Background

Way back in 1982, there was a strange little shmup called Yars Revenge on the Atari 2600. Unlike almost every other shooter, Yars discouraged being trigger-happy; winning or losing hinged on firing a single shot with perfect timing. Now, over 40 years later, the fine folks at Atari and WayForward have decided that it's time Yars had an anime-inspired sequel. Thus, the shmup/Metroidvania hybrid, Yars Rising, was born.

In Yars Rising, you play as Emi “Yar” Kimura, a hacker trying to steal classified data from Qotech, an evil mega-corporation. When exploring the Qotech facility, Yars Rising plays like Metroidvania. However, when Emi hacks into a terminal, her battles in the digital world take the form of a pixel art shmup minigame based on the original Yars Revenge.

For any readers under the age of 35 or so: Here's what the original Yars Revenge looked like on the Atari 2600.

Mechanics

Yars Rising plays very differently when you're exploring as Emi in the physical world (“meat space”) compared to when you're hacking through the digital world (“cyberspace”). Thus, I'll cover these two sets of mechanics separately.

I love a good neon-tinted cyberpunk cityscape.

Meat Space

Exploration

Wayforward is a studio with a strong track record of making solid Metroidvanias. So anyone who has played one of their other works, like Shantae, will know what to expect from the portions where you play as Emi in the physical world. The Qotech office building and adjacent city area, are complex maze-like maps filled with enemies, traps, and the occasional upgrade for your combat and exploration capabilities. The level design is pretty standard Metroidvania fare, but it still provides enough variety to make exploring feel worthwhile. This is helped by the game's map, which is very clear about where you can and can't go, which cuts down on needless backtracking.

The red markers indicate impassable areas and the dashed lines represent places that have recently become accessible. Hacking locations change from blue to grey once you've completed them. This automatic map markup is so useful!

Yars Rising takes an interesting approach to character upgrades compared to other Metroidvanias. In most games in this genre, you unlock new locomotion capabilities (e.g. double-jump) that further exploration and stat upgrades that improve your character's survivability (e.g. increased health or ammo capacity). Like other Metroidvanias, you can enable all Emi's movement enhancements simultaneously.

However, the stat upgrades in Yars Rising don't stack; you have to be thoughtful about which upgrades you have equipped. I thought this was a clever way of preventing the player from becoming overpowered and mindlessly blasting through the back half of the game. As a nice nod to the classic Atari game, the upgrade screen is a puzzle-like board arranged in the shape of the original Yar character sprite.

Fitting as many upgrades as you can onto this board becomes a puzzle after a while.

Enemy Encounters

Since Emi is a hacker, not a soldier, Yars Rising also features some stealth gameplay. Of all the twists that this game puts on the Metroidvania formula, I found this one to be the least engaging. Emi can walk more slowly to minimize her noise levels or duck into conveniently placed alcoves to evade certain unbeatable enemies. While they add variety to the gameplay, I had mixed feelings about how the stealth sections slowed down the pace of exploration, especially considering that the hacking minigames (which I'll get into later) already do a good job of breaking things up.

Of course, there are plenty of times when you have to fight. Similar to a 2D Metroid game, enemies go down with just a few shots. There are also a few big boss battles that require Emi to take full advantage of the new abilities she unlocks throughout the campaign.

There's no sneaking past this big guy. Sometimes you just have to fight.

Cyberspace

In order to open locked doors, unlock new abilities/upgrades, and complete certain other story-based objectives, Emi needs to hack into computer terminals. This is where Yars Rising is most directly connected to its Atari source material; to successfully hack, you have to win a minigame based on the mechanics of the original Yars Revenge.

A Blast From The Past

For some context, here's a summary of how Yars Revenge is played: The player controls an insectoid character called “Yar” that needs to destroy an enemy called a “Qotile”. The Qotile is protected by a barrier that Yar can break down by either shooting it or chewing through it. Of course, Yar has to do this while evading various projectile attacks from the Qotile. Once the Qotile's barrier is breached, Yar can charge up a beam cannon to destroy the Qotile with a single well-timed shot.

The classic Yars gameplay gets plenty of love in Rising. The blue character on the left is Yar and the pink object on the right is a Qotile.

