Firebird - La Peri

Library of Realities.com review:

From 1912, La Péri was the last composition by French composer Paul Dukas, who described his piece as 'a dance poem in one scene'. Most will know Dukas from The Sorcerer's Apprentice which later featured heavily in Disney's Fantasia, but there's little reason why La Péri shouldn't be equally revered.

This modern retelling of La Péri's story with modern technology remains stage-bound, which is where the scene opens when you put on your headset. From your position on the stage, machinery manipulates pieces of set into place around you and a pedestal appears, topped off with a book. Turn the pages of the book as John Rhys Davies narrates the tale of Iskender (Alexander the Great) searching for immortality and stealing it from a winged spirit of Persian culture.

Much of the spectacle of this experience literally revolves around you. Not only are you center stage, but manifestations of the winged spirit move about you including some spectacularly rendered motion-capture ballet dancing. These occur in short sequences interspersed by moments of book narration that place you back onto an empty stage again. On occasion you'll be tasked with an action, such as plucking lotus petals from La Péri's chest, but we found these interactions didn't add much to our enjoyment. In fact they distracted us from the animation, since we weren't sure when we should be interacting and when we should be spectating.

Enjoying key moments are important in this experience as there are regrettably few of them. Few also are the moments that Dukas' music accompanies this presentation - in fact we can only recall a few short minutes worth, with the rest of the production focusing on narration and far too many scene transitions. These are the reasons we're marking down our rating of Firebird - La Péri despite its impressive brief ballet sequences.

✅ Spectacular but brief motion-capture ballet performances.
✅ Good production values.
❌ Minimal use of Dukas' musical score.
❌ Distracting interactive elements.

I'm honestly not sure what to think. I have no idea what I just experienced. There was a nice very short story. It was very well narrated. I felt like I was chasing the story, rather than the story capturing me. Especially if you go for the roomscale option, because your attention will be directed in different directions. Even at roomscale option, you really only need standing room. The ballet dancing was beautiful. You can tell the ballet dancer whose movements were captured was top notch. But because of the style of the graphics, it's really easy to miss out on the intricacy.

I can recommend this because of the sale price of $2.09 USD on the Black Friday sale. You can tell that a lot of work got put into this project. I just felt like something was missing. I appreciate the art, even if it didn't capture my attention the way I think it should have. I have no idea what was missing, but there is. It's not just that it's only 10 minutes. It's missing oomph ... a reason to care ... a reason why you were there to interact ... something.

Sale Price Rating 6/10

A very short but great story told in VR. Play the story of a king, in front of a great audience. Not sure if you should get it at full price, but if found on sale then this is something that must be experienced. I'm looking forward to more and longer experiences like this one.

Visually it has its moments, but it's more of a proof of concept than anything.
It rushes through a few scenes and you'll finish it in 15-20 minutes - unless you are the kind of person that likes to spend a lot longer than necessary to study the details (like me).
They really could have made more out of this.
I like the idea of this kind of "VR novel" type of experience, but this falls short on content, and isn't worth the asking price, unless perhaps if you get it on sale.

Today i was SOOO SURPRISED by reading negative reviews for LaPeri ..
These guys complains about price ... saying that it should be even FREE!! haha... so funny,... did they just tried producing something even 100x times easier than LaPeri by their hands ?? I don't know.. but I know how many skills and efforts need to do something like LaPeri !
for me LaPeri - is amazing piece of VR expirience.. even more! - piece of ART! I've watched it in one breath! And I ready to pay two times more for such completed stories in terms of vusual, sound, animation, story!

Great respect to all the peoples behind this... Guys you rock! Please, produce more things like that.

It's short. Very short. Like "do a lets play and not even get one episode" short. It feels like the developer said, "We got access to a headset, a motion capture suit, and a ballerina, what can we do with that?" That being said, what's there isn't bad. It's not great either.

