I don't think anyone can argue that the presentation of this isnt stellar. The game just looks simply great. There is a really good use of camera angles with the fixed camera and all the locations look quite nice. But that's where my praise for Trek to Yomi stops. In fact, there were parts of this game that felt like they were tailor made to be exactly what I don't like.

The story is very classic and something you'll be familiar with but its not trying to be anything different. It fits the style the game is going for it's just nothing new and that's perfectly fine. Where the game really falters is in the gameplay. Now I can stomach some repetitive combat. Guardians of The Galaxy was my game of the year for 2021 and its not really a high point of contention that the gameplay wasnt the best part of it. But if a game doesnt have the best combat, as long as it has a good story I don't really mind. Well like we established Trek to Yomi doesn't really have that either. All it has going for it is the visuals. And part of that is actually the gore from the combat. You are cutting people up with swords but the finishers are where the real fun is at. So despite the story being simple and the combat being repetitive it was at least bloody enough to keep me from being bored. But then we get to the midpoint of Trek to Yomi which is where I believe that, for me personally, the entire game falls apart.

At first, around Chapter 4, things start getting a bit horror-esque almost and you're fighting some cool creatures. But then the game takes it too far and for most of the rest of the game it focuses on supernatural/mystical type shit and very surreal almost like the random dream sequences every game seems to need. Now this does make sense within the story but If i'm being honest I absolutely hate that shit. It always makes the games feel like they drag on for far too long and Trek to Yomi is no exception. Not only that, for most of the rest of the game you're fighting basically ghosts and spectres. If there is anything I dislike more in games is having to fight dozens and dozens of non living enemies like robots or ghosts. Nothing makes me lose interest faster. That is on top of the game already starting to wear its welcome with the repetitive combat. In an attempt to shake things up it just makes the game incredibly more boring and sloggy. In perhaps another attempt to shake up the combat, midway through they start introducing puzzles. Yeah, I'm not kidding. These puzzles arent super prevalent but there are a good handful of them. They may only take half a minute at most but god they're just so boring. And when the rest of the game feels like a repetitive slog, screeching things to a halt to make you do stupid little puzzles is absolutely not the solution.

All the things I listed above don't necessarily make for a bad game, but for me its three of my least favorite gaming shticks all piled onto one halfway through the game right when it felt like it was starting to drag anyways. I just hate that, and I'm sure some people enjoyed the change of pace but it completely checked me out.

I don't know. I don't have anything else to say really. The final boss fight is kinda annoying. I went for the bad ending because those are more fun when I don't really care about whats going on. It was fine.

Trek to Yomi is a game. Not a terrible one I suppose, but I will not replay this ever and I really can't recommend it to someone unless they really love the time period and art style. It only took me four hours to beat so yeah. This review has became a ramble but this game put my mind to fucking mush lol.

Thanks for reading <3

Nancymeter - 50/100
**Trophy Completion - 19% (11/29)
Time Played - 4 hours
Game Completion #144 of 2022
Game Completion #10 of November

I should just get this out of the way: I've seen one classic samurai film - the original Seven Samurai - and it was so long ago that you could probably convince me that there were actually six samurai total. I recall enjoying it, and I'm broadly familiar with the genre through cultural osmosis. That having been said: I don't know the particulars. I don't know what Trek to Yomi gets right and wrong. I'll leave that to someone better versed in the films the game is inspired by.

Now, the review. Trek to Yomi, whatever it ultimately is, is neither of the things I wanted it to be. Is it good? Definitely. Great sense of style, the combat feels about right for samurai combat. Bold swings, standing your ground, fending off enemies on both sides. It's not driven by agility, by dodges. You wait, you strike, you parry. Well done, although I get the feeling that the difficulty was toned down. If enemies did just a bit more damage, if healing checkpoints were just a bit further apart, if you were punished just a little more often for mistakes then it would be - at least for me - pitch perfect with the theme. As it is, it feels like it was tuned down a bit for accessibility, but the game is short enough that a second run on hard mode is possible for the curious. Beyond that, it feels like a classic story, presents itself seriously and does so well. Hard to ask for much more there.

