Revita is a 2D platform roguelite twin-stick shooter from small indie developer BenStar. You play as a blue-haired kid who wakes up in the subway with no memory of who he is. Once off the train, you’ll embark on a long journey of self-discovery as you climb the ominous clock tower in search of lost memories. Along the way, they will experience some very painful themes such as mental health issues, grief, depression, loss, and suicide.
The Clock Tower is divided into several themed areas, each with a total of 15 rooms and challenging boss battles based on stages of grief. In typical roguelite style, you’ll see procedurally generated rooms and floors filled with a variety of interesting creatures: slimes, maggots, flies, cultists, frogs, bees, mushrooms, and ducks. Not only does each enemy move and attack differently, they drop souls that can restore health.
Where Revita really shines is its unique risk/reward mechanism that uses health as its primary currency. You have to risk your life to become strong. Revita’s items are so well designed that you’ll want to pick them up one by one, but you’ll have to make sacrifices to survive. It makes you stop and think carefully before making a decision: Do I have to sacrifice 3 hearts for 20% more damage? Do I open this chest and get 1 heart? Or do you just need to keep your health up for boss fights? Being greedy doesn’t really pay off here, but managing your health right is a lot of fun and very rewarding when perfectly planned.? and be within an inch of death.
Each run begins and ends at the Memoria Station. The Memoria Station becomes a bustling hub of activity as you progress and unlock new characters, weapons, items, and secrets. The sheer number of unlocks and secrets in Revita is amazing.
Revita’s design isn’t the only thing that shines here, as a pleasing presentation completes this package. It’s a complete package with a simple but cute pixel art style and relaxing BGM that will make you hum even when you’re not playing the game.
Revita is a twin-stick shooter that’s easy to pick up but hard to master, with gorgeous visuals and catchy music. An addicting gameplay loop, balanced risk and reward mechanics, and a wealth of content make it a fierce battle for the top spot with the biggest and best titles in the genre (The Binding of Isaac, Dead Cells, Enter the Gungeon) The competition is on.
