Of course, I’m not asking for game-breaking action every run, but things can feel pretty repetitive. While the gameplay is smooth, featuring a dash, wall jump, and point-and-click shooting, I wished some of the items felt a little more impactful.

Item collection and progression simply isn’t all that fun. Even weak items and upgrades in other games can give you a fascinating run or challenge, but some of Revita‘s items feel boring and uninspired. My main issue with progression in this game is many of the items are just not interesting. It’s a cool risk/reward system that makes things feel quite fresh. The more powerful an item, the more health you need to sacrifice. That’s right - in order to make yourself stronger, you have to shoot yourself in the foot numerous times. The main gimmick here, however, is you can spend your health as currency to power up your character. As a twin-stick shooter, you control the main character on one hand while shooting your weapon on the other. In Revita, you’ll have to climb a tower, clearing floor after floor of enemies and bosses as you power up your weapon. The visuals of the game carry much of the experience as you go from grungy area to the next, with a subway whisking you into each different location. Instead, Revita lures you into its world with charming 16-bit graphics and a great soundtrack.

Revita scales things back, however, and isn’t nearly as dense as the former two games. And what exactly is it that this game accomplishes? Binding of Isaac has incredible progression and enemies, Hades has extremely smooth gameplay, secrets, and a fascinating story.

Download the new for apple Revita