The problem is, I want Trek to Yomi to be either more game or more film.

More game. Color as highlights, a more dynamic world that feels less like setpieces. More engaging secrets, a greater variety of enemies, a more fantastic underworld. Or more film. A world built by practical effects, with none of the fantastic, impossible for the time set pieces of said underworld. Less of a need to break the narrative flow to look for secrets during dramatic moments. A more concise, film-like structure that feels less like levels and more like a story. Fewer fights with greater drama.

As it is, it straddles the line between film and game well, but not so well that I don't wish it was more one than the other.

Trek to Yomi really grabbed my attention as soon as it started. It's hyper-stylised and takes most of its inspiration from the late Kurosawa. Which it does perfectly, with the black and white grain look and the fixed camera showing beautiful shots. The environments are beautifully detailed. These things were also its downfall. The gameplay was massively neglected, it was tedious and, after awhile, I became an unstoppable force. Just by using one combo, it's so broken.

I would prefer if they kept mythological elements out and stuck to the hard reality of the 16th century. But this is just nitpicking. I gave up playing towards the end as I couldn't force myself to finish.

Só consigo definir Trek to Yomi como uma experiência, pois infelizmente como jogo ele peca em alguns quesitos. Em questão visual ele é belíssimo do inicio ao fim, cada cutscene e até mesmo posição de câmera são muito bem pensadas, fazia tempo que não via uma fotografia tão bela em um jogo, com gráficos muito bem feitos para um game 2.5D. Agora na gameplay o combate deixa MUITO desejar, pouco responsivo, às vezes travado e com pouca variedade de comandos; não que ele seja ruim mas poderia ser melhor trabalhado. A única coisa que me decepcionou de verdade foi a história, que talvez nem em uma farmácia você ache algo tão genérico assim. Excelente experiencia visual, mas fica nisso.

"Leonard Menchiari presents: a Leonard Menchiari game by Leonard Menchiari"

Who is Leonard Menchiari, you ask? I don't know! Apparently he made a couple indie games someone might have heard of. Whether that warrants this sort of masturbatory Kojima-esque self-aggrandizing all over the title sequence of Trek to Yomi, I'll leave up to you to decide. I find it irritating even when famous ones do it, let alone those without any significant pedigree.

As for Trek to Yomi itself, what we are looking at is a fairly mediocre sidescrolling swordfighting game with a grainy black and white aesthetic meant solely to cash in on the popularity of Ghost of Tsushima, which had an optional "Kurosawa mode" which I have to assume nobody used for more than ten minutes.

"Optional" being the operative word there, since many of the games that opt to include a black and white mode and know it can get in the way, the aforementioned Tsushima but also F.E.A.R. creator Craig Hubbard's trippy and experimental Betrayer, tend to leave it up to the player to decide whether to stick with the colorless aesthetic or not. Not so Trek to Yomi, which forces it from start to finish, though it at least allows for the removal of film grain. Someone managed to mod the PC version to restore the color, which makes the game look considerably nicer and resolve many of the visibility issues, but since this is not an official patch and the console versions offer no such possibility, one can't judge the game based on how it looks in color.

And get in the way it does, since, combined with the fixed camera angles during exploration segments (I say exploration but it's more going from one combat encounter to the next) makes the environments irritating to navigate: you will lose sight of your character when the camera changes to a wide angle, something Resident Evil expertly avoided via the use of, well, color. There is a reason Leon and Claire wear such garishly colored clothes in the original RE2. Sometimes your character will blend in with the scenery so much that it will be almost impossible to properly time a parry, leading to great frustration, an issue compounded by the poor placement of some of the checkpoints: while in most cases these are judiciously doled out after a long fight, there are times when they are not, forcing long boring replays of previously cleared enemy encounters just to return to where you were.

