Reverse: 1999 Amazing Visual Novel Disguised as Gacha Game

Turning Back Time: My Review for Reverse: 1999

Imagine the world around you reversed to the past. From the world full of digital technology to the world that still uses the steam engine, well that is the main premise of this game. On October 26th, a new gacha game from Bluepoch emerged on the global Play Store. At that time, I was a bit interested since some of my Discord friends made a joke about this game becoming the game of the year. Well, I don’t know whether this game can make it to The Game Awards or not, but I can say that it gives me one of the best story-telling experiences.

Photo by Dmitrii Eliuseev on Unsplash

So what is Reverse: 1999? What makes it different from other gacha games in the market?

As a gacha game player who has been playing countless gacha games for more than 10 years, Reverse: 1999 gives me experiences that I have never had before from the story-telling aspect.

The lore of this game is still vague and full of mystery, however here is the premise of the game. In this game, there is a magical phenomenon that is called as “Storm”. The storm that is mentioned here is not a regular storm, instead of rain falling down from the sky, the rain rises up to the sky while reversing the state of the world. So, if the storm happened in 2023, it could reverse the timeline to 1999. Players play this game as the “Timekeeper” named “Vertin”. Vertin is immune from the effects of the storm, and due to her unique trait, she works as the timekeeper to gather information about the storm and try to prevent it.

So, what makes this game captivating?

1. Visual
   In my opinion, visual is the absolute forte of this game. This game does not give the player realistic graphics or stunning anime fights. The combat visual is only showing the chibi version of the character. However, in the story the art is captivating. The beautiful art of important moments, accompanied by suitable music. And how the art is full of symbolism and enhances the story-telling to the next level. There are several parodies of famous artwork such as “The Last Supper” that make the player think “Is there a different meaning of the art?”.
2. Story
   The story itself is already great, especially after being paired with beautiful artwork and outstanding background music, the mix between those aspects makes the story become a grand symphony. The flow of the story is a bit weird at first because there are many things happening at once in the prologue, but later on the story flows quite nicely. What is special about the story aspect is the character development. This game could make one of the hateable villains redeem themselves and become one of the most lovable characters in the game in a short time. The game shows how the meeting between the Timekeeper (player) changes people around them. But not only other characters, the game gives a deep story about the origin of the Timekeeper as well. So the balance between the character development of each character including the main character itself is on point.
3. Gameplay
   This game uses turn-base combat with a little bit of RNG using cards as the character’s attack/spell. On each round, the player will get random cards based on the characters that are on the field. Players can choose which card to use. For example, card A and card B belong to character Z. The Player can choose 2 card A or 1 card A and 1 card B so character Z can attack the enemy.
4. Gacha System
   The pity of the gacha here is relatively lower than other competitors, which is nice. The rate of getting rare characters is high too. So the gacha in this game is not really painful. The game is generous to the player, especially in the early game. There is a beginner's gacha banner that gives chance to the player to get one of the great DPS in this game that makes your journey easier.
5. Characters
   I would say that this is the second-best aspect of the game. Most of the character has an interesting backstory, for example, An-an Lee which is an exorcist that mixed traditional exorcism with technology. She uses 3d glasses to detect ghosts. Besides that, An-an Lee VA is great, if you play the game in English voice, An-an Lee sometimes speaks in Cantonese, and her Cantonese voice is addictive. Other than An-an Lee, most of the voice actors of the English voice can use the character’s original language.

At the end of the day, this game is still new and there are many aspects that are confusing. Nevertheless, I see a promising start from this game, especially from the story and character aspect. While the story itself is still confusing since there are so many mysteries surrounding it, that means there are many things to uncover. In a nutshell, if you want to try a gacha game that is not heavily dependent on the gacha aspect, you can give Reverse: 1999 a try.