Goodbye Reverse: 1999

What is Reverse: 1999?

Reverse: 1999 or R1999 is a Gacha game with a turn based card style combat. It’s main hook are philosophical themes as the characters and the world travels backwards in time whenever the “storm” arrives. Humans are split between normal humans and “arcanists” that can use magic, there is some discrimination over race and many political stories and themes surrounding that. Also at least 3 counts of doomed yuri pairings for the folk who enjoy it.

Writing: Excellent, but can drag on. Drops you into the world knowing very little, and may not explain everything. You are expected to do your homework on cultural references.

Art: Fantastic Illustrations. (Mimics Oil Painted and classical textures)

Music: Good. Depends on taste.

Gacha Mechanics: 70 Pity, 50/50. Relatively generous to F2Ps.

Game Mechanics: Ok. I usually just Auto Battle. End Game is not the most engaging.

Game Events: Usually a 4-5/10 at best for me.

What I love about R1999

1. The main lobby theme.
2. The especially unique character designs. Everyone looks really classy and actually in character. Extra points for skins (which I do not buy as a F2P).
3. It’s so F2P friendly that I have most characters. There is no weapon banner and you can build everyone very easily since there isn’t any relics/etc.
4. Probably has one of the best stories in the Gacha space that I have seen so far. Genuinely captivating setting and world.
5. Incredible Collabs somehow. There was some controversy about the Atomic Heart Collab, I still played the entire Atomic Heart game before the R1999 story just to see what it was all about.
6. Unique Characters, like so unique that there are units that are an Apple, a Fridge, a TV, a UFO, a Radio, a Mirror Shard, someone who only speaks in hexadecimal, anime girl no 37¹, the literal embodiment of the grief and sorrow over wars, a dog, way too many teenagers, ferrofluid in a human suit, a piston in a sexualized female body (the game has to make money somehow), autistic-coded math prodigies (the girl named “37”), pirates (?), assassins, DJs (some overlap with the pirate somehow), a dentist that eats tooth fairies, a chipmunk, a scarecrow, ghosts and most importantly to half of the population, men. These are all playable units from all over the world with their own unique backstories like nothing you’ve ever seen before.
7. You can auto play the game. Yes I am lazy.

So why am I quitting?

I’ve been playing this game since the global launch. I distinctly remember not studying for a math midterm just because I wanted to play this game so bad².

• I am playing 4 gacha games including R1999 right now. I need to free up some time to do other things.
• After THREE years, I have not seen significant progress in the main plot. Too many side plots. I understand that it’s a slow burn but all I’ve seen is that they made special umbrellas to shield against the storm. Some information about the storm that was revealed was really cool to know but these folk just can’t get any kind of meaningful win for me to stay invested. I can only take so much doomer fanfiction.
• I don’t have the time to do assigned reading by the GACHA GAME. Ok, I’m kidding, you don’t actually need to read anything, cultural references are quite cool to see, but I’m simply not cultured enough to recognize them.
• I have 80% of the characters as a complete F2P (ok maybe I spent some free google survey credit that was gonna expire on like a 99 cents deal), but I no longer feel any kind of rush when getting a new character.
• I do not like how the recent character was handled (Rhiannon). I accept and can even praise how Bluepoch (R1999’s game studio) really made us FEEL bad after our initial emotional investment, and its totally in sync with the game. However the sequence of events to get to that outcome felt forced. The ending was fine and makes sense given the context and themes the game was trying to push, but the writing to reach said outcome was simply not good enough.

Basically:

• I no longer “play” the game in any serious capacity even while doing every single event for the last 3 years. Also you can just auto the game and the newest op hax unit will clear everything immediately.
• I deeply care about the main plot moving forward, of which the plot very much is not moving forward in any meaningful direction most of the time. You explore the new setting and character of the month most of the time.
• The side story patches (there are MANY) are a fun distraction but I don’t like getting distracted from the actual story that I care about.
• I am not the kind of person that can “half play” a game. If I play a live service gacha game, you best believe that I’m doing every event for the pull currency from the very first day of launch so I have the best possible chance to get all resources. It’s either I play the game or I don’t. I do not do half measures.

TLDR

Reverse 1999 is a great game, and I wish the game and its community all the best. I just don’t have the time for it anymore. I really enjoyed the time I spent playing R1999, but it’s time to move on to bigger and better things.

“May the peace be with us.”

Hi, I'm Brian Soh | NAIRBS

I'm a computer engineer who is always happy to learn something new. I have experience with Computer Networking, Microcontrollers, AR and Desktop/Mobile/Web Applications.
Feel free to leave a comment below!

Contact me:

sohhanyu@gmail.com | GitHub | LinkedIn