Roguelike Minesweeper with spectacular animation.
Let’s! Revolution! is an exclamatory game that I hadn’t heard about until its Switch announcement, but it’s a very well regarded roguelike puzzle game that first debuted on PC in 2023. The basics are relatively straightforward in that it’s a gorgeously animated spin on Minesweeper with a lot of nuance and variety. The mechanics get convoluted in spots, but more often than not, this is a unique, brain-twisting game that you can get lost in for hours.
The art and animation are still the highlight though, which makes sense considering the game comes from BUCK, an animation studio that has been around for 20 years and has worked on numerous advertising and creative projects most notably and recently the opening sequence for Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse. Sometimes it’s just fun to see the way your player character interacts with the gridded environment or the way an enemy bounces around idly.
Though this is a video game so the visuals can only take you so far. The gameplay puts you in control of a character in a gridded environment that is primarily obscured. You leap from square to square trying to defeat enemies, find items and upgrades, and discover the villainous king. Enemies will only be present on a road, and if you’re not on a road, the amount of roads touching your square will be represented by a number on your square. Hence, the Minesweeper of it all as the roads are akin to the bombs in that classic. But not every road will be dangerous, which gives the whole thing a nice push and pull as you occasionally risk it by jumping into the unknown.
With the Minesweeper inspiration, it was sometimes frustrating that there wasn’t the pure logic reasoning present in that game. I felt too often that I was railroaded into making a blind decision. That does make the game more challenging and by virtue of that a little more chaotic and random. How you build up your character through items and upgrades can mitigate that randomness. I’d have some runs where I’d have a nigh-unbeatable set of skills and others where I was hanging on for dear life. Numerous character classes and abilities that you unlock over time give you a ton of variety to experiment with, consistently keeping the game evolving and changing. I appreciate how many different styles you get to experience, but some are more fun than others. I vastly prefer the more aggressive characters compared to the ones reliant on stealth, especially as some obnoxious enemy types make stealth a real pain in the butt.
If you’re looking for a fresh roguelike game with thoughtful puzzle stylings, Let’s! Revolution! is an excellent game to dive into. Even in the moments playing a character class I didn’t enjoy as much, I still had a good time, especially since most runs are far less than an hour. This game seems to recognize its kitchen sink gameplay concept approach and lets you fiddle with whatever aspects work best for you. Here’s hoping BUCK doesn’t just stick to animation in the future because their game design is rather intriguing.
