Check out my written review below, as well as a collaboration video with G4A!
Die by the sword.
Trek to Yomi is a title that succeeds in setting out what it aims to do, but that doesn’t always mean it ends up offering a consistently solid experience. Trek to Yomi is a homage to the samurai films of the 50s and 60s and it is clear that the team did a great deal of research to pull this off. However; while Trek to Yomi’s presentation can often be incredibly gorgeous, its pulled-back camera can often work against its gameplay. Combine that with a story that doesn't look to break new ground or offer up any sort of compelling villain and you largely have a game that succeeds on its gameplay and style alone.
As harsh as that may come across, know that I quite enjoyed Trek to Yomi. I do believe the opening chapter is fairly rough mechanically, and somewhat narratively, but once combat combos start to unlock and you have more of an arsenal under your belt, Trek to Yomi is a damn impressive experience across its roughly 5-6 hour campaign, presented with a stunning soundtrack that is wonderfully executed.
Even taking a simple glance at any screenshot or trailer, and you would think that Trek to Yomi is simply just a 2.5D side-scrolling hack and slash samurai adventure, but you'd be only partially correct. It often shifts the camera around so that it feels like a companion game to something like the original Onimusha, much in the way we saw with several handheld games designed to invoke the tone and feel of their console companions, albeit vastly simplified. Trek to Yomi feels very much like this, but I offer that as an observation, and not that of an insult.
Trek to Yomi wears its inspirations on every black and white film-grained sleeve. You can play with or without said film grain, if you would prefer a more cleaner look. The game is also entirely spoken in Japanese, with no option for an English dub. While I can respect that, given what it's looking to achieve, I’m also the type of gamer to simply stop moving to read any dialogue in a language I don’t understand, which does ruin the pacing the game is expecting from me. This was an issue I also had with Xuan Yuan 7 but is an issue that pertains to me and not a particular failing of the game. The voice acting is solid and delivered well enough even if I don’t understand it other than a few standard words that I've picked up over the years.
Trek to Yomi's story and characters are the only significant parts of the game where I never felt too particularly invested. While the Yomi stuff is easily the game’s best content, the bulk of the adventure is nothing really new or territory we haven't seen covered several times before. You'll start the game as a much younger Hiroki, still learning the ways of the sword, and he suddenly gets caught up in an unavoidable conflict when bandits start to invade the village. As he leaves the temple he is told to remain at by his teacher, he leaves to find the bandits mercilessly slaughtering those around him until he takes up his sword and attempts to find his teacher. The start of the game sets the tone and introduces us to a villain that is largely there solely to give us an antagonist than any substantial character we will get to know and legitimately hate. He's there to be evil and he sure does what he needs to do to be just that, but sadly, nothing more. In fact, not a single character breaks free of any stereotype, and it's unfortunate.
Hiroki is the only character to really get any sort of arc. There are choices you’ll make later on that will show the type of man he could become based on what you want from the story, and of course which ending you'll prefer. Without giving much away, I opted for following the path of duty as I felt that fit truer to who he aspired to be, at least in my opinion. I’m still not sold on him as a character as I feel the game is far too short to really graft any real personality to him. While we do get a brief moment surrounding his first kill, I sort of wish that moment wasn’t so quickly undercut and pushed aside and maybe had a bit more time to let it really affect him. We are introduced to his teacher Sanjuro, and his daughter, Aiko, who would eventually become Hiroki’s wife, but both are largely just tools to push Hiroki forward more so than anything else. There is a path that is more to align with Aiko herself, but since the two share so little time together, I never felt the pull to go down that path whatsoever.
Another character is Yomi itself, and while some may call it the World of Darkness, it is better known as the Japanese word for the land of the dead. This place plays a rather notable factor in the game's concept, and its presence is something that really made me wish the game was longer so that we could explore more of it and have it expand the story in more interesting ways. There are some supernatural aspects here that play out in engaging ways, given the context of the mythology surrounding it. It doesn’t dive into full Onimusha territory, but there are moments where you’ll be fighting something that is a bit less corporeal than your normal bandit. This location is pretty damn fun, and while the puzzles within it are lacking in guidance and creativity, they are largely minimal and quick to solve.
Narrative and characters aside, Trek to Yomi succeeds in its bloody and brutal combat, but as I mentioned earlier, it doesn’t make a good first impression until you start pushing the story forward and learning a few of even the most basic combo attacks, especially one so simple that results you being able to actually turn around while attacking. Once you get to that point, Trek to Yomi is damn near sublime. I am rather disappointed that Trek to Yomi doesn’t have some sort of chapter select or newgame+ or a way to skip the opening because starting up the game again and having to slog through the game’s first chapter again didn’t do it any favors. It’s not that it’s bad per se, but it’s just that everything after that is where the best of this game lives.
