Reventure

[Leisher]

Got this in a Humble Bundle I believe.

If Groundhog Day was an 8 bit game with lame humor and maybe one ok joke? I genuinely don't remember if I laughed at the game or a YouTube video running on my second screen.

This is going to be mostly a negative review, but honestly, it's an exceptionally well polished game and designed game. It deserves the "Overwhelmingly Positive" reviews it had, but this is definitely not for everyone. Had I know the type of game ahead of time, I would have skipped it.

Reventure is a side scroller. My wife actually confused it for Super Mario Bros for a brief moment. Ridiculous. Super Mario Bros had much better graphics. The look is perfect for what the game is, but damn older graphics sucked.

On the note of reminding me of other games, let me mention that the music is a pretty obvious ripoff of Legend of Zelda. I found myself humming the Zelda song the last few days and that's obviously triggered by this one.

This game has some charm. No doubt. However, you're not getting the 101 endings without a guide. And really that's the game: Find all the endings. I'm not kidding when I say that you could spend a year playing this game and you wouldn't figure out some of the endings. This game is a completionist's nightmare.

You're Tim (I'm not making this up) and you're out to save the Princess. She's been captured by the Dark Lord. Using a sword, shield, grappling hook, shovel, bombs, and some other items, you have to traverse the very small world. Each run means getting them over again and the trick is that for everyone you get, it weighs you down more. You move at the same speed, but can't jump as high.

A run can last seconds, while others can take...let's say 10 minutes. That's knowing what to get and where to go though. I absolutely used a guide once I figured the point of the game out and it still took several evenings to work my way through it. The YouTube guide I followed had the final achievement at an hour. Everything in that hour wasn't just for that final achievement. Some were just easter eggs. The final run does have an area made up of three screens that the game warns you about. Miss a jump and you're fucked. Start over. I assure you those screens will inspire some rage.

One thing I hated was the two times the game opened an external browser window to advertise their other products to me. Fuck that. Don't do that shit.

This one is a difficult recommendation. You've got to want to play a game that will piss you off as you hit a dead end or miss a jump and have to start your run over. Plus, the sequence of events to get all the endings are not obvious. You really need to have the map memorized to know what items you need, when, and where. This is why I went with a guide.

If you ain't got time for that, skip this one. I know that I'll be avoiding Reventure 2 if it ever comes out.