites I considered throwing because I was won over by my opponent's story.

On top of that, it's a gorgeous game with a signature Supergiant soundtrack. I'll be coming back to this one a lot.