Yars Rising is an motion platformer for the Nintendo Swap. It comes from these artful folks at WayForward, famend for the terrific Shantae sequence, amongst others. Yars Rising provides one other feather to the group’s cap, taking a basic Atari shooter and reimagining it for a brand new style and viewers. And it completely works.
We comply with the adventures of Emi, a younger girl (don’t name her a baby!) who works within the workplace of the mega company often called QoTech. Naturally, the corporate seems to be evil, and Emi, a talented laptop hacker, should escape the constructing. As she makes an attempt to flee a lockdown, issues turn into more and more harmful. It’s now as much as Emi to not solely save herself, however your complete world.
Gameplay is split into two elements. The principle mechanic is the platforming facet of issues, which includes operating, leaping, taking pictures, and varied different movesets. It very a lot has a Metroid really feel to it, with maze-like hallways to traverse as a map unfolds round you. The platforming is satisfying, with the standard lasers, transferring platforms, enemies to keep away from or defeat, and boss fights. I additionally loved unlocking extra energy ups for Emi, like wall leaping and vitality zapping. There’s sufficient selection to maintain you hooked, and the beneficiant save factors imply there’s little must backtrack or repeat sections.
In reality, the general issue is balanced fairly nicely. Emi sports activities a well being bar, starting at 100% and transferring in direction of 0% as she succumbs to assaults. Some enemies drop vitality refills on defeat, serving to Emi regain misplaced well being. Unlockable badges permit Emi to extend her complete well being, amongst different issues, enhancing the talents in tandem with new and extra formidable enemies. This pacing works nicely.
Including to this badge system is a enjoyable solution to equip them. As a substitute of solely having the ability to equip, say, three at a time, there’s a novel Tetris-like system that lets you assign as many as you’ll be able to match right into a particular area. Badges come within the type of blocky shapes, and, for those who can match these shapes into an Atari-like alien image, these badges are usable. At first, there’s loads of area in fact, however when you unlock a complete bunch of enhancements, it’s an pleasing solution to rearrange and equip your faves.
Again to the gameplay, the second half is a minigame primarily based on the unique Atari title, Yars Revenge. When you’re not conversant in this 1981 sport (and I wasn’t), it includes an area bug—managed by you—that should penetrate varied shields to unleash a particular bullet and take out an enemy ship. There are various variations of how this performs out, together with enemies chasing you, particular shields that want destroying first, or Galaga-like streams of enemies to shoot.
The intelligent hook right here is that these microgames are periodically unleashed as a part of Emi’s hacking makes an attempt whereas fleeing the constructing. Locked door? Higher play a minigame. Time to improve? One other minigame! Bonus hidden room with elective collectible? You’d higher consider it’s time for an additional minigame.
These brief “hacker” minigames break up the platforming properly. They’re additionally fairly tough at occasions, although there’s a helpful method round that. When you die too usually, you’re given a couple of choices to make issues simpler, granting an immortality of types. You possibly can elect to have this feature proven once more later, or not once more. It’s one other nice solution to stability the issue.
There are a couple of different issues I like about Yars Rising. Firstly, the type. All the pieces appears pretty. It’s a 2D platformer that by some means seems 3D. A part of that is the way in which Emi can use background areas to dodge obstacles and enemies, like ducking right into a crevice. However the character fashions themselves are rendered in a neat method that provides them depth and provides to the characterization.
I additionally love the dialogue. The story flows shortly and easily as Emi communicates through radio along with her buddies on the skin. As they information her by means of the constructing’s safety, there’s loads of fast-paced humor. A few of it might come throughout as somewhat corny, clearly aiming to emulate how 20-something-year-olds converse, however I discovered it amusing nonetheless. Every character additionally feels distinctive, with various feelings to drive their story ahead.
Terrific voicework enhances this narrative. Emi’s character, particularly, is voiced with such ardour and humor that I discovered myself wanting to listen to her converse quite than shortly studying and skipping the textual content. Kudos to the actors concerned.
The music can also be price noting. An upbeat synth-based soundtrack performs neatly within the background, with songs altering as if Emi is listening to her favourite playlist on Spotify. You possibly can even see the tune titles on the high of the display. It suits in nicely with the aesthetic and the characterization. Properly accomplished.
Yars Rising sounds fairly good, proper? It’s. My solely actual problem with this sport is the presence of some annoying loading screens. Whereas they’re comparatively brief in length (between 5 and 10 seconds every) they happen somewhat too steadily. The sport stops to load new sections each three or 4 screens of gameplay, which interrupts the stream. It turns into extra noticeable later within the sport when somewhat backtracking is concerned, which means you progress extra shortly by means of every room. It’s certainly not a deal-breaker, but it surely feels prefer it might have been prevented.
General, Yars Rising is a terrific platformer with satisfying puzzles and taking pictures parts. I loved the story, together with the intelligent integration of a basic Atari sport. Aside from some annoying loading screens, that is completely a sport price trying out.