Trek to Yomi Review (mprince1993)
This game was one of the most disappointing games of my entire life!
I remember it, being announced at E3 2021 and I was so damn hyped for this game and was hooked by the visuals and the Kurosawa like vibes that I pre-ordered it! But unfortunately that's everything the game had to offer. And nothing more, even if it pains me to say.
The story is a complete Cliche of modern perception of Samurai warriors fighting off the Mongol like Invaders/bandits and there's no deeper level to it, other than fighting spirits and zombie like enemies I guess? There is a try or two, to show the struggles of this Ronin we're controlling but personally I couldn't really feel his struggle and journey to become a mature samurai (which wasn't actually the case). Because it felt just raw and shallow! And at some point we have a literal: "Love is the death of duty"! What I mean by that, is that there's no subtlety whatsoever and the story isn't really loyal to the traditional samurai ways as far as I can say and your "option of choices" make it clear that the games focus is based on ones desires rather than the hardship and the consequences of being loyal to your cause. But to be honest, one can't expect such a short game to put its hands on such a delicate matter. There are definitely AAA games that have covered that part. (Come on, you knew I was gonna name Ghost of Tsushima!)
About the gameplay I can only say that the combat is just unbelievably repetitive and no matter how many "combos" you use, it's still the same thing throughout the whole game with you slashing through enemies like cheese. And the lack of enemy variety doesn't help that either. You are constantly fighting the same enemies, just in different forms. The visual design of the bosses were cool though. The fights themselves however not...
To be fair though, comparing the story and the gameplay of this game to its visual design is a mistake and also not fair to this indie game, because the visuals are simply superb and to try to match them to the same level is a hell of a hard job to pull off...
But all in all, I think I hyped this game up too much for myself and at the end was the victim of my own high expectations! There may very well be people, who would enjoy this game. Not me unfortunately. At its best a 4/10 for me.