In the beginning, Yars Rising eases you into learning Yars Revenge by introducing its mechanics one at a time. In other words, the first terminal you hack teaches you to shoot, the next to chew through a barrier, and so on. By the time you've reached the game's first boss, you're ready to put all these mechanics together and play a proper round of Yars Revenge. This is a smart way to get players into one of Atari's most conceptually abstract games. In fact, after playing Yars Rising, I went back and played some OG Yars Revenge and found that I've become considerably better at it thanks to Rising‘s coaching.

Riffing On The Classics

Yars Rising doesn't just stop at reintroducing the mechanics of a 42-year-old game. As you progress, the minigames introduce new wrinkles to the original Revenge mechanics. Some of these are original concepts that feel like a natural extension of the original game's structure but were beyond the capabilities of the Atari 2600. Other new mechanics merge gameplay elements from other classic Atari games such as Centipede and Missile Command.

A Centipede has snuck into the world of Yars!

As a whole, the hacking portions of Yars Rising serve as a fantastic tribute to early 80s video games. I'm glad that these minigames are accessible via a separate menu so I can easily revisit them when the mood strikes.

Note: Invincibility mode for the hacking minigames can be toggled on via the options menu to prevent less arcade-savvy players from getting barred from progressing the story. You can also make hacking easier by equipping certain upgrades.

There are so many minigames in Yars Rising to unlock!

Aesthetics

Graphics

Yars Rising is one of WayForward's sharpest-looking games yet. In the Metroidvania part of the game, I appreciated the detail put into the Qotile office building and the futuristic cityscapes in the background. The character designs are stylish and animated with a flare that gives Emi and the supporting cast distinct personalities. For example, I got a kick out of the Sailor Moon-esque transformation animation whenever Emi unlocks a new ability.

Emi celebrates a successful hack. Cute stuff!

When hacking, Yars Rising takes a very stylized approach to adapting the original Atari game's look. Instead of the chunky pixels of yore, Wayforward opted for a faux-LED screen aesthetic; it almost looks like Yars Revenge is being played on a Lite-Brite. It's a unique way of representing the classic game without creating a jarring resolution shift when transitioning from the 2.5D graphics of the Metroidvania gameplay. Another nice touch in the hacking screen is the HUD's inclusion of a face cam that shows Emi's reactions to the cyberspace action.

I like the way the hacking UI connects the Meat Space and Cyberspace elements.

Music & Sound Effects

Tying disparate elements together and making them feel cohesive is a common theme throughout Yars Rising. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the soundtrack. The OST features a head-bobbing melange of city pop, disco, techno, funk, vaporwave, and other genres I'm not music-savvy enough to recognize. While I'm not always a fan of vocal tracks in retro-themed games, Yars Rising‘s combination of English and Japanese vocals fit its 80s anime cyberpunk vibe perfectly.

As an homage to a classic game, Yars Rising makes effective use of the Atari original's sound effects. Thankfully, they're mixed down to be less shrill and blend with the rest of the game's audio.

Story

I didn't expect a lot of story-telling from a Metroidvania game based on an Atari shmup. However, Yars Rising makes great efforts in this area with a mixed level of results. WayForward games, like Shantae, typically have light-hearted stories full of snark and jokes; this is their area of strength. The 1982 Yars Revenge featured a serious sci-fi story (told via the instruction manual). Yars Rising does its best to leverage WayForward's well-established style with the Atari source material. Sometimes this works well, other times, it leads to abrupt changes in tone that didn't resonate with me.

Some story sections are conveyed via narrated comic strips.

Yars Rising features a lot of voiceover work and, early on, is quite chatty. Emi's friends seem to call her every few minutes to either set up story elements or tutorialize the Metroidvania gameplay. Thankfully, this lets up after a while and the game sets you loose to explore.

Even when there isn't dialogue happening, that doesn't mean you ever have Metroid-like silence. Emi likes to remark on her surroundings, the enemies she encounters, etc.; this running commentary and its sarcastic tone reminded me a bit of Spider-Man. I mostly found this emergent monologuing entertaining but sometimes there was a bit too much of it. While I didn't feel the need to use it, I was glad there was an option to disable Emi's commentary for players who prefer a quieter journey.

Emi has strong feelings about lasers and wants to share them with you… frequently!

Verdict

WayForward and Atari have done something really special with Yars Rising. They've managed to bring together different eras of gaming, contrasting game mechanics, and assorted musical styles into a single fun and quirky package. It's both a solid modern Metroidvania and a great celebration of retro gaming. Not all players will be able to get into both types of gameplay Yars Rising offers, but it's a real treat for those who can.