Trek to Yomi
PREVIEW
36
Flashes oflightning flood the skywith
intense bloom, and foregroundscenery is
skilfully usedto conveya sense of
cave-bound claustrophobia, or focus your
attention on a particular partof the
screen. Wherever you look you’ll find faux
film grainand digital dirt. There’s a texture
and life to every scene.
Unfortunately something else
became obvious asI playedthrough
this side-onsword fighting
adventure:copying Kurosawa’s visual
style doesn’t translate to earning anyof
his films’depth ormeaning.
Trek to Yomikicks off with a familiar
premise: an orphaned boy grows into a
tough-lookinghero with a shiny sword, the
only man in the entire village capable of
fighting anendlesssupply of nigh-identical
bandits. Idon’t mind thesimplicity,
necessarily. What I domind is that the
creative well it’sexclusively drawing from
tells tales of class wars, politics, and the
abuse of power – and seemingly the
developerseeminglylooked at all that and
just said,“Coolswords,bro.”
There’s nothing wrong with cool
swords! But the game straddles an
awkward middle ground. It never commitsto beinga katana-laden brawler that puts
its influences toone side for the sakeof
some all-out swordfighting,but nor does
it have thenuance to properly emulate its
cinematic inspirations, where a drawn
blade is the last resortof a desperate man.
Trek to Yomiidolises the fictionalised
concept ofsamurai as braveand noble
defenders of the people, then presents
lead hero Hiroki with at least two
opportunities to kill groups of enemies
with staged environmental hazards in the
demo alone, bushido be damned.SLICE OF LIFE
Combat has some heft, but offers chain
combos andhealth upgrades in place of
the gut-wrenching mind gamesin the best
film duels.No attempt hasbeen made to
convey thetensionpreceding the
all-or-nothing slices of samurai cinema. I
don’t feel likeI cantryto psych out my
opponents, or that a fight hinges on
maintaining the perfect distance before a
strike as the wind howls around me.
Counter > X > X, watch your stamina
gauge, repeat four times until the next
checkpoint. Toshiro Mifune never did that,
or anything that looked like it.
The locations these moments
take place in are always framedby
whatevercameraangle makes them
look closest to thefilms they’re
inspired, by regardless of how practical
that may be for the player.At times it
leaves you fighting a greyman who might
be all of an inch high against a grey
background, even though consistently
countering his tiny sword may bekey to
your continued existence. At other times a
distractingfull-screen film effect appears
moments before a duel starts, as if the
virtual reel’s being changed for the
beginning of the fight choreography, even
though noserious film director would ever
toleratesuch amateurish cuts.
Trek to Yomiseems to hopeplayers will
be too awed by thevisuals to notice what
they’ve actually been given is an ordinary
action-slasher experience. The
comparisons tolandmark moments in
cinematic history – comparisons Trek to
Yomihas invited upon itself– only serveto
highlight how far off the gameis from
capturing the spirit of the films the
developersclearly adore.
Kerry BrunskillT
rek to Yomi’s demo makes it clear that
the team behind the game are not only in
love with legendary Japanese director
Akira Kurosawa: they’ve also spent a
considerable amount of time studying his work,
from Seven Samurai to Yojimbo. Every
monochrome area is a feast for the eyes.
Captures the style, but not the
spirit, of an iconic film director
TREK TO YOMI
IDOLISES THE FICTIONALISED
CONCEPT OF SAMURAI AS
BRAVE AND NOBLE DEFENDERS
RELEASE
2022
DEVELOPER
Leonard MenchiariPUBLISHER
Devolver DigitalLINK
devolverdigital.comNEED TO KNOW
PLAYED
IT
Ironically, ‘yomi’ is a term the fighting game
community use to refer to the kind of mind
games that aren’t represented here.