Yars Rising review for Nintendo Switch, PS5, Xbox Series X, Atari VCS, PC

I realize there’s a large part of the gaming population nowadays that has likely never laid hands on an Atari 2600, or might not be familiar with Atari’s classic line of systems that followed. However, as an 80’s kid and old-timer, the 2600 was my first home console experience. Games like Centipede, Joust, and Missile Command were some of my favorites, despite not quite holding a candle to their arcade counterparts. In addition to arcade ports, the 2600 also housed a number of unique, console only titles, one of which was Yars’ Revenge. The box art for Yars’ Revenge was always the thing that grabbed my attention, with the giant mutated fly on the cover shooting out projectiles. It even had a bit of a story, albiet contained within the game box and not the game itself, featuring the race of beings known as Yars, fighting back against the Qotile army, developing the Zorlon cannon to defend themselves. It was a pretty unique shooter, and could be quite challenging, which is likely why it’s stuck around for so long.

There haven’t been a lot of follow-ups to Yars’ Revenge, but it’s certainly remained a memorable title for people who grew up playing it. So when developer Wayforward and publisher Atari announced they were putting out a metroidvania-style games based on Yars’ Revenge, I was definitely curious to see how it turned out. Now having played through Yars Rising on the Nintendo Switch, I’d say that it made the transition from shooter to action-platformer surprisingly well. It’s not without some issues that I’ll delve into with this review, but overall it was a solid attempt to revitalize a piece of gaming history that doesn’t get nearly as much attention as some of its counterparts from that era.

Like the original game, both the Yars and Qotile are represented here but in different ways. In Yars Rising, the Qotile is actually a corporation that your protagonist, Emi “Yar” Kimura works at. Emi’s employment is more of a ruse, as she’s part of a crew that’s attempting to hack into Qotile for an unknown client, which in turn quickly goes south and kicks off the game. While Emi is human, she also has a unique mark on her in the pixelated shape of the classic Yars, which somehow grants her unique abilities that she gains from various locations throughout the game. As you progress through Yars Rising, Emi will gain the ability to fire projectiles and missles, dash forward or in the air, properl herself high into air, and so on. Most of your standard character movement improvements found in other Metroidvania’s are present here (oddly no double jump though), so if you have any experience with games like Hollow Knight, Ori, and so on, you’ll be right at home here.

Developer WayForward is no stranger to the 2D gaming space, and Yars Rising definitely reflects that. It’s a game that feels good to control, jumping around, dashing, shooting and so on handle exactly in the way you’d suspect. However, I don’t think that the level designs always play well with Emi’s constantly upgrading set of skills. There’s multiple short stealth instances early on, which aren’t difficult but sort of break up the flow of movement throughout the map at multiple points. Later in the game there are other obstacles that essentially do the same thing, like giant pistons that you’ll need to move between, often slowly, in order to prevent Emi from being smooshed. It’s not like 2D games haven’t had these mechanics in the past, for sure, but every time I encountered these sequences in Yars Rising it felt like it was just interrupting the flow of an otherwise enjoyable action game.

One unique aspect that I did enjoy was the hacking mechanic in Yars Rising. I didn’t really expect them to implement classic Yars’ into the game beyond some visual nods, but every terminal you hack (which is quite a few) puts you into a Yars’ Revenge style mini-game. There’s actually a lot of variety with these as well, and they even lean on other classic games like Centipede and Missile Command. It’s a really neat way of incorporating a classic game that modern gamers might feel is a little stale otherwise, and it’s a feature that never really overstays its welcome and appropriately ratchets up the difficulty as you progress through the game.

All in all, I’d definitely recommend giving Yars Rising a go, especially if you enjoy Metroidvania style games in general. It won’t be the best one you’ve played in the genre, but it’s a good time throughout despite some annoying sequences that slow down the action. It also has a great soundtrack featuring a number of notable synthwave and game music artists like Megan McDuffee, FLOOR BABA, Chiyoko Yamasato and many more. I definitely enjoyed my time with it, and I think you will too.