UNYIELDER Review

UNYIELDER is a single-player boss-rush movement FPS roguelite looter shooter developed by TrueWorld Studios and published by SHUEISHA GAMES. Despite the absolute word jumble that is the game’s self-described genre, I was interested and decided to give it a go. However, I wasn’t expecting the wild ride this game gave me.

Welcome to EREBUS… or at least, what’s left of it. It’s 1972, and you awaken in the capital city of Antarctica, in ruins after an apocalyptic event. Given the name “Patty” by those who awakened, you have no other choice but to work with others and break everything in your path to find a way out of this rusted hellscape.

I liked the presentation overall, evoking an anime sort of look with some subtle cel-shading. Although the colour palette is rather muted, it makes the various bosses and their attacks much more noticeable. In a fast-paced game like this, where you’re running, dashing, and sliding at breakneck speeds, it needs to be clear where the danger zones are. I noticed that all the effects and animations were using a lower framerate, maybe 24 FPS, while everything else ran at 60 FPS. I actually quite liked this stylistic choice; it made all the warnings more eye-catching, and  thus, making them easier to avoid.

The music, when it wasn’t being drowned out by gunfire and my enraged screams, was rather good, with a nice, intense electronic soundtrack to dodge and shoot to. I’d bob my head to it if I wasn’t trying not to die. Seriously, once you’re in a fight, “break” and “pause” leave your mind entirely.

As mentioned before, the entire game is a boss rush from beginning to end. All you have to do to beat the campaign is to defeat each and every one of them, slowly gaining the equipment needed to make it to the end. Don’t think for a second you’ll get much breathing room; UNYIELDER doesn’t hold your hand much other than giving you the basic controls. As for everything else, you have to go out of your way to figure out or find it yourself. I wish the game gave me a little more information upfront rather than needing to dig through menus to find out what exactly I can do. Still, I got a grasp of what the heck was happening after a few runs.

There are 30+ weapons that you find on your attempts, taking either Light or Heavy ammo of varying amounts or none at all (there are some swords and scythes in there). They have alternate fires when aiming down sights, alongside perks that can enhance and modify how they function; the further you go, the more powerful these weapons can be. They’re fun to use for the most part, though I did find some weapons to be difficult to pick up and use effectively. They can have some annoying gimmicks that can drag it down.

But with a somewhat shallow ammo pool, if you want to keep your guns topped up, you’ll have to get your timing down. When a flash appears right before an attack, you can counter with a shot or a melee attack. Like in DOOM (2016), they will drop ammo, health, and shields when you hit them, and with a Perfect counter, they drop even more. It doesn’t have the most forgiving timing window, but you’ll need to learn fast, or else you won’t be making it very far. It’s very satisfying, encouraging aggressive play and facing your opponent head-on, but once you run out of ammo, it becomes difficult to make a comeback.

As for the many giant robots you’ll be blasting, they aren’t going to be messing around. All 40+ enemies have unique attacks that will require abuse of the dash button and counter mechanic in order to win. They’re also hyper-aggressive, rarely giving you any downtime until you deplete a section of their health bar. Once you do, they’ll be stunned, giving you the chance to perform a special melee attack for more health and ammo before they get back up to execute their next phase.

Bosses do have immune phases, but you can shorten this by continuing to attack. If you’re strong enough, you can ignore these phases, getting the kill in seconds. It can be a bit annoying at the start, but at least it’s better than how Borderlands 3 handled it. You’re not forced to sit around waiting for it to be over (although that is a legitimate strategy);, you’re encouraged to end it as soon as possible, with the boss still trying to murder you through the entire sequence, which keeps the pace going.

However, this isn’t the end of boss-related shenanigans. If you manage to actually reach the final boss, you’ll be faced with a very interesting mechanic where you choose how it will kick your butt. Using the data obtained from your fallen foes, you can change how the fight functions. I really like picking your poison, trying to figure out the right combination so that you don’t lose it all at the finish line… which happened to me often. I play most shooters with a controller, and the game was not made with this in mind, so I ended up dying a lot more than I probably should. 

When you die or manage to actually win, you’ll respawn back at the hub, where you can change characters, grab any extra guns you saved, and purchase skills if you have defeated enough enemies to get a level up. Every character has different abilities, stats, their own extensive skill tree, and levels. I suggest you stick with the one that suits your playstyle, as EXP is not shared between characters. Plus, since you only gain EXP when beating a boss and requirements increase with every level, it takes a while to unlock them.

Now, onto some of the glitches I encountered, such as when a boss got stuck in the geometry for a long while, allowing me to punch it a lot. Also, the camera tends to clip through the terrain, meaning the dramatic intros and defeat animations can be difficult to see. Otherwise, that was it for issues, which impressed me. Despite the sheer chaos that happens on a daily basis, it didn’t drop FPS at any point. As for any personal issues I had, and I didn’t think I’d complain about this, but since the loading screens were so quick, I couldn’t read the tips they had. Suffering from success, indeed.

UNYIELDER is an amazing spectacle, although my skill level might be a little lower than what the game is demanding. If you can keep up, you’ll find a lightning-fast roguelite where every fight might be your last. However, in contrast, its progression can feel slow and earning your victory might take longer than you might like.