Trek To Yomi Review
Played on Xbox One (base)
Developed by Flying Wild Hog
Released 5th May 2022
Trek To Yomi is heavily influenced by the classic samurai films of the 50s and 60s, more specifically, the movies that were directed and envisioned by Akira Kurosawa. This all began when game director, Leonard Menchiari was experimenting with black-and-white imagery and proposed such an idea to Devolver Digital's long-time partner, Flying Wild Hog. The fusion between the Polish development team and Menchiari's unique idea resulted in this short-tailored campaign that brings the best out of the cinematography and design team. The black and white filter combined with the authentic Edo Japan setting is not a new one. This is due to how Suckerpunch's Ghost of Tsushima had this classic samurai effect that could be played with, however, soon after a good portion of the fanbase unanimously agreed that the artistic colours fitted the Ghost experience better and that the noir feel of clashing swords required a more dedicated tuning process.
Story
The story of this game had a very strong beginning before delving into themes that left an unsatisfactory aftertaste. Trek To Yomi's narrative focuses on Hiroko, who as he gets older, has amassed a greater talent in his sword combat and an even greater hatred as he progressively seeks revenge against the ones who destroyed his village. Twice. The game does start off as this cool old-time samurai film that piqued my interest considering I've never watched or encountered this particular form of media. However, by the halfway point it begins to indulge in this weird afterlife setting and remains rooted in the game's story until the credits roll. If it were for one chapter then I would've happily enjoyed this game more but since 3 of the 7 chapters follow the same tedious pattern of repenting all the human deaths you've caused, I quickly became underwhelmed by the story and wanted to finish the game simply for the sake of finishing it, rather than finishing it for the experience.
The game's tale was focused on two major components: historical Japan and Shinto mythology. While that is great conceptually, I would've preferred if they stuck with the historical Japan component more as the village and samurai-slaying moments were the most interesting and appeared to have the most effort put into them by the developers.
Gameplay
The gameplay is ok. Trek To Yomi is a 2D sidescroller hack'n'slash and follows the basic "one, two" moveset. You get a light attack, a heavy attack and a parry and off you are on your adventure. To better your character and their skill, you don't level up egregious skill trees consisting of mind-numbing stats and percentages, instead, you receive new moves that help in your sword mastery. A combo for your heavy attacks, a stun, a quick 180 attack to prevent ambushes and more. These new, slick combat moves felt like a great sense of progression, and this was even better when multiple enemies appeared, all requiring different strategies, instead of mashing the same attack move. The moments where the enemies were plentiful and diverse, and save points were far apart were my favourites as I was able to feel like I was getting better.
Unfortunately, this was a rare case. Save points were too frequent, not letting me refine my swordsmanship as I felt encouraged to be reckless, knowing there was a lack of risk. Additionally, with the same basic enemy appearing 3-4x per checkpoint, the game's lack of necessary depth caught up with it, creating this repetivity by the halfway point. It's not to say this game is shallow, because it isn't. It simply needs more viable forms of attack instead of one per enemy. I should also mention that the parrying in this game is quite horrendous. All the parry timings felt inconsistent and oddly enough, the golden opportunity of parrying appeared way before the enemy's attack should be parried, making not only the parry animations rushed and jagged, but also unfair.
Bossfights
The bossfights are quite bad. Every boss felt very undeserving of my time as a player, as they were all beefed-up, regular enemies that, regardless of story significance, weren't worth the time or effort of defeating them. I would've had a different perspective on this if A) they were more interestingly designed or B) a fun challenge rather than a spam contest. In fact, I was able to either stun lock or spam ranged weapons at about half the bosses seeing as I wanted to get it over rather than learn their patterns that could two-shot me. Compared to the rest of the game, they stood out like a sore thumb as they lacked visual and audible goodness in their presentations. The only boss that I somewhat enjoyed was the final one. It was a great challenge with three cool, difficult phases - probably the only boss in the game that actually felt like a boss.
Characters
The characters are like a blank canvas - unfulfilling. Every character that is aimed to be fledged out, wields story significance or is even remotely mentioned, ends up being as bland as cardboard, forgettable and a huge dampener on the story. These soulless personas detracted from the story's most significant moments, detaching my interest in the game, rather than doing the complete opposite.
Atmosphere
One of the strongest and most impressive aspects of the game is the atmosphere. This game hones some of the most top-tier camera perspectives and cinematography, to the point that I'd say it rivals God of War's one-shot camera. The camera would flick between fixed positions that hover throughout the environment. The camera is not an omnipresent device to follow the player, instead, it's an insight into how the world can be shown from multiple angles. It's always embedded in the world, either hidden behind bushes or from the perspectives of hiding civilians, you'll always notice that it's following you on your story in a realistic manner. This is due to how the game was influenced by the silent movies of the 1920s and 1930s, in which "each scene is designed to look more like a magical moving theatre stage rather than a screen".
To make the game more cinematic, the developers have added this film grain filter and black bars on the top and bottom sides of the screen. This in turn is a charismatic touch to the game. The last thing I can say about this game's visuals is that its restricted, black and white colour palette is beautiful. The darkness compliments and contrasts the light so damn well in every moment. It creates such magnificent imagery that would be the final touch in immersing the player if only every other aspect of it (like the story or bossfights) managed to function well.
The audio doesn't get as great of treatment as the design but it's still good. The sound effects were effective in creating awesome duels and the music was done to a serviceable degree, paying more homage to its history rather than defining every moment for the player.
On the technical side, the game is completely fine, however, I did encounter some framerate drops that ended up causing cutscenes and difficult combat encounters to be annoying. Yet, that might be due to the fact my Xbox One has aged and dusted quite a bit since I've first gotten it.
Story - 6/10
Gameplay - 6/10
Bossfights - 4/10
Characters - 2/10
Atmosphere - 9/10
Supbar
Trek To Yomi isn't inherently a bad experience, but it is sub-par. The gorgeous visuals and fascinating design can't make up for the unsatisfying story and middling combat.
