The Nintendo Switch has essentially turned into the primary home of indie games, especially indie roguelites. With popular series like Hades, and Dead Cells playing as smoothly as they do, and Exit the Gungeon being, surprisingly, an exclusive for Switch, it’s no surprise that this is essentially what the console is becoming known for, outside of Pokémon, Zelda and Mario, of course. Which brings us to Revita, an action packed roguelite that is similar to that of Exit the Gungeon, in terms of it being a side scrolling shooter with collectible upgrades for your gun through each run.

Revita is honestly one of the easier roguelites I’ve played in a while, but that doesn’t make it an easy game by any means. I believe most people will be able to confidently beat the first, and possibly second boss on every run, regardless of how poor your luck may be with items. One big difference from a lot of other similar titles, though, is that collecting a lot of items will take a toll on your health. You have to give up hearts in order to collect upgrades, so a lapse in judgement could see a run cut short quite easily. There are a lot of similarities to that of Exit the Gungeon, outside of what was already mentioned. You’ll also find characters throughout that will open things up in the hub, mostly allowing for items to be purchased to be found in each run going forward.

Life is currency, and the only way to heal yourself is to fight, or find items, but usually they’re a lot less likely to come across. Collecting spirits from enemies defeated allows you to heal yourself, with over healing letting you raise your max health. It’s a unique mechanic that can let any player be as strong as they want if they choose not to buy items, open chests, or sacrifice hearts, or as weak as they want if they choose to sacrifice everything to try and be overpowered. Everything is a judgement call as you progress through the game.

While characters call the area in Revita a tower, it’s more like the London tube system, or what I assume the New York subway system is like. Travel on the subway to the area, and then battle to climb up to the next subway. Each area hosts some unique enemies, and some reskins, as well as usually having its own unique feel. At the end of each area is a boss, and the bosses are based on the stages of grief, save for one which can throw off this whole theory.

While the weapons in Revita don’t exactly look unique, barely feeling like much of a change when switching between them, they definitely feel different in terms of gameplay. The way the devs broke down the stats changes in each gun from the starting pistol was, at the very least, interesting. If you think of the starting pistol as a blank canvas, it has a 0% buff or nerf to each of its stats, like critical hit, rate of fire, range and damage. While the machine gun has a 15% increase to rate of fire, but a 15% decease to damage. All regular buffs you’ll find increase power by 5% each time, so it’s quite easy to learn how to counteract these debuffs and make each run as successful as possible.

Revita boasts a great soundtrack as well. Christoph Jakob did a great job at capturing the essence of each area and the boss fights. It still feels like an indie game soundtrack, there’s no massive orchestration, but the use of choir work during huge boss fights really hits on top of everything else. What didn’t really make a huge difference is the sound of the different guns. I suppose it make sense, you’re essentially using a spirit gun, so it’s not going to sound like Call of Duty, but the difference between the shotgun and the pistol feels a bit minimal. It lacked some pzazz at the end of the day.

Revita is a great indie roguelite, dungeon crawler that can genuinely hit the same levels that something like Exit the Gungeon can provide. If its developer can continue to provide players with content and updates here and there for the game, then all it takes is a little bit of word of mouth to get Revita flying the way it should. This base game is definitely a great starting point, and with so much to do in every run, and so much to collect, it’s a nifty little title that people will stick with if they know there will be more to come.

Graphics: 8.0 Revita is a cute indie game, all the characters and enemies are distinguishable and nothing gets lost to the background of each area making it mostly easy to see whats happening.	Gameplay: 8.0 The game provides comfortable and confident gameplay. While nothing is groundbreaking, the level you can play at once you’re used with the controls is smooth.
Sound: 8.5 The biggest loss when it comes to sound is a lack of variety. Revita sounds great, but the different guns, different qualities of shots, and some other key things don’t have a huge amount differing between them to really be identifiable as different. Definitely marked up for a great soundtrack though.	Fun Factor: 8.0 Revita, without being anything spectacularly new and flashy, is confident and more than comfortable with everything it has to offer.
Final Verdict: 8.0

Revita is available now on Nintendo Switch, PC.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

A copy of Revita was provided by the publisher.