We look at all the details of the game in our Trek to Yomi review content, which has a visual as if it came out of Kurusawa’s movies.
Trek to Yomi review Let’s start the warm-up laps with a very short story. We start the game as a young novice samurai who does not sweat with his mustache, practicing swordsmanship with his master. While we were working with our master, they suddenly raided the village and told our master to come to help. He also takes his spear in his hand and immediately runs towards the front, before leaving, he turns to us and says, “Sit down, son, and don’t get involved in this.”
So what are we doing? Of course, we do not listen and go after our master to look for it. This is where the game’s cinematics come into play. A beautiful harmony is achieved in the transitions of the stage, we pass through the restaurants, we flow rapidly between the shops, we see the conversations of people in the market and we witness many fine details.
Trek to Yomi review (video)
Hiroki’s master is killed while fighting against the bandits attacking his village, our young friend vows to protect his home and loved ones from such attacks in the future. In the future, when Hiroki grows up and becomes a full-fledged Samurai, his village is once again attacked by bandits, and Hiroki feels guilty for not keeping his promise to his master when he was a child, and our story flows.
Worth stopping by and watching every scene
When we start to look at the game with a receptive eye, the most important element that draws us in is of course its visuality. The production takes place in Japan’s Edo period (the period covering the years 1603-1868 in the history of Japan). In fact, it resembles the classic samurai cinema you know, and of course, the first name that comes to mind when it is mentioned is Akira Kurusowa, the famous Japanese film director.
Hah, it’s not a game, this is the movie scene you know. Why am I saying that, because the game is black and white themed like classic cinema. Stage designs are of high quality. You know, as they say, “the landscape is the same postcard”, every scene in the production is just like a postcard.
We have been with our hero, Hiroki, from the moment the game started. We have a katana (a traditional one-sided, curved sword used by the Japanese samurai) and we are constantly busy dividing the enemies in front of us into equal parts and separating their heads from their bodies. Here comes the first criticism, get ready. In order to defeat the enemies, every action such as fighting, making light and heavy attacks, running away, jumping and jumping becomes routine after a certain period of time, and now we can defeat 10s of enemies one after the other by doing the same things.
Health is the beginning of everything, health is important bro.
Stamina and health in the game are the main factors that we need to maintain. We do our attack numbers, blocks and attacks with endurance level. I guess I don’t need to explain the health part anyway? If the health ends, we say hello or whatever is done in Japan, they were burned, I guess, let’s get back to our topic. Health and stamina bars have upgradeable possibilities. These bars can be upgraded in the parts we find and combine in the game. Just wanted to mention when it comes to upgrades, as we progress through the game, our new hit styles are unlocked. We can do rapid hits, sudden escapes, consecutive sword combos, etc.
From the very beginning of the game, we make a show with the sword, even so much that after a while, killing becomes child’s play and the war becomes simple. There is no one type of enemy, some of them will faint if we blow them like paper, but there are some that the armor on the man is very thick and tough. It’s not that easy to kill them. You have to do so many combos in a row, sometimes one hit tickles the guy, let alone reducing his health. There are also those with spears, brother, they hit us on the head from afar. Killing the enemies adds to the series after a point, the severed head or limbs leave a pleasant taste in the mouth, although very rarely when passing these enemies.
When you try to do two different strokes in series, there is a disruption. It’s like ping is entering the character, so there is such a disruption. At some points, the enemies come in multiples, but for some reason, they come to die in order, like the movie of Cüneyt Arkın. So it’s very rare to see 2-3 enemies attacking at the same time. The conclusion of all this is that, friends, when you establish a formula to pass the enemies in the game, the same formula works in almost all of them. In other words, he memorizes the key combination, sit back, kick the sword until it comes.
The puzzles are not a little but rather weak.
There is almost no subject inside except the war. Sometimes you can use alternative ways in the game. Like what are these? It is enough to cut the rope of the barrels to kill a group of enemies, or if you make a huge hole in the dam to kill the bandits sitting on the edge of the dam, they may be flooded and destroyed.
In other words, you can hunt 6-7 birds with a single stone, which adds a different action to the game. There is also a puzzle in the game. It’s a bit of a simplistic puzzle, I think, because once you memorize three kanji (Japanese name for Chinese characters.) there’s no mystery you can’t unlock. So, assuming the character is Japanese, there is an inevitable conclusion that Hiroki can also read kanji. So even though we had difficulties in the first 2 puzzles, things got easier after that.
Let’s get back to our topic, the visuals in the game ignore almost all the bad factors, it would not be wrong to say that the cinematic visuals of Trek to Yomi really revive us from the beginning to the end of the game.
Trek to Yomi really deserves applause, with camera angles and transitions that have the exact game view, not just the black and white filter added as inspiration from the famous producer Kurusawa. The fact that it is included in the game in nature add-ons (wind, rain, fire, etc.) has been a continuation of this inspiration.
In some scenes, the angles move as if there is a director behind the camera. Assuming that the game has a complete black and white theme, the shading and contrast values are in a really nice harmony.
We say that there are always Kurusawa style breezes in the game, but there is an area where the game breaks from this style, so hold tight, I’m explaining. The films of the famous producer are generally slow-paced and methodical films. At this point, the character and story of our game separated from the producer.
The game flow actually moves pretty fast. Their dialogue is as short as possible, which simplifies the story a bit. There is no room for emotional talk in character conversations, there is always a threat or a message of action.
In general, Trek to Yomi is such a game. Let’s come to my opinion, although the production seems to have been made by the legendary producer Kurusawa, such heavy cinematics interrupted the flow of the game. The gameplay errors in the game with such beautiful scenes lead to a very obvious disappointment. In essence, it is a content to be played with the taste of watching a samurai movie.
The game is available on both Playstation 4 and 5 and PC platforms. The PlayStation Store price is now 189 TL, the PC version can be purchased for 50 TL on Steam and 33 TL on the Epic Store. If you have an Xbox Game Pass subscription, you can add Trek to Yomi to your library and play from there at no extra cost.