YAR: Forgotten Throne from Axyos Games and Honor Games is a story-driven open-world RPG in which you must find the source of the darkness that is poisoning the land. Check out our YAR: Forgotten Throne review!
YAR: Forgotten Throne from Axyos Games and Honor Games is a story-driven open-world RPG in which you must find the source of the darkness that is poisoning the land. You’ll need to explore Borea as you make the most of the type of character you’ve selected, so that you can complete the 100+ quests and objectives that you’ll be presented with, as you shape your hero and pick which of two factions you’ll side with during your adventure.
You can play through this one by picking from one of the four different difficulty settings: Stroll, Journey, Challenge, and Feat. The Stroll difficulty setting is the easiest of the bunch, allowing you to focus on the game’s story since damage received will be lowered to 25%, and you’ll get a boost to the experience points received to 200%. The journey difficulty setting offers the standard experience, with your character receiving full damage with every hit it takes, but at least you’ll get 150% of experience points.
The Challenge difficulty setting will double how much damage you receive from incoming attacks, and you’ll gain regular experience points. As for the Feat difficulty setting, it’s the same as the Challenge difficulty setting, but you’ll have limited saves. You’ll be able to save in taverns, and you’ll get a chance to create a save ration, which will let you save anywhere. Do know that if you change the difficulty during the game, you won’t be able to earn trophies – more on these in a bit.
You’ll be taking control of your character by using the left analog stick, as you use the right analog stick to move the camera around you as needed. Press down on the D-Pad to zoom out the camera. Sprint by pressing in on the left analog stick. Jump by pressing the Circle button. Interact with objects, points of interest, and other characters by pressing the X button. Dive into the water by pressing the Square button.
Your main action will be set to the Triangle button, with an additional action mapped to the Square button. You can hold down the Triangle button to perform a charged attack. Sprinting and then attacking will launch a sprint attack. You need to remember that attacks will consume some of your combat bar at the bottom of the screen. The lower the bar gets, the less damage you’ll be able to deal with your attacks. You can restore your combat resource by using quick attacks.
Abilities can be mapped to the L1, R1, L2, and R2 buttons. Press left on the D-Pad for your item menu. Oh, and you should definitely press in on the right analog stick when in combat, so that you can lock onto a target, making it easier to attack them.
As you defeat enemies and complete objectives, you’ll be rewarded with experience points. As expected, once your character has obtained enough experience points, it will get to level up. When this happens, you’ll be rewarded with training points, which, as their name suggests, you’ll have to use to improve your character with the different training masters that you’ll find during your adventure.
The resources that you collect can be used for crafting a variety of useful items that will aid you on your quest. You could, for example, craft a pickaxe by using some wood and iron ingots. This one will allow you to gather more materials. You can also craft a hatchet for chopping, a lockpick so that you can, well, lockpick, arrows for your bow to attack enemies from a safer distance, or some specialty poison arrows to deal damage to enemies while also adding poison on top.
The game features a full trophy list with a Platinum trophy for you to work on adding to your collection. The list is split into 29 Bronze trophies, 4 Silver trophies, and 5 Gold trophies. What will you need to do in order to get this shiny Platinum trophy? There are several trophies tied to completing specific quests, while others will pop as you talk with some of the characters that you’ll meet along the way, along with trophies for defeating some of the bosses that the game will throw at you, as well as a trophy for completing the game on the Feat difficulty.
YAR: Forgotten Throne is a story-driven open-world RPG in which you must find the source of the darkness that is poisoning the land. You’ll need to explore Borea as you make the most of the type of character you’ve selected, so that you can complete the 100+ quests and objectives that you’ll be presented with, as you shape your hero and pick which of two factions you’ll side with during your adventure. It’s a journey that has been inspired by Slavic folklore, so you’ll run into some creatures that might ring a bell from other adventures.
As is usually the case for games that make the jump from PC to console, the user interface and controls feel very PC-centric, since you’ll have to use the left analog stick to move a cursor around the screen even during conversations to click on a button to move the story forward, which feels very odd for a console release. YAR: Forgotten Throne is out on PlayStation 5 with a $29.99 price tag.
Disclaimer
This YAR: Forgotten Throne review is based on a PlayStation 5 copy provided by Axyos Games.
