Lets! Revolution! review – The King’s screech

It has been a banger of a year so far, but if you had a GOTY bingo card with “Minesweeper meets the roguelite genre” on it, I’d have asked you to pick winning lottery numbers for me because I did not see this coming. Lets! Revolution! smashes that classic game that your father spent way too much time playing on a Windows 95 PC together with some clever design and effortlessly charming art direction to create one of this year’s quirkiest surprises, a challenging hop across squares as you introduce the monarchy to some good old-fashioned rebellion.

Like its primary source of inspiration, Let’s! Revolution! focuses on uncovering tiles around your rebel in an effort to locate the wily King who’s hiding on the map. Each tile provides you with just enough information to figure out what kind of environment is around you, but beware! The King may be on the run, but his loyal henchmen are lurking in the uncovered tiles and are ready to overwhelm your defenses when left unchecked.

Essentially, each run is a gauntlet of cunning and courage as you leverage the unique strengths of your rebel to overcome the King’s minions. This is where the game shines, as each of the six available classes add a completely new twist to how you run through tiles. Your starter Trooper can safely whack away at the surrounding blocks with a Shoryuken uppercut that would make Street Fighter proud; the stealthy Shadow is a master of the shadows (duh) who earns more rewards for revealing as few tiles as possible; and the Oracle is a glass cannon who gets from Point A to Point B the quickest when utilized properly.

The clock is always ticking in Lets! Revolution!, as failing to deal with enemies in time will result in them landing a can’t-miss attack on your renegade, so you’ll need to juggle resetting their clock timer or eliminating them entirely in each map. It’s a doable task on the game’s easier difficulty settings, but crank the challenge up and Lets! Revolution becomes fiendishly difficult as it throws extra stipulations and encounters that’ll turn your palms into Niagara Falls with all the sweat pouring from them.

But the beauty of this system is that–just like Minesweeper–there are going to be moments where you’re pushed into a Fight-or-Flight mode response. If you’ve done your homework, got the lay of the land, and you’re feeling bold, then taking that gamble and seeing the results pay off can be a euphoric moment of triumph. If you fail and the King lives to see another day? Hey, it’s a roguelite game, failure is part of the business model here! Restart, try again, and you’ll eventually succeed thanks to the valuable experience that you’ve gained.

Let’s! Revolution! isn’t just a game of substance, but style as well. A one-two punch of vibrant visuals that look like they were pulled from Cartoon Network’s more experimental years–courtesy of animation studio BUCK–paired with Antfood’s delightful soundtrack, that scores your every attempt at regicide, makes for a killer combo that’s easy on the ears and impactful on the eyes.

Let’s! Revolution! isn’t one of those games that I’m ready to pour dozens upon dozens of hours into. However, with digestible levels and a quirky style that it revels in, it’s a title that I’m enjoying booting up for a lunchtime diversion. With plenty of additional content available, I’m going to be spending a lot of my break time chasing after that smarmy little bastard of a king.

Let’s! Revolution! released on 19 July 2023 for PC.