Trek to Yomi

Trek to Yomi takes us to the samurai era with a captivating story and an artistic section worthy of the best movies. Join Hiroki and finish your destiny.

Not too many games go above and beyond to pay homage to the past like Trek To Yomi does. From top to bottom it is drenched in a dedicated and unshakable inspiration of Japanese cinema, which does its absolute best to make players spellbound by its sheer level of deftly crafted artistic intent. Similarly, the combat is super slick, stylish and gratifyingly nuanced, that it will please many who beg for a finely-honed, lethal and precise katana-thrusting gameplay core. Unfortunately, the repetition of enemies and their compositions do get in the way as there isn’t enough diversity in the enemy variety nor the deviation to manipulate curiosity in interesting ways, but ultimately if you want a brief, beautiful and brutal action game, you should certainly take this trek.

Perhaps it's a little short, and maybe the combat is a little one dimensional, but Trek To Yomi is a game that stands out from the crowd

The Flying Wild Hogs team brings stylish hard action in Trek to Yomi and it’s a very fun game to play through for the story and art style. You will be challenged more than a few times throughout the four-to-five-hour story, and in the end you will feel accomplished by beating it. It has its frustrating times, times that I had to set my controller down and walk away, but I always wanted to go back for more and retry the scene to move forward. It launches into Gamepass, so you really have no reason not to give it a try. I am confident you’ll like it.

The solid and gratifying combat system is perhaps not fully explored, but any mistake in Trek to Yomi is whisked away by its brisk pace complemented by a great artistic vision. Trek to Yomi is a katana-sharp experience that impresses with its flashy skills — use the joyous time it gives you well.

Trek to Yomi is a game of two halves, where slightly repetitive combat does bring things down a notch. However, that other half — made up of the game's visuals, characters, storyline, atmosphere and overall polish — is so good that you'll want to carry on trekking right until the end. More involved combat could have elevated this one to being potentially one of our very favourite Game Pass games, but make no mistake, this is an adventure you'll want to head out on.

Trek To Yomi is a visual gem that isn't entirely convincing on a gameplay level.

Trek to Yomi is a game with its ups and downs, in which an interesting plot, together with an amazing artistic style, fall apart due to a terrible combat system, which leaves this title in a "limbo".

The game is impressive and an apt tribute to its cinematic roots. Blood spurts satisfyingly as you strike enemies down, burning arrows soar overhead ominously and supernatural sections are sufficiently eerie yet intriguing.

It has some major issues gameplay-wise, but other than that, that's actually one of the most interesting games to come out this year, and a no-brainer if you have an Xbox Game Pass subscription. It's gripping story, excellent writing and wonderful voice acting combined with it's short length will make for a nice 6-8 hours game.

Trek to Yomi is impressive as a tribute to Akira Kurosawa and definitely has great audiovisual production, with renowned anime voice actors and amazing soundtrack. In terms of gameplay, however, it falls short.

A stylish side-scrolling samurai epic, Trek to Yomi combines cinematic influences and sharp combat to great effect, but descends into frustration towards the end. Nonetheless, this is a journey worth sticking with.

Trek to Yomi is not an overly long adventure either. Outside of the standard combat there is some light exploration and puzzle solving with a few boss battles tossed in for good measure. The story is what kept me chugging through to the end. It is boilerplate but interesting. I wanted to know how things concluded so I pushed through the repetitive combat. Trek to Yomi is a game that on the surface seems way more interesting than it actually is. It feels like a good Game Pass title that occupied me for a weekend, I just wish it was a bit more in-depth when it comes to the combat itself.

Trek to Yomi's outstanding visuals and presentation are quite enough to make up for its fairly straightforward and simplistic gameplay.

Another growth and revenge story set in ancient Japan, with gorgeous B&W visuals and cinematic slasher gameplay, flawed by input-lag issues and minor balancing issues.

Menchiari and the Polish division of Flying Wild Hog manage to offer a very personal experience, a tribute to the samurai cinema of the last century that will delight all those who enjoyed films like Yojimbo at the time and that could well work as a sequel to Rashômon.

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 is a no-brainer download for anyone wanting a simple yet cinematic action game that harks back to classic PC adventures and 2D blade-action titles.

While Trek to Yomi excels at drawing the player in, it struggles to retain that level of engagement and engrossment throughout.

If you are at least a little sympathetic to the aesthetics of the samurai cinema, Track to Yomi certainly deserves to be tried. Preferably on a big screen with good sound.

Trek to Yomi is a beautiful and sombre title that is full of death and destruction. Its story is amazing, as is the cinematic. However, the controls, combat, and repetition hold it back and are disappointing.

Despite its repetition and frustrations, I warmed to this grainy, gore-soaked journey after the tedious early hours. Thanks to a smattering of player choices, the game offers just enough of a hint at player agency to make you feel involved in the narrative, too, giving Trek to Yomi’s surrealist slaughter a sense of purpose. There’s a strong argument that a Japanese-made attempt at this genre would come closer to doing the samurai fantasy justice, but as with the many Japanese takes on virtual America, there’s a schlocky charm to Yomi’s tropey inauthenticity nonetheless.