They tried to make it like you're on a stage as the performance goes on, but the stage itself is somewhat ugly and clashes with the rest of the look. The environment doesn't do the characters justice. The interaction, meaning the 4-5 times you actually do something, feels very tacked on and imprecise, and when you actually do something, it's always binary. Your interaction is as simple in nature as point and click. It builds to a moment when the dancer is dancing circles around you and it feels almost playful and captivating and you're getting drawn in and you're smiling and feeling sort of off balance by it all... then it ends. Honestly, if they had kept it up for a few more scenes it would be great.

Unless you're desperate for content I'd recommend you pass.

I'd love to recommend this but it's a short demo, much inferior to free experiences such as the Lab or Waltz of the Wizard.

The concept is a good one, I'd love to see it done justice. But the writing is on the wall when the opening menu has an option to skip to the last dance. It should read skip to the only dance. Because the rest of it is just trying to grab a petal from something that either runs or flies around you. There's no dancing and it's not visually impressive unless you have never experienced VR before (in which case, there are better options). It's just a chance to smash your house up.

So really you have the opening, where you're on a stage as the scene is set for a show - which is good but mostly in a hey, I'm on a VR stage sort of way - and the final dance. The final dance is well animated and has beautiful music, but it's maybe a minute or two. And really the polygonal style doesn't fit the spirit of grace subject matter well at all.

Ultimately if you want to throw some money at trying all the different sorts of VR experience, this is definitely something different. But once the novelty wears off products are going to have to start providing a lot more substance to justify their price tag. It's not a lot of money, but to say it's not a lot of content would be a major understatement.

Have never written a review, so here comes my first and please note, I would rather not choose YES, or NO with regards recommending this product as so much depends on your VR catalog and experience (in my opinion)

So, maybe it's just me, but I expected a great deal more for my money and given the reviews, I was expecting some form of incredible journey. If this is your first VR experience, you may be amazed, but then you would also be amazed batting around a VR balloon or picking up a virtual cup. For those of us used to VR, it's not guaranteed to be an especially exciting experience.

In this VR 'demo', you simply stand there, grab four items and.....it finishes. It seems over in minutes.

Yes, watching someone dance was 'interesting', but reading the reviews, you would think this were some jaw-dropping VR experience and in my opinion, it's really not. If you want to show your friends the wonders of VR, this would be one of the last examples I would choose.

Almost everything you see is included in the pictures above.

I appreciate what developers do, honestly I do, but I 'played' this game / experience and was left saying "Oh...that's it?" and I took off my headset and did something else.

This is a gorgeous little interactive video, the way the dancer sivels around you and her movement feels so real and beautiful,
This is probably what I'll show anyone who asks what the vive has to offer,
loved it, and well worth the price!

Beautiful construction but underwhelming gameplay. The voice acting is without peer, the scripting and the staging (literally, you're on a stage) is awesome, and the dancing and visuals are beautiful. But as a game, it felt very... empty. Like my participation was only incidental to the story. Pretty much the only thing you can do is capture 4 red petals. The capture of these petals progress the storyline.

As a side note, this production is height-discriminatory. My 6 year old daughter wanted to play, but really couldn't reach the petals during interactive stages.

I've loved Rhys-Davies since the Wing Commander III, and was blown away by his performance as Gimli in the Lord of the Rings. He delivers here as surely as ever.

Unfortunately, in my opinion, the story is not written very well. Also the mixing failed at the end, and I had to backtrack the book to read what was said.

I will not refund as I respect this kind of work, and really do want more produced. For the price I would've wanted more content, but do realize the market is not there yet to support the work.

--Spoilers!--
The narrative boils down to a single, unfortunately predictable, choice that needed to be dramatic. I wanted it to be, but it wasn't. Damn.

I'm so sorry but I wouldn't recommend anyone to buy this product. Even if I found it as a breathtaking experience, it's really not worth it for 10€. It takes 15 minutes to be completed and is not "replayable" (unless you want to see the same thing again), and of this 15 minutes, only 4 or 5 are GREAT, the rest is just ok. I can see the potential in the developers of this game, so I really hope that they bring something more playable, or at least a bit longer.

Come on! Give as 1 hour of experience, is not asking that much for that price!

One of the best experiences the Vive has to offer just got even better!! I had the original so this was a free upgrade for me.

