Hands on Trek to Yomi – A slice of Japanese cinema

Time Stamp: April 12, 2022 10:00 AM

If you have ever wanted to play an old black and white Kurosawa movie as a video game, Flying Wild Hog and Devolver Digital want you to know that they have you covered.

Trek to Yomi is a side-scrolling samurai slasher where you, Hiroki, set about first trying to save your village from an onslaught of ruthless bandits, before going on a journey to hold those who started this responsible for their atrocities.

What follows an almost linear romp through the villages and mountains of Edo jidai Japan, fighting whoever throws themselves in your way. At first this is just the bandits, but as the game progresses, more mythological and less human enemies will emerge.

Trek to Yomi rewards you for paying attention to when you can go off the beaten 2.5D path. Every now and again, the camera will pan sightly and you’ll get the option to deviate from the path to explore a cave, clear out a house of bandits or just pick up a collectible.

These range from the standard historic items (such as an ema board) to new attack scrolls and permanent health and stamina boosts. This is particularly important as a big chunk of the gameplay is the combat. The ability to block an attack from behind, or even turn while attacking — both of which are unlocked through collectibles — therefore becomes a huge boon.

Trek to Yomi Kurosawa

And this is the crux of the issue in Trek to Yomi. I went and played the hands-on preview at WASD last weekend and found that the combat was the least appealing part of the game.

There are two types of sword attacks, light and strong, plus projectile weapons. You can guard against attacks, just as the enemies can guard against you, but the timing of blocks and parries all felt incredibly heavy. The inability to turn to attack someone behind you without hitting the turn button at the start also felt particularly obnoxious.

I stood and watched the booth at WASD for a while to see what others thought of the game, and those I spoke to all volunteered that they thought the controls were some variation of clumsy or clunky. Everyone loved the look and style of the game, but the feel just wasn’t quite right in this build.

Trek to Yomi Combat

This is a real shame as the rest of the game looks and sounds pretty phenomenal. The spoken Japanese dialogue is authentic to Edo Japan, and the graphics look like a true homage to the aforementioned Akira Kurosawa films. This game is clearly a massive love letter to the genre.

It’s unfortunate that this late into the development cycle, it seems unlikely that the controls will improve ahead of launch in May. However, if you can get past this issue — and have a burning love of the samurai genre after Ghost of Tsushima — Trek to Yomi may just be one of the more memorable games you’ll play this year.

Trek to Yomi is coming to PC, PS4/PS5 and Xbox One/Series X/Series S in May 2022

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