I have played many old games in my day. Many far older than myself. One such game was Yars’ Revenge by Atari, where you take control of a Yar, a fly-like species of space aliens capable of eating nearly anything to survive and fire powerful energy projectiles to defend itself, out to avenge the destruction of one of their planets by the Qotile empire. It was unique in many ways, such as being primarily horizontally oriented when the genre at the time mostly vertically aligned, and requiring risky plays such as deliberately brushing up against the boss enemy in order to get the energy to charge a weapon to ultimately destroy said boss. It’s a unique bit of shoot ’em up history, and while it’s had a sequel and a couple remakes over the years, not much had been done with the franchise overall. So, imagine my surprise when 42 years after its creation, it gets a – well, I don’t know if sequel is the right word – a complete ‘reimagining’ as a Metroidvania-style platformer developed by Wayforward of Shantae, Mighty Switch Force, River City Girls, and more. I had to play it.
You are Emi ‘Yars’ Kimura, a hacker who currently works for QoTech, a megacorp you are pretty sure is up to something extremely nefarious. You’re actually there to hack their server on behalf of a mysterious client. Unfortunately, Emi gets caught in her hacking attempt and apprehended by her manager, fired, and held in a small room awaiting arrest, or worse. It is now up to Emi, with the help of her hacker friends over the phone, to escape the Qotech building with her life and just as importantly, the data she was sent to retrieve. And that’s where Yars Rising starts.
There’s a small intro segment presented in a fully-voiced comic book format and short movement and hacking tutorial before this, but when you get control in the detainment room and crawl off to find the rainbow glowing terminal to get a superpower from it is when things get going. Emi attempts to escape from QoTech HQ, first by trying to get to the front door, then by finding a way to unlock the door once she locates it, all while dealing with rampaging robots, alien creatures, war machines, and abandoned experiments that have been let loose in the facility.
Emi begins the game with the ability to run, sneak, crawl, jump, grab onto ledges, and as I mentioned, shortly after the start she learns to shoot energy blasts. But there’s also one other ability she has, and that’s to hack into terminals. This is one of the major wrinkles that turns Yars Rising from a standard Metroidvania into a truly unique experience. Whenever you find a terminal, be it to unlock a door, gain a booster program, or to gain one of Emi’s new super abilities, you shift to the hacking interface, each of which is styled as a level or series of levels of the original Yars’ Revenge, each with its own twists, limitations, and win conditions. Some are as simple as break the barrier, build up energy by ‘nibbling’ on the Qotile or the barrier, activate the Zorlon cannon, and shoot. Some of them are as complicated as running through a timing-based maze, or devour an entire ever shifting barrier without the aid of a projectile before time runs out while missiles and other attacks fire all around you. As blisteringly difficult as some of these were, I loved every single one of them. But don’t worry, there is quality of life feature to make them less of an obstacle for those not quite so into or adept at weird 80s shooters games as I am.
That said, the upgrade programs are one of the other things that sets Yars Rising out from the pack mechanically compared to other Metroivanias. Emi has a tatoo on her arm that looks just like the sprite of a Yar from the 80s game. Only it’s not a tattoo, but an emblem given to her a Yar warrior in her youth, and you can use it to equip upgrade programs to make Emi hardier, harder hitting, faster moving and jumping, and more. Where it gets interesting is that the way you equip these programs is by filling in the Yars emblem. Each upgrade you have is a certain shape, and you can only equip a program if you have empty pixels of the yars program to fit it into. As the game goes on, programs get better, either by giving you more bang but requiring more pixels to fill, or the same amount of bang but requiring less space to equip. This makes powering Emi up a puzzle in its own right as opposed to just comparing stats and equipping the best armor, accessory, etc. I would have liked the ability to swap between a main and a primary set for upgrade, just to switch between my exploration based and hacking based upgrades like faster nibbling and more powerful zorlon cannon, but it’s not too difficult to switch your equipment up if a hacking minigame is giving you trouble, and switch it back once you’re done.
Emi is aided in her escape by her friends,: the ever reliable Malorie “Mal” Foster, Anthony “Kitbash” Ochoa who seems to be oblivious of Emi’s obvious crush, and ever cheerful Kyan “Refresh” Winters as well as their mysterious client. She is opposed by Mrs. Davidson, her superior at Qotech, and Phillip Ong, the company’s CEO. The plot is blocked into three large chunks, with Emi trying to break out of the Qotech headquarters, break back into the building after an alien invasion starts, and stopping the alien invasion, with plenty of twists, loyalty changes, and reveals along the way. The plot is relayed in the form of fully voiced dialogue segments, as well as partly animated and also fully voiced comic book segments, a nod to how the plot of the original Yars’ Revenge was explained with a pack in comic book. The tone through most of Yars Rising is fairly light, even in its serious moments, but everyone in the cast is bringing their A game, especially Emi, who has a quip or comment for so many of the bizarre scenarios she comes across, like lampshading the fact that she has no idea what saving her progress means for her, or commenting about having to go through a particular room numerous times for the plot, with new comments each time. You definitely get across the idea that she’s in over her head and doing her best.
While all of this is happening, Emi has to blast, sneak, platform and hack her way around the office, the futuristic city, and even an alien planet. To do all of this, of course, she needs power ups. One of the first new powers she gets is the ability to ‘nibble’ energy barriers, followed by upgrades like standard and guided missiles, wall jump, water walking – Emi cannot swim, a fact she brings up several times – a high vertical jump, and even the ability to breathe underwater for short periods. All of these powers also have associated upgrade programs you can equip to make them more powerful (faster moving or stronger missiles, larger wall jumps or higher verticals, etc.) so there are tons of ways to equip Emi to fit your playstyle, even moment to moment.
Yars Rising is also crammed to the gils with nods to other Atari titles that are simultaneously loving and irreverent. For example, one of the enemy bosses is named Missile Commander, on several occasions the hacking minigame involves playing a round of Centipede as one of its steps, and Phillip Ong is so obvious I shouldn’t have to explain it, except to point out that yes, the penultimate fight in the game is literally a game of Pong.
I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Yars Rising. The characters are all engaging, the stealth and platforming challenges are good enough to keep you on your toes without becoming tedious, as are the platforming puzzles and hacking challenges. The ending itself is my only real letdown, but it’s obvious that certain story elements were left open as a sequel hook. I for one look forward to a sequel, just don’t take several decades for this next one, okay?
Tim reviewed Yars Rising on Nintendo Switch with a review code.
