Trek to Yomi

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.