Perhaps worst of all, and especially egregious, since the lead designer pretentiously styles himself as an "interactive film director", the game does not look like the black and white samurai movies it purports to homage: Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, Throne of Blood (which the game namedrops), the works, none of them look like this game does stylistically. This is a problem that Trek to Yomi shares with Ghost of Tsushima, though, as I said, the optional nature of that mode made it a non issue in the case of Sucker Punch's title, when it's mandatory here.

The game features a number of collectibles, some in the open, some in secret areas barely off the main path: from lore items to scrolls with new moves, health and stamina upgrades, to ammunition for three different ranged weapons. Trouble is, these pickups are virtually invisible in the black and white scenery, requiring the developers to add a shimmer so they won't be passed by unnoticed. Trouble is, it's still impossible to tell what they are most of the time, which is especially vexing when ammo is concerned: sure, the game will tell you "ammo limit reached" but it will neglect to mentioned what ammo you had found. This means you will never get a sense of how rare or common the ammunition for which weapon is, as such it will be difficult to gauge how often you should use it.

The gameplay is where this game really falters though: developed by the Polish studio behind the mediocre (though inexplicably popular) Shadow Warrior reboot series, what we are dealing with is some sort of Bushido Blade-inspired game, with a side-scrolling structure: moving from screen to screen, the protagonist becomes locked into scripted combat encounters against half a dozen different enemy types, from standard swordsmen to spearmen, ranged troops and a few magical type enemies who teleport around. Swordfighting is a less automatic twist on the Assassin's Creed combat system: surrounded by enemies who attack one at a time, you are expected to parry their attacks, creating openings for retaliation. Thing is, it doesn't work all that well: sometimes enemy hitboxes won't correspond with where their blades are, throwing your timing off, or they will ignore your sword slashes, tanking them completely as they become invincible to perform their attack animations. Needless to say, this is not very conducive to any kind of swordfighting simulation. it doesn't help that the game doesn't care about stances or high/mid/low parrying: one size fits all and some of the moves you acquire are so outlandishly overpowered that you'll be hard pressed to use anything else.

Cementing the issue are the difficulty levels: while easy and normal are trivially easy (you will cut down the bosses in less than a minute), hard mode sees fit to double or triple every enemy's hit points, turning them into complete damage sponges (an issue common to the Shadow Warrior games as well), further decreasing the degree of realism. There is a fourth unlockable difficulty, which makes every blade hit lethal, both for the enemies and the player, though with the aforementioned hitbox issues, problematic checkpoints and the boss fights, which tend to be pretty chaotic affairs, that does not sound fun at all. I did not care to play the game again to find out. With all that, there simply isn't a difficulty level that manages to strike a balance between challenge and fun.

The result is that the game feels extremely repetitive and thus overlong, even though it's just the bare minimum three hours in length required for a $20 game. Boredom sets in very quickly and at that point it's a race for what will prevail whether it or frustration, depending on the selected difficulty.

The story follows a young generic samurai, seeking revenge for the massacre of his village by a ravenous warlord. It's very basic stuff until he is slain and has to journey through the underworld to find his killed wife and choose whether to remain in the afterlife with her or forsake her to retun and finish off the warlord, as the bushido code demands. Or, as many players must have done, you can walk by mistake into the bad ending, in which you become the next warlord, which comes completely out of the blue and is neither announced, explained or works narratively in any way.

At the very least, the game offers some quality Japanese voice acting (the English one is mediocre though) and suitably moody traditional music.

Ultimately, Trek to Yomi is a complete disappointment. The combat system is not good enough, nor are the story and characters, and the presentation is mired in derivative pretentiousness.

Skip with no regrets, unless absolutely obsessed with Edo Japan. Leonard Menchiari, we hardly knew ye. Underline "hardly".