I am wowed again. This is a stunning exhibition of talent by these guys. I cannot wait to see what Innerspace have in store for us Vive owners next, the mind boggles.

The new additions add a lot to the experience. John Rhys-Davies is brilliant as usual. The addition of the book (love the gold foil effect) and the enhanced graphics make the whole experience seem longer (probably is now). The acoustics are as good as always, beautiful music.


I know this might not seem like it might suit everyone's taste, but I cannot recommend it enough. Stunning!!!

I could gush more but someone else wants a go with my Vive, in La Peri.

Narrated, somewhat interactive experience. Very beautiful. Theather/dance setting. If you are a fan of performing arts you will love this!

I... regret buying this.

I was hoping for a bit more interactivity when it said "Be part of a visually stunning choreography between two dancers, ***one played by you!***", while when I actually tried it I felt like there was someone dancing around me and I was just a stunned mullet standing in the middle trying to grab some glowing thingy away from them. See, to me that's just stunning choreography of one dancer, not two... It's also really short.

On the other hand, if you want to get up close to watch the choreography in a Ballet it's a good experience.

I feel bad giving this a thumbs down, mostly because I see what they were trying to achieve, it just really fell short of what I expected out of this experience.

The game was broken into multiple sections. The first 3 are INCREDIBLY short (10-15 sec) moments of gameplay, and the final part features the actual dance. They call these sections dances, but the only one where dancing occurs is the last.

As a customer I was expecting multiple dances, and getting to either view the performance as an audience member or up on stage. I didn't care much at all about interacting, I just wanted to see the performance. I would show this game to friends if there were a way to fast forward to the only dance in the game, at the end. It is the only compelling part, sadly :*(

I liked the short story and it had great visuals, but La Peri is way to short for $9.00. I will be looking forwards to seeing other productions if they are able to produce a longer story for my money.

that was onee of the most incredible experiences of my life

there are 7 billion people out there and I get to be one of the few hundred consumers who get to try this right now,,, that was other worldy, that was like losing my virginity for the 1st time, the feeling afterwards is so calming and increible

thank you devs, thank you so much for that just.. heavenly just.. wow I can't even describe it, Merci!

I will admint, when I first got my Vive I was simply... whelmed. Not overwhelmed, not underwhelmed, but whelmed - lukewarm. I had concerns about resolution, clarity, and comfort. Were my lighthouses setup right? Is this going in the drawer in a week? I was really starting to doubt my purchase.

Then I loaded up La Peri. Like another reviewer, I didn't buy this game for me - I figured that ballet would be fun for my daugher. But being a responsible parent, I wanted to experience it first and make sure there wasn't anything that was going to jump scare her or be a problem.

My preconceived notions have never been quite this wrong. This "experience" is a totally new medium. This isn't a play, or a ballet, or even interactive theater. This is theater of the real. In every way, the neurons in my brain believed 110% that I was standing on the stage. Looking over the cliff. Watching the dancer whirl around me.

The environments are breathtaking. The flashlight seems out-of-place at first, but I quickly realized that it only further sold my brain on the reality of what I was seeing. I spent 5 minute examining a scultpure with my eyes, my flashlight, and my physical positioning. I held my breath as the dancer whooshed through me. Felt real empathy when she was in peril. Real thought behind the game's final choice.

The medium of VR storytelling was born this week. A completely new way to communicate and express art just came into being. And La Peri is an excellent first example of what that medium is capable of. After experiencing this performance, I had to sit down and be introspective for about 10 minutes just to regain my emotional grounding. Yes, it's that good.

Stop reading this review and buy it. Enjoy the first coming of the new VR art form. Transport yourself to a world far away from where you're physically standing.

Bravo, La Peri. Merci.

I had little to no interest in a ballet game, but I am very fond of VR and thought my wife and daughter might appreciate this title and I wanted to support the arts. Wow, to think out that I might of missed out on this treasure. Truly inspirational and very well done. It was entertaining and much more comprehensive than I thought it would be. Clearly other developers should hire dancers to mocap—I felt much more connected and immersed because I knew there was a human in the movement I was seeing.

Don't miss this one—well worth the $.