Yars Rising, Atari's Metroid Dread moment!

[JPF997]

Man this game literally came out of nowhere and has already grabbed my attention, beautiful anime/cyberpunk aesthetics ( guess I've been vindicated once again regarding which aesthetics/themes fit Atari's games and culture 😎), great metroidvania gameplay, the animations specifically the  character movements is what  they need to focus on improving right now, they just need a little more work put into them and they'll be just right,  the main character is charismatic enough, looking forward to learning how exactly she's connect to the Yars Alien Race (I just hope she matures quickly and loses that cringy valley girl accent).

Overall from what I've seen so far I think it has the potential to be an 8 out of 10 game if not even higher.

 

 

Edited April 18 by JPF997

[Razzie.P]

I'm excited to see what they do with it too, but I'm a pretty big WayForward fan, so they usually have me at hello. 

 

You do know it's WayForward, right?  You had some pretty negative crap talking going on about them when I brought them up recently in a different topic.  You quickly edited your comments and make it much softer, but yeah, I got the impression you didn't think much of them at all -- slapping Atari on there change that for some reason?  🤣

 

32 minutes ago, JPF997 said:

(I just hope she matures quickly and loses that cringy valley girl accent).

 

I wouldn't count on it.  I figure that's gonna be a "what we see is what we get" kind of thing.  I don't mind it though, but I can see how it would be poorly received by some of the OG fans since it seems to cater to a different demographic, I think.

 

33 minutes ago, JPF997 said:

Overall from what I've seen so far I think it has the potential to be an 8 out of 10 game if not even higher.

 

Yeah, I hope it rocks.  But... higher than a 10?

[JPF997]

30 minutes ago, Razzie.P said:

I'm excited to see what they do with it too, but I'm a pretty big WayForward fan, so they usually have me at hello. 

 

You do know it's WayForward, right?  You had some pretty negative crap talking going on about them when I brought them up recently in a different topic.  You quickly edited your comments and make it much softer, but yeah, I got the impression you didn't think much of them at all -- slapping Atari on there change that for some reason?  🤣

 

I wouldn't count on it.  I figure that's gonna be a "what we see is what we get" kind of thing.  I don't mind it though, but I can see how it would be poorly received by some of the OG fans since it seems to cater to a different demographic, I think.

 

Yeah, I hope it rocks.  But... higher than a 10?

I'm not a WayForward hater , I just thought that the Advance Wars remakes weren't as good as the original games, hopefully they've improved they're craft since then.

 

Also I said 8 out of 10 not 80, I never said that  I thought that this game was gonna better than a 10 out of 10 rating, for that to happen the game would have to be better than perfect which is impossible.

Edited April 18 by JPF997

[Razzie.P]

6 minutes ago, JPF997 said:

I'm not a WayForward hater , I just thought that the Advance Wars remakes weren't as good as the original games, hopefully they've improved they're craft since then.

 

Had some choice words for their other work too, like River City, Contra, etc, too, before you edited  😔

 

7 minutes ago, JPF997 said:

Also I said 8 out of 10 not 80, I never said that  I thought that this game was gonna better than a 10 out of 10 rating, for that to happen the game would have to be better than perfect which is impossible.

Oh... I read it as "8 or 10 if not higher" 😁  Thought we were shootin' for a Spinal Tap "it goes to 11" kind of vibe

 

[roots.genoa]

26 minutes ago, JPF997 said:

hopefully they've improved they're craft since then.

They've been making games for 30 years, you know? 🙄

 

Also, I hope you're aware there are already 3 topics about that game. 😑

[Lord Mushroom]

Looks like a generic platformer to me. Wouldn´t have interested me at all without the Yar title. The only positive is that the character has more mascot potential than a fly.

[+Stephen]

Absolutely nothing to do with Yars in any way.  But keep slapping them old names on to suck those retro dollars up!

[PowerDubs]

2 hours ago, JPF997 said:

(I just hope she matures quickly and loses that cringy valley girl accent).

 

 

 

 

She sounds much more serious here....  

 

https://x.com/PowerDubs/status/1780722758751523211

[PowerDubs]

6 minutes ago, Stephen said:

Absolutely nothing to do with Yars in any way.  But keep slapping them old names on to suck those retro dollars up!

 

 

Uh-huh....sure.  Love when people talk about something with no knowledge whatsoever...

