Reventure Review

Upon seeing Reventure I was immediately intrigued. If not because of the Overwhelmingly Positive reviews, then the mere fact that the game has 100 different endings sparked my interest, and the pros didn’t end there.

Scrolling further down the Steam page you can see that the game has a heavy emphasis on comedy, and even pop-culture reference; if the fact that the playable character is wearing a suspiciously green and pointy hat didn’t give that away, then I don’t know how much more obvious it has to be before you catch it.

I booted up Reventure, completely confused as to how it was going to have 100 different endings. The story was pretty standard; the protagonist wakes up in the house, you get summoned to the King whose daughter has been kidnapped, and you need to save her. On my merry path, I went to gather the legendary sword. An old man is there telling me it’s dangerous to go alone. In front of him was the fated weapon, the one I would be using to slay the big evil. Interesting turn of events, I thought, as I pulled out the sword and wasn’t asked to complete any trials, I had the legendary weapon.

So I do what any writer worth their articles would do, and I start stabbing around wildly trying to figure out if the combat is going to be clunky. I try the general moves you’re going to need against an enemy, jumping and slashing, running and slashing. I decide I'm using this poor old man as a test because he will work as a character sprite on how far I can hit them from, and once I do, I stab through him and get my first ending.

I was baffled, confused, I laughed a little too hard, but it showed me immediately what Reventure was all about; exploration and trying out new things.

Reventure is unlike other adventure games. Every ending progresses the story a bit further and compares how far ahead you made it in comparison to other players. With 100 different endings, any of them as simple as stabbing an old man at the top of the mountain with your sword, I was immediately hooked.

Reventure is definitely an adventure game, but more so than that, the game feels a lot like a puzzle game. Everything about it is set up in a way that makes you think, and the deeper into the overworld you get, the more things you might need to remember, or need to work around. The game starts giving you new tools almost immediately, but every time you have to start from the beginning, meaning you're going to need to regather them. Which, to some might be annoying, but it added a puzzle element because if you carry one too many items... Ending #26. Several tools are necessary to get in certain areas, or you can try to find a sneaky different path to avoid having to carry them.

You need to choose carefully which items you will be taking onto different depths of the game to get what endings in which scenarios - it is an amazing feeling when you're playing and get the right combination, doing the right thing to get an ending that will probably have you giggling the way I did.

The story isn’t much of a story, rather it’s more of a setting. It’s there so that you do have something to work towards, but apart from that it’s nonexistent. However, that’s not to say that I wasn’t very excited to advance to the next ending to see how the game would explain what I did, what new character I’d unlock, or which bizarre thing would happen next. What little story it had I absolutely adored, because it had a silly setting that encouraged me to continue forward.

And getting all 100 endings is no small feat. After having accumulated 64 endings, it told me that only 20% of adventurers had made it this far. However, you’re not expected to get every ending just blindly guessing what to do, for there are hints scattered across the world in any random run that allows you to get a line explaining how to get that ending in a cryptic way, and then you are able to work from there.

Reventure is as charming as you let it be. If the lack of story bothers you, then it definitely isn't a game for you. But if the silly stories don’t scare you off of the game, and a puzzle-like element forcing you to learn what to do and think on your next run just for that next ending intrigues you, then Reventure is truly an amazing game, and shines in that aspect. And for completionists? Oh boy, is this one fun to overthink on.