Trek to Yomi preview: Kurosawa between the fingers

Announced furtively during the Devolver conference at E3 2021, Trek to Yomi was reminded of us during Sony’s State of Play on March 9. Action game developed by the studio Flying Wild Hog (Shadow Warrior, Evil West) and Leonard Menchiari (RIOT Civil Unrest, The Eternal Castle), Trek to Yomi has let itself approach the time of its first two chapters. Throwback to a small game that could become big.

Before starting a game, you have the choice between several difficulty levels. First, Kabuki mode, which is more akin to story mode, then Bushido mode, equivalent to normal mode, and finally Ronin and Kensei for the highest difficulties – the latter was not available for this preview .

Trek to Yomi takes place in medieval Japan, in the era of samurai and lawless bandits. He makes us embody Hiroki, young son of the local lord and pupil of the great master Sanjuro. It is during yet another exercise in the handling of the katana that bandits attack the village. Wishing to help his master and accompanied by the latter’s daughter, Hiroki throws himself body and soul into battle, showing courage and determination to defend his people. Thus begins the first chapter serving as a tutorial for the game and the first things that strike immediately are the bold choice of black and white as well as the incredible artistic direction. Very inspired by the samurai films of the 50s and 60s and more particularly the films of the very famous Akira Kurosawa (The Seven Samurai, The Spider’s Castle, Sanjuro or even Ran), it retransmits with incredible accuracy the poetry of the plans of this particular cinema. The grain, the film defects, the staging, everything is very cinematographic and the same goes for the dialogues, fully dubbed in Japanese to accentuate this tribute to a cinema that is relatively unknown to us. If these dialogues may seem pompous, they are actually very close to Japanese period theater and cinema, which only reinforces the evocative power of the game. However, all is not perfect and we may regret animations too stiff, especially during close-ups, which can give that impression of robotic characters. A finishing defect which could very well improve by the time of the release and which in no way taints all the efforts made by the developers to offer such a faithful interactive transcription of Japanese genre cinema, in its beauty, its poetry and its grandiloquence.

But as visually stunning as it may be, the mechanics of Trek to Yomi had to follow and on this point, the game was able to reassure us very quickly. Playing the arcade game card at the gameplay easy to access but rich, Trek to Yomi makes the fight with the katana as powerful and dazzling as in the cinema. A bar of life, a bar of endurance, which limits your actions among which we find the strong blow, the weak blow, the roll, the parry and the throw of bo shuriken, and you’re ready to face the worst scum of medieval Japan. This is little ? Yes, but that’s without counting on the combos that you unlock over time and made up of a mix between the two types of blows as well as a direction of the stick left analog. Similarly, the parry gives access to a counter-attack, etc. Simple, but rich and above all effective. And here again, the developers have done a lot of work on the visual rendering, to find the atmosphere of katana duels from the cinema while making life easier for players. Indeed, if the exploration in the different tables is done in three-dimensional environments in which you have a certain freedom of movement – very limited -, the fights are always done on a plane 2D. Speaking of exploration, you’ll soon find that Trek to Yomi is denser than it looks. If the beginning suggests a very restricted corridor game, it actually conceals a ton of secrets giving access to alternative paths, life or endurance bonuses or even collectibles. What give you a good reason to search and discuss with all the characters, who can offer you, against a small reward, a mini quest usually done in stride (kill an enemy or move an object). Small disappointment despite everything on the end boss of the second chapter, taking place several years after the introduction, not very exciting – he simply sends a wave of enemies once below a certain threshold of life. Hopefully the following will be more inspired.

Very pleasant to play and watch, the beginning of this Trek to Yomi is a real pleasure for fans of arcade games and atypical artistic directions. Everything transpires from the Kurosawa cinema, which will not please everyone, and it is with some impatience that I am waiting to be able to continue the adventure alongside the samurai Haruki. A small game that could become big, Trek to Yomi is due out this year on Steam, PlayStation 4 and 5 as well as Xbox One and Series X|S.