[PowerDubs]

58 minutes ago, Stephen said:

Absolutely nothing to do with Yars in any way.  But keep slapping them old names on to suck those retro dollars up!

 

I just listened to a Twitter space with the devs of the game- and they acknowledge and respond to people with such comments-

 

https://x.com/PowerDubs/status/1781094734145937863

 

The Yars Rising part starts at 23:40

Edited April 18 by PowerDubs

[+Stephen]

Keep shilling everything as you do.  There's zero connection to anything about the old game.  It's a cash grab, but I get it.  Business gotta business.  Maybe this will make your $0.12 stocks go up to $0.13 or something.

[Giles N]

2 hours ago, Lord Mushroom said:

Looks like a generic platformer to me. Wouldn´t have interested me at all without the Yar title. The only positive is that the character has more mascot potential than a fly.

My guess is that they deliberately wants to make a modern-type genre 2D platformer using a really old, classic Atari IP (Yars), ie. a spin-off game, not a sequel, in order to make more recent/younger gamers interested/introduced and aquainted with older, classic Atari franchises.

 

This seems to be an obvious spin-off type game, not meant to bring very much Yars gameplay into action.

 

—

 

It seems her ‘superpower’ is to don Yar-insect-wings at occasions (power-ups? Level up? Particular mission?)

 

—

 

Dunno if you’re into the Evercade stuff.

 

They released a indie-game about a kid in cyberpunk world, who would have to move about like Prince of Persia and those ‘realistic movement-type games’.

 

It seems to want to cater to that crowd, and try to expand Ataris old IPs to find their ways to popular genre-types.

 

I don’t find that a bad sign in itself.

 

What remains to be seen is whether they deliver quality and fun gameplay.

 

Looking at several of Atari’s modern games, they seem to have in common that they’re not overloaded with both effects and much onscreen-action-at-once (downscaled), probably as to have the gsmes run fairly well on Switch and perhaps even also their own VCR.

 

I feel its way too early to hail or doom it.

 

The full game must be released and then we can get to see if its generic metroidvania from

A to Z, or actually contains something new, or something old, just very well done/executed.

Edited April 19 by Giles N

[Razzie.P]

2 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

Also, I hope you're aware there are already 3 topics about that game. 😑

How many you think we'll end up with?

 

2 hours ago, Lord Mushroom said:

Looks like a generic platformer to me. Wouldn´t have interested me at all without the Yar title. The only positive is that the character has more mascot potential than a fly.

I'm the opposite... I'm interested based on the developer's history, and think it looks like it'll be a solid game, but the "Yars" title doesn't add anything for me.  I loved the original game, of course, but this seems pretty far from it.

 

1 hour ago, Stephen said:

Absolutely nothing to do with Yars in any way.  But keep slapping them old names on to suck those retro dollars up!

Looks like she may play a "Yars game" as for a mini game or something.  Which could be funny... imagine having to play some iteration of your race's traumatizing war experience just to open a door or something.  Like they haven't figured out lock + key yet?

[Giles N]

1 hour ago, Razzie.P said:

Looks like she may play a "Yars game" as for a mini game or something. 

Probably a power-up mode where she can fly around and shoot as the Yar insect-something for a period.

 

I really think Atari needs games that hits broader audiences, as some of the things they’ve released of modern originals may cater a little too much to ‘mostly specially interested’ or ‘already Atari-super fan that buys anything new from Atari anyway’.

 

By all means some of it had potential, but seeing Atari really hit a much broader crowd (with games made after 2020), seems still to have to happen.

Cannot be too wierd, cannot be too generic. Cannot cost too much.

 

Tough line to balance.

Edited April 19 by Giles N

[MrBeefy]

I'm interested in the game. However, if one of her upgraded equipments isn't a speaker hat I'm going to boycott it like some of the VCSers were going to do with Lunar Lander Beyond when it hadn't been announced for VCS yet.

 

If there's a part that you need to wear a speaker hat to play annoying sythwave music to kill two guards to move on.... day one purchase here.

[roots.genoa]

7 hours ago, Razzie.P said:

How many you think we'll end up with?

I don't know. It's already a mirecle™️ pdubs only created one...

