if you have only seen Oldboy, Kill Bill, and John Wick, then you'll love this.

cool-ish combat. nice, slick settings. Sekiro-lite mechanics and paper thin characters/atmosphere/story/themes hold it way back. there's a kernel of a good - or great game in there, the hand-to-hand combat is a refreshing solution to the absurdity of video game violence, but this game still feels way too impersonal and as abstract with its violence as something like Hotline Miami (which itself oozes more style and punk ethos).

avoided this because I figured it'd be a kind of lame film school dude's fetishisms of 50s Japanese Samurai cinema.

And I guess it kind of is, in a way. but no more shallow than any other character action video game that apes from cinema is, except this game's concept of camera placement and framing is actually pretty fucking stellar. it's genuinely more cinematic than games like God of War or Ghost of Tsushima think they are. trek to yomi might be one of the most beautiful games I've ever played.

at times it's sort of choked by its visual aesthetic, a lot of the game feels very dry. but it's basically if Journey went Kurosawa mode for 5 hours. if you've played any modern side-scrolling action game, you might not be impressed. if you've seen Sanjuro you might not be impressed. but honestly I think those two things go together really well, sort of like buttered toast or chocolate milk. just a very basic but tasty combo (and I mean pretty much every side-scrolling action game I've played thinks it's fucking Vaporware Jesus so this is kind of refreshing to some degree).