Trek to Yomi plays almost like a vintage Prince of Persia, except obviously occur feudal Japan and with no jump button. Inspired by near-century-old silent films, Trek to Yomi plays out just like a gorgeous stage play where every set Hiroki visits, by moving left or right through the world, is more stunning compared to last. The game, occur a 2.5D plane, burdens the beautiful rudimentary combat systems with carrying the entirety of the gameplay loop. Unfortunately, when a simple parry, counterattack, and occasional finisher, has got the job done, Hiroki's list of combos isn't prone to resonate with many people. I had hoped the game's decent variety of enemies might force me to adopt particular postures and have interaction in certain elegant swordplay, but it wasn't to be.
Even as the game takes a turn for the supernatural, it might be evident that even those not made up of flesh and bone fall easily enough to Hiroki's blade. As well as when the blade doesn't do its job, you've got enough arrows, daggers, and ballistics to defeat a small army. Irrrve never felt underpowered in Trek to Yomi, it does a great job of keeping the drip-feed of recent abilities and upgrades-more health, stamina, and much more room on the hip and quiver-provided you're ready to stray from the path to spot them.
Despite the game’s best efforts to become accessible and focus on all crowds having a insightful difficulty options, including a story mode that is a literal breeze, I feel like this activly works to the game’s detriment. While there’s minutiae to the game’s combat that may be unearthed, Personally i think most will appear past it and go ahead and take reductive approach to combat-especially once it’s proven that many enemies fall to a heavy hit or two. The skeleton of the game’s combat simply isn’t exactly dynamic enough to make whacking away in the easiest difficulties interesting, nor the hardest difficulties fair.
It’s this same combat that does many of the heavy-lifting for Trek to Yomi, although the team tries desperately to shake some misconception within the later chapters by serving up an attempt at environmental puzzle-solving. I appreciate them attempting to change gears, but I am not sure playing ‘I Spy’ with iconography inside the game’s carefully curated frames and translating it to a path-clearing spin-wheel may be the answer.
As one-note because it is, the balletic nature of the swordplay is very smooth. It's kind of otherwise in which the animation looks a bit stiff and constrained by budget. Hiroki doesn't feel number of foot, enemies ragdoll like spent elastic, but it doesn't prevent Trek to Yomi from being probably the most striking games I’ve played this year. The lighting is beyond gorgeous, even if the bloom near certain light sources-crackling fire for one-could be toned down a little bit. It won't take combing through to spot the obsessive detail poured into each frame of the Edo Japan, and each sweeping expanse-be it the limitless fields bloodied by invasion or the literal ruins of hell-had me awestruck.
Trek to Yomi achieves an even greater immersion and authenticity through its use of traditional Japanese instruments. Even greater are the well-directed, powerful performances from the native voice actors, that the game rightly places front and centre because the default option.
It's hard to reason that the vision of Trek to Yomi has been left wanting here. It's a cinematic tour de force that honours a samurai's call of duty with the lens of Kurosawa, among the all-time legendary directors. It's just such a shame the combat doesn't rise to meet the standard set by the team's impossible-to-fault artists.
