Yars: Recharged

Thanks to Atari’s Recharged series, we’ve taken a nostalgia-fueled joyride through some of the company’s most popular arcade games. From Asteroids to Centipede to Breakout, these were coin-op classics that got a brand-new facelift thanks to Atari. But what about the console games? Where are the recharged versions of titles best-known for being on the Atari 2600? If you’ve been asking that question, then let me introduce you to Yars: Recharged, an action-packed reboot of Howard Scott Warshaw’s iconic console game, Yars’ Revenge. This modern-day shake-up takes the classic formula and reimagines it as a bullet hell dual-stick shooter. Toss in a bunch of challenge missions and exciting two-player action and you have the makings for a must-own shoot ‘em up. Is Yars the best the Recharged series has to offer? Let’s find out.

When it was first released in 1982, critics weren’t quite sure what to make of Yars’ Revenge. On one hand, it was a straight-forward shooter where the goal was to shoot and nibble your way through a barrier in order to defeat the boss – the evil Qotile. However, the revenge plan had a second step, which involved an insect-like creature named Yar taking the pieces of the barrier back to the Zorlon Cannon, a powerful weapon that is surprisingly good at destroying the Qotile.

This added complexity was enough to help Yars’ Revenge stand out on the Atari 2600, which ultimately led to a number of remakes and re-releases, as well as a 2005 sequel called Yars’ Return. Now comes the first new Yars game in seventeen years, and it looks and plays better than ever. It’s a reimagined take on the classic that ups the ante giving us the kind of intense action and inventive level designs that simply were not possible back in 1982. Couple that with a whole bunch of familiar power-ups and you have a retro shooter that still manages to feel fresh and exciting.

Although the graphics have greatly improved in the last fourty years, the core structure remains largely the same. Yar is still tasked with destroying the barriers that make the Qotile boss hard to get to. You’ll do this by either shooting at the barrier or nibbling away, all while dodging the enemy fire coming from the different turrets scattered throughout the barrier. As you destroy the force field and enemies, you’ll slowly fill up a yellow gauge that will open up the Zorlon Cannon, the most powerful weapon in the entire game. You’ll want to use this to destroy the boss, which will open up a brand-new level with a completely different design.

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A typical level will have the evil Qotile hiding on the far-right side of the screen, behind multiple enemies and all kinds of barriers. This is a lot of fun, because you can tackle these types of stages in a bunch of different ways, giving you a lot more freedom than you normally get in a single-screen shoot ‘em up. However, don’t get too comfortable with those wide-open levels, because you’ll also need to fight through maze-like levels with narrow corridors and enemies waiting for you every step of the way. These are especially hard because the Qotile will constantly be shooting its powerful beam at you, and one hit from that blast will kill our insect hero in a single strike.

Like all of the Recharged games, Yars is split between an arcade mode and a challenge mode. The arcade mode is basically a carbon copy of what we got n Gravitar, where we’re able to customize the experience by adding handicaps that will give you a score multiplier at the expense of making the game harder. No matter how you customize your experience, you’ll still fight through level after level, furiously racking up points by defeating the boss and moving to the next stage.

If you’ve followed my Recharged reviews, you’ll know that the challenge mode is typically worth the price of admission. It’s here where the game can be a little crazy and shake up the objectives. The good news is that Yars: Recharged still has a fun challenge mode that will take a long time to complete. The problem is that there’s no variety here. In past games, the goal was to destroy a certain amount of enemies, use a specific power-up or beat the listed high score. These missions forced you to play games like Centipede and Asteroids in different ways, making them a real highlight of even Recharged game.

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Unfortunately, there is not much variety when it comes to Yars. Instead of giving you different objectives to complete, the goal of each challenge level is identical – kill the Qotile. This mode is nothing more than an excuse to throw at the player a bunch of challenging (and occasionally frustrating) level designs. Don’t get me wrong, I love battling through these stages, but without the variety, this challenge mode is almost indistinguishable from the arcade mode. That’s a shame, because there’s a lot more you can do with this concept than just give us new formations to shoot out.

My other complaint is that the game is either way too easy or far too tough, with very little middle ground. Both in the arcade and challenge stages, I was surprised by how easy it was to beat most of the stages on the first try. And then, out of the blue, you’ll get two or three especially tough stages in a row that trap you in tight corridors or make it hard to get around. It’s especially frustrating when some of these overly complicated stages will take several minutes to work through, since you’ll need to disarm all of the enemies on the way through the maze. Dying at the end of these grueling stages and having to start all the way over isn’t much fun, and it feels like there needed to be a better ramp up in difficulty between being too easy and too hard.

That said, Yars: Recharged is still worth putting up with the occasional frustrating levels. While a bit on the repetitive side, the core structure is a lot of fun and making this a dual-stick shooter was a stroke of genius. That allowed the developer to come up with a wide assortment of crazy stage designs that could never have been possible on the Atari 2600. This is one of those classic games that desperately needed a good shake-up, and fans of the original will fall in love all over again with Yars: Recharged.