Before Hades became what many consider to be 2020’s Game of the Year, its developer, Supergiant Games, made a trio of critically acclaimed titles that displayed the team’s impressive range. Everything from each title’s setting to its respective gameplay was wildly different from the others, which made for an electrifying run of games from one of the most exciting indie developers of the moment. Nowadays, Supergiant is working on Hades II, a sequel that currently rivals the original game in scope despite only being in the earliest incarnation of its Early Access build. But while the team builds upon that foundation to deliver the full game next year, why not catch up on Supergiant’s brilliant earlier titles?
GOG is currently hosting a sale to ring in the beginning of fall, and there’s a ton of cool new games on sale, as well as plenty of classics. Among the lot though, I spotted Bastion, Transistor, and Pyre, Supergiant’s first three games, and all exceptionally original titles in their own right that defined the indie space throughout the 2010s. Many folks have played Bastion, which made a huge impact when it landed on XBLA back in 2012, but fewer people have played the studio’s two subsequent games, which is a shame, because they’re still some of Supergiant’s sharpest work in my opinion. So I’m here now to make the case for them all.
Bastion, which is currently $US3.74 on GOG, started many of us on this journey, so there’s no more fitting place to start than there. This vibrant isometric action game follows the Kid in the wake of an apocalypse called the Calamity. After said disaster splits the land of Caelondia, as well as reducing many of its inhabitants to dust, the Kid takes it upon himself to try and piece the world together, landmass by landmass. At the time of its release, it received glowing praise for its artistic direction and music, as well as for the prominent role of its narrator. See, the narrator in Bastion would react to certain actions taken by the Kid, often commenting on his judgment, and by extension, that of the player, and this was huge at the time. Games weren’t commonly breaking the fourth wall like that and looking inward, and one could argue that Bastion helped popularize that meta quality that could be found in many video game narratives throughout the 2010s.
In some ways, Bastion is quite obviously the studio’s tamest release, but its ambitions also formed the basis for Supergiant’s house style moving forward. Even though they all play in different worlds, Bastion’s striking and painterly style has reverberated throughout the team’s catalog ever since. Darren Korb, who composed Bastion as his first video game score, has also made the incredible music for every subsequent release of theirs, and this title also marks the beginning of Korb and Supergiant’s partnership with vocalist Ashley Barrett, who’s recurred in every single release. Much of the mechanical depth of Bastion, including its multiple weapons that play quite differently and its elements that let you modify the difficulty of the game for added rewards, have defined future Supergiant releases. In other words, this is the blueprint, and it’s still worth checking out these days.
Supergiant followed Bastion with one of my all-time favorite games, Transistor, which just recently turned 10 years old. Set in a distinctive cyberpunk city known as Cloudbank, Transistor follows a singer named Red who suddenly wakes to find her lover trapped in a giant sword that looks like a microchip. He can speak through it, and functions as the game’s narrator, and his voice can emanate from your controller if you want to take things a step further. While Transistor is, like its predecessor, presented from an isometric view (another hallmark of Supergiant’s games), its action is far more strategic compared to Bastion’s fast-paced real-time combat. Transistor can be played in real-time, but it largely benefits from Red’s Turn ability, which pauses time and allows her to move around the arena and use abilities as her dwindling stamina permits. It is a system that allows for precision and finesse, while also stressing Red’s precarious nature, since she isn’t exactly trained as a fighter but manages to show overwhelming strength despite the odds.
Transistor is a bit of a deeper RPG than Bastion too, and boasts one of my favorite skill systems. In it, you unlock moves as these things called Functions, and every Function can be slotted as an active ability on your toolbar, a modifier to another skill, or a passive for Red. As an example, the move Bounce can either shoot out a projectile as an active Function, cause abilities to chain as a modifier, or allow Red to deflect some damage as a passive shield. There are sixteen skills in total, which leads to a stunning number of permutations, meaning it isn’t hard to make a build that feels entirely true to you.
As an added dimension, these Functions are all tied to characters in the world of Transistor, and equipping them in different ways unlocks parts of their biographies, filling in the lore of the game while simultaneously encouraging experimentation. Transistor’s pretty damn great, and you can pick it up for $US5 on GOG.
Supergiant’s third game, Pyre, is quietly the studio’s best, and we wouldn’t have Hades’ tremendous storytelling and roguelike structure without it. Pyre is also just kind of bananas, since it takes place in a world where roving bands of fantastic creatures engage in a spiritual game of basketball. The player is an unseen character only known as the Reader, who joins a crew initially made up of a normal-looking human fellow named Hedwyn, a talking dog named Rukey Greentail (what a great name), and a huge horned lady named Jodariel, but along your travels so many of Supergiant’s best characters join your team, the Nightwings. There’s Volfred Sandalwood, a wise tree man, the one-eyed worm knight Sir Gilman, and of course, Ti’zo.
Pyre’s band of exiles are some of the warmest characters I’ve come across in any game, but they’re also fearsome players of the game’s Rites. In these ritualistic combats, the player takes three of their teammates and plays ball. Each character has a unique shape to a protective aura around them, often dependent on their size. The aura zaps and disintegrates any opponent who crosses it, or can be focused into a blast that can achieve the same effect. The goal of the game is to grab the orb in the middle of the field and dunk or lob it into the pyre of the enemy team until they run out of HP. At the end of the game, the winners get to progress in the tournament, which spans several regions, while the losers claw their way back up the bracket.
Pyre has another twist though: if you win the whole tournament, you earn freedom…for one person at a time. At the end of a victorious run, you have to sacrifice a player, weighing your affection for them and your desire to see them be free against your need for their skills or movement abilities. It’s messed up, and it’s a cycle you’ll repeat a few times over the course of the game, as Pyre spins an impressive story by reacting to your decisions, wins, and even your losses. You understand now why it’s so important to the development of Hades, which manages to tell bits of story no matter how successful a run Zagreus has. Pyre is unfortunately Supergiant’s most overlooked game, but you can make up for that by grabbing it for $US6 on GOG now.
If you’ve any appreciation for Supergiant’s most recent and highly acclaimed work, you owe it to yourself to go back and see how the team got there. Supergiant’s history is one of constantly punching above its weight and knocking it out of the park. These three titles are some of the most beautiful things I’ve come across in my decades of playing games, featuring some of the most affecting music and vocals I’ve ever heard. They make up such a brilliant era of games that I miss all of the time, and they can be yours for about $US15.
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