YAR: The Forgotten Throne Xbox Series X Review 7.5/10 "A truly joyful – if wonderfully janky - experience" ⚔️

YAR: The Forgotten Throne Review | An Endearing Quest with Plenty of Personality

YAR: The Forgotten Throne is the first game I’ve played from Honor Games, but they now have a fan for life! As longtime readers will know, there’s very much a place in my heart for Western-styled RPGs that have great ideas and perhaps overreach, but in doing so create something that feels genuine and oddly charming - Piranha Bytes gave us some real gold in this vein, with Gothic being very much a reference point for YAR: The Forgotten Throne – you may battle against some elements of design. There’ll be a soupcon of frustration in some mechanics, but these will all be overridden by the overall experience.

Set in the land of Borea, you play as a warrior who has arrived by boat to prove himself as a warrior, archer, or Volkhv (a magic user), depending on your personal preferences. The visuals are bold and crisp, with a suitably orchestral soundtrack acting as aural accompaniment as you make your way around the various locations, completing the 100+ quests on offer. As mentioned above, the Gothic series is very much a touchstone to give you an idea of what to expect. You’ll die a lot, and the satisfaction of crafting/discovering new weapons, armour and abilities genuinely feels impactful, and may just be the boost you need to take out that pesky monster that lives in the cave just beyond the village…

Played in the third-person, YAR: The Forgotten Throne throws you into the mix pretty blindly, and it’s only as you strike up conversations with the folks that populate the island that your main quest becomes clear, although how you approach that is very much up to you as the player. I tend to take a very ‘barbarian’ approach in these games, whacking up my strength as much as possible so that I can go full tilt at enemies with ranged and magic attacks being merely something I hear others whisper of over fading campfires, give my bloke a massive axe and a health potion or two and he’s as happy as Larry!

Yes, that ‘Gothic’ approach very much shapes up the early game, with that game's ‘rule of three’ philosophy coming through here via the paths before you. It took a while for me to fall into the rhythm of the game, and I spent hours in the initial village, chatting to the Slavic townsfolk and helping out where I could, as I pottered around solving quests and collecting ore and various other bits and pieces to cobble a decent armour and weapon set together. The open-endedness of the game made each discovery a pleasure, and I enjoyed getting used to the slightly awkward combat and working out the best approach for each enemy creature.

Whilst I enjoyed YAR: The Forgotten Throne, I do have to again state that this is an inherently janky RPG, and your mileage may very well vary if you are used to polished experiences in the open world genre; there are a lot of minor – and some not so minor – issues that will plague your time with the game. The first thing I noticed was that the menu system would be frustrating throughout; there are no ‘snap-to’ icons in the in-game menus, everything has to be manually moved to and selected with a slightly over-sensitive cursor (that can’t be adjusted) that made the experience less than ideal. There were also instances where, if I clicked slightly to the side of an object in some screens, the cursor would reset to the centre; it’s not a deal-breaker, but the ability to adjust the sensitivity of such an intrinsic section of the game would have gone a long way. There are other bumps in the road, such as lines of dialogue not matching the text, or in-game voice acting switching language for certain characters, but although there were little niggles dotted around, the game itself never hard-crashed, and I was able to have a relatively smooth experience, aside from some visual juddering in some areas.

Whilst I wouldn’t say I was overly invested in the narrative, the pace and design of the game really shone for me, each time I was able to upgrade my abilities or craft a better item there was a real sense of satisfaction as I knew it would be vital to my progress, you will be resorting to the internet for a few words of wisdom and guidance, however, as the game doesn’t appear to be a fan of explaining itself or its many facets of gameplay, to be honest I’m still baffled as to how you build anything in this game, but I have mastered the crafting and combat!

SUMMARY
If you are a fan of titles such as the Gothic / Risen series of games, I think you’ll find a lot to love with YAR: The Forgotten Throne. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve had some pretty big budget releases to cover, but in my spare time, this was the game I kept returning to, and all of the wonkiness I dealt with somehow added to the charm of the game. 

It’s a much brighter and lighter experience than a lot of other RPGs, but this has really been crafted with passion, and whilst I would have preferred the port to consoles to be a little more focused, it didn’t impact my enjoyment too much- a thumbs up from us here at GF!

7.5/10

🆒COOL🆒

(also available on PlayStation 5, PC)

Developer – Honor Games  

Publisher – Axyos Games