Full video review: https://youtu.be/8ys_JQg299s
Written review below![/h1][/quote]

I have watched way too many black and white samurai movies for my own good, so you could say I was a bit excited for this one.

Aesthetic
Trek to Yomi absolutely bleeds style, with authentic, detailed environments, perfectly placed camera angles, and the studio went so far as to even have the voice actors deliver their lines in the same manner as an older Japanese samurai movie. If you thought the black and white filter in Ghosts of Tsushima was something - this is like an entirely different level and I am absolutely here for it.

Even disregarding that authenticity, the game itself still looks great. The models look good, the use of lighting is expertly done, and I really liked all the weather effects in particular. It’s just good-looking all around and the atmospheric sound design only adds to this.

Gameplay and combat
The combat, at least on the surface, looks simple, but once you start playing, you quickly find that the handful of base moves you start with combo into a variety of different strings. Upward slashes, downward, thrusting attacks, heavy attacks - the full slate can then be made into something like down, down, heavy for a stun or back light, light, light for a spin attack string that does massive damage to enemies behind you.

You are constantly unlocking new combos as you play and the game does a good job presenting them at a consistent pace to give you something to look forward to. Granted, if I am being honest, the basic strings worked well enough for me way into the experience that I oftentimes had to actively force myself to use some of the fancier stuff.

There are also ranged attacks courtesy of a few ranged weapons, such as the bow and arrow. The ammo for these are limited and must be found hidden away in the environment, but they are great options when you have an annoying ranged enemy farther away and are another nice addition to some already solid combat.

Overall though, the combat works. It feels great to play, looks great in action, and has intuitive enough controls that you get this nice sense of fluidity from it. It took me maybe twenty minutes and I was completely into it, slashing down enemies, parrying, and rolling around with ease. The parry is very forgiving, so that’s definitely something I would recommend using.

Content and length
Trek to Yomi is not a long game. It took me just under four hours to clear and if you shave away all of my deaths that settles to just under three hours. That doesn’t make it a bad game though - the studio intentionally crafted an experience to be authentic to the samurai movies of old and pacing was a part of that.

However, this is also one of my main complaints. Not that it is too short, but that the pacing itself becomes a bit rocky towards the end. You get some really solid first few levels and then the last couple it felt like they kinda lost their way. You get environments that aren’t as cool and repetitive enemy encounters that have you fighting like five or six at a time just to get to the next little segment which will have you repeat this. A lot of the game was like this, but the balance was WAY better early on with the exploration, the enemy encounters, the story bits.

Story
Otherwise, the length is fine. If anything, the story lacks the depth for anything longer than it already is. Not to bash the story by the way, it’s fine for what it is, but it can be boiled down to a simple revenge story at its core that also happens to touch on more personal elements like morality and honor. So nothing too crazy there, but also not boring - I think the studio did a decent job maintaining a good story-gameplay balance even if I can’t say that this is a story I’ll remember after maybe a week.

Replayability
There is not a whole lot of exploration and the game itself is mostly linear outside of different story endings you get based on certain key dialogue decisions (there are only a few of these). However, to make a different decision, you have to literally play through the entire game again - there’s no chapter select despite the experience being divided into distinct chapters.

I will say though that the difficulty unlocked after clearing the game once is cool. It’s called Kensei and it basically makes everything one-hit kill, including yourself. Doesn’t apply to bosses unfortunately, but a cool hardcore take that honestly would have been fun to have from the start.

Performance
I ran the game at 1440p, 144fps on my RTX 3080 Ti and didn’t have any technical issues outside of one instance where I fell off the map and had to reload to a checkpoint not even ten seconds prior. Controls are great on a controller (although not rebindable) and are also fine on keyboard and mouse (which are rebindable). Granted, I still recommend controller.

