Yars Rising Review – Atari’s 1982 Classic Reimagined as a Fun Metroidvania

As a seasoned gamer with over two decades of gaming under my belt, I have to say that Yars Rising has been quite the unexpected delight. Having played my fair share of Metroidvanias and shmups alike, this unique blend of both genres was an intriguing proposition.

In an unexpected move, WayForward has chosen to reimagine the 1982 Atari shooter Yars Revenge as a metroidvania-style game called Yars Rising. You step into the shoes of Emi ‘Yar’ Kimura, a young hacker working for the questionable QoTech Corporation. Assigned to infiltrate the company by an enigmatic benefactor, you delve deep into the labyrinthine corridors of the building on a mission to find something. Little did you know – there is indeed a sinister secret lurking within QoTech’s walls.

In those previously mentioned passages, you’ll find invincible guards and aggressive robots, along with laser traps and numerous other lethal dangers. To begin with, your character Emi can only jump and crawl. However, as you advance and unlock hacked terminals, Emi will gain abilities such as shooting with the Zorlon Shot, breaking through green energy barriers with the Trionic Nibble, destroying thick security doors and enemies alike with a Destroyer Missile, and using the Grasshopper Legs to traverse narrow vertical paths.

In addition to its run-and-gun gameplay (limited to horizontal movement as there’s no shooting vertically or diagonally), Yars Rising occasionally incorporates stealth segments. Emi can sneak around or hide in shadows to avoid guards, but if she’s discovered, she’ll sustain significant damage. If Emi dies, progress resets to the last saved terminal. To unlock Augments and gain access to new areas, you’ll utilize Emi’s hacking skills at consoles, which resembles the gameplay from the original ’80s Yars Revenge. Hacking involves a mini-game featuring Yars, where you’ll bite through barriers to reveal Qotiles, eliminate any enemies, and destroy the Qotile with a powerful blast from the Zorlon cannon. These elements appear in different arrangements throughout the game.

As you advance in the game, you’ll gather an increasing number of Augments, unveiling the intricate QoTech Building layer by layer, from its upper administrative areas to its hidden underground sections where things are not as they appear. Later, you’ll traverse the wet streets of Syzygy City. Each departure from an area will bring you back to find that enemies have respawned, providing opportunities for health collection and replenishing your Trion Energy stores for Destroyer Missiles and other Augments. However, this game is a metroidvania, so there’s a lot of going back and forth, which can become repetitive, requiring you to repeat stealth sections and fight the same enemies repeatedly, which can make exploration feel somewhat tedious at times.

Irritating boss encounters and bouts of somewhat cringeworthy dialogue exchanges between characters chatting about things being ‘totes sus’ or some such, don’t exactly help remedy the repetition either. Biohack upgrades you can track down (there are 45 of them to collect and slot into Emi’s Yar-shaped Biohack grid) boost your various attributes, increasing health beyond 100% or improving the efficacy of Emi’s Augments in some way, whether it’s making the Grasshopper Legs kick more forcefully, or making hacking easier; so there’s at least some attempt at variation.

In other words, accessories such as the Firefly Drone expand Emi’s battle possibilities, while items like the Pondskater Boots and Dragonfly Dash provide additional movement options, allowing you to glide over water or dash through the air. The Dragonfly Drone serves a dual purpose – it can be used to create solid platforms where there were none and also acts as a controllable projectile. In essence, this game checks all the boxes for a Metroidvania-style experience, and overall Yars Rising does an excellent job of getting things right. However, one aspect that could use improvement is being forced to watch a short, unskippable intro cinematic every time you need to retry a boss battle. It’s 2024, and unskippable cutscenes – regardless of their length – should no longer be a part of the gaming experience.

Kudos is in order, though, for WayForward’s approach to accessibility, making the tricky Yars hacking mini-games far more palatable by including the option to toggle invincibility on or off. Every completed Yars Revenge hacking mini-game can also be replayed from Emi’s Hacklist via the main menu, which is a nice little extra. With its anime-style, its interstitial comic book story bits, and its fluid gameplay, Yars Rising ultimately emerges as a solid metroidvania, and, despite a few bothersome foibles, it’s a worthwhile experience. If you’re looking for a relatively slow and measured platformer (this bears little relation to Ori, Hollow Knight, Tales of Kenzera, Prince of Persia and the like, when it comes to pace), then Yars Rising ought to keep you occupied for a solid 6-8 hours.

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2024-09-10 16:12