Thank you, 3f Interactive, for sending us a review code!

Reversion is a point-and-click adventure game by 3f Interactive. A genre that seems to be going to the wayside as advancements in technology are made—somewhat like turn-based RPGs. People seem to be aiming towards visual novels, or “walking simulators” for the most part when they want to make a narrative-driven video game. Point-and-click games, no matter when they are made, evoke a sense of nostalgia in me. Reversion, in particular, started in 2012 and has reached its conclusion eight whole years later in 2020.

The Return is the third and final chapter of the Reversion saga (which was planned to be six episodes), and from playing it, I could tell that the supposed chapters three to six were combined into this one episode. With it being the finale of a trilogy, its surprising to say that playing chapters 1 & 2 are not necessary to understand this one. It starts with a recap of episodes 1 & 2—understandable as it is a seven-year gap between episodes 2 & 3 so players who started with the two would have most likely forgotten events in that time frame. It also eases new players into the world of Reversion. (3f Interactive kindly sent me codes for Chapters 1 & 2 at my request, so I thank them for that as well.)

Christian, our main protagonist, finds himself in a secret laboratory after the events of Chapter 2, where he finds his allies, Victoria and Pablo, as well as the Professor that he was trying to find. This is when Christian discovers that he was part of a scientific team with the Professor in 2015, working on time travel. Due to tampering with the machine by the main antagonist, Sergio, Christian was flung 20 years into the future (2035) of Bueno Aires, Argentina. Sergio now has complete control of Buenos Aires and it’s up to Christian’s group, who call themselves The Resistance, to fight against Sergio and his men.

With the game being a point-and-click, every action is controlled with the mouse. Christian can observe the environment by either analyzing it (conveyed by a magnifying glass), touching it or by talking to it (the option is only available when observing a person). In point-and-click fashion, items can be stored in your inventory where they can be used on other objects or combined with items in your inventory to create new items. A lot of the puzzles are well-thought-out and many do require knowledge and observation of your environment. If you end up stumped, the game includes a hint system, with a four-minute cooldown period to discourage abuse of it.

Christian tends to have a lot to say about the situation he is in and has a comment for almost everything. Some of his comments are either lore about the world itself, or even educational facts about real-life people, events, or landmarks of Argentina. A running gag with Christian is that he comes across lots of cardboard boxes, and seeing him become more and more sarcastic with the boxes as the story goes on is funny.

Due to Sergio’s rule, Buenos Aires is in very bad shape. Almost nothing is maintained and nearly every building is rundown. Garbage is littered everywhere, bathrooms have leaks, and even hospitals are filthy. It’s a very interesting contrast to the colorful art style. The colors are very bright and distinct. In my opinion, the color represents that Buenos Aires was a very beautiful area before Sergio took control.

The character design is unique and charming. It is cartoony but the humans do have a sense of anatomy. A handful of models do share similar designs but have enough traits to stand out from one another. Other NPCs can be rather exaggerated in their looks as there are people who are both comically large and comically small.

I do like the way 3f Interactive handles the paramilitary. It’s really easy to write villains of a story as simply bad people with irredeemable aspects. Most of the mercenaries are simply civilians who work under Sergio either by necessity or fear. When Christian (disguised as part of the military group) speaks to these people, they have their issues and complaints with the situation as well. They are also pretty relatable. It humanizes a group that didn’t really have to be and also shows off just how bad of a person Sergio is.

Voice acting can range from very good to pretty bad. Every character that can be spoken to has a voice attached. Christian has a solid voice, and hearing the improvement from Chapter to Chapter is great. He starts rather amateurish and even overacts in the earlier chapters, but in Chapter 3, I feel he found his stride and emotes stressful moments with professionalism. Not every character has an Argentine accent, which I found a little disappointing because the artist went out of their way to have every word in the world—from signs to documents, written in Spanish.

However, my biggest gripe with the voice acting is with the Professor. Nothing against the voice actor, but I feel that he was going for a Doc Brown impression. Instead, it feels like a Southern person (as in U.S. South), trying to do a Doc Brown impression that’s simply all over the place. I even hear a Rastafarian accent in some of his sentences. He mispronounces a lot of the Spanish terms and names wrong too. He’s the only voice that I groan hearing, which is a shame since the Professor is an important character.

Reversion uses a lot of wind, string, and piano instruments in their music. The piano, in particular, is used for jingles when collecting items. Serious parts have a deeper instrumental with more emphasis on stronger wind instruments. Sergio’s theme feels threatening and ominous. All of the music pieces are rather short and loop after either 30 seconds or a minute listening to them. Since you’ll be spending minutes at a time in areas, they all get repetitive very quickly. 

The way the story progresses is pretty smooth. Christian himself is an interesting protagonist and finding out more about him as he finds out about himself and the unfamiliar time he is in keeps you wanting to move forward. Towards the final stretch, I think the developers started to run out of steam. There’s this one part where you have to find out lyrics to a tango song, and you’re more or less going to be going back and forth to revisit places and hearing repeating dialogue, while the whole event barely adds anything to the narrative or character development. It feels like it was simply there to pad out time. The time would have been better used towards the climax of the story as the concluding events wrap up a bit too quickly. One nasty bug I found was when the game softlocked on me during the final stretch. I was glad I had some saved files on hand because if I didn’t, I would have had to start the entire game over. Reversion does not have an autosave function, so make sure to save often.

Moral warnings and concerns are few. Probably the biggest one is the act of theft and alcohol consumption. Throughout the story, Christian has to steal a few objects to progress. He does object to the act of stealing but still commences with it. Christian doesn’t drink (although he only objects due to his responsibility), but in one situation, he persuades another man to get drunk to obtain information. Language is seen a few times, namely “h*ll” and “b*st*rd”. One female character, (who’s name I will not say for spoiler reasons), wears a form-fitting attire that shows off her cleavage and enunciates her “sexiness.” For a game that has the main antagonist group being a paramilitary group, there isn’t a lot of violence. In fact, the couple of violent moments either cut to black or are shown in a comical fashion.

Although Chapter 1 & 2 are not required to play Chapter 3, I have a better appreciation for Chapter 3 as I was able to see all the improvements 3f Interactive made throughout the years such as improving the quality of the graphics, adding cutscenes, and feeling overall more refined in its efforts. I can’t exactly recommend Chapter 1: The Escape or Chapter 2: The Meeting due to both showing their age and being rather sloppy in areas (namely the voice acting), but I can recommend Chapter 3: The Return for people looking to satisfy their point-and-click urges. There’s this fun charm to Reversion. It has humorous moments that tend to poke fun at the point-and-click adventure genre and makes many references to other forms of media. It’s more than twice as long as both Chapter 1 & 2 combined as Chapter 3 will take at minimum four hours to complete, but will most likely end around the six to eight-hour mark as the experience doesn’t hold your hand. You can buy the entire trilogy plus the soundtrack for around $14 if you want to get the full experience.