Overall
Trek to Yomi is about as authentic as they come. The lighting, the camera angles, the graininess - the aesthetic is all there and is matched with some equally nice combat that has a surprising amount of depth to it. It may falter later on with its pacing and lackluster enemy variety, but it’s an experience well had and I am definitely satisfied as someone that watches a ton of the movies for which this is based on. Even if you’re not into the movies though - it’s good enough on its own to warrant a look.

An overzealous slog to Yomi.

A game dripping in well intentioned Kurosawa influence, a masterclass in aesthetic. Those camera angles, that crackling static, grit and grain, together with a perfect recreation of the exact type of black & white you'd see in one of the aforementioned director's films. Unlike Ghost of Tsushima's surface level rendition of the style as flat gray-scale, no; this is true black & white with heavy contrast between the two leading to blinding skies and inky depths. In that regard, and that aspect alone Trek to Yomi is a 10/10. Now let's get real.

Aesthetical and atmospheric competence can not even begin to save a game this inexorable and exhausting to play, poor pacing and one-note combat is a disastrous pairing. Clocking in at around 4-5 hours, and feeling closer to 10, Trek to Yomi has seemingly no self awareness in how much it overindulges in it's own mediocrity. The combat fails to impress at every turn, I was expecting enemies to be able to surround you in a more dynamic 2.5D way, but here they just sorta awkwardly shift in place lined up behind one another for you to go through the motions of effortlessly parrying and countering them until the game grants mercy and lets you move to the next wave. At some point I felt like I was almost beginning to have some semblance of enjoyment towards it, in how simple and reliable every move was, but it soon loses whatever it had going for it when you eventually realise the optimal strategy for quite literally every battle is to turn your back on the enemy and hit them with that 3 hit back attack combo. Having virtually no wind up or failure rate, and soon shortening itself even further to a 2 hit combo which leaves the adversary stunned and open to an execution, subsequently healing you on top of that... All I can say is a lot of those later fights start looking real goofy.

And lets get into the titular Yomi part; the land of the dead in Shinto religion/mythology. It's unfortunate to say but I really could've done without this whole, bloated, clichéd and tropey section which makes up the whole second half of the game. Here we have less of that grounded, intimate focus and camera placement trading it off for boring, amateur quasi-surrealist motiffs that feel traveled before in not at all a complementary way comparative to first chunk. Here the camera is peeled way back, we fight annoying spirits and ghostly apparitions, losing that grounded setting the game did so well with earlier. We rarely get close up camera placement that acknowledges the inherently intimate nature of swords plunging into flesh; in Yomi we feel miles away from the main battle and resign to a position of observer more and more, especially when we reconsider how much more involved the combat could've been.

It really never knows when to quit and call it a day either, introducing some of the most asinine ""puzzles"" I've seen in a minute way into the back end which never move past 'say what you see' levels of depth. The bosses too, christ almighty they're all so wonky. Most of the time you can comfortably just rock back, expend all your ranged weapon ammo and go in for a few cheap swipes at the end; again nothing about this combat system impresses, and it wouldn't be such a mark against it if accepted that and made fights more meaningful and less arbitrary.

Narratively its not saying much either, has one banger line in the prologue "Choose fear while you still can.", in context it sets the stage and tone pretty well. Not that it really builds on it; Trek to Yomi would've done better being half the length if even that, which is saying something when its already so short. I could only really stomach around 30 minutes of this journey a session so it ended up commanding a commitment of around 5 days from me and that's particularly noteworthy because I'm pretty quick to finish games when I'm engaged.

A disappointment for sure, but the style really is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. If you're into Kurosawa's stuff, maybe you've only seen Seven Samurai and loved it, there is at least something to be seen and gained here. Don't feel too bad if you end up tapping out somewhere along the way.

Possui uma premissa interessante, mas peca em alguns pontos da execução.

Apesar de simples, eu até curti a história, que segue um "clichê" já esperado em temáticas de samurai, com toda a questão de códigos de honra, vingança e afins, mas definitivamente não é o ponto forte do jogo.

