Trek To Yomi review – Heaven and Hell
A new samurai adventure inspired by the cinema of Akira Kurosawa takes a very different approach than PlayStation hit Ghost Of Tsushima.
No one, including Sony, seemed to be expecting Ghost Of Tsushima to be much of a success, and yet it exceeded sales expectations by such a degree that it immediately became one of their most important new franchises. Success means not just sequels (none have been announced but they’re clearly underway) but also copycats, although it’s peculiar that Japanese developers continue to play no part in this sudden interest in samurai themed games.
Ghost Of Tsushima was by American developer Sucker Punch Productions and Trek To Yomi is from Polish indie studio Flying Wild Hog, who are best known for the modern Shadow Warrior games. Both teams are clearly just as much influenced by old black and white movies as they are the factual history of the samurai, with Akira Kurosawa being (rightly) idolised by both.
Whereas Ghost Of Tsushima played like an old school Assassin’s Creed game, Trek To Yomi is a much smaller scale adventure: a 2D side-scrolling action game reminiscent of Limbo, except with a lot more sword fights. The visuals are gorgeous, with the gaming copying all of visual Kurosawa’s visual tricks in exacting detail, but while it looks impressively cinematic it’s disappointing how unengaging Trek To Yomi is to actually play…
The name may make it sound like Yomi is a Japanese town or village but it’s actually the Shinto equivalent of Hades (neither are quite as extreme as the Christian concept of Hell). Set during the Edo period (1603 to 1867), it starts by focusing on a master and his apprentice protecting a village from bandits and while there are, as the name implies, some supernatural
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