Trek to Yomi

Trek to Yomi honors all its best references and the result is an aesthetically brilliant game, with a solid combat system (even if it may seem repetitive in some parts), a safe exploration model and a narrative cadence faithful to the great works of the genre. As a whole, a worthy and memorable experience.

Trek To Yomi is what happens when you’ve got a compelling creative vision, and build a game around it, rather than the other way around. Everything you see, sense and experience in this game contributes to the overall experience, with absolutely no fat or waste. It’s intense, dark, and unforgiving, but it’s also the kind of haunting experience that will stay with you for a long time to come. If Menchiari continues to work with the right developers, and continues to deliver to this standard, he’s going to be one of the all-time great video game artists.

Trek to Yomi is a short but sweet action game and a love letter to 1960's era Japanese cinema.

Trek to Yomi is a game that recreates the samurai movies with Akira Kurosawa in the lead, it has a black and white aesthetic with great camera shots. The gameplay forces you to calculate each movement of the characters. It's like any other revenge story but it will keep you interested. This game is another strong candidate for best indie of the year.

Short but ever-so-sweet, Trek to Yomi is a pretty linear affair that respects your time. The combat is nuanced, evolves over time and is entertaining to learn. Small bursts of exploration are rewarded with collectables and upgrades but your main path is never obscured. It's cinematically beautiful and what's done with perspective and setting up each scene is really unique. Trek to Yomi is unlike anything else I have played recently, it's not bloated, pure and I appreciate that a lot.

At eight hours in length on a single playthrough Trek to Yomi is a compelling enough story that makes strong use of cinematic techniques to tell a samurai tale in a novel way. Its approach could easily be imagined on the silver screen but its interactive medium makes for a compelling combat-heavy side scroller with enough mechanical depth to warrant multiple playthroughs.

If you would call Trek to Yomi a poor man’s Ghost of Tsushima, you’d be gravely mistaken. This game „emulates“ an old-style Japanese samurai movie to perfection. While the combat is a bit clunky and the game is not that long, the overall experience is excellent and easy to recommend to anyone interested in such a theme.

Trek to Yomi is a marvel that uses its black and white art style, wonderfully designed environments, and Japanese setting to convey the spirit of samurai tales better than many games employing color and full 3D. The game would be perfect if it had better combat animations.

Trek to Yomi is a challenging, relatively quick trip to the past that is sure to entertain fans of old samurai films. The mechanics are easy to pick up, but difficult to master. The story is engaging, and surprisingly branches with different endings. With a campaign length of around 5 – 7 hours for most players and priced right at $19.99, this is a game that doesn’t overstay its welcome. Repeating sections is not easy with no real save management, and the 2D combat may not appeal to everyone, but it’s hard to ignore the authentic look and feel that such a design choice adds to Trek to Yomi. If you’ve got a day or two to spare, this is one to not overlook.

Trek to Yomi is a game that lives up to its samurai film inspirations in a way that few others do. Endings that are a little too tidy and a few compromises in game design mean it doesn’t quite leave the impact it should, but the trade off is a game that’s a lot more playable and “fun” than it might otherwise have been—for better or worse. I’d still love to see how Leonard Menchiari’s original, presumably much less accommodating vision might have turned out, but Trek to Yomi is nonetheless an impressive game and a worthy homage to the samurai cinema classics.

There's no shortage of reasons to praise Trek to Yomi. The aesthetics, the combat, the soundtrack, not-so-complex puzzles that come up in the second half of the game. We're talking about a fundamental title for fans of samurai stories, despite the fantastic elements.

A short but sweet adventure, you might replay Trek to Yomi to collect all of its collectibles and upgrades, perhaps even on a harder difficulty to test your skills. It has multiple endings to discover, too. And so for its modest price it’s easy to recommend to action adventure fans, especially if they also love samurai movies. Its stunning presentation is just the icing on the cake.

Trek to Yomi has been a game that I quite enjoyed from the moment I started it, until the end credits were rolling in front of me. What I would tell you again is not to expect a title as sophisticated in its core mechanics as we have seen in other similar ones, here, the experience is rather focused on its own visual and sound presentation. If you are one of those who love to be consuming indie experiments, it goes without saying that you should try the new Devolver as soon as you have the opportunity. In case you are one of those who was waiting for a game full of action and frenzy, I am afraid that you will not find it here.

Black and white graphics, traditional music and combat system, based on parries and counterattacks, make Trek To Yomi the closest experience to classic samurai films. A beautiful, yet short, experience.

Enjoyable to play and absolutely beautiful to look at, Trek to Yomi is a perfect homage to a piece of Japanese film history and culture. Linked as much to the world of the living as to the land of the dead, the protagonist's journey does not offer particularly surprising narrative implications, but despite this it lets itself be followed and is the backdrop to a playful and audiovisual experience in the name of historical fidelity. Rich in breathtaking views and long shots capable of enhancing an exploratory component not free from imperfections and the beauty of very evocative scenarios, Leonard Menchiari's adventure has been able to intrigue us with his combat system which, while relying on choices that are not always in focus, made you feel like real samurai. Fans of Kurosawa's works, as well as those looking for a style full of style but with more staid rhythms, would do well to wear the kimono and leave with Hiroki.

There's Ghost of Tsushima, Sifu and Limbo in this Trek to Yomi! And yet the proposal remains quite singular. The voices only available in Japanese, the graphics entirely in black and white, and the cinematographic filters which voluntarily dirty the image form a coherent whole, which will inevitably appeal to fans of old samurai films. The game lacks a bit of scale, but we still have a great time in his company.

