The original Yars Revenge dates back to 1982 and was released on the Atari 2600 back when square blocks represented people and balls were also square. Pretty much everything had 45 degree angles if I recall but I do vividly remember playing a handful of 2600 games regularly; Kaboom, Pitfall, River Raid, and of course Yars Revenge. It seemed so advanced for the time; force fields, large character sprites, and interesting visuals kept me quite captivated while the comic book that came with the cartridge set up the high stakes game that was about to be played. It was true survival of the fittest.
The game, programmed by Howard Scott Warshaw, was a huge hit for Atari and surprisingly there was a 23 year year gap until a sequel was released. Yars’ Return was included on the Atari Flashback 2 console and was followed by Yar’s Revenge in 2010 and Yars: Recharged in 2022. These game looked to mimic the original gameplay but featured upgraded graphics and gameplay but Yars Rising is a whole different beast.
Developed by Wayforward Studios who released Shantae, Bloodstained and River City Girls to great acclaim, this new game takes the series into the Metroidvania realm with a side-scrolling adventure featuring a young female hacker named Eli Kimura and her group of hacker friends. If this seems like a wild departure from the old side shooter format, it is and Wayforward is well aware of it so the include original gameplay in the form of hacking mini-games. During your adventure you will come across various computer terminals where you can enter a retro themed mini-game or two in order to unlock a character ability or modification which may give you more health, grant you wall jumping or increase healing drops from enemies.
You start the Yars Rising by hacking into the mainframe of the giant QoTech corporation where you work in order to sabotage their servers but soon find out that everything is not as it seems. As you progress further into the unlocking various abilities and sections of the map, the reach of the game finally becomes apparent to both the characters as well as the player. I had an absolute blast playing Yars Rising on the Switch, the controls are very tight and abilities show an impressive creative range. You get base skill upgrades which allow you to explore more of the map while your abilities need to be slotted like Tetris blocks into a limited board of available space. You can constantly change the layout of your skills to suit the current challenge and tweak them for maximum effectiveness.
The animations of the characters are very fluid and natural. The voice acting is top notch and made me laugh more than I would probably like to admit in this review. The soundtrack is filled with great tracks with some absolute bangers mixed in, if this soundtrack releases in Vinyl I may have to indulge myself in a purchase so I can listen outside of the game.
Atari has experienced quite a renaissance in recent years as it has made strategic partnerships, released new Atari 2600 and 7800 game cartridges as well as new hardware including the VCS 800 computer system (which this game is also available on) and this game continues the trend. It is a great adventure game that deviates from the original title while making something that pays homage to the past while bringing it into the future. About the only negative I can think of is the occasional loading screens which drag on a tough to long for the type of game that this is. If you get the chance, listen to the official Atari podcast episode with the developers for a great behind the scenes look at the game, it was very interesting how they approached the development of this title.
Yars Rising
Atari * $29.99 * Xbox, Playstation, Switch, Steam, Epic, VCS
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