Year: 2024
Platform: PlayStation 5
Developer: WayForward
Genre: Action/Adventure
Review Date: 7/4/26
Rating: **

Emi Kimura is a young hacker who has been hired to break into a mega corporation's systems. Unfortunately, she's caught in the process and must escape QoTech's enormous office building, which is teeming with security robots, high tech weapons, and... aliens? Emi starts mutating into an alien herself as she receives biological upgrades that allow her to shoot missiles and energy blasts out of her hands, and dissolve energy barriers. The deeper she gets into the facility, the stranger things become. Just what is QoTech up to?

First of all, what does this have to do with the original "Yars Revenge" for the Atari 2600? Well, it introduces the race of insect-like Yars and their arch enemy, the Qotile. Emi was chosen as a child to be the defender of the Yars and the Qotile has its eyes on destroying Earth. Confusing? Sure. But the real hook is when Emi has to hack into computer terminals, which is represented by a mini-game that is actually the original "Yars Revenge!" These mini-games quickly evolve into more dastardly variations, and after a couple hours they become tedious and impossible to beat. And that's where the game goes south. If you download the latest patches, WayForward has included an option to become invincible while hacking, and while that greatly improves the experience, there's still a time limit to contend with. But that doesn't matter, because shortly after the hacking becomes impossible, so do the enemies. The relentless difficulty forced me to give up after getting only a quarter of the way through the game. That's frustrating and disappointing, but the game's other shortcomings didn't make me feel like it was a great loss.

On the plus side, the game is attractive and the animation is very smooth. The characters look like a sad attempt to Westernize Japanese anime aesthetics, and while Emi is cute, her ridiculously large breasts are a constant annoyance. The overly adolescent writing is aimed at the teen crowd and is a non-stop cringe fest. This is made worse by the generally poor voice acting and peculiar pronunciations. Only Jenny Yokobori's performance as Emi isn't totally grating, and it's ironic that she's the only one you can turn off in the options. The music is also disappointing, and I only recall one song that wasn't totally irritating.

It's clear that WayForward based the game on their popular "Shantae" series, but their attempts to make a more hip game backfired and only succeeded in creating something dumbed down and more difficult to play. I really wanted to like this game, but I was disappointed at nearly every turn. But at least it's not as bad as the awful "Yars Revenge" remake that came out in 2011.