Combat is largely motioned through a funneled lane, with a few instances where you can actually move around. While most of this “freedom” is limited to collectible hunting or tracking down health or stamina upgrades, the bulk of combat is following a narrow line that you cannot move outside from, even if the angle given to you seems ripe for stepping even an inch outside of it. For the most part, this works well, giving you a straight line to your foe, but it can still feel a tad too limiting when the next scene allows you to fight while having a much larger play area. I wouldn’t say it’s terribly inconsistent, as there are far too few moments where you have such freedom during combat. Apart from directly slashing down your foe, you’ll have a few situations where you can use the environment to kill those in your way. You can drop a load of lumber on them, have them wash away when you cause a flood, or drop a suspended arrangement of supplies on them. These moments are few but are good enough for what they provide.
Swordplay in itself is anywhere from good to fantastic, but much of that praise comes from some quick-to-pull-off combo strings and knowing how to perform them and, of course, having the available stamina to pull them off. You can attack up, forward, or down, with some combo attacks that turn you around midswing. While simply pressing the attack button will slash, pushing forward and attacking will result in a stab, and I found myself accidentally pulling this off instead of a standard slash because your gut reaction is to push forward towards your opponent. Otherwise, you’ll learn attacks that result in swing after swing cutting them down, or leaving them stunned, which can give you an opening for an assassination.
Hiroki can also block and parry most attacks, and this can result in pulling off counterattacks that allow you to regain back some vitality. Assassination kills also give you back some health, so you’ll want to pay attention to when an enemy is staggered. Since some camera shots are so pulled back, it can be challenging to see them dazed, so you'll want to keep an eye out for their animation. While Hiroki can turn around freely without needing to perform an attack, I found it to not be anywhere near responsive when you are being attacked, which can result in taking a few cheap hits when you are simply trying to turn around. I also found it odd that you cannot turn around while blocking, which to me seems rather bizarre.
While much of the exploring you’ll do is to track down health and stamina upgrades, you’ll find additional weapons such as the Bo-Shurikens, a Bow, as well as an Ozutsu, which is essentially a Japanese hand cannon that packs a punch but also takes a while to reload. These weapons work well for taking out other archers, those on horseback, or maybe a certain type of enemy that is far away and is summoning more forces to stop you. You’ll find ammo refills often, so you are rarely without the capability of using these. Otherwise, you’ll find collectibles strewn about that are comprised of artifacts the team researched via their collaboration with the Edo Museum of Tokyo. These artifacts paint a picture of the era, but apart from the pieces that depict Yomi, much of this feels as if the team simply copy and pasted the placards present in their display in order to provide something here.
As you progress throughout your journey, you’ll encounter shrines that act as a checkpoint, as well as refilling your health. These shrines are densely packed along the path, so you are never really that far back should you fall in combat, as there are a few encounters where you’ll likely end up on the wrong end of a blade. Most shrines are after a single encounter, with maybe a maximum of two or three encounters before you’ll see another one. This does give you the freedom to experiment in combat, maybe get in a bit of practice with a new combo string, but does greatly lessen the stakes as well. Thankfully, each shrine can only be used once, so you can’t backtrack to heal, and then continue on. Normal difficulty isn't too bad, but easy is very easy, so you may want to increase the difficulty a tad to get any sort of challenge out of the game. There is also a difficulty that unlocks once you beat the game, making the challenge considerably more so.
Visually, Trek to Yomi is suitable for what it aims to do, but there is some cheating going on here as well. The black and white filter does hide some things and the pulled-back camera can make even the most basic character model look great. There are a few cutscenes that push in and you’ll notice those imperfections considerably, but they are so few and far between. Still, I can’t help but feel there is a very basic game here that is heightened by the use of the black and white aesthetic. Now, all that said, the environments are the best-looking parts of this game with forests filled with swaying trees and flowing water as well as various actions taking place around you during combat. One battle had a tower collapsing almost right on top of you while locked in battle to several moments of fighting inside a burning building that is breaking apart while you’re trying to survive. Yomi itself is filled with a lot of visually cool moments that again, make me wish the game was longer to enjoy or simply see more of them.
While there are some aspects of Trek to Yomi that I didn’t quite get on with as much as I hoped I would, the bulk of what this game does is still exceptional. Once combat opens up with more options, there is very little here to really complain about mechanically. I don’t think the story does anything too brave or new and it’s a shame more wasn’t done to deepen its few central characters, especially Kagarou, the game’s villain who is so laughably forgettable, I had to look his name up. Apart from my issues with the story and its characters, I keep finding myself loading it back up, getting to a point where combat is satisfying, and simply getting lost in the brutality that is its combat and world.
Developer - Flying Wild Hog, Leonard Menchiari. Publisher - Devolver Digital. Released - May 5th, 2022. Available On - Xbox One/SeriesX/S, PlayStation 4/5, Windows. Rated - (M) Blood and Gore, Violence. Platform Reviewed - Xbox Series X. Review Access - A review code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.