As you all may know, I love retro gaming.  Heck, I grew up during the Atari and NES days, so it’s part of my childhood.  But I do have one retro game that’s on my ‘wall of shame’ because up until now, I never figured out how to play it.  And that game is Yars’ Revenge.  Oh sure I’ve tried many times to figure it out, especially when I would get a new Atari collection that it was on.  And I understand the significance of the game, as it was the best selling game on the Atari 2600 that WASN’T an arcade game first.  And the reason why it is called “Yars” is because that’s the name of Atari’s CEO at the time spelled backwards (way to butter up your boss, Howard Scott Warshaw)! But yeah, I’ve never figured out how to really play the game.  That is until now, thanks to a new game in the series called Yars Rising.  Strangely enough, Yars Rising is actually a “Metroidvania” title mixed with blocky, Atari 2600 style mini-games based on the original Yars.  And it was made by WayForward, which really tells you all you need to know about the quality (yeah it’s good).  Yars Rising is available on all current consoles and PC, but reviewed on PS4 here.

In the game you play as Emi.  She’s a coder who works for a large business called QoTech.  But on the side she secretly hacks into the QoTech servers for extra cash.  One day while hacking, she discovers a plot involving QoTech and an evil alien race.  And now Emi must explore the large QoTech office building and surrounding areas so she can save Earth and the good race of Yars insect like aliens.  In the game, Emi will explore the maze like offices in 2D fashion.  It’s a “Metroidvania” title, meaning you’ll discover new moves and abilities for Emi so you can backtrack to reach new areas in the game.  Some of these moves let you shoot bullets from your hands, jump extra high, wall jump, and much more.  When you see a terminal, you can press a button to hack into it, and that’s when you’ll play a Yars Revenge style mini-game.  If you win, you’ll earn extra moves, unlock doors, and even gain other special abilities for Emi.

The hacking mini-games are mostly based on things you do in Yars’ Revenge, and they do a good job of easing you into how things work.  It kind of reminds me of a mix of Yars’ Revenge and WarioWare.  You’ll move your blocky little bug guy around, shooting enemies and avoiding bullets and baddies mostly.  If you lose, you’ll get shocked and lose a little bit of energy, but can always try again.  I love how the mini-games and bosses even make reference to other Atari classics, like Centipede, Missile Command, Black Widow, and Pong.  Heck, even the save points are shaped like the old Computer Space arcade cabinets!  You can also play the mini-games separately on the main menu under an option titled “Emi’s Hacklist.”

One of the things you can earn by hacking into computers are little blocks that you can arrange on a subscreen, and these blocks will give you special perks.  They can give you more energy, make your shots more powerful, let you jump higher, and more.  Some even help you out in the hacking mini-games.  It kind of reminds me of the skill system in some of the Mega Man Battle Network titles.

So Yars Rising is really fun, but it does have some problems, too.  While the retro hacking mini-games are neat, they kind of interrupt the flow of the game sometimes, and they can be pretty hard, too.  I think the developers realized this, because after a few failed attempts you can get an option to make yourself invincible in the hacking game.  I hardly ever needed to do this, though, but I did start to use that more often at the end of the adventure because the mini-games got to be a bit annoying.  The game was a bit buggy, too, and would reset on me a couple of times, but I’m sure that’s been patched up by now.  Also I wish you could’ve created “decks” for the block arranging skill system.  That way you could’ve switched easier if you wanted skills good for defeating bosses, hacking, etc.  But otherwise, Yars Rising is still a really fun game, and the music is really good, too.

Kid Factor:

Yars Rising is rated E-10 with ESRB descriptors of Animated Blood, Fantasy Violence, Mild Language, and Mild Suggestive Themes.  I didn’t notice any human blood, but there are plenty of giant bug guts splattered around.  You shoot mostly robots and bug aliens, but they just explode and disappear when defeated.  Bad language is used sparingly, and some of Emi’s outfits are a bit tight.  But I’d say this is best for older kid gamers and above because of the reading skill required and difficulty.

Tags: Game Reviews