Yars Rising Review

Yars Rising is a Metroidvania sidescroller published by Atari and developed by WayForward. Highlighted as one of our hidden gems at PAX West 2024, the game piqued our interest so much that we looked forward to seeing more. Inspired by the classic Yars’ Revenge on the Atari 2600, this modern adaptation brings the concept to contemporary audiences.

The story follows Emi “Yar” Kimura, a hacker determined to infiltrate QoTech Corporation, led by the enigmatic Philip Ong. With the help of her friends, she breaks into the company late at night, only to be discovered by her supervisor, Mrs. Davidson. As her latent powers awaken, Yar delves deeper into the company’s secrets, uncovering a conspiracy that hides an alien invasion.

Will Yar and her friends stop this alien conquest before it’s too late? Put on those retro glasses and save the world in Yars Rising!

Revenge of the Nerds

Yars Rising is a two-part game featuring a main story set in a 2D Metroidvania platformer. The protagonist, Yar, navigates the QoTech office building, battling killer robots and other adversaries. As a hacker, she can breach terminals to unlock doors and access her latent powers. The hacking mode is a separate mini-game that incorporates mechanics from the original Yars’ Revenge on the Atari 2600.

Visually, Yars Rising boasts impressive western-style anime art, from character designs to pixel art. The aesthetic is reminiscent of RWBY and Hi-Fi RUSH, offering a visually pleasing experience. The various areas of the QoTech building, the surrounding city, and beyond feature detailed backgrounds and well-designed enemies.

The soundtrack complements the visuals with original tracks ranging from pop to synthwave, enhancing the emotional impact of traversing the treacherous industrial complex and the urgency of hacking sequences. This complete audio-visual package makes Yars Rising highly engaging.

Regarding controls, Yars Rising initially feels basic and somewhat bland. As a Metroidvania, it is expected that power-ups and upgrades obtained through hacking terminals will enhance Yar’s mobility and combat abilities. However, her movement feels mostly robotic, with limited omnidirectional movement. She can jump and crawl, but her traversal feels static, confined to straight lines rather than the fluid movement typical of the genre.

When Yar acquires her projectile weapon, she can only fire horizontally while standing, crouching, or jumping, lacking vertical or omnidirectional targeting. Combined with the robotic movement, the controls in Yars Rising feel rigid and sluggish, making traversal less comfortable.

Initially, the enemy AI in Yars Rising appears quite manageable. Similar to Yar, enemies exhibit rigid movement and attack patterns, approaching either horizontally or vertically, making them predictable and easy to dodge. However, when Yar takes damage, it can be quite severe, quickly depleting her health, especially noticeable during the first boss encounter.

Power-ups are straightforward: hearts regenerate health, and triodes enhance special weapons like missiles and drones. Exploration is linear, with inaccessible areas becoming available later. Players can also equip upgrades to boost health and attack strength.

As the game progresses, challenges become more difficult, introducing stealth elements where evading guards is crucial. Being caught or damaged by guards results in being sent back to the beginning of the level. Traps that cause “instant death” similarly send players to the nearest checkpoint. Upon dying, players respawn at the last checkpoint, whether it’s a save point or a terminal.

Overall, Yars Rising adheres to the Metroidvania formula, albeit with some unconventional design choices.

Retro Alien Invasion

Before moving ahead, let’s delve into the hacking component of Yars Rising. This aspect is both the most enjoyable and the most frustrating part of the game. When breaching terminals to open doors, secure upgrades, or gain new powers, players are transported to a mini-game inspired by the original Yars’ Revenge.

These hacking challenges typically involve destroying the main base, though the objectives vary with each level. Players will spend a lot of time dodging attacks. As the game progresses, bases will employ spiral attacks, homing rockets, and even the main cannon has a peculiar firing mechanism that requires dodging.

While these challenges are initially ingenious, they become progressively difficult and frustrating. Failing a challenge often means redoing the entire sequence. Although switching to invincible mode can alleviate the frustration, it diminishes the challenge and overall experience of Yars Rising.

The main campaign of Yars Rising takes approximately 6-8 hours to complete, with full completion extending to 10-12 hours. The game isn’t overly difficult, but its unconventional design choices add to the perceived difficulty. As players unlock all necessary skills for the endgame, certain design flaws make the game unnecessarily complicated.

For instance, double jumps are replaced with a flight mode that consumes triodes with each take-off. The controls can be awkward, sometimes causing wall jumps to be overridden if the controls are spammed. In the endgame, the cannon upgrade requires charging, but its execution is awkward, requiring an additional fire action instead of simply releasing the charge button.

Boss battles vary in difficulty depending on the number of upgrades collected. Players can power up their projectiles to defeat bosses easily. Boss patterns are predictable, and defeats often result from the uneven damage ratio. While more boss challenges would have been welcome early in the story, by the endgame, Yars Rising feels overstretched with only five boss battles.

The main plot is serviceable, but the dialogue may not appeal to everyone. The protagonist is talkative, resembling the style of Forspoken rather than Hi-Fi RUSH. Although it shares the humor of Hi-Fi RUSH, Yars Rising can feel overdone and grating over time. This will ultimately depend on individual player sentiment, but some may find themselves skipping story segments.

Upon completing Yars Rising, additional content such as professional mode and hacking challenges are available. However, the Yars’ Revenge mini-games offer significant replay value. These mini-games are enjoyable, especially when played without the pressure of the main campaign, making them a highlight of the overall experience.

Verdict: Wait For It…

Yars Rising is an enjoyable, albeit straightforward, Metroidvania that ambitiously adapts its source material for modern audiences. While it features a novel hacking component, an impressive soundtrack, and stunning visuals, the main gameplay is hindered by a number of frustrating design choices.

However, Yars Rising shouldn’t be dismissed. With a serviceable story and additional content like the Yars’ Revenge hacking challenges, the game offers hours of entertainment. Some elements, such as the dialogue and characters, may not appeal to everyone, so trying out a demo is recommended to see if it suits your taste.

*Yars Rising was reviewed on the Nintendo Switch with a review code provided by the publisher.