There are a lot of factors that make a game stand out, from the gameplay to its art style, and Devolver Digital is definitely releasing a game that hits a lot of different marks to make it stand out. This game is Trek to Yomi by Flying Wild Hog and the experience alone is like they are giving players the chance to be the samurai in a classic, cinematic journey of honor and action. Following a positive first impression from an early preview, I have been really looking forward to this title and it definitely didn’t let me down.

Story

Dedicating his life to abide by the vow he promised his dying Master, young samurai Hiroki stands to protect his town and the people he loves against any and all threats. After rumors are proven to be true, Hiroki and a fleet of samurai head out to take down an approaching threat before it reaches their home. All too late Hiroki learns that this was a dire mistake and he must now race back home before all is lost.

Upon his return, a true journey of fierce battles and various tests of honor begins. Sure to be met with tragedy, his journey will not just take place among the mortal realm but that which lies beyond - the realm of Yomi.

The story itself is pretty interesting and a tale I would expect from a samurai-based cinematic movie. With the added mythologies and paranormal bits, this game really turned out to provide a story worth following.

Gameplay

This game is truly a 2.5D experience rather than a 2D one and they show this by having you run through the village right after the tutorial ends. The whole beginning of the game is designed to show that all combat will take place during 2D sections of the game while exploration is to be done during the 2.5D sections. However, these two sections can flow into each other very smoothly so be ready at all times.

When you are running through the game’s 2.5D segments, you will be able to find collectibles, stat boosters, ammo, and choose the path you want to take. These aspects are necessary because building up your stats will be needed as you progress and enemies start to hit harder, take more damage, and you unlock more ranged attacks to use. Choosing your path changes the encounters you have as well. Sometimes, certain routes will lead you to a trap you can trigger that will kill all enemies below you when if you took the lower path, you would have had to face off against the enemies in a standard sword fight.

This leads us to the 2D segments of the game. Sometimes these sections will have a collectible, ammo, or stat booster to find, but most of the time these segments are for traversing and fighting. You only have a few options when it comes to combat. There’s your light attack, heavy attack, block - which can be used to parry, and dodge roll - which isn’t shown to you immediately but is done by double-tapping your run button. You can combine the different attacks with different directions, such as Up and Down on your controls, to do different attacks. Plus, you will unlock more combo attacks to utilize in the future.

Regardless of the current visual of the game, a handy thing you will run into more often than I would have expected are the shrines. Shrines act as a checkpoint and they refill your health when you use them. These need to be activated so that if you fail to win a fight, the game will pick up here with all the ammo you had. The good news about the revive is that all collectibles don’t have to be snagged more than once. If a puzzle has been completed or a collectible grabbed, it is done, but ammo can continue to be found again. Note that shrines can only be used once, so don’t backtrack to use a shrine again if your health gets low.

Audio and Visual

This game is played in complete black and white with a grain filter on by default. You can alter some of these aspects in the settings, but you can’t add color to this game. I personally really enjoyed this game’s art style and the removal of color from a gaming industry that puts so much color in everything was a nice change of pace while also being a call back to the classic cinematics that this game took some inspiration from.

As far as audio goes, the music that did play was fitting to the surrounding you were in and did a good job blending with the background so it could emphasize the moment rather than be a part of it. The sound effects were pretty good, but the best part of the sound design would have to be in the voice work that was done. There was an obvious amount of care that went into the voice acting.

Replayability

There are some collectibles to gather, but I didn’t really see what they were for or what getting all of them would do. So, if you are a completionist then this might be a reason to replay. Other than that, the only other reason to replay the game is to beat it on one of the harder difficulties. When you beat the game, the hardest difficulty that unlocks is an interesting change and it basically makes everything, including your, a one-hit kill - excluding bosses. This means you can’t get hit at all. So if you are looking to work in some combos that you didn’t get to utilize on your first play, go with the third difficulty option instead of the newly unlocked one.

What It Could Have Done Better

While I do love the art style of this game, having a game in full black and white does invite the problematic issue of having various locations that are simply too dark to see your character. While this didn’t happen too often, it happened often enough and there were combat sequences while in this darkness. For a player with lesser eyesight quality than myself, this would have been a very difficult section to get through purely because of the technicality.

The combat itself is fun and I like that you unlock more combos as you progress, but most of the different combos seemed unnecessary because of how quickly enemies died. It seems like there is only one difficult choice where you can actually enjoy the many different combos. For the other difficulties, there is a bit of tediousness as you will mainly use only a handful of your options due to how fast enemies die. Mind you, this is not me saying the game is easy, just that when you are victorious, it happens quickly.

Verdict

Trek to Yomi is a wonderful adventure that truly lets you take the cinematic samurai journey! While it isn’t a super-long game, it definitely gave a memorable experience. It is an explementary title that shows that with a fitting art style, solid gameplay design, and a worthwhile journey, a single-player 2D action game is worth any player’s time. This is a title I definitely recommend to anybody who is considering adding this one to their library.

Trek to Yomi is now available on PC via Steam, GOG, and Epic Games Store, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S, along with Game Pass.