Aesthetically well-finished but not always effective in its gameplay, Trek to Yomi is an adventure on the whole interesting and worth playing.

Samurai adventure presented on film with a lot of Japanese flair and authentic voice output - unfortunately monotonously structured and playfully banal.

Trek to Yomi is not just a game, but also a cinematic experience that resembles Akira Kurosawa's work. The black and white visuals, the beautiful scenarios, and the soundtrack all contribute to creating a great setting. But the gameplay and the mechanics don't make it justice. And even the story is a little too predictable, which is a huge letdown.

If you want a transporting reverie, a game you can slip into as if you had closed your eyes, then here it is. No trek required.

A beautiful game with great ideas, but too limited by its gameplay. Still, a good choice if you’re ok with style over substance.

Trek to Yomi is a beautiful tribute to classic samurái movies, a black and white game with stunning landscapes. Combines exploration and combat, but gameplay is a little bit simple.

Even though it's short, Trek to Yomi's journey is very interesting and captivating. With an art style inspired by monochrome Japanese films, this adventure has enough interesting paintings to make up for your slips. Its combat is interesting and easily mastered, while exploration and puzzles aren't the most challenging in the world.

Trek to Yomi uses incredible cinematic stylings to tell a surprisingly strong story of revenge, but its 2D combat that doesn’t always strike true.

Trek to Yomi is a very beautiful cinematographic work. It doesn't have to pale before the giants who inspired it. Its use of the camera and black and white grain allow it to present us with particularly sumptuous paintings. Add to that some eye-popping fight choreography and you've got a little nugget of artistic mastery. If a game was judged by this, Trek to Yomi would undoubtedly top the charts. But unfortunately, the game is, in comparison, too little pushed in terms of gameplay. Its superfluous choices and its repetitive fights prevent it from expressing his full potential. That said, it is still worth the detour and even more so if you are sensitive to this kind of video game work.

Trek to Yomi doesn’t offer anything essential, but it scratches a very specific itch. Edo Era Japan is an entertaining setting, and the lethal sword duels are engaging albeit basic. A few extra enemy types and further insight into Hiroki’s struggle could have elevated Trek to Yomi to greater heights, but it’s still a fun diversion for those looking to clash swords.

Trek to Yomi is a gorgeous 2.5D action game that pays a vibrant tribute to the films of Akira Kurosawa with an absolutely stunning and unique cinematic aesthetic. Unfortunately, the combat is not as good as we would have liked due to a lack of feeling and precision during the fights.

Not unforgettable but clearly memorable due to its beautiful aesthetics. The gameplay of Trek To Yomi is not perfect but the game is not long enough that the player will suffer from the small details.

Trek to Yomi is a decent samurai action game, elevated greatly by its superb presentation. Clocking in at only a few hours, this is a brief but ultimately satisfying tale, stitched together by some simple but very effective environmental design, and a combat system that rewards careful play. It's not quite side-scrolling Ghost of Tsushima, but it is an impressively atmospheric love letter to samurai cinema.

Trek to Yomi is an undoubtedly beautiful game that will constantly make you want to take screenshots. It's just too bad that its gameplay is as simplistic and repetitive as it is because it ends up feeling like a chore to play after a while.

I can recommend Trek to Yomi to those who want to experience a dark story. But even though visuals are eye-candy, I gotta admit gameplay is kind of a letdown.

Trek to Yomi is a love letter to Akira Kurosawa's cinema in the visual department. Unfortunately, the game has some flaws in its gameplay that keep it from achieving the same 'classic' status as the movies that inspired it.

It’s a shame that despite a story about finding balance, Yomi doesn’t manage to achieve that itself, being a handsome cinematic homage on an indie budget, but sadly lacking the smooth and satisfying swordplay to back it up. [Issue#15, p.78]

This one looks way better than it plays. Yes, it’s an absolutely stunning tribute to old Japanese samurai movies but as an action game it’s barely passable.

In its visuals and audio, Trek to Yomi nails its brief to create an Akira Kurosawa-inspired samurai adventure. Its interactive elements, however, along with its story, are all too ordinary and rarely combine to heighten the atmosphere or create suspense. Worth a try for the sightseeing perhaps, but don’t expect it to cut deep.

Trek to Yomi sets out to be classic Kurosawa in videogame form, but it ends up being hampered by clunky gameplay and a convoluted story.

Trek To Yomi's sound, music and visuals have been developed with love and respect for Japan's rich history, but the gameplay is as captivating as flower arranging.

Trek to Yomi is a reverent homage to Kurosawa and samurai cinema that, while effortlessly stylish, only attempts to get weird with it on a superficial level.

Trek to Yomi starts to come into its own only as it heads towards its finish. It's easy to admire what Flying Wild Hog set you to do with Trek to Yomi. It's an attempt to blend the appeal of the classic samurai film genre with the interactive moodiness of fellow indie games like Playdead's Limbo or Inside. It's partially successful in that regard, but while the ideas underpinning the game are solid, their execution leaves something to be desired. Ultimately, Trek to Yomi could have benefitted from more time studying the blade.

Trek to Yomi is like a Christmas present you’ve been waiting for, and it’s finally here, wrapped in the most unique and gorgeous way possible, but when you open it there is nothing inside.