Tampouco sua gameplay, que apesar de divertir nos momentos iniciais, não demora muito pra acabar ficando repetitiva demais.

O que eu posso destacar como principal qualidade é com certeza a estética, fazendo parecer que estamos em um filme japonês antigo de samurais em preto e branco, é realmente bem imersivo.

O saldo é de um jogo "ok". Por ser bem curto, pode ser uma boa programação pra um fim de tarde ou algo do tipo.

Como um VIDEOJOGO é um ótimo FILME ANTIGO JAPONES.

A estética do game é uma das coisas mais lindas que já vi. Ele é todo em preto e branco além de ter um efeito película na tela, que simula aqueles “granulados” de filmes antigos. A falta de cor dá destaque aos efeitos de iluminação e de clima (como chuva e ventos) que funcionam muito bem, porém os personagens sofrem com poucos detalhes.

O combate do jogo é simples: Você tem uma katana e enfrenta levas de inimigos durantes as fases até chegar no chefão final (Além disso tem armas que podem ser usadas a distancia como arco e flecha por exemplo).
Nas batalhas você precisa de concentração para se defender dos combos dos inimigos e infelizmente tudo se resume a isso. Todos os inimigos comuns podem ser derrotados com ataques simples, o que não incentiva o jogador a tentar estratégias diferentes ou aprender todos os combos que o jogo tem (De fato o maior desafio nos combates é no chefe de cada fase, tirando ele é tudo muito fácil demais).

A historinha do jogo convence, pois se encaixa bem no mundo que o jogo constrói. Além disso o jogo conta com 3 finais diferentes que é moldado por escolhas (Mas são escolhas super obvias tipo "sacrificar minha vida" ou "viver um amor").

Trek to Yomi é um jogo que parece se preocupar demais na narrativa e acaba sacrificando alguns elementos de gameplay que poderiam ser melhores aproveitados.

PRÓS:
- Estética única.

CONTRAS:
- Gameplay muito repetitivo.
- Puzzles simples demais.

I won this game through SteamGifts.

As a vow to his dying Sensei, the young samurai Hiroki is sworn to protect his town and the people he loves against all threats. Faced with tragedy and bound to duty, the lone samurai must voyage beyond life and death to confront himself and decide his path forward.

The story was compelling and interesting, with beautiful monochromatic artstyle and frustrating combat, the game offers a pretty okay-ish experience. I really did want to enjoy it more honestly, but the combat and the fact that there was multiple endings that didn't really differ in any other way other than ONE choice right at the end of chapter 6 and the ending scene with the final boss, it was an experience I wished I could have gone through faster.

I managed to play through the game once on ronin difficulty while getting the no hit boss achievements, and a second run with the kensei difficulty. I save scummed for one of the endings to avoid the need to run through the game again, since I didn't really see a need for it. My favorite ending was probably the love route, and it really was heartwarming at the end.

I honestly think people who can manage through the combat will really enjoy the game, but I don't think it's worth almost 20€, so if you do decide to get it, get it at a big sale for sure or a bundle. That being said, I do think it's worth a recommendation from me anyway.

Trek to Yomi é lindo visualmente e funciona se você só quiser jogar um game de samurai pra matar a vontade.

Agora se esse não é o seu caso, não tem muito o que te divertir aqui, pois o combate depois do começo ficou cansativo pra mim, até que eu comecei a usar os mesmos golpes pra avançar no game rápido, o que pode significar um combate desequilibrado.

Vale a pena dar um destaque pra escolha de caminhos da história, em que seu personagem é confrontado 3 vez sobre a sua maior motivação, que pode ser o amor, o dever e o ódio. Fiz o caminho do dever, mas queria ter escolhido uns dos outros dois, pois parecem ser um pouco menos clichê.