 

Regarding the lack of connection with the original game, it's not that surprising to me and I think we will see more of this from Atari in the future. As we discussed before many times, Atari franchises didn't evolve regularly like Nintendo ones did. So it's very difficult to envision what would a Yars' Revenge game look like in 2024 if other games in the series had regularly been released for the past 40 years... It would have probably evolved quite a lot from the OG, great but basic formula, even though I agree it wouldn't be a Metroid-like. That's why I'm not entirely positive about the game; WayForward just picked the genre they master the most (or Atari asked them to), which is a bit lazy imho. And it was done to death, so I'm personally not excited at all, especially since I don't like the anime style either.

 

WayForward is a talented developer but I don't like everything they've done. But using Advance Wars as an example is dumb since it's a remaster; the content is basically unchanged from the original Intelligent Systems games, and only the art style is new. It's OK to dislike it, but it really corresponds to WayForward's style so there's no reason they might have "improved" since, on the contrary.

Edited April 19 by roots.genoa

[zzip]

18 hours ago, Lord Mushroom said:

Looks like a generic platformer to me. Wouldn´t have interested me at all without the Yar title. The only positive is that the character has more mascot potential than a fly.

Doesn't appeal to me either,  not even the name but then again

<heresy>I was never a big fan of the original Yar's Revenge anyway</heresy>

 

[Austin]

I really don't see the point of this. The visuals are also lackluster and the gameplay looks stiff and not fun.

[+x=usr(1536)]

This is the sort of game that, by rights, should interest me regardless of whether or not it's a Yars' Somethingorother game.  However, from watching the video, the following things are immediately putting me off:

1. The character's voice.  Hearing it reminds me of finding a YouTube channel or podcast that looks like it could be really interesting - right up to the point where the presenter speaks and puts themselves right at the 'too annoying to watch or listen to' end of the spectrum.  Does not fit in with the aesthetic or setting at all, and it's difficult to imagine playing it through without muting the audio.
2. The bombardment of callouts, easter eggs, nostalgia tugs on the heartstrings, etc.  By all means have these things in the game, but FFS tone it down a little.  It doesn't need to come out of the firehose in the same way that, say, 'Ready Player One' deluged the audience with similar tropes.  Frankly, that was something that majorly put me off of that movie, and if there's this much of it in a trailer it's likely a sign of more things to have to sit through.  Does the game remain playable if both audio and video are disabled?
3. The gameplay doesn't look be a total fit with the world it's set in.  It's fine, but feels like it could be a reskin of a game set in a completely different universe.  Do a graphics swap with Top Banana and it could pretty much be the 2024 'reimagining' of that game.

I want to like this game, but the preview is not giving me the warm fuzzies.  If there's a playable demo on the Switch I'll at least check it out, but it feels like it has an uphill battle to win over my interest enough to actually purchase it.

[Razzie.P]

1 hour ago, x=usr(1536) said:

Does the game remain playable if both audio and video are disabled?

 

I'm be pretty interested in seeing a video game that's playable if both audio and video are disabled. That'd have to be something unique, I think.

 

1 hour ago, x=usr(1536) said:

It's fine, but feels like it could be a reskin of a game set in a completely different universe.  Do a graphics swap with Top Banana and it could pretty much be the 2024 'reimagining' of that game.

 

I agree.  I'm interested in the game and hope its awesome, but I do agree that it seems like they just slapped the Yars stuff in there to make it fit.  Hopefully wrong, though, and it all fits nicely once released.

 

[+x=usr(1536)]

4 hours ago, Razzie.P said:

I'm be pretty interested in seeing a video game that's playable if both audio and video are disabled. That'd have to be something unique, I think.

 

It's funny - having made that comment in no seriousness whatsoever, that's actually something i've wondered about before.

 

It might be doable with haptic feedback on the right type of controller.  Have the screen act as basically not much more than a scoreboard and, as opposed to muting the audio outright, include a soundtrack that fits the ambience of where the player is.  No audio cues from NPCs, items, bonuses, etc.  It'd be functionally-equivalent to a total blackout of both, but would still be able to be considered a video game by use of the screen.

[Giles N]

8 hours ago, zzip said:

but then again

<heresy>I was never a big fan of the original Yar's Revenge anyway</heresy>

I hardly can play or understand (by only following the visuals on-screen) the original Yars-games (arcade or 2600): its just messy and utterly unintutive what the heck is going on, what you’re supposed to do, and then have fun with it.

 

Now, Yars:Recharged is a very much better take on it.

 

1) a short intro gives you very short turtorial as to how to complete a level.

 

2) the visuals are clean-cut and gives you a non-cluttered and clear gameplay-field view

 

3) the gameplay-levels are recharged by having the Enemy Hive/Fortress change in both shape a movement from level to level.

