A quite begrudged rating. Trek to Yomi is a game whose strengths only get clearer and stronger the deeper into its hell you descend, yet this is accompanied by combat that betrays the game's messages as often as fortifies it. Like Ghost of Tsushima, Yomi seems eager to grapple with ideas about what it means to desire personal strength and revenge over coming to terms with what got you there in the first place...only most of its gameplay leaves the player feeling less like a samurai and more like a mere rice farmer gripping two hands to a blade.
With what seems like two dozen potential combos at your disposal, even on the Story difficulty (notably, this is the default option when starting a new game) there are several notable and confounding difficulty spikes. The player is never quite sure whether these spikes are due to the actual encounters, either, because the combat never feels better the more capable you become, nor more complex, honestly.
This makes for a game that doesn't offer much satisfaction as a game most of the time. The environment design is fun, with many sections that feel like they have multiple paths and many of the side areas offering some of the more striking cinematography this game has to offer. And boy does it have some good looking motion photography going on here. While I could never fully square with the critics that found Ghost of Tsushima's "Kurosawa mode" laughable - from lighting to sound, it's a high water mark for filter settings in video games - all it takes is 10 or 15 minutes of playing Yomi to recognize how much classic black and white action film owes to shot composition and directorial intent.
Likewise, while an exceedingly simple concept overall - explore areas in a north-south fashion when out of combat and a west-east orientation when expecting conflict - because of a constant assault of clever foreground elements and bravura lighting arrangements Trek to Yomi simply gets more and more impressive to behold as you progress.
As someone who is often looking for games that offer a fresh perspective on how games can be designed to present and tell stories, I ultimately value this aspect of Trek to Yomi quite a bit. I also think that, however fleetingly, when the combat does click this is another reminder that the idea of a brutally efficient samurai with a sword is an underutilized starting point for combat in modern games. Sure, I may have abused turning my back to the enemy only to spin around and cut 'em down (as it seemed clear 99% of enemies on Story could never anticipate this) for most of this game, and ultimately the story is exactly what you might expect (I didn't know what "Yomi" meant, so I found the back half more surprising than Japanophiles will) so one could fiercely and rightly argue that 2/3 of this game are mediocre at best...
Again, I just love how aggressively this game nails the thing it clearly wanted to get right the most. The attempt may not make for the most fun game I've ever played, which isn't great considering the level design, brief by modern standards runtime (about five hours, give or take) and set up of the finale clearly hope to coax players into at least three runs through the game, but then even having spent about $20 on this as a Playstation owner, I feel it's worth acknowledging this is pretty widely available as a Game Pass rental and if that had been my personal investment in this game I'd be complaining about some of its flaws even less.
This isn't some "drop everything and go play this now" sort of indie, even for lovers of all things samurai or even just Playstation owners jonesing for some more swordplay and "what is honor, really" pontification two years after Ghost of Tsushima kicked the door wide open for this sort of thing. But if a large part of why you enjoy games is just seeing beautiful art that you can explore and occasionally feel cool by triumphing over a handful of mediocre gameplay moments, Trek to Yomi is quite a neat ride despite its many flaws.
With what seems like two dozen potential combos at your disposal, even on the Story difficulty (notably, this is the default option when starting a new game) there are several notable and confounding difficulty spikes. The player is never quite sure whether these spikes are due to the actual encounters, either, because the combat never feels better the more capable you become, nor more complex, honestly.
This makes for a game that doesn't offer much satisfaction as a game most of the time. The environment design is fun, with many sections that feel like they have multiple paths and many of the side areas offering some of the more striking cinematography this game has to offer. And boy does it have some good looking motion photography going on here. While I could never fully square with the critics that found Ghost of Tsushima's "Kurosawa mode" laughable - from lighting to sound, it's a high water mark for filter settings in video games - all it takes is 10 or 15 minutes of playing Yomi to recognize how much classic black and white action film owes to shot composition and directorial intent.
Likewise, while an exceedingly simple concept overall - explore areas in a north-south fashion when out of combat and a west-east orientation when expecting conflict - because of a constant assault of clever foreground elements and bravura lighting arrangements Trek to Yomi simply gets more and more impressive to behold as you progress.
As someone who is often looking for games that offer a fresh perspective on how games can be designed to present and tell stories, I ultimately value this aspect of Trek to Yomi quite a bit. I also think that, however fleetingly, when the combat does click this is another reminder that the idea of a brutally efficient samurai with a sword is an underutilized starting point for combat in modern games. Sure, I may have abused turning my back to the enemy only to spin around and cut 'em down (as it seemed clear 99% of enemies on Story could never anticipate this) for most of this game, and ultimately the story is exactly what you might expect (I didn't know what "Yomi" meant, so I found the back half more surprising than Japanophiles will) so one could fiercely and rightly argue that 2/3 of this game are mediocre at best...
Again, I just love how aggressively this game nails the thing it clearly wanted to get right the most. The attempt may not make for the most fun game I've ever played, which isn't great considering the level design, brief by modern standards runtime (about five hours, give or take) and set up of the finale clearly hope to coax players into at least three runs through the game, but then even having spent about $20 on this as a Playstation owner, I feel it's worth acknowledging this is pretty widely available as a Game Pass rental and if that had been my personal investment in this game I'd be complaining about some of its flaws even less.
This isn't some "drop everything and go play this now" sort of indie, even for lovers of all things samurai or even just Playstation owners jonesing for some more swordplay and "what is honor, really" pontification two years after Ghost of Tsushima kicked the door wide open for this sort of thing. But if a large part of why you enjoy games is just seeing beautiful art that you can explore and occasionally feel cool by triumphing over a handful of mediocre gameplay moments, Trek to Yomi is quite a neat ride despite its many flaws.