Flying Wild Hog's ode to the samurai films of the mid-20th Century caught my eye from its first showing, evoking Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece Seven Samurai (as intended). Trek to Yomi lives up to that initial promise, not just in aesthetics but in heart, narrative, and expert presentation. While the combat mechanics feel slightly off and the repetitiveness grows tiring quickly, the gorgeous and faithful dedication to the samurai and authentic Edo period Japanese culture holds this action game together.

Trek to Yomi is a narrative-driven action game that sees a young warrior, Hiroki, take up the mantle of a samurai after ravenous warlord Kagerou invades his hometown. Aoki, Hiroki's lover, is killed on his watch after he swears to protect her at all costs. On a rescue mission that ends in certain death, he follows the literal path to hell (Yomi) to bring her back from the afterlife.

This is a pretty straightforward action game, and while I would qualify it as a side-scroller if I had to, there's a lot more 3D movement than the trailers led me to believe. I also didn't expect a Silent Hill style fixed-camera that changes when you enter a new room, but it does wonders for controlling the cinematic stylings of Trek to Yomi. Most rooms without combat allow for 3D movement, where you might find collectibles or ammo for one of your three ranged weapons. Every few rooms, you'll hit a checkpoint shrine that refills your health and is a place to restart when you die. Much to its benefit, this game is entirely linear - there is no backtracking or picking which direction to go.

As this is an action game, combat is critical, and I must admit, I'm not impressed with it. Throughout the game, you'll gain new combo abilities using directions and the X and Y buttons as you naturally progress - you won't need to go out of your way to unlock any combos. My main issue is that most of them feel useless. But, as I reached Yomi, the various abilities started to make sense. By the end, I had two combos I stuck to and was able to tear through every enemy with barely any resistance.

In addition, the button press timing windows feel much too small. Almost half the time I would try to execute a combo, it wouldn't register. It was incredibly annoying to press the button in time, only for nothing to happen. When I played through the game, the parry windows were too small, and the hitboxes were not registering correctly. However, after a day-zero patch was applied, I found these features had been dramatically improved. Parry windows feel 100% accurate in the launch version.

I loved using the ranged weapons (kunai, bow and arrow, and a hand cannon) as much as possible, but I will confess it was to avoid actual combat when I could. It may seem damning to say that I flat out didn't enjoy the combat in an action game, but so many of the other elements of the game are so impressive that I ended up enjoying the experience anyway.

My other major complaint is that the first hour and a half of this roughly four-hour game is pretty mediocre. While the story kicks off hard and fast, and the excellent Japanese voice work for Hiroki evokes compassion for the character, you are basically running along a path fighting the same bandits repeatedly. Every enemy was the same, maybe with a slightly different weapon sometimes, and all of them required a perfect parry and two short strikes to kill. It is tedious and exhausting. I was worried that the entire game would be this way until I reached Yomi (hell), where the tone did a 180, and I was introduced to an amazing slew of mythological Japanese monsters with unique magical powers.

In this second act, I had to start utilizing some strategy to fight off ogres, wraiths, oni, and demonic beasts. In addition, while I loved seeing Edo Japan with the classic black and white vignetted film grain aesthetic, I grew tired of seeing the same buildings over and over during the first act. Yomi introduced grand, majestic structures, trees, rock formations, and weather systems that couldn't exist in our natural world. Flying Wild Hog's artists did a phenomenal job shaping this landscape, and during my time in Yomi, I wanted to look around each area just for the sake of seeing it.

If it weren't for doing this review, I'm not sure if I would have made it through the monotony of the start of the game. However, it takes a fantastic turn, leaving me feeling like the developers saved literally all of the good stuff for the back half of the game that few players will likely see.

Trek to Yomi is a powerful cinematic experience, and I genuinely feel like the themes echoed the ones I'd find in the old black and white samurai films. The music is gorgeous and, to my knowledge, utilizes traditional Japanese instruments from this time period. The sound design works greatly to the benefit of this game, especially with the intelligent use of the sounds of an old film reel turning.