 

Not often I do this, but this one is worth 10-12 bucks, if one wants to get to grips with what’s the best/better stuff this new Atari have pulled off (through SqeakyBox) so far.

 

It manages to take what seems like a dated and a bit wierd early & experimental sci-fi space-shooter, and make it feel more like an action-shmup with game-objects that feels satisfying to both shoot and solve as in a combination of a schmup and modern bubble shooter with varying constellations to take apart.

 

If one is interested in the question of ‘where should Atari take these old franchises - in stasis for 4 decades+’ or just get a original 2D shooter thats also fun, I can recommend using 10-12 bucks on it (unless you starve daily).

 

It’s a good example of what direction Atari should move their older IP/franchises into in my opinion.

 

[TampaBay]

38 minutes ago, Giles N said:

what the heck is going on, what you’re supposed to do, and then have fun with it.

 

 

 

I felt the exact same way for years.  Never understood what was going on (or cared enough to find out).  Then I decided to just play it and it's actually an incredibly simple game and fun to play.

 

In short, each level is two parts:

 

Part 1:  Keep shooting the shield around the enemy until it's pretty much gone and he's exposed

 

then

 

Part 2: Fly right up to him and touch him to activate your cannon, which appears on the left edge of the screen, and shoot him with it to advance to the next level

 

That's pretty much it.  All the other stuff is fluff.  The enemy occassionally shoots a projectile.  Just avoid it.  There's a floating "dash" that sort of follows you around and kills you if you touch it.  Again, avoid it.  The weird colored vertical bar down the middle is just a safe zone where the floating dash can't kill you. 

 

I pretty much just deal with Parts 1 and 2 above, while avoiding the projectile and the floating dash, and that's the whole game.

 

-----

 

Edit:  You can also headbutt / nibble the shield, but it's pretty useless and way faster to just shoot it from afar.

 

 

Edited April 20 by TampaBay

[Giles N]

6 hours ago, Razzie.P said:

it seems like they just slapped the Yars stuff in there to make it fit.  Hopefully wrong, though, and it all fits nicely once released.

My guess is they want to make game using the Yars’-IP, but with intent making it a starting-point for younger generations, who then mayhap ‘discover’ old Yars, anf get an interest in it.

 

Short version: I don’t think its designed for oldschoolers at all.

 

Its meant to make Atari relevant to younger folks with content that brings up a conglomerate of associations from their everyday-media world, and then associate ‘Yars’ with a broader ‘world’.

 

It appears to deliberately wish to speak to what many younger folks may find interesting.

Whether they succeed with this is difficult to say.

Tons of metroidvsnias out there, so you get the competition situation. 
Will one or 2 mini-game(s) to unlock things or proceed, be original and satisfying enough to hook new fans?

 

I don’t have any opinion from som little gameplay video.

 

Cute-and-well-animated heroine/girl factor is (over-)obviously(?) there (for a space-insectoid franchise).

But people will in the end have to enjoy the gameplay, and not feel suffocated by overloads of Atari attempting self-mythologization. 

I’m pretty sure this isn’t remotely intended for oldschool Yar-fans.

 

It’s made to bring ‘Yars’ to ‘dem cool and impressionable kidz. 
 

Which is ok, if they primarily stick to creating a quality game, not oversell it as something bigger or more.

[Giles N]

33 minutes ago, TampaBay said:

Part 2: Fly right up to him and touch him to activate your cannon,

This is a pure design flaw.

 

How could, or why should, a new gamer suspect touching the main-enemy(!!!)  that one need nothing less than a cannon (!!!) to take down, to be safe, sound, and the next obvious and logical step in the gameplay scheme??

 

I know people back then had LSD on their sandwiches for breakfast, but you still shouldn’t be able to bring your mind to perform logical breakdowns like ‘’whats displayed there to kill and destroy you, which you need a cannon to take down… yes, little bee - just fly over and touch it… its safe’

 

- - -

 

They obviously discovered the basics of elementary psychology in Yars:Recharged, where you gather space-honey or coins, which are dropped from that which seems visually dangerous to the players character, as you destroy that which has the appearence of trying to kill you.

 

Short version: after 40+ years, they finally fixed Yars.
 

But, good thing is: even if it took quite awhile, the fixed version got really good, so good it can be further expanded upon.

Edited April 20 by Giles N