Review: Relive The Random Sacrifice In REVITA
Revita revisits the roguelike gameplay with 2D platforming and some colorful, retro graphics. As the game progresses, players will unlock new abilities, weapons and by defeating enemies, bosses, and dumb luck. However, the primary way to obtain powerups is by sacrificing some of your own health. The concepts for the game are interesting, but most of them are terribly familiar and some of them are excessively brutal or feel terribly unfair.
The main gameplay of platforming, dashing, and shooting runs smoothly (except on a PS5 controller). However, the controls are very difficult to get used to and sometimes feel a bit fidgety. I found my first 30 minutes of gameplay just trying to get used to the controls and not die when walking into a room that spawns a random amount of enemies in random places. Speaking of the enemies, I found some of them to fit well with the level layout and general difficulty of the game. But other enemies would attack at such frantic and fast speeds that only after dying a number of times to them did I learn how to avoid them. In other words, the telegraphing of enemy movements and attacks felt very inconsistent and even purposely unfair at times. The bosses were pretty cool, their mechanics and platforming that was involved were good but not terribly interesting or innovative compared to what we’ve seen since the original Mega Man games.
The next major part of any roguelike game is the power-ups and upgrades that can be used throughout each run. I found that there were a few upgrades that were worthwhile, but sacrificing one of my four health was terribly brutal for a random power-up. And when the random perk felt underpowered, overly complex, or boring, the sacrificed heart feels wasted I could see many players just giving up and starting over until they got a perk they liked. Along with this, most of the power-ups were just a percentage of increased damage, not unique guns or abilities. I never got to a point where I felt extremely satisfied or enjoyed my build, they never seem to combine particularly well or feel unique, creative, or original.
The last thing to address here is the presentation, story, and general game progression. There is a bit more narrative shown than in other roguelike games, but it still felt fairly hallow and simple. The continuing story of the boy on a train does entice players to keep going, but there is never enough strong dialogue or character development to merit all these brutal playthroughs.
This is a slightly above-average game and it does its job well enough. But I never felt that it stood out among the vast crowd of other indie games in the same genre.
