The divine child of The Pyrénées
Pyrene is a chemical compound with the formula C₁₆H₁₀. It is produced by the combustion of organic matter, and is one of the toxic substances found in cigarette smoke. A substance I no longer risk inhaling, since I’ve quit smoking. Many times over. Speaking of addiction, there’s one kind of game I find hard to live without.
For better or for worse, I’ve deckbuilt more often than not.There’s something about cards that gets me, reboot and ten de der.In my family, belotes, battles and other achievements were sacred.When I was a kid, I loved to bang the cardboard and pile up colors and shapes as if my life depended on it.In the playground, we used to pit the White-Eyed-Blue Dragon against Firecracker according to clever rules that mostly involved throwing the card as close as possible to a sewer without it falling in. What better way to do this than with dragons? Then one day, I got bored of Windows solitaire, and from Magic to Hearthstone to Gwent, I just kept on playing cards
Suffice to say that since the appearance of Slay the Spire, I’ve tried them all, these roguelites filled with pretty inset illustrations. There have been so many of them that some magnificent games pale into insignificance.Nadir, Roguebook and Wildfrost were like triple aces of the genre, following its typical structure as far as possible.Others succeeded in distancing themselves from it, as if to use the archer-type and deviate from it.
Nadir
Among my favorites are Inscryption and Griftlands, narrative gems that make the most of the storytelling potential of maps.
But from deckbuilder to deckbuilder, by dint of coming across endless variations of the same mechanics, I soon grew tired, disgusted and disgusted with the genre, which ended up depositing in my throat like the acrid flavors of cold tobacco left by the last cigarette of the day. Did I tell you I’d given up smoking?
For better or worse, for Pyrene, I’m back into deck creation. The game from small studio Two Tiny Dice manages to renew the genre’s gameplay just enough to pique my curiosity. You choose heroes and their powers, build a deck and its relics.
This time, the playing field matters. Cards are played on boards that are traversed like zones. You have to manage provisions and stamina, the markers of your efforts to cross the wilderness. The diversity of upgrades is colossal, and I come across so many little characters, relic merchants and spellcasters in the grapho-mapped territories of Pyrene, that at any moment I expect to find a tobacco seller.
The gameplay is therefore excellent, in a genre where excellent gameplay has become commonplace. You compose and recompose mechanics that combine with each other ad infinitum, you become invincible or feverish in the face of adversity, you move forward.
The balancing is a little off at times. It’s as if Pyrene was constantly asking us to find her weaknesses so that, in the manner of Vampire Survivors, she could triumph in debauches of invincible power. I don’t think I finished a single run without being some kind of invincible warrior~e, indolently making my way through the ranks of the monsters. But really, it doesn’t matter, because Pyrene has many other aspects worth the sword.
For Pyrène is the legendary daughter-queen who has left her mark all over the Basque Country. We find her in ancient engravings giving birth to a snake. Above all, her name is heard in old oral traditions made up of centuries-old memories and anthropological rescues. They tell of Heracles taking time off work in Spain, and using it to seduce the daughter of the local ruler.
But even paid vacations come to an end, for the Front Populaire had not yet decreed beach vacations for all, nor the Left the ban on working in the Mediterranean. The strait war was still raging, tirelessly pitting mankind against work. So Hercules ceased his procrastination and went back to work, leaving his love behind. In a Greek-Roman melodrama, Pyrene inquired about the handsome Hercules and lost herself in the wilderness in search of him. When our hero returned, it was all over for the beautiful girl, whom he surely mourned a little. He let his sorrow burst forth and, in a gesture of restraint and delicacy, erected a small tomb for her, which he named the Pyrenees.
Is this the story of the video game which, compared to the legend, is an eponym for joy?
No.
Would I have known the story of Pyrene if I hadn’t played the amazing videoludie?
Certainly not.
Nor that of Herensuge, the dragon sheltered by the mountains that echo the roars of the beast.
I’d never have known how to identify the adorably horrible Idittus, prankster goblin demons who, I hope, will never hoot in my ears anywhere but in my nightmares.
I wouldn’t have been able to pick Eguzkilore, nor recognize in its etymology the flower of the Sun’s divinity. Ermines would have remained weasels, bears alpine mammals, and I would never, ever have managed to insult my little kabroi brother.
As in real life, stories intersect and complement each other. Did you know that a little Siberian was spoken in the Pyrenees, and that Basque legends were told as far away as Mongolia? Pyrène has the great merit of treating myths as what they are: amalgamated gloubiboulgas of gathered cultures that are continually enriched and reinterpreted.
Pyrène immersed me in a broth of legends and cultures rooted in territories I’d never been close to. It made me want to get to know them, these little tall tales that don’t have the detective scope of national myths. Each little piece of myth adds to the others in a joyful syncretism. In the game, Basque and Pyrenean legends are unified and parade together, the clothes are Greek or Roman, the buildings Celtic or Gallic.
It’s alongside these old legends that you’ll go for a walk. You’ll travel from enchanted woods to craggy mountains, populated by an inexhaustible bestiary. You’ll rebuild a village disturbed by monsters, and get to know the more and less irascible and endearing characters of these fantasized Pyrenees. Human stories await heroes as courageous as they are ordinary.
I’ve got potassium folklore to ingest and fresh Pyrenean air to inhale. I promise, tomorrow I’ll stop!
Jül