A Story Beside

Short, beautiful, and memorable. I bounced off originally, because the game has a slow start and relies heavily on choice prompts that, initially, offer very little context. But as your familiarity with the town and characters grow, these stitch back together into decisions that feel meaningful and cozy, as you see how your decisions pay off over years and lifetimes. Most decisions do not have a right answer or simply affect set dressing. However, some do and have achievements hanging off of them, which... well. I honestly recommend not going for achievements on a first go, because the different ways the story can shape up are lovely. In fact, failure is rewarded, and offers some of the most charming and memorable dialog the game has to offer. I otherwise loved this story. It's warm, cozy, and manages to fit so much familiarity and nostalgia into a cleverly bound, small package. And while there's certainly polish that could have be had (dialog scenes cannot be skipped, forced RPG walk makes some of the pacing a bit slow), overall I really enjoyed my time in Pyreside.