Trek to Yomi (PC) Preview

First revealed last year during Devolver Digital’s E3 presentation and then making more waves during last month’s State of Play, Trek to Yomi is a love letter to classic samurai films in every aspect. I had the chance to play a preview build of the first two levels of the game. Although the gameplay leaves me a little hesitant, I found myself walking away with more interest.

What immediately catches your eye are the Akira Kurosawa-like visuals. There are options to turn off the grain and bloom filters for those that want a “cleaner” look, but having them on does evoke a wonderful classic cinematic feel.

I particularly enjoyed the bloom during the second level. The game uses light very well but one area in a mine and another in a forest really stood out to me. This is a very pretty-looking game and it feels like they’ve done a great job at nailing their inspiration.

Helping elevate the visuals are the camera angles. Trek to Yomi is a 2.5D game with a majority of the time (and specifically in combat) only being able to move left and right. There is the occasional section of 3D movement that lets you explore your surroundings before a combat section pulls you back. Although there are some panning shots or moments where the camera follows you as you move into the foreground or background, I loved the usage of static camera angles.

Walking into a room or simply moving into another area switches to a different static camera that perfectly frames the next section. Whether it was setting up for a grand shot or just for an area filled with enemies, the camera changes felt more effective in bringing that cinematic inspiration to life and placing more focus on each area.

The story also feels incredibly reminiscent of the films it’s inspired by. The first level has that familiar master and pupil dynamic as well as the violence you’d expect from bandits attacking the main character’s village.

As much as I would love to be excited about the story, nothing stood out to me. There isn’t a lot of time spent with characters to care about them and what I got to play was all pretty expected. After watching the trailers and also seeing the various mythology referencing collectibles and direct mentions of Yomi in the game, I assume it might take at least a thematic dive into that direction which would be awesome. From what I played though, I just have a passing interest.

While the visuals are a big draw, combat is a huge part of this game and it left me wanting more. It was fun to learn new combos and attacks, albeit at very random times. The stamina system is also well integrated and I liked that failing to keep an eye on it would essentially leave you defenseless if you use the whole meter. Having a manual turn button also works very well in preserving the back and forth movement you’d expect from a samurai game.

All of these wonderful elements stand in stark contrast with how slow the combat is. There are only a couple of attacks that come out pretty quick and everything else has a noticeably long wind-up time. I wasn’t expecting anime-sword fighting speeds, but a lot of the combat feels like you’re moving in mud. Further shining a spotlight on this are the parries. You have a very generous window to parry that feels a little too easy. However, parrying also causes a slowdown that lets you react. Slow-motion and slow attacks quite simply don’t feel good together.

I wanted to experiment more with my moveset to see what moves can combo with others and it felt inconsistent. Sometimes I could follow up with another move and sometimes in the same situation I couldn’t. It’s possible that different enemies might have slightly different responses to attacks. However, it was hard to tell as most enemies died in two hits on the normal difficulty.

The common enemy AI didn’t help either as some of their attacks were quick enough to interrupt my already started basic attacks. Altogether it pushed me to take fewer risks and just focus on parrying which wasn’t fun to keep doing. Having a variety of different attacks also feels at odds with just parrying everything so I don’t think it’s intended to play that way more.

Boss fights felt a whole lot better to me than regular combat did. Both of the bosses I fought against stood out plenty from the three lower enemy types I encountered and their movement was also a lot more nuanced as well.

What I mean by this, is that they would actually give space and let you approach them and vice-versa. All the common enemies seemed to rush and push more, which would typically result in me turtling and parrying in the corner. I do appreciate aggressive enemies in a game like this, but I also appreciate strategic battles a lot more.

Trek to Yomi currently has a Spring 2022 release date so we should be seeing its release soon. I’m not sure if any changes to its combat or speed will be made, even though those appear to be commonly singled out from others who had the chance to preview it. There are pieces of the combat I enjoyed and the visuals are a delight to look at, so I am still intrigued nonetheless. My fingers are crossed that by the final release everything feels as crisp as the visuals are.

An Early Access PC preview copy of Trek to Yomi was provided by Devolver Digital for this preview.