This narrative centers around the choice between love and duty. Hiroki must make several tangible choices during the story that change its direction, choosing between his love for Aoki or his duty to his people. The well-thought-out narrative and impeccable atmosphere of Trek to Yomi are its great triumphs. And, if you can learn to love (or bear) the repetitive combat, I think it'll be a thrilling epic worthy of its cinematic inspirations.

[A review code was provided by the publisher for the purposes of this review.]

The art direction and visuals for this game are ridiculously good. Love seeing the way the scenes shifted perspective as it went on.

The combat however, was too ambitious and too inconsistent with its weird parry timings that it was just frustrating with the hordes of enemies past chapter 3.

Game is best experienced on easy mode and treated as a beat ‘Em up so you can actually enjoy the visuals and get to the end.

Por mais paixão que os desenvolvedores possam ter pelo Japão feudal, Trek to Yomi passa longe de fazer justiça às grandes obras sobre o tema. Tudo no jogo acaba sendo medíocre, com uma história básica de vingança bem clichê, onde o vilão é só um cara muito mal. O combate tenta ter alguma profundidade com diferentes golpes e combos sendo disponibilizados conforme o progresso, mas a movimentação do seu personagem é tão travada que qualquer experimentação acaba sendo punitiva demais para valer a pena. Isso não seria um problema tão grande se o jogo não tivesse tanto combate, principalmente da metade pro final. Fica cansativo muito rápido, mesmo com a curta duração. Por fim, o aspecto visual, totalmente em preto e branco, é até legal em alguns momentos, mas na maior parte do tempo eu sinto que atua contra a arte geral do jogo, às vezes até dificultando para entender qual o caminho certo ou onde exatamente está o seu personagem. O jogo ainda conta com coletáveis e até finais diferentes, dependendo de escolhas durante a história, mas mesmo com a curta duração, o gameplay me tira qualquer vontade de jogar novamente.

Bom, primeiramente, quero elogiar os gráficos, a escolha do preto e branco para retratar um período antigo do Japão foi ótima, um dos pontos fortes do jogo. A trilha sonora não deixa a desejar, mas não é memorável. Os inimigos são um pouco repetitivos, e alguns bosses são bem difíceis, mas não torna a experiência ruim. Minha maior crítica é em relação aos controles, que por vezes são um tanto imprecisos ( por exemplo, as vezes você executa um ataque errrado ou não consegue defender um ataque inimigo a tempo ), mas relevando esse ponto, pode ser uma experiência agradável.

Trek to Yomi foi um tiro no escuro pra mim, eu sabia do lançamento do jogo mas não tinha noção nenhuma de como era sua jogabilidade, quando entrei nele.. bom, eu tive uma experiência gostosíssima!

O combate é divertido e a história se desenrola bem, e o tempo de jogo cai bem com o estilo que ele serve, já que se jogar ele constantemente pode ser que enjoe fácil (sim ele se torna repetitivo)

Se tiver procurando um joguinho diferente, fora total da curva dos atuais e curtinho, papo de zerar em 1 sabadão, Trek to Yomi é o título certo pra tu.

Um filme do Akira Kurosawa no qual você controla tudo. Sua estória é muito interessante e chega a ser maluco. Principalmente quando o jogo não dá indícios de coisas sobrenaturais e simplesmente você se encontra numa parte totalmente sobrenatural.

A gameplay do jogo é bem divertida. O level design é muito bom. Os pontos de checkpoint são bem espaçados, dando certa dificuldade, o problema é que quando tem uma sala com vários equipamentos e um checkpoint, você prevê uma boss fight. Outra coisa legal do level design é a exploração. Muitos lugares ocultos que possuem upgrades. Isso é bem divertido porque você se sente recompensado por toda essa exploração. Além de ter colecionáveis nessas áreas também.

O combate é bem gostoso, só demora pra ler os comandos. Certas horas passei raiva, mas não tanto, já que no começo, onde mais morri, achei que era ruindade minha e não problema do jogo.