Two different games collide within WayForward’s Yars Rising. In one, presented in-game as the way that Emi “Yar” Kimura hacks devices, is a fast-paced shooter in the style of 1982’s Yars’ Revenge, and it fully captures that Atari classic’s lightning-in-a-bottle brew of the bold, experimental, challenging, quirky, and often surreal. The other, meanwhile, is a no-frills modern Metroidvania that, in addition to being sluggish, lacks the charming inventiveness of Yars Rising, offering only cartoonish combat and simplistic platforming.
The developers seem to know that the former of the two is the more enjoyable experience, as every time you complete a hack, you unlock its corresponding minigame for replay value outside of the campaign. Tellingly, there’s no such direct replay offered for what turns out to be some rather disposable platforming sequences, only a Professional Mode that unlocks once you complete the game, should you for some reason want to slog through everything again.
Yars Rising is at its best when it focuses on the hacking challenges, adding creative new challenges and elements to the basic mechanics of shooting and nibbling at enemy defenses to power up your Zorlon Cannon while dodging missiles. By contrast, the platforming sections just recycle genre staples like the wall jump and aerial dash, rarely tasking players with any sort of challenge. (Of course, given the clunky controls, you may be thankful for that.)
Elsewhere, the game’s attempts to rationalize Emi’s transformation into a Yars-like hero hinge on appallingly shallow dialogue that takes players light years away from any meaningful stakes. And as with many a modern-day narrative involving a character who becomes superhuman, we also get a heaping of Whedon-esque melodramatic exposition: “I found this huge, rainbow-colored console that…rewrote my DNA? I guess? And now my hands shoot energy waves.”
The way that the 4-bit stylings of Yars’ Revenge are channeled here is proof that less can be more. Emi’s hacking console contains over 100 unique challenges, from contending with a high-contrast pink background that makes orange enemy missiles intentionally hard to see, to gathering up Jailbreak Keys to crack enemy defenses, to using the drifting rainbow Ion Zones to dodge lasers. Some even pay homage to other Atari classics, like a few levels where you must shoot down centipedes, and the “War of the Yarniverse” challenge is a superior spin on Missile Commander than one fight against a boss that’s actually named Missile Commander.
It’s a shame that the game’s more air-tight hacking challenges are padded out by making you listlessly shoot a few robots or aliens in between. Ultimately, Yars Rising benefits most from leaning into, without explanation, the alien-ness of the original game. In Yars’ Revenge, the Yars fought the Qotile in a variety of colorful, single-screen arenas. Though there’s now more purpose here to such encounters as a part of Emi’s hacking kit, each task feels otherworldly and unique. By contrast, Yars Rising’s Earth-based action is just frustratingly familiar and unlikely to surprise or carry anything more than the most perfunctory enjoyment.
This game was reviewed with a key provided by ÜberStrategist PR.
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