Revertia is a puzzle platformer with a very unique premise. The game is inspired by a classic board game called Reversi (often referred to as Othello) and puts its own video game spin on it. But the question is: how well does this classic board game translate into a puzzle-platforming video game?

Gameplay

If you’ve never heard of the game Reversi before, it is a two-player board game with black and white tiles that are flipped based on other tiles that are in-line with the tile that was placed. Revertia takes this concept and turns it into a puzzle platformer, having you control an adorable box-like character and using the black tiles as platforms in order to get to the end.

Revertia requires a lot of planning, mapping out how your next move is going to play out. For a puzzle-platformer, this is precisely what the genre looks for. Revertia’s classic board game inspiration is so ingenious, and yet we wonder how it’s never been thought of before now.

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The platforming is smooth and precise, restricting you from winning (or losing) based off of sheer dumb luck. However, we often found ourselves just turning over any tile in hopes of stumbling upon the answer.

Level Design

The levels seem to take two different design choices: they’re either small enough so that the entire level fits onto the screen or massive so that you can only see a small portion of it at any given time. We always preferred the former as the bigger levels made it difficult to determine what was coming up next. It was here when we realised that being able to use the right analogue stick in order to move the camera around would have greatly improved the experience. You can pause the game which shows you a zoomed out version of the map, but we felt that this way interrupted the flow of gameplay.

Another issue that we had with the larger sized levels is that when you die, you are instantly brought back to the beginning of the level. What’s worse is that there is no ‘undo’ button, so if you’ve made a wrong move which affects the level on a much grander scale, this becomes quite irritating when you cannot simply undo your last action.

Each level in Revertia brought upon new challenges and required you to think differently. Whilst it’s a little disappointing that the game only has 30 levels, it can also be considered a positive as it doesn’t attempt to repeatedly rehash the same solutions.

Graphics / Art Direction

Revertia has gone with a paper and pencil aesthetic that works tremendously well. Everything is hand drawn, from the enemies to the spikes. There are also squares that are designed in such a way that you can see the texture of the cardboard. This aesthetic didn’t have to be implemented, however it provides some depth of personality to the game that accompanies the cute protagonist of the game.

Music / Sound Design

Revertia’s soundtrack is… bland. It becomes very repetitive and it just seems to replay the same notes over and over. The sound effects are also very simplistic and doesn’t add any sort of personality whatsoever.

Final Score: 64%

Revertia is a clever little game that is fun to kill an hour with. However, it lacks in overall staying power, being a quick one-and-done experience that will leave you thinking, “alright, what next?”. If you’re a fan of Reversi, or simply like a good puzzle platformer, it’s easy to recommend at its asking price of $5, but be